Chesed

In the past sixteen years I have participated in two church choirs with approximately seven different directors (what a track record for many directors in one choir) and been tutored briefly by two private voice instructors.  Last night after chorus practice I started thinking again about how different every director is.  No wonder a choir goes through this sort of “slump” when the director changes.  They all have such different strengths and weaknesses.  Different ways of bringing out the music.  Different vocal exercises certain to bring out the perfect sound.  Different styles of directing.  Different personalities.  Different ways of wording the same message. 

Right now I’m missing Edmund Najera, my favorite voice teacher.  In the line up of my musical directors, he gets the most superlatives.  Most talented.  Most educated.  Most gracious.  And interestingly enough, least religious.  What amazed me so often was how he could be so gifted, tutor such phenomenal university students, and then turn around and do all he could to bring out the best in David Lee and I.  And he did.  Both of us love to sing; but neither of us is gifted.  Yet he pulled out voices from inside of us we didn’t have earlier.  I heard the most dramatic change in David Lee in that years time; but I also loved what happened to me.  Finally, after so many years of being told so many ways, someone taught me how to get the sound out (instead of telling me all these strange motions to think to get it to float out) by using lip flutters, consonants, and other things.  And when something wasn’t working, whether it was phlegm or a swallowed sound, he could give us an exercise that helped clear the problem.  He believed in us, much more then we believed in ourselves.  That year is a memory we will treasure all of our lives … and one of the gifts we gave ourselves we will probably always most want to repeat. 

If Dr Seuss were to write a book on pregnancy, I think it would go something like this:

Sick and Tired,

Tired and Sick.

Sick of being Tired

And Tired of being Sick.

And then there would be the chapters on food which would go something like this:

Macaroni Saturday

Macaroni in the morning,

Macaroni at night,

Macaroni in the middle

And things start to be all right.

(next page)

But NO macaroni on Sunday.

To be sung to the tune of “These Are a Few of My Favorite Things.”

Diapers and Onesies and warm fuzzy blankets

Baby Blue Eyes behind long, dark eyelashes

Dreaming of dimples and maybe some curls,

Will it be a boy or maybe a girl?

When I’m nauseous

When my legs ache

When I’m feeling blue

I’ll simply keep thinking of sweet baby things

Then oh, how my heart will sing!

That’s right!  We’re expecting a baby!  And yes, we are so excited … and grateful.  It has felt like a long journey of tears, hope, shattered dreams, and faith.  My heart was stretched in places I didn’t know existed.  Infertility wraps itself around your life like an octupus.  You think that having a baby is one segment of your life; but grief is not.  It is like walking in a thick fog.  You know in your head that there is beauty in the world somewhere; but your heart has forgotten what it looks like.  Sometimes you cry so hard you wonder if your insides got twisted.  One minute you say, “I will never hope again,” and two days later you are setting yourself up for more shattered dreams. 

I am convinced that hope is a gift from God.  Sometimes I thought I should stop hoping.  Recently my friend was in the middle of a difficult time and she said, “I don’t know why I do this.  Why do I start to hope again?”  And I knew.  We hope.  Because if we could not hope, we would not go on.  We wouldn’t try again.  We would not learn to live.  And we could not bear the pain.  So God gave us hope.

And now He has also given us a miracle.  On Thursday I watched the blip, blip, blip of my baby’s heartbeat.  And today, I again worship God the Creator.

I love attending weddings and yesterday was no exception.  Trish and Greg said “I do” in a lovely, huge church house on the outskirts of Charlottesville.  I’ve always loved being with her family.  There are four girls in her family (and two boys) as opposed to three in ours; but something about them reminds me of us.  I’d watch them walk into church together just like we three used to, the way one of them quietly says two words and the other “gets it” and no one else knows half the interchange that just occured, the way they laugh, the way they fight, the way they hold each other’s best interests at heart  — and it made me miss my sisters.  They are talented, creative, and beautiful and all four of them show so much interest in other people.  Sometimes I feel as though I’ve just been hugged when I talk to them.

Among other beautiful details, they picked gorgeous wedding music.  David Lee and I both got to sing and it was gloriously fun again.  “Father, We Are Here,” “Canon of Praise,” “Whither Thou Goest,” “Festival Hosanna,” “Set Me As A Seal,” “Alleluia” (the one by John Zaumeyer), and “Edelweiss” (bet you didn’t expect that one) which someone (?maybe Jotham) wrote other words for.

I watched Treva and Tury and Ginni and remembered how it felt to be the sister-of the bride.  Laughter.  Tears.  Hugs.  And then, sort of like one more little memory jog, Ginni and James announced their engagement today (much like Christy and Steve announced theirs at our wedding).  Right now I wish I could go hang out in my old room with Christy and Beth and eat chips with co-jack cheese melted over top and lots of jalapenos and discuss the world at large for an hour.

The heat of the afternoon sun makes it hard to believe now; but this morning’s photo shoot made me think of apple dumplings and pumpkin pie!  My Sister-in-law, Jo, wanted some pictures with her boys and her sister, Julia.  The boys were so funny this morning.  It was like they’d decided to switch personalities.  Usually Elliot grins at everyone and moves all over the place.  This morning he barely cracked a smile.  Evan, on the other hand is going to be a perfectionist I am convinced.  He watches to make sure everything is ok and saves his true smiles for the people he loves.  But this morning, almost anything was funny!  As all moms know, babies are cute, sweet and totally unpredictable!

  Jo told me today that people sometimes think she and Julia look like twins.  “Sisters, yes,” I thought to myself, “but not twins.”  Now on the pictures I see more resemblance.  Now I can’t wait to go to these little guy’s birthday party!

Part of what makes a three-year-old so funny is that you never know what to expect next.  I was working in the kitchen; but half of me was listening to Adam’s delightful rendition of church.  He was both the song leader and the preacher and apparently had been the usher because he’d designated certain people to certain chairs.  I helped sing, “Round the walls of Jericho,” and, “Jesus went about doing good,” and listened to stories about the children of Israel crossing the Red Sea.  Finally I decided to actually become part of the audience.  Adam was radiant.  “Good to have all of you here,” he said.  “Turn in your song books to number 129.”  I flipped through Mother Goose to what I assumed was the correct page.  He shuffled around in his pocket, produced a pitch pipe, and began directing, “Old McDonald had a Farm.”

  It’s all history except for the memories …. and how I love those memories!  David Lee and I have been saving what we call our “extra money” for close to five years.  Whenever we earned money outside of either of our regular jobs, it went into the “travel fund.”  The bulk of it came from wedding photography we’ve done together and I did some sewing and baking for a few years.  At long last the balance finally amounted to something substantial enough to let us go for a week.  (This day definitely came sooner because David Lee started getting paid vacation this year!) 

After spending a year building a house, it didn’t take long to decide that all we wanted to do was relax at the beach for a whole week!  We opted for September for two reasons. 

1. The crowds would have diligently taken their children back to school and

2. the houses would cost considerably less.  

Never in my life can I remember being on such a deserted beach.  It was like having the miracle of the ocean to yourself!  My favorite memories include peering out the french doors in our bedroom as soon as I opened my eyes to see the sunrise above the waves, lazy walks along the beach to find sea shells, jumping the waves, watching Adam run and giggle until he was exhausted, and best of all being with David Lee almost every minute of every day.  I’d go again tomorrow if we could! 

My sister and family joined us for the weekend.  Is spite of the dire predictions for grey skies and rain, we had the warmest, calmest, sunniest day of the entire week on Saturday!  And just as I hoped the skies grew grey again Sunday morning making it much, much easier to say goodbye.  We had two very grey, cool days during the week and they aren’t the kind of days that make you want to live at the beach for the rest of your life!

If I had to sum it up in one word, I’d say idyllic.

A whole new yard, well, almost.  Early this Spring right after we seeded our grass we had torrential rains that created unlovely gullies in our “yard.”  The grass didn’t do so well and with our pathetic well and sprinkler that broke every time Goldi knocked it over, we didn’t water much.  What existed was patchy grass, a lot of weeds, and ditches.  No wonder since we had precious little top soil. 

Other than the front yard, the project basically started over only this time we did a better job.  David Lee cleared brush under the trees to create a nicer transition from yard to brushy woods.  Eric came with the front loader and smoothed out gullies, re-shaped areas under the trees and spread five tractor trailer dump loads of top soil. 

Saturday was the big day.  Final raking, seeding, fertililzing, and “strawing”.  The place looks hopeful now.  If we see green instead of yellow in two or three weeks, we’ll all be jumping up and down!  Adam completely amazed me.  It was unseasonably hot for September, I thought and the guys were soon hot and tired.  Adam seemed not to notice and fairly swaggered at being big enough to work with the men.  He started spreading straw around 10:30 when I did.  I expected him to peeter out in ten minutes and opt to do something else; but he kept right on going.  At 11:30 I went in to get lunch then stayed inside since I had a photo shoot in Charlottesville at 5 and some things to do to get ready for that.    Adam headed right back out to spread more straw, throw sticks on the brush pile, and ride tractor with “Pa Beachy.”  Mike and Pa Beachy went home around 4, absoloutely whipped from the heat and the dust.  Ismael showed up around 2 and was still going strong as were David Lee and Adam.  When I returned with pizza at 7 there were at least 20 bales of straws on the trailer; but the seeding and fertilizing was done.  David Lee felt (and looked) totaled.  He wasn’t hungry and said he wasn’t sure he was going to finish.  I still had energy since I hadn’t worked on it much so I said I’d spread straw after supper.  (Meanwhile I kept making sideways glances to convince myself they really were as dirty as they appeared.  Both David Lee and Adam started the morning out with white shirts which were now brown and every crease and pore seemed to have turned that color as well.)

Apparently the pizza revived him somewhat and the three of us and Ismael headed back out.  Adam was crawling around on the trailer when he spotted me down the hill, spreading straw. 

“Sweetie,” he yelled.  I looked up in time to see him scramble off the trailer and start racing down the hill towards me.  “Sweetie,” he kept yelling.  Finally he got to me and in all seriousness he said, “Sweetie, you should not be doing this job.  This is just a daddy job.”

Congratulations are in order!  David Lee’s brother Darius and his lovely girlfriend, Ro, are getting married!  So exciting!

L – O – V – E spells LOVE!