Hosea 10:12
MONDAY
We've all laid our flowers - coral carnations, white spider mums, and pink roses - on the casket. Some of us have started walking back toward the cars, parked end to end in two rows like matchbox cars along the narrow drive, but a cluster of cousins have formed a ring around something on the ground, not far from the awning beside the bittersweet-smothered tree. I join them, seeing the stone they're seeing.
It's James and Vera. My MomMom's parents. Parents of my GreatAunt Ruth, whose life we've just celebrated. The husband and wife who raised four girls, each of whom brought three new lives into the world, one of which was my dad. My Great-Grandparents. It has never occurred to me to wonder where they were buried, or to consider visiting their grave. Twice a year the whole extended Dowdy family reunites, at Fourth of July and at Christmas time, to celebrate and to rejoice in the heritage we share, but now, on a cold and sunny Monday at the very end of the year we're all together again and we're gathered around the memory stone of the couple who started it all. My dad is here today - these are his grandparents. My dad's cousins are here. Their kids - my second cousins. And their kids - my son's third cousins. My grandmother and my GreatAunt Vera, named for her mother, are the two Dowdy daughters still living, and they are here.
In an afternoon of sorrow, this is a joy none of us could have pictured. Unexpected, unlikely to happen again, and unmatchable, standing here together brings our connection full circle. We are family. We are linked by blood, by decades of love, and by the faithfulness of our Father who has handpicked each member of this Dowdy family to be part of the story He is writing. We rejoice today in all that He has done.
WEDNESDAY
Having a child diminishes the likelihood - and the desire - of staying up until midnight to ring in the New Year. But we thought there might be other parents in our situation who might enjoy an earlier-in-the-evening celebration of the page turn from 2014 to 2015. So we hosted a New Year's Eve: Parents' Edition Party.
Arrival was scheduled for 5:00, but the first family arrived at 5:15 and said, "This is our kind of party. Fifteen minutes late and still the first ones here." Exactly what we had in mind. No pressure. Four couples and their kids came to our house on New Year's Eve. Ten adults, eight kids, three pizzas, a stromboli, wings and fries, champagne, hors d'oeuvres, desserts, a campfire, moon-watching through the telescope, and a hymn sing. It was that good kind of chaos when you're just soaking up life as it throbs around you.
Everybody packed kids into carseats and headed for home long before midnight, and we had cleaned up and were in bed by 11:00 ourselves. But if our party is any indication of what 2015 has in store - styrofoam plates for toss-away cleanup, kids learning to share new toys, hymns in harmony, a patio and a living room filled with friends and conversation, and absolutely no pressure - it's going to be a very good year.
FRIDAY and SATURDAY
Furniture shuffling, just for the newness of some rearrangement
Grocery shopping
Paper-grading
Christmas decoration pack-up until next year
Dusting
Meal-planning
Reading
Teepee exploration
Wishful thinking about bathroom renovations
Foyle's War episodes
Vacuuming
Bath toy scrubbing
Late Christmas cards, addressed, stamped, mailed
Grateful this week for:
cousins
new shoes
Henry's wakeup babbles
alphabet chicken soup
houseplant
apple fritter
baby fingers on piano keys
quiche, the weekend supper
warm winter morning
surprise snuggles with my little boy
baby squeals
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