Remembering Momaw

——Yesterday would have been Dorothy Speigle’s 97th birthday. She passed away in January of this year. In her memory, I’m posting the eulogy I shared at her funeral.——

I’m the youngest of her three granddaughters. We all adored her.

I called her Momaw, but she’s been known by many names in her long life. Dorothy. Sister. Aunt. Dot. Dorosha. Mama. Hobie. Grandma. Great Grandma. In the last few weeks, hospice nurses have been coming in and out of her house. My mom told me that one of them commented that there was so much love in Momaw’s house.

Continue reading “Remembering Momaw”

A princess with a great longing

Maggie was drawn to me. I couldn’t understand it. Her mom asked her if she remembered me. She searched my face.

“No,” she said, and went about the business of being six years old.

She was born just a few days after my wedding, but we didn’t meet until a few years later. We had a tea party, and she taught me how to hold my pinky the right way. At that time, it was too painful for me to pursue attachments to children. Even the ones in my family. Continue reading “A princess with a great longing”

A time to say goodbye

Don’t worry, Mom. We’re not moving again.

But, we sure have done a lot of that in the last few years — four years to be exact. It was four years ago this month that we put our house on the market in Nashville. Since then, we’ve had two seasons as nomad-fundraisers, two years in India, a very unsettled year in Nashville and a little over six months in Seattle.

I’ve learned a lot about saying goodbye — none of it the easy way. A few random thoughts that Harry promises me aren’t too preachy: Continue reading “A time to say goodbye”

I remember September 11

I — like you — remember September 11th, 2001. I was a senior in college at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. I was walking across campus from an early class back to my dorm and I overheard something about a plane hitting a building in New York and thought it sounded weird at the time.

It wasn’t until I got back to the suite that I shared with five other girls that I realized the enormity of it all. There was no denying the heaviness.

A month before, I had flown back from Europe to Nashville after a six-week study abroad program in London. That would be the last time I skipped over customs when entering Germany. (But that’s another story for another day.) Continue reading “I remember September 11”

Whate’er my God ordains is right

I wrote some about grief in my last post and will probably write more another time. In fact, you may get tired of hearing me talk about grief, because it’s something God is using to strip away the parts of my soul He wants to restore.

Allowing myself to grieve is submitting to the life God is giving me. And, no, it’s not easy or passive. It’s painful. A submission of my mind and will to see my circumstances as God’s faithful provision. A stark contrast to my instinctive toddler response of sitting in the middle of the living room, screaming, “I don’t want this. Give me what I want and give it to me now!” or the one where I’m withdrawn, curled up in bed and can’t remember the steps to starting my day.

I love this hymn, Whate’er my God Ordains is Right. I’ve posted the words below. Continue reading “Whate’er my God ordains is right”

The box

We moved almost three months ago, our third move since May 2012. I’ve gotten pretty good at unpacking. It didn’t take long. What I have forgotten how to do is settle in. The only things left to unpack are boxes of books and mementos I couldn’t throw away.

This weekend, I opened a box of notebooks and binders. Some of those crazy things have been moving with me since I lived in the house on Circle Drive with the people who’ve known me the longest.

Notes from classes I liked. And a few I didn’t.

Most of the contents can be traced back to college (which ended 11 years ago). But, they’ve always been in a box. And always out of sight. Continue reading “The box”