Sherry’s Blog

My husband and I watched the Olympics Sunday night and saw the exciting U.S. men’s swim team win gold. Michael Phelps and his teammates made us laugh when they cheered their final teammate to the finish line and when they crowed like excited young men do. Think of Rufio in the movie Hook. As an mother of mature age, I went to bed happy about the young mens’ vigor, achievement, and youth. In fact, I tossed and turned for about an hour because I was so excited.

Not two hours after I fell asleep, I got a call that my best friend’s husband died. He was 81 years old and had endured about two weeks of illness. I drove to the hospital to be with my friend. Afterward, I returned home and lay in bed for another hour thinking entirely different thoughts about a phase of life that was totally the opposite of what I had felt about Phelps and team. I thought of this man’s mature age, how he had lived a good life, had retired from a career, had built a home with his own hands, and had been an excellent father and husband. As sad as I was, I was at peace with these opposite thoughts.

The contrast in my feelings struck me just before I fell asleep for the second time. The extremes in my emotions helped me appreciate the men in my life. My own sons and my son-in-law work supporting their families, and they like to play hard, too. Afterward work, they often golf or camp or play ball in the yard with their children. Their youth and energy amaze me.

My husband, too, amazes me in different ways. He has tackled a new career with the same work ethic he has always had, pouring his heart and soul into it as he supports us. His recliner, though, is the place he heads after work each day. All of the energy he used to have to play with our children, to run for exercise, or to tackle home projects is gone. In its place is a calm contentment with life. We both are healthy and blessed.

Both phases of life are different. Each is fulfilling and exhausting. My prayer is that my younger men reach the age that my older one has achieved and has the same peace of mind and good health. My prayer is also that I get to keep the older one around longer, and that we both enjoy these quieter years of our life together, just like my best friend enjoyed with her husband for many years. She has no regrets and is thankful he died peacefully, surrounded by those who love him. None of us could ask for more.

Three women I know have allowed the black grasshoppers that visit Calhoun County each July to lose their minds. I am one of them.

First of all, the grasshoppers, commonly called devil’s horses, are scary. They are shiny-car black with a red strip on their bodies. They look like armored horses, ready for battle against plants. They grow up to four inches long and hop quickly when being chased. I know. I have run after many a devil’s horse as it shot across the grass until I could stomp it. E-e-e-e-w. They are juicy.

Second, the grasshoppers are chomping machines, especially when munching on the leaves and buds of vegetable and flower plants. Heck, one of them recently ate half a baby cantaloupe. How do the grasshoppers know the different between my prized plants and weeds? “Ah, ha,” I have said to more than one devil’s horse as it crunched down on a favorite plant. I have been known to slap them onto the wooden deck where my plants sit in pots and then grind them quickly with the toe of my shoe. E-e-e-e-e-w, again. They have golden guts.

Third, devil’s horses seem to thrive on bug spray. It deters them for maybe a day. After that, they are back with their babies, friends, and kin. I have hopped around killing dozens at once as if I were dancing on a digital pad. “One, two, stomp, stomp, stomp. Three, four, stomp some more.” Oh, I hate killing baby any-things, except baby devil horses.

My seven- and eight-year-old grandchildren are afraid of these insect monsters, but surely they will join me in this battle one of these days. For now, they jump out of the way when devil horses stampede. They look at me wide-eyed and say, “Maw-maw, there’s one getting away.”

“Help me,” I say, but they shake their heads no. I know what they are thinking. “Maw-maw is losing her mind,” the same thing I think about my two devil-horse mentors.

I recently watched my elderly neighbor across the street calmly weed her flower garden with a hoe. Suddenly she leapt into action and started chopping with a vengeance. I ran over to see what was wrong. I should have known: she was chasing a devil’s horse across her garden, never mind that she was whacking down her plants.

A neighbor swinging a hoe does not worry me half as much as my mother with her weapon of choice. We were recently discussing how many devil horses there are this year when she said something that alarmed me. “I have seen four or five in the street lately that I was able to run over. I keep my eyes open for them all the time.”

Drivers in Calhoun County, beware. My mother always gets her grasshopper.

My family and I celebrated the Fourth of July with a friend’s large extended family who all have homes along a lake in Anderson, South Carolina. Together, we ate hamburgers, swam, boated, and played. Then, all sixty of us settled in lawn chairs about thirty yards from the lake. The celebration’s host named John announced to us all that he was glad we came. He said he realized the firework show would not be quite as exciting as the previous year when one rocket went into the crowd. He had taken precaution by standing a wooden board between the crowd and the stack of rockets. What happened next shocked us all.

John and our friend named Ron stood on the bottom level of a two-tier dock and lit the rockets, starting with the smaller ones. They hoped to save the big rockets for a grand finale, they later said. About three or four minutes into the show, a lit rocket flew backwards and hit a pile of nearby paper sacks. The ensuing fire started a chain reaction of explosions.

Puzzled at first, we observers stood up. Where were John and Ron? We could barely see them because of the smoke and the rockets that began exploding a few at a time, and then the big explosions began.

By then, I saw neither John or Ron. What happened next forced me to focus on the rest of us. I noticed one person, John’s sister, running toward the fire screaming her brother’s name. The rest of us ran in the other direction as rockets began shooting toward us, zooming by our heads, by our legs, by our arms. I met my daughter face to face. She had had the sense of mind to grab her four-year-old son.

“Take him,” she said. “Lance (her husband) went down there.”

I grabbed the child and jumped behind the narrow support post of a deck. I peeked at the fire. It was now more like an exploding, colorful bonfire, with flames and sparkles of green, blue, yellow, and red popping off every second. One whizzed by my grandson’s head. I ran further up a hill. I paused again and looked backwards, hardly able to keep my eyes off the explosions. The fire was both scary and fascinating. Smoke, light, explosions, and screams were all around. Everyone was running up the hill with me. My grandson began crying for his mommy. Another rocket whizzed by my arm. I jumped as high as I could and landed behind the neighbor’s house as bushes and shrubs scratched my legs and arms.

“Why are we in the twees?” my grandson asked.

We stood there about two more minutes as the exploding rockets died down. The crowd stopped running and began creeping back toward the dock. There were no cries, no screams, just silence. Everyone discovered their family members were okay. The smoke cleared and people began hugging each other. We learned that Ron had run off the dock when the fire started. John had dove into the water.

I found my daughter who said my son-in-law had kept John’s sister from running into the fire. She also said she had helped an elderly man who had almost fallen when he dodged a rocket.

Where was my husband? I looked around. He was coming down off the hill. “Something hit my back as I was running away,” he said. “I figured I was on fire, so I stopped, dropped, and rolled.”

We turned him around, and even in the dark, he seemed okay, no burns on his shirt, and only a tiny blister on his hand.

We stood in a cluster feeling a mix of emotions; relief, anxiety, concern, and humor. We began laughing. “Daddy did a stop, drop, and jelly roll,” said my daughter. “This Fourth has been a blast,” I said. Suddenly, everything everyone said was funny.

I guess there is a thin line between terror and humor. My family got in two separate cars and drove toward my daughter’s home. We called each other on our cell phones, sharing all of perspectives of what happened, what was funny, and how weird the whole experience had been.

Everyone except for my husband had come to the aid of someone else. “Think George Castanza,” I said, referring to a Seinfeld episode when George dressed like a clown and ran over the kids at a birthday party. Even my husband had to laugh.

I drove my granddaughter, 9, to camp recently, which is in Lineville, about 35 miles away from my house in Anniston. I passed many farms, rolling hills, and red-dirt roads. Even the paved roads are rolling and curvy, with many narrow county roads intersecting the state roads. Tall grasses line the roads, as well as lush trees and flowered yards of the many rural houses along the way.

My favorite houses are the old ones with aged wood, tin roofs, and rock porches and fireplaces. These were probably built during the 1920-30s when my own grandparents lived in the area. My mother’s father, Robert Cole, came from the Newnan, Ga., area after a fall-out with his affluent brothers and sisters over his choice of a bride. He married Claudia Bowen, a woman I never knew because she died when my mother was about 13 years old. From photographs, I know she looked like my mother and my aunt, and Mother says I would have loved her. Her love for me and my sisters was shown to us by my own outstanding mother.

Mother has told me about their lifestyle in Lineville when my grandfather was trying to make a living as a farmer. The houses had wells, outhouses, and wood stoves. Wringer-type washing machines washed the clothes and sunshine dried them. Housewives wrung chicken necks and bought spices from a peddler. I can’t imagine. As a seasoned housewife, I sometimes think of my grandmother and how hard her life must have been. The hardships probably led to her death, as she died after lifting a bucket of water a day or two after giving birth.

I especially think of my grandmother whenever I drive through Lineville. I have made the trip annually because I have driven children and now grandchildren to church camp for the last 33 years. As I drive, the spirit of my grandmother comes to me, and I can see her caring for her family in one of those wooden houses, calling to her children, and getting into a wagon to ride to church as my mother said she liked to do. My grandmother was an attractive woman when she was dressed up. Mother has pictures of her dressed in dark, straight long skirts with laced shoes. She looks contented in these photographs, not exuberantly happy, but glad to be alive and to have a loving family. She must have been an even lovelier young woman for my Granddaddy Cole to have traded his place in his family for her. All of his brothers were expert carpenters, evidenced by the houses that still stand in Newnan in an area called Coletown. The houses along the streets there are masterfully built Southern homes that have been renovated by wealthy townspeople.

I could possibly have inherited one of those houses had my grandfather stayed in Newnan. However, I feel I inherited an ever better gift. My grandmother must have been one of the best mothers in the world in the short time she was a mother, because my mother inherited from her an amazing set of skills. I have them, I have passed them down to my children who are great parents, and now we are loving our next generation. My granddaughter was so appreciative to have the chance to go to camp and to have the new things her parents and I bought her before she left. She laid her head back on a pillow as we drove. “I can’t sleep, Mawmaw,” she said. “I’m too excited.”

Appreciative, loving children who are being molded to make good parents are life’s best blessing. I wish my grandmother had lived so that she could know the fruit of her labors, but something tells me she knows. That special “something” whispers to me every time I drive to Lineville.

During a recent visit to the homes of my parents and my parents-in-law, I had to chuckle at how organized things are. Both of their homes stay in good order, even if a little dusty in spots. Cabinets are orderly, even if a little cluttered around the edges. Closets are the exception: They all have way too many clothes in every one of them.At my house, I have a little orderliness in some spots. I have much disorder in many other spots, but I plan to work on those spots soon. My clothes closets seem to be getting more and more crowded as the years go by. Like pounds, clothes are easy to come and hard to go. I need about two full days to clean my own closet. (I must mention that one closet in the house is neat and orderly, my husband’s. (sigh))

During visits to my adult children’s homes, I get a little flustered with the clutter, kind of like I used to when my kids lived at home. The disorganization of the rooms, especially where their children spend most of their time, means they have trouble finding things – the entire purpose of being organized. In my adult children’s defense, though, all of them have moved around many times, and they barely get somewhat organized before they move again. I am convinced that it takes years to get a house in complete order, which is why the elderly have an advantage over the rest of us.

Also, homes occupied by those in various stages of life have a different atmosphere. My parent’s homes are quiet places with crisp, clean linens, and the frequent smell of spices in the air from their baking projects. My own home is quiet and serene in the bedrooms, dining rooms, and the living room, cluttered in the main living areas. My adult children’s homes are noisy throughout with the sound of children running and playing (sometimes where they should not). Hand towels are often knocked off of racks, and the family’s beds are frequently tumbled, if made at all.

Isn’t it wonderful that those of us who have never “gotten it all together” eventually will? The stages of our lives mean that we look toward our parents as examples, just as we did when we were all and they seemed so perfect in our eyes. Our adult children look at the two older generations and are encouraged that things will settle down eventually. We in the middle can look forward to the positive aspects of growing older and can look backward at where we’ve been. My personal goal is to live in a way that encourages my adult children and comforts my parents. It’s quite a responsibility to be in the middle, but one that most of us middle-agers usually carry without feeling overwhelmed. Just talking about the folks that I am so thankful to have in my life makes me want to go to their homes for a visit, if only I could find my car keys in this cluttered kitchen.

I recently interviewed a man who is focused on his heritage. His family is of royal blood, dating back to when they ruled a city in Germany during the sixth century. The man has built a castle-like house near my hometown in order to help his children and grandchildren remember that their family once lived in a castle. The interview made me wonder why I have little interest in tracing my own family’s ancestry.

One reason I may have always felt content about the topic is that as a Christian, I know what the Bible says about my Christian heritage. In Christ, I am the daughter of a King. The Bible itself records from the beginning of time the heritage of those who seek God. Perhaps I should be more concerned about my earthly heritage, and I find the family history of others interesting, but I am not motivated enough to trace my geneology.

I do remember, though, one day when I found the scant knowledge I have on my husband’s family particularly useful.

When my son Jeremy was about seven years old, he came in from school one day almost in tears. One student had told the teacher all about a famous relative he had. If I remember correctly, the relative was a sports hero. Jeremy felt isolated and inferior because he had no such relative, or so he thought.

As a mom, I tried to explain to Jeremy how we cannot control who our relatives are, and I told him how God loved us no matter who we are. Nothing I said, though, helped his feelings. Suddenly, I remembered an article my father-in-law had given us that showed how our family was related to George Washington. I remember chuckling when I read the article because I remembered that George Washington had many children. Almost every natural-born American can probably trace their family back to him, too. Nonetheless, I found the paper and showed it to Jeremy.

His face lit up. His eyes widened. He began hopping around with excitement and held the paper as if it were made of gold.

Crisis resolved, I thought.

Jeremy got up early to go to school the next day. He came back that afternoon telling all about his friends’ reaction to his being related to a famous person.

Through the years, I have learned several verses in the Bible that tell us we are a part of God’s heritage. In 1 Peter 5:3, God tells the elders not to lord their power over God’s “heritage,” referring to the Christians. Jesus said in John 17:11 that those who love God are one, “Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we [are].” First Corinthians 1:9 says, “God [is] faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.” Mark 3:32-35 says, “And the multitude sat about him, and they said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee. And he answered them, saying, Who is my mother, or my brethren. And he looked round about on them which sat about him, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother.”

I can think of no better heritage to give my children or my grandchildren the heritage that is already recorded and in place, that of being a child of God who seeks the blessings of His heritage.

My sister Cindy and I recently canoed on a weekday morning. The experience will sparkle in my memory for years. We drove her family’s truck loaded with her canoe to Terrapin Creek in northern Calhoun County. We “hired for free” a guide named Marcel who loves canoeing and said he was glad to get a chance to “protect” two mature moms from dangers we might encounter. As it turned out, the guide that our too-busy husbands insisted we take turned out to be a new friend. We needed no protector because we canoed for more than four hours without a hitch, not counting the journey’s tip end when Marcel helped us get out of the canoe because it had turned sideways on a rock. Thanks, Marcel.