Lucy

"Do you know what is my favorite part?" Lucy scritch-scratches colors on a sheet of paper. She peels the cerulean blue a bit more.

"What?" I say.

"The part that is burning that God made for the Devil," she says. Sprawled tummy-down on the rug, a shoebox of crayons sidled up next to her, Lu rubs blues and reds into the lumpy soft paper, a smudge of yellow, a swipe of orange.

"Hell?" I frown. Settled into the old black couch, Joe under an arm, feet propped on the coffee table, I watch Lucy.

"Yeah." She scruffs out more flaxen yellow, scarlet, tangerine. They warble and twist, a collision of hues. I wonder about her bad dreams, the scary people that say they will cut off her toes, the ones that chase her until she wakes up and comes to me in the middle of the night -- to pray.

"I hope Great-Grampa turns to Jesus before we all go dead," she blurts. "Because when we die, Jesus will check our hearts to see if we love God, and if we don't, we are on the Devil's team."

I watch her stroke more blue onto that paper. "Yep." I wonder if she's remembering how I had said Hell is made for the Devil and his angels.

She pauses, glances at me from the corner of her eye. "Can you not be loud for a minute?"

Lost in my thoughts, I draw Joe a little closer, gaze at Lu. She tucks her chin, squeezes shut her eyes. Seconds unroll.

"Ok. You can be loud now. I was praying for someone to turn to God." She smooths on more cerulean. "For Great-Grampa." She bobbles her head, raises her brows, "Maybe God is talking to Great-Grampa. Right. Now."

I nod, picture Grampa back in Montana, middle of the morning, that big library of a house.

The soft rustle of crayons on paper on carpet lulls with each stroke. Shush-shush. Lucy holds the crayon all wrong, brushes on more apricot and golden sand yellow.  Shush-shush-shush. She cocks her head, chews her lip.

"Do you think I should cut out this part that is God and hug him?" She jab a corner of the paper.

Hug him. "Sure."

"Or the Bible?" she says and pokes another corner. She looks up, contemplates out the picture window, the miles of green, staccatos of orange zinnia, an old gray fence.

"You might hug the Bible," I say.

"Yeah." She nods, brushes her finger over the crayon wax. "Buh-Buh-Bible," she says and fiddles on more cerise.

Bible, God, Hell, it all weaves together. And so we talk theology and try to figure out how to hug God.

Gratitude:

3586. "Is there anything else I can do to please you now that I cleared the table?" Jane rings in the new week.

3587. "When you're done do you want to study the grasshopper?" Jack asks at breakfast.

3588. "My next grasshopper I want to call Grass Gordon," Jack chatters. "They're real eaters. They're mostly eating all the time. Lucy, what's 1 + 2? I need you to know 'cause that's how many grasshoppers we have."

3589. "I just like to feed them and hold them and take care of them," he says.

3590. "I have slepten with one of the grasshoppers," he confesses. "I just put him under the covers. That's how much I like them."

3591. Craig takes an afternoon golfing with my dad.

3592. A grasshopper escapes in the house. "I was just trying to hold him," Lucy explains.

3593. "Mom, are you an optimist or a pessimist?" Jack asks.

3594. "Wobber, wobber, I see the wobber," Myra shouts at a cat in the garden,"by the 'matoes."

3595. Tuesday at Mom's. The weekly rhythm. Taco soup and cheddar cheese, prayer. A fermata. We miss the girls that can't come.

3596. "Mommy, wanna know what we do?" Lucy asks. "We tell the truth, that's what we do."

3597. Lucy watches me put on mascara, "What does that do? Make your eyes smell good?"

3598. "Ugh. Myra spilled my coffee," I grouse. "Well, that will take the pee smell out of the house," Jane consoles.

3599. We gather in prayer for a dear friend in unending pain, a medical mystery. Craig prays. The children watch and copy, make paper airplane notes, and carry in their hearts the image of their father on bended knee.

3600. We enjoy the treat of family pictures. Up in the woods amongst vintage furniture, antique trunks, couches, an old pick-up truck, quilts, glassy pond, love unfurls, the life of our party. Rose captures the love.

3601. We carpool on the mini-roadtrip to our photo shoot. Chit-chat, pizza, Pepsi, and every seat of the suburban filled.

3602. Buckets in hand we plod home from the plum orchard, laden.

3603. Dinner on the farm topped off with swatsbin pie all anise sweet.

3604. I practice more lessons on patience -- poorly. I compare notes with Mom. We zero in on the antidote: prayer. Pray for more patience. So simple. And since love is patient, it's really like praying for love.

3605. "Laugh," Myra commands. "Mom, laugh. Ha-ha-ha," she demonstrates, "Mom laugh. Watch me." Joe stops nursing to watch the spectacle.

3606. Craig's brother brings over fresh deer sausage to share with us.

3607. "Since my grasshopper wasn't even moving at nap time today, that probably means he was napping," Lucy fills me in. "My little child, my grasshopper child," she says.

3608. My little child. I pray to nourish my little children this week. And I pray to bless and serve my husband.

Secrets

"You could pray that I don't have any bad dreams any more." Lucy lulls. She sits in the backseat, seatbelt squared across her torso.

I click the key off and rest my wrists on the steering wheel. "That's a great idea, Lucy." I fumble for a rumpled brown journal

"Wanna hear about one of the best dreams that I've had," she lilts.

"Yeah." I pop the cap off my pen. Scribble about her bad dreams.

"That Jesus is holding me in his arms," she says. Her words sway. My breath matches time to the rhythm. "He just holded me in his arms all night," she says, "and protected me." I hold still, feel His arms there with us, trace the glasslike surface of her dream.

"He does that," I blurt, the words like pebbles in my mouth.

"He can hear you even if you pray quietly." She looks out the window. A pyrex dish of chocolate chips  lies empty at her knee. Smudges on her forehead and eyelid match chocolate blots in the bowl. "One time I prayed quietly to myself when Jack was praying at night," she carries on.

I nod. Secrets float by like dandelion umbrellas. We let them drift and glide. They hang in the air like a breath of wind. "Jesus always hears us," I breathe. We share the words, then grab hands and skip into the bookshop for the rest of our date.





Gratitude:

3520. "Mommy," Myra chirps from the jog stroller shoehorned in next to baby brother, "I kiss Joe."

3521. We load up the whole herd of bikes and take a family bike ride at the park.

3522. The night gets hectic and Lucy walks around with a stethoscope in her ears.

3523. New earrings, silver arc, blue green dew drop suspended midair.

3524. Splitting headache ebbs and vanishes.

3525. I delve into Revelation with two friends. We let the awe of it wash over us.

3526. Tuesday at Mom's, coconut curry chicken, prayer, friendship, the sweetness of letting my guard flutter down like a discarded scarf.

3527. "Myra pooped in the big one potty," Myra trumpets from the bathroom. "I wipe self!" she says.

3528. I come across an old chip of terra cotta, the words worth it scrawled over the front.

3529. Joey squirms under Myra's hug.

3530. "There's slobber on you." Jane pats my shoulder.

3531. The circus of us rolls to motion as we prepare brats and salad and set the table for dinner.

3532. The children practice using checklists and set the hearth with folders and books for school.

3533. "The plum is kind of soft," Lucy confesses at plum picking, "because I had it in my pocket. Aw Mom, I squished a plum in my pocket." Jane squints, frowns and adds, "Mom, there's a squished plum in Lucy's pocket that she can't get out."

3534. "One of our best presidents," Jane says as we drive home from the farm, "is the guy that died the year I was born." I think back. "Ronald Reagan?" I say. "Yeah. He had a lot of money but was respectful and tried to use it for good."

3535. "A good thing to do," Janie tells me, "is to be respectful and try to get into authority and then guide people to Jesus."

3536. We pick more blackberries and yellow plums on the farm.

3537. We feast on stew and corn on the cob, fresh chopped cucumbers and peppers, fist-sized tomatoes, and blackberry crisp.

3538. We play tag in the car coming home from blackberry picking. I join in just to thumb my nose at a sour attitude inside of me.

3539. Craig does reconstructive surgery when Lu busts a lamp over our bed.


3540. We watch a documentary on butterflies. "Do caterpillars really turn into butterflies for REALS?" Lucy wants to know. I nod. "For REALS?" she squeals again. "Yeah!"

3541. As the movie wraps up, Jane adds matter-of-fact, "They must not believe in God 'cause they're not saying anything about him," as if God's design were obvious.

3542. After an enthusiastic conclusion to plum picking, Craig makes a discovery, "We have established that I should not have salad and plums for a meal."

3543. Craig takes Jane on a date during naps. Jack nuzzles up to my elbow. "We could play a game if you want," he says. And then offers, "Want me to make you a palm tree?"

3545. Craig brings home heavy whipping cream for ice cream. "I like that kind of milk," Lucy says.

3546. "Me and Thad and Jack like boogers," she confesses when I scold Myra for eating them.

3547. I unwrap and put away a whole set of glass serving dishes with snap on lids. They clank into perfect stacks and leave the cupboard as quickly as they are put away.

3548. I replay the spun out frustrations of the week for my mom to listen, and she tells me true: persevere, keep on, do not give up, press ahead. So I do.

3549. Tales of the Kingdom.

3550. A whole Sunday evening to linger with my dear, dear cousin encircling each other in prayer and love and dinner and a stroll in the garden. Perfection.

3551. That bedrock peace that strings one day to the next.

The Ledger

"Who were you talking to when I came out here?" Suited up in pink sunflower jammies, Lucy starts at my voice. I spy her perched at the top of the basement stairs.
"The Lord," she drawls and tucks her chin. We let the word roll out like a marble across the floor.

"What were you saying?" I step around our three tiered fruit basket, and the room opens up. Hardwood floors, an old beast of a desk shackled down with paper piles, the kitchen three steps away, and us, we meet.

She drops a shoulder, teeter-totters her head. "Please help me not be scared down here," she points down the stairs. A prayer. A tether to hold. She forgot baby Katherine downstairs in the dark.

"Good for you, Lucy."

*****

"Mom, I'm trying to bless Joe." Lucy rifles through a tiny bank ledger no bigger than an envelope. She traces the empty lines with her index finger.

"What?" I frown at the booklet.

"I'm trying to bless, Joe." In red letters I read, The Bank of Baker, on the front of her book. She opens it to the middle, bends it back and forward.

"What do you mean?" I say.

"I'm trying to find money for him," she says, "'cause I know it would bless him." She clips a sharpie pen on the front half of the booklet and hands it to me. "Can you write I LOVE JOE in here for me," she says.

"What's that?" I flex the booklet, turn it over.

"My little booklet," she says.

"What's it for?"

"Stuff I'm thankful for." She pokes the cover, "I want you to write I LIKE THAT HE SMILES too." She cocks her head, blinks, "And I want you to write, I LIKE THAT HE ALMOST LAUGHS."

And so it is, in the book that's supposed to measure out our money, I write the things she loves about her little brother.


*****

At bedtime, plopped like anchors around the room, we gather for prayer.

"Thank-you for George, Emmanuel, and Regina," Lucy tolls. "I pray they will wake up refreshed and healthy and have enough food to eat," she swells like surf. "And I pray all the people who know you, will know you more." She billows like a sail, her drawl slow and full. I nod in time to the words. "And," she says, "I pray you will help me to swing better. Amen"

The seesaw and sway of prayer gently rocks us to harbor.

"I love you," I whisper to Jack, his arms a tangle around my neck.

"I love you too." He jaunts back. "Will you whisper a prayer in my ear like you sometimes do?"

"Jesus thank-you for this boy you are growing into a man," I say, "I pray you will fill him with your Spirit. We love you. Amen." I break tether to go, smooth still his tawny arms.

I step around that great shoulder of a bunk bed. "And your hair smells good," he calls after me, a canzonette set to the wind.

Gratitude:

3436. Myra props herself in Craig's brown recliner, Jane's old Bible upside down in her lap, "Momma, read Bible, you," she says. "You're reading your Bible like me?" I ask. "Yeah," she grins like a shoelace untied.

3437. Jane learns to make bread.

3438. The kids shine a mag-light into the bread maker to watch.

3439. Jack tries the bread. "Jane, you're a good cook," he decides.

3440. "It's just a pain to waste food," Lucy comments at dinner. Jane shakes her head. "I remember those days when I would never get full," she says.

3441. The Tuesday Girls gather again over at Mom's. We eat pineapple basil bleu salad and pray out on the lawn.

3442. I go to slip my flip flops on, and find Lucy's lined up next to mine.

3443. Myra frowns at birds in the garden, "Oh, no, BIRDS!" she shouts, "Jack SHOOT GUN."

3444. We talk about the consequences of lying. Lucy nods. "And trust," she says, "you break trust."

3445. "When God gets here," she tells me, "I'm gonna hug him."

3446. I push through a hard day, and it turns out to be a good day. Patience gives way to peace.

3447. Lucy puts on work gloves to fold laundry.

3448. We make fun at another barbecue with families from church.

3449. "Are you alright, Myra?" Jane chimes to her sis, wilted on the floor. "You learned a lesson that you don't hang on the dishwasher."

3450. "See Joe? See?" Myra points to the rows of pine trees as we walk home from the pool, her and Joe wedged together in the stroller.

3451. Myra traces my eyelashes when I tuck her in.

3452. The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom.

3453. Life of Fred Math.

3454. "I like your singing," I answer to Lucy's morning aria, and she plants a kiss right on my hip.

3455. Craig pokes fun of my morning antics. "She's is on a rampage," he chortles, "Quick, hide the men and children." I laugh myself to tears.


3456. Jane and I putter in the kitchen. I ask if she wants to listen to one of our favorite Bible commentators. "Yeah," she says, "He isn't like I'll come back to that because it's HARD; or we don't want to do THAT. He's like OK, let's do it NOW."

3457. Yes, let's do it now. Another week, and we step into the challenge.

Diligence

"Daddy knows practically everything," I say and shake out a fitted sheet. I try to fold it. It wags and flaps, folds itself into a rumpled ball. 

"Daddy knows everything," Jane adds and licks a blob of blackberry jelly off the edge of her sandwich, "except what he doesn't know." Reclined at the table, she licks a smudge of jelly off her finger.

"Yeah," Jack nods. He chatters with sandwich wadded in his cheek, "Like Daddy probably knows how many worms are in the whole world."

We nod and carry on.

"I went and checked on the bird," Lucy joins, "and his eyes were aiten out." She arches her eyebrows. I add a washcloth to the stack of towels. A sparrow split into our window yesterday, the sky-blue reflection a perfect match. "And there were ants on it," she adds. "I think the ants ate his eyes. I hope he went in heaven."

We nod, carry on.

We clatter the dishes to the kitchen, load the dishwasher, wipe the tables. 

"Momma, no pressure," Janie says, "but I could bring up some leggos if you want to play with them."

Play. "Sure." We scatter and bluster leggos over the black tabletop. We build an olympic swimming pool and pretend athletes dive and race.

Myra pees in her little potty. We cheer and gambol. I award a tiny chocolate chip, and she gives everyone a teeny tiny bite.

Friends return home, now five years gone in Europe. We encircle our dining room. Round scoops of peanut butter ice cream and melted chocolate sauce, roasted pecans, a harvest of children, we ebb and flow, trace the silhouette of friendship. 

"What did you like about each one," I catch Jane's eye as we wipe the counters and scuffle silverware and bowls away.

"Hmm," she tilts her head, squints, "I don't know, but I liked how their boys were so kind."

So kind. We nod again, share the slow curve a smile. 

We weave the day down to a tail end. Children plop into bed, a museum of pillows and stuffed animals, blankets of all sizes. They wait for prayer. 

"Me, me," Myra calls from her bed, "self."

"You want to pray yourself?"

"Yeah." We close our eyes. We wait. And wait. We peek at her squinted shut eyes, hands folded and burrowed into her forehead. "Jesus," she says. "Jesus." We listen. "Died for me," she plods, "Amen."

"Amen." We wind the day down to a single thread: amen.

Gratitude:

3412. Joe turns four months.

3413. Myra eats a grape in 20 tiny bites. "There choco in there," she says.

3414. Apple hand sanitizer, I buy it for Lucy on a date. "Mom," she tells me, "I real quick before it ran out, added water to my hand sanitizer."

3415. Jane gets in trouble and explains, "I know why I didn't do it: 'cause I wasn't strong."

3416. Myra hugs me. "You 'pecial," she says.

3417. I ask Jane how she likes her World Magazine. "It was saying," she tells me, "that when the government prints more money, they are actually stealing from you."

3418. I read in a book about the Amish: You're only as rich as the things you can live without. I describe it to the kids. "Yeah," Jane says, "So don't tell Daddy if you really want something because he would probably buy it for you."

3419. "Momma, you pretty," Myra says.

3420. "Momma, you funny arms," she adds.

3421. We throw a baby shower for Libby over at Mom's. We shout surprise then linger under the big tree out front. I let down my guard and let it flap in the wind. We continue to entwine prayer week to week.

3422. We barbecue burgers and lick ice cream comes and round out the summer with Mom and Dad.

3423. Our niece babysits while Craig and I attend a conference together.

3424. She sticks to our daily schedule and delights our kids. They are calm and happy when we return. I see she has been a good leader. 

3425. We lunch with a cadre of Craig's volunteers. Conversation carries the day and we mingle over ideas like how discipline and creativity are interdependent.

3426. Godiva Chocolate Pearls.

3427. We join the staff of my dad's office at a local bistro. Over a burger that drips to my elbows, I take note of the rapport they have one for another and glean wisdom from their experience.

3428. I ask Jack how we could make the night wonderful. "We could bring cucumbers," he says, to Gramma's house, "so she doesn't have to pick any out of her garden. Maybe we should bring two."

3429. We eat dinner down on the farm with Ma and Pa and all the kids and cousins. Between food and conversation, the lingering between wheat fields, a bike ride, we leave full to the brim.

3430. If anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. I ask Janie what the verse means. "If you think about things that are evil," she says, "you will start to love evil even though you are reading your Bible."

3431. Jack scares the birds out of the garden with his cap gun.

3432. Joe spots me from across the room and splits a smile.

3433. "God won't do what ya want sometimes," Lucy tells me, "even though you ask him. It's 'cause he does stuff that is way better."

3434. "Hard days are the best," Gabby Douglas says, "because that's where champions are made. If you push through the hard days, you get through anything." 

3435. Diligence. The wreath of champions. I gather the reins for another day and pray for diligence, faithfulness in the small that I may one day be worthy of more.