I miss being a grandkid....

      I was watching an episode of "Farmhouse Rules" I had recorded on my DVR, and I found myself in tears. That is not usually the response one expects from watching a Food Network television show. While Nancy Fuller was making cinnamon rolls for her grandkids, I had a bit of a meltdown: I miss my grandparents. One set of grandparents lived on a farm on the outskirts of a Midwest college town; the other set lived in a cozy suburb to a big city next to an even bigger lake. It was the best of both worlds for me; I could enjoy the country life and the city life whenever I visited.
      I remember the fun we would have when we would visit the farm. In the summer, my sister and I would get to play outside in the fresh country air. We'd ride on wooden horses that we would drag around the acreage or the orchard or the barn. We'd go out to the cow pasture or into the corn crib or out to the garden. It was heaven. Grandma would make simple but wonderful meals: dinner would be Iowa-cut pork chops, fresh corn, and creamy mashed potatoes. Dessert would include angel food cake slices with fresh strawberry sauce or cookies and ice cream. Breakfast would be toast and scrambled eggs with orange juice or cereal with ice-cold milk. I remember her making cinnamon rolls, too, which is one of the reasons Nancy Fuller's show made me cry. I have so many great memories of spending time at the farm. Being a grandchild of farming grandparents made for a great time. 
     And then we'd visit the grandparents in the big city and get to experience all that entailed. We'd go to the museum or the zoo or a ball park. Summer was filled with parades and summer fests and traveling around all of the wonderful places in the big city. Or we'd stay at home and play in the pool in the backyard. If it got too hot, we could go downstairs in the cool basement and play lots of fun games we'd make up. We'd help grandma make yummy baked chicken and rice pilaf or Swedish meatballs and mashed potatoes (usually just for Christmas, but we could convince her....). Dessert would be ice cream or cake or cookies we helped her bake. Breakfast the next morning would be cereal or waffles. Belgian waffles. With syrup or strawberries or powdered sugar. We'd spend evenings playing board games or, that one Christmas, making a gingerbread house and having to send people to the store to get more ingredients. And the grocery store wasn't the only place to visit. The shopping! We could go to a mall that was bigger than my whole town; I swear it. Okay, maybe not as big as my whole town, but it was big. We would go shopping, well, at least window-shopping, and try on fashionable, cool clothes and experience the big city life.
        Spending time with either set of grandparents was a blessing that I don't think I took advantage of; no, scratch that, I totally know I didn't take advantage of it. I remember time spent at the farm wishing I were at home so I could go to the pool with my friends. I remember time spent in the big-city wishing I were at home so I could go to the local library to get some silly book. I particularly remember one summer we got to spend an entire week in the big city, but all my sister and I wanted to do was hang out at the house and be sullen pre-teenagers. Grandma and Grandpa got a bit miffed with us, in fact, and told us that they might as well send us home early since we weren't going to have any fun.
      What made me sad while I watched the show today was that Nancy made special pancakes with sausages in them so that her grandkids would have a special memory of spending time together with her. It was a poignant moment for me because I do have those special memories of spending time with my grandparents; however, I also try to push those memories into boxes that I store in the back of my mind because, while they are wonderful and happy memories, I'm sad. My grandparents are gone. I won't get to make new memories with them ever again this side of eternity.
       I'm not good at being vulnerable or open with my grief. I'm much better at hiding the sadness behind busyness or hermit-like behavior. Too often, I allow myself to stop feeling the grief instead of pushing myself to feel it so that I can move forward. One of the reasons I haven't written in my blog for so long - I have no idea if anyone even noticed - is that while my blog has been a way to communicate to whomever wants to see it, I didn't want to share.

        Maybe I was supposed to watch that show because it's time to start thinking about and sharing those memories with those who want to know them. In fact, I should probably share this with family who know exactly how I feel. Maybe they'll read my blog.

Sky-Blue-Pink

         My aunt has been sending me pictures of clouds she gets from the weather channel.  These pictures are of amazingly beautiful sunsets or sunrises that color the clouds the unique color she calls "sky-blue-pink" or "S-B-P" for short.  The first sky-blue-pink picture she shared was this one:

          Sometimes the clouds in the pictures aren't pink.  Sometimes they're lavender or peach or twilight blue.  She called this one a double dip of peach sorbet:

        Occasionally she sends these terrifyingly beautiful pictures of tornadoes or wall clouds or thunderstorms that some intrepid storm watcher has taken from his house or her car or somewhere too dangerous for the camera-person.  She always remarks how amazing it is that God creates something like this, but how it is even more amazing that we can trust Him to protect us during situations like this one:

       Some days she sends just one lovely picture with a short note reminding me that we serve a God who is always giving us these glimpses of beauty in our day if we would just take our heads out of our selves and look around us. She sent this one to remind us to take time at the end of the day to marvel at the beauty of the world around us:

        Some days (like yesterday) she sends multiple images of pictures she sees and wants to share.  The pictures ranged from sunrises to sunsets and everything in between.  It was like spending a day seeing the world through her eyes, even though we live eight hours (by car) apart.  A favorite one she sent was this one:

Then came a bunch of other beauties, finished by this one:

       But the most lovely thing, to me, about these pictures is that she's sharing them.  She sees this lovely thing, and she could choose to hoard it in a file on her computer to go back to over and again when she wants to see something beautiful to soothe her soul.  But instead of keeping these pictures close, she's sharing them.  That may not seem like a big deal, but it is.  The last couple years have been difficult ones, with some pretty devastating losses, and for awhile she curled inward for protection and healing.  Pain can cause us to become hermits and forget that a burden shared makes it lighter.  And for awhile, my aunt kept her pain close.  However, sky-blue-pink skies come in the morning and have a way of smoothing the edges that loss creates.  Now she's reaching out and sharing her moments of joy with me, and that is the real beauty of a sky-blue-pink picture: the sharing.