Still celebrated after 50 years

                Only a few days ago, I realized this February 27th would be 50 years since the night I met my future husband, Jim.  This was not my first blind date, but it rendered any future ones unnecessary.  Because of the kindness of friends and the providential hand of God, I met the answer to my simple prayer to God: please bring someone for me to love who will love me back.  

                Every year we celebrated this day, sometimes with an overnight stay as our children got older.  One especially enjoyable outing was at Pere Marquette Lodge close to Grafton, Illinois, before its renovation.  Bed and Breakfast destinations, at least two in Lafayette Square, were settings we found interesting, especially when there were other visitors.  However, one of our stays in Lafayette Square was in a three story building, and we were the only overnight occupants.  Even the owners weren't around during the night.

                Tonight is the fourth year I have remembered that first night on my own.  Doing so at this point doesn't make me sad; oh, no, I feel thankful to have found that man who I would love and would love me back.  That simple prayer turned out to be so much more than I imagined when I prayed.  This fulfills a favorite scripture from Ephesians 3:20 :  Our God is able to do exceedingly abundantly more than we can ask or imagine.  Indeed.

                

                

What's in a Name?

 

                   I know virtually nothing about the day I was born—not the time of day, length of labor, birth weight and length—nothing except the date, February 21st, and the St. Louis hospital.  However, in the family lore, I remember hearing something about the name I was given.  My mother had an older sister named Rayma, a creation combining my grandmother’s maiden name, Ray, with Ma, what the family called one of its senior members. 

                My parents didn’t have many worldly goods in their apartment but they did have a baby chest when their first child, my older brother, was coming.  The story goes that my father liked the name “Rayma” so much that he painted it on the back of this baby chest.  However, it would have to go on hold when the baby was a boy who was named William Howard Owens, Jr.  Now one would think with such excitement about a girl’s name building, when a baby girl was born about three and a half years later, she would be called by this wonderful, creative and unusual name.  It was after all, my first name.  But for whatever reason—I wish I knew—a middle name as distinctive as “Kay” would be what they called me.

                Once I started attending school, teasing and name calling started when each new teacher would call me “Rayma” before I let him or her know I went by “Kay.” At the time, a popular television show was called, “Ramar, Queen of the Jungle.”  So part of the teasing was connected to this show , a comparison I did not find humorous.  Generally, I was called “Kay-Kay,” a much kinder and appealing version of my name.

                I was not a trailblazer in my family when I decided to go by my actual first name.  My younger brother was named Glen Michael, and we called him Michael.  In the 50s and 60s, it was a very popular name, so as my family moved to a different school district when Michael was in middle school, he chose to use his first name, one much less common.  Perhaps his path planted a seed for future possibilities for me.

Beginning in the early 90s, I saw various doctors and specialists, including some at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.  I grew tired of telling them I used my middle name, so I just went along with Rayma.  Often nurses would say they liked the unusual name which they often claimed they had not heard before.  Actually, I was in line for getting an ID at a big state school, the University of Missouri in Columbia, before I met another person other than my aunt with the same name.

When my husband and I left our hometown and lifetime residence in St. Louis to come to Charleston in 2015, I decided to use Rayma as my name.  A contributing factor in making this change was what I had learned about the word “rhema,” spelled differently but pronounced the same. When I started attending charismatic Bible study and prayer groups, I learned rhema means “utterance” or “thing said” in Greek.  In the book of Hebrews, chapter four, it is the word described as “living and active.”  Knowing this also moved me toward my first name.  However, our daughter and her family had lived in Charleston for three years before we made the move; her church members and neighbors had known me as Kay and probably thought I was a little loony suddenly using a different name.  Such things keep life interesting.

Now my husband had called me Kay for over forty-six years and was not too keen on the name change in our new life on the Illinois prairie.  He always called me Kay, the name of the girl he fell in love with so many years ago.   

   

Memories of Special Clothes, Colors and People

    Often special moments—good or bad—are associated with clothing, something about it like color, style, appeal.  My family was not rich by any means, but my mother did have a lady make some very special dresses for me.  I can still see one in my mind, a grey and pink see through like material, and I, the adorable, dark haired little girl with a favorite little golden locket.

                My older brother became a high school star basketball player in the 60s wearing uniforms very much like the ones in the Hoosier movie.  Being four years younger, I looked up to him and enjoyed watching the cheerleaders in their V neck sweaters with a big N on them for Normandy (school made famous in 2014 Black Lives Matter beginning). Those were exciting times for the school and our family.

                Without a doubt, it was not Jim’s stylish look or even attempt to look attractive that won my heart.  Those first few weeks he would come over to my house with SIUE apparel, often with holes here and there.  Despite my growing affection for him, I did wonder if he had any decent clothes to wear in a box or closet somewhere—unknown apparently.

                But the color and dress that I wore on our first date was special and remained so.  I had made the dress, a simple A-line with a U shaped, ruffle-enhanced neckline.  The color, a magenta, deep cranberry is a flattering one for us winter girls with dark hair and eyes.  Does anyone even talk about that season coloring guide anymore?

                That night late in February, that dress, that color, and the time to be in Jim’s company, just thinking about it all does not make me sad, but so very thankful for our 45 years of marriage.  I spent many years operating with a fairly empty dance card, and then along came Jim.  At some point in those first months, he returned my record set of Jesus Christ Super Star.  When I took the lid off, inside was a chiffon scarf just that magenta color with a little note from a song in “My Fair Lady”: “but the pavement always stayed beneath my feet before.” This “I don’t care what I look like” fellow was quite the romantic, going to the theater to see “Sound of Music” seven times while attending a preparatory Catholic boys’ high school.

                Today that scarf hangs on a ladder from a Christmas display that Jim bought for me at Carson’s department store after we moved to Charleston from St. Louis.  The ladder stands near the front door, and the scarf hangs on one cross bar, a reminder of a special night, a special dress and a special man. 

A Serious book idea

            Thankfully, Mercer Mayer did not let the discouraging and offensive evaluation of his first portfolio halt his efforts to draw and write what would become over 300 highly successful children’s books.  “Throw it away,” the man said, and he did.  His desire to draw and write he kept.  In 1975, the year our daughter was born, his little critter books were becoming best sellers.  This critter likened to a chipmunk or porcupine comically talks about his adventures, usually claiming credit for babysitting grandma or going to the beach when he is the one in need of assistance. Yet with genuine innocence, he enthusiastically adds “all by myself” throughout his ventures.  One of his early books had the phrase as its title.

                These days I am a living version—no illustrations, please—of an All By Myself for Seniors. After breaking my right wrist and having surgery on December 1, I was not a happy or useful senior camper.  With some balance issues and in need of a walker all the time, those early days were difficult and a little disheartening.  As for home help, I could write a book on what not to do, but one book project at a time.  Visiting home therapists and nurses were very helpful and encouraging as the weeks started to add up.  Soon I noticed I was frequently including “all by myself” with some of my regained abilities.  Just this last week, I put on a shirt with buttons all by myself; today, I put on athletic shoes with ties, yeah, you guessed it, all by myself. 

                Life experiences can have a way of helping people realize the value of abilities and everyday conveniences, like putting your hair in a ponytail or writing a check, that we so often take for granted.  More than anyone suspects, getting through the last two months has been by the grace and strength only God can provide, but I think He, too, might be amused by my old lady version of “all by myself.”

Another memory related to Thanksgiving

 

             Living with a grateful and a generous set of mind and heart is not just a one day or weekend celebration.  As my husband Jim matured and grew as a Christian, so did these qualities of character and spirit.  A story I love to tell about Jim is a breakfast conversation the morning after we had received almost $80,00 from his mother’s will when finalized.  This was about four years ago now.  After finishing his breakfast, he came back up to the counter dining spot with a 3 x 5 card and a pen.  He wanted to get right to work on deciding how we were going to use some of the money, not for ourselves or what we could buy/save.

            No, his thoughts were about who we could give money to.  I replied, “Could we savor for just a moment having such a large sum of money in our account?”  Just days later, we got on to uses for the money, but this short conversation clearly presents Jim at his saintly best, ever the ready servant.   

Thanksgiving Memories

          

            Going to a chain buffet for one Thanksgiving in St. Louis, our gang of three, Jim, my brother and me, probably tops the list as the worst meal of thanks ever.  Our children were not living in St. Louis or able to come that year, and I think my small oven was broken.  At the buffet, some there—and it was crowded—seemed to find the cramped setting and unlimited amount of food an appealing, mouth watering holiday occasion.  Not so for us.

          At the opposite end would be our best and most meaningful Thanksgiving gathering.  David, our son, had gone far, far away to Ithaca College in New York to start a Master’s degree.  We hadn’t seen him since August, and his experience there had been disappointing.  Coupled with his shyness and living alone, he talked about his monastic existence.  Bill and Bonnie were probably in Indiana, and Bill’s parents in Pennsylvania had invited us all to share the holiday together.  In all, there were ten or eleven of us gathered around a large, antique table laden with great food much of it prepared by Bill and Bonnie.  Jim probably said a blessing as he was frequently asked to do at such things.  After dinner but still sitting around the table, we were asked to write something we were thankful for on little slips of paper.  When read, we were supposed to guess who had written it.  The only answer I remember was David’s: “safe travel,” concise but true.  Bill’s aunt and uncle and their son had come to Pennsylvania from Boston to join us.

           Pleasant and interesting visiting among us accompanied some football watching over the course of our time together.  Poor Bill and Bonnie were too busy with preparations until dinner.  As I observed Bill’s dad and his sister doing some hand washing of dishes and clean-up, there was something sweet about brother and sister sharing this task.  For Jim and me, being welcomed into a Thanksgiving with real gratitude along with the food and football and getting to share it with our children was truly sweet and satisfying.  

          Well before he died, Thanksgiving had become Jim’s favorite holiday.  It can be a meaningful yet relatively simple occasion—no costumes, no gift giving, etc.—plus a feast to enjoy. Maybe that Thanksgiving in Pennsylvania was the year that its top status began.                                                                                              

 

More on awesome possibilities

             Awe or awesome are words that rarely come out of my mouth, partly because these words are, in my humble opinion, overused and often spoken in expressions not even close to the actual meaning of this word.  Technically, according to dictionary definitions, awe is “a feeling of reverential respect mixed with fear or wonder.”  Plans for the weekend, even great ideas, are generally not awesome.

             For me, nature or natural phenomena, can stir a sense of awe, a feeling with an element of reverence like the definition suggests.  Seeing the ocean in all its grandeur impresses me and stirs within me images of the greatness of God.  Because of my love for waterfalls,  Jim planned a trip to a Tennessee state park called Falls Creek Falls, just south of Chattanooga.  What a simple, quiet place with an amazing range of falls.  Off in the distance, one rushed over a high cliff and fell a very long way into a canyon with water below.  I well remember how close we stood to a two-tiered rush of water into the rocks.  We actually got wet posing for group pictures with other visitors.  And the sound, the awesome “voice” of nature.

              However, the lovely state park—set apart and so quietly tucked away from any towns or trafficked roads—couldn’t compare to experiencing Niagara Falls.  As has often been the case, our traveling ventures “circled” the places our children have lived over the years.  David attended Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York, a little town of many little falls.  When we did get to the Niagara Falls, it was a glorious summer day, showing off the pastoral setting and the lovely, rushing water heading toward the big drop off.  The voice of nature yells, but it is a yell that again, overwhelms me with wonder and awe, affirming the grandeur. 

            Our daughter Bonnie lived in the northwest corner of North Carolina when her husband was hired at Appalachian State University.  They were right up next to Grandfather Mountain, so named because from some angles it looks like the profile of a grandfatherly man.  When we stayed at one lodge there, I could look out the window and see old Grandfather right across the way.  It was supposed to be one of the big tourist attractions in the state.

             Aside from nature, works revealing what only God can do, also stir in me a sense of awe and gratitude.  An excellent illustration of this is how David came to stand on a pitchers’ mound in collegiate baseball.  His athletic capabilities were evident even when he was young, and with a physical education teacher/coach for a father, he had much nurturing in his athleticism.  He fared well until high school, largely because the school teams had talented but also very confident players.  Our shy, less aggressive son was just finding his way on his winning sophomore baseball team when his ACL got torn during a practice. 

             Fast forward to the end of his long rehab in time to play varsity baseball, a team whose coach had parents complaining for years,  yet the coach remained in place.  Playing for him and David’s lack of fresh encouragement and confidence after his injury produced a very disappointing high school experience and no interest from any college scouts or coaches.  But coach Jim kept encouraging David to play summer ball.

             After just a couple games with a team David joined with some reluctance after his freshman year in college, he got his first chance to pitch.  An older man with a cowboy hat pulled into the park area about the same time I arrived.  That “cowboy” was the baseball coach for William Jewell College, a small liberal arts college near Kansas City, Missouri.  He was there to see a player on another team , but started watching David pitch.  That was the beginning of David getting a full tuition scholarship for baseball to a very good college—his heart’s desire suddenly fulfilled.  The wonder of God’s providential hand—awesome, indeed.

Some really powerful and encouraging lyrics of a few contemporary Christian songs are nurturing my faith in an awesome God recently.  One is called, "The Father's House," by Cory Asbury.  One line I just noticed today (even though I have listened to the song a number of times) struck me: "What looks to me like weakness is a canvas for Your strength."  Later is this list of seeming impossibilities: "Prodigals come home . . . Miracles take place.  The cynical find faith and love is breaking through when the Father's in the room."  Impossibilities--suddenly--become possible by faith in God.