The "Golden" Years

Santa Fe was good for me.  I drove down by myself because Jason was there for a week and I couldn't get away that long.  At the library with a napless Ryan in tow,  I randomly chose Billy Graham's book on CD, "Nearing Home", "Heaven is for Real" by Burpo, and some Spanish lessons.  (*We're headed to Spain this summer for our 20th and I need to polish up on my conversational skills.)

On the way down I only listened to Billy's book.  My grandpa is "nearing home" presently at 96 and 113 lbs.  Reverend Graham said something to the tune of, "it would be dishonest and misleading to say that getting old is 'golden' but rather difficult and painful and sometimes lonely."  The way my gramps has said it is, "The 90's aren't all they're cracked up to be."  No.  I imagine the 90's aren't "all they are cracked up to be."  I'll post more on that another day.*

*(The above two paragraphs I wrote yesterday.  This morning my gramps weighed in at 110 and my mom called to tell me he wasn't bouncing back as he has in the past.)

Before bed last night I told Jason that after Em got off school we'd head over and hang out with my gramps for a bit.  This morning when I came down to the kitchen, this picture caught my eye.

My Aunt, Gramps, and Mom...60-some years ago

I've looked at it so many times, but my gaze took in how handsome my gramps was in his younger years.  He was 55 when I was born, so clearly he didn't look like that guy with the two cuties.  The picture above was taken some time over 60 years ago...that would put my gramps in his 30's.  He was dapper.  I mean, check out his pocket watch in the mid 1930's below:

Courting my grandma back in the 1930's

Though, this is how my gramps is mostly stuck in my head:

Lou and Dot, late 1990's

That is, until my drive home from Santa Fe, after listening to Billy Graham and his thoughts on "nearing home" and then listening to the little Burpo kid's comments about heaven and seeing his dad's "Pop" while he was in heaven.  And the more I see the picture of my gramps with my mom and aunt at the beach, young, healthy, and strong, even though I never knew him then, I'm able to see beyond the wrinkles which have set deep with time, the white crown of hair that's adorned his head since I was a baby, and the veins and knuckles that mostly make up his hands, and see the man who will welcome me at The Gates one day.  I mean, who really knows?  I haven't been there...I don't know exactly how it works...

Don't get me wrong, I don't know if everything the little Burpo kid says is spot on, but I have a nephew his age (the age he was when he went to heaven) and there's no freaking way he could know eternal, heavenly, supernaturally discerning things like that without coming face to face with Jesus.

Taken a little over a week ago, specifically on March 13

Because I read the post the mom wrote about not avoiding pictures just because you look like crap....

Grateful my kids have gotten to know my gramps, even if just a little...

I'm not sure the point of this post.  I just need to write.  This morning my gramps was mostly napping, not opening his eyes, and it seemed as if he was dreaming.  I snuggled into his ear for a big kiss and whisper, "Hi Handsome!", as I always do, and told him things he and I and Jesus know.  His eyes fluttered.  Then, I hoisted my 30 lb toddler over "Grampa You-ie," as Ry calls him, for a hovering kiss, always on the lips because that's just Ry's style, and a "I yuv you, Grampa You-ie" close to his ear.  My gramps opened his eyes, smiled, and puckered for Ryan's kiss.

I guess I'm the death blogger.  I mean, I've written a little about it here over the years.  And, since dying is the leading cause of death in the world, it may be a subject I continue to cover until my last breath...seeing as how we all have it in common and all.

Anyway.

It's just that he's my last grandparent.  And we have always been close.  And his hugs have always been my favorite.  And he taught me how to dance for my wedding in his kitchen.  I love him.  And I'll miss him.

He may not have felt "golden" in his latter years, but my life has been golden knowing him.

The process is part of the beauty...

Em and I suited up to make her auntie a gigantic cupcake for her birthday. The days of both of us fitting on one chair are quickly coming to a close...

The days of seeing my own toes are quickly coming to a close, as well...

In my memory, licking the beaters was my favorite part of the whole process.

Perhaps in her memory it will be actually eating the cake?

After coming off several months of planning and praying over last weekend's "Normal" Retreat, a retreat given by my non-profit, Bevy Girls, this week I am not as exhausted as I had expected. Last night I tucked Em in and fell asleep close to 8:30, waking up chipper this morning at 7:00. It was just what I needed!

But over the last several months working through the process of planning and organizing this retreat has been fun and overwhelming all at the same time. Gina and I received so many offers for people to help us with things, and we did engage a lot of that help, however, we needed to know how to steer this whole operation in order to host other Bevy retreats around the nation. It was a lot of work, but the weekend itself was so rich that it was totally worth it! Totally!

I'm not complaining about the work we did. Actually, I enjoyed it very much and look forward to the Fall when we head to the Midwest with this life-changing weekend. I just can't help but compare the process to that of making a cake.

Em and I had recently made a cake for her auntie's birthday. We saw the pictures on the cake form box and were excited for the outcome, but as it baked, I'm not going to lie, I prayed it would turn out! How stinky to bake a cake for someone for their birthday and have it flop!

I mean, I've watched a lot of Food Network and Bobby Flay's cakes never flop!

But, even though Em and I had a vision or dream of what the cake would look like, we had to walk through the process of gathering ingredients, measuring meticulously, and mixing for the required amount of time, no more, no less, in order to even pour the batter into the forms, which, of course, had to be prepped with oil and flour. And even then, when you throw in 6,202 feet elevation, there are no guarantees that it will rise...just hope that you've done your part and the batter and oven temp will do its part.

Was licking the beaters or dragging our fingers through the batter a necessary part of the process? I would say an emphatic YES! Would it have turned out just the same if we had not, indeed, tasted batter during the process? Probably...but it would not have been as enjoyable.

Was cleaning up our explosive mess of flour and sprinkles and cracked oozing eggs a necessary part of the process? Again with the emphatic YES! I'm a "cleaner as you goer" so by the end of a recipe the kitchen doesn't look like it's spent time on the front lines, however, no matter how you do it, cleaning up the mess is part of the gig.

When I was 5 we bought an old hunting lodge in Ohio and my dad gutted it and refurbished the whole place to be our home...however, prior to that, a hermit of a woman lived there for several years who did not have the word "clean" anywhere in her genetic make up...she never let her dogs go outside to do their business but instead had them unload in a room we later remodeled as the sun room...a place where we enjoyed the beauty of the trees outside and the fresh air through the open windows.

But, it took a clean up crew, gutting down to the framework and a lot of elbow grease to, one, envision the crap shoot as a sitting room one day, and two, to actually get it to a place that was suitable for human occupation.

Sure the finished cake is the prize. It's the goal, at least. It tastes yummy and fills the house with smells of sweet bakeries. But even the last piece of cake gets tossed in the trash because at some point, everyone is sick of it. And, none of us is a magician. Sure, we could buy cakes at bakeries and it does spare our own kitchens the tornadoes that ensue, but their kitchen still needs the clean up.

The point is...we may think that a perfect cake is the end all, be all. But what if it tastes like crap because we put in a cup of salt instead of a cup of flour? What if we were rushing through the process to get to the prize and as a result, the cake was a flop?

We'd have to start all over from the top, anyway, or head out to the bakery and pray they had one available that wasn't airbrushed and gaudy!

If my life is the cake, I've spilled flour on the floor, gotten eggshells in the batter and left out ingredients here and there. I've tried to rush the process and at other times, I've actually added some of the right ingredients, but with God in the kitchen, allowing me to lick the beaters sometimes, I trust the cake He's got in mind is beautiful and I'm happy to just be His Sous Chef.