Good Things

Sometime it is easier to write about the moments of despair. The moments of angst and hopelessness well up in you and you *feel* whether you want to or not. I relate to a lot of Jeremiah's lamentations as of late.

But not today. Sometimes when we are laying in bed at night I tell Scott "tell me something good - tell me 10 good things". And he does. Here is our list of sorts the last couple of weeks:

1. He always says 'I love you'. Please note, we have had some rough patches in our 30 some years of marriage - so when he says that, I do not take it for granted.

2. "We have raised some pretty great, strong, and courageous kids". They love and yet they would die on their front door step for what they believe to be right in the eyes of God and man. That's kind of rare and we are proud of them for that.

3. "We have 5 sweet little dictators ready to take on the world". We both smile.

4. We are thankful for the people our kids have married. So very thankful.

5. He says "the flowers will be blooming in a couple of months, and by then you should be able to be around them". He wants me to remember why I need to remember spring this year.....

6. Rubbing my arm he says "I'm glad I'm here to take care of you". He barely crawled into our car leaving the Cleveland Clinic two years ago. He had a long six months of illness. I am so glad he is here, too.

7. "Strawberries will be ripe in June, and along with the four other little "gleaners", we will have little Baby-Bird come and help pick this year." We mostly plant strawberries for fun allowing the grandkids to "harvest" at will and their pleasure. We want them to remember us for goodness, and sunshine and being able to step into the middle of our strawberry bed reaching for that perfect one while squishing five, and not get scolded. They can eat as many as they can find. Those are pretty glorious days -- the cycle of life all in one berry picking experience.

I remind him that we forgot to replant the strawberries last year. He says "we'll get some started in time".

8. "We have friends helping us through this". And we both start to cry a little at the humble notion that our friends are holding us up and helping us more than we could have imagined.

9. "We only missed one exit this week". He hates to drive in the city - I usually do it as I drive it more often. Not lately though. I can imagine the angels in heaven groaning when assigned to us on "city-driving-days".....

10. He smiles at me and says, "You look really good in hats". I don't think I do so much but it means the world to me every time he says that.

And this is a bonus -- we usually end up laughing at something one of our wee ones have said, or something they have done or the naughty things they dream up, or the great and deep wells of love and emotion they bless the earth with.

Last time we stopped in Addy was showing us her newest ballet class 'moves'. She's pretty good all of a sudden and we are so pleased with her progress - she has worked hard. Younger sister Millie, who took ballet earlier this year went over to the end table in their living room and said "'member Popop, I showed you this last time?" and she leans on the table with one hand, puts one hand in the air and lifts one leg far behind her. They had tried to show Popop how to do it last time we were there and they sorrowfully determined he was not such a good student.

So little Millie says in her little 3-year old "I-want-you-to-succeed-teacher-voice-because-we-should-all-work-hard-until-we-succeed", she says, "see? see Popop? It not that hard. Now you try." And he did because there is just the kindest bit of encouragement in her that she wants everyone to do their best and he just cannot turn her down.

We laughed for maybe 6 and a half minutes. Millie says with her finger pointed in the air because she knows what needs to happen here - she says "you need to go home Popop and work on this". We laugh for 8 minutes more.

Life is good.