The full moon was peering in my front door, this morning

The rainy couple of days that we just had, gave bloom to a beautiful, if not a little bit chilly morning, lit by the powerful beams of the full moon. I am crying, like the days past. Still the tears donn, my face, as though my emotions are connected to the weather. I am remembering Abby. I remember the way I ran to his eighth-grade graduation. I thought to myself, he won't miss me, with all of the people that are there. All of the family will be there for him. He's only been in the school for a single year, how sentimental could it be. The tears that I saw on that boys face were, like a sheet of wetness. Pull yourself together, boy? It made me cry. I see now, in my dear eighth grader, the same sensitive style soul. Always holding tears back for some reason or other. The people in that school had healed a bruised soul. Education had battered and relationships had held the soul together. Mom wrestled that boy into a learning environment that could work for him. I see that gleem of light coming through, from my boy's soul. A light that means the joy of learning is being nurtured and not snuffed out. February is a time to reminisce about my dear and departed Valentines. I miss you, Abby.

Today is an overcast and muddy day.

It certainly reminds me of the many muddy days we spent at Baisley Park. I remember, with fondness the glistening eyes of my baby brother running into my arms and full of mud, with a froggypoo in hand. Dirty days they were. I learned much about the happenings of the wildlife in Baisley park, through the eyes of the nature boy that God had blessed us with. Many days I just knocked him on the ground, just to exercise my loving authority, as I saw it. My favorite memory was that of the St. Bernard dog that caught Abby, between the trees, just outside the baseball diamond and the tennis area. We were on a hill, horrified and sure that we were about to see our baby devoured by that huge beast, only to see the dog, lovingly showering him with salivation. We showered him, thusly ourselves, I am sure. Grandma Delaphena always warned us and Grandma Ruth, to stop kissing those boys. We didn't listen and now, I am glad that we didn't. I have many a treasured memory of kissing my baby brother.

Abacus, Dulcimus, Baby Sweet, Abby

The dry skin and the rough texture of my baby brother is still fresh in my mind, these 16 years later. I miss the swift mind and quick wit, that always contended and never bit his tongue. I miss the sensitive spirit that always took words told to him to heart, but never let you see him inculcate them. He always thought of it himself. How could you be your own man and have all of these people telling you what to do and to be? That is what I would have asked him. Nicknames came rolling off our tongues upon him. We called him everything, but home for dinner.
I think of my own children, everybody tells baby brother what to do. He has no room to think his own thoughts. Not Abby. He would think his own thoughts, in spite of us. 40 years ago today...Happy Birthday Ab

Tis the day before the boys were born! "Make a wish"

We stayed up all night. I never get tired of talking about how we waited for those boys in our lives. We laugh that before the boys we lived in a convent. All girls and all girly stuff. Dad tried to pretend that we were boys and Dad called us boys. But, there were no trucks and no cars and no catchers' mits. We did stuff that was boyish like climb trees and walked on the ice with Dad, but we didn't have any boys in the house and it was felt.
November 24th, we were all crammed into the little bedroom in the upstairs looking out at the stars. They called cousin Karla over. That meant that mommy was going to the hospital. Lets' wish hard on the stars. We stayed in the window and wished and wished. It has to be a boy, we said it is coming on the 25th like Christmas. It has to be a boy. We wished and wished and sang and wished. Some of the girls say they didn't wish for a boy. Cousin Karla told us to pray for a boy and I was with her. Enough of this all girl existence. That was one of the most memorable nights of our lives, next to cousin Karla's wedding. We got our wish! Not just one boy, another boy came after him. What an amazing providence and gift. I do love the remembrance of every one of the precious gifts that my parents gave me. Going to the stork's house every year, just to get me another playmate. But when they got me the boys, it was best of all. I am not kidding. We begged Grandma to give us Michael and I kissed the mole on the back of his head and prayed to God that He would give us a boy for all of the crying we were doing to get that boy. God did both. He gave me my own brother and He gave Michael back to us later on, as well. Talk about answered prayer...

Brotherly Love!

When I think about brotherly love, the only picture in my mind is the 2 little brothers that I had and their precocious little ways. What one didn't think of, the other one did. We would never have even thought about some of the antics that they got away with, or didn't get away with, as the case often was.
Dad had nothing to compare their brotherly love to.
There was a way that we were all brothers, and there was something most sacred about the love that those fellows shared. They were cherished by us all and we loved having them, but they were not impressed with eachother like we were with them.
Everything that they did awed us, because we hadn't seen boys in our family before.
I love you Ton' and I know that this is a very hard season for you. God can fill every deep grief. Learn to pray when you think about the pain that you feel for not having him here.

We are all missing Dad today and we are all missing Ab today, but there is a special way that, only Ton' is missing them both. Man to man.

I am so proud of the beauty of the time that Ton' and Mom and Jo spent in Dad's last days. I was pregnant and couldn't enter into the beauty of the sacred sitting by the river Jordan with Dad. They will always have that memory. God comforted me with the beauty of his face, when I went into the room upon his departure. I imagine that Grandma and Ma and his mother, under God, had planned a special surprise party for him and he had the face that said, "Is this for me? Is this the heavenly welcoming party for me, who had mustard seed faith?"

I am so comforted, when I remember the expression on his face and the fact that there are no wheel chairs in heaven. I will see my daddy run, like he did on the tennis courts and to chase a hoodlum off of the corner. Or the time I saw him chase our stolen car down the block when a hoodlum stole it. It will definitely be worth it all, when we see Jesus. His face seemed to say that to me. I am grateful to have gotten to see it.

Froggies, warts and ABBY-JO. I am remembering the hiking that began with Abby and Jo through Baisley Park. They would traverse, high and low. Places that I wouldn't dare go. I guess, that once they had lived through the St. Bernard incident there was no fear of any dog eating them up. They came home with pet frogs and other Baisley Park wildlife seemed to follow them. We called Ab the nature boy, because he felt more comfortable at Baisley Park in the weeds and the shrubs than in the house. Toady warts and yucky icky stuff was always in their hands and all over them. They seemed to have a relationship with the wildlife out there at the park. Only now that I have free time at work to make friends with the wild life can I have some understanding for this kind of relationship with wildlife. Back then we only teased them about the warts and the frogs and the relationships with the birds.

My other blog is fiction about my relationships with the wildlife around my job.Robins don't lean
Like AA Milne, I am trying to share with my own little ones my fictional thoughts at work.

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!

THE LAST SUNDAY IN AUGUST-TURKEY DAY?

I think I will roast a turkey for tomorrow's dinner. I will have to buy some cranberry and make the stuffing and have minimal fixins for our "Lord's Day afternoon dinner". We are all together and it is so reminiscent of the days when we were first married and the older children in Ben's family still came home on Sunday's for dinner. Love of family and love of Mom and love of turkey and love of Sunday seem to all go together.

Anyway, my carpet is clean!


Ezra was giggling in the back of the car at every joke the older children made and I remembered how completely oblivious that he is that these big children will be off and out to their own excursions before you know it. He is enjoying their being here for all its worth.

I am sorry that I couldn't have been that kind of big sister to my Abby! One that came home every week to sit him on my lap and play with him and pretend to still be at home. It is hard to reminisce about Sundays without grieving about that.

Once in Love with Abby!

We were out at Baisley Park. The "big ones" were on the courts and the "little ones" were exploring, their constant chore. The Little ones, including Abby were always exploring in some odd place. The freedom that they enjoyed.
This was not a test of the emergency notifying unit. Squeals and screams were coming from the plains. I heard the story from the other little ones and not from Abby, because he was too little to talk.
We heard screams and the escapees came to us stating that an enormous dog was attacking. All Bodden hearts stopped, all were accounted for but one. The baby of the babies was still out there with that enormous dog.
My eyes scanned the landscape for this enormous dog and it didn't take long to see that about 110 yards down the hill, past the little trees, between the 2 baseball diamonds was a full grown St. Bernard dog. We were too young and too naive to know what St. Bernard dogs do. We didn't even look at eachother, we just ran down hill to find where's Abby.
Jacq, was talking as we ran, the rest of us were out of breath. She said that they were climbing in the little trees and Jo and Ab were still in the little tree. Dad saw us running and started whistling, which meant "if this is not a death-threatening emergency, you'd better stop exactly where you are. 1/2 of us stopped, they hadn't read the fine print in the whistle. I kept going and stopped about 10 yards from the St. Bernard dog. I was not nor am I that brave when it comes to dogs, even now that I know St. Bernard dogs...
Jo-Jo was slowly and methodically helping Abb out of the tree and she turned around and saw the enormous beast and ran toward where we were which left Abby 2 yrs old alone with the dog. He also started to run and it did not take long for the dog to do what it does. Knock Abby to the ground and commence licking his entire body from bottom to top. Ab was about the size of the tongue and could have been inhaled by that dog, if it weren't a St. Bernard.
He was being loved on, by a St. Bernard. I like you Ab, tell me what is wrong and I can help you. You are what is wrong, we said. We didn't know that St. Bernard dogs were helper dogs. Abby did now. I don't think he was ever afraid of any animal after that.
Every creature loved Abby!