Hannah

Hannah and I got the opportunity to hang out together last night while Dan and Amy went on a date. She is a funny, sweet, and wonderful little person! She is starting to talk, she likes to play chase, and she plays the piano. We played "grandma builds tower and Hannah tears it down." When I fed her supper I gave her a little plastic fork and she played airplane with it. She spent quite a long time trying to make a doll shoe fit on her toes. She did eventually give up and put her own shoes on (with my help). Although Hannah is still not bigger than Max, she shoves him away when he gets too kissy; Max seems to know she is the boss. Bedtime was sweet - 2 books, then rocking. She laid her head on my shoulder without any fuss at all and went right to sleep. I can't imagine anything more peaceful than rocking your granddaughter to sleep.

Power of parenting

How long do parents' actions affect their children? The positive stuff, I believe, is for eternity. The negative stuff, by the grace of God, has an end but it can last a long, long time. Today I was really surprised to find that after 40 years, my dad's death still had the power to make me cry. I was at a Crisis Response Training. The trainer talked about her experiences being called in to respond to national crises like the Columbine shootings. She told her experience of asking a little boy what it was like to be a 4 year old who lost his daddy. The trainer helped us understand the importance of asking that hard question. I realized no one ever asked me that after my dad died. In fact, no one said anything. When I went back to school, I wasn't sure if everyone was afraid to ask, or if they just didn't know that my dad had shot himself. None of us in the family even talked about it. Back to the crisis training: the next thing the trainer said that started to unleash my tears was that when a child loses one parent through death, they also lose the other parent to grief, sometimes for a very long time. It really touched my heart because I knew I never did completely get my mom back. She became a bartender after dad's death and spent the rest of her life taking care of sick men. I hadn't thought about the fact that I really lost both parents. She had to deal with it in her own way. Mom said just recently, "oh by the way, I have been meaning to tell you kids...Uncle Glenn said that your dad's death was an accident - that he was trying to fix an old gun of your grandpa's." What?! 40 years later she says "oh I've been meaning to tell you"...?! So I started asking siblings what they remember- the only thing our memories agree on was that the death was suicide - that he shot himself in his own mom's garage. No love for his own life, let alone his family. One sister said it was a relief that the pain was over when he was gone. One brother believes it was a personal assault on him - that the grenade blew up in his hand in Vietnam the same instant that dad died and there was some kind of weird cosmic connection at that moment. I had believed all these years that there was a suicide note that blamed us - a family who didn't love him. No one else remembers a suicide note. Even though we all have a different take on what happened, it affected us all in ways that we may never understand. I had no idea that something that happened 40 years ago could still make me cry. God promised that in the next life there will be no more tears, so I know the negative parenting will lose its power. But God's power working in a loving family is eternal. My life is nourished daily through the love of my husband Darrell. I see my own children loving their lives, loving their family and loving God. I believe my grandchildren will have the same heritage, and the love will last forever. I would like to believe that was the last of the tears over my parents' choices. But if not, God promised that there will be a day with no more tears, and that will be eternal. Now there is some powerful parenting! Thank you, Father!

Rev 21 "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things have passed away."

Thanks for allowing me to talk about this and for reading. I hope you will leave a comment to show that it really is OK to talk about it. You can't say anything "wrong". Also, I recommend watching a video of Jeremy Camp's "There will be a day". It is so beautiful! If you do, please comment on that as well.

Wordle

Have you seen Wordle? It takes a bunch of text that you feed it and it makes a beautiful word cloud. Look at this one that I made from the Lift My Eyes blog. (Thanks, Lianna!)

http://www.wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/912546/Longs_Peak

For my going away present from Future Pathways, the teachers all came up with words that described me and made a beautiful Wordle that they framed for me. On the matte surrounding the wordle, everyone wrote a few words to me and signed it in different colors. It is so beautiful and meaningful! I will hang it in my new office at Prairie Crest Elementary.