Whew! July and August have been busy months! This is less of a blog post and more like another written excuse. My latest reason for being out of circulation is my little Mama had hip replacement surgery and I moved in with her for a few days to be her primary caretaker. You know everything is outpatient, these days, so they deposited her, still half drunk, into the backseat and we were on our way with our list of instructions, precautions, and prescriptions within just a few hours of arriving. 

Since then, we’ve navigated everything from showers to exercises to wrangling her into those compression stockings each day. Those compression things are really a team building exercise as well as excellent cardio for the one to whom they’re not being applied. Through it all, I’ve only wanted to throw her out into the yard once, twice max, and I’d say those are pretty impressively low numbers for a mother and daughter who are together 24/7 in a painful and taxing situation. I haven’t asked her how many times she’s wanted to throw me outside, because it might hurt my feelings. 

Anyway, she’s bounced back amazingly well to be an almost 81 year old. She’s walking perfectly with her walker and is practicing with a cane. It really is something how quickly they can get you back up and going. Her physical therapist said she was doing well enough that I could come home and just go over and help her with some chores every day, so that’s where we are now. With this new hip, I’ll be struggling to keep up with her once she’s fully recovered. As one of my brothers says, she’s got a lot of charge left on her battery. The three of us are awfully blessed to be hers. 

Before I go, y’all know by now that this is a special day for me. It’s the eve of the very last day of August. In just a little over 24 hours, we can put the long, miserable summer trilogy to bed and declare victory over its multiple attempts to kill us. This summer has been particularly vengeful. I know it will still be hot in September and even October, but this day is a psychological victory for me. I don’t like to wish my life away, but I do make an exception for the summer months. I’ve got plans to transform our house into something resembling and smelling like an autumn eruption this weekend. College football and September, you are most welcome here! 

Next week, Lord willing and the creek don’t rise, we’ll be back to our regular programming. I hope y’all have had a good week and enjoy a long, relaxing weekend. Stay safe if you travel and we’ll talk soon! 

JONI 

Birthdays are a big deal at our house. When the kids still lived at home, we’d start the day with some kind of pastry with a candle in it and drag them out of bed to eat it among the balloons and streamers adorning the breakfast table. There might be a small teaser gift for what was to come later and always a round of “Happy Birthday” croaked out in our morning voices. They’d have a card and special snacks in their lunchbox or we’d go to lunch at their restaurant of choice if it wasn’t a school day. There were parties with friends, maybe cupcakes at school, cake with grandparents, and some special activity they weren’t treated to very often. Basically, from sun up to midnight, we had a full-on celebration of the birthday person’s big day and, most of the time, it would spill over into the next day in order to fit in all the fanfare and fuss. Yeah, birthdays were/are a big deal here. 

We celebrated our August birthdays, a couple of weekends ago. Blair, John Samuel, and Anna Kathryn, Carson’s girlfriend, all have birthdays in this, the hottest month of the year. Yes, I still make a big deal out of their birthdays and I don’t mean grown-up, more sophisticated celebrations for the full-grown people that they are. No, birthdays still call for paper streamers and balloons and hats and restaurants of choice. I’m a firm believer in plates that say Happy Birthday, a lot of helium inflation, and everyone seeing their name written in icing once a year. When they come home for their birthday celebrations, we’re always stocked with their favorite everything from coffee to ice cream. Birthdays should make you feel like a kid even if you’re far from being one. Even after having celebrated her earlier, I drove to spend the day with Blair on her actual birthday, this week. She had the day off and a home decorating project she wanted to work on, so I couldn’t resist spending her birthday afternoon doing some of her favorite things for old time’s sake. It was a fun day with my girl. 

I’m not sure why I’ve always been so determined to make birthdays a memorable day. I wouldn’t say my kids were spoiled on very many days out of the year, but birthdays were always one of the exceptions. They mark the very beginning of God’s plan for each of us. The Giver of life customized our personalities, selected our strengths, trusted us with specific gifts, allowed certain weaknesses, and wrapped them all in a body made with His creative hands that would be born on the day of His choosing. Our birthdays. He gave each of us everything we’d need to accomplish His purpose for our lives and then gave us the keys of free will. We could take what He’d given us and the days He’d measured out for us and go in any direction we’d choose from there. Birthdays are good days to evaluate ourselves and what we’re doing with what we’ve been given and they’re really great days to celebrate the beauty of God’s creativity and how He’s made each person inimitable. Now, that’s something worth celebrating! And in a big way! So, “Happy Birthday to you”…..and you…..and you. 

I’d like to sign off by pointing out how much restraint it has taken on my part to make no mention of the truly horrendous, excruciating, agonizing, torturous heat and humidity that have fallen over us. I’m trying to be a big person about it and not whine. I know you, summer people, are in your element and you’re having your turn. You and I are not the same. And your turn seems way longer than my turn. I’m struggling over here to find the energy to do much of anything (as you may have noticed) and I really think my brain has powered down. I am not ok. Send a cold front. A breeze. A cloud. Anything. 

Thanks, 

JONI 

Growing up in Mississippi, the question was never if you went to church but where. We are, after all, the belt buckle of the Bible Belt. On Sundays and Wednesdays, there were only a handful of places you could possibly be- church, hospitalized, or so sick at home you were unable to stand on your own power. My family belonged to a blonde brick Baptist church at the end of a boulevard. It’s where I spent much of my young life. My Daddy was a deacon and both of my parents were Sunday school teachers. They also sang in the choir, which meant they had an elevated and unobstructed view of my friends and me during the service. My Mama, especially, seemed to have an eagle eye when it came to spotting any talking or note-writing activity. She would then send me nonverbal messages with her eyes from the choir loft. A furrowed brow meant- I see you laughing and you have until exactly right now to stop it or I’ll tell your Daddy when we get home. A slight shake of the head meant you better get that gum out of your mouth and put it in that offering envelope you’ve been using to doodle. If her eyes narrowed and started to take on a red glow, that meant- I see you whispering and I hope you don’t think you’re going anywhere but school this week. 

The blonde brick Baptist church on the boulevard is probably the first place my parents carried me when I was new to the world. I went to Sunday school and kindergarten and Bible school and GA’s and training union there. I sat in little wooden chairs and made crafts and learned songs. I colored on construction paper with coffee cans full of broken crayons and ate crackers and drank fruit punch. I skated, played foosball, pulled cold bottles from the coke machine, and slid down the banisters when no one was looking. I’d go home with friends for the afternoon on Sundays and they’d bring me back to the night service. The next week, they’d come home with me to run in the sprinkler, play a round of croquet, or something as riveting as that.

It’s where my friends’ mamas became like my mamas and mine became like theirs. I learned the words of hymns and they became ingrained so deeply that I’ll remember them until I die. We delivered gifts to nursing homes, glued popsicle sticks together, recited Bible verses, and rode many miles on the church bus and van. We’d sit in a semi-circle around the teacher who’d tell us about Joseph’s mean brothers while holding a large picture of the atrocity for us to see. There were lock-ins, revivals, bake sales, movie nights, and ice cream socials in the fellowship hall with fancy cookies from the bakery. I knew every nook and cranny of the blonde brick Baptist church on the boulevard. Every closet, piano, bathroom, hiding place, television, secret door. I felt as at home there as I did at my own house. And, on the most special days, I’d walk down the aisle of the church. To profess Jesus as my Savior, don my cap and gown on graduation Sunday, stand by my friends on their wedding day, and to marry Davis on the arm of my Daddy. 

I’m not sure if church is a major hub of social activity for as many kids as it was then. They have so many other outlets and organizations they’re involved in now. But, back in my day, church was where we spent so many of our hours that it was the pool from which we drew a large portion of our friends. Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been sweetly reminded of just how many of those friends from the blonde brick church on the boulevard still remain in my closest circle. Maybe friendships that take root in our earliest years have longer to grow and they become strong enough to withstand the test of time. Maybe friendships that form with Jesus in common are able to endure the harsh elements of life and remain intact. Whatever the reason, I’m grateful for the friends made in those little wooden chairs who’ve stayed with me through Mary Jane shoes, acne, ugly bridesmaid dresses, and still walk by my side today in the hot flashes. Their mamas are still like my mamas and mine remains like theirs. Of all the gifts that blonde brick church on the boulevard gave me, I’d place them only below the One who brought us together.