This is the church, this is the steeple

The tornadoes down South have claimed many lives and loss of property this week.  One of my MT friends mentioned that her home church had been destroyed.  I know well the gut feeling of loss folks have when they hear such news about a piece of property that has made a difference in their lives.  As I mentioned last week, I am blogging for 4 weeks on losses of places - the places that have meant so much to me that it is hard to imagine this earth without their presence.  Last week, it was my alma mater, Lambuth.  This week, it is my home church, Harris Memorial Methodist (later United Methodist) Church.

Above is a bulletin cover, the one I grew up with for so many years.  Harris Memorial was located in inner city Memphis.  It was our home away from home.  With our dad being choir director and mom a Sunday School teacher for years, we were there at every service, Sunday mornings, Sunday evenings, and Wednesdays for choir practice.  With our dad also on the Board, we were there for church meetings.  We were there for Vacation Bible school for a week every summer.  And if that were not enough, we usually stopped by every Saturday with our parents to clean up the pews and replace hymnals in their little holders.  We helped Daddy retrieve choir anthems from the file, take out the anthems from the past few Sundays, and put new ones in their folios.   Harris Memorial was really our home away from home.

Here is a picture of Daddy holding me in front of the church when I was 3 months old:

And a later picture with both my parents:

I have vivid memories of growing up in that church, because back in the '50s, everyone dressed to the nines for services.  Women wore gloves and hats.  At Easter the fashion was intensified, of course, and everything seemed to have a special sparkle and energy.  Every Easter my sister and I got new clothes - I mean ALL new clothes, including underwear and socks and shoes.   New clothes for us was a rare enough occasion that going all out on Easter just made it even more exciting.  When we got to church, we knew that an incredible view awaited us.  Mrs. Grogan, a family friend, took it upon herself to personally decorate the front of the church for Easter morning, with satin drapes, flowers, and tons of Easter lilies.  It was beautiful, and every year it was different.  The whole atmosphere was glorious.  We got to sing the great Easter hymns, and then in the afternoon, we returned to church for a special choir concert (which took the place of the usual evening service).  Sometimes it was a cantata (one long piece of music).  Other times, it was what Daddy called "a mixed-up program" - various anthems he selected to trace the Lent/Easter story, always ending with, of course, the Hallelujah Chorus, where the entire congregation would join the choir in standing.   Those were extraordinary moments that were made possible by extraordinary planning and hard work by our small choir, the one called "the best little choir in Memphis."  Of course, we had the best director!

As my sister Joy and I got older, we made close friendships with the other children in church, many friendships which we maintain to this day.   We especially had a lot of fun on Wednesday night during choir practice, before we were old enough to join the choir ourselves.  We stayed in the Fellowship Hall, supervised by another Mrs. Grogan (the mother-in-law of the Easter decorator), an elderly lady who, I'm sure, was exceedingly bored with having to watch over and reprimand a bunch of boisterous kids who wanted to get into all sorts of trouble, kids who really wanted to play with volleyballs, which made her distraught and anxious because she was always worried we would knock the ceiling lights out.

When Joy and I became of age, we joined the choir, under Daddy's directorship.  The choir room was a small room at the back of the church on the right side as you faced the altar.  I can remember all the ladies taking their hats off and putting them on the shelf, where there was a long mirror so they would fix their hair and make sure their robes were properly positioned.  The sanctuary sloped towards the front, and therefore the choir room had to slope too, so when I ventured forth to the tiny dark bathroom at the end of the choir room, I felt I probably could have gone faster by sitting down and sliding.  Women even left their purses in the choir room - ah, those were the days one didn't worry about people coming in and stealing anything.  There was a red light near the door, and when that light flashed, that meant the organist, Sam, had finished his prelude and was ready for the processional.  Show time!

Before church, of course, there was Sunday School, which involved annual promotions, a certificate, sometimes a new Bible, and then maybe a move to a new room and new teacher.

We met so many interesting people at church, and most of them in my eyes were the old people.  I've always been fascinated with old people, and many times in my life, I have been much more comfortable in the presence of the elderly than in the presence of my peers.  We had one old man who gave away Wrigley gum to the kids.  We had one old lady who always kept a cushion in "her pew."  (Most congregants sat in the same place every Sunday, and we could tell at a glance who was absent by noting the empty places.)  Our favorite old lady was Mrs. Perry.  She was a feisty widow who sat on the second row, gave us nickels to put in the offering, and every once in a while would let me wear her fox stole - yes, with the head and other parts still on it - which at the time I thought was kind of exotic, but now would make me nauseated.   We picked her up for church and took her home.  She lived in one of those big old houses in a poor neighborhood.  It was dark and dank and smelled horrible - for she was the quintessential "cat lady," with cats and kittens running amock, and to this day I wonder if she even had a litter box.  But she was the nicest person.  She always gave us a birthday card, and sometimes made us a cake.  Her only request was that when we sent her a birthday card or get-well card, that we sign it in pencil, so she could erase our name and reuse the card for someone else; her heart was big, but her budget was small.

All our ministers were old as well.  Brother Fletcher was an older man who at one point was trying desperately to increase attendance at the Sunday night service.  He decided to issue a challenge.  If the congregation managed to get a certain number of attendees at a Sunday night service, Brother Fletcher said he would stand at the pulpit and sing - yes, sing - the new hit Beatles song "I Wanna Hold Your Hand."  Of course, we met the challenge, as that was too good to miss.  He obliged, too, swaying and singing right up there at the pulpit.  It was such an incongruous sight that I probably would be thinking I had dreamt it, were it not for its presence in Daddy's home movies.

One year, the church celebrated its 100th anniversary with a huge celebration and return of former members and music and special guests, and we started wondering who our next minister would be.  (The United Methodist Church has an itinerant ministry, appointed every June, and a church may have a minister for a minimum of a year up to several years, then be appointed a new one.)   The neighborhood surrounding the church had deteriorated, some public housing had sprung up, we were surrounded by poor people, and it was obvious Harris Memorial was turning into a real urban inner city church with a mission of outreach.  It was time for a younger pastor, someone with vision and energy and along came Joe.  The youth, by this time adolescents and teenagers, were mesmerized.  He was the first minister we had ever seen in shorts.   He was the first minister we had ever seen who played volleyball.  He had a young wife and babies.  He even dressed up for a costume party! Harris Memorial would never be the same.  Joe Pennel left after a few years.  He eventually became a bishop.

The church declined further. Congregants died or moved away or decided to go to churches nearer their homes.   Crime increased in the area.  The church building became used for mission work during the week and became a neighborhood center Monday through Friday.  The congregants tried their best to invite the area residents to attend the church, but not much became of it, and after a while, it was painfully obvious the church had to close its doors.   As sad as it was, it called for another celebration, and that had to include food, for, as Daddy used to say, Methodists never gather without eating, and so we had a huge service and meal, inviting back all former members, pastors, and guests.  So many former choir members came that the choir loft was bursting at the seams.  It was a bittersweet day.  One piece of trivia that was mentioned was the fact that Ed and I were the last couple to be married in the church.

Here is a scene from our wedding in 1974 when the sun burst through the beautiful stained glass window in the front of the sanctuary:

Our parents were also married in that church in 1942.

The building closed as a site of a worshipping congregation and was taken over by the United Methodist Neighborhood Centers, continuing the mission of outreach in that needy area.  But at least we still had the building there at the corner, the one we remembered from all those years, with its big stained glass windows and towering steeple and precious memories.

Then one day came the horrible news.  During renovation/painting work, a paint can apparently caught fire overnight and the church had burned down.  When I saw it, it looked like a bombed-out building from WWII.  Before the remains were totally demolished, some people salvaged some smoky-smelling bricks for posterity, and one woman salvaged some stained glass and made wind chimes to sell with proceeds going to the Neighborhood Center.  Even in death, Harris Memorial was giving back.

The congregation (who, as we all know, is the real church, not the building) is still close and keeps in touch.  There was, in fact, a reunion just a few years ago, where people could come share their memories.  But more congregants are dying every year, and so many first-witness accounts are dying with them.  The babies baptized in that church became little kids who slept on towels during Vacation Bible School, became bigger kids who played during choir practice and went to Lakeshore camp for a couple of weeks every summer, became adolescents who were wowed by a preacher who was younger than 70, became teenagers who became lifelong friends - and they are now in their 50s, and time, as it is prone to do, marches on.

It's been decades, yet I still can't get over the fact that that building is not there anymore.  I find it sad that our generation will be the last generation to remember what that church was like - the Easters, the Christmases, the potluck suppers, the music, the weddings and funerals and everything that made growing up there such a remarkable time in our lives.  After we are gone, the stories will be relegated to obscure history books, maybe some tales being passed down within families, and some randomly written down as I have done today.  I realize this post is exceptionally long, and I'm not really recording these words for anyone but me and the others who want to remember what it was like to be at the corner of Seventh Street and Looney in Memphis, Tennessee, on any given Sunday morning years and years ago.

RIP, Harris Memorial United Methodist Church.

The losses build

When one thinks about aging, one has to consider loss in all its forms.  You just can't escape that inevitable fact of life.  The physical losses alone would fill a library:  Loss of balance and coordination, loss of hearing, loss of vision, loss of hair, loss of skin elasticity, loss of height, loss of memory, loss of bone density....you know the list.  But forget the physical representations of aging for a moment.  There are the devastating "people" losses - those times when loved ones leave.  Death is the major reason, of course, but there are others: Divorce, kids growing up and moving out, family moving far away, loved ones who have developed dementia, friends who seemingly have dropped off the face of the earth, to name a few.  In each case, the status quo has had an earthquake, and things will never be the same again.

Relationship change, either through death or other means, is probably the most traumatic of the losses in stability, but changes/destruction/closing of important places in our lives can contribute to our overwhelming sense of loss as well.

I had an incredibly satisfying and happy childhood.  I have lots of places in my mind that bring back fond memories, from the corner neighborhood grocery store to the Main Public Library in Memphis, both of which are either gone or so transformed and rebuilt that my memories of "the way things used to be" remain frozen in time but not in present reality.

We like same; we like familiar; we like routine; we like stability.  Yes, I've heard of (even known) some folks who thrive on change and that adrenaline rush, who can't stay in one place because boredom sets in so quickly, who if they had to live my life would develop cobwebs within one week.  But I still think the majority of us are comforted by sameness up to a point.  We want people, places, and things, if they are comforting to us and hold treasured memories, to always be the same.  Unwelcome changes bring confusion and frustration.  But....life evolves, as its DNA demands.

I had some news last week that upset me.  Some of you may remember that I only went to college for one year, as I learned quickly that at that time in my life, college just wasn't a good fit for me.  I have always loved learning, but I was ready for something other than formal education, and wanted to stretch my learning in the music part of the equation and forget the math and science part for a while, which you just can't do if want to earn a college degree.  But that one year, my total higher education career, was spent at Lambuth College in Jackson, Tennessee.  It was a small private liberal arts college, almost like an overgrown high school (one of its nicknames was Lambuth High).  Its campus was a lovely Georgian architecture style and its dorm curfews were strict.  Most people outside of Tennessee had never heard of its existence.  Sometimes by word of mouth or by its affiliation with the Methodist Church, a non-Tennessee student would show up (my roommate was from Shelter Island, New York, lured to Lambuth by a close friend from her hometown, God only knows how her friend ever got there in the first place!), but on the whole, we were all fairly Southern kids, at least in my time.

At one point years later, Lambuth decided to become a University, which kind of diluted its specialness and strength, I think, and down the road, got into financial troubles, may have overextended in areas, ran out of money, was denied accreditation, and last week the Board of Directors voted to close the school.  Its beautiful campus may be continued as a seat of higher learning, maybe under the auspices of University of Memphis, maybe not.  Nobody knows.  The only sure thing is there will not be a Lambuth College or Lambuth University in a few weeks.  A place I always assumed would be there will be gone forever.

This has happened to me before, of course.  There are three other important places in my life that have disappeared or are about to, and each one deserves it own blog post which it will receive in the coming weeks, but this week, my mind has been consumed with Lambuth.  It is a wonder it bothers me at all, since I only was there one year, but bother me it does.  For one thing, I met two lifelong friends there, one who maintained the relationship until last year when she had a traumatic experience and has disappeared, and the other, with whom I had lost contact for decades until I tracked her down a few years ago and renewed our wonderful, close friendship.  It was at Lambuth I learned so much about music.  My amazing teacher, Dr. Jo Fleming, introduced me to the pipe organ, and I was hooked.  My voice teacher, Mr. Coulter,  taught me arias, including my favorite to this day, Un Bel Di.  My theory teacher, Mr. Brown, showed me how hymns and chorales were built, how the transitions between chords occurred, all the technical things about music I had never realized.  My speech teacher, Mrs. Whetstone, showed me how much fun it could be to give speeches in front of an audience.  My English teacher, Dr. Mayo, instilled in me a lifelong fear of the word "nice" - saying it should never be used because it doesn't really convey anything.  (Of course, I made sure that year to find a birthday card for him that said "Have a Nice Birthday.")

Lambuth was also my first introduction to a Yankee, Ginny Jernick, from Shelter Island, New York, my roommate. She taught me the word "soda" for Coke.  The only other words for carbonated beverages I had ever heard were "soft drink" from my dad, and my Aunt Bessie from Missouri said, "Pop."  I remember one of the first days of college, Ginny said something about a soda machine in one of the buildings.  The only sodas I had ever heard of were ice cream sodas, and I was confused but understandably overjoyed at the news.  I was suddenly seeing the South from the eyes of a Northerner and got another kind of education in that way.  Ginny didn't like Lambuth, was homesick, and left after the first semester, so I roomed alone for the remainder of the year.

That one year was the first time I had ever lived away from home, a learning experience in itself.  I had only lived in one house, gone to one school from 1st grade through 12th, had only attended one church my whole life up to that point, always sharing a bedroom with my sister.  This was a major adjustment.

Finally, Lambuth introduced me to Ed, my future husband.  There was only a small window of opportunity for us to meet.  He was in and out of college between farming and serving in Vietnam.  I was only there for one year.  But he had a car, and my friends and I didn't, so he agreed to drive us to the ice cream joint one night and before long, despite the concerns of my friends who worried about the dubious wisdom of a relationship between a smoking, divorced drunk and a sheltered, church-going, nonsmoking teetotaler 8 years his junior, things evolved, we went through years of hell intermixed with happiness, and now in August we will have been married for 37 years.  I owe my marriage to Lambuth, and my children and grandchildren owe their very existence to Lambuth.

So my one year at Lambuth had a profound effect on my life. I was there in a pivotal point in my personal growth, and Lambuth changed me forever.  Since I heard the news, I have been thinking over the other places in my past I have lost or am losing, and it is taking a great deal of effort to come to terms with it all.

RIP, Lambuth.

The Glory Days

When I was having high school angst in the late '60s and early '70s, to cheer me up my mom would occasionally say, "These are the best years of your life!"  Of course, I had such a horrible time in high school (not at home) in many ways that that saying only depressed me.  I thought, These are the best days and things will go downhill from here??!!  I hated the way I looked, hated to be told what to read and write, hated my shyness, and wished I could sing better, play piano better, write better, look better, and interact better with my peers.

Here I am in 2011 to again refute my mom's premise.  I still look back on high school with distaste.  However, it tempted me to ask myself this week, What are the best years of my life?  Are they in the past, or are they yet to come, or are they both?

This is one of the perils of growing older and having completed over half one's life.  Nostalgia mixed with regret mixed with disappointment mixed with elation mixed with fear - the latter being mainly that I fear The Glory Days are over.

In my one year of college, I learned how to play the pipe organ.  I was fortunate enough to attend a church in Memphis that had a beautiful pipe organ and I got to play it many times, even substituting for services.  What an experience on a magnificent machine!  Both hands, both feet going different directions, changing stops and volume, sometimes having to direct a choir at the same time - man, that was exhilarating!  I haven't touched a pipe organ in over a decade. Many churches nowadays are moving away from pipe organs, as they are expensive to buy and maintain.  I also have been working on Sundays for years now, so I haven't even heard a pipe organ in a long time.  I fear my pipe organ Glory Days are gone.

The picture above was taken at a dinner theater at that church when I was playing Fanny Brice.  This was probably the time I was more comfortable in my own skin.  I was certainly brave enough to go on stage and sing in front of audiences.  It's one thing to be comfortable growing up singing in church, straightforward music with which I was familiar in an equally familiar setting, but wearing that flapper dress, singing a torch song like "My Man" was a different story.  One of the hardest things in life is to put oneself out there to be watched and judged - but to try it and be successful is euphoric.

I don't sing much anymore, certainly not publicly.  I'll sing for family funerals, but that's about it.  I miss it.  My singing Glory Days appear to be gone.

I have other hobbies - quilting and sewing, for instance - in which I used to be prolific and now it seems I have the will and desire, but just don't have the energy I used to have in order to create the countless number of items I want and need to make.  Are my quilting and sewing Glory Days over?

Of course, needless to say, age and gravity takes it toll on the appearance in every way possible.  I'm pretty much assured my appearance Glory Days are over!  I've never known women to look better in their 50s than in their 30s, LOL, but hey, that's just the natural way of things.

I constantly reassure myself that I have grown since that picture was taken.  I may not be playing organ and singing in shows, but I have made a few beautiful quilts and a few pieces of clothing.  I have written many off-the-wall poems and some pretty serious blogs.  I overcame a paralyzing fear of flying and I learned medical transcription and even passed the certification test.  In the process of my living my life since 1954, I have also helped raise two compassionate, intelligent, talented, productive, mannerly children who are now raising their own kids.  They are adults now and on their own, though.  I still wonder, Are my Glory Days as mother over?

This introspection has taken over my life this week.  I guess at a certain age, one looks backwards more than forwards.  One sees the hourglass with more sand on the bottom than the top, and can't help but wonder if any Glory Days lie ahead, or if instead, the Glory Days fell to the bottom with the sand and now just serve as warm memories.

Oh, I've read that list of how so many famous people "came into their own" at an older age - and that can be quite inspirational - but still the doubt is there.  As I think about my almost 88-year-old mom, who, having lived a good life raising her family with love and care, now spends all her time sitting watching TV, so bored, surviving on hearing about the grandkids/greatgrandkids, talking about the weather and what's for supper - I question my own existence and future.  My mission is not just to survive, but to thrive until my very last breath.  I want to always have a vision, a purpose, a guiding drive to make the years to come ones of satisfaction, joy, creation, learning, and teaching.  I refuse to accept the fact that my Glory Days are behind me.  Glory Days are part luck, part work, part talent, part vision, and just part of the evolution of life.  They have no time limit and no expiration date.  There is still, I hope, plenty of sand in the top of the hourglass, and I vow to make the best of it.  Rejoicing in the blessings of the past, delighting in the blessings of the present, and looking forward to the blessings of the future - that's my vision for the old Glory Days and the Glory Days yet to come.

Be vicarious with me!

Need to relax? Smile? Ponder? Or just sit and stare in awe?  Have I got the sites for you!

I know time it precious to us all, and my major problem with time is the myriad of blogs and sites on the Internet that I follow.  Words are important to me, and I love reading what other people have written, but alas, that takes time and time is what I seem to lack these days.  I try, but I'll never read everything on the Internet that I would like to read.

Enter.....photographs.  Ah, yes, now photos don't take much time to enjoy.  They are just placed before me in all their splendor and glory.  No arguments, no typos, no speed-reading - just pictures.  There is a gracious lady who lives on Prince Edward Island in Canada who takes the most unusual and beautiful photographs of her environment and posts them on the net for all to see.  Almost every photo is worthy of its own calendar or postcard.  I've never been to PEI, but I'd like to go one day, and until then, I visit vicariously through her.  Her eye for detail, light and shadow, and her ability to catch nature at just the right moments is incredible.

So this week, I thought I'd share these favorite sites with you.  It will only take a moment of your time to view some of her photos, and if you are like me, you will feel honored to share in her amazing world - a world of nature, color, beauty, humor, and contrasts.

An Island Walk


Photos and Pursuits


Pictures and Pursuits

The Ultimate Control

Those who read my blog are well aware that I have a guiding prayer for my life - the Serenity Prayer.  "Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change (control) , the courage to change (control) the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."  I add the word control because I think that is the essence of the prayer, and I'm speaking from one who has a problem with control, or specifically, inability to deal with being out of it.

Take the weather, for instance.  Today we are expecting a spring snowstorm with wind gusts to 50 mph to dump 6-12 inches of snow on us.  Can I control that? Nope.  I just think it's lucky we haven't put away the shovels yet.  The reason I was successful in calming my fear of flying a few years ago is that I was able to realize and accept the fact that when I am up there in that plane, I am totally out of control, and whatever happens happens, and I can do nothing to change it.  I'm always trying to identify and tame my desire to control.  (Hmm...trying to control the desire to control...is there something weird about that?)

My blog readers are also probably aware that I am mildly obsessed with death and greatly obsessed with correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation.  Add those things to the word control and that's a powerful combination, as I discovered this week.

An acquaintance of ours died a few days ago.  We did not know this woman well, but I was aware she had passed away and I made sure to read her obituary.  To give you some background, this woman had spent her whole career as a high school and university English teacher.  She also taught poetry and writing and had contributed to literary journals.  Her obituary was long (as most are up here in Maine) and detailed.  Here is the sentence that took my breath away:  "She was baptized in 1941 in the United Methodist Church and maintained the church's values and principals her whole life."


Major ouch!  To have this distinguished English teacher stuck with "principals" instead of "principles" in her obituary for the ages?  How I feel for her!  


You see, what happens to you after you die is the ultimate out-of-control situation.  You may record what you want on your tombstone, you may write your own obituary, you may hope that your life will be perceived as worthwhile and your journey on Earth a generous one, but in the end, all that is out of your reach.  Presidents, for example, are always wondering what their "legacies" will be.  You can't even control what people think of you while you're alive, much less dead.  You can make plans, but it is at the discretion of the survivors whether or not to carry them out. Even Elizabeth Taylor, bless her soul, made arrangements to arrive fashionably later at her own funeral as one final act of control.  The family fulfilled her request.  Your funeral service (for those who choose to have one; many in Maine don't) is an area where you can make plans for favorite hymns and that sort of thing, but there is something unique about the importance of the obituary as the final written testament to one's life.   Now I'm paranoid about having a typo or similar error in my obituary.


I wrote my own obituary before my first plane ride a few years ago (I said I'm more relaxed, not unprepared!), but I am wise enough to know that what is done with that, added or subtracted, revised, or otherwise changed is out of my control once I'm gone.  And I'm OK with that.  All I ask is PLEASE, have someone proof the thing before it's printed in the newspaper.  There are several astute people up to the task - my friend Sally in California, or Audrey in Memphis, or Dr. Annie, my friend in Michigan, or Joy, my amazing sister - better yet, have the teachers in the family look it over too - the more the better.  That's what e-mail is for, folks - for fast communication.  It can be done.  


Today is April Fool's Day and we are getting a snowstorm joke played on us by Mother Nature herself.  She will have the last laugh while we patiently (or not so patiently) await the arrival of the Spring that the calendars assure us is here already.  My husband, with his wacky sense of humor, may think a spelling error in my obituary would be a funny joke, too.  Don't let it happen!  My self-written obituary as of this date has been scoured for possible errors, and I find none.  Please keep it that way.  Thank you.

The Disconnect

I'm sure we all have had experiences where our thinking was disconnected from, say, common sense and reality. Much of this involves risks and consequences. When you're young and want a tan, you have a disconnect about melanoma and wrinkles. When you avoid brushing and flossing your teeth, you have a disconnect about how unappealing it is to see the dentist. People who smoke and drink excessively have temporary memory loss of what it means to get lung cancer, liver disease, or a ticket for OUI. You know that eating junk is going to lead to ill health and will eventually show up on the scale, but you focus on the immediate pleasure. For some reason, human logic and calculation is undermined when the temptation of the moment is strong.

Some of this, I think, ironically is just self preservation and protection. If you really and truly realized the risks and consequences of what you were doing, your emotions would probably explode with the horrible understanding. It is also human nature to want to minimize pain and maximize pleasure, concentrating on the here-and-now pleasure as opposed to future pain.

Nowhere is this more apparent than when we talk about death - or don't talk about it. I was listening to a financial show on public radio a few weeks ago in which some experts were debating the necessity of buying long-term health care insurance, e.g., nursing home insurance. After much discussion, basically the recommendation came down to this: How long do you think you will live and how healthy do you think you will be?

I don't know a whole lot of people who like to sit around and wonder at what age they will die. It's not something high on the "feel good" list of things to daydream about. We don't like to think about our own deaths and we certainly don't like to think about deaths of those we love. And there's the disconnect. Our brains tell us that these things will happen, but if we seriously thought about the reality of it, our emotions would overpower us and we would end up angry, depressed, anxious, or even emotionally paralyzed.

I remember when Ed was at the bed of a dying AIDS patient in Tennessee. They had several discussions about what was to come, what to expect, fear, loss, pain, disappointment - the works. I remember Ed telling the young man, "You know, I'm going to die too. The only difference is, you know when it's coming for you."

It seems in the last few years, I've had some female friends die who I thought would be here forever. You know the kind - independent, sassy, overcoming-all-odds people. You can't imagine the world without their presence. These were strong women, all involved in music and highly talented, who would, I thought, would just each shake their fist at Death and say, "Not for me, buddy!" But it didn't happen. They lived long, productive lives (in one case, however, cut short), made so much a difference in their world, but Death finally took them and never once asked me for my opinion about the matter.

This week, my daughter-in-law's Gram died, and also my sister's dog Abbey died. Both were old, both had long, energetic, fruitful lives surrounded by people who loved them, and both were such presences that their families can't fathom a world without them. I remember I felt that way when my best friend, Bernie, died at age 49. I remember thinking several times that I needed to call her to tell her something, then it crushed me to remember she had passed on. Same thing with my wonderful dad - your parents gave you life and love - they will always be here....won't they? People (and pets) like these are so much a part of us that you just know they will be here forever. You've never known life without their love and care, and you can't imagine how empty and useless life will seem without their physical being here to hug and touch and talk to.

Death has been called The Great Equalizer, but it can also be called The Great Disconnect - and not because it disconnects us from our loved ones, but because when viewing death, we have a habit of disconnecting our brains from reality. But in my heart, I believe there is another reality. I believe that the souls of these people and pets live on, that Death is not the final answer, and that that love cannot die, even when the physical body has left us. Sure, it hurts to love when things like this happen, but this is the way life works. Memories are precious and healing. I think that is one of the cruelties of Alzheimer's and other dementias: They take away the victim's ability to recognize loved ones, and they erase all their beautiful memories that make her/him a human being.

I wish somehow as a society we could look upon Death as something natural, not necessarily welcome (but in some cases, it is), but inevitable. Death gives us a great gift. Knowing it will come, it makes life all the more precious, gives us realization that life itself is a fragile commodity, gives us the desire to define our legacy, and give us an opportunity to form and cherish the belief that it doesn't have the last word.

South Meets North

This June will mark our transplant anniversary - we moved to Maine from Tennessee 15 years ago this June. I can remember when we first told friends and family that we were moving. Half the people thought we were crazy and the other half said it sounded like a marvelous adventure for us. So what has it turned out to be?

A little bit of both, I think! The move definitely changed the course of our lives, as both our children married native Mainers and are raising their kids here. Rachel still has somewhat of a southern accent, as she was 18 when we moved, but Matt has lost his southern accent, as he was only 13 and his developing teenage years were spent up north. (He doesn’t sound like a Mainer; he just doesn’t have much of an accent at all.) Rachel’s husband Chris swears that when they fly to Memphis, the minute the pilot makes the “Welcome to Memphis” announcement, her southern drawl gets significantly more pronounced.

I’ve had to field a lot of questions in these last 15 years. What are the differences in Maine and Tennessee, and how much of a culture shock was it? What do I miss about the South and what have I been relieved to abandon?

Well, of course, my family first and foremost was the treasure I left behind, and I miss them every single minute. On top of that, after Mom’s car accident, she moved in with my sister, Joy, and I have had to watch Joy maneuver through that major change in her life without being able to help as I would like. Distance is a quite a barrier. Thank God for the telephone and Internet.

What differences have I encountered? Most men don’t wear suits and most women don’t wear dresses. In Tennessee cities, even small towns where we lived at various times, I would see men in suits every day. Doctors, lawyers, businessmen, salesman, church attendees - I do love a man in a suit. Here, I think I think I’ve seen two suits - one on a drug representative at the hospital where I work, and the other on a lawyer in court when I was on jury duty. Casual is the dress code of the Maine lifestyle. In most offices elsewhere, “casual Friday” is too dressed up for where we live now. Part of this is, of course, due to the lack of big cities, and another part is due to the weather conditions. In winter, the whole idea is to stay warm, and one dresses to accommodate that need, regardless of how unkempt it appears. The roads are a mess all winter with salt and sand, and in the spring, it all turns to mud. I get dirty just getting in and out of the car. Then, you have to realize that air conditioning is not ubiquitous up here. Most homes and some businesses lack it (including our house), and so when it gets hot (and it does for a few weeks every summer), you again dress just to stay cool, not for fashion.

It’s normal to see pickups with plows attached all winter. It’s normal to see seagulls in parking lots. It’s normal to hear the “tides” times given in the weather forecast. It’s normal to read in the local newspaper long, fascinating obituaries for every single deceased person, most of the time accompanied by a photograph. It’s normal to have snow piled up in yards and driveways that won’t be gone entirely until late April or May. It’s normal to read newspaper summaries of annual town meetings for every town, no matter how small, detailing every discussion and every debate and every vote. It’s normal to have schools open with 2 feet of snow in the school yard (that’s because the municipalities clear the highways and roads quickly). It’s normal to read the police log not for murders or armed robberies but for cows loose in the road and neighbor disputes. In Tennessee, it makes you tired to think of traveling the state from west to east, but in Maine, it makes you tired thinking of traveling north to south.

We don’t miss the tornadoes or the endless thunderstorms. We miss the moderate spring temps (it is still freezing here at night) and miss the early spring flowers. We certainly do get used to single digit temperatures in the winter, and, of course, the snow is lovely, but hard work as well. But in the summer, when Memphis has days and days of 100-degree-plus temperatures, we are basking in the 70s and low 80s, so there are advantages! The beauty of both Tennessee and Maine are legendary, and well deserved. We live within a short walk to one of the many Maine bays. It’s hard not to enjoy that! You appreciate spring more after a hard winter, and, of course, the fall foliage is incredible.

A lot of people are very reserved in Maine. Most people like to keep to themselves. You’re not a real Mainer, we’ve been told, until your mother’s mother was born in Maine. They call people who move here “from away,” and no matter how long you’ve been here, you’ll always have that moniker.

And, of course, there’s the language. We say tennis shoes, they say sneakers. We say housecoats, they say robes. We say houseshoes, they say slippers. We say washrags, they say washcloths. They have unusual words like “wicked” (very) and “cunnin’” (cute) and phrases like “right out straight” (stressed to the max). They put R’s in words that don’t have them (“warsh” for “wash”) and take R’s out that are supposed to be there (“lobstah”). Caroline and Charlotte know that my sister in Memphis is “Ant” Joy, and their northern dad’s sisters are “Awnts.” Coke is soda, of course. You have to order “iced” tea or they bring you hot tea. In most restaurants that have sweet tea, it is “sweetened” with some fruit flavor, not sugar. You have to ask for the whole phrase “cole slaw” because we have ordered plain “slaw” and they weren’t sure what we wanted.

You feel out of the loop if you’re not a big fan of the New England Patriots or the Boston Red Sox.

So, yes, it has been an adventure, scary in some parts, but on the whole, quite an exciting transition. We’ve met some wonderful people, I found a wonderful job, the kids found exceptional spouses, we love our little house on the dirt road, and we feel very blessed. We can all laugh together about our eccentricities and differences, and any conversation is likely to end with “See ya!” with a response of “Y’all be careful!” Being a transplant can be fun.

I leave you with a limerick I wrote recently for a limerick contest (but entered a couple of others instead):

We moved here to Maine where we’ll stay.

We've weathered each hardy Maine day.

Alas, it's our fate:

To the rest of the state,

We'll always be folks "from away."

Snow Job

It has been the winter of snow in our part of Maine, that’s for sure. Without a snowblower or plow at our disposal, Ed and I have used muscle-power to shovel our entire driveway and turnaround space after every storm, sometimes lifting as much as a foot of heavy, wet snow. Most of the time we do this at 4 a.m. in the dark, so I can leave for work by 5 a.m.

Scenarios like this give one a lot of time to think. The world is quiet and peaceful, with the only sounds being the hypnotic crunch of the shovel and the occasional grunt of exertion. On one such morning, gloved fingers still frozen to the bone, I had a revelation. I had been under the illusion that we were getting rid of the snow, when in fact, we were just moving it around. It would have nice to have had some kind of machine that would have melted the snow and thrown the water off somewhere, or even just evaporated the stuff, but we were only taking snow from one place and putting it in a different place. (This is why we fear any more storms this season; we have run out of places to put it.) On the surface, this seems idiotic. We have an irritant (snow) and instead of disposing of it, we just move it out of one place and into another. The obvious reason is, of course, that we have priorities, and one of those is getting me to work, and to do that, we have to clear the driveway. So we move the snow from the driveway to the side of the driveway and the adjacent yard.

I wonder how many times I have done that with other things. In a journey to simplicity, one of the first tasks is figuring out what to do with a lot of “stuff.” From my experience, these were (and still are) hard decisions - (If I get rid of it, what if I need it again one day? What if I’ll regret it?”) and the tendency is to avoid making hard decisions, so I ended up just transferring “stuff” from one place to another - maybe distributing in more boxes, taking some things to storage, getting it out of sight. I wasn’t getting rid of much; I was just moving it around. My accumulation was still weighing me down; it just wasn’t in my face so I could avoid thinking about it.

I also think humans tend to do that psychologically. If we encounter a problem that we just don’t want to have to deal with, we “transfer” it to another part of our brain and put it on hold. We’re not getting rid of the problem; we’re just moving it around like snow to convince ourselves we have done something. Of course, we have only done some rearranging and the problem has certainly not gone away (and may have gotten even bigger in the meantime).

Avoidance of the tough decisions in life is human nature. So is doing things to try to trick yourself. Next time I hear the phrase “snow job” meaning to fool someone, I’ll smile. Sometimes we have no bigger fools than ourselves.

Grammy School

My friend Sally in California announced she is expecting her second grandbaby this year. How exciting! My friend Audrey in Memphis welcomed her first grandbaby last month. I have certainly enjoyed my three grandchildren tremendously. Not only have I enjoyed them, I have been taught by them. Taught by a baby? A toddler? A kid? Yes! "Grammy School" doesn't just mean Grammy is teaching the little ones. It means Grammy becomes the student! Here's what I have learned from being a grandmother:

1. Sharing. Not between the kids - I mean my sharing with other adults - the other set of grandparents. Here's a major difference in having kids and having grandkids. Grandkids automatically come with another set of one or two grandparents. All of a sudden, I am not the one of two parents; in my case, Ed and I are two of five grandparents! Time to share, certainly. Time to recognize that as these children grow up, these other adults will hold just as special relationship with them as we do. What is it that they say about joys and sorrows? With love, sorrows are halved and joys are doubled? More grandparents means more joy for the children! Each grandparent brings his/her unique qualities to the child's life we're all adding to their cache of memories.

2. Patience. Oh, this lesson starts while the grandbaby is still in the womb. Patience to find out the gender, patience to be reassured of good health, patience to let other grandparents have their time, and patience to wait between visits. And patience leads to...

3. The necessity of butting out. I have to remember these are my grandkids, not my kids. I am not their Mama, Ed is not their Daddy, and their parents set the rules and have the last word in everything. This is the proper way to raise children.

4. Priorities. As my grandbabies grew, they began helping me with priorities, starting with my first grandchild, Caroline. Every interaction reminded me of people over things. Then when we started downsizing and simplifying, I had to reexamine my priorities, as I was bringing a toy or book to the girls on each visit. What was I showing them about consumerism and "stuff"? Could my presence actually be the more important thing than the presents? Now I concentrate more on making memories. The toys will be lost and forgotten, but their memory of Grammy playing hide-and-seek will last forever. And that brings me to....

5. The importance of playing. With your own kids, you are too busy sometimes raising them, keeping house, earning a living, etc., to spend a lot of time just playing. When you're visiting grandkids, though, that's the whole point. You're free to be a kid again. You get to smell and use those crayons and Play-Doh, try to assemble buildings out of blocks, get in a small tent and pretend a bear is outside, make a puppet show, read fairy tales, make things with glue, glitter, construction paper, stickers, and pipe cleaners, sing silly songs, look for bugs under a log, chase each other around the yard! It's easy to forget I'm 56 years old (until the next day when the more physical aspects of play wreak havoc on my old body!).

6. The legacy of pictures. Rachel and Matt grew up in the film age, and we really don't have as many photos as I would like because film and developing it was expensive, and we were having trouble making ends meet sometimes. But my grandchildren are growing up in the digital age - and that means digital pictures! Thousands of digital pictures! And yes, I am taking advantage of that. I have 26,864 digital pictures in iPhoto - how many do you think are of the grandkids? Hee hee!

7. Awe. Every moment is awe-inspiring, from the first time I cuddled with them to the times I watch them soak up the world like sponges. Watching them develop into their own personalities has been fascinating. And, of course...

8. Anticipation. What does the future hold for my little ones? My youngest, Joshua (7 months), has already won me over with his smile and laugh. I just know he has much to teach me in the future and will develop into a wonderful young man before we know it! My Charlotte (5) will spend the night with us next Friday for the very first time and I know will keep us entertained. My Caroline (7) is always surprising me with her knowledge; so much of what I try to teach her, she already knows! What's next with her? What's next with all three of them? So much to look forward to! (Not to mention sometime in the next few years, I may be calling Sally in California to tell her Matt and Sarah will be having their second baby too!)

Grammy is always a student as well as teacher. As a tribute to Grammy School, here are a few past blog posts where lessons were learned. (Most of these are from Caroline, as she has been here the longest and I had been able to document more visits with her, especially as she and her family lived with us for a couple of months when they were between houses. I expect great lessons to be learned from Charlotte and Joshua in the years to come!)

http://simplicityexperiment.blogspot.com/2005/05/precious-dandelions.html

http://simplicityexperiment.blogspot.com/2005/06/its-perfect.html

http://simplicityexperiment.blogspot.com/2005/07/toenails.html

http://simplicityexperiment.blogspot.com/2007/08/guest-blogger-today.html

http://simplicityexperiment.blogspot.com/2008/05/poor-people-project.html

http://simplicityexperiment.blogspot.com/2009/06/room-upstairs.html

Abe, of course!

I don't know if I ever took the time to blog about my hero, but since today is you-know-who's birthday, I'm going for it.

Those who know me well, even some who have known me briefly in passing, have had to deal with my obsession for our 16th President. Now, I probably know more details about the Civil War than the average person, but my interest in Lincoln was not really politics or war-related. I was always fascinated with him as a person.

It started, I think, when on a family vacation, our parents took my sister and me to Lincoln's birthplace in Hodgenville, Kentucky. Family vacations created the foundation of some of my best memories. Dad would use profit-sharing from the bank where he worked, and every summer, off the 4 of us would go, taking in as many parks and historical sites as we could in two weeks. To be able to afford these vacations, we took along a cooler full of ice and shopped local grocery stores along the way, where we would buy things like Vienna sausages, bread, baloney, milk, pork and beans, cheese, chips, fruit, juice, and Cokes for the next leg of the trip. We went everywhere, and each new place fascinated us.

Those trips instilled in me a love of history, and especially a love of Abe Lincoln, starting with his birthplace. Years later, Ed and I took our kids to the exact same monument. I assumed they would be just as passionate and excited as I had been, but, of course, the picture above says it all - if you look at Rachel. Matt, bless his heart, would have been excited to watch paint dry. Even Ed was barely tolerant. As we walked up the steps to the cabin, I was doing my usual thing of spouting trivia. "Did you know there are 56 steps here? One step for each year of his life." And what did Ed say as he huffed and puffed his way up? "I wish John Wilkes Booth had gotten to him sooner!"

Back to my childhood. We at various times visited Ford's Theatre, the Petersen House (where Lincoln died), the Lincoln Memorial, all in Washington, DC; boyhood homes in Indiana; New Salem where Lincoln lived as a young man in Illinois; Springfield, his home as an adult; Gettysburg; and, of course, Dearborn, Michigan, at the Henry Ford Museum, where you can see rocking chair in which Lincoln sat when he was assassinated. So you see, Lincoln is all over the place, and we did our best to cover the territory.

At East Elementary School in Memphis, every time we had a vocabulary lesson and had to use the assigned words in sample sentences, I made sure Mr. Lincoln was mentioned in every sentence I created. It probably drove my teachers crazy. In study hall at East High, I rarely did homework or read novels. Instead, I gravitated to the Carl Sandburg collection - 6 volumes of Lincoln's biography, and devoured every word. (One day, thanks to some generous friends, I finally owned the hardback collection myself.) I had a greater-than-lifesize poster of Abe on my wall at home, complementing my sister's pictures of Davy Jones and Bobby Sherman. I read every book about Lincoln I could find, and would occasionally even write the authors (and a few times received replies). When we had to memorize a poem in English class, I picked Lincoln's favorite ("Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?"). When I worked at a hospital in Memphis, my sister baked a stovepipe-hat shaped cake for me and my coworkers on February 12 one year. Basically, everyone knew I was addicted and seemed happy to be enablers.

Every once in a while I tried to pull the kids into my world of Lincoln, but it was rarely successful. For instance, when Matt was about 7, he was in a historical costume contest at school. Of course, I wanted him to be Lincoln, and I bought an Abe Lincoln costume pattern, cardboard stovepipe hat included, and sewed it up. We had no extra money for a fake beard, so I painted one on him with a marker. He was so cute. Unfortunately, Lincoln was a famous, popular figure, and Matt was just one of many Lincolns that day. Another boy Abe won the contest. He had bought the fake beard, darn it. I then knew what to do if that situation happened again. I would make the same suit, ditch the hat, ditch the beard, add a mustache and pistol and he'd go as John Wilkes Booth. I bet he'd be the only JWB. (This was before school security when one could take a toy pistol to school.) This incident just illuminated the frustration of having a popular hero. He's everybody's hero. Sigh. Why couldn't I have been more like my Dad, who formed a club in honor of a more obscure president, Chester A. Arthur?

Back to my past. As years went by, my fascination with all things Lincoln just increased. When we bought a house in Maine, we landed on Lincoln Street. (Coincidence, I promise!) My sister gave me a baby oak tree descended from the big oak at Lincoln's birthplace. It had a plaque and everything. Unfortunately, we had to leave it in the yard at the old Victorian house when we moved out.

I also had a cardboard standup of Lincoln that I enjoyed displaying at Halloween. And a fantastic rubber Abe mask. I think my family might have reached the limits of tolerance, though, with the salt and pepper shakers that were miniature replicas of Lincoln's tombstone. What's not to like about that?

There are many other stories about my love of Lincoln, but there's not enough time or space to write about them. Through the years, friends and family have made special efforts to present me with Lincoln-related gifts, and I have appreciated every one. Abraham Lincoln now is a part of me and I guess always will be.

I leave you with a Valentine card that I have on my desk. I have no idea where I bought it, but I loved it so much I couldn't bear to use it, so here it sits. It comes with a red envelope, and has a cartoon picture of a woman holding a white envelope, a smile on her face, hearts hovering around her head, and says, "I cannot let this season pass by without expressing my love and admiration for a wonderful, wonderful man." On the inside, it says, "HAPPY LINCOLN'S BIRTHDAY!"

Missing flaps

Some of my most precious memories involve reading books to my granddaughter Caroline. She learned to read at any early age, and now 7 years old, she is still in love with books and reads voraciously. But back when she was little, it greatly pleased her to sit with Grammy and share in the reading experience together. Like most children, she never got tired of reading the same books over and over. That drove me crazy, though I always obliged.

One of her favorites is pictured above - "Where's Nicky's Valentine?" It's a board book about a cat named Nicky who delivers valentines to his friends around the neighborhood. Each page shows another friend receiving the heart-shaped card, and on each page there is a flap for the child to lift to see what is behind it. "Who's there?" one page reads. Then Caroline would open the door flap to reveal an elderly woman, who takes the Valentine, smiles, and pets Nicky.

As with all children's books, time and tiny hands had taken a toll on its appearance. The pages, being board, had held up pretty well, but one of the flaps had been torn off on the page that says, "Who's hiding?" and you were supposed to open the flap to reveal two happy kids in bed clutching their Valentine. Except there was no flap. You could see where the flap was glued originally, but the flap itself was gone.

Now, as Caroline loved this book, we read it a lot. Each occasion presented us with the same scenario. I would read the book, and when I got to the page of "Who's hiding?" Caroline would emit a small gasp, look up at me with grave concern, point to the missing flap, and say, "Uh oh!" Then we would turn the page and finish the book without missing a beat.

I have often thought how wonderful it would be if we had the gift of acceptance that Caroline had with this book! Each time, she saw the problem, acknowledged the problem with an appropriate response, then she let it go and moved on. She didn't pretend that the defect was not there. She didn't throw the book across the room in disgust because the missing flap ruined her reading experience. She didn't even try to figure out a way to fix it. She just responded with "Uh oh!" and then proceeded to enjoy the rest of the story.

Dieting experts tell us, for instance, that people with an "all or nothing" attitude may start out well on diets, then the first mistake or dietary indiscretion throws them into a tizzy and they throw up their hands and figure they have blown it and might as well eat everything in sight. Or someone misses a few days of exercise, then, despite their previous commitment to better health, gives up on even trying. The same can be said for any attempt to change bad habits and build new ones. It can be true for MTs who get a bad line count for a day or even a week and fall into depression because they think they'll never be good enough. It can be true when life hands us any unexpected challenge, when we fail to live up to expectations, especially our own - whenever a rough patch appears and our instinctive response is to say, "What's the use?"

What if we used Caroline's example? What if we acknowledged our disappointment, allowed ourselves a moment of frustration or sadness, and then moved on to enjoy the rest of the book...the week...the trip...the holiday...the semester...the story - our story?

Sometimes all it takes is a toddler to teach us how to really enjoy life.

The Menu

Now that Rachel’s vegan-bound,

We’re looking for some common ground.

In browsing through our family tree,

Here is what pops out at me.

Veggies are a vegan “yes,”

Which sounds OK, nevertheless

They can’t be touching Rachel’s fork

If they are cooked with ham or pork.

My son-in-law enjoys the sweets

Hard to live without his treats.

Not so fond of tofu dishes;

Tasty food is what he wishes.

My son’s disgust with greens is true,

Lettuce trauma through and through.

Black-eyed peas at New Year’s fling?

Nope - brings his lunch from Burger King!

The veggies he can do without,

The meat is what he’s all about.

Sarah’s got her diet plans,

I’m not sure what she eats or bans.

Her regimen's not so off-beat,

Except she doesn’t like thick meat.

Ed and I are different, too.

We have some things that we eschew.

Avoiding carbs is our big goal,

Omit the pasta from our bowl.

Each of us is on a plan

Of which the other’s not a fan.

What will thus our menu be

The next meal for our family?

This is so hard! This is so new!

What will we cook? What will we do?

On second thought, there’s never been

A time, to my bemused chagrin,

When our illustrious varied brood

Ate every dish and every food.

We’ve always had our little quirks,

And compromised to learn what works.

I can’t predict at this point whether

Our next big meal we eat together

Will appease our every taste,

Or look to some like toxic waste.

But then, who cares? To each his own!

We eat together, not alone.

We may have more from which to choose,

Finding out whose dish is whose.

But what’s the thing we ne’er debate?

Love is served with every plate!

A vegan? In our family?

I never majored in sociology (almost did, but chose music). However, I am always interested in reading about what's going on in our culture. I can't help but notice that more and more people are shying away from marriage, even to the point of having children in an unwed/nonlegal relationship, and the divorce rate is still about 50%. Now some folks will immediately delve into the morality of all this, but that's not what I'm interested in. I'm intrigued about why marriage is so difficult. I will have been married for 37 years this August, so I have a little experience on my side here.

Two people have a mutual attraction, and decide to commit the rest of their lives to each other. When you think about it, that's one of the most major decisions you can make, except for becoming a parent. Why is this hard? Because both partners grow. They change. They become in some cases totally different people. The hope and expectation is, of course, they will both grow together in the same direction. The hard part is when they don't.

For instance, I got married at age 19. I am now 56. I can honestly say I am 80% a totally different person than when I got married. My beliefs have changed, new wisdom has (I hope!) influenced me, I have a different level of patience and priorities, I have adopted several hobbies/interests that I did not previously have, I have developed new fears and anxieties, and habits, and I eat differently. My taste in clothes, living environment, and a host of other things has changed. I certainly do look different.

Meanwhile, my husband Ed has changed also. He was 27 when we married; now he is 64. He used to drink excessively until he got sober in 1984. He used to smoke cigarettes when we met; now he smokes pipes and is trying to cut down on that. He too has changed his way of eating, the kind of clothes he prefers, and how he chooses to spend his time. And, yes, he does look different too!

I am not the woman he married, and he is not the man I married. Things never stay the same. How can a 19-year-old girl know enough to commit the entire rest of her life to one person?

This is why they say marriage is hard work. The work comes, I think, not just because two people living together are bound to get on each other's nerves, but because the two people grow. They grow as a couple, true, but they grow as individuals. Some couples grow apart; others grow closer. Some partners are excited to watch the changes in their chosen mate; others are apprehensive or even aghast to watch their life partner morph into a stranger. The key is to give your loved one the freedom to grow and change and the hard part is honoring your commitment to be there for a lifetime.

No wonder 50% of marriages end in divorce. This is a hard pill to swallow. And I can totally understand the fact that so many marriages don't work out, because sometimes people do grow apart, so far apart that they have nothing in common anymore. I am not here to preach morality - just to try to understand reality. Lord knows I would never be able to hold my marriage history up for moral inspection and I'm not about to do that to anyone else!

What started me thinking about individuals in a marriage changing this week is that our daughter has progressed from omnivore to vegetarian to vegan. She is married to a meat-eater and she is the family cook. Her poor husband - he didn't marry a vegan! But he's married to one now! He's probably frantically going through their marriage vows, trying to find out where he promised to "love and cherish in tofu and tempeh."

I didn't marry a preacher (but he became one), I didn't marry a pipe smoker (but he became one), and I certainly didn't marry a man with gray hair and beard whose body shows as much signs of aging as my own. I married a cigarette-smoking drunk. I was fortunate that he changed. I hope as well he thinks that most of the changes I have gone through have been for the better.

It's not just our spouses who are changing. Our kids change and grow before our very eyes. As they do, each one becomes an individual, unique, and whatever that is, we deal with it because that is the commitment we have made. We may not have made it knowing that autism or cerebral palsy or drug addiction or leukemia or even vegan versus omnivore would become part of the bargain, but we made the commitment all the same.

Change is not always good, not always bad, but it will happen as assuredly as there will be over 20 inches of snow on our ground by tonight. Today I am praying that we are all equipped to cope with changes - in ourselves and our loved ones both - and that sometimes means being more observer than reactant, with both sides willing to compromise and see another point of view - because it is almost always the case that both sides have something worth teaching, and staying open-minded is imperative.

Happy veganism, Rachel, and good luck, Chris! You are only reaffirming the adage that life is always an adventure and you never know what's around the corner!