Tag Archives: Memories

The Last Time I Saw my Dad…

The last time I saw my dad he was sitting under a magnolia tree.

It was the last time we would smile for the camera together; the last time we would laugh together; the last time we would sing hymns together under its leafy shade. But I didn’t know it then.

It’s a splendid tree, this love, he said, with that wonderful twinkle in his eye that characterized my dad so perfectly. Just look at it! It’s really at its best.

It wasn’t quite the truth. I knew it, and he knew it. The tree’s best days were certainly behind it. The tell-tale carpet of pink blossoms on the ground beneath our feet gave it away. But my dad was always one to look up, never to look down. It was the reason he saw the best in everything and everyone.

And so we smiled, and nodded together, and admired the splendid tree.

Now then, said my dad, as he looked up into its leafy boughs. Is that Mr Blackbird? He’s always here love, and he’s always singing. Well then, give us a tune.

And Mr Blackbird did. Perched high up on the branch as it swayed in the wind, the blackbird opened his beak and sang at the top of his voice. It was a beautiful tune, shrill and clear, a morning song that carried on the breeze and brought sunshine to the grey skies overhead.

My dad chuckled.

What about this one then? he asked, as he pursed his lips together and began to whistle a tune. The blackbird cocked his head to one side and listened. We waited. And sure enough, there came the obligatory reply. And so it went on: my dad whistling a tune and the blackbird copying.

That was in May, before summer gave way to fall, and autumn gave way to winter.

And on a December afternoon, I found myself kneeling at my front window, clutching my phone, saying good-bye to my dad, as he lay 4000 long miles away, taking his final breaths.

Dad, it’s Glenys, I say, very deliberately and very slowly. It’s really important to me that my dad hear these words.

I have something very important to tell you. I can hear his breathing.

I love you Dad. And I WILL see you again.

I can’t bring myself to say the word goodbye, and so I don’t. I save it for the moment I see him again, lying very still, and peaceful, and quiet and very cold.

I slip an acorn into his pocket as he’s lying there and kiss his icy head.

And on the morning of his funeral, I’m in front of the mirror, getting ready, when I hear something right outside my window. It’s a blackbird, perched high in the treetops, swaying back and forth in the wind, and singing for all it’s worth.

It’s so very loud. And it’s so very lovely. You’d never guess it was singing in the rain that morning, or that the sky above was so grey.

It’s just singing for all it’s worth, that little blackbird…

singing its song for a man who truly taught me how to live, whose legacy of love will last forever, who saw the best in everything, who sat with me under a splendid magnolia tree in May as blossoms of pink covered the ground.

What Happened on the First Day of Fall…

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It was the first day of fall when they came to take the silver maple down.

I had loved that tree so much. So ingenious the way the previous owner had wrapped the deck around her sturdy trunk.

‘Our Shady Deck’ we used to call it. It was like being in a tree house. No one could see you. No one knew you were sitting up there except the birds.

And now she’s gone.

Just this morning I went out there to take one last look. One last photograph.

And call me crazy, but I even put my hand on her strong trunk and apologized for what was about to happen. I prayed over that big stupid tree who was making me cry and thanked her for the shade she brought, and the squirrels she entertained, and the sheer beauty of her yellow and orange leaves in the fall.

And you can laugh, or snort, or scoff, but I wouldn’t be my dad’s daughter if I didn’t love all living things, and marvel at the beauty of every tree, and respect their place in God’s world.

I was there when they made the first cut, like a mother accompanying her child through surgery. For three long hours, I endured the incessant whirring and grinding and sawing.

I saw every leaf flutter helplessly away; every branch plummet to the ground.

It’s eerily quiet now. Even the birds are not singing. She’s gone.

And now when I look up, instead of her leaves, shimmering and dancing, I see blue, blue sky instead.

And what, you might say, could possibly be wrong with that?

The Story of the Hippo Bucket

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Twenty six years ago, a grandma in a floppy hat was shopping In a little seaside town in Spain.

She wandered among the colorful stalls, looking for just the perfect beach toy for her newest grandson. She paused outside the toy shop where buckets and spades swung cheerfully in the Spanish sun and fishing nets stood to attention. And there, on the shelf, sat a little blue and yellow bucket, waiting patiently to be bought.

The grandma in the floppy hat picked the bucket up. It was a hippopotamus, whose nostrils made the perfect watering can. And she bought it for her little grandson.

That was the day the hippo bucket joined our family… just a little plastic toy that James, my son, loved to play with. Every day of our two week holiday in Spain, he would scoop up the turquoise waters of the Mediterranean Sea and pour them out onto the golden sand. Wherever James went, the hippo bucket went too. On the beach, in the pool, in the bath tub, the little hippo bucket accompanied him everywhere.

We snapped the picture of his little blonde head as he bent over the bucket, gripped the handle in his chubby fingers, and poured water from its nostrils.

Somehow, we made room in our suitcase to fly that bucket home to England. And for the next ten years, whenever we went on holiday to Devon, the hippo bucket came with us.

One day a big truck came to our home and delivered twenty empty boxes. We were emigrating to America and our sons were given just one box each, in which to pack their toys and games.

Choose wisely, we told them. Take with you only what is precious.

Into James’ box went the blue and yellow hippo bucket, where it sailed four thousand long miles across the Atlantic Ocean, on its way to our new home in Michigan.

And for the next twelve years it lay in that box, along with legos, and teddy bears, and a little yellow robot.

Until one day James had a son. And when that son was three years old, the hippo bucket came out of the box.

Now it’s my little grandson who plays with it on the beach, who bends his blonde head over the bucket, who holds it with his chubby hand, and pours water from its nostrils.

And suddenly I am the grandma in the floppy hat, my blonde haired son has become the father, and his smiling grandma who flew with us to Spain lies in a quiet graveyard in England.

Take with you only what is precious. My words echo back to me.

And even though oceans may separate; even though the waves of time roll incessantly in, erasing our footprints and stealing our yesterdays, I’m holding on to those precious memories and taking them with me…

And when I close my eyes, or watch my grandson play, I can still see that little blonde head, and his grandma on the beach, as the waves roll in on the shore.

Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory. Dr Seuss

Wonderful Wigan

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John Wesley called it Wicked Wigan but it’s Wonderful Wigan to me.

I just never thought it was wonderful when I lived there. Somehow, in this little northern English town, the skies always seemed grey, the winters long, the sunshine sparse, and the opportunities bleak.

But it’s strange how I have grown to cherish a place I once couldn’t wait to leave; how on a sunny Monday morning when my lovely sister and nieces are playing in the brass band, their notes can make me cry for days long gone, and family time that slipped through my fingers.

This is what I think as I stand, listening to them play. Dressed in their smart black suits with white shirt and striped tie, they sit under the red canopy, their hair blowing in the wind. We gather nearby to listen – my sister and brother, my nephews, and nieces. I video the girls as they play. Later on we will walk by the lovely canal that weaves its way like a secret through the streets of industrial Wigan, and my nephew, Jake, will run ahead of us and back again, like I used to do when I was a little girl.

Fifty long years ago, those were my feet, that ran back and forth on this same tow path, laughing with my dad and my brothers and sisters as we fed the ducks and ate our cream cheese and spring onion sandwiches.

Once, when it rained, we sheltered under one of the little stone bridges that arch their way over the water and watched as the raindrops made ripples that spread from bank to bank. I didn’t know it then, but I was a lucky girl to have been born in this little town, and to be part of such a wonderful family.

But I know it now.

And this is what I think about as the notes of All Through the Night are carried on the breeze and through the streets of Wigan… the far-away town where I was born.

And sometimes, even though I am four thousand long miles away, I imagine I can still hear them.

https://youtu.be/XgVbSZ8cgjg

Seasons Of My Childhood

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It is Spring. I am seven years old.

It is early morning and still dark outside my window when I hear Dad whispering in my ear.

Glenys, get up…let’s go swimming.

It’s Saturday! I jump out of bed and pretty soon we’re on the bus, going to Wigan Baths. The pool is huge and the water is cold but Dad has already dived in. Not me. I’m an inch-by-incher my dad calls me, and I take forever to get in the water.

But that’s not the only reason…. I am afraid. I can’t swim.

Dad takes hold of me and with one strong arm under my stomach he supports me over the water while I vainly flap my arms and legs. I look out over the deep end and vow I will never go there.

But then an amazing thing happens. I realize my dad has taken his arm away and I am swimming!

I’m swimming Dad, I’m swimming!

We both laugh and I know that next week, I’ll be in that deep end and I’ll be swimming under my dad’s legs like a little fish.

On the way back I savor every one of my Benson’s Cheese and Onion Crisps but I will still have room for the piles of crusty toast my dad will make for us when we get home.

It is Summer. I am eight years old.

I wake with the birds and see that Dad is already packing the boot of our blue Vauxhall Victor.

He crams my tennis racket down by the side of the box of beans and cornflakes and biscuits that we have been saving for our holiday and then the best part begins…..

We race into Mum and Dad’s bedroom and tip our jars of pennies on the bed. Whatever we have saved will be doubled by dad and spent in the little camp shop at Blue Anchor Bay.

And then we are off!

I curl up with my little I Spy book that will occupy me for most of the journey, and dream about days at Blenheim Gardens and Watchet and Minehead and Dunster.

Most of all, I dream about the day when it will be my turn to have The Big Ice-cream.

I will choose a Mr Whippie, with huge, soft vanilla and strawberry swirls that hang over the edge of the cone.

And me and my dad will play tennis and badminton and hunt for glow worms at night. And I know I must be the luckiest girl alive to have a dad like that.

It is Autumn. I am nine years old.

We are walking down to Roby Mill Methodist Church along College Road.

The pavement is strewn underfoot with a million brown, crunchy leaves. Dad leads the way and we scrunch, scrunch, scrunch behind him.

Fast forward a few months on that same road. Dad helps us find twigs and we race them in the rushing stream of rain that tumbles along the edge of the pavement.

Oh no! I’m in the doldrums! the cry goes up.

But it’s a funny thing….no matter how many doldrums our little boats get stuck in, Dad never wins. Always, one of us kids is the winner.

It is Winter. I am ten years old.

The nights are long and dark, but Dad knows just how to cheer me up.

Who’s ready for a Secret Supper? he asks.

We all cheer and a plate is produced with a quarter of a buttered Eccles Cake, a small piece of Kit Kat, half a Bourbon biscuit and a cup of Ovaltine.

When those nights get really long and dark, our suppers are upgraded to a Special Secret Supper, or even a Super Special Secret Supper.

As I nibble at the edge of my biscuit, I am reminded what a Super Special dad I have.

We curl up in bed and he reads The Lost World and I am transported to a strange forest where all kinds of adventures await me. And from my dad, a life-long love of books and reading is rooted in my soul.

Before I fall to sleep, we play Show Me and we take it in turns to find tiny images in the pictures. One day, I will play that game with my grandson….and my dad’s legacy lives on.

Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter…..seasons of my childhood spent with the most wonderful dad a girl could ever have.

Thank you Dad. I love you.

Saying Goodbye to Grandma

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It was very early this morning, still dark outside, when I heard the pitter patter of rain on the roof.

Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled ever so quietly. And then for a moment, there was stillness. I lay in bed with my eyes open and wondered about that. I wondered if, four thousand long miles away, my mum had opened heaven’s gates and stepped inside.

And she had.

She wasn’t my real mum, but she might as well have been. Her other daughter-in-law affectionately calls her Joanie, but she was always mum to me.

She made the best breakfasts…of bacon, and eggs, and tomatoes and mushrooms. She had a special plate that was just for me. And she always told me I ate like a bird.

It was her who came to stay each time I had a baby. She would knit them hats that were far too big, and bounce them affectionately on her knee.

When our four sons were young, it was always to her big house, in the sunny south of England that we would go for our summer holidays. We would pack up the car with our six bikes hanging off the roof and drive, like the Clampetts, for two weeks of fun at Grandma’s. And even though she scolded us when we tramped the red sand of the beach in on our shoes, she loved us being there. And even though it sometimes rained, we always remember the sunny days.

She would walk with us down the little stony path, through the woods to our favorite Elberry Cove, where we would sit on the pebbly beach and eat our crisps and salmon butties. Once we clambered together in a blow up boat and rowed around in the shallow waters. I remember her laughing in her floppy hat.

Sometimes, we would go out walking together at night. She loved big houses and when it was dark, you could see in peoples’ windows.

She was full of energy and life, and was often found to be doing her ironing and dusting at one o’clock in the morning. Even when she retired, she cleaned houses in her spare time, and even though she didn’t have much money, we always found a few pounds tucked away in the envelope whenever she wrote to us.

She could paint with two hands, and loved to water color. She could magically grow any plant from the tiniest shoot or seed; and outside her kitchen window, there was always a row of flower pots standing proudly on the little stone wall, spilling over with fuchsias, or sweet peas, or carnations. She talked to them every day, and always knew what they needed.

She loved to go for rides in the countryside, and was always the first to notice and name the yellows and purples of the wild flowers that danced in the Devon hedgerows. One day, she wrote about them in my diary.

And I think about time, and life, and how fast this one, precious gift passes us by.

And how we must snatch it, and hold on to each moment, and cherish the memories of summer days, and floppy hats, and wildflowers that dance in the hedgerows.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? Mary Oliver

The Story You Won’t Believe…

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One day I sat on the edge of a high, high roof swinging my legs in the air like I was a little girl.

Except I was twenty-five. And although in my youth I loved to climb trees, there was no way I could have climbed on to that roof. I flew. And it wasn’t actually day-time either. It was in the middle of the night; under a dark, cloudless sky; under the stars and moon.

And I know what you’re thinking…. that this far-fetched tale belongs in the pages of Alice in Wonderland. But it’s true.

I’ve never written about it before. I don’t think about it much. But when I do, it comes back to me as clear as if it happened yesterday. I still don’t understand it.

Thirty years ago I woke in the morning and looked over the side of my hospital bed, just to make sure that my newborn son was still there. He was. Snuggled safe; sleeping tight; lying on his side; just one day old.

Later that day, my husband came to visit and I told him about the weird and wonderful dream I had in the night, of how I flew out of my body through the window, and sat on a high rooftop somewhere in the dark, and swung my legs over the edge and laughed. How I felt full of an inexplicable and uncontainable joy after the birth of our first son.

How I was suddenly overtaken with the feeling of having to return, because it wasn’t safe. And how I fearlessly jumped off the edge and was reeled back into my body, like one of those tape measures that skitters swiftly back into place when the button is released.

It felt SO real David, I say.

Then I forget about it.

And it’s not until a few days later, when we leave the hospital to go home, and I climb in to the car with my new baby snug in my arms, and turn to glance through the back window at the hospital as we leave, that I see it.

There’s the flat roof. There’s the windows. I see that tall hospital building reaching high into the sky. And I know that’s where I sat, swinging my legs in the dark, right on the very edge. And I know it was no dream.

I don’t know why it happened. I don’t understand it.

Like Nicodemus, the intellectual, who came to Jesus at night, who just couldn’t fathom how the spirit blows where it will, or comprehend the things that Jesus tried to explain, the things that point towards another realm, those inexplicable moments that whisper:

there is more to this life than we mere humans can ever know.

And what happened to me that night thirty years ago? There’s no rational explanation. But it was real.

I’ll never understand how that feeling of pure and utter joy, that sheer elation, could fill my soul and make it fly.

But it did.

Looking for Something Special in the Darkness of a Christmas Eve…

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It’s Christmas Eve in a big old house in northern England. Above the fireplace in the front room, eight socks dangle- empty, but expectant. Each sock has a name attached tightly to it by a wooden clothes peg. The fifth one says GLENYS.

On the hearth beneath sits a glass of milk, a plate with one home-made mince pie, and a carrot. The stage is set.

Night is falling and bedtime approaches. We scamper upstairs, my seven siblings and I, and congregate in the darkness of the bedroom. The curtains are parted, and we peer into the night. For a moment all is quiet. Our eyes search.

Where is it, Dad? Can you see it?

I see it! The cry goes up from my youngest sister. It’s over there!

She points and we all gaze in the direction of her finger, scanning the darkness until we see it too.

It’s a light.

A light, flickering and traveling in the darkness.

There it is! My exuberant and energetic dad exclaims, seizing the opportunity. He’s on the move! He’s getting closer! You’d better get straight to bed. Father Christmas won’t come if you’re not asleep!

And we jump into bed and pull the covers over our heads, and dream of morning, when our front room will be filled with love and laughter, presents galore, and eight socks will bulge with promising and peculiar shapes.

We will marvel at the mysterious bite taken out of the home-made mince pie and search for Rudolph’s teeth marks left in the half-eaten carrot.

But amidst these wonderful memories, always, always for me, one will remain uppermost…

Looking for Father Christmas’s light on Christmas Eve.

We lived atop a hill, overlooking the town of Wigan. On any given night, a million stars shone, and hundreds of lights twinkled and traveled in the darkness.

I’m sure that those eight little faces, glued to the window in the darkness of a Christmas Eve, each saw a different light. But it didn’t matter. We saw the magic. We felt it in the air. We share the memory.

That ritual on Christmas Eve, created by a dad who was so full of fun and love and life, is one that I will replicate with my grandchildren this year. For the first time, I will be with them on Christmas Eve, in their home atop a hill.

And as we stand at the window and scrunch our noses against the glass and search for Father Christmas’s light in the darkness, I’ll be thinking of my dad, and a faraway home in England, and how utterly precious is family, and how fleeting is time, that passes by so very, very fast.

When You Don’t Want to Walk Down the Road…

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It was just another ordinary day when the letter arrived. It plopped quietly onto the front door mat, along with the free newspaper and several bills, and lay there for a while before my husband picked it up.

I looked over his shoulder as he opened the envelope, and tried to focus on the words amidst the noise of our young sons charging up and down the stairs.

Dear David, it said. We, at the preachers’ meeting, have been praying about who God might call to become a local preacher. We wondered whether this was something you might consider?

I stopped reading. I was a little astonished. My husband was a sales rep. He sold home improvement products. Surely he wasn’t being called to preach?

You’re not going to do that, are you? I asked incredulously.

I might. David replied.

I was astounded. I had been brought up in the church all my life. My dad was a local preacher, but I wasn’t prepared for this. I can still remember the tone of my voice that day. And I can still hear what I said next, even though it was over thirty years ago. I’m not proud of it.

Well listen David, I fumed, You can become a local preacher (as if he needed my permission) but just don’t tell me you want to be a pastor…because I want to choose my own carpets.

I don’t think he answered me. And even if he had, I wasn’t listening. My mind was off somewhere, flying down the road of self pity, imagining a life of poverty and parsonage living; a road that took me away from the cute little home we owned, with its newly built conservatory and leaded windows; a road that led to houses I would never own, and carpets I could never choose.

And that is exactly what happened. A few years later we packed up, left the only home we had ever owned, and spent the next thirty years traveling that road.

But we never traveled alone. And one day, at one of the curves in that road, God was waiting. I just didn’t see Him at first.

He was sitting quietly in the room at Trinity United Methodist Church, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, listening to the conversation, as my husband and I were introduced to some of our new church family.

We don’t own a parsonage here, one of the members explained. But we’ll give you a housing allowance, and you can buy your own home.

I almost laughed out loud. And I’m sure God was laughing too.

Here I was, over thirty years later, discovering something I had never imagined would be possible:

My husband was still a pastor, and I was about to choose my own carpets….

Two things that I never thought could co-exist together- an impossible combination. But God specializes in the impossible. And while I thought that saying yes to God was synonymous with sacrifice, God knew that saying yes to Him is synonymous with blessing.

Saying yes to God is synonymous with blessing.

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And do you know a funny thing? I am no longer interested in carpets. I don’t need them anyway – our lovely new home, which we have owned for the last four years, has beautiful hardwood floors.

And I think about that journey I was so afraid to take, and the road I still travel, with its ups and downs, and curves, and bumps. And this I know:

We never travel alone;

God goes ahead of us;

Helping us climb every hill;

Waiting at every curve;

Stepping in with surprises;

Seeing what we cannot;

And blessing us as we keep walking.

And far, far better, is the road that leads away from the world, and leads us closer to God.

The Secret In the Wall

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In the brick wall of a big old house in northern England lies a secret. It’s been lying there quietly for over forty years, undisturbed, just waiting to be discovered. The secret is a small piece of paper- folded carefully, and most probably faded. If you were to find it, and unfold it, you would see a name. It is mine.

I was about ten years old when I wrote my name on that piece of paper and stuffed it in between the bricks of my bedroom wall. I wanted it to be found, years and years later, by someone who would wonder about me: who I was; where I was; and what I was doing now.

I wanted to be known.

I’ll never forget the day, not too long ago. when I sat with my son to watch the little one minute video, created by Zondervan, to promote my first children’s book. I remember squealing with delight as my name floated into view.

That’s me! That’s my name! I shrieked.

Even more exciting was the day I saw my name written in bold font, proudly displayed on the front cover of the book.

And only two weeks ago, on a golden October morning, I was thrilled to add my name to the visitor list at HarperCollins publishers, and even more thrilled to see the name of Lee Strobel written above mine.

And I think about my need, our human need for our names to be known, our names to be recognized; our presence to be heard in this world.

I think about all the names carved on benches in parks, and on trunks of trees; on public walls, and inside prison cells. I think of the names we discovered on our living room walls in England, hidden beneath wallpaper, scratched years ago, alongside faded potato prints that were used to decorate homes during the scarcity days of the second world war.

And how our names, etched and carved and written in a myriad of ways, and in a myriad of places, all say:

I was here.

We all yearn to be known.

And we are.

My name, your name is recorded in a far more wonderful way, and in a far more wonderful place than one written on a piece of paper hidden in a cavity; or one carved on a tree trunk; or one printed on the cover of a book.

Paper disintegrates. Trees are felled. Books go out of print.

But somewhere, in a marvelous and mysterious place that no eye has ever seen, written in permanent, never-to-fade, glorious, indelible, and eternal ink- is your name.

It is written forever on the palm of One who knew you before you were even born.

I am known.

You are known.

Somewhere, in a mysterious place that no eye has seen, written in permanent, eternal ink- is your name.

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