Why I love where I live

 This week, I am celebrating.

25 years ago, the day after Payne Stewart won the exciting US Open (beating another golfer I liked, Phil Michelson, and telling him how great it is to be a father), Reatlor, Dottie Wilson, called me.

I had been "house=hunting" in Mandarin for several months.  I was still in a grief mode.  Rich Suhey had suddenly died just over six months before.  Soon after his death, maybe even the night he died, my children had said, "Mom, you need to move to Mandarin."  

Some patios and townhomes were being built, and my sister, Cindy, had driven through the area. This would be a perfect place.

Except they were all "taken".

Dottie said, "The woman who was having one of the patio homes built no longer wants it."

My daughter, Becca, and I came to see it.  In time, the rest of my family saw it, and by the end of July 1999,  I had signed the papers!

I recently "floated" the idea that I might sell and move to a retirement community.

I walked through my house and looked at what I enjoy - and treasure - and cannot take with me.

In 2008, my son, Tray, had just started his contracting business and needed to give his employee some work. This is what I got. 

I don't want to leave it - or my backyard, which slopes down toward a small stream. I love to mow it. I have a heritage room and a noisy neighbor, and I live less than five miles from my siblings and two of my children.

Between my birth and my 52nd birthday, I had lived in four states and many different houses. We moved a lot when I was growing up, but I never had to change schools or churches or make new friends. The four states, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, and Kentucky, were all good places to live, and I still have friends there.  

When I was reflecting on that time, now a quarter of a century ago, I realized once more that I love where I live.  And that reminded me of this.  It was the first time I was paid ($50) for something I had written.  It was published in the Florida Times-Union in November 1982.

I feel really good about the fact that what I said 42 years ago about the house that was a homeplace for the Nesmith/ Huffingham families for so many years - is true to what I feel today. In 1982, I felt that my life was in shambles, and I wrote that where I lived was offering a nest - a place of peace and security for me and my children.  When I found this house, I found a place where I hoped to find peace and security.  I believe that happened.

With a group of friends, I read a selection from Simple Abundance by Sara Ban Breathnach each day. The goal is to reflect and respond. The book invites the reader to learn to relax and appreciate the simple things of life.  Each month has a central theme with words of encouragement for each date of that month.  The focus in June is on the home. There are suggestions of things to change, add, or sometimes remove. It's been a thought-provoking experience.

In the book of II Samuel, when the shepherd/king David was settling into a palace, he prayed that God would bless his house.

That has been my prayer as well, and I believe that God has done just that!

May you have enough sunshine in your life,  to make you appreciate the shadows

"Everything's gonna be all right"

 Does one still celebrate Father's Day when the father has passed???

 Well,

 Yes.

 I can celebrate the memory of a daddy who loved me – and cared for me and remember the fun times we shared. I once wrote daddy a poem. It recalled some of my memories

" Remember when you made the fudge and placed it on a platter?                                                         And I insisted that I serve and how that glass did splatter."                                                            

Those words were based on an early childhood memory. Daddy loved to make fudge. He had made a fresh batch for our Sunday afternoon company. I insisted that I be the one to serve it. Of course, I dropped the plate. So well into my adulthood, I wrote a poem that included that experience. I thought it was a good example of the fact that so many times in my life, I bit off more than I could chew, and yet I never once thought he loved me any less as he often found a way to fix what seemed to be a splattered mess. 

 I penned those words in a Father's Day greeting in June 1982. By July 15 of that same year, I was sobbing my heart out on my parents' back porch. My life was shattered. And daddy's response was "everything's gonna be all right".

For the next 27 years, he told me many, many times that everything was going to be all right!

As the end of daddy's life drew near I was bold when I announced I did not want to be home when he passed. I thought I would not know how to handle it. I feared it would be just mother and me. She would be a wreck, and I would not know how to handle that. However, the Hospice nurse had worked with me, and I determined I would be okay. I didn't tell daddy that I had come to that conclusion.

We were not aware of this, however, within hours of daddy's passing, he kept asking me when I was leaving for work. I have since determined that he was trying to protect me. He thought I didn't want to be there when he took his last breath. He thought that because I never told him any different. I was there, however, and have always been glad that I was.  Everything was gonna be all right!

I can also celebrate the father of my children. My life with him did not turn out the way I hoped. However, as I often say, "Have you met my children?" And then I say, "They got so much of who they are because they are Parkers." And I understand that no matter how good a mother I was, I was not their father. 

Tray was playing all-star baseball when his dad was finally at a game. (He lived in Indiana; we lived in Jacksonville). Our team was behind. Tray got a hit that tied up the game. He stole second, and the batter hit a double...Tray crossed the plate, and our team won the game. He came running off the field with these words:

 "Where's my dad?"

 I think Tray is a better father because of the absent father he grew up with. I believe that it is because of the influence of my daddy, my brothers, and some of my male friends. Tray and his brothers-in-law, Dale and Wally, are all excellent dads to my seven grandchildren. I am so very grateful, and I joyfully celebrate the three of them. 

And I celebrate those extra fathers, especially Lester and Robert.

Because church has always been a part of my life, I understand it when discussing God as our Heavenly Father. I can recite the Apostles Creed with no hesitation: "I believe in one God, the Father almighty. . .". I remember granddaddy Nesmith opening the morning worship services with these words "Our Loving Father". I learned early on that God loves me more than my father...and grandfathers. I felt very loved by them - and I feel very loved by God the Father.

 My thought is this. Daddy is not here for me to give him a present or write him a poem.

 I can still celebrate him - and the other fathers in my children's lives (including their fathers-in-law, Jim England, Larry Blain, and Roger Park).  And I do - with an attitude of gratitude, love, and respect.

 And, of course, I give thanks for God our Father - who loves me even more! 

May you have enough sunshine in your life,  to make you appreciate the shadows

"Salt is healing"

When I chose the seascape that our mother did in the mid-80s for my June 3-June 14 Facebook cover page, I started thinking about how much she enjoyed the ocean.  She found that the combination of salt and water offered peace and tranquility.  

She would say, "Salt is healing," which would quickly be followed with: "If I could just get my feet in the ocean." 

I think it was the summer after her 90th birthday that she visited some of our family in Myrtle Beach. They did not let the fact that she needed a walker deter them. I'm sure there were oohs and ahs as she accepted their assistance and waded into the ebbs and flows of the tide.

As it happened, all of her sisters also loved the ocean. 

So when she saw a drawing of four sisters at the beach, she copied it.  Her skill with colored pencils was dwindling.

However, it gave her an idea.  She sent an email to her sister, Beth, who lived at Crescent Beach.

By this time, mother was 95 

How about if the four sisters walked out on the beach together? Their sister Thelma had died many years before, but all of them appreciated the healing power of the salt water.

Aunt Beth made an effort to make that happen. This is the best that she could do. And I suppose four sisters looking at the ocean still worked.

Within a year, mother was no longer ambulatory. It became time for her to leave the assisted living facility and share a room in the Health Care Center at Westminister Woods on Julington Creek.

Fortunately, although there was no beach, there was water, and she loved it when one of us pushed her wheelchair so that she could enjoy the Creek.  

On Father's Day 2021,  my son, Tray, who is grandchild #5, called me with an idea.  

Mother was so curious. "where are we going?"

"Is this okay?"  "Are we breaking a rule?  I think she was happy to be doing just that.  

That fun time was three years ago. The next year - two years ago now - we were saying goodbye. It's been a strange experience knowing that our mother is no longer an active presence in my life, which brings me back to what she said about SALT.

I believe I need a tissue.

May you have enough sunshine in your life,  to make you appreciate the shadows