Thirty seven years ago she was thirty seven years old and in a winter snow storm, she felt the uterine wall tighten, hard blast. She leaned against a door frame and held her swollen side and breathed heavy, steady. The time had come for the ninth, to breathe the babe out with the labored prayers.
I lay beside him now, the babe that time made a man. The moon out the window leaves a wake of light across snow fields. This night is frigid still, eve of his birthday.
He has her eyes. I hold his hand. We lay, my pale slender fingers slipped through his bronzed work-etched ones, watching moon, passing quiet words, memory pictures, back and forth in the dark. We laugh. We hold each other. In touching, souls touch.
In the country cemetery five miles to the south, the moon will be reflecting on the gravestone of the woman who first held him. I think of this. The granite of the woman who prayed for her ninth. I can’t imagine my life if she hadn’t. Hard to think that I would have lived at all if he hadn’t been born, man who has made me a woman.
We sleep in arms, moon on faces, the cotton sheets twisted around legs. He breathes warm on me, rib of his side, and I live. I wake. And find in the morning on the towel rack beside the mirror, a tape of green, letters embossed and I don’t have glasses on and I roll my eyes because how many times do we tell the kids not to do things like this!
It’s tape from a label gun, one of hers from the 1970’s, the one she used to label the baseball bats, the jars of sugar, salt, flour, cornstarch that lined the pantry in orange tupperwares, the shelves in the storage room that organized the lives of all nine.
Her last child and sixth son, the one with the name that means “Beloved,” he’s the one that had leaned over and plucked out the label gun out of a box of her things sitting on the back step a year after she died, bits of her life to be sent to the thrift store. He had brought the label gun home, the baby food jars full of extra rolls of label tape in oranges and reds. I had told the children not to play with it and it was not a toy. Tape and letters had sat in the corner of the garage closet.
I am not good at labeling parts of my life.
I look in the mirror reflecting morning. I splash water on my face. Dry my face. Put on my glasses. I hang up the towel. And I can see the letters now. I lean over and read the embossed letters on green tape:
It reads: I love you, Ann
That’s not an act of one our six.
It’s the act of her ninth.
He who labels everything in my life with his love, who writes his heart out in clear font everywhere I turn, who never stops wooing with a quiet passion and prints his ardency on the towel rack in the bathroom.
I laugh love in early morning.
He’s actually a lot like his Father.
Words from Father God to you today:
“…you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you…“ ~Isa. 43:4
counting the ways
I love the man He gave,
ways that Father God loves me:
1379. Him juggling balls on a Sunday afternoon for cheering kids
1380. Shaving the hair up the nape of his neck
1381. The way he can wield a steering wheel
1382. I always smile when I see his barefeet
1383. His whispered prayers over me before he gets out of bed in the morning
1384. The way he can sing “Be Thou My Vision”, hold the tune of any hymn and lead us on
1385. How every night before he turns out the last light, he lines the counter with six Vitamin C tablets and six oranges, one for each of his six children, for them to take in the dark as they head out to the barn in the dark next morning
1386. That the only thing he’s ever bought on loan or payment is land
1387. The way I feel in his hands
1388. That gentle voice that he never raises
1389. How he never leaves a dinner table without clearing off the dishes
1390. That smile that still makes everything inside do acrobatics
1391. That 365 days of the year, he never sleeps in, or has a day off, but rises without complaint and heads to the barn in the dark to do chores, work to provide for us, a faithful act of love
1392. Him tucking his children under blankets every night and kneeling beside their beds to pray over them
Want to drink the joy elixir? Become a Joy Finder? Consider joining the Gratitude Community — just jump in with your own counting!
How to begin your own 1000 Gift List ::: How Gratitude Can Change your Life
( Drop me a line if choose to begin giving intentional thanks and gather fresh joy and I will happily add either your name or a web link to the Gratitude Community I’m slowly getting caught up on meeting all you beautiful folks who have joined the Gratitude Community. Thank you for your kind grace and patience! I’m so looking forward to meeting you all soon!)
And the warmest welcome to The Gratitude Community:
(Private Journals)
Christine
Dawn in Virginia
Tina in South Carolina
Sarah at Puebla Ponderosa
Kim at Grains of Sand
Janelle at Cole Family Adventures
Cheryl at Spinning Coaster
Valerie at Growing in Him
Ms B. at Glimpses
Betsy at Hand Woven Dreams
Kim at Adama Diaries
Amy at Simply Necessary
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Photos: the twentieth birthday I have celebrated with him — how did that happen?
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