My Birthday Wishes

Today I am 44 years old and I’ve been receiving “birthday wishes” for much of the day.  (side note:  FaceBook friends rock!)  Anyway, that got me to thinking what are my birthday wishes, really?

• I wish for no more underarm fat.
• I wish there wasn’t such a thin line between laughing and crying.
• I wish that Brad would flush – always!
• I wish for a bigger space so that I could hold more love.
• I wish that I didn’t have an obsession with my eyebrows.
• I wish good things never ended.
• I wish I could run without running.
• I wish that my balloons never lost their perspective.
• I wish that my pants never shrunk or that my butt never grew – your choice.
• I wish I could see better – However, when I use that magnifying mirror I see those tiny hairs, then I start plucking my eyebrows.  It’s a vicious cycle.
• I wish people, me included, were better.
• I wish that Cooper was still shorter than me.
• I wish I wasn’t crying/laughing right now.  See what I mean about the thin line?
• I wish Caius weren’t such a dare devil.  However, I guess if he weren’t he’d be someone else.
• I wish my book were already on the New York Times Best Seller list.
• I wish I could live to see the day that Cody and Karen are married 25 years. And love their grandchildren the way that I love mine.
• I wish I could show you how happy you make me.  Then you’d believe me.
• I wish that Bean could play his guitar for Ashley the day she wins American Idol.
• I wish I could go on Survivor and win.  However, we all know I hate dirt, plus there’s never enough red wine on the island.
• I wish everyone had a Brad, for just one day 😉
• And last but not least, I wish you all knew my Invisible Man.  Yes, yes, I do.

 

Daddy Remembers…

 

“DADDY REMEMBERS YOU”

By: David McNatt

If memory and math serve me correctly, it was Wednesday morning, the 26^th of July,1967, and I was sitting at my office desk at Weyerhaeuser, where I worked as the Assistant Sales/Service Coordinator.  The call came, and your Mother beckoned me home.  The rest of the day is kind of a blur, but a little after 6 PM I was informed that Mother and Daughter were doing just fine.  Daughter?!!  This was the first time I ever really considered that I might have a Daughter instead of a Son.  I was positively elated.  The first girl in a family of boys.  Well, that took a big load off me.  After all, girls were a Mother’s domain, not a Father’s.  From there I don’t know what happened.  You didn’t want to sleep in your own bed, you messed with other people’s mail, you took money out of my billfold, you didn’t do what I told you to do, you wore make-up when you weren’t supposed to, you went where I told you not to go, you didn’t understand science, for crying out loud you started dating!!!!!  And then, Holy Crap, you hooked up with a Preacher Man!!!  What kind of a job had your Mother done??

Well, turns out she must have done really good.  I could never be more proud of my daughter.

So, today is Sunday, July 26, 2009, and you are turning forty-two (42) years old.  The “Preacher Man” is now the “Wise Pastor and wonderful husband” and you are blessed with your own Children and Grandchildren.  Cherish this and every birthday, because they represent God’s ever blossoming gift to a grateful and thankful Daddy.

I Love YOU,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mr. David L. McNatt

aka:  Daddy

 

The Old Red Farmhouse

(An excerpt from my Memoirs: Like the Course of a River)

The old farmhouse was red and tucked away in small, hot and very southern Slocomb, Alabama.  It would have been great if the little farmhouse had air-conditioning but it didn’t.  The four of us sweat together for a year and half in that little house.  The front porch, bordered by azalea bushes, was our respite from the heat that collected inside.  We’d put a box fan on one end of the porch and sit on the swing at the other and watch the few cars that passed by.  Life in Slocomb was slow.  Hot, slow …and cheap.  We needed cheap.
Brad set up his study/office in the barn that was directly behind the house.  I remember that day – he was so excited!  He cleared out one of the corn cribs and set up shop. I, however, was terrified.  Wasps, snakes, bugs and mice–all made their home within the walls of his very creative study.  The barn was a great place for Brad, I mean–nobody dared go in there!  One day in particular I ventured out to his study and there, sitting upon one of the books on his desk, was the biggest rat I’d ever seen.  The rat just looked at me as if to say “Who the hell are you?  Get out of here!”  I ran out of the barn screaming, vowing to the rat,  to never enter their inner sanctum again.  Brad and the rat could have it!
Brad had his study, even though it was a corn crib, it was his corn crib.  His place of refuge and the place he retreated to when he needed silence.  All of his things were stashed away out there and he didn’t worry about someone coloring on them or breaking them.  Brad was whoever he needed to be in the the corn crib.  The corn crib study was Brad’s special getaway place; his “One day I’m gonna make a difference” place; His “I need a nap” place; his “I need to yell” place; his “I’m going to get this degree” place …and it was good.  It was very good for him.
But I…I felt like I had nothing.  Nothing but diapers, dishes and dirt.  Life wasn’t what I had thought it was going to be and I couldn’t see beyond the moment.  And at the moment I was pregnant again. When I found out that I was pregnant with Chase, the bottom fell out for me.  I couldn’t believe it!  I was at the lowest point of my life.  Financially we weren’t getting by, so I went to work in the tomato houses during the summer to make a little extra money packing tomatoes to be shipped to market. Each day I would get the boys and me ready and head off to the farm.  The boys would play in the fields while I stood in the the barn and packed.  Migrant workers would pick tomatoes from the fields and bring them to me to sort through for market.  It wasn’t brain science by any means.  It wasn’t science at all.  All you had to do was look at tomatoes and rate them according to a standard of size and quality.  A,B, C…packing them in their designated crates.  The flies were unbearable, not to mention the stifling heat, and by the end of the day my hands were cramped and raw.  However, going home didn’t provide much of a real relief from the hard day.  The boys and I would leave the farm, head home, bathe, cook supper, clean up the mess and try to go to sleep. Brad was usually away at school or at the church talking to someone, or in his corncrib study learning something, becoming someone…someone very special.  But I was becoming nothing and the thought of another person to care for, when I didn’t even care about myself, was more than I could bear. I remember lying awake in the middle of the night and sweat would roll off my brow and onto my pillow.  I would cry and cry.  Crying because of the heat, the hard work, and the tiny farmhouse — but mostly because of the overwhelming loneliness that was swallowing me.    One day I just stopped – stopped doing everything and lay down on the couch.
The rest of my time in the Old Farmhouse is a blur, that is except I got fatter and my Mom came and did the laundry.

(We searched for hours for this farmhouse during our sabbatical so that I could capture it’s essence with my photography.  Apparently, it’s been demolished.  We lived in the farmhouse during 1987-89.)

 

Mr. & Mrs. Movie

Running a little behind, as usual, I ran inside to buy our movie tickets while Brad parked the van.

Me: Three, for Adjustment Bureau, please.

Brad is so speedy!  By the time I had the tickets in my hand he’d already parked the van, run inside,  gone to the bathroom and was waiting for me at the front of the line.  Gee!!

Quickly, we made our way to Theater #12, got inside and began the search for the perfect seats.  It’s always this way when Brad is looking for seats.  Not just any ole seat will do.  You must carefully survey the entire auditorium, everything comes into consideration.  You must notice who is sitting where, how your head will be positioned while looking at the screen, your accessibility to the bathrooms, aisle seats are a bonus and his list goes so on.  However, tonight we were late so our pickings were slim.  After a few minutes Brad spotted the choicest seats the #12 had to offer and we walked over.

At the end of the aisle an elderly gentleman sat in the aisle seat.  Brad bent down and in his hushed-movie-voice said:

Brad: Are those seats taken?

Mr. Movie: Those aren’t but this one, (pointing) right here is.

Awkwardly, Brad scoot past Mr. Movie, as did Cooper, and settled into their seats.  As I was scooting past him he looked at me, pat the seat next to him, sweetly smiled and said:

Mr. Movie: This seat is taken.  She’ll be right back.

Me: Okay.

Don’t you guys think Movie Trailers are misleading?  And LONG?  Sometimes a C Movie will look like an A Movie in its Trailer—but then I guess that’s what the Trailer is for, huh?  Anwyay…the Trailers were finished and we were 30 minutes into the movie when I noticed that Mr. Movie’s lady friend hadn’t returned.  (I know, you may think that strange of me to notice things like that — but I do.  I’m observant about certain stuff…like missing people.)

Mr. Movie’s missing friend really began to pique my interest.  I wondered if something was wrong and if maybe I should go check on her or if they had gotten in an argument and she was punishing him by sitting in the car.  (I know, I should have been watching the movie.  And I was…kinda.)

Then all of the sudden out of the corner of my eye I noticed Mr. Movie take his bag of popcorn and offer it to an invisible Mrs. Movie and say:

Mr. Movie: (gently shaking the bag of popcorn) Do you want any of this?

Oh my!  Did he just do that?  What?!?  Surely, I’m crazy and did not just see and hear what I just saw and heard!  Then I noticed that there were two soft drinks.  One on his side and one on hers.  Within 5 minutes Mr. Movie held the bag of popcorn back out for Mrs. Movie — then he offered her a drink of HER coke.  This exchange went on throughout the entire film.  A couple of times he would whisper something to her, about the movie…I guess.

Thirty minutes before the end of the movie, Mr. & Mrs Movie quietly got up, picked up their trash, gathered all their belongings and left.

What?!?  I couldn’t believe it.  You’re not even going to see how the movie ends?!  This is a good movie and this is the BEST part!  Wait!!  Don’t go!  You have to see the end!   …Everyone knows that!!   How bizarre is that!?!

I have thought about, mulled over, and pondered at length this little encounter for almost a week now.  I don’t want to believe that Mr. Movie is crazy.  Why?  Because there are enough crazy people in the world and I can choose to believe something else about him.

So, I have chosen to believe something sentimental.  Something beautiful.  Something a little sad.  Something wishful and hopeful.  Something that is kind and gentle.  Something that gives and is pleasing.

…Why?  Because I can.  (And because Mrs. Movie would like it that way.)

 

poem from a boy…

When you’re struggling poetry might seem trite.  I imagine that when Brad and I received this poem we tossed it aside.  We may have never even read it.  I don’t remember.  However, it was tossed into my wicker basket and it’s made its way through all these years.

Lean on Him by Tim Bruce:

When the winter wind blows stiff and cold

and bitter pains grip your soul;

Lean on Him.

When sorrow’s water flows deep and swift

cling to the Rock that lets none drift;

Lean on Him.

When joy turns to sadness and sadness, grief

Turn to the Love that’s beyond belief;

Lean on Him.

When your legs tremble and your crutches are taken

Turn to the Fortress that cannot be shaken;

Lean on Him.

When happiness like a shadow in the setting sun

Fades away until the dawn is come;

Lean on Him.

When you try to smile but weep at your best

There is but One who can give you rest;

Lean on Him.

(I love you.  I’m sorry and I’m praying for you.) ~Tim Bruce March 1990

21 years ago Tim Bruce was just a boy.  A boy who looked up to and cared about a friend.  He sat down and penned this poem.  21 years later I read it on a wintry day.  Isn’t it odd how things happen?

21 years from now something I pen may be meaningful to someone.  Someone may put it in a basket.  Someone may need something I have to say.  Or, someone may not.  🙂

Come what may.  I am compelled to write.

 

Little Blue Box

It was small.  

It was blue. 

I have vivid memories.

I remember walking past several little boxes and being overwhelmed with the thought, “I hate these boxes! Mother’s shouldn’t choose their kids caskets!”  Brad held my hand and we chose the small, blue box with chrome handles.  That is, if you call choosing a casket a “choice”.

There were so many people.  Family, friends, acquaintances, people we didn’t even know began showing up at our small trailer. They came with food.  The counter-tops  in our tiny kitchen were covered with food. It was a literal buffet. Anything a person could want to eat was there from meats to vegetable to desserts.  Too bad the smell of food made me sick.  Someone was stationed at the sink to man the ever piling dirty dishes–for once in my life I had a full-time dishwasher.  I don’t know who was eating all that food or dirtying all those dishes because it wasn’t me or Brad and Cody and Caleb were little boys, who’d rather play than eat.  I guess it was the people bringing the food.  There was so much talking and whispering and clanging and movement around me and all the unfamiliar noise from all the extra people was starting to get on my nerves however, I didn’t want anyone to leave.  I could face the noise better than the silence.

I was tired, yet I dared not sleep.  I dreaded sleep.  I was afraid of sleep.  Sleep meant nightmares.  Awful, awful nightmares.  Vivid dreams of faint cries, graveyard exhumations, black rain, running through the dark and death. Awaking to my reality would bring waves of sickness as the horror of the truth would stab me in the soul over and over again.   I was a total wreck and had no idea how I was going to make it through the viewing, much less the funeral.

Monday, Late Afternoon
My eyes weren’t swollen.  Looking at myself in the mirror, trying to put on mascara for the viewing, that’s what I was wondering….why my eyes weren’t swollen. They were burning but not swollen or puffy.  I mean, I really expected to look worse and now that I had on mascara I couldn’t wash my face again.  I had washed my face so many times since Sunday morning.  I just kept washing my face, over and over again.  I’d stare into the green sink, watch the water swirl around the basin then pass down the drain.  Briefly I found myself mesmerized by the simple, yet hypnotic flow and could escape my thoughts.  Then, inevitably, somebody would knock on the door and break my beautiful thought free trance.  That’s when I’d begin to wash.  With my face cupped in my hands I’d let the warm water trickle down my cheeks.  It soothed me.  I wanted to stay in the bathroom and never leave.  Even today the water had given me a small solace as it helped to wash away my emotion, wash away the memory of yesterday morning and Saturday night.  I didn’t dare allow any unbidden thoughts now or I would fall apart again and never make it out of this bathroom.

With an expressionless face and the hollow spot I so desperately needed to feel, I turned to leave the bathroom…

◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

Tomorrow, December 8, 2010, Chase Able Martin will be 21.  Happy Birthday baby, Happy Birthday.

~ Love Momma

 

“Dear Brother Brad…”

I keep it all tucked inside the little wicker basket bordered with white lace.  My mom and I bought the basket the week after we buried Chase.  We thought the little basket unique –and indeed it is, for it holds everything that remains of him.  The clothes that he was wearing the night he died, his blue pacifier, some funeral arrangements that were scrawled on a piece of paper, and hundreds of cards and letters from people I never knew.

Some time in 2009 I opened the basket, (I haven’t been in there since I closed it 20 years ago).  Why now?  I think there were several different events that brought me to the place of opening it.  Mostly, I wanted to know what was in there?  What’s in there that I don’t remember and that I want/need to know.  

This is what I found, right on top.

March 6, 1990

Dear Bro. Brad;

I have just returned to De Funiak from your baby’s funeral and I’m now at the ball field where Eric has baseball practice, and Robert helps.  As for John Paul, he’s all over the car and me.  The last practice that I attended John Paul got on my nerves, but today he doesn’t.  Ball practice requires alots of gas and time, but today it doesn’t matter and tomorrow it won’t matter either because I’m back to basics now.  Sometimes we forget to live today as there’s no tomorrow.  We forget that God doesn’t promise us tomorrow.

…When I looked at little Chase’s body in the casket I wanted to run defense for you.  I questioned God–and I know better than that because who am I to do that?  But I know He understands that we’re humans because He made us!…

Dear Jamie,

…as days go by you’ll ponder and figure and try to come to a conclusion as to ‘why’.  And that will be normal.  But no matter what you do — DON’T blame yourself.  (Did she know that I would spend many years blaming myself?) That will be a destructive route.  …Also Jamie if you feel that you need to cry alots don’t worry about it — cry all you want to — this will help you also to get over it.  (Little did she know that I would do this for the REST of my LIFE.)

~Easter Bryan

Easter Bryan.  I have no idea who she is or was.  Just a lady with boys who played baseball.  A lady who took time to write a hurting mom a 5-page letter.  A lady who made me laugh today because she told me I should cry “alots” because it would make me feel better.  She should have told Brad that too.

You never know how the words you speak/write today are going to change lives tomorrow.

Speak into peoples lives and open baskets from your past.  You never know what you may find.

You may even laugh a little.

 

A Visit to Advance Auto

 

my house – a poem

My house was born

small

hidden

and

strange.

Quite unlikely.

My house is White.

Inside my house?

Well, sometimes she’s “not quite right”,

but she’s White.

At times she’s dirty.

I want her clean.

My house IS white.

(pause)

I need

hot.

I need

cold.

(pause)

I was given White!

I

hold onto Black?

(pause)

My house is small.

My

house

IS

White.

~the beginning~

 

a parable

par●a●ble:

a simple story used to illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson

matthew 13:34

Jesus spoke all these things to the crowd in parables;

he did not say anything to them without using a parable.


Jesus.  He died being misunderstood