You can go home... it's just different

This weekend we drove from DC to the upstate of SC to see my parents.  It had been over 18 months since Shawn had seen them, and we came to find they are fully entrenched in their new life.  Most of their time is engaged in their backyard garden.  They have turned all of their flowerbeds into vegetable plots.  This year they are excelling at tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, okra, and eggplant... lots of eggplant.  Evidence of their green thumbs comes to full realization when you check out their 17 cubic foot freezer, packed to the very top with the literal fruit of their hard work.  It's good to know that if we run into a disaster of some kind, they and their friends will not go hungry.

In addition to the tomatoes, peppers and eggplant, they sent us home with the rest of their rhubarb, frozen collard greens, tomato sauce, and corn.  And they took us to their favorite orchard to buy some wonderful Spartanburg County peaches, freestone and so sweet that they didn't even need sugar.  Today I spent a lot of the day "putting up" the bounty.  After an afternoon's work, we have 12 quarts of peaches, 6 pints of rhubarb, 4 meals of eggplant (only for me, you know) and fresh corn off the cob in OUR freezer.

It reminded me of the work that we did each summer when I was a kid, harvesting the bounty from our garden and the one my grandmother kept.  We jarred a lot of pickles, we cooked a lot of okra and tomatoes... you never knew what would be the work of the day.  I didn't really care much for being "free labor" at the time, but it has served me well since then.  Whenever I have the freezer space I make special packages to get us through the winter, On year it was 20 pints of apple sauce and 8 premade pies.  Another year it was shucking, blanching and cutting off 150 ears of corn, boy were my hands sore.

For all intents and purposes, I left home after I graduated from high school and never spent longer than a summer vacation living with my parents again.  Not only did I move away, but they did, too.  In fact they have moved four times since I left home.  So when I went to visit before, it wasn't really "going home."  And when I went back to my hometown, it didn't feel like home because my parents weren't there.  Now, 34 years later, my hometown finally feels like home again.  I doubt that I will ever live there again, but then again, I can only imagine what God has in store for us.

Here are somethings I realized on my recent journey into the past.  I thought you might have felt some of the same things.

• I love that there are people who have the same shaped feet as me.
• I love it that when my mom wants to tell a funny story, she cracks herself up before she can even get a word out of her mouth.
• And I love that it only takes a few words for me or my dad or brother or sister to figure out what story she's trying to tell so that we can pick up with what she was trying to say.
• I love that my dad still goes to the car 15 minutes before he told us he wanted to leave.
• And how that accounts for me always being early wherever I go.
• I love that my brother lives close by and checks on them everyday, at least by phone.
• I love that my dad loves dogs, but has finally realized he can love other people's dogs without bringing one home.
• I love that they have a wonderful church family with many friends from 35 years ago and new ones, too.  
• I love that my dad goes to Sunday school each week and even reads his lesson in advance.
• I love that my mom is still substituting as a church organist all over town.
• I love that some things never change, like Wade's Restaurant and the Beacon Drive-In, but that new things are good, too, like the little crepe restaurant, Mon Amie, where we had a great brunch on Sunday morning.
• I love that my parents are in great health at 77 and 84, and that they both worked until just three years ago doing jobs they loved.
• I love that they have been married 53 years, and that most of them have been happy.
• I love that they love Shawn and he loves them, too.
• I love that I want to be just like them when I grown up.

I'm not saying that I am the perfect child or that they were the perfect parents, but I am grateful for all the gifts that they have given me, including life and love and respect for all the gifts of my life.

Honoring mother and father is a long part of our religious culture, as passed on through the ten commandments in the Hebrew Bible and the writings of Paul in the New Testament.  I just ask for as many opportunities as possible to share this love with them in person.

Peace, Deb

Ephesians 6:1-3   Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise— “so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.”