In my quiet moments

Today, in my quiet moments, I will think of Uncle Jim who survived Vietnam. I will re-live my grandma telling the story of his return and how happy he was to hold a baby, me, when he came home. I don't know how true any of this is. Stories get passed down and sometimes they are told in a way that can re-shape the memory so it fits into a manner that feels good to us. The truth is harder to take, and grandma never wanted to discuss Vietnam. When Jim came home, he was home and that was that. The only mention of Vietnam was about his safe return and my birth. Perhaps it was a generational thing, perhaps it was just a Louise Gray thing, but it never seemed quite right.

Today, in my quiet moments, I will think of my husband's patients. There are many who will live with psychological and physical ramifications of their service time for the rest of their lives. He has seen first-hand the pain of re-entry into a world they do not know. The stories he tells are not pretty.

Today, in my quiet moments, I will give thanks for all the "old-timers" I have seen bravely marching in parades proudly carrying the flag and quietly insisting that we not forget. Finally, I understand what that was all about.

Today, in my quiet moments, I will give thanks for Mike, my cousin, who has lost track of the number of missions he's been on and has always returned safely to us.

Today, in my quiet moments, I will not shake the Taps from Andrew's funeral. Andrew will not be a Veteran. I will worry about his parents and siblings, and then I will worry about all the other families who have lost someone and wonder what, if anything, can I do?

Today, in my quiet moments, I will hear the Taps playing and hope others hear it, too.

Out-of-the-ordinary ordinary

Big Man has taken to cutting out mulitples of a cartoon-ish shaped bird that we are soon going to be decorating. This idea came from a piece of art we saw and really liked on a recent trip. Big Man has such a can-do spirit. I am delighted and skeptical at the same time. Make a 3-D shark out of lumber scraps and fabric? Sure! Make a dragon out of paper mache? Sure! Look at some art and say,"We could do that?" Sure! He has artistic talents I wasn't fully aware of when we married. Had I known I am sure I would have still gone through with it, but I would have re-considered my own artistic endeavors.

I used to like to dabble in watercolor paints. I didn't create pictures so much as make designs on paper that I then liked to make cards from. One night (long before kids and daring to take on such a creative endeavor seemed possible), I was messing around with my paints and he sat down to join me. We were quiet and doing our own thing. About twenty minutes pass and he is looking at his picture. It is the perfect rendition of Millie, our old cocker-spaniel. It looks like a professional painting with shading and detail and depth. I had been mixing colors and experimenting with "designs" which we all know means my fine motor skills lack finesse. My shapes and patterns and lines were absract at best. I didn't say a thing. I left the paints, the paper, and that table and haven't touched them since.

This new bird-thing? I am tempted to design my own bird in my typical fashion, while I am sure his will look like a replica of our national bird.
I love that our kids view art as an everyday thing and the breadth of possibility is well-represented within our home. My role is show them where we start and Big Man's provides a little aspiration.

To have a dad that spends his off-hours cutting out birds from foam board all in the name of art and fun might seem a little unusual, but this is par for the course for my kids. I hope they get what they've got someday...the best kind of ordinary.