When my alarm went off at 5:52 yesterday morning, I half-considered not going out. Not because I was feeling lazy (believe when I say that is my usual feeling), but that I was feeling particularly cozy. The light was peeking through the shutters and the morning beckoned.

Like Hope’s little important jewel from Sunday, I also have plastic treasures that hold no value to anyone else other than me.

These treasures are in the form of sister-giggles, midnight-nightmare-soothings, and post-sandbox-hand-holds as we walk home (the treasure of being able to walk down the hall at 11pm and kiss their sleeping, breathing cheeks). They are inside jokes with my husband and smelling salt sea air with him. These are watching early morning, pink-setting-moons with a girlfriend and thanking God for the dawning beauty (as well as the ability to run).

These are treasures I will hide away and keep in my mind and in my heart’s-memory.

I imagine that somewhere down the line, this time in my life will be a blur of memories, scents and images burned in me as well as general thoughts and feelings. I don’t want to hand over the little treasures, though: the little, tiny plastic jewels that make up the stuff of my life.

I think I’ll keep these, put them all in my own pocket, and treasure them.

I went to collect Hope from her Sunday School class after church this last weekend. The first thing I heard down the hall amidst the people and kids was her familiar “Mama!”, and then she handed me two small things that she had somehow acquired since I dropped her off. One was a small cutout of something she had drawn (no doubt a horse), and the other was a tiny plastic jewel. “Hold these, Mama! These are my treasures!”.

I’ve been inspired by Lisa yet again. I bought two of her “Blessed” necklaces from her and gave them to two friends who I consider beautifully blessed. I don’t even wear one, but I know that I am blessed.

I’m blessed because I have a sister-in-law in the UK who prays for me every day.

I’m blessed because I have sweet cat who lays on my bed every afternoon and snores. When I was pregnant with Hope, she used to curl up on top of my belly and purr. I’m sure she heard it in the womb.

I’m blessed because I have friends who have heard my whole story, and still love me.

I am blessed because I have a toddler who likes to roll around in the mud in her pajamas.

I am blessed because I have a family at my church. It is a true family that takes care of one another.

I’m blessed because popcicles taste SO good in the backyard at the end of August!

I’m blessed because my sister and my parents are significant players in the lives of my girls.

I’m blessed because my husband goes to work every day and sometimes comes home after we’ve all gone to sleep. He kisses me and turns out the light as I mumble something like “I’m glad you’re safe…”

I am blessed. Nothing extravagant – just simply blessed.

5.23 slow miles. But solitude. Alone, the soundtrack of today is in my ears and my shoes gather more dust. (I always write my post in my head when I run).

Last week, as I was sitting around the table listening to my family talk and laugh, I learned something new about my father. He said that when he and my aunt were young children living in Kansas, the room they shared was painted a bright red-orange (Competition Red, my dad called it) and my grandmother had made them matching bedspreads with a black and white domino print. We all laughed about it. To me it sounded like a bad Baby Einstein nightmare!

Observing my father’s life, it is now layered with that story and thousands of others: ones he has told me and ones I’ve been a part of. Ones that overlap into my own life.

We all have stories to tell. My husband tells one about blowing the door off the water heater shed on the side of his house when he was growing up (why do most mens’ stories have something to do with a fascination of all things pyrotechnic?). My mother tells ones about the cows getting out when they were kids and subsequently, the night one of them got hit by a car (the bovine was not injured, however the car was). This one is Hope’s favorite. I have a story about the deaf cat named Baranabas who took a nap inside the hood of an old truck.

I feel happy when I think that we create stories together as we live. Everything we do together as a family, every experience we give our children, these are stories being made today. This is true collaboration – making stories.

Each person in my family, even if I have known for the sum of my 32 years, is a deep collection of stories told from their eyes, that I have yet to discover. How often have I taken the time to merely listen to others who are important to me to tell their story?

I’ve discovered something interesting about storytelling. I forget things, no more than a normal person does. But the more I tell a story, the firmer that experience is burned into my own memory. I don’t forget the ones I tell over and over again to my girls. A way, I think, to fight forgetting, is to tell the story. Tell it, and laugh with each other, and retell it!

Today my prayer is many sided:
That I become a better listener,
That I remember everyone has a story,
That I stop to hear the stories of my two daughters,
and that I am challenged to continue to tell my own story with wisdom, eloquence and grace.

On Thursday, Hope, my mother-in-law and I went to LA to the American Girl Store. Hope took her doll, Elizabeth, and we four (including the AG) went to doll-disneyland together. There are only three of these full service stores in the US (Chicago, NYC and now Los Angeles). If you’ve never been, what an experience! Of course there are all the clothes and acoutrements for everything you can think of for the dolls, plus a doll hair salon (we got the ponytail-veil), a doll hospital, a photo studio, a complete theatre, and a full service restaurant (not to mention the historic doll section that is very museum-like in its presentation). There is even a concierge at the front and doll holders in the restroom stalls.

My grandmother was widowed when she was 35, just a couple years older than I am now. Her children (my father and my aunt) were 13 and 9. A couple years later, she packed her kids and things in a car and drove to California leaving the wide open plains of Kansas.

My grandmother has always been a mystery to me, but it strikes me now, as I am thinking about her, that she was actually quite brave. Would I have done that, what she ventured, fueled by either fear or courage? Or love for her children?

Maybe she never got over the losses she experienced as a young girl, growing up without her own parents. And then to lose her husband so young too…I couldn’t imagine. Somehow I don’t think she ever recovered from those things.

In 1995 she became sick with cancer and died quickly before the end of that year, 6 months before I was to be married. I had unfulfilled visions of her being pushed down the aisle of my wedding her wheelchair. She never met my children, but did meet Chad and loved him too. I realize only now that I never took the time to know her or really love her well.

Because she had been so affected by the experiences of her life, she was different and a little odd. This made me almost scared of her as a young child, but then worried at the same time. I would feel guilt for not loving her more mixed with compassion and heartfelt gratitude.

Thornton Wilder said once, “In Love’s service, only wounded soldiers can serve”. I have always seen her as wounded and needy. But maybe it was me that was wounded, unable to wrap my childs heart around hers. She was a difficult woman to love when she was older, but that shouldn’t make a difference. It was in a way, hard to be her granddaughter, but I always knew she loved me, and far better than I was able to love her.

Maybe only with age and with a few wounds of my own can I hopefully understand what it means to love someone who truly needs it.