The Housekeeper

There’s a touching moment in the movie Spanglish when the soft spoken, big hearted housekeeper swoops in and saves the day, or rather she saves the shy, sweetheart of an overweight teenage girl from the disapproving shadow of her perfectionist mom. 

In this particular scene, the teenager again fails to measure up and can’t begin to hope to please her mother by fitting into the size four jacket the mom buys her as a birthday gift.  “It’s way too small,” the teenager offers, shame lacing her quiet words.  ”You’ll diet into it,” the mother taunts to which the teen turns away and sighs.  “Yeah, right.”  The jacket gets tossed and lands in the bottom of the closet.  It’s a mountain too tall to tackle. 

Enter the housekeeper.  She sees what goes down and manages to stay out of it for the moment due to the language barrier that exists between her family and that of her employer (and she’s manages not to backhand the mom in the process which makes her a better woman than me) but as you’re watching the movie, you know it’s far from over.  There’s more going on than meets the eye and there’s this mountain of unfinished business to tend to.  So the housekeeper snags the jacket when no one’s looking and the movie rolls into an unrelated scene.

It’s my belief this is how it is for many of us this time of year.  There’s more going on than meets the eye.  Trees are going up and lights are twinkling.  Carols are ringing and there’s a very big reason to hold on to thoughts of joy and renewal.  But for most of us, there’s also unfinished business.  And yes, it’s far easier to toss it, whatever it is, to the bottom of the closet and roll to an unrelated scene than it is to deal with our mountain.

In my own family of origin, our mountain is formed by grief and fear.  My sister has been gone several years, but if anything, her absence is felt more deeply now than ever.  As her beautiful children grow and thrive and move fully into adulthood, there’s reason to celebrate.  A job promotion.  Nursing school graduation.  There’s even a wedding to plan.  Our sorrow over the fact my sister can’t be here to celebrate these milestones in her children’s lives is so overwhelming at times it’s as if we can reach out and squeeze it between our fingers.  It certainly dims the lights on all those trees.  My brother is in the grips of a hideous addiction and every time the phone rings, the fear rises. It steals our words and drowns out the lyrics to familiar tunes speaking of joy and peace.  If ever there was a mountain, surely this is the highest. 

As I watch the film, I’m reminded that my own family needs a soft-spoken, big-hearted housekeeper in the worst of ways.  In the movie, the housekeeper has a plan.  She has talent and the good sense to put it to use.  In her spare time, our gal’s been letting out that new jacket, easing the seams and adding fabric until she gets the size just right.  Then she musters the courage to overcome the lack of common language that stands between she and teen.  She knows the girl wants the jacket.  It was the gift meant to be the highlight of the teen’s birthday.  It’s important and the reason has little, if anything, to do with fashion.

“It’s no use,” the teen says.  “It doesn’t fit.”

“Just try it on,” the housekeeper manages in fairly decent English.  She’s been practicing. 

The teen shakes her head.

“Just try it on.”

A second refusal.

“Just try it on,” the housekeeper urges with a bit more gusto as the teen looks on, not making a move toward the garment. 

I took a cue from the housekeeper and invited my mom to the Christmas concert at our church.  It was big ask.  My mom is struggling right now because of that big mountain planted smack dab in the middle of our family.  She has next to no Christmas spirit and every song she hears on the radio makes her cry.  Seems everything makes her cry these days.

“It’s for a good cause,” I offer. (Just try it on).  Yes, I bought three tickets when I only needed two.  I’ve seen what’s going down in my family and I’ve been practicing.

“The weather’s going to be bad,” mom counters.

“I’ll drive.”  (Just try it on).

“All that Christmas music is going to make me cry and I’ll be embarrassed,” she lobs at me in a last ditch effort to shut me up.

“This year’s a bit different, mom.  We’re mixing traditional Christmas songs with music from The Story.  We’ve spent thirty-two weeks reading through the bible and the music has been amazing.” (Just try it on).  My mom knows this yet I feel the need to remind her.  She attends our church once every couple of months when she comes to visit.  She loves our church.  “I think Heather’s singing,” I add quickly.  (Just try it on).  Ha!  I’ve gone for the jugular.  I’m in this fight to win it.  My mom adores Heather and it just so happens Heather is a key member of the vocal team at our church.  Surely she’ll be singing something at the Christmas concert.  Right?

When we took our seats and the lights came up, we were blown away.  Matt Bays and the vocal team at our church, Northview Church, blew the doors off both the music of the Story and of many traditional Christmas songs we can all name within three notes.  With every song the night got better.  By the time we got to Run, Run Rudolph, it dawned on me my mom hadn’t cried but had laughed and clapped and sang along and been moved all in one.  And the mountain trembled.  I know it because I saw it with my own eyes.  Which leaves me more determined than ever to see through the eyes of the housekeeper more often.  How can I help?  What can I do to effect change?  If not me, do I know someone that can help?  My answer came in the form of a Christmas concert hosted by some amazingly talented artists who crafted something with heart and vision.  But I had to learn the English and be persistent.  Just try it on.

While I don’t want to ruin the movie for you, it’s my sincere belief a perfect fit is possible for all of us.  You’ve just got to be willing to be the housekeeper.

Hope 22 is making the rounds!

My debut inspirational/Christian romance, Hope 22, released earlier this month and is making the rounds with readers everywhere.  I've been blessed to meet some wonderful new and fantastic people along this journey and I'm grateful that Hope 22 has been so well received.  In fact, Hope 22 reached best-seller status at All Romance ebooks opening weekend.  A big THANK YOU to all of my friends and family who have helped make this new journey such a rewarding one.  I appreciate anyone who takes time out their hectic schedule to read my work and I love hearing from each of you!  You can find Hope 22 at Amazon.com (digital and paperback format), BarnesandNoble.com, and AllRomanceebooks.com.   

When you're ready to read more, be sure to hop over to my works in progress page and check out book two in the Men of Faith series, Faith 15, releasing late spring 2014.  

Thank you, readers!

In the aftermath of losing his wife and unborn son, professional quarterback Brody Jackson turns to his faith, making a vow to live a life that will honor those he’s lost.  Yet on a field of endeavor where outrageous antics get a player noticed and if it feels good, do it often seems to be the maxim, walking the straight and narrow path can be a hard thing for a guy to do.

Whitney Ryan is in the mother of all slumps, struggling to watch as her player ranking dips into double digits.  With three weeks to go until she’s slated for her next tournament, Whitney would rather be anywhere than on the tennis court and under her mother’s constant glare.  When Whitney decides to run away from her responsibilities, her resolve is firm—she doesn’t need anyone getting in her way, especially a know-it-all with problems of his own.

When two household names holding widely varying views on how to live life in the spotlight and measure success are thrown together, is there any hope they can call a time out and find middle ground?

The Family Aunt Betty

I have a confession to make.  I'm addicted to Who Do You Think You Are which airs on TLC Tuesday nights at 9pm.  And before you ask, the answer is no.  It has nothing to do with the particular "stars" the show has chosen to feature.  The producers could have picked random members of my local golf course maintenance team and I’d be just as intrigued.  Why?  Because unless your family has that particular and oh so studious Aunt Betty who's done all the work for you, I'm willing to put a Starbucks wager on the fact there’s a lot of stuff you don't know about your family.

I've always been fascinated by family history and as a young girl, I loved to listen to my grandma tell stories about our family.  Then again, I have a great Aunt Bunny and an Uncle Duck so it could've been I thought my grandma was reading me a fairy tale.  And therein lies the problem many of us face when we start climbing our family tree.  As dear as those memories are to me, the fact that none of the real details about Bunny and Duck ever got written down doesn't make for a very complete family tree now that I’m old enough to really care about preserving history.  Not to mention my grandma’s been gone ten years. 

For the past several weeks I’ve been an active occupant of my family tree, climbing up and down branches, looking for links between limbs and researching new growth.  While I attempted a similar thing many years ago, this time around, I’ve been met with tremendous success and the journey’s been nothing short of amazing.  For all of the unsavory avenues we can find ourselves travelling on the Internet, the lengths to which the National Archives, the Office of Military Records and many similar organizations have gone to to update and strengthen their databases is incredible.  To date I’ve learned of men of tremendous character who literally set aside their livelihoods on a moment’s notice and walked arm in arm with their neighbors and brothers into battle.  I’ve learned of the women that loved them.  I’ve found Union and Confederate soldiers sharing a branch, and kissing cousins. I’ve got archived documents to line the path and verify the good and the not so pretty branches of my tree. 

As you might have guessed, the Bunny and Duck from my grandma’s stories weren't actual names I was going to find on a 1930 Census form all these years later.  In fact, names are a funny beast on this journey.  While I remember laboring over decided what to name my own child, I never once thought about how that name might get mangled years down the road.  We have a Laura turned Lula turned Lulie.  A Siota turned Scota turned Siot turned Sophie and a Dilly, and Effie, a Mally and a Barbee.  But wait for it.  Barbee’s a guy!  My Grandpa!  In one census they spelled his name correctly but listed him as a girl.  In another they changed his name all together.  On the other side of my family, my great grandpa came through Ellis Island in 1910.  My great aunt documented her father’s life story in her thesis work when she was in college and while I remember she and my grandma talking about how names often got changed, it wasn’t until I found his immigration documents and saw it with my own eyes that it made sense to me.  The men and women serving as document clerks at Ellis Island often changed names based on their own levels of education and understanding.  For example, my great grandpa got on a boat in Patras, Greece as sixteen-year-old Demetrious Eusthathis Kakavecos and stepped into New York as James Kallas.  There’s a note on his immigration paperwork that he contested his new name and his real name is written off to the side in a different penmanship than that of the rest of the document.  A U.S. census taken just ten years later lists him by his correct name, married to my great grandma, a couple of kids in tow.  Hhmm.

Speaking of penmanship, when you start to research your own tree, get ready for some scrolls and cursive the likes of which deserve to be preserved by the National Archive.  It’s like the smaller the lines and the ledger, the more decorative the recorder tried to write.  Maybe these clerks were trying to make up for the sins of their Ellis Island document-recording kin.  Who knows?  In an effort to show the world their gorgeous penmanship, more a’s and e’s and o’s and i’s and c’s got flipped than pancakes at the local breakfast joint on a Sunday.  I can only imagine one of my great great grandma’s telling someone standing on her front porch to kiss her grits.  We’re southern.  Way southern.  I’m pretty sure one of the ladies in my tree would have said something like that.

So, too, will be the story of your tree.  There will be branches to keep, dead limbs you want to hide and leaves that either catch the light oh so perfectly or fight to exhaust it all together.  Yet through it all, if you’re willing to wade in and just start climbing, there’s a puzzle waiting to be put together that has your name written all over it.

Indeed I've become my family’s Aunt Betty and if anything, all of this research has shown me that it’s probably just as well.  I’ve been called Mary Beth, Theresa Beth and Betta Ann numerous times in my forty-three years so I’m certain I’ll get listed as Betty Ann in a census one day.  And while it won’t technically be correct, I have no doubt it will all work out in the end.  I’m counting on the fact my great great grandchild will be a climber.

Free Fallin'

I’m a jumbled mess today and while I’m completely ready to blame it on Friday, I can’t point to that as the source of the problem.  It’s Tom Petty.  I have no idea what he had in mind when Tom and his writing partner, Jeff Lynne, wrote the words to the song, but when Free Fallin’ was released, I nearly gagged.  Someone was kidding, right?  This wasn’t music.  It was terrible.  Tom’s voice was craggy, the song was pitchy and honestly, it sounded like something most likely written in a chemically induced haze.  I never gave Free Fallin’ a second thought.

Until yesterday.  Knowing how much music matters in my life, when we jumped in the car after playing tennis last night, my husband turned to me and said the words I often dread.  “You’ve got to hear this.”  That’s the kiss of death for me liking a song.  Seriously.  Words like ‘oh no, what is that and where did you find this” are often spoken in our family.  Brad and I don’t often agree on music to a make it stop degree.  “No sweetie, that’s okay,” I reply, reaching for my ipod and desperately trying to start one of my own playlists before he can take control of the radio  “Thanks but no,” I add.  “Let’s just grab some dinner and get home.”  But not this time.  It isn’t to be.  And it’s all Tom’s fault.

When my hubby says “it’s John Mayer,” he knows he has my attention.  But just a little.  I know where he’s headed.  We’ve debated this all summer.  He wants to have another go at me and hear me go into graphic detail about why I think Walt Grace is building his submarine and running away from his family.  Even our twelve year old has a theory on this.  Then my hubby hooks me with two words. “It’s acoustic,” he offers.  When John Mayer plays guitar, it’s pretty magical.  But when John Mayer picks up an acoustic guitar, that’s a sweet spot the likes of which is often unreplicatable in my book. No, unreplicatable isn’t a real word.  But John and an acoustic guitar transcend mere words. Brad knows he has my attention now.  So I give in and when the song starts, John plays it in and I’m not really certain what song it is.  Original?  Cover?  I’m clueless.  Finally, we get to the first two words and of course, I know the song and I groan.  I don’t like this song.

Then it happens.  John Mayer’s 2007 Live in Los Angeles rendition off Free Fallin’

gets to the chorus.  I listen to it once and don’t think a lot about it.  I’m into the guitar and the downbeat blues rhythm John added, making the song his own, so I don’t really let the words wash over me.  Then Brad plays it a second time.  Yes, we’re those kind of people.  We hear a new song and play it over and over until we pick it apart, memorize it and own it as ours.  Five times.  Fifiteen.  It doesn’t matter if we like it.  Being a lyric girl, when I listen to Free Fallin’ a second time, I’m trying to catch every word but I miss a few so when I fill in the blanks with what I think John is singing, a couple of lines don’t make sense.  So we play the song again, me intent to get every word and piece this story together, Brad intent on making sure I pick up the specific guitar lick he wants me to hear in the middle.  I’m a sucker for acoustic guitar and learning to play is on my bucket list.  Brad knows this about me and he knows I’ll appreciate the intricacy of what John’s added.

So I listen closely and I get the story.  A bad boy hurts a good girl and in his own way, he knows he’s done wrong and there’s a part of him that’s sorry, that wants to reach out and right a wrong, but it’s too late. 

That’s when Brad turns to me and asks about the guitar lick and I just stare at him.  “I missed it,” I blurt out to which he laughs and says “you always do that.  Let me play it again.”  It was the 3^rd time that did me in.  What Tom and Jeff couldn’t capture for me with Free Fallin’ way back in 1989 John seemed to snag me with in an instant.  John took a well know song and made it his own.  And in the time it took to get from the racket club to my driveway, I’d done the same. 

These last days before a new school year starts always leave me feeling flattened.  It pushes me back to a world where it seems like there are more mean spirits than good guys.  Have I made enough good memories to counteract the tough days that will surely come?  Have we laughed enough to make sure the smiles shine brighter than the scowls the world so often greets us with?  Have we played enough?  Have we laid on our backs and stared at the stars enough or did I rush us in my ever present, over programmed, micromanaging way, chanting hurry up at every turn, rushing to an end I don’t even really want?  This is the time of year when doubts rush in and overwhelm me and while I’m usually loud enough and busy enough to keep them at bay, the truth is, I’m free falling, caught in no man’s land, praying I’ve done a good enough job to make a difference.  Hoping it’s enough.  Hoping I have broad enough shoulders to make it happen one more season while honoring those I serve. 

To me, at its heart, Free Fallin’ is a song about doubts and about knowing something’s just not right.  This guy wanted to fall, he wanted to check out and leave it all behind for a while because he knew something just wasn’t right.  In his case he knew he’d done wrong, but in my case that’s not the case.  In my heart, I know it’s just a new season for our family, but still, I can’t help but feel things won’t ever be the same.  Time marches on whether we want it to or not.  I don’t truly know what experience Tom pulled from when he wrote Free Fallin’, but I’m thankful John sang it in a way that it could wash over me anew.

When I got in the car this morning to drive my son to tennis practice, I queued up Free Fallin’ and at first, he didn’t know what we were listening to.  “I downloaded some new music,” I said eagerly.  “Check this out.”  He smiled and said okay then John sang the first few words and I heard that oh so familiar groan.  “Mom!  This song is terrible,” my son lamented.  I understood.  I’d been there myself.  So through watery eyes with a smile on my face, I shook my head and said the only thing I could.  “I know son, I know.  Blame your father.”