'til it happened to me

Our choir is working on some great music for a Gospel Arts Festival.  We are singing some old time "gospel" songs that most of us grew up singing - i.e - an arrangement of I'll Fly Away that includes When the Roll is Called Up Yonder.


I've loved it. 


Sometimes I get called down a bit because sometimes I sing too loud.  I remember that one of my brothers said to my mother once -"mom, if you didn't sing so loud no one could hear you" and she has always taken that teasing in stride.  She tells us that once she had a beautiful voice and I know that she was the president of the Glee Club on High School.  She also has always said that she stopped being able to sing when daddy was in the Pacific and "if you don't use it, you lose it" - or so she said.


But I digress.


One of the songs we are singing features our soprano choral scholar, Brianna.  The choir is her back up group as she belts out '' I didn't know it was true, until it happened to me".  The song references that once we turn out lives over to God, there is a change.


Anyway


Just a few days after Mother's Day in 1971 I paid a visit to a local physician - who confirmed what I suspected.


I was pregnant.


I remember I said "Is it fun to have a baby?"


I know - weird question.


But I've always remembered his reply.


"It's exciting."


Who knew?  Not me.


I didn't know that it's true - until it happened to me.


With the birth of each of my children I became more convinced that yes, it was exciting and yes, it was fun and ye,s it was painful.


And then Renee gave me a list of things to purchase from the Johnson & Johnson company store - baby powder, baby shampoo, baby wipes -- a name for your first grandchild to call you.


I had heard - it's great to be a grandmother.


But guess what - I know it's true - because it happened to me.


7 times - but who's counting?

And they're off...

I was in the third grade and I had a bad case of strep throat.


Funny that I remember that.


Actually more important than my grade or my throat is that it's the day that my daddy and I began a tradition.


We watched the Kentucky Derby.


From that day to this - every year on the first Saturday in May - that tradition has continued.


Oh - we didn't always watch it together.


We just both watched it...for seventeen years I watched in in another city; another state. But in 1983 we started watching it together again and we continued that until his death in 2009.


One year I even lived in Louisville.  Renee remembers going to a parade that week and I remember I thought it was so interesting that there were other races going on that day.  Who knew?  Everything in Louisville, Kentucky during that week that ends with the first Saturday in May is about those horses.


Betting on the horses had nothing to do with it. 


"It's the hats", my mother would say - although she loved the shiny sleek horses.


"No it's the color", daddy would say.  He loved the commentary.


And for me, it was "the tradition".


And now it is another first Saturday in May.  I've gotten used to watching without daddy here.


Sort of.


This week my sister, Cindy, asked if the pain of losing her precious granddaughter would ever go away.  I loved my sister in law, Tammie's response, "no, but the big crack will seal some".


For me - some of the pain of losing our daddy - is lessened a little anyway when I do things that we used to do together.


Which is why this afternoon between 5:30 and 6:15 or so -- I'll be watching and listening to hear...


"And they're off . . .".