Wonderful, marvelous night

My grandmother, Moomoo, has always been a very thoughtful gift giver. She's thrifty too and has turned, already original ideas, into even more unique symbols of love. From the time I was able to walk and talk, Moomoo would take me and my older sister out "yardsaling" on the Saturday mornings that we visited her. We would pull out the news paper the night before and create a map based off of the advertised sales, and then rise bright and early, before the sun, to beat the crowds to the good pickings. She often would turn salvaged furniture and well worn decorative pieces into beautiful antiques that one could easily find themselves coughing up a fair amount of cash for. I've always admired her ability to see value in what others would trade in for pennies and it's given me an appreciation for the unique things she would give me on holidays and birthdays.

A couple of Christmases ago, Moomoo gave me the children's book, On The Night You Were Born by Nancy Tillman. What made this particular copy special was the editing Moomoo had done on its inside with a pen, some white out, and probably some sort of small knife. The book is a celebratory read, that describes to the reader (or perhaps the one being read to) the events that took place on the special day of their birth. Moomoo had personalized it by inserting my name, birth date, and unique comments that only she and I would understand, within its cardboard pages.

This book has obviously been added to the bin of children's books that I mentioned in my first blog post, but I remembered it yesterday when looking through old photos on my computer. I spotted a forgotten scar on my left shoulder in one of the images. It has significantly faded and since I rarely look at my own shoulder, I don't return to the memories with which it is associated often. Yesterday I did, however, and it brought the lessons of this book to mind.

The summer before my senior year of high school started with a trip to my best friend's lake house. She and I grew out of high chairs together and her mom and dad are practically my second parents. Her younger sister and I had also become fast friends through a mutual love of running, and so we did just that on the first morning of our vacation. We kept the run short, and on our return, paused to walk out some side stitches we had earned from a steep hill. The path we had taken lead us across a bridge that carried traffic over the lake. While Ruth (my running buddy) continued to work out some spasming muscles, I told her I was going to "kick" the rest of the way home and took off across the highway. A sharp bend in the road created a blind spot that hid oncoming traffic, and unfortunately for me, a car came around it just as I turned to cross.

I have no memory of the collision, but Ruth saw it all from a few feet away. 55 mph, a jerk of the steering wheel, no cell service, and a nurse on the back of a motorcycle, got me from sprinting home for an inner tube and watermelon, to a 20 minute ride in the MAMA helicopter. I spent very little time in the hospital, and apart from some pretty awful road burn and some staples in my head, I walked away unscathed. I was allowed to take a shampooless shower when I returned home to get the blood out of my hair, and when I stepped out and saw my banged up body in the steamed mirror, I couldn't help but get emotional at the thought of how much had been sacrificed on behalf of such a fragile, small thing. Christ's blood for this?

The scar on my shoulder that I told you about was my body's main point of contact with the car. The thoughts that stemmed from seeing it were the following lines from the previously mentioned book:

"So whenever you doubt just how special you are,

and you wonder who loves you, how much and how far,

Listen for geese honking high in the sky

They're singing a song to remember you by.

Or notice the bears asleep in the zoo

its because they've been dancing all night for you.

Or drift off to sleep to the sound of the wind

listen closely, it's whispering your name again...

For never before, in story or rhyme,

Not even once upon a time,

Has the world ever known a you, my friend

and it never will, not ever again.

Heaven blew every trumpet and played every horn on the wonderful, marvelous night you were born.

You are loved."

Now that I'm a mumma to a darling boy, I could totally believe that a polar bear, duckling, and lady bug would wait at a window to see my baby smile. But the importance of my son's life is no more or less important than my life or yours. That's the amazing realization that I had yesterday when staring at my old scar. If you are a parent you most likely think that your child/children are extremely special, and to you, very important. Would I rather have dinner with my baby or the queen of England? Most definitely my baby. It's the timeless recitation of how we are all children of God, and like the old furniture that my grandmother salvaged, we've been restored to something worth more than pennies.

I hope you aren't having a bad day or feeling low, but if you are, maybe it would help to remember...