Ten Years - Feels Like Forever and Just Yesterday

She was “Mary Pauline” until college, when someone put just “Mary” on her dorm room door to welcome her to freshman year. That was it, and she was Mary through her adult life. To me she was Mom, and now for some reason she’s Mama in my mind. Today it has been ten years since she died. Several years ago, at the suggestion of my aunt, I tried to start celebrating her life on her birthday, July 18, instead of today (April 1). It didn’t always work out as planned, but I tried. Ten years, though, feels like a milestone - like forever and just yesterday. It feels like just yesterday because some days I still can’t believe she’s not here. But it feels like forever because so much has happened in those ten years.

I can vividly remember those last months in the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit at UAB and Shelby and me running through the hospital to get to her bedside with our family. I can also picture the two of us in New Orleans for a conference that we planned for her business, Reed Marketing Group. We went to K. Paul’s and the Palace Cafe for dinners and Cafe Du Monde for breakfast. I’ve been to NOLA several times, but when I think of that city, that trip with Mama is what comes to mind. I can picture her on the front porch of our Riverchase house, either swinging or lounging on the white wicker furniture. I can remember her and my aunts tipsy and laughing up a storm, drinking a “Diver” at Silky O’Sullivan’s on Beale after Shelby’s college graduation. Summer nights when we were kids on Mtn. Creek Trail, Mama and the other moms would walk up and down our street by the light of the gas lamps (yes, really gas lamps at every house on our street) while we played “ghost in the graveyard” or “kick the ball.” It all feels like yesterday, even if it was ten, fifteen, or twenty-five years ago.

But so much has happened in the last ten years that it also feels like forever. Shelby, Nick, and I all completed college and graduate programs. Shelby and Nick married wonderful people. Shelby and Mike have two beautiful children. We all moved away from our home in Riverchase and bought homes of our own. Dad remarried, and we have expanded our circle of family and friends with the addition of Susan, Peyton, and Parker. It’s crazy to think of how much things have changed.

Mama would be fifty-nine this year, and I sometimes think of what things would be like if she was alive. We had a pretty good relationship when she passed away - not perfect, we had our ups and downs, for sure, but pretty good. What would it be like now? Would she be getting on my nerves all the time? Vice versa? :-) Would she be worried about my health, job, love-life? I know she would be thrilled to be a grandma and spoil Shelby’s babies. Would she be “aging-gracefully” or freak out about getting closer to sixty? (I don’t think sixty is old at all, but let’s be real - Mama was a bit dramatic and a worrier!)

I guess this is all to say I miss my mom. What I would love is to hear/see in the comments or a note what you remember about her or a favorite memory of her. Thanks for helping me honor her.

Apple Picking

The past few years I've tried to start my own tradition of going to visit Shelby & co. in September. It's just about the perfect time to be in New England - at the tail-end of summer, starting to get cool and fall-ish, and time for apples in the orchards. This year many family members came because of the baptism of Jack and Mary, so we had a great crowd for apple picking. We like to visit Russell Orchards in Ipswich, Mass. You take a hayride on a bio-diesel tractor out to the orchards, purchase a bag, and wander the orchard filling your bag with a variety of apples. Russell Orchards also has a great store and bakery where they make and sell fresh cider donuts - they are almost my favorite thing about going apple picking, and I can't leave the farm without having one!

Lovely Mary had a diaper blowout and had to be changed in the middle of the orchard.

Jack's cousin Ben (& Jen & Adam) joined us to pick apples.

 

Papa helping Jack try a tart apple.

 

Mike and Nick can't hold out any longer and have to check the football scores.

We got a lot of apples, and later that night made a delicious Paula Deen apple crisp! Yum!

Baptism

On a beautiful Fall weekend in September, my family gathered in New England to welcome Jack and Mary into the family of God. My sister-in-law Kathy said she always cries at child baptisms because it shows that God claims us even before we know God. Which, of course, made all of us cry, too. It was a great service and a wonderful day filled with family and friends.

Mary Katherine Thompson

On my brother's birthday, May 26th, 2010, we welcomed my niece Mary into the world. I flew up to see my sister that day, and Mary was born while I was in the air. She is a beautiful girl who looks just like Jack did when he was born.

 Here is the new family together:

Poverty - Move Your Feet

At the end of a forwarded email, there was this line:

Do not ask the Lord to Guide your Footsteps if you are not willing to MOVE your Feet

One of the things on which we are called to move our feet is helping those in need, particularly those who are living in poverty. To me, poverty means living without the means to supply basic needs; people who live without shelter or safe access to water and a regular availability of food; people who for personal or societal reasons are unable to provide for themselves &/or their children. In the Birmingham area (Ala.), homelessness is a bigger issue than people in the surrounding suburbs might ever realize. In 2000, in Jefferson County, in which are located Birmingham and most of the metropolitan area, 14.8% of the population was living below poverty level.

Thankfully there are people who care. For example, there is Cooper Green Mercy Hospital, a hospital in the center of the city, where they offer "high quality health care without regard to ability to pay" (from Cooper Green's mission statement). Within the last year, my church, Southminster Presbyterian (PCUSA), has partnered with the Church of the Reconciler (UMC), Greater Birmingham Ministries, and Cooper Green Mercy Hospital on a program we call "Meals for Meds." At Cooper Green, homeless and indigent patients must purchase a $5 health care card (one time only) to receive care and pay a $5 copay for medication at the hospital pharmacy. "Meals for Meds" is a program to help those who cannot even afford those small copays. Periodically the church will host special lunches, suppers, and even a Valentine's concert and dessert to raise funds to contribute to the Cooper Green Pharmacy, specifically to pay for health care cards and prescription copays for the homeless. The hope is that this program (or others like it) will spread to other area churches.

Through acts large and small, our faith community is moving its feet. Locally and half-way across the world, we are moving in mission and ministry to help the impoverished. High-school youth spend a Saturday working for Habitat. Women crochet necklaces to raise money for the education of children in the Congo. Congregations build partnerships and supply clean, sustainable water through Living Waters for the World. A church plows acres of its property to grow produce for local food pantries and shelters. Youth and adults advocate for the relief of poverty worldwide. Small steps and large, we are asking God for guidance - and moving our feet.

Back in the Blogging Groove

What with school, work, and, well, life I have not updated my blog in a while. I will get back in the groove beginning with a post for Presbyterian Bloggers Unite: Poverty. Up next.

John Nicholas "Jack" Thompson

I'm so thrilled to have my new nephew Jack. I have to wait a couple of weeks to see him in person, but hopefully there will be lots of pictures from Shelby & Mike, Dad, and Nick (who get to go there before I do.) So, here's Jack Thompson - 6 lbs., 13 oz. and 18 in. What a cutie!