this is the one and only Crazy Bunny Abber Funny Dabber.

“There Will be a Day” -- Reflecting about my mother with Jeremy Camp’s song

My mother raised the five of us alone. Dad was there – but on the easy chair, asleep, or on the tractor. She dressed us, made the food, cleaned the house, teased us, and loved us largely by herself – while doing most of the morning and evening milking. She remembers being nine months pregnant and barely able to bend over and put a milker on a Brown Swiss. She remembers crying when she found out my younger brother, Steve, was coming – how would she handle another baby when Bruce would only be four I would be a hyperactive-into-everything-tornado of two? She regretted those thoughts for years. I think her 81-“I-am-not-82-yet!” brain under her fly-away, wispy gray hair has mercifully forgotten that memory now.

I remember cold, January days when Mom and a brother or two or perhaps a sister and a brother would be milking the cows. I would be banging into the barn around big, white buckets, empty of mash or milksaver. Mom was standing there with her hands flat into her back jeans pockets, an impish grin on her freckled face as her bottom played “bumper car” with Steve. “I’m standing there,” she’d tease, nudging my brother over a few inches. What would ensue would be Mom’s crazy version of, “King of the mountain,” as everyone within a 30 feet radius would join in. I miss the head of dark brown hair she had and her quick, bright sense of humor. More than anything else, when I saw Mom fallen to the floor in the bathroom this morning, struggling to get up, I miss my young mother – the one that would sneeze and I would swear a tornado was coming; my young mother who would work circles around me, then sit down and go to sleep in an instant; my young mother who would climb to the floor to play a game of Rook with us – then scramble up to show my youngest brother where the vegetable soup was in the cupboard.

I cry when I think of how I found her slumped on the floor this morning, saying determinedly, “I’ll get up. I’ll get up. Don’t worry – I’ll get up.”

There will be a day with no more tears.

We have to make difficult decisions now. How do we help Mom cope with the next few months before she has knee replacement surgery? Will she be able to live independently? If she falls, my best efforts to get her up could hurt her more than help her. The doctor told my sister and my mom yesterday that Mom’s left knee is mush. It pains her constantly but all I hear occasionally is a small groan.

She was talking today over lunch about people she admires. I said, “There is someone I admire. She raised all her children practically alone as she almost completely ran the family business.”

“My!” Mom said.

“Yes,” I agreed, “and now she copes with constant pain and dramatic problems and is always positive. When she prays, she always begins her conversations with God by praising Him. She is an inspiration to me.”

“My goodness! Who is it?”

“It’s you, Mom.” She sat there, surprised. I added, “You are always cheerful, Mom, even with the pain that you are feeling.”

“I don’t see any value in complaining,” she said simply.

But Mom lives with pain.

Praise God – praise Mom’s God and mine - there will be a day with no more pain.

When Mom fell the first time tonight, we struggled for a while together. Mom crawled to this position, rolled to that one, moved to the bathtub, and leveraged herself with the walker. Finally I brought a small step stool into the bathroom and helped her push herself up, first to the step stool then finally to the toilet. I was shocked at how helpless mother has become – how weak and frail. I told her that we would have to call Nancy, my sister, and discuss options with her. Mom was afraid to – she wants to continue to live independently. Who can blame her? I said, “Mom, I don’t think we have a choice. We need to have the conversation with you, not about you, but we need to talk to Nancy.” My sister is an RN and the most compassionate health professional Mom or I know. Mom is afraid to let even Nancy know of the extent of her incapacity, though.

But when Mom fell the second time, she tried to get herself up for over an hour before I finally awoke and found her there, struggling to pull herself onto the step stool. She looked at me with despair and said, “I think I will have to go into a home until I have my knee surgery. I was hoping God would take me Home before I had to go into a home.”

As gently as I could, with tears flooding my face, I helped pull Mom onto the step stool and toilet.

There will be a day with no more tears, no more pain, no more fears.

I drove Mom thirty miles to lunch today. Both of us could use the distraction. All the way up and back, we listened to Jeremy Camp singing about the day that is just an eternal second away. As I drove, I imagined myself hiding in Jesus, crying into His chest about the pain and the changes Mom is going through.

There will be a day He’ll wipe away our tears. He’ll wipe away our tears. He’ll wipe away our tears.
Mom and I will hold to Jesus until that day. Together or apart, we will faithfully hold to Jesus. We will face our darkness, tears flooding our faces, praising Him in faith. We believe.

Praise God, there will be a day.

Day 28 - I Remember Now -- I Forgot

Day Twenty-Eight
I Remember Now – I Forgot

At the advanced age of older-than-you-are-none-of-your-business-how-old-I-am-you-probably-know-anyway, I have finally learned the value of being stupider than I am. When I was young, I was much more brilliant than I am now. I knew all the answers –and sometimes even knew the questions before they were asked. I spent a lot of time listening to me think and, frankly, I was an Einstein. I would share my brilliant thoughts, thinking, “You lucky dogs – this is good stuff.” I invariably had to defend myself because hardly anyone agreed. Nobody was following me around, writing down my pearls of wisdom before they fell, unnoticed, into the bottomless sea of un-appreciation. I had a way with words but, somehow, it was on a road that always led back to me and never took me anywhere else.

I find it is much easier now to ask questions more and give answers less. In ALL my older-than-you-are-none-of-your-business-how-old-I-am-you-probably-know-anyway years, I have never experienced the depths of pain, despair, and hopelessness so many others have felt. My God, they have had to defend their children with their very breath while all that was in them felt insecure and inadequate. They have struggled with depression deeper than I have ever felt – to the point of being hospitalized. They have had abusive husbands; children that took from them with one hand and fingered them with the other; times when they had to choose between supper for themselves and snacks give their child to take to school the next day. I am amazed now at how little I know. There is really a lot of value in finding the stupid in me.

I learned this from my Mom. My mother has a real grasp of the stupid in her. This sounds bad – but it is really the highest compliment I can pay anyone. I need to get my Mom a t-shirt that says, “PLEASE don’t ask me to play Pictionary.” Those of us that ask her to play would ignore this t-shirt, but it doesn’t hurt for her to try – plus it would give us something else to giggle about. Mom is really an awful drawer (that word doesn’t look right – “Person who draws?” “Artist?” I really hesitate to use this word and my mother in the same sentence.) She draws a little head, then extends the neck about 3 times the head’s diameter. She always draws a really round belly (all of her people look pregnant. I wonder if this is because she had five kids.) Then she draws two itty bitty legs. If her figure needs company – like if she is drawing the word, “sky” and needs to draw a bunch of people looking up (“Why didn’t you draw clouds and some birds, Mom?” “I didn’t think of it.” “Mom, I think the reason is that all of your pictures just HAVE to have pregnant people in them.”), her additional pregnant people may be beside, inside, above, extending out from or below the initial figure. Then, while we frantically guess what her drawing represents (“Pregnant?” “Family?” “Circus?” “Elephants on Parade?” – we start to just say anything. Every once in a while, we are right. This is a little frightening.). Mom always draws hair on her people. Somehow, having hairy people in her drawing doesn’t really help us. Mom keeps making her people hairier and hairier, saying, “You’ll never guess this,” but by now, we really are incapable of guessing -- her drawings have us breathless in laughter –so she stands there in front of the board, holding her marker and grinning at her crazy family.

I have always suspected that Mom is much more capable than she lets on. We really only play Pictionary because of Mom. She is so good-hearted about our teasing. It is a time when the family feels the closest with each other. I actually suspect she is a closet Picasso, sending paintings into the Metropolitan Museum of Art behind our backs and drawing pregnant giraffe-people in front of us. I have years of silent observation to back this up. I watched her babysit my sister’s children and saying things like, “I just can’t figure out how to open this,” or “Do you think that we should make lunch now?” She looked so genuinely puzzled. The little twirps fell for it every time. They never realized that she had to make all of these decisions herself before they showed up. They weighed the heavy matter in their little heads and wisely directed their grandmother. Even to this day, 20 years later, they are still offering her assistance no one else can solicit from them – changing light bulbs, opening jars, giving her advice, rearranging her plants, sweeping the cobwebs from her ceiling – all the while grinning about how she needs their help, wondering how she gets along.

Please don’t misunderstand me – I am not saying I am as smart as my mother. Mom really is very wise. I am so un-wise, still so self-absorbed, still trying to find ways to get the roads from my thoughts to stop going in endless circles back to me. Somehow, Mom’s roads lead to Jesus.

I need to remember that I forgot.

Day 10: The Right to Write

Day Ten
The Right to Write

I know you may not believe this, but I have actually been asked why I write lyrics and this stuff – prose, ramblings, or whatever the heck you call it. Well, it should be very obvious – I am a “literary bright light” and the world would really be a much dimmer place if I kept my mouth shut – or, to be more accurate, my hands from typing.

At least that is what I keep telling myself. I would not have to tell myself so often if other people would say it for me but, well, to be honest, my sixteen attempts to start a “Debbie Fan Club” (aka D.F.C.) have been met with miserable failure.

By the way, I do have a heck of a deal on 100 D. F. C. buttons if you are interested… it could stand for “Don’t Feed the Chickens” – excellent words to live by – many a life has been saved by these sage words.… and don’t tell me “Don’t Feed the Chickens” should be D.F.T.C. because everyone knows you leave out the “the’s” in these acronym things. At least, all of us Literary Bright Lights (L. B. L.) know this stuff. If you are not a L. B. L., well, you will just have to take my word for it.

Anyway, back to the subject at hand. Yesterday I showed somebody my latest lyric while I was waiting for my cashew chicken and she was waiting for her sweet and sour shrimp. It was, if I do say so myself (and I must), a veritable Picasso of words, rhythm, and gentle rhyme. She read it over, said, “That’s nice,” and changed the subject to what she saw on T. V. the night before. For the tenth time this week, I decided to break all my pencils, drop out of all my L. B. L. web forums, blow out my candle and sit in the dark.

Instead I quickly ran home and started a heart-wrenching lyric about disappointment that somehow turned into a story about somebody chocking on sweet and sour shrimp.

I comfort myself with the thought that, though THEY (whoever "THEY" are) may not know now that I am brilliant, THEY will realize it after I am dead. “If only,” they will say with a tear in their eyes, “Debbie just lived to see this! Everybody is singing her lyrics now, quoting her prose, ramblings, or whatever the heck you call it. If only I would have bought one of her fan club buttons when I had the chance – they are collector items now!” (You still can, you know). “And to think, she sat right across from me and all I could talk about was the previous night’s ‘Wheel of Fortune!’ Oh, woe is me, the missed opportunities! Hey – I’m hungry - Let’s have Chinese for supper!”

Well, they might not say “woe is me,” but it is kind of a nice touch, isn’t it?

Nothing worse then delusions of posthumous grandeur, huh? Trouble is, I bet I am not alone. I bet there are hundreds, thousands, millions of Debbie’s around the world (terrifying thought, isn’t it?), spilling out our souls one word at a time, leaving pieces of ourselves behind – Debbies everywhere from my home community to around the world. When the lights are off, we glow in the dark.

Now, me – I am just crazy enough to keep doing this whether you listen or not. Shoot, I have enough different personalities so that, even if nobody listens, I still can surprise myself by what I say, make my side hurt laughing at myself, and keep myself breathless wondering what I am going to say next.

But, the problem is, not all of my fellow L. B. L.’s glow in the dark anymore. And I ask you - if God gave them gift of light but discouragement blew it out, then how profound is the darkness?

So, all kidding aside, for every word I say, may God give me a word to encourage someone else who writes.

Because I believe there are eyes for every light God ignites – and for those eyes -- when that light goes out, the darkness is very profound.

You COULD be in this picture too!!!

Day 20: Yes, But Will 5 Wrongs Make a Right?

Day Twenty

Yes, But Will 5 Wrongs Make a Right?

I have a theory about getting lost – which should not surprise you because I really have a theory about nearly everything. When I get lost, I go faster. I figure that I don’t know where I am right now but if I keep on going, sooner or later I will figure it out – so why not get to that place sooner? It does make sense in that, “yes- but-it-gives-me-a-headache” way, doesn’t it? While you are holding your head, I want to remind you that if you make a right when you should have made a left, generally 2 more lefts will get you going in the right direction. This is why I would rather be driving if we are together and we are lost. All those lefts that YOU will make will surely give me car-sickness, and, to miss-quote the Incredible Hulk, “You wouldn’t like me when I’m carsick.”

This actually reminds me of a time when six of us were out driving in Western Kansas and we got lost. That’s not an easy thing to do – get lost in Western Kansas that is – you can drive for miles in any direction and all you will see is sky from horizon to horizon, about three weathered buildings, and a tree. You will be driving in prairieland -- in God’s country – and if you have good eyes, stand really still and look, you could probably see God because nothing else is in the way.

We were going out to the church my Mom went to as a girl. I was driving, my Mom’s cousin, Lila, was holding the passenger door and Mom was riding shotgun. (I have always wanted to say that – “riding shotgun.” Honestly, I have no idea if Mom WAS riding shotgun or not cause I don’t know what it means. Sounds cool though, huh? And Mom would be thrilled all the way down to her 80-year-old toenails to find out that she was riding shotgun). My aunt, Cay, was grinning sweetly in the back next to my niece, Kelsey, and her best friend, Rachelle, who where cracking CONSTANT jokes at my expense and taking pictures of EVERYTHING (they really need a life in my opinion.)

I think “they” must have moved the church (Not Kelsey and Rachelle – sorry to confuse you). (“They” did move the big house I grew up in by the way --- I might save that story though). (Probably not the same “they” that moved Mom’s church.) (Have you lost track of the story yet? ) I do remember going STRAIGHT from Great Bend to get to Mom’s church. We went straight and continued to go straight – faster – when the pavement turned to a gravel road. Everyone was begging me to stop and look for a map. But I get carsick if I drive and look at a map – carsick and dead. So I kept on going.

Finally we drove past a big farm. I ignored Kelsey and Rachelle’s constantly snapping camera as I waddled out of the car (stiff muscles – driving at warp nine can do that to a person) and knocked on the door. No one home.

Got back in the car and drove to the farmhouse NEXT to the one we just knocked on. This farm was BIG --- two farmhouses, tractors, barns, sheds. Nobody was home at that farmhouse either except a few dogs who were barking at me and some ducks that waddled by – they must have been going at warp nine too.

By now, Lila, Cay and my Mom were all offering me advice – none of which was to get back in the car and go faster. Kelsey and Rachelle were helpless with laughter. I drove around the farmstead until I came to a tractor that was about 4 stories high and got out (as my niece and her friend, still giggling, were wildly snapping pictures and my mom was covering her eyes). (My mom wasn’t really covering her eyes – she was giggling along with the two troublemakers. Mom SHOULD have been covering her eyes as any self-respecting 80-year-old woman would do in the situation, but NOOOOOOOO, not MY mother). I boldly marched right up to that monster. This strapping young farmer/model gracefully jumps down from Olympus and grins at me as I explain with as much dignity as I could muster that we lost Pawnee Rock (he might have been grinning at the two college girls hanging out the backseat window but I think he was grinning at me.) With his excellent directions, we drove directly to the church.

Standing alone in the middle of the wide, Kansas prairie is a red brick Mennonite church. Our destination was actually about a half a mile to the south where we would find many of Mom’s family.

I always have a haunting feeling standing in that cemetery by Mom’s girlhood church looking at relatives I have never met – their tombstones, their graves. The stark scenery seems to be filled with the lives of these people who endured drought and harsh winters, laughed, cried, had babies and died under the vast Kansas sky. Mom again tells the stories we all know by heart – memories of her brother who went to Korea and was killed by a drunk driver only months after he came home; about her mother who sat up in bed right after Don was killed and knew her boy was dead, about the two aunts who both were named, “Lufentina,” about her mother’s young death of cancer. As my mom speaks, I can hear the witnesses of my relatives, feel my heritage laughing and teasing me beside my niece as they challenge me to make the right choices, to make the right turns, to keep it all in eternal perspective.

And if I ever forget, my niece has the pictures.

Keep it all in eternal perspective