NOVEMBERANCE !

Novemberance!

  A wonder-filled word that only Ogden Nash could create.  Actually, as I remember chuckling over the made-up words in his simple poems I smile and try to create a

few words myself.  It’s all about remembrance and what a better month to remember those who have shaped my life than this month.

Isn’t it those silly moments of remembrance that trigger long lost memories with one who helped to shape your life?  Perhaps it’s an author whom you love or a relative or even a person you met for only a moment of your day who affirmed or helped to change the direction you were heading in your life journey.

November triggers those memories for me.  Perhaps it is the profound gratitude I have for those who fought for my freedom and continue to do so as we celebrate Veterans Day.  Perhaps it’s the abundant Thanks to God we take a special day to celebrate when we join others for a Thanksgiving meal.  Memories of relatives, friends, acquaintances and, yes, authors, who made a profound impact in my life flood my mind at the oddest moments.

For instance, one day I offered to spend time with my girl friend’s mother who visited for a short time and whose daughter had to work that day.  We sat on the dock below a tiny cottage my friend rented and talked about life and purpose and topics I no longer remember.  I never saw or heard from my friend’s mother again.  Yet, her listening ear, wisdom and guidance were part of a major pivot point in my life that led me to faith and a life devoted to Jesus Christ.  I can’t even remember her name but I remember where we sat and chatted and how new life entered my soul.

Little did I know that dozens of people were praying for me.  My grandmother, my aunt, my cousin, my step-mother, girlfriends, fellow workers and so many more.  I remember how they influenced me only in hindsight.  It’s not that I lived a wild and crazy life but it’s because they all were on a path that I could not see to follow.  They prayed that I would join them on their journey in Christ.  It’s as if one person’s prayer for me bounced off of another and then another so that I was literally surrounded by people’s prayers for months and years before I ‘discovered’ what they each had known and lived for decades.

I remember the stories from my mom who shared visions of her idyllic life as a child.  In fact, she grew up very poor but with a loving brother, mother, aunt and grand parents in the same residence.  She embraced the freedom of playing among the orchards and sailing with her wealthier friends on the lake where they lived.  Her life was less than ideal but her remembrance was beautiful and tranquil.  

Her mother, my grandmother, became a huge influence to me and my siblings.  She babysat and was close as we grew up.  When I was little she would bathe me and then wrap me in a big towel, sit in the lovely rocking chair that was in our bathroom, and sing lullabies to me.  

As we grew older she took my sister and I to the local department store for lunch on special occasions.  I even wore my little white gloves and the cafe hostess wore a huge flowered handkerchief in her dress pocket.  Her name was Miss Amy.  The love that flooded from both my grandmother and Miss Amy (for those brief luncheon moments) was endless.

I remember my grandfather on my father’s side.  I was five when he died but on Sundays, after church, we would visit him, all six of us in our family.  I remember sitting on his lap as he rocked in his chair and cracked peanuts for me.  Where were my siblings who were very close to my age?  I have no idea.  It’s as if I were the only one in the room when I spent just a few minutes each visit with him.

  It was that instant of connection that I remember.  A moment of feeling loved.

Only in hind-sight do I remember those love-moments.  My parents loved me very much but I never recognized that love until much later in life.  My siblings and I loved each other very much but not until long-lost memories began to flood my mind could I truly embrace that love.  In fact, my brother, who died too young from Multiple Myeloma, has a greater influence on me now than he did when he was alive.  He was a photographer who used a very old technique to develop black and white photos.  I saw his life as stark and colorless.  Yet, I now realize that he filled each day with that which he loved and lived exactly as he and his wife chose.  I see it now in his photos that seem to come alive as I flip through the pages of the book he published.

Speaking of published works, my other brother should be writing his third book but he is too busy raising money for kids with a myriad of physical challenges so they can enjoy a camp experience with others who have the same challenges.  His zest for life seems endless and the pace he and his wife maintain takes my breath away.  He knows how to have a great time, give a great time, see the good in tough circumstances and encourage me to keep on doing what I love to do, whatever that might be.

My sister, the botanical artist, stimulates my creativity.  I marvel at her ability to sit for hours lingering over the finest vane of a maple leaf.  She sent a digital picture of her drawing next to the leaf she picked off the ground.  I had a very hard time seeing the difference.  Her gift of seeing is precious to my myopic eyes.  I not only have very poor eye sight but I cannot ‘see’ what she sees with shadows and colors and shapes.  I have other gifts.  Yet, I find joy in her gifts.  She gives away to dear friends her artistic gifts when she creates meaningful cards for each occasion.  I remember her daily

as I have so much of her art all over the house.

It is interesting that none of my siblings chooses to follow the Christian path I have chosen.  Yet, the gift of their influence in my life continues to make memories in my heart.  All of us siblings have an artistic bent in one way or another.  It’s good to remember our contributions as a whole which connects us to a long line of very intelligent, creative relatives.  My mother and her mother were fine pianists but mom was also artistic with decor and so much more.  Most of my brother’s excellent writing comes from my father’s side.  His mother was a published poet whose works I refer to often.   My cousin spent a year deciphering her chicken scratches on snippets of paper that were placed in a box, an unforgettable gift to the entire family.  We all now have a very thick volume, shared digitally, of nearly all my grandmother’s works.  She wrote poems for birthdays, special days, daily days, everything.  Her poems help me to remember much family history. Fabulous!

My aunt on my dad’s side was the greatest influence in my life.  She made me crazy with her positive attitude . . .

always!  Everything was roses and tulips in January.  She

had incredible challenges throughout her life but she pressed through them as if they were a small pile of fluffy snow.  Raised very poor, as was my father, she and my dad worked while they received one college degree after another.  She and dad had goals they were determined to meet.  Each time they set out to do something they achieved their goal with honors.  Both excelled in whatever they did not only because they were very intelligent (so was my mom) but because of their determination to accomplish what they set out to do.

Because of my aunt, with whom I spent a great deal of time during my journey into the Christian life, I have gleaned that same determination to “press on toward the goal” much like the Apostle Paul.  Pressing through tough times, seeking the positive side of a bad situation, choosing to see the best in others even though the flaws are numerous, my aunt taught me to do the same.  

One caveat.  

     I battled a very negative attitude about life into my mid-adult years.  My aunt helped reshape my attitude, along with much prayer from others.  Meditation  and my growing faith, over decades, have helped me come closer to what I think my aunt could see in me.  Bless her heart, she lived until 104 because, in my heart, I needed her presence on this earth that long . . .  and so did her own family and the hundreds she influenced until her very last weeks of life.  I could write volumes about her but I need to end this very long Novemberance.

To sum it all up, remembrance this November is no

different than any day of the year or of my life.  Each day another anecdote comes to mind from all the memories given to me by all those who love me enough to stop for a moment, or for many moments, to share their lives with me.  As I write, there are more names and remembrances that flood my soul like a sweet bouquet that my sister created on this pillow I cherish.  I cannot share them all.

Yet, I must now pass the gifts from others’ lives that I remember to the next generation.  I pray that lives I touch for even a moment might receive a word of

encouragement to know they are loved.  
I begin with prayer for each individual in our wide, extended family, for each person who touches my life even for a moment and desires prayer.  
The list is long.  

I begin to imagine dear souls in the Northwest and work my way across the U.S. to the Southeast

Prayer brings remembrance.

And right now, today, it’s Novemberance!