Quenched

After having been on this earth only a short 8 weeks, it was sprinkled on my head as a symbol of my parents’ promise to God and to me. I danced in the rain one fall evening after a particularly dry, Texas summer, letting it soak my hair and clothes while it made my skin slippery with its coating. While citizens of some countries wonder when their next sip will come, I have been blessed never to doubt the steady surge that will flow with a simple twist of a faucet’s knob.

Today, I am thankful for water.

When I was a little girl, my daddy would take me fishing in a little pond in Fairfield, Texas. (Boompa is very excited to take you fishing at that same pond.) I remember enjoying our time together, my dad and me, him in his flannel jackets, teaching me how to bait a hook. I remember the sights: red and white, plastic spheres bobbing on the water’s surface, lush forests, and slippery, red mud. I remember the smells: smoke from the previous night’s campfire and from my dad’s cigarettes (never a bad smell in my book) and catfish bait (another smell I didn’t mind). My cousins and I also found much enjoyment on that pond: swimming in the murky depths and taking turns steering paddle boat voyages. I visit that same pond today and am flooded with the nostalgia of happy memories from a lovely childhood.

I first learned to swim in Aunt Betty’s pool in Clute, Texas, my mama there by my side, holding me firmly as I “doggy paddled” from one end of the pool to the other until I no longer needed the reassurance of her touch. I also learned how to dive in that pool. While swimming with my mom, we would spend hot summer nights dodging mosquitoes, listening to the sound of cicadae humming in the trees and live bands playing in the distance at the annual Mosquito Festival (Yes. Such a festival exists. You’ll see.).

My cousin, Shelley, and I used to swim in the Gulf of Mexico at Surfside Beach, where our easily tanned skin would brown, giving us a nice bronzed look until we came back for more the following summer, a year older.

My family spent many long, Easter weekends at Cliffview Resort on Lake Whitney where Shelley and I would meet up with the same two girls every year and play near the water’s edge, finding fossils and comparing shells.

Growing up, the neighborhood kids and I would have annual ‘Water Wars’ in our streets and yards, complete with water balloons, Super Soaker water guns, water hoses, and buckets upon buckets of the only ammo allowed: H2O! Boys against girls! (Our parents were never happy about the aftermath of flooded yards.)

In the first few weeks of dating your dad, we went with a friend and his dad out on their boat. That was the very first time I ever kneeboarded. I was terrified, but I will never forget how comfortable and safe your dad always tried to make me feel. He insisted that we kneeboard at the same time so that I wouldn’t be as scared. When the boat began to take off and your dad and I lifted out of the water on our separate boards, I was having a difficult time getting the strap across my legs, making the experience even more nerve-racking. However, your dad never missed a beat when it came to me. He glided across the water by my side, reached out, and strapped me in. I’m sure it was a good excuse for him to put his arm around me, but I didn’t mind. In the years to follow, water sports became one of the things we loved to do together. He was, and still is, much more talented at them than I am. I think I enjoy watching him show off about as much as I enjoy being out there myself.

Throughout our teenage years, your dad and I would go to Rocket Creek. There was a favorite swimming hole there that your dad introduced me to. We spent many summer hours swinging from a tree rope and dropping into the waters below. I remember sitting on the rocks, listening to the bubbling of the creek’s small rapids.

During the summer of 2003, your dad and I were able to go on a trip with some of my family (thanks to Aunt Gran and Uncle Pop) to Destin, Florida. On that trip, your dad temporarily conquered his fear of heights to parasail far above the ocean with me by his side. The water was crystal clear and sparkling. I remember seeing a giant sea turtle far below. It was magnificent. You must try it someday.

College held its fair share of fun in the water as well. I swam in the famous ‘Duck Pond’ at Tyler Junior College, played in the campus sprinklers with friends well past midnight, swam in the freezing Tyler State Park lake with Miss Kris, splashed around many a time in Lake Tyler, and enjoyed cascading waterfalls in Austin Texas.

The weekend after your dad asked me to marry him, we took a trip with some friends down to tube the Guadalupe River in San Marcos. The river wasn’t at its best for tubing, but that didn’t matter. We had fun. And all I could think about was my excitement of spending such a beautiful weekend in such a beautiful part of Earth.

I was pleased, when we got married, that our reception venue at the local golf course overlooked a beautiful pond. That night, the pond was aglow from the orange sun setting at its back.

Water is needed to sustain life. Without it, we wouldn’t be. Therefore, I have obvious reasons to be thankful for it. Water gives me life. In Texas, it’s easy to find other reasons to be thankful for water, as we can go for many weeks without seeing a drop. Water quenches our thirst and the thirst of the ground. Beyond these basic yet necessary reasons to be thankful for water, I am thankful for its beauty, its mystery, and its charm. I am thankful that so many of my favorite memories swim in the waters of my past. There is something about bodies of water. It’s as if the water itself contains all of those memories deep beneath its surface and I need only to visit these lakes and oceans and rivers and streams to fish out the memories and re-live them once more.

Whether it’s cascading down from a cliff high above, crashing to a shore in waves of white, causing children to laugh as it splashes their joyful faces, or sitting motionless on a breezeless summer afternoon, I love it. For its connection to life, for its ability to satiate the thirsty, for its splendor, power, secrecy, and allure, I am thankful for water.

I Want to be in That Number

Today, the mindset of most people in our society is, "I want. I want. I want." Living with this frame of mind can leave a person jaded. We become tired of everything we have because we have so much. We begin to look at what we don't have because somehow, for some reason, what we haven't obtained seems much more interesting of a topic on which to dwell. How sad of a life that is. Sadder for me that I have often found myself in this same lifestyle: missing out on the amazing blessings life has offered me all because I was searching for that which life had yet to give. America has coined the phrase "Keeping up with the Joneses" as the driving point of the American Dream, but the simple question should be, pardon my grammar, "Who the Hell are the Joneses?”

Liam, I challenge you to have the mindset of, “I have. I have. I have.” Live in thanksgiving! Society gives us certain guidelines in order to be “happy”: make 6 figures on your paycheck, have a vehicle per driver in the family, have a college education, live in a certain house in certain part of town, wear these clothes, shop in these stores, associate with these people. The list goes on and on. While some of these are great aspirations, our happiness shouldn’t be dependent upon them. How sad we would be if, in the end of our lives, we thought only of what we didn’t have. If you are constantly concerned with what you do not have, then you will constantly be concerned. All too often, people gain blessings that they have long desired, and as soon as these blessings are obtained, they quickly change their focus from that of thanks to that of disappointment – “I want. I want. I want.”

This is one of your mother’s many flaws. I am persistently looking to what I want, forgetting to be thankful for what I have. It’s important to always strive for more; that is the way goals are achieved. However, achieving goals is not of the utmost importance. Happiness is – happiness of others and yourself.  And happiness comes from living the life of current, not wishing you were living someone else’s.  

Today is November 1, 2011, and in honor of this month of thanks, I will be writing to you as often as I can, giving thanks for the things I have been given and, hopefully, teaching you lessons along the way. So, let us begin.

Today, I am Thankful for Saints.

 As a United Methodist Christian, I believe in saints. Today is the perfect day to recognize this blessing because it is, after all, November 1^st, All Saints Day. Now, my Son, I want you to have a mind of your own. I pray that you are intelligent enough to heed what your father and I teach you while developing opinions and ideas of your own. After all, if you believe something simply because I say that it’s so, then YOU don’t really believe it at all; do you? Therefore, you will make up your own mind one day as to if you believe in saints the way that I do. The Roman Catholic Church believes that only a certain group of people who followed the teachings of Jesus earned the title of Saint. Those Christians actually had to have “Saint” added as part of their names, part of their identifications throughout the ages. However, the United Methodist denomination believes that anyone who lived a life exemplifying Christianity is considered a saint.

In this case, many saints have helped to pave a path for me, and for that, I am thankful.

I am thankful for my grandmother, Ruby. We called her ‘Mom’. Mom spent every moment that I was in her presence tending to me. Now, I’m not saying I’m the only one she tended to, but if I was there, she gave me her attention in every way possible. I am thankful for this. I am thankful for the hours upon hours that this woman rubbed my back just so that I could feel comfort and fall asleep. I am thankful for the delicious treats she would make for my family and me. I am thankful that instead of judging me for delighting in the snack of butter (by itself), she smiled and had a spoonful of butter waiting on me after school. I am thankful that she pinched the backside of my arm for laughing or talking during church. I am thankful that she would play Amazing Grace on her little organ just to hear my voice sing out with a country twang. I am thankful that her sense of humor and quirkiness left my family with stories to tell of the time she gave her bird (Winky) whisky for his cold, and the time (not too much later) that she gave Winky a funeral, complete with casket and guest book. I am thankful that she often made me laugh, and rarely made me cry. I am thankful for her love.

I am thankful for my grandmother, Jackie. This grandmother, I never knew, but my mom tells me I would have called her ‘Gran’. I have never known one person (that wasn’t famous) to have so many fans. She died 9 months before I was born, but I can sing her praises just as easily as the rest of my home town simply because people LOVE to tell me about her. And I love to hear what they have to say. I hear the stories of how, on the day of her funeral, not only were the pews and isles and balcony packed with mourners, but a line of people streamed from the school to the church that afternoon, wearing backpacks. These were her students, children who refused to miss the opportunity to pay their respects. The flag at the post office was lowered to half-staff when she left this world. It takes an amazing human to deserve that kind of respect. I am thankful that years later, the Assistant Superintendent of the school district she worked for told me that if I was anything like Jackie Baxter, they would be lucky to have me as a teacher. I am thankful that such a woman lived and continues to live in me. I am thankful that she set an example of how to exist, even through tribulation. Growing up wasn’t easy for her, and she had to endure the pain of becoming a widow at such a young age. But these things didn’t stop her. The woman graduated with honors from graduate school while she worked multiple jobs, raised a daughter, helped give a community of children beautiful voices along with the confidence to lift them, and gave time to God. I am thankful for the legacy she left of achieving all that can be achieved in the short time we are allotted on earth.

I am thankful for my grandfather, Overby. We called him ‘Dad’. And even though I had him in my life the longest, he was the most difficult to get to know. He was a quiet man. He was very private. And as a child, I’ll be honest, that silence and calm strength he exuded…kind of terrified me. But he was a gentle giant. He was such a man of God. Never have I known a man so devout. His primary concern was, “What would God have me do?” He had his bible with him all the time, and if I remember correctly, he wore a small divot into the cover of his bible from where his thumb was always placed. He was an Army veteran, wounded in WWII. And although he was an American hero, he didn’t like to talk about it. He was the first man I ever saw cry. In fact, at 12 years old, I wasn’t even sure men could cry, but on the night that my grandmother passed away, I learned they could. He loved her, and I loved the way he loved her. It reminds me a lot of how your daddy loves me. He was a dedicated man – to his family, to his wife, to his country, to his church, and to God. I am thankful for his dedication.

I am thankful for my grandfather, Bob. He was another grandparent that I never got to meet. My guess is that I would have called him ‘Gramps,’ a nickname lovingly given to him by the children he coached in Little League due to a limp he had developed. Even my mother was only given 7 short years with him. He was taken from this earth when he was 44. Much too young. I don’t have as many stories of my maternal grandfather, all because he had a much shorter time on this earth with the people who are here to tell me stories. However, I remember a few. He LOVED my mother. She was the apple of his eye, his little princess. He was also a man of God, as he was one of the men who helped build the church I grew up in and was a Sunday school teacher. He did things his way, and didn’t worry about what others might have thought, like staying up with his wife and daughter well past bedtime for ice cream treats! He loved his mother and sisters, which probably explains his love and devotion for the other two women in his life, his wife and daughter. He took pride in his home and his family. He loved children, and they loved him. While he would work in his yard, the neighborhood children would run and jump on his back, and he would carry them around his yard as he worked in his flower beds. He coached little league and was a youth director with my grandmother at the church. He was fun and funny. He enjoyed life, and he enjoyed what made life enjoyable. I am thankful for the legacy that he left of enjoying life to the fullest.

Finally, I am thankful for my dear friend and mother in-law, your grammy, Deborah. What a fighter. She exemplified strength and perserverence not only in the end of her life, but from a very young age. The sadness and difficulties your grammy went through are enough to make most people turn away from God, give up, throw in the towel, and decide to attribute a pitiful life to the cards they were dealt. Not your grammy. She firmly stood by her belief that NOTHING that happens to a person should be an excuse not to rise above it. I have the daunting task of being your mother in a few weeks time, and although the thought makes me happier than I’ve ever felt, I am terrified of messing up. I look to her for guidance, even though she is no longer here. After all, she raised four of the finest men I know.The woman told the true rags to riches story. However, her “rags” were a life of strife and struggle, and her "riches" were far more than gold and gems. Her riches were a beautiful and resiliant family full of Godly sons who will forever demonstrate her lessons of hope and perseverence in their own lives. I am thankful for our warrior.

These are the saints of my life. I have been molded and shaped by the hands of many, including these followers of Christ who have gone before me. How providential such legacies have been and continue to be in guiding our family through challenges. How enriched our lives are simply because these saints lived theirs so fully. I am thankful for these saints and for the opportunity to join them one day for all of time.