Love Ya, See Ya, Bye.

Bob Henderson was born on April 13, 1944.

He was born to parents who had come through the depression and knew how to work hard and live frugally. Like many in their generation, parenting was probably mostly about keeping young Bob safe, fed, and well behaved, leaving little time or inclination to understand the inner workings of a young boy. An early report card suggested that perhaps he didn’t play well with others, which made total sense. An only child, he didn’t have siblings to play with, fight with, or get into mischief with, and his parents were busy putting food on the table. All of which meant that, from an early age, he learned to depend on and be responsible for himself.

And despite that beginning, my brother-in-law, Bob, has cultivated a life lived in service to others, a heart overflowing with generosity, and a spirit that is as tender as it is strong. His is the first hand to be raised with an offer to help, no matter the task. Often called Big Bucks Bob, although his stash of bucks isn’t limitless, you’d never know it by the way he shares the financial fruits of his labor with those he loves. While he may have a deep conviction to a particular view of an issue, when it comes to the human being in front of him, love wins out every time. Period.

A One on the Enneagram—known as the Improver or the Perfectionist—he looks for ways to better the world around him, starting with himself. As such, he is his own harshest critic, which is why he is daily amazed by the grace he receives from the God that he loves. It is that overwhelming grace that moves him to be the first to apologize, ask for forgiveness, and allow whatever just transpired to help him move forward with more compassion and greater self-awareness. He is an old dog forever committed to learning new tricks.

His love for his family is second only to his love for God. His faith is the bedrock of his life, the light on his path, and the compass by which he steers his trusty ship. At 80 years old, death doesn’t scare him because he knows to whom he belongs. All of that can be summed up in his signature sign off from every phone call: Love ya, see ya, bye.

With those words, when it comes to Bob Henderson, you can rest assured that you are loved, you are seen, and it’s only goodbye for now.

Happy Birthday Bob. Our world and my heart are better because of you.

Love ya, see ya, bye.

What It Can Look Like

Raise your hand if your Thanksgiving turned out just as you planned.

If your hand is raised, I’m seriously so happy for you.

Ours did not.

Family would arrive from near and far, everyone showing up and departing on their own schedules. At least that was the plan. But then shit started to happen. A plane was delayed. A toilet overflowed. A toddler took a tumble out of her crib and landed on her noggin. And then, on Friday morning, one of our gang woke up with a fever and a nasty cough.

We moved him into the back bedroom so that he could rest, and donned our masks in an attempt for the rest of us to dodge whichever viral bullet had hit him squarely in the chest.

In the end, because being sick at home is so much better than being sick anywhere else, everybody packed up their bags and headed down the road before any potential symptoms might begin showing up.

As life would have it, as of this writing, two more are down for the count.

Oops, another text just arrived. Make that three.

We were all disappointed, because the best part of getting together is, well, getting together. We’d had a different plan than the one that unfolded: Walks in the wild life refuge, hide-and-seek, an epic Charcuterie Board and Old Fashioned cocktails, time curled up on the couches in front of the fire, swapping stories, and sharing a few more days of the magic and the mess that is family.

But here’s the thing. While it may not have turned out as we’d planned, it turned into something else. It was an invitation to figure out, together, what to do with what we’d been handed. And we did.

This is what that can look like…

Climbing A Mountain Part 6: Leave No Trace

Leave No Trace

A wilderness mantra, it means pack out what you pack in. Including your own waste.

Fun stuff.

The Forest Service provides human waste pack-out bags. One large ziplock bag contains a paper target (think X marks the spot), a brown paper lunch bag containing a small scoop of kitty litter, another brown paper bag, and two (seriously?) squares of toilet paper. The directions are pretty straight forward. Find as much privacy as you can, lay the target on the ground, take aim, and hope you are a good shot. Drop your business into kitty litter bag. Insert kitty litter bag into paper bag. Tuck everything inside the zip lock bag. Take it with you.

Like I said. Fun stuff.

Now multiply that by 8 people and 2 1/2 days.

Everyone’s used bags went into a kitchen size garbage bag. If we’d thought better of it, we would have stowed our own stash somewhere and schlepped it out ourselves. But we didn’t, and digging into that ripening garbage bag to separate out a few for everyone to carry seemed like a very, very, very bad idea. One of our gang offered to take one for the team and carry the bag out.

He deserves a special place in heaven.

We tied the very heavy garbage bag to the outside of his pack, and prayed to the mountain gods that the bag wouldn’t split. A few steps down the trail I remembered the cotton pillow case in my pack. We put the garbage bag inside the pillow case, increasing the chances of the contents staying put.

There was an additional bag of garbage containing the rest of the trash accumulated over the course of our time on the mountain to be dealt with. Someone else volunteered to carry that bag out.

He deserves an almost-as-special place in heaven too.

Heading down the hill, every step the two guys who deserve special places in heaven took was made harder because of the additional weight. Because they were carrying what was not really theirs to carry. It was a visual reminder of something I already think about a lot. We are responsible for dealing with our own shit. For taking care of our own garbage. When we don’t, other people have to deal with it, like it or not.

We are born into the families and circumstances we are, shaping us into the humans we become. No one is exempt from the impacts—good, bad, and sometimes ugly—of those who raise us. We may not be responsible for all that happened to us. However, as we grow up and mature, we are accountable for what we do with what we’ve experienced and who we have become as a result.

This work of becoming healthy, whole-hearted humans isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s hard work, but it’s also good work. Some of the most important we will ever do. I know that because I’m still at it, and hopefully will be until I take my leave. The more work I do, the less I leave behind for others to have to carry.

It wasn’t lost on me that the pillow case carrying that garbage bag wasn’t just any pillow case. It was a gift from my daughters when they were little, with pictures of them on both sides. Whatever we leave unaddressed has a lasting impact. It becomes a burden carried by those around us. Usually those we love the most.

Leave No Trace

Climbing A Mountain

Do you think you two have another climb up Mt. Adams in you?

Because if you do, we want to do it with you.

Translation: We want to get up there with you while you still can.

That conversation last year with our niece and her husband started it all. Tom and I had to think about it, given that we’re not spring chickens anymore. On our morning walk the next day we decided that while we might not have multiple more climbs in us, we probably had at least one. With that in mind we opened the idea up to the rest of the generation behind us, and in the end, three couples threw their hats and hiking boots into the Mt. Adams 2022 ring.

We’ve been training for it for a year, readying ourselves to be strong enough to make the 12.2 mile trek to the 12,281’ summit. Over the course of that climb we would gain 6600 ft of elevation.

However.

You can train all you want and still not make it to the top.

Different obstacles got in the way for different people. Some of the hardest work we did was internal. Can I do this? What if I can’t. How can it be this hard? What if I slow everyone else down? Will I be able to overcome my fear of heights? What if I get altitude sickness? What if my old injury flairs up? What if I’m the weakest link?

In the end we had to come up against those fears, which is what happens in life on and off the mountain. Eventually we have to face them in order to be free of them.

The first day we hiked for eight hours, most of it on soft snow, with 40+ pound packs on our backs. It was a harder, longer day than any of us had anticipated, and as the sun dropped lower in the sky we began to give out. The altitude was having its way with some of us, and it was clear we needed to make camp soon. Apparently my speech was getting very slow, nausea and serious dehydration arrived on our scene, and I knew we were in trouble when Tom couldn’t seem to figure out how to put up our tent.

We found ourselves on a rocky outcrop with just enough room for four tents. Except for the ground beneath our tents, we had to maneuver over uneven boulders and rocks that were just a sprained ankle, broken leg, or worse waiting to happen. The temperature dropped, the light grew dim, and the wind came up. I was reminded, in the way that only nature can illuminate, that we are always hovering between life and death. We are so much smaller than we like to think in the big scheme of things. It’s good to be reminded of that now and then, lest I take myself and my brief presence on the planet too seriously.

At times like these, the best of who we are shows up. Those of us who could, took over for those of us who couldn’t, because that is what love does. While we had worked to get our bodies strong, in the end it was our hearts and our love and commitment to one another that got us up there.

The summit awaited us in the morning.

For the last year we have imagined ourselves at the top, each of us believing that we could do this hard thing. Together, eight of us were going to summit Mt. Adams on Friday, July 15th, 2022.

In the end four did.

I wasn’t one of them.

Stay tuned.

I’m dedicating the next few posts to what I learned by not summiting a mountain.

A Dream Come True

Start where you are.

Use what you have.

Do what you can.

~ Arthur Ashe

My husband had a dream last night where someone combined dirt and chocolate chips to create a kind of fabric that could be used as a protective covering.

If anything has been constant in our neck of the woods these days, it’s been dirt and chocolate chips.

Our daughter and her family moved in with us for what was supposed to be a two-week layover on their way to Scotland, where they will be living for the next few years as she pursues her Ph.D. We are now going on eight weeks, and everyone is going a little, or a lot depending on the day, crazy as we wait for their approved but yet to be seen travel documents to arrive.

Dirt and chocolate chips create a protective covering helping to hold our lives together. It’s like a dream come true.

Our wee grand boys, ages 5, 3, and 1 1/2, love nothing more than playing in the dirt. Some days it seems like it's what they live for. They pile dirt into small dump trucks, scoop it up by the handful, roll in it, run in it, and when no one is looking, fling it at each other. At the end of another dirt-filled day, their dirt-brown clothes piled on the floor of the mudroom ready for another whirl in the washing machine, the three of them head upstairs for a bath to get the dirt out of every nook and cranny.

Sometimes there’s nothing better than a chocolate chip cookie, so there is always another batch ready to be baked. No need to look up the Smitten Kitchen Crispy-Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe, because we know it by heart. We eat them warm out of the oven after naps, grab one to go with a cup of coffee or tea, sneak one before bed, or forgo the oven and just shovel the dough straight into our mouthes.

This experience together is nothing like we ever imagined, harder than we ever expected, and yet miraculously, more than we ever could have hoped for. One day at a time, one dirt pile at a time, one more load of laundry, bath, and batch of chocolate chip cookies, we are learning in new ways what it means to stay the course, hang together, and love each other well, come what may.

So take heart.

When things are nothing like we ever imagined and harder than we ever expected, sometimes all we need is a little dirt and some chocolate chip cookies to form a protective covering to remind us that somehow, some way, life is miraculously more than we ever could have hoped for.

A No-Nonsense Thanksgiving

nonsense: words that have no meaning or make no sense

When it comes to describing our Thanksgiving this year, the words that have no meaning or make no sense are words like perfect, elegant, formal, fancy, flawless, tidy, or impressive. No one who will gather around our table has the capacity to pull off any of those words. Collectively we are worn out, adjusting to big changes, loving, raising and growing little humans, moving into new homes, having real conversations about real things, holding one another accountable for and loving each other in spite of ”our stuff”. It simply feels like life is as real as real can get.

When it comes to our Thanksgiving this year, the only words that make any sense are words like messy, simple, casual, imperfect, crazy, loud, emotional, and authentic. Thankfully we are finding ways to make sure that it is well-seasoned with ample amounts of love, grace, and laughter, because if we are hungry for nothing else, we are hungry for those.

I guess you could call it a No-Nonsense Thanksgiving, which might just be the very best kind.

The Muk

A space is just a space, until you make it something more.

When my sister and brother-in-law bought their last home, they bought it not because it was the place of their dreams, but because it was the only one they could agree on. Determined to make a decision, they invited me to go along as they drove from listing to listing to listing. It was a long day.

At the time, they were moving from the home where they had raised their daughters, and they weren’t exactly sure what the next chapter would bring. He however was sure he wanted a shop, and she was certain she wanted a home with some charm and a garden. Sometimes I rode with him, and sometimes with her. Like I said. It was a long day.

By the end of the afternoon, he had his eye on a so-so house with a shop on a very busy street, and she was starry-eyed about the adorable cottage with a secret garden that overlooked the lanes to the ferry. We’d also looked at a townhome in Mukilteo. It overlooked the Puget Sound, and while it had a killer view of Whidbey Island, It didn’t have a shop, and it didn’t have a secret garden. With no decision in sight and all in need of caffeine, we headed to Starbucks. Breaking the silence, I asked each of them a question. Could she live in the so-so house on the busy street with the shop? No, she could not. Could he live in the adorable cottage with the secret garden that overlooked the ferry lanes? No, he could not. Well then, I asked, could they live in the townhome overlooking the Puget Sound with the killer view of Whidbey Island, but without a shop or a secret garden?

They could, and, as it turned out, they did.

After fourteen years, they are moving out of the The Muk. Even though it wasn’t what they’d imagined, or even hoped for, they moved in and made it work. They made it into a lovely space with lovely furnishings.

As it turns out, it was so much more than that.

A few nights ago their daughters, sons-in-law, and a passel of grandkids showed up to say goodbye to the The Muk. Apparently it wasn’t a place one could simply leave without a proper farewell. Crowded onto a small balcony, stories of times at the Muk began to unfold, painting a picture of a shelter from storms, a place where all who came felt safe, seen, heard, and loved. The Muk was a refuge of healing, hope, and a place where the truth, no matter how hard, was spoken and heard, and freedom was found.

When they moved in it was just a space with a view.

When they moved in they made it into a lovely space with lovely furnishings.

But a space with a view, no matter how beautiful, and a carefully furnished place no matter how lovely, do not a refuge make. Only love and grace and faith and truth and laughter and family and friendship and courage and compassion and tradition and extravagant welcome can do that.

Farewell to the Muk. We are all better for having known you.

It's Good To Be Here

Mimi…It’s good being here.

Those words, spoken this morning, would warm any grandmother’s heart. Especially when they come from a little three-year old grand boy who is staying with us, along with his fifteen month old brother, for a long weekend while his wonderful, weary parents celebrate their anniversary.

It’s a big deal.

They love us. They miss their mom and dad.

They love being with us at our “cabin”.. They miss being with their parents in their own home.

They love their bedtime rituals with us. They miss having their Mama and Dada tuck them in.

Like I said. It’s a big deal. Especially for two little boys away from home for multiple nights.

Mimi…It’s good being here.

All day long I’ve reflected on those words. Why, exactly, is it good being here? It’s probably not too complicated. Even if he can’t yet put words to it yet, I think it’s good being here because here…he feels loved, safe, important, and valued. And it doesn’t hurt that we have a whole lot of fun.

Some things never change.

You Are Welcome

We live on Inclusivity Lane. A half mile stretch of gravel road, it meanders along the edge of the pine woods and open meadow leading to our driveway.

I love that we live on a road called Inclusivity. It’s a conversation starter for sure, and I never wait for people to ask when giving them our address, I just go ahead and spell it for them. But the reason I really love it is because of the message it sends.

You are welcome here.

In a few hours, our family will start to arrive for Rodeo Weekend, and a rite of passage is that once off the main road and onto ours, one of the “littles”, as we call them, climbs onto the lap of the parent that is driving the car, and takes over ( with help of course). The car creeps along, zigging this way, and zagging that, until they come to a stop and everyone pours out of the car. 

There will be about 26 people this year camping out under the pines, tucked into a guest room or the Airstream Trailer parked across the driveway, gathering for morning coffee by an outdoor fire as the sun hits the mountain, cheering on the cowboys and cowgirls at the Rodeo, riding in the parade through town, holding babies, and sharing KP duty.

It’s simply the best.

It’s the best not because we are all the same, but because we aren’t. While we hold many things in common, there are plenty that we don’t. We love each other deeply and are connected and committed, not because of our similarities but in spite of our differences. 

That is why living on this road makes me so happy. 

If  you find your way to our little town, keep an eye out for Inclusivity Lane and wind your way to our home.

You are welcome here.

The Icing On The Cake

Somewhere in a kitchen a long, long time ago a family tradition was born. That tradition is known as the caramel icing cake. A white cake, made from scratch, went into the oven. Meanwhile, on what was likely a wood burning stove, the icing simmered along. As the cakes cooled on a rack in that long ago kitchen, a watchful eye was necessary, as the icing could quickly turn from what candy makers call the soft-ball stage to hard-ball stage in the blink of a weary eye. Once the mixture reached the perfect consistency, a cube of butter was beaten into the icing with a wooden spoon, and it was time to ice the cake. This was no small task as our paternal grandmother dipped a knife into cool water in between every spoonful of icing dropped on the cake, and then spread it quickly yet gently so as not to tear the cake. It would have been easier with two sets of hands, and sometimes that extra set belonged to our dad.

The caramel icing cake made it into our family kitchen, and onto the table for birthdays. Dad made the icing and Mom baked the cake, but try as she might, according to him, her cake never measured up to “Mother’s”, which is of course, what every woman longs for her husband to say after she has stayed up late in the kitchen,  after everyone else is in bed, to make the family cake. Again. Truth be told, the cake, his mom’s recipe of course, wasn’t very good. In fact it was downright dry. So……….. One year, our mom secretly bought a box of cake mix, the kind with pudding in it, baked the cake, and threw out the box before he was any the wiser. He probably complimented her on finally getting “Mother’s” recipe right. She probably just smiled. As they say, ignorance is bliss. So is caramel icing. It contains more sugar that you can imagine, and is so rich and sweet it actually hurts your teeth. But in a good way.

If it had been left up to me, the tradition would have passed into family history when the baker and the caramel icing maker passed away. Thankfully, my sister Margie picked up the baton, or in this case, the wooden spoon used to beat the butter into the icing. She learned how to make it along side our dad, and now she is passing it on to the next generation. As they make it alongside her, there is more passed on than just a recipe. Dumping the cake mix from the box, they remember that finding your own way instead of trying to measure up to someone else’s is a delicious way to live. Keeping a mindful eye on the frosting, never rushing it, checking it regularly, and recognizing when it is ready reminds them that patience and persistence pay off. Icing the cake together, they discover that many hands make light work. Of a cake, or almost anything else for that matter.

When it comes to the caramel icing cake, a few things will never change.

Always, always, always use a cake mix with pudding in it, and hold your head up high when you do.

Secure the layers together with tooth picks so they don’t slide apart when icing the cake.

Make a batch and a half of icing, because, well, just because. The family cake isn’t the place to skimp.

Hide it before the party, unless you want to find half of the frosting gone before ever lighting the candles.

The icing tastes as good on your finger as it does on the cake. Especially with your first cup of coffee in the morning the day after the birthday party.

One thing has changed.

Because the cake is simply the vehicle for the frosting, a cupcake will do just as well. Probably better. Less cake, more frosting.

This year, my niece Katie, Margie’s youngest daughter, made her first batch of caramel icing cupcakes all on her own for two-year old Harper Joy’s birthday party.

When it comes to the sweetness of family, a savored tradition is the icing on the cake.