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Monday Morning Moment – Relational Wisdom – the Way It Could Be – at Work & Home

November 23, 2015 admindeb Leave a comment

Monday morning emails can be treacherous… This morning when I woke, my husband told me he’d just heard from a valued colleague that he had secured another job. Dave was expecting this because of previous communications they’ve had with each other. Through an organizational re-structuring, there are many whose jobs are changing. This email was good news because this person will be a tremendous addition to any team – good news and sad news. We will miss this man on our team but we celebrate a great job match.

Then another email came in. It was from the person who will be his new supervisor. It was full of respect and regard – a courtesy email that is not necessarily company culture these days but an email that shows understanding and empathy. When change comes, even good change, there is still that adjustment, that grieving of the good that was. Those two emails speak volume about emotional intelligence or relational wisdom…and that’s something we always need in the workplace…and at home.

The holidays have a particular call for wisdom to soften difficult expectations, disarm family conflicts, and personalize interactions to fit the needs of those nearest to us.

Photo Credit: rw360.org

One very simple way we can tune into holiday celebrations is to deal with our own stuff. Keeping our minds on the goodness of the holidays helps. It’s easy to find daily Advent readings for the month of December…depending on your favorite author or blogger, they’ve probably written some.

Related to both our work and home relationships, Ken Sande, founder of Relational Wisdom 360, has given us a great gift, and we don’t have to wait another day for it. He has written 33 Ways to Enjoy Highly Relational Holidays. A fast-read blog a day on relational wisdom, starting on November 23 to take you right through to December 25.

I attended Dr. Sande’s Peacemaker course years ago during a challenging work season, and what I learned then continues to be a tremendous help to me today. If your work or family situation is somewhat intimidating, don’t despair. There are those in our lives (Ken Sande is one) who will come alongside and help/mentor us, if we’re willing to take care of our own hearts and minds.Photo Credit: coldspringcenter.org

As Thanksgiving approaches and Christmas not far behind, I hope you can look forward to happily memorable times together with family. As far as work goes, just like with the emails above, we can do our part to make our workplace a kind and honoring experience – our part (not someone else’s) in making it the way it could be…the way it should be…Photo Credit: GoodWorksBracelet.com

What helps you thrive in stressful situations at work? What has made a difference in bringing peace and joy to your holiday celebrations? Please comment and share with those searching for that wisdom.

Surviving Christmas – Advent Devotions for the Hard and Holy Holidays – Anne Marie Miller – free ebook

Advent Devotional Readings Online by Lifeway

Good News of Great Joy by John Piper

Unwrapping the Greatest Gift: a Family Celebration of Christmas by Ann Voskamp

Cross-Cultural, Family, Food & Drink, Growing up, Home, Inspired, Memories, Mom

Let’s Talk Biscuits & Gravy – So Much More Than Just A White Carb Load

October 27, 2015 admindeb Leave a comment

Photo Credit: Daisysworld.net

This morning I am fasting for a doctor’s appointment and blood work later in the day. As I sip strong coffee without my lovely hazelnut creamer, biscuits and gravy keep coming to mind. They get such a bad rap these days, filled with all that white flour and fat goodness. I don’t understand why they are so bad, when the same fit and lean lovelies in my life (who refuse to eat these white carbs) seem less bothered with sugar-laden yummies…but that’s for another blog.

Growing up in the South, biscuits and gravy bring all sorts of sweet memories to mind. My beautiful mom always worked long hours outside the home through the week. Weekends were filled with catching up with housework, church, and us. Still, she would cook the loveliest breakfasts for us, and, in particular, the best biscuits and gravy. She mixed the dough by hand. In fact, she had a wooden bowl where the flour stayed between fixings. [Sidebar – I never knew what happened to that bowl. At some point she changed to a plastic one with a lid; easier to store the flour between times, for sure.],

She hollowed out a valley of self-rising flour in that flour bowl and mixed buttermilk and shortening into it. Gradually with those expert hands of hers, turning and turning, those 3 ingredients became biscuit dough. Then she hand-formed and patted those biscuits into little flattened rounds of loveliness. A few minutes in a hot oven, and magic happened.

[My little one learning to make biscuits from the master.]

While the biscuits baked, Mom made the milk gravy in a cast iron skillet. Sometimes, it was just a mash of flour and shortening (a roux, right?), with milk poured on top…slowly cooked to thickened perfection. Sometimes, sausage was gloriously added. Lots of pepper and just enough salt.

Mom’s biscuits weren’t the tall fluffy kind. They were more flat and chewy (with that sour bite of buttermilk). No matter how many she made, on a weekend with all of us around the table, there was always a grab for the last one. We ate the biscuits opened with gravy poured on. Mom liked a tomato diced on top of hers, and I took after her in that.

In all my life of cooking, my biscuits are never as good as hers. I do miss the days when, even as inferior as mine were, we sat around the weekend breakfast table with our teenagers, making our own biscuit and gravy traditions. These days, with the world so health-conscious, we don’t do this sort of breakfasting as much anymore…but the memories are, in themselves, satisfying.

Still…after my doctor’s visit, I wish I could make it to Hardee’s before they finish their breakfast service. Best biscuits and gravy option I have…since Mom’s with the Lord now…but hers were the very best.

Finally, one quick story….When we were living in Tunisia, North Africa, we had great British friends also living in our neighborhood. We enjoyed many servings of tea and cake around their table. One weekend morning, I invited them for an American breakfast of biscuits and gravy. First, “biscuits” in British terminology are cookies. Gravy is also brown and served over meat with dinner not at breakfast. So the idea of a meat gravy served over sweet cookies, for breakfast, turned out not yummy-sounding to our friends.

They were sweetly polite…but just didn’t understand that combination. Even upon tasting, the husband commented how it was an odd thing to do with scones. Live and learn.

What’s your favorite breakfast? If not at home, where? Back to fasting for me…for now.

The Move to America – British Expat Trying Biscuits & Gravy

US vs. UK – Scones or Biscuits

Best Biscuits in Nashville – We had those biscuits at Monell’s. Yum!

Paula Deen’s Recipe for Country Fried Steak with Biscuits and Gravy

All Good Gifts, Babies & Children, Beauty of God's Creation, Birthdays, Character, Faithfulness, Friends, Friendship, Grace, Inspired, Lessons Learned, Memories, Redeeming & Restoring, Remembering, Service, Thanksgiving or Gratefulness

What Makes for a Life-long Friendship? A Snapshot of Such a One

October 20, 2015 admindeb 2 Comments

A friend loves at all times. – Proverbs 17:17

Kathy was in nursing school when we first met. She was on a clinical rotation to the cancer unit where I was the oncology clinical nursing specialist. Bright, hard-working, kind and wise beyond her years.

We met again some time later when she was finishing nursing school and sorting out her future. She was thinking about obstetrical nursing, loving the idea of all those babies. I saw in her the hardiness and indomitable spirit of a cancer nurse, and asked her to at least consider that course for her professional life.

She did…and I will forever be grateful.

We ended up moving overseas after just a few short years of working together. In those years, a friendship was forged that has stayed strong across time and great distance. I credit it all to her.

I’m not sure how great a friend I am, but God has blessed me with incredible friends. For almost 30 years now, Kathy has hung in there with me…without benefit of much return.

Her birthday is coming up and I just want to make note of what makes for a close and life-long friend – in her loving and mentoring me. [She will say I mentored her…but in friendship, it is she, mentoring me].

Such a friend:

Shares a passion for the possible, if you’re in the mix. Kathy and I collaborated on a patient and family support initiative of our cancer center. In those early days I had the ideas, and she worked out the details. We had a third friend, Kay, who (given her position, wisdom, and spunk) cleared the path through administration for our great dreams…but that’s a story for another day. Kathy was the “hands and feet” to my dreams, and that initiative still continues even more far-reaching under her influence.

2. Loves your “littles”. Kathy was from the beginning, and to this day, in the lives of our children. She celebrated their births (or homecoming with our adopted third) and their birthdays, their graduations, weddings, and now children of their own. Kathy is a celebrator of life and makes a “ticker-tape parade” for those she loves…and there is a great community of us…because of her.

3. Makes an honored place for you in her family. I have a room in her house. Oh, it’s not mine, and it’s possible, it’s become a game room with her own children growing up. Still, I know I have a place in the mix of her family. We’ve had coffee together on her deck, and food around a fire pit, and late-night or early morning talks wherever in the house we find ourselves. She has always invited me in to know her family, and they treat me as always welcome.

4. Sees beauty all around her and creates it as well. Despite (or maybe because of) her hard professional life, she has a great sense of all the beauty that surrounds us. She tends flowers and sets a bountiful table (with that great cook of a husband, Mike). She notices the redeemable in a situation, and she exercises unshakable hope. She has both the wonder of a child and the faith of an old one. she struggles like all of us, but her actions seem measured; tempered by something greater. She lavishes grace on her people…which I need from her and of which she’s generous toward me.

5. Grieves bravely and bravely enters your grief. Grief can be so awkward. How does one go well through losing someone you thought you could never live without? Kathy has done that, professionally for years, with patients and family for whom she became family. Then when my mom was diagnosed with cancer, this friend turned all her force of love on us. She called me and my mom, encouraging and counseling with us both through the chemotherapy, and the failure of it.

We have talked for over a decade since Mom’s Homegoing about her – Kathy, asking questions for me to talk about her, and listening over again to the memories that comfort me. Then when her own darling parents became ill and died within months of each other, I tried to be there for Kathy (from hundreds of miles away). Yet, I wasn’t the friend I wished to be. That grace to walk through those days seemed to come from God Himself – wrapping His arms around a daughter who served others well, and now He served her in her own grief.

Though I’m not the friend I hope to be…Kathy is that friend. I could have written this blog about many others who have extended great grace to fortunate ones like me. Great, great friends. Today, on this occasion, nearing another birthday, I just wanted to say thanks to this friend who teaches me how to be a better one…and if that day never happens, still is such a friend, because it is her nature to be so. Thanks, Kathy. Happy Birthday.

Do you have friends you celebrate over a lifetime? I would love to hear about them (in comments below).

Survive and Thrive Cancer Support Group Sunrise off Kathy’s deck.

All Good Gifts, Cancer, Character, Cross-Cultural, Faithfulness, Friday Faves, Friends, Glory of God, God, Growing up, Heaven, Inspired, Jesus, Language, Leadership, Lessons Learned, Life Skills, Love, Memories, Mom, Remembering, steadfast love, Stories, Walk with God, Word of God

5 Friday Faves – a Language Learning Guide, a Tribute to Jeannie Elliff, a Friend’s Blog, an Infographic, and Singing Contractors

October 2, 2015 admindeb 2 Comments

1. A 12-Step Program for Language Learning – 12 Rules for Learning Foreign Languages in Record Time — The Only Post You’ll Ever Need by Tim Ferriss. Besides English, I’ve learned Spanish, Arabic, and a bit of French – through a variety of learning methods. This blog post with Benny Lewis is the best counsel for anyone embarking on learning a foreign language. He offers 12 rules for learning a foreign language and includes several links to more resources. Really helpful! Maybe I’ll learn Mandarin one day…

Photo Credit: Tim Ferriss; Twitter.com

2. A Radio Program – Tribute to Jeannie Elliff Our friend, Jeannie Elliff, died on July 20 after a long battle with breast cancer. She was a young 69 years old. Her husband, Tom, and all four of her children spoke at her memorial service. It was the most beautiful service I’ve ever seen honoring a woman who loved God and all of us so completely. Revive Our Hearts Radio is doing a two-part tribute (October 1 & 2) entitled Faithful to the Finish: The Life of Jeannie Elliff. Nancy Leigh DeMoss moderates the tribute, using audioclips from the memorial service. You can listen via the website and the transcript of the program is included in the link.Jeannie & Tom in Chemo Clinic – Photo Credit: Facebook.com

3. A Friend’s Blog on Love – My friend, Marlo, writes a blog entitled Pressing On which chronicles her family’s journey to life after the death of their daughter/sister, Anna. This piece focuses on the sixth verse of 1 Corinthians 13 (also known as the “Love Chapter” of the Bible).

Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. – 1 Corinthians 13:6

I never really thought about this verse until I read her blog. It’s an important truth and Jesus lived it lovingly. As are we to do so as well.

“He was both/and. He was holy and he was loving. His holiness was not a barrier to people because it was paired with love. Jesus met people where they were. He knew their sins and loved them anyway. He did not rejoice in their wrongdoing, but showed them a better way. If we are going to be like him, we have to approach people the same way.” – Marlo

Photo Credit: Pinterest.com

4. An Infographic – 20 Common Ways We Make Bad Decisions. I love infographics, being a visual learner. This one is fascinating as it lists out the many factors that lead us to making bad decisions. Which ones are you the most vulnerable to?

Photo Credit: DailyInfographic.com

5. Singing Contractors – Have you ever taken advantage of an empty room to belt out a song? It sounds so good, right? Well, not as good, maybe as these guys can make an empty room sound. I don’t know how The Singing Contractors got started singing together, while working, but I’m glad they did. You are watching the beginning of a YouTube phenomenon.

What are some of your favorites from this week? I’d love to hear them.

Alzheimer's Disease, Attending or Focus, God, Grace, Lifelong Learning, Memories, Redeeming & Restoring, Remembering, Seasons, Transitions, Writing

Memory – Whatever it is that I Don’t Have I Want to Keep

October 1, 2015 admindeb 2 Comments

My husband is a master gardener.

We have a beautiful backyard with a garden nurtured by a previous owner, Holly, and now made our own by Dave. Just beyond the patio are two pots. One is a pot of begonias; they have thrived all summer and keep blooming into Fall. There’s a matching pot of chocolate mint that is more scraggly. Dave told me next summer he wanted to do begonias in both pots. I asked him what he would do with the mint and he said he’d just throw it away.

No…I don’t want it thrown away. It has memories for me. What memories, he asked. It was here when we came (Holly was also a master gardener and left all kinds of sweet treasures in this yard of ours).

Then Dave said, “No, it wasn’t.” “It was a gift from our neighbor where we used to live.” To which I responded:

“Whatever the memory is that I don’t have I want to keep it.”

That nonsensical sentence is actually quite revealing. Once upon a time, I had an amazing memory. I could multi-task like crazy, keeping up with all sorts of details. Now, I make lists tucked on my keyboard each day to remember what I might otherwise forget.

My doctor, who is my same age, tested my memory at my request. He said it was normal and he struggles with the same age-related forgetfulness.

“Whatever the memory is that I don’t have I want to keep it.”

So…I write to keep that memory…of family visits, far-away places we’ve traveled and called home, lessons learned, and all the times God showed Himself faithful and kind in our lives together.

I write for my children…and for me. It would be a huge joy for me if my meanderings add to your day in a positive way.

I write to keep remembering…such times as these. Grateful. By the way…that pot of chocolate mint? It may hold begonias next year, but my dear husband will plant the mint somewhere so I can enjoy the memory…of that sweet young man next door who shared it with us…now that I remember again. Joy.

Forgetfulness – Seven Types of Normal Memory Problems

Age-related Memory Loss

When Memory is Normal & When it is Not-So-Normal

Abraham, All Good Gifts, Beauty of God's Creation, Christmas, Conversations, Cross-Cultural, Culture & Religion, Easter and Lent, Faithfulness, God, Gospel, Inspired, Jesus, Lamb of God, Memories, Pray, Reconciliation/Forgiveness, Remembering, Sacrifice, Sins of the world

Eid al-Adha – Feast of the Sacrifice – A Day of Prayers & Celebration Around the World

September 24, 2015 admindeb 1 Comment

Photo Credit: blogs.sacbee.com

“My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” And he said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” Abraham said, “God will provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” So the two of them walked on together. – Genesis 22:7-8

…Then Abraham raised his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns; and Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the place of his son. Abraham called the name of that place The LORD Will Provide, as it is said to this day, “In the mount of the LORD it will be provided.” – Genesis 22:13-14

عيد أضحى مبارك كل عام وانتم بخير
“Happy Eid Adha or Eid Mubarak!”

For Muslims, Eid al-Adha (“Feast of the Sacrifice”) is a holy day of similar importance as Easter and Christmas are to believing Christians. It is the day each year that they remember and celebrate God’s provision of a sacrificial animal for obedient Abraham. Abraham submitted himself to God’s instructions on that day centuries ago, and God provided.

Eid al-Adha actually falls during the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca. For those who are able and can afford to make the “hajj”, they will celebrate this day as part of their journey in Saudi Arabia.

We spent many years in North Africa and observed our friends and neighbors celebration of Eid al-Adha. Sometimes we were included but usually our friends spent the primary activities of the Eid (prayers, slaughter of an animal, and feasting through the day) together as family. We would be invited over the next days to enjoy the bounty of food that continued through the 3-day celebration.

The memories of those days remain with me. In the days before the feast, sheep markets popped up everywhere.

As neighbors bought their sheep, the bleating of these animals would spread through the city. Then in the early morning of the Eid, the streets filled with families making their way to the mosque for prayers. Children in new clothes would join their parents, boys with their dads, and girls with their moms, in their designated areas of the mosque. These chanted prayers would fill the air.

Our experience of the killing of the sheep was that butchers would come to where the sheep were – on roofs of apartment buildings or in alleyways beside them, or in the courtyard of villas. There was a prayer over the animal, and the butcher quickly killed the sheep and prepared the body for the grilling that would come later in the day. Sometimes, the animal was carved up and divided to be shared with other family members and with the poor.

There were three distinct smells on that day – the smell of blood, the smell of hair burning (as the sheep heads were burned on an open fire), and the smell of grilled meat. That last smell makes up for the earlier ones. I have seen satellite views online of the predominantly Muslim world on Eid al-Adha where there’s actually a visible cover of smoke. Not sure if it was true or not, but there is so much burning on this day.

Anyway, to my Muslim friends, I greet you on this feast day. Safe travels and sweet times together with those you love. May you know the provision of God for all you need in this life and the next.

We share the same Father Abraham. I shared, from the Torah/Bible, some of the account of his experience with the Lord that day. [In the Quran, the account is found in sura 37.] For us as believing Christians, the Biblical account was a foreshadowing of another Sacrifice, another provision of God.Photo Credit: Domenichino, en.wikipedia.org

“It is He who comes after me, the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.” [John the Baptist, speaking – John 1:27]

The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” – John 1:29

There are others, both religious and irreligious, who find these stories of blood and killing/dying repulsive and off-putting. When Adam and Eve rebelled against God, He covered them with the skins of animals, when they hid from God in their no longer innocent nakedness (Genesis 3:21). Our rebellion, our human condition really, requires a provision from a holy God. This is not such a popular view these days…but it is what comes to mind for me on this day.

I am grateful for those things we share with our Muslim friends. Deep relationships and conversations. Sweet memories and making more.

We also celebrate, in different ways, a God who provides. Thanks be to God for His indescribable, unspeakable, all surpassing, exceedingly great gift. (2 Corinthians 9:14)

The Frame: Eid Al-Adha, Feast of the Sacrifice – Photos from around the world

Behold the Lamb of God – John Piper

Perfected for All Time by a Single Offering – John Piper

An Uncle Like Abraham – Do You Have One? Would You Be One?

Babies & Children, Growing up, Lessons Learned, Memories, Pray, Transitions

A Prayer for Those First Days of School

September 8, 2015 admindeb 2 Comments

Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it. – Proverbs 22:6

Today, in these parts, kids are returning to school. We live in a neighborhood across from a middle school. It’s get out early or be waiting a long time on buses and cars delivering their kiddos to their first day back to school.

We homeschooled ours at first (that first day of school – August 24, 1992) . Even today, my throat still tightens thinking of our little ones and their friends in those days, heading off to a big world. It doesn’t take long and then they are grown.

Only a few years home schooling, and we went overseas. First to Cairo where they rode across town to a small American school for many years of their education.

Then we moved to Morocco, where one by one, they graduated high school. We were so proud of them and at the same time sad to see them launch. Just being honest.

I want to join you in your prayers for your little guys, and not so littles, as they return to school (or as they start another day of school).

God, Thank You, for the gift of children. Whether ours or someone else’s. What a stewardship you give us to raise them in Your nurture and admonition (Ephesians 6:4). They are Yours, after all, as are we.

Help us to instill courage and joy in them as they head into their day. Remind them of how You will never leave them or forsake them (Deuteronomy 31:6). Help them feel Your nearness to them today. May they sense their purpose in school today – not just to be about the job of learning but to also be a friend, helper, and true community member. Empower them to reach out to others with honor and kindness.

Father, we thank You for the teachers (some of them Moms and Dads themselves), the administrators, and those who work in assistive roles (from drivers and cafeteria workers to janitors and security guards). Give them strength for the day. Help them see the largeness of their work. The impact they will have on these young lives. Lord, I pray especially for those classroom teachers. These have been given charge over the precious ones You’ve given us. May these teachers have such love for their students that they can lead their class well. In such a way that they don’t have to wait until November to smile. Give them vision, too, to see their students as You see them and how they will impact their world…Some day AND today.

We pray for grace for ourselves as parents and grandparents. Grace just to get through these first days of school, trusting You. Show us ways to serve these teachers and staff that they will see You in us – that we would be received as considerate, insightful partners in the education of our children. Help us not to be a burden to them, but a help. May these school be lights in the community.

Lord, we think of others – children, parents, teachers – around the world who are about this great work of education. It is much more difficult for some than for us. Remind us that they are all precious in Your sight, and You blessed us, as Your people, to bless the nations. Help us to discover pathways to help those whose current situations hinder them from having what You desire for them – in our city and across the world.Photo Credit: bpnews.net

Thank You again, God…for firsts. First day of school. First graduation. First job. First baby. First day of school for her in 5 years. The years go by, and we are grateful for all we find of You in those years.

In Jesus’ name. Amen.

YouTube Video – Veronica-Pooh Nash Poleate – Tips and Tricks for Teachers

Praying especially, too, for this one, as he enters his first week teaching guitar in a local middle school. – Nathan Mills

Cross-Cultural, Friends, Friendship, Memories, Music, Remembering

Crossing Cultures and Making Friends with Music – Friendship Fest, Marrakesh, Morocco

August 4, 2015 admindeb 1 Comment

Photo Credit: Friendshipfest.com

I missed hearing David Crowder sing last night in a city not too far away, because a first grandchild could be arriving any day. Priorities.

Photo Credit: BPNews.net

Still, thinking about how much joy his music gives me got me reminiscing about another concert…in a far place…years ago.

We were living in Morocco at the time, and all our children were high schoolers. Somehow we heard about this crazy music event called Friendship Fest being held in Marrakesh. It was a weekend-long festival of Moroccan artists sharing the stage with international bands. Some of our favorite bands were on the roster.Photo Credit: Friendshipfest.com

It was May, 2005. Our kids were still in school, but we took off for a long weekend in Marrakesh. Carloads of friends (local and foreign)made that trip. To be a part of such an event would probably be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and we weren’t going to miss it.

The Newsboys band (in those days with Peter Furler) was my draw. For my husband and guitarist son, Nathan, it was more Phil Keaggy maybe. The thrill of just being there also compelled us all, joining an audience of friends and hundreds (later we found out it was 1000’s) of Moroccans. So amazing!

All that balmy May weekend, on this open fairground, the artists took turns on stage. A Moroccan group (hiphop, reggae, pop) and then a foreign band would perform. The audience was pumped. People coming and going but most of us staying, mesmerized.

So I’ll stop with the pictures. If only there was a way to describe the sounds, the emotion, the energy, the unity we felt together on those evenings. How the artists engaged the audience. It was completely captivating.

I’ll close this out with a YouTube video of Delirious? singing History-maker during Friendship Fest. At 3:09, you will start seeing a bit of the huge audience (85,000 people over a weekend). Our teenagers and their friends were up front, but we hung in the back of the crowd. Seeing all those Moroccan young people and kids from other parts of the world jumping together to that great song still gives me goosebumps. Joy!

Musical Event Celebrating Community and Friendship Between Americans and Moroccans to Continue

YouTube Video – Jeremy Camp Live at Friendship Fest, Marrakesh, Morocco, 2005

The First Waltz, Documentary of Friendship Fest (if you can find it)

All Good Gifts, Family, Food & Drink, Friends, Friendship, Memories, Transitions, Travel

Hello, Goodbye, Hello – This Time It’s Stella

July 31, 2015 admindeb 6 Comments

The packed, weighed-to-the-pound bags stand like soldiers in the pre-dawn morning. We have been the travelers or have sent off travelers more times than I can count. This time it’s Stella.

Hello. We met Stella, a Chinese student at Virginia Commonwealth University, three Novembers ago at the International Student Thanksgiving Dinner on the VCU campus. We were table hosts, among many other Americans sponsoring students for dinner that evening. She, her Japanese friend Junko, and another student from the Congo, Gloria, were our guests (and soon-to-be-friends).

After that, we shared many other local (American and international) customs and events. A high school football game. Food at all sorts of Richmond restaurants. Tacky Lights Tour. Christmas. Birthdays. Sleep-Overs. Graduations.

Having lived overseas ourselves, we are so thankful for the deep friendships we’ve known in those places. We hoped to be that kind of friend to these precious girls. As always, we received back much more than we gave.

Goodbye. The three years since meeting Stella flew by, as time does. She graduated this May from VCU with an accounting degree. This summer she plowed through the exams for a CPA. I am so proud of her. This beautiful, smart girl. How hard she worked. What joy we shared over her successes! She waits now for the results on the last sections…and she says her goodbyes…for now.

When you leave one life and return to another, there are massive amounts of details to manage. This last day of her stay in the US was, of course, such a day. I was the driver, and she ticked stuff off her list, including all the last’s of closing down an apartment and distributing stuff to saying goodbye’s to friends. Including one who’s having a baby in the next few days. Those goodbyes are hard for all of us – the just-not-quite-long-enough stays for all the hellos we want to say.

One of our favorite places to go (Stella, Junko, Gloria, and me) was Shyndigz – an unbelievably fun and yummy dessert restaurant in town.

Stella and I celebrated her finishing up closing down life here with a visit there. Stella’s favorite is the Nutella cake, but alas it wasn’t on the menu. We managed a close-second in the chocolate salted caramel cake (shown below – blogging on Shyndigz soon).

Shyndigz Chocolate Salted Caramel Cake – Foodspotting.com

We grabbed that piece of cake at Shyndigz 2Go, to eat later, and made one last food memory at a restaurant where she’d never been before. Cracker Barrel.

We didn’t eat the whole time we spent time together these three years, but we tried! Food sure has its place in friendship. That’s what Stella is looking forward to most in returning to China – the food. I remember, myself, the amazing food-with-friends experiences we had living in North Africa. Such sweet and satisfying memories.

Hello. This morning, riding east toward the airport with Stella and her bags, was beautiful. The sky came alive with the sun’s rising in deep pinks and oranges. It’s going to be a good day…even as Stella leaves us for now, and says Hello again to her family, friends, and life in China.We will meet again, Dear Friend. The Hellos are worth the heartache in the Goodbyes. God be with you until we meet again – either here, or there…

Postscript: “I know that You are near” – the line of song that came on when I started my car, leaving Stella and feeling sad. God is kind.

Babies & Children, Family, Growing up, Language, Memories, Mom and Dad, Remembering, Words

A Family Lexicon – Words That Grow Up With Us

July 14, 2015 admindeb 7 Comments

A lexicon is defined as “the words used in a language or by a person or group of people.” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

As a family grows up together, they develop their own language. Sure, it’s usually with words everyone knows but with a context that’s intimate, a context that says we belong. Family can have its prickly stages, but the language of family is deeply embedded. Even as the children grow up and have their own families, the collective memory of these words, just like with favorite songs, take us back to another time. A time that these words had love, place, and situation wrapped snugly around them.In the days our children were little (before our third came home to us), this lexicon began to develop. You can even tell the ages of our children by some of our acquired favorite sayings.

Below are some of our Mills Family Lexicon. I wrote them down over the last several weeks, as they popped into our times together. Some the children have outgrown, and we look forward to adding new ones with the next generation of kiddos.

“Breffix, Comptible, Pannicakes, Whatchoosay?” Words we still use even though we’re all grown up…sort of.

“Turn on the Pancake Music” – Vivaldi’s Four Seasons – Saturday morning pancakes were always accompanied by Vivaldi. I’m thinking the kids still all have a strong urge for pancakes when Vivaldi plays.

Bobwhite whistle – We lived in big cities when the kids were growing up (Cairo, Egypt, the biggest). Lots of airports. I wanted to be able to get their attention without words. This worked then….and did for years later. It might have lost its magic now (or with earbuds, who knows), but for years……they stopped whatever they were doing and looked up.

“Do not feel sad. Many things cannot fly. Rocks. Trees. Sticks. Spike.” – from the film Land Before Time

“Hold on tight, Knuckles!” – a line off the Sonic videogame; first coined in our family, when cousin Jonathan and our guys were tubing on the river behind Uncle Mark’s boat.

“Charlie Brown” – enough said, about our melancholy guys

“You’re killing me, Smalls!” – from the film Sandlot

“Too hot! Too hot!” – from the film 101 Dalmations

“That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.” – from Charlie Brown Christmas

“I. Am. O.K.” – [Thou Shalt Laugh; Taylor Mason]

“Every lit-tle thing’s gonna be alright.” – chorus of song by Delirious

“This is a sick world we’re living in! Sick people!” – from the film Jingle All the Way

“Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?” – Dad, from the film Rush Hour

“You wubbin’ me the wong way.” – Elmer Fudd, Geico commercial

“Are you dead, Man?” – from the film Cool Runnings

“No, only mostly dead.” – from Princess Bride

“People are idiots!” – from Everybody Loves Raymond‘s dad Frank

“Let’s go shoot buffalo!” – said his buddy Zach Anders at Nathan’s 4th birthday party

“Meskeen” – Arabic word meaning “pitiful” or “to be pitied” – resorted to when one of us is throwing a pity party. Other language words also used without thinking. “Malesh” is also an Arabic word meaning “It’s O.K.” or “Never mind” or “No worries”, Daniel’s French interjections sometimes come out of nowhere- including “Quoi?” (“What?”) and “Mafoix” (although I don’t know what it means).

“Either deal with it or die to it.” – again Dad’s short admonition when we keep ruminating over a conflicted situation or relationship.

“Being young is not an accomplishment. You don’t have to do anything to be young. To be old you have to persevere. That’s an accomplishment.” – Not sure what provoked Dave (the daddy in this family) to orate on this topic, but the kids all know this saying of Dad’s.

“Do not grow weary in well-doing; you will reap a harvest, if you don’t give up.” – Galatians 6:9 – there are the many Bible verses that were there for counsel and encouragement; this is one.