What murders cannot kill

There’s a surprising grace that falls our way whenever someone unexpectedly sings a beautiful song.

It was a Susan Boyle moment whenever Angela Hockensmith began her solo in our church one Sunday morning. I could sense people looking wide eyed at each other. Like me, they were silently saying, “I didn’t know she could sing like that.”

Usually Angel

There’s a sat with her husband, Michael, and eight year old son, Andrew, and not in the choir. I suppose that’s why my mouth dropped when she began singing: I had no inkling she even had an interest in music. Thankfully, our music minister did.

After her musical debut, the choir latched on to Angela and held her tightly; they weren’t about to let her return to her former perch in the pew. I could sometimes hear her voice rise above the others, and I would break out in a satisfied smile, like I do when smelling coffee brewing or a rose blooming.

Because Michael worked in Danville, Ky., the Hockensmiths would usually arrive late for Wednesday night prayer meeting in Lebanon. But once there, they were all there. Andrew would be talking to anyone who would listen when Angela would take him gently by the hand and guide him to the children’s activities.

Then Michael and Angela would sit together. Michael would always have his Bible in hand, looking up every passage of Scripture I mentioned in my Bible study.

Angela would often request prayer, usually for someone else. The only time I recall her asking for themselves was when they needed a car. Several weeks later we rejoiced with them when they reported that God had provided a way for them to have an automobile.

We prayed for Angela throughout her pregnancy and celebrated with them when Naomi Grace was born.

And then they left as unobtrusively as they had arrived. “We need to live near Danville so I can be closer to the pawn shop,” he mentioned to me one Wednesday evening after prayer meeting.

Months passed.

Then, I received a text message from my wife during her lunch break, informing me that there had been a shooting at a pawn shop in Danville. I didn't think of Michael or the fact that he had become part owner of the pawn shop where he worked.

I wondered what went through his mind when the shooter lifted his gun in Michal’s direction, seconds before he and Angela were murdered.

I was told Angela begged for the safety of her little ones.

Naomi Grace was unharmed.

Little Andrew made the 911 call.

Shaking my head in disbelief, I thought of the twelve people killed in Washington’s Naval Yard, the sixty-eight or more killed and 175 injured in the shopping mall in Kenya, the 1429 reportedly murdered by chemical weapons in Syria, the 78 Christians killed in their church by a suicide bomber in Pakistan, and I asked myself, “Has the world gone crazy?”

No, the world hasn't gone crazy.

It’s always been that way. We've only made our instruments of violence more deadly, more prolific, and more accessible.

I wish we could unravel the violent mess we find ourselves in, not only as individuals but as nations. Is it possible to go back to a more peaceful, nonviolent time? I doubt it.

All I know to do now is keep praying and working for peace, and yearning for a day, someday, when “they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks (and) nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”

I recall the last solo I heard Angela sing in our congregation before they moved to Danville. It was the entitled (prophetically? ironically?) “Alive.”

“Alive, alive,” she sang in melodious tones I thought surely fell from heaven. “Look what Mercy's overcome/ Death has lost and Love has won!”

Murderers can’t kill what cannot die.

In that millisecond between the time the bullet left the gun barrel and entered her body, perhaps, just perhaps---a song rose from Angela’s heart and ascended to the heavens.

And then settled there.

Forever.

Enjoying the prime of your life

Usually when someone makes a positive comment about a picture I’m in, I take it because it doesn't happen often. Mr. Photogenic I am not. So when a dear, saintly lady in my church complimented the “wonderful” picture of my son Dave and me taken during this year’s Vacation Bible School, I had to take a second look at it because there was something about it I didn't like.

The picture was in a group of VBS photographs hanging on a wall in the church’s educational building. Dave at age 23 looks great. His arm is draped around my shoulder, and he’s wearing a handsome smile. I on the other hand, in my VBS T-shirt, look very unlike the Senior Pastor--- Senior as in the leader among several. But I did look very senior--- as in over age 55.

Whoever snapped that photo took it before I had time to flash my youthful smile instead of the fatigued “Is Vacation Bible School over yet?” forced grin the picture reveals.

I have thought of secretly taking the picture off the wall, somehow Photoshop a younger picture of myself onto it, and then sneak it back where it was.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m learning to accept the fact that I am actually over f-f-f-f-f-fifty-five. I get that my body doesn't replace cells as quickly as it used to. So what if it takes a little longer for me to recover from my weight training work outs? And though I miss it, I've given up outdoor running: My degenerative disc disease prefers the indoor elliptical trainer. And that little extra fold of skin on my neck doesn't look like a turkey’s gobbler, I keep telling myself.

Fifty seven may not be heaven, but neither is 37, or 23 for that matter.

Then I read where Geraldo Rivera celebrated his 70^th birthday by tweeting an almost nude picture of himself taken in his bathroom at 2 AM. “70 is the new 50,” he said.

This upset the gerontological harmony I had achieved. If 70 is the new 50, does this mean I am supposed to look like I’m 30 something when I’m really 50 something?

Trying to look 30 something adds more pressure to my life, stressing me to look ever more youthful, tempting me to Photoshop more pictures. And this worrisome race to reverse my age will only hasten the aging process, I fear.

Thank the Lord for the recent news about Diana Nyad. She’s the 64 year old athlete who a few weeks ago became the first swimmer to go the distance from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage.

What she couldn't do at age 28 in 1978 (this was her fourth attempt to go the distance) she accomplished at age 64.

When she reached the shore at Smathers Beach in Key West, Florida, she told the crowd, “You’re never too old to chase your dreams. “

And she said something else: “I may not look it right now but you catch me on a good day, I’m in my prime.”

She recognizes she doesn't look 40 something, and  that’s ok, because she can still strive to achieve; she can blossom at whatever age she is.

I suppose Arthur Rubenstein, who at age 89 gave one of his greatest recitals at New York’s Carnegie Hall would agree with Nyad, as would Albert Schweitzer, who at 89 headed a hospital in Africa. And Konrad Adenauer, who became Chancellor of Germany at 88, Benjamin Franklin, who at 81 helped in the adoption of the United States Constitution, and Grandma Moses, who was still painting at 100, and Winston Churchill, who wrote A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, at 82, and George Bernard Shaw, who wrote a play at 94 would all applaud her as well.  And let’s not forget the Biblical characters, Caleb, who at 80 was one of those selected to spy out the land of Canaan, and Moses, who was still leading the people of Israel at 120.

So, I walked down the hall again and took another look at that picture. By golly, my friend is right: That’s a darn good picture of a fifty something guy who has the best ahead of him and has yet to reach his prime.

No wonder his son is smiling like he’s happy for him. 

Got Directions?

I was remembering an old story the other day about a businessman barreling through the countryside in his Lincoln Town Car. The guy is hopelessly lost and stops in a little one horse town he happens upon, pulling into a service station in the days when service stations were actually service stations. The attendant saunters out, chewing on a straw, and asks the man what he needs. “I’m lost,” the businessman confesses.

The gas station attendant squints at the driver and asks, “Do you know where you are?”

“Yeah,” the businessman says, “I saw the name as I drove into town.”

“Well, sir, do you know where you’re going?” the attendant further inquires.

“Yes, yes, of course” the driver answers, growing impatient with the questions.

“Well,” drawled the service station worker, “if you know where you are, and you know where you want to be, then mister, you ain’t lost, you just need directions.”

Sometimes directions come from the most unlikely sources.

Driving through Southeast Texas, I had made a wrong turn somewhere between Cleveland and Cut and Shoot. The sun had dropped to a distant glow as I traveled westward, and the September heat was napping on an eerie, yellowish hue, enveloping my Ford F-150 like a fog straight out of Rod Serling’s “Twilight Zone.”

Let me back up. Years ago, I accepted a position with an evangelistic organization that I quickly became convinced would go belly up. Unwilling to move my family to their location, I was commuting 6-7 hours each week, staying home as late as possible before leaving, often driving through the night and straight to work.

One afternoon--having grinned and giggled our way through Mel Brooks’ “Young Frankenstein,” my family and I said our goodbyes, and  I, heavy hearted, backed out of our driveway, turning west, when I spied Dave, then age 8, in my rear view mirror, running toward me, yelling something.

Stopping, I rolled down my window and heard him mimicking the stilted, guttural sounds of Peter Boyle, the monster in “Young Frankenstein,” singing, “Puttin’ on the Ritz.”  

How did Dave know I needed to laugh?

I did, and then driving away, I cried.

It was later, down the road that it happened. With that mustardy film blanketing my truck, I thought I could hear Rod Serling voicing over the DJ on my radio: “David Whitlock thought he was driving to Dallas, Texas, but having made a wrong turn, he has just entered…The Twilight Zone.”

Was the Voice narrating my life journey? Describing my geographical location? Or both?

Trying to ignore the Voice in my head, I focused on the road map, not the road. And that’s when my right front tire hit something---a rock? a curb? ---causing my tire to meet a most untimely death.

.

Now, I’d not changed a tire since driver’s training. But I didn’t have to worry about it: The husband of the dear little lady from whom I had recently bought the truck suffered from Alzheimer’s, and between the time I had inspected the vehicle for purchase and actually acquired it, he had removed the spare tire and hidden it. Later, she and I would laugh about this, but that night, somewhere in the Twilight Zone between Cleveland and Cut and Shoot, there was no hint of a smile on my face.

I tried calling AAA; there is no cell service in the Twilight Zone.

It was beginning to rain when a pick-up truck loaded with about 150 Hispanics mercifully stopped long enough for me to hop aboard, and there I was, traveling with them, crushed between a large, bosomy grandmother and her several sniffling grandchildren---all singing in Spanish. I hummed along.

“Buena suerte,” they happily shouted as I jumped from the slow moving vehicle in the direction of a convenience store in the middle of nowhere.

I guzzled stale coffee while waiting for my only hope. Only one man in these parts could find a tire for me at this hour, the store manager informed me.

“He usually comes by about this time. Don’t know about tonight, though, seeing that it’s raining.”

“That’s comforting,” I thought. “How will I know him?” I asked.

“You’ll know him,” he smirked,  “looks a lot like Gomer Pyle.”

The manager was right. “Gomer” was tall, lanky, wore a crooked cap, and bobbed his neck in front of his body as he walked.

“Over there, maybe you’ll find one,” Gomer told me as we walked through his junk yard, which doubled as the front and back yard of his house.

Tripping over tires in the darkness, surrounded by a Transylvanian like fog, I suddenly had a horrible thought: “What if this was all a charade? What if the convenience store owner and Gomer are partners in crime---even serial killers? And no one has a clue where I am.”

 “Oh God,” I prayed, “don’t let Gomer kill me. Get me out of here.”

“That should do,” Gomer said as he finished changing my tire.

He wouldn’t let me pay him.

“You’ve had a hard night, just stop by sometime when you’re this way again.”

 And his kindness continued, “Now, let me give you some directions out of here.”

“Directions out,” I whispered, “a gift from the Lord.”

Miles down the road and deep into the night, I stopped at a Waffle House.

I slowly breathed in the aroma of bacon and eggs frying as the early morning crew hustled in, ready for a new day. Ignited by the promise of a crisp, fresh morning, I suddenly felt a surge of energy, and picturing Dave singing “Puttin’ on the Ritz,” I filled in the lines, “If you're blue and you don't know where to go to/ why don't you go…”

And so I did go, forward and onward---thanks to Dave singing and Gomer helping,

And closing my eyes, I let the pancakes slowly melt in my mouth.

When the boomerang booms back

“How long did you say you are you going to be home?”

That was my dad’s question to me, Christmas holidays, 1975-76.

I had set my shaving kit in the small bathroom I had shared with Dad for years. Then, I moved his shaving cream, after-shave lotion, and cologne to the side so I could spread out mine where his had been, just like I had done when I was in high school.

“Why is Dad asking me how long I’m going to be here?” I thought to myself. “Isn’t he thrilled to have me home, sharing this cramped space together once again?”

A few weeks ago, Lori and I found ourselves asking my dad’s question, only now it was to our children.

“How long did you say you’re going to be home?’

Although Lori and I were sad when each child flew away, we enjoyed our empty nest: no planning meals around the kids’ schedules; less laundry and dish washing; more privacy.

Then this summer one child flew back, and our empty nest was no longer exactly empty.

“Only for a short while,” he said.

Lori and I glanced at each other with raised eyebrows. I stroked my chin, not sure what to make of our new circumstance.

Then a second child flew back with our grandchild.

Lori and I, the once merry residents of an empty nest, looked at each other, thought about the prospects of two adult children and a baby living with us---and like Macaulay Culkin in “Home Alone,” when he slapped his dad’s shaving lotion on his face---patted our cheeks with the palms of our hands and screamed, “Ahhh!”

For a moment I thought about hiding under the bed. The words of Barney Fife trying to frighten those disobedient children with the threat of jail echoed in my ears: “No more care free hours, no more doing what you want when you want to do it, no more peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.”

But I soon learned there are many adults like us with children who have returned home. Perhaps you are one of them. Or maybe you could be.

The percentage of young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 who have returned home to live with their parents has increased from 51% just a decade ago to 56% in 2012. Not since the Great Depression have so many young adults moved back home. Sociologists have given them a name: the “Boomerang Generation.”  

The primary reason they have returned home has to with the economy. “The recession hit young adults the hardest because they were often ‘last hired, first fired,’” according to Zhenchao Qian, professor and chair of the sociology department at Ohio State University.

Others have graduated and not found employment.

Still others return home because of broken relationships or transitions in life. But even then, these kids most often just cannot afford to move out on their own.

It’s important to have a serious conversation with the boomerang adult in order to set some ground rules. For instance, are you going to charge rent? (Most financial counselors recommend this if the young adult has a job, and finding work should be a priority. Doing nothing should not be an option).What other expenses are you willing to absorb? (Be careful about being an ATM machine.) Have you established an exit plan? (You should. It can always be renegotiated.) What other boundaries will enhance mutual respect and assure some privacy? (For instance, what habits are unacceptable? And, will you set a curfew?)

We have been fortunate in that our two temporary family residents are both employed and are more than willing to share with household duties.

One Saturday morning a few weeks ago, Lori and I walked to the kitchen and grinned as we saw our two young adults sitting on the back patio, drinking coffee, laughing, and chatting.

.

Now that they are more mature, I enjoy conversations with them at a level I couldn’t when they were younger. Had they not returned home, I would have missed out on those talks. And then, I have the joy of placing my grandson in my arms and walking him to sleep at night.

I know it won’t be long until they fly away again.  

The boomerang will boom back the other way.

And I’ll be sad.

But then I’ll sit back, exhale a sigh of relief, and enjoy my empty nest once again.

Don’t underestimate those nuns

A very telling scene occurs in the movie, Promised Land---the film about two corporate salespeople, Steve Butler (Matt Damon) and Sue Thomason (Frances McDermond) who visit a rural town in an attempt to buy drilling rights from the local residents. The two represent an energy company specializing in obtaining natural gas through a process known as fracking, which critics claim involves a variety of environmental hazards.

Butler and Thomason’s efficient record of quickly sealing the deal for their company is jeopardized by an environmental activist, Dustin Noble (John Krasinski), who has started a grassroots movement to derail the corporation’s efforts.

The energy company tries to intimidate the activists, and Thomason patronizes Noble: “Listen, you're just a kid who doesn't understand he's in way over his head on this one. We've already signed more than enough leases to start development in this town. You're too late.”

But Noble calmly responds: “I really wouldn't underestimate these people.”

It’s a revealing comment because ultimately the future of the small town lies in the citizen’s hands and not the energy corporation.

Hopefully, like the people in the movie, the citizens of Kentucky whose land is in the crosshairs of a proposed pipeline carrying natural gas liquid will have the opportunity to choose their own destiny rather than having the government and/or pipeline companies determine it for them.

And perhaps Bluegrass Pipeline, which would build approximately 500 miles of pipeline to transport natural gas liquids from sites in Pennsylvania and Ohio to the Gulf Coast, should heed Noble’s words, especially now that a group of nuns, The Sisters of Loretto, are among “these people.” The controversial pipeline would slice through Kentucky, including part of the land where the nuns’ Motherhouse is located.

At a meeting hosted by Williams and Boardwalk Pipeline Partners on August 8 in Elizabethtown, Ky., the Sisters drowned out the companies’ representative by singing “Amazing Grace.” Finally, the representative, accompanied by the police, asked the Sisters to stop.

Note to company: Never ask the Sisters to stop singing. You might just find yourself in the middle of a “Sister Act,” you didn’t bargain for.

People who oppose the pipeline proposal are doing so for several reasons. Tom FitzGerald, director of the Kentucky Natural Resources Council, points out that the very fact that three companies are competing to be the first to transport the natural gas underscores “why we need a certificate of need processing, to assure that we don’t have more pipeline construction than is needed, and more damage to land and water resources.”

Another objection has to do with private property and eminent domain. Even though the pipeline companies claim that their projects would create jobs, confiscating citizens’ private property to do so doesn't sit well with independent minded Kentuckians.

James Bruggers, of Louisville’s The Courier Journal, voices another concern. He wonders if the conversion of natural gas lines to natural gas liquids would leave Kentucky and Indiana without enough natural gas. Bruggers notes that at least one utility company, American Electric Power, shares his worry.

Then there is the matter of safety. The proposed pipeline would carry toxic byproducts of fracking, and if one of the pipelines ruptured or leaked, water in the area could be polluted. Bluegrass Pipeline contends that pipelines are “37 percent safer” than transporting natural gas liquids via truck and rail. FitzGerald disagrees, maintaining that although the frequency of pipeline accidents may be less, the damage is far worse. “Between 2002 and 2012… total gallons spilled from rail cars were 95,256 compared with 19,926,540 spilled by pipelines.”

It other words, Bluegrass Pipeline’s claim of safety would be like saying automobile accidents occur less frequently than bumper-car mishaps, making automobile travel safer---all the while ignoring the fact that automobile wrecks result in a much higher loss of life.

The online source, LEO Weekly, raises another question about the possibility of such an accident in Kentucky: “Hypothetically, a large pipeline accident that cuts through the heart of the bourbon trail could be devastating for the industry.”

It may seem far-fetched, but it does point to another potential problem: A rupture in the pipeline could damage Kentucky’s bourbon industry.

I doubt that the nuns are too concerned about the possibility of danger to bourbon, unless of course the whiskey could be converted to holy water---for holiness seems to be the motive for the nuns’ objection to the pipeline.

The pipeline would impact three counties in Kentucky known as the “Holy Lands of Kentucky.” They are referred by that name because the first Catholics who came into Kentucky were among the first settlers from the coastal colonies in 1775, and the three counties, Marion, Nelson, and Washington, not only have significant Catholic populations, but the Catholic communities of the Dominican Sisters of Springfield, the Cistercian monks of Gethsemani Abby, and the Sisters of Loretto, are all located there.

Although Loretto member Susan Classen has indicated the pipeline would desecrate “Loretto’s sacred land,” the Sisters also believe all land is holy. “This isn’t me standing with someone else who is the victim of corporate greed.  This is us and the land entrusted to us that the corporation thinks can be gobbled up at will,” said Classen.

The Sisters would agree, I’m sure, that this world of ours is still, as another Christian hymn says, “my Father’s world.” We have sullied it; we have abused it; we have pillaged it. But it is still God’s creation, and the Christian community, being the salt of the earth, should stand as a restraining force against the further degradation of our environment.

And so the nuns sang of amazing grace. Amazing grace will be necessary if the proposed pipeline for natural gas liquids is halted.

The nuns may be too few in number and too short on financial resources to successfully oppose Bluegrass Pipeline.

But they have another line to Another Source.

A truly Amazing One.

No, I really wouldn't underestimate these people.

What I learned from my father-in-law

They let her know he wasn’t her “real” dad when she was a little girl.

It stung, at least for a while. “I always thought I was my daddy’s ‘real’ little girl. I guess I was afraid that might change.”

But it didn’t. Not even for a moment.

This dad---legally her stepdad until he adopted her--- treated her as his own, no different than he did her two younger siblings, his biological children. Like a “real” dad, he made her take out the trash, set the table for dinner, clear it afterwards, clean her room.

And come home on time.

I know because I dated her in high school; Lori, her daddy’s real little girl, would later become my wife. And back then, I knew that 11 o’clock p.m. meant 11 o’clock p.m. to George Wilburn, Lori’s father.

He seemed like her real dad to me.

That’s because he was and still is.

He was there for Lori whenever she needed him, like the time she needed help finding a part time job for the summer, or when she ran out of gas in her Volkswagen, or couldn’t find a ride home after school, or when she broke up with her boyfriend.

I respected George back then, just as I do now, because he honored his family, standing by his kids no matter what they did---even when he had to discipline them in the process.

Observing the way he acted toward his own children, I was the fortunate recipient of the wisdom he shared with them.

“People tend to get more work done when they start early,” he liked to say. George was usually at the coffee shop by 5 a.m. and at work by 6 a.m.

“You’ll be able to count your true friends on one hand.” I didn’t believe him when he said that, but how true it’s proven to be.

“When you take some time for yourself, you’ll be more effective at work.” For years George was an avid golfer because that was something he enjoyed. The same was true for fishing. It would take a while, but I eventually learned the importance of that proverb.

Now, all these years later, George has lost a step, maybe two, and after two hip replacements, golfing can be painful.

And the shine in his eyes appears at times to have faded to a glimmer.  

And though he’s still quicker than I am with his wit, George’s retorts may not be as snappy as they once were. (I still smile when I recall the time George was looking for a place to park his motor home after he and Ruth Ann, my mother-in-law, had driven here for Lori’s and my wedding. When I mentioned to the owner of the park, who had no idea that George was to become my father-in-law, that I was a preacher, the man teased George, “You never know about preachers.” Quick as a flash, George said, “I’d better know about this one, he’s marrying my daughter tomorrow.”)

And George sometimes struggles with short term memory loss. (But then, so do I)

But one thing hasn’t changed or slowed down: the constancy and celerity with which he expresses his love for his family. He’s still there for them, always and without fail.

When I was in high school, I learned from my future father-in-law how to treat an adopted child, although the lesson would lie dormant for years. After the death of my first wife, I eventually reconnected with Lori. Then we took on the challenge of blending our two families, and I adopted her children.

“What would George Wilburn do?” I would sometimes ask aloud when facing a trying situation.  Although I never heard him say it explicitly, the words would often come to my mind: “Treat them like they’re your own, because they are.”

He had already given me the living life lesson I needed because he had loved Lori just like she was his birth daughter, his “real” little girl.

It’s love and not a name on a birth certificate that makes someone “real.”

I later learned after I had asked Lori for that first date, that George had checked me out with one my football coaches, Butch Brown.

“This David Whitlock, is he okay?”

Thankfully, Coach gave me a decent enough report.

And I did my best not to disappoint.

After all, Lori was George Wilburn’s “real” little girl.

Through Mama’s Eyes

Standing fully in the present moment, there are times when you can touch the past and the future, all at once and at the same time. You can even feel eternity sliding through your fingers.

And sometimes it happens through someone else’s eyes.

I see my mama’s eyes in a black and white photo of her when she was six, maybe seven years old--- about 85 years ago now. She’s standing next to her mom somewhere out there on the Oklahoma prairie with the Great Depression swirling around them.

 Mom’s wearing a simple calico dress and beige stockings. Her short cropped hair and straight trimmed bangs appear utilitarian: easy to wash and dry.

Her mom, my grandmother, is clutching her purse in her right hand while her left is resting peacefully on my mom’s back. Grandmother’s bonnet is pulled down low, casting a shadow over her eyes, now worn down by time, fading them, hiding them from my view, preventing me from seeing what they might be saying.   

But I can clearly see mama’s little girl eyes. And they seem to look into mine, peering at me as if to say, “When will you arrive in my future, little boy?”

And then, “Where are you going, young man?”

Now, “What are you going to do with the rest of your life, since you’re past the half century mark?”

Those little girl eyes see right through me in this moment, then  back to yesterday, and forward into tomorrow.

It happens all at once and at the same time.

Her eyes are accompanied by a half grin that strikes me as vaguely familiar. “Yes,” I smile to myself, “those are the eyes of my oldest daughter.” And now those eyes---the eyes of my little girl daughter, six maybe seven years old---stare through the glass door of our house, waiting for my arrival. “Can we go for a drive, Daddy? Please?”

And then my little six maybe seven year old girl is a young lady, glancing back one more time in my direction as she passes through airport security for departing flights. And she’s gone---gone far away to her big city.

It happens all at once and at the same time.

Now, in Mom’s little girl eyes, I see my older brothers, Mark and Lowell. Mom snaps her fingers, watching us boys through her horned rimmed glasses, commanding us to settle down there in the back of the station wagon, for it’s a long way from Altus, Oklahoma to Disneyland in  California, and through Mom’s eyes, squinting with the threat of discipline, I can hear Lowell holding something called a transistor radio, tuned in to KOMA AM radio, listening to Johnny Horton’s “Battle of New Orleans.” And Mark is warning Lowell not to drop the radio from the station wagon’s back window because Lowell is letting the transistor dangle dangerously from his wrist.

I look again and see Mom’s little girl eyes arriving in Fletcher, Oklahoma, where she, now 19 years old, meets my future daddy’s eyes, and both, in that past moment, lock eyes in a forever gaze.

And I can see in those little girl eyes the grief, the joy, and the thrill of living: the death of a son in a car wreck, Mom herself graduating from college once her boys had their diplomas, her travels to Africa, India, Arabia, and Central America.

The serious expression on the  little girl’s face breaks into joyful celebrations of  life in her poems, her collectibles, and her friends, bestowing favor upon my dad, who needs her, beaming with pride in sons, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

And then quite abruptly the little girl eyes bring me to the recent past:  Mom and Dad’s 70^th wedding anniversary, where her eyes, now in their 92^nd year, look to me for help as she grasps my arm, taking tiny steps on the way to the car.

“I love you boys more than you will ever know,” she reminds me. And I know she means it.

But now, I don’t want to look into those eyes—fearful that they may be worn down by time, the years having cast their shadow over them, fading them, blurring them so I can no longer see what they might be saying.

.

I choose instead to ponder the little girl’s eyes.

And through them touch now and forever in this present moment.