My mother had two brothers. Uncle Paul was the fun one, but Lorry was the one who made me feel loved.

Paul rode a motorcycle and threw me in the air and always teased me about boys and stuff. I distinctly remember crying by the doors to the fellowship hall on the day of his wedding because I thought he wouldn’t be fun anymore. I was wrong. Once a fun uncle, always a fun uncle.

Lorry was taken from this earth long before anyone who knew him was ready to see him go. Maybe that’s part of the reason he still lives in this strange kind of perfection in my mind. But I think it’s mostly because he loved me.

I was thirteen when he died. I remember hearing hushed voices coming from the kitchen early in the morning in the Iowa City farmhouse and knowing something was wrong. He had lost his long battle to a strange and uncommon disease.

So much of the time I spent with his family is just a foggy vague recollection, but there are three memories that are still so real I can close my eyes and see and hear things as if he were standing right in the room with me.

• “Well, hello there Kimboly.” It didn’t matter how many times he found me at his house when he got home from work at Winnebago, he was always happy to see me. And he always said the same thing. And I can still “hear” his voice. The annunciation. The inflection. The smile. It’s all there. Those four words of greeting said, ‘You have a place in our home and you are loved.’
• I must have been around eleven when I broke Noah’s crib. My cousin Nathan and I were standing on the side rail. I was the oldest and should have known better. My aunt Marilyn was understandably upset with me. (I would have been too.) For the rest of the afternoon I was nervous about what Lorry would say when he got home. I don’t remember his words, but I remember his mercy. Whatever he said at that dinner table put my heart at ease. His reaction said, ‘You are forgiven and you are loved.’
• I thought he would never stop praying. I was in a sleeping bag on the floor beside my cousins’ bunk beds, and I just wanted to go to sleep. But Lorry kept praying. And praying. And praying. This was no “now I lay me down to sleep,” prayer. This was a conversation between a man and his Savior. He didn’t have to pray out loud with his family. He could have just as easily slid into his comfy bed and prayed silently. But I know he wanted his children and me to know how serious he was about his faith. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the earnestness of that prayer pointed me toward a growing commitment to Christ and reminded me that I am loved.

Lorry was gone long before I grew up, but his legacy lives on in his children, and I think a little bit of it found its way inside me. I have a mother and father who love me very much, but the love I felt from him was different and special.

The last gift of love he gave me is one he did not even know he gave. A Bible that is now tattered and has the wrong name etched on the cover.  On a blank page in the back my aunt Marilyn wrote “I know Lorry would have wanted me to give you this Bible as a gift so as I give it to you, I’m sure he is smiling up in heaven. So it’s something from us but also something to remember your uncle by.”

And remember him I do. Mostly because he loved me.

http://www.threeharmsboys.blogspot.com/

Click the link above to see what I did on the last day of school. Can’t stop thinking about how my babies should still be babies…

Bear with me as I celebrate 11 years of raising babies and mourn the coming end of an era. Aside from their papa, I love my boys more than anyone else in the world.

JJ Heller – I Get to Be the One, When I’m With You, Boat Song

I was introduced to Just Between Us  last year. It is a great quarterly magazine designed for “encouraging and equipping women for a life of faith.” I was super-excited to find out a couple months ago that one of my stories would be published in the summer 2012 issue.  I’m pretty sure my story is just in the print version and not on the website, but you should definitely take a look at the site.  They’ve got a lot of good stuff.

1. I learned about Jesus. Though for a couple years there in elementary school, I was totally afraid the God of the universe would forget who I was so I “asked him into my heart” about 600 times.

2. I learned how to sew. That has come in pretty handy recently.

3. I learned the value of quantity time. She was at every track meet, every piano recital (and I wasn’t very good), every vocal concert, every performance of every high school and community theatre play… basically every everything I took part in. (Moms – never underestimate the value of your presence.)

4.  I learned how to make veinerschnitzel which is now one of our kids’ favorite meals. It’s an artery-clogger of main course, but my kids could afford to put a little more meat on their bones.

5.  I learned the value of doing what you love just because  it’s what you love. My mom is probably the best seamstress in the world, and she was always sewing things for people. My brother and I always told her she should charge more money for what she did, but she wasn’t (and isn’t) in it for the money. She just does it cuz she loves it.

1. I didn’t learn how to make tapioca. Mom makes awesome tapioca pudding. I made grand attempts the first couple years Corey and I were married. Mom always said, “It’s easy, all you have to do is…” That’s what anyone who is good at something says. I finally gave up making my husband eat the chewy, runny, tasteless, too sweet, overcooked, undercooked, never right tapioca, and I am 100 percent okay with the fact that I will never be able to make tapioca.

2. I didn’t learn to fight. My mom is nonconfrontational, just like me. Sometimes that’s good. Sometimes that’s bad. Sometimes I daydream about what it would be like to be reincarnated as an Italian. Then I would feel completely comfortable yelling to get my point across, and everyone would be like, “It’s okay. She’s Italian.” (Okay, I know I watch too much Cake Boss.)

3. I didn’t learn how to buy clothing for myself at full price. Clearance racks, garage sales, Goodwill and Kohl’s (but only if I have a 30% off coupon). That’s where everything in my closet is from (except for the hand-me-downs and the Merrells.)

4. I didn’t learn how to pack up a family and move. My folks have lived in the same house for more than 35 years. I’m fairly confident I will never hit that milestone.

5. I didn’t learn to appreciate jewelry. My mom was one of those people who would rather get a new blender than a pearl necklace for Christmas. I definitely lean in the practical direction too. I own exactly four rings, one necklace and three pairs of earrings. (I know some of you girly-girls are aghast by those numbers.)

What about you? Did you learn or not learn any lasting lessons from your mom?

Lewis is going to EK in the fall. That is early kindergarten for all of you who aren’t savvy with elementary school lingo.

Early kindergarten was not my plan. In fact, after I got off the phone with the EK teacher who told me he was “on the fence” and EK might be a good fit for him, I was a bit perturbed.

Mama Bear came out inside my head. “What? Are you calling my kid stupid? My almost five-year-old is not qualified for kindergarten? Seriously?” From there the internal dialogue moved on to something like this. “Oh my goodness. Lewis might not be ready for kindergarten. What did I do wrong? Did I not read to him enough? This is my fault. I have failed somewhere as a mom.”

I was thrown for a loop. I knew Lewis would be one of the younger kids in his kindergarten class, but he is such a little social bug that I never even considered he might not be ready for school. Maybe if his was a summer birthday I would have thought differently about it. I don’t know for sure, but I do know I was not prepared for the phone call.

The funny thing is I had talked to a friend about the possibility of EK for her child just a couple weeks before. I had reassured her that everything would be okay, and that she shouldn’t get unnecessarily stressed out about it. Now I felt I needed someone to have that conversation with me.

After I got over the initial astonishment that kindergarten might not be the best option for my baby boy, Corey and I spent several days weighing the pros and cons of EK. What we came to realize after we stepped back and considered the facts, was that we agreed Lewis might be better off in the long run by spending a year in early kindergarten.

Fact #1 He will either be one of the very oldest kids in his class or one of the very youngest. We can’t change that. It’s just where his birthday falls. We can name numerous benefits to being on the older side, but found very few, if any benefits to being the youngest in the class.

Fact #2 Lewis is a boy. (I know, I know, brilliant observation.) But seriously, in case you haven’t noticed, boys and girls are different. Where your average little girl might sit and do crafts and read books for hours, your average little boy would rather spend that time practicing his long jump off the back deck or chasing frogs in the creek.  Maybe Lewis will benefit from a year in a more playful, less structured setting.

Fact #3 Kindergarten in 2012 is not the same as kindergarten in 1980. (Yes, that is when I went to kindergarten.) My kindergarten was only three days per week, and nobody expected me to recognize all my letters and to be able to write most of them before I started. School has changed. I can’t draw from my experience as a factor in helping to make this decision, because my experience doesn’t even compare.

Fact #4 Public school is an institution. (Thanks to my friend, Cinnamon, for helping me sort through this idea.) The school system does not have the resources nor does it have the funds to think of each kid’s individual needs all the time. They see my boy as a person they need to fit into their institution. They are not looking at their institution and considering how they can change it to meet the needs of my boy. Good or bad, that is just how it is. There is not a perfect solution for each child.

Fact #5 Lewis is a lot younger than his brothers, and sending him to EK will put him even farther behind them in school. With EK, Lewis will be finishing seventh grade when Owen graduates from high school. This is really one of the only factors that made kindergarten more appealing, but I couldn’t let it play a big role in the decision making process. It felt too surfacy to take into serious consideration.

In the end, I am confident we have made the best choice for Lewis. It was a difficult decision to make, but I have been reminded over the past week that my expectation of what is the best for my family is sometimes proven wrong when I force myself to step back from my preconceived notions and weigh my ideas against reality.