Tuesday, December 30, 2008

I spent so much time looking at that precious baby Abby




We looked him over from head to toe, because he had rough skin. We lotioned him and poked him and stared at him and held him. My favorite thing to do was keep him on my shoulders so that he could touch the ceiling. That was everyday. On the way to drop dad to the train we would keep him on our lap and stare at his eyes to watch them dialate when we went under the trestle. He was all of our baby. Mommy nursed him and we disected him. He knew every person in the family's buttons and pushed them constantly. Rabble rouser and friend. Little brother and baby and finally big man and courageous business man; out there on the holidays selling his wares. My hats were off to him in the holiday season like now going out there. That was way beyond me!

Monday, December 29, 2008

Back to the story of the birthday presents that I got from God!

Mike was gone and our hearts were broken and sore. Mommy's tummy was getting bigger, but we knew, our mommy only has girls coming to us and we loved being girls but we did want a boy.
Maybe it was Dr. Lang's fault :) He delivered all of the girls and only Dad was the boy that he delivered to us. Let's blame him. We changed doctors because Dr. Lang was getting a little too old to deliver babies. His catchers mit got a hole in it.
We sat for hours outside Dr. Hewlett's office after we had our first boy and wondered and wondered what God was going to give us on this trip to the baby fountain.
Later and later and later it got. We expected a March baby. Finally, sometime in April, mom decided to find out why this baby was so late. The baby decided he didn't want to come out. He was the wrong way. They had to knead mom's tummy and push the baby out. Tell me that isn't our AB! He was the most awesome love ride we ever had. Nothing like anybody else. My song for Abby is, "I wouldn't have missed it for the world". As painful as it is to think about missing that boy. I would never have missed that ride, short and sweet and crazy. I miss him, too. Abdul, Malik full of love and full of life and full of muckraking. I have an entire computer full of stories of my dear Abby.

I talked about Tony before...

Saturday, December 27, 2008

May all your Christmases be BRIGHT!



"All year long, we must worship day by day, All year long, tis the season to obey, May the Christmas tree lights and the sleighrides at night, remind us all to stay in God's presence all year long."



We are happy to have had one of the most wonderful Christmases ever. Now we wake up on the new day to prepare for the New Year. May God help us get all of this house and stuff cleaned up for the celebration. The weather is balmy and overcast and the warmth of the daylight is inviting. Unfortunately, my peartrees are celebrating dormancy along with crepe myrtle. I miss their leaves, but peachypoo is consistently blooming through the winter because she is inside. I just love her. Christmas and New Years, winter and summer, blooms are always delightful. May the new blooms in your life delight and enthrall you! Happy New Years

Thursday, December 25, 2008

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

A Walker Winter Wonderland!















Not even the smell of a white Christmas, down here in NC. Not even the hint of a frosty snow covered lawn on Christmas day. It is still the most wonderland Wintery with my family!
I spent the morning walking through the frosty aisles of the supermarket with my most respected woman of God who is in my life. We giggled and pontificated and came up with all sorts of dreams for now and tomorrow and it is truly beyond what we both could've thought or imagined except there is no son in law yet to dote over. We are enjoying the love of wondering and wishing and sour grapes, sometimes:)
My dad would've joked at us that we both are so much like Aunt Lorraine, and she, more than I have never spent more than an hour or so with Aunt Lorraine. So I guess, in heaven, we will, the three of us; sit down and talk about what made us who we are. How could we three be so identical?
Dad would talk about the way she grabbed him by the wrist and the strength that she had and Tony-boy and Abby would have similar stories about me. It is a joy to live with a kindred spirit, sometimes:{.
I came in from my Christmas eve saunter with my Elyse(Suzie homemaker) and Emily and I were doing the shimmy shake and imitating Grandma Ruth in my living room to James Brown. We cannot figure out how Grandma Ruth was able to do that shimmy shake well into her latter years. I am achy from imitating her. I better get into shape to keep up with Ms. Emily. Then, we put on Thriller and my bumble bee big boy, Enoch taught us how to do the Thriller dance in the living room. Evvy and I pretended that the sugarplum fairies died and came back as the Thriller dancers and we danced around the living room as the sugarplum fairies reincarnated in a "Thriller" at home. "Catch me En~!" Not this time. Those teenagers keep me on my toes, literally or litterally. What fun!
Ethan, the wolf man came into the room anticipating boredom. He didn't want to join the dance and he hasn't figured out how to incorporate his wolf story into the Christmas pleasantries, so he just barks at us all. Ezra is waiting for us to pull out the baking items to make the linzer tarts. Dad in his cap and I in my kerchief and nothing at all is quiet as a mouse...

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

The little girl with the bobbypin cross of prayer!





























Holy Providence, the first retreat for Mommy was definitely unwanted. God came to answer the prayer of a little 2nd grader and took her out of the boarding school and gave her her parents back. What a holy thing, when little children pray! It is sad that we have to go through things to make us pray. But God draws us to Himself in various ways.
I have been thinking recently, what the common element were in Mom and Dad and that was the commitment to an intact family and the negative emotions when they thought about that not happening for them. Mom's prayer carried her through life attempting to hold it together with Dad, "til death do us part" Not an easy accomplishment, I must say.
We all are applauding this Christmas the legacy of accomplishing the goal of an intact family. The fact that none of us had to go to HOLY PROVIDENCE! Halleluia!


I fell on my bottom while I was cleaning my carpets the other day. This reminded me of the time Ju and I decided to get our own orange juice from the fridge and crash; we dropped the juice bottle. Mommy was expecting Jackie at the time. (In our house we call it not having a pouring license yet:) We definitely weren't supposed to be in the fridge by ourselves yet. Mom came running down the stairs and fell sliding into the kitchen on the slippery orange juice. I don't remember her crying about that. But, I would have. My bottom still hurts from falling in my bathroom with a bucket of water in my hands, because my feet were wet from shampooing my carpets. I said, I am in good company. I remember seeing my mommy slide into the room on her bottom. I am not laughing at that, just comiserating. As Grandma Ruth would say, "How did you stand it?"

Monday, December 22, 2008

Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas

Have a happy holiday... May the star atop your Christmas tree shine throughout your Christmas Day.

Dearest Sisters, Brother, nieces and nephews and friends,

I do wish that I could be home for Christmas and this is the 3rd year that I will not be with you to hug and hear the voices and lovetalk of Christmas and the huge party we celebrate at Ju's house. "This is How WE do it!" We celebrate the life and the love that God has given us and I do thank Him for that.
I wish that this year you or someone would tape every remembrance word that Ms Nettie has of her trip to Spain. She is the special guest star this year. She has lots to share and lots of lessons for us all. I wish you would give her a hearing alone to share her remembrances with everybody. What a growth journey she has been on. We all remember journeys that we have taken and the fact that no one was there to listen to the lessons that we learned. We had to keep those things to ourselves, because the dynamic of our family was not yet conducive to hearing everyone's life lessons. Let's not let that happen with Ms. Nettie on this trip. Let's catch every glow in her eyes and every joy of her lessons. Let's catch every tear of her broken heart to have left part of her heart in Spain and have to go back to the part of her heart that was here in Los Estados Unidos. She is a woman and we would be wise to listen to the stories. Tape them for me if you can, please.
Our family is enjoying a season of refreshing and love with one another. Still basking in the unity that God has allowed us to enjoy. We miss you all and wish that we could take that long car trip to see you. But for this year that is impossible. All of our love is sent to you and to the children and grandchildren. I cannot believe that everyone is getting so big. I saw Muffy as a mommy on the facebook and her daughters are adorable. Her presence in the family is breathtaking. Papa would be proud that his girls and boys are being responsible adults and living up to the joy of parenting.
I love you and again wish you a very Merry Christmas!

Love, Jayne

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Mike's birth was more like an adventure than a birth!


He was the very first grandson in the family and in those days they didn't take it kindly when young women were expecting presents from heaven too early.
We spent hours and hours over Grandma Ruth's house a part of the process of what was going to happen to my auntie who was the wonderful woman who gave me that birthday present.
We cried and cried and cried, please don't take Lorraine away and put her in that home. And we all packed up and went to visit her in the home and then the cousin was born. The absolute love of our lives. Please don't take him.
I was sitting in the corner of grandma Ruth's living room and all of my sister's were around me and my mommy was standing up when we said it.
Please don't put our baby in that foster care! Grandma said you people are crazy! You do not need another mouth in that house and maybe she was right. But we wanted him! Lorraine wanted him too! Grandma was a single woman and she couldn't handle the children she already had so she made the final decision. But God gave him to Ms. Bailey for a season for him and then sent him back to us. I kissed the little mole on his head and wished in my soul that he would come back safely to us. We loved him so much!

Friday, December 19, 2008

Girls cry! Girls giggle!





















Daddy and Mommy got used to alot of crying and giggling when we were little. I didn't know that this was unusual until one time, Uncle Orlando carried us to Georgia's to get some Sunday donuts and pastries. We were sitting in the backseat and Brian and Glen were in the front. They kept turning around looking at us giggle. Why are you looking at us? Uncle told them, that's alright boys, that's what girls do, they giggle.
We played tickle contests where the person who giggled out loud got a spanking, because Dad had just come in from work and he couldn't take the noise of the giggling. We played staring contests where we would try not to blink at eachother, but mostly, we danced.
I wonder if you girls remember the nights that we stayed up with the mirror as a spotlight doing shows for one another.
I can't even listen to the Jackson's Christmas songs or Johnny Mathis without crying and imagining the bunch of us pretending to be reindeer running around the living room.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Amy was brought to us via a snow plow...





I think it was during that huge snow storm where the drifts were 12 feet high was the year that Amy was born. We never let poor Amy forget it. I for one was glad she wasn't a boy. We were just not ready for a boy yet. And our sisterhood was not complete. Everybody said what did Camille have. Oh, no, another girl...too bad. It wasn't really too bad it was too good. Aunt Gloria gave Mommy a wonderful baby shower, as if Amy was the first baby and the ladies got together and laughed and enjoyed themselves and Amy was destined to be very great.
We teased her everyday because her voice was raspy, almost as though God changed His mind to make her a girl after He made her voice.
We were mean big sisters when we weren't kissing and cuddling her. We meant it in love but onetime I kissed A so hard that I gave her a cyst on her cheek.
We had some wonderful dance seasons later on when the girls got old enough to defend themselves against their older sisters' kissing them and punching them all of the time.
We told Amy that an alligator had left her on the doorstep and that we had to dust her off and adopt her and I think she believed us too. She cried for days about this horrible legend of her coming to us. It was just as mean as could be.
Amy's favorite song was I love you alphabets from the commercial and she would sing it all of the time with her raspy voice. I just loved looking into the eyes of those little girls. We didn't let them in our big girl club, they were always too young. In a way we were trying to protect them from the sinister eyes that we had gotten from knowing everything.
When stuff happened we used to gather in the bathroom, at Grandma Ruth's or wherever we were and discuss the topic. I would translate the big people talk into 3 and 2 an5 and whatever year old and tell them what these thing would mean to us. The next baby was coming already but it wasn't Mom's tummy that was getting big...

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

I don't just remember when Jo jo was born...



This is the season when memories swarm like bees and it is delightful to reminisce about the almost yearly visit to our house by the stork to bring us our new present. By the time Jo jo was on the scene we had gotten a little cynical and snyde about the storks' visitation. New Years day we spent at Grandma Monica's house. This was really unusual at that time, but after that became a New Years tradition.
Jojo was the love child and she was so evidently full of love that we just smothered her. We could touch her because we were older and there was no Ms. Newsome to tell us what to do. Ms. Bessie tried to teach us to participate in something other than trying to sneak to pick up the baby, but it was to no avail. We were bent on baby care and cleaning up behind ourselves was not something we were interested in learning. We were always trying to make some sort of show for the baby or pick up the baby.
Jo knocked me out one time. I do not remember what I did to deserve what she did. But we were at Grandma Ruth's house and she was running toward me. I thought that I was going to pick her up, as was the usual loving thing that we did with her, when we weren't pinching or biting her :{. I bent down and she had a running start from the top of grandma Ruth's steps. She ran and ran and I was thinking that I was going to pick her up and throw her in the air which was not unusual for us, when she punched me right in my chest, knocking the wind out of me right onto the ground. This is when we realized that Jo was no joke. She meant business, but she never says you hurt my feelings, she just gets you back. I am sure she's grown out of this, but she was the most precious gift that Christmas year.
I didn't tell you how Jo saved my life one time. I was at Grandma Monica's house having tea during the terrible season when Dad was always on the warpath with me. When a phonecall came, Who ate Dad's chocolate Kiss? Everyone knew who ate Dad's chocolate kiss, nobody else in the family had a chocolate addiction but me. I would have been beaten. I begged Jo to say she said she ate it. (He and everybody knew she didn't) Because everybody knew Dad never beat Jo like he would me. She saved my life and I will never forget it!
Then came AIM...

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Last night was the band recital.


We've come a long way, baby!
From my little ladybug that we brought home from the hospital, to part of the woodwind section of the band. Delightful!






In the gym of the middle school a beautiful group of young people entered and sat and under the direction of the maestro played Christmas music to the crowd. My little fidelia, Evvy was among the band members. 48 days of lessons and days of practice culminated in the presentation of beautiful music. I was pleased and touched and Christmastime is more special because of the preparation and enjoyment of this craft. This was one of my favorite gifts.

Monday, December 15, 2008

He makes all things beautiful in His time.






It is gracious of God to make a new day and to give me the delightful husband and children that I now have. 47 years young and blessed!

Saturday, December 13, 2008

My Daddy was the strongest man that

I could imagine. He was tall and the other children on the block thought so too.
Julia and I had imaginary friends, Charlie and Steedy. Dad would talk with them with us alot of the time.




I remember being in the car with Dad when Mommy went into the hospital to have Jackie and on the radio came "Leaving on a Jetplane". Julia went hysterical. As she was often doing. She's not coming back. She's not coming back! I think we both started to go hysterical and I think Dad had to pull over to calm us down. We cried and cried and cried. But eventually she did come back home and then we stopped crying. Thank God for Aunt Karla, who watched us alot when Mommy went to the hospital to get the new sisters from heaven and then came baby Jo

Jo is the only one who didn't get the joke here

She was a bundle from heaven as were the other two gifts. Jo wasn't untouchable like Jackie and there was no Ms. Newsome to tell us not to touch her. So we did. She was funny and imaginative like the rest of us.






Every night when it was time to go to bed, Dad was at work and Mom couldn't do anything because she was nursing the baby and couldn't get up with the baby in her arms so we just occupied ourselves with everything we could.
We stood on eachother's backs to turn on the light in any room that had a light off and went ravaging.



I loved to go into the cabinets when we were playing hide and go seek. I discovered Mommy had a stash of sugar cubes in there for the Rosarian ladies' luncheon. Every time I went in there I took 1 or 2 cubes and popped them in my mouth. We hadn't discovered candy yet. It was a real treat...until the Rosarian luncheon came around.
Mommy said, Jayne, go into the cabinet and get me the box of sugar cubes for the ladies coffee and tea. I turned blue. I don't know how much was left, not much though. The whole neighborhood heard my mother screaming at me about that mishap. You guys know that I have been eating sugar ever since. :)

Title- The Studious One!

Title-  The Studious One!
artwork by Elyse

Of biscuits and syrup

Of biscuits and syrup
tasty treats

Happy Saturday!

Happy Saturday!
a day at the Raptor Center.

Widdle Emmie in outer space school

Emmie jumped on the bus and off it flew out into the atmosphere. There was a set of clouds with turbulence right above the house and it took a few minutes for my Emmie to buckle her seatbelt. They hit the bump hard and it knocked my Emmie out of her seat and she bumped her head. The video camera came on and the monitor looked through and stated, Ms. Emmie, where are you? You are not in your seat. Where are you? I am alright I fell because I hadn’t buckled correctly. Well jump up Emmie we have a long way to go and you have to be buckled there is entirely too much turbulence in the stratosphere for you to unbuckle now. As soon as we are through this weather system there will be straight sailing but right now you must buckle. Emmie scrambled into the seat with intensity and purpose now. She watched every cloud pass her window and her nose was pressed to the window trying to see the top of the house as it drifted slowly out of sight. Soon they were not only out of sight of the house, the sun came out brightly and just as quickly they were putting on the atmospherical breathing apparatus and the outerspherical lights. The ABA and the OL. These precautions were to make them appear to be satellites to the radar as they were out in the ionosphere. Emmie knew all about this now. She had gone to the orientation and had a good breakfast and it took them 20 minutes for her to get out past the atmospherical pull and to feel the zero gravity. It would be 15 minutes before the gravity simulators would take effect, a glitch in the system which was being worked on. Until then, they enjoyed the couple of minutes of floatation, while being connected to the seats by belt. The first thing they saw everyday was the strataflotsam. The items which had been dumped into the atmosphere by earlier generations. What would their generation do about this ecological waste area that remained floating above their heads? This was a question for the generations. For now it was the area that they had to guide through on the way to school.

Midnight at the OASIS

Midnight at the OASIS
Sunset in Huntersville

My little Emmie

ran to the bus on the first day of the last year of school. 2 buns on the side of her head. She kissed me and ran at dawn to the bus. She was starting the adventure of a lifetime. I would never see that little girl again, she was going to woman school!

My Father and I 1989

My Father and I 1989

to the tune of Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme

A VISIT TO PAPA











Are you going to Mary Immaculate?

Apricots, Chocolate Cherries and Pie,



Remember me to the one who lived there,



He once was a true love of mine,



Tell him to buy me an acre of land,



Apricots, Chocolate Cherries and Pie,



Between the muddy Hudson in Jamaica Bay,



Then, He’ll be a true love of mine,

Tell him to sow in it seeds of pure cream,



Apricots, Chocolate Cherries and Pie,



And build Ice cream mountains and buildings of whipped cream,

Then, He’ll be a true love of mine,



Tell him to reap them with sickles of M&M’s,



Apricots, Chocolate Cherries and Pie,



And chew bubble gum and eat till we’re done,



Then, He’ll be a true love of mine.



Tell him to run it off down the motor parkway,



Apricots, Chocolate Cherries and Pie,



After your done 50 pushups



and jog down the West Side Highway,



Then he’ll be a true love of mine…

(Don’t wait for me today dad, The kids are sick again, My tummy’s bulging again, My heart is aching again, And now there’s no love there…)





He once was, a true love of mine….So, Girls, I do beg you don't miss your Daddy,Apricots, Chocolate cherries and Pie,You have one short chance to see him on this side, Go visit him and let your light shine.