Roofing in the Rain

Well, there must be something about the outdoors that just lends itself to adventure, right? Yesterday we went down to our land again -- Jack, me, Jill, John, Michael, Hank, Dianne & Rebecca Horton. It had been raining steadily south of us (yes, we had to remind ourselves what that stuff falling out of the sky even WAS), and we got there to discover that our cabin was leaking. In several places. John & Jill had sheet rocked most of the inside, and some of the rock was wet and there were some wet places on the plywood flooring. The roof has felt on it, but hadn't been shingled yet because:

  1. Jack broke his rib and couldn't climb up and help yet;                                                                             2. We kept forgetting to take our long ladder down there; and                                                                     3. It was dry as a bone anyway.

Famous last thoughts.

We now realize that a good thing to remember is that unless you HAVE shingled the roof, you can't expect roofing felt to keep out the rain for very long. Because, drought or not, eventually the water returns. So, yesterday the guys had already gone down to the river to fish when the women & children discovered the leaks. Jill and I knew we needed to put something over the roof, and we had a couple of great big tarps on hand. Unfortunately, we only had a 6' stepladder with us, and the floor of the cabin itself is three feet above the ground, making the roof of the cabin something like 10 feet above the ground. Ten-foot roof, six-foot ladder...you do the math.

We tried climbing as high up on the ladder as it was safe to go, but couldn't push the tarp onto the roof from there. We tried pushing a corner of it up by using a weed-trimmer tool, but the serrated edge of the blade kept catching in the fold of the tarp and pulling it right off the roof again. So then we had the bright (I use the term loosely) idea of tying an empty paint can to the rope running through the grommets in the tarp and trying to throw the can over the roof, thinking it would fall over the other side and pull the tarp with it. The thing is, you stand there and look upward to toss the can over, and while you're looking upward, the rain is pouring into your face, which causes you to close your eyes, which means you can't see where you're throwing the can. Now IF you're gonna be throwing a can up into the air, it's most likely a good idea to keep an eye on it in case it comes back down on your head. Which it kept doing, because it wasn't heavy enough to pull the tarp up. We were getting nowhere fast.

About that time the guys came trudging up the hill and saw us, and John shouted, "What the HELL are you doing?" as they all began laughing. I explained what we were trying to do and John said we needed to weight the can with a big rock. That was effective, and we actually got it over the roof to the other side, but unfortunately the tarp was kind of folded over on itself and we couldn't get it completely straightened out because (see paragraph above for reference) we couldn't get high enough to reach it.

So we had a tarp on the roof, somewhat folded on itself, and then a gust of wind caught the back side of it and nearly pulled it off the roof. I think we all screamed out loud at that point. In desperation, we tossed some fence pickets up on top of it all to keep it from blowing off.

I forgot to mention the fact that we'd already nailed one tarp onto the back side of the cabin to cover the uncovered plywood.

Meanwhile, it kept raining.

The guys wanted to keep fishing. The women had a different plan, which involved putting everything and everybody back into the three vehicles and getting the heck out of Dodge. The women -- the cold, soaking-wet women--prevailed.

 (this was from an email written in about 2000 about our land on the Bosque River in Meridian, Texas)

Catskills and Clowns

 My husband Jack and I have told each other many times how lucky we are that our grown daughters don't seem to mind spending time with us - in fact, we've made several vacation trips with our eldest daughter Jill and her crew. 

In about 2007 Jill and John invited us to go with them and their sons Michael (age 8) and Joseph (6) to upstate New York, to see the Finger Lakes region, the area around Auburn, where John was born. Jack and I had been to New York City before, but never the northern part of the state, so we were glad to come along.

We flew to Buffalo, and driving from the airport caught our first glimpse of woodchucks (groundhogs), whose burrows we could see alongside the highway. We visited Niagara Falls (both the U.S. and Canada) and that was an amazing experience. On the U.S. side, in the state park, you can stand right alongside the railings and look at the river flowing over, hearing it roar, and be absolutely astonished at the volume of water that just never stops. 

We did the "journey behind the falls," entering through a tunnel and then onto a deck from which you can see the Canadian Horseshoe Falls. We had to remove our shoes and put on rubber sandals and yellow rain ponchos as we began that tour. Afterward, we learned that the used sandals were sent to third-world countries. We joked that as a crate was opened in deepest Africa, the villagers would say, "Oh, great - another bunch of tourists went to Niagara Falls!"

In Niagara, New York, we had the best pizza I have ever eaten. In Auburn, John's birthplace, we saw the Auburn Correctional Facility, which - unlike in Texas where prisons are in the country away from cities -- is right in town! It was rather astonishing to drive in the street right next to it and see houses nearby.

The Finger Lakes region is really lovely with the Catskills and Adirondack mountains nearby. We went to Skaneateles (pronounced skinny atlas), which definitely has one of the strangest names I've come across. 

But my favorite memory of the trip took place in a little town whose names I can't recall, right on the border of Lake Ontario, where we could look across and see Canada. It was a charming place, and we happened to be there when they were having a town gathering, with music being played in a gazebo and everyone in a festive mood. A woman dressed as a clown approached our grandsons and began talking to them about TV characters that were way before their time. She asked if they knew Tony the Tiger and they were completely confused. Finally, in frustration, little Joe turned to his father and asked, "Dad, can you talk to this clown?"

Fourteen years later, that still makes me laugh.

Why Do Children...?

(This was written by my mom, Ora Irby, in 1959. All incidents she described were true, and a few of them became family lore and have been told many times).

Before I became a mother I had very strong ideas on how to raise children. I  noticed the mistakes of aunts and neighbors and determined to profit by them. My children, I thought, would not be misbehaved little brats but would be sweet and well-mannered. Now I catch myself thinking, "Little did I know," "The best-laid plans of mice and men...," and "Experience is the best teacher."

One of the many rules I had for rearing children was that I would use the positive approach instead of the negative. Instead of saying "don't" or "no" constantly, I would reason with my children. It didn't take long to find that my girls had to have a reason for my reason that was better than their reason. That led to arguing to see who had the better reason, and that led to my losing arguments. This led me to the middle-of-the-road approach, which means giving a reason and then laying down the law.

"Momma, can we go swimming?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Because."

"Because why?"

"Because I can't afford it."

"Yes, you can. I looked in your purse. You have some money."

"That money is for food, not swimming."

"Why can't we go swimming? Other children get to go. You never let us do anything."

"Isn't that awful? You can't go swimming and that's final."

"Why? Just give me one good reason!"

"Because I said you can't, and if you ask once more I'm going to blister you."

If I had started out by saying "no" and not allowing any back-talk, we might have repressed, neurotic, cowering children, but just think of the peace and quiet.

Eight-year-old Peggy is what the experts call a gifted child. She was walking at seven months, could say three-word sentences at 12 months, and before she finished second grade had read Heidi, Black Beauty, and about 56 smaller library books. She doesn't say, "Mother, how do you spell 'probably'?" She says, "Mother, is 'probably' spelled p-r-o-b-a-b-l-y?" All I have to do is say yes. It saves me a lot of trouble in the long run, for otherwise I would have to keep the dictionary in my purse for easy reference.

In her class at school a red 100 means perfect; a blue 100 means there has been an erasure and a correction. The first time she got a blue 100 was a crushing blow. It threw her out of kilter so much that the next day she made 99 on something. She showed me the question she had missed, and to tell the truth I would have  missed it, too. I didn't understand the question at all. Peggy said the whole class missed on that question, and I imagine the teacher would have, too, except for having the answer book to go by.

As a girl, I was just average in intelligence and had to struggle hard to get as high as a "B"; therefore it is a wonder where Peggy gets her smartness. (or my term: "smart-aleckness.") Because she wants to learn everything about everything, she asks unending questions that her father and I are hard-put to answer. I suppose this leads her to the notion that we are stupid, and that she knows more than we do.

I am almost afraid to talk to her because of the fact that some innocent remark may send her off into a long line of questions. Once I said, "You eat so much between meals, you must have a tapeworm."

"What's a tapeworm?"

"It's a long worm that lives in peoples' intestines and eats the food that people eat."

"How does it get inside you?"

"Usually by a person eating pork that is not well-cooked."

"How long does it get?"

"Oh, several feet."

"What does it look like?"

"Let's look in the Book of Knowledge. (I look up worms in the Book of Knowledge but there is no picture of the worm I am looking for).

"Do I really have a tapeworm?"

"No, silly, I just said that."

"Well, I might have one."

"No, you don't."

"How do you know?"

"We hardly ever eat pork, and when we do I cook it very well."

"Maybe I got it somewhere else."

"Oh, hush up. Drop the subject. I don't want to hear another word about tapeworms."

If Peggy is a learner and doer, Karen is a dreamer and don't-doer. They are as far apart as the poles. For a long time I thought, naively, that Peggy was normal in intelligence, so consequently Karen must be abnormal. Karen didn't care a whit whether she learned anything or not. I was full of misgivings when I took her to school and she didn't know the alphabet from a hole in the head. I fully expected to get a note from the principal telling us that Karen was not mentally ready for school and that she should wait another year. Imagine our surprise when, upon attending open house at the school, we found that Karen was doing as well as some children, and even better than others. It was then that it dawned upon me: Karen was the normal child. It was Peggy who was different.

When it comes to discipline, the girls are also different. Whereas Peggy becomes antagonistic and argumentative, Karen uses a very feminine approach. She just stands with a hurt expression on her face and lets the tears fall. Then she gets a hammer lock around my neck and says she is sorry. I have to forgive her or get strangled.

As a baby, Peggy had an unusual appetite for unusual food. One memorable day I found one-half of a June bug in a spot Peggy had recently vacated. I nearly went crazy the rest of day, saying to myself, "Do you suppose she did? No, she couldn't have. Oh, she wouldn't do a thing like that. And yet..." The next morning (via her diaper) I found that she had, after all. Then there was the time that she ate half a jar of cold cream and cried when I took the other half away from her. I need not mention the cigarette butts or dirt.

Why do children do things like that?

One of the girls (I can't always remember which did what) poured out a large box of Tide on the kitchen floor. I swept it up, dirt and well, and put it back in the box. My way of figuring was that if Tide can get clothes clean, it ought to be able to get itself clean.

One incident I shall never forgot: it is etched indelibly in my mind. Karen was only a baby in her crib, just barely able to stand in her bed while holding on. Peggy was about two-and-a-half. On this particular morning, everything was quiet as I went upstairs, and I was hoping that the girls were still sleeping. Peggy heard me coming and gleefully said, "Look, mommy, Kerne is a Indian." I looked and what I saw was not an Indian, but a completely bare baby covered from head to foot with cream rouge. By the time I finished with Peggy, her bottom was almost as red as Karen's. It took a large bottle of cold cream, a box of Kleenex, and three baths to get Karen to a blush pink. I can look back and laugh now, but it was no laughing matter then.

I wondered if the time would ever come when the girls would go to bed without the usual arguments with us and fights between themselves. Now that they are seven and eight (and have different rooms) there is a minimum of trouble. This may also have something to do with the television having been out of order for the last two months and our not having it repaired. Nevertheless, they now go to bed with hardly any arguments and only one trip apiece for water and to the bathroom. Now there is a new problem. Whereas before I wanted them to sleep late and they wanted to wake at the crack of dawn, now I want them to wake early and get ready for school, and they want to sleep till ten o'clock.

Speaking of getting ready for school -- there is another field in which the girls differ. After I drag them both out of bed, Peggy begins immediately getting dressed. When she tries, she can get completely dressed in five minutes. Karen, on the other hand, can take 20 minutes in putting on two socks. It seems she has a talent for losing one sock while putting on the other. Then she invariably asks where her shoes are. I have found them together, or separately, in the most unlikely places. The most likely places are in the back yard (where the dog has a jolly time with them), or in the dirty clothes hamper. Once, after having searched for 30 minutes, I was almost ready to send her to school barefooted, when I found them in a drawer of her vanity, the most unlikely place for her to put them.

Don't get the idea that I never have trouble with Peggy on school days. There are times when I have ironed "the wrong dress" for her to wear. In fact, any time it is not her nylon Easter dress, it's the wrong dress. She can't go to school with only one slip; she has to wear a slip, two red petticoats, and one pink petticoat. On the other hand, Karen would just as soon go to school without any slip at all, and does if I don't check on her.

Peggy has yet to forgive me for making her wear brown oxfords to school. It seems she was the laughing stock of the school every day, and "looked like a boy." "All" the other girls wear strapless, tieless, ballerina shoes. And, "When are you going to get me a REAL full nylon petticoat?" It seems that "everyone" (including the boys?) wears REAL full nylon petticoats.

Karen wears glasses, and instead of cleaning them when they are dirty (which is almost constantly) she takes them off and forgets where she has laid them. Once she put them in her lunch kit, then left her lunch kit in the school yard. I looked for both the next day and the lunch kit was neither in the play yard nor the lost-and-found. After a week we were about ready to plunk down $21.50 for a new pair of glasses, when the lunch kit mysteriously appeared in the play yard.

Karen's glasses were forever getting knocked to the ground, bending or getting the earpieces broken. For a long time she went around with one earpiece completely gone and the other tied on with adhesive tape. They sort of titled a little and she said she would rather keep them off than on. Bob got the bright idea or taking the earpieces off an old worn-out pair to put on her glasses. They work fine, so far.

Karen wants to take all her toys to show her teacher. One conversation went like this:

“No, you may not take your Magic Wood to show Mrs. Taylor.”

“Other children take their toys to show her.”

“I know you too well. You would be playing with this instead of listening to the teacher.”

“No, I wouldn’t. I promise.”

“You are not taking the wood and that’s final.”

“Aw-w-w-w.”

As you can plainly see, I am a cruel, heartless, sadistic mother.

During automobile trips when Karen was three and Peggy was four, Peggy was always noticing things first and pointing them out to Karen, who would most likely look in the wrong direction and never see what Peggy saw at all. I think Karen was getting an inferiority complex because she never saw things first. But one day she came into her own. She pointed and said, “See the bus, Peggy?” “Where? I didn’t see a bus,” said Peggy. Karen said, with great amazement, “All by myself, I saw a bus.”

Sometimes I hear the tail-end of a conversation between the girls, or between one of them and a playmate, that I just must be too thick to understand. Like the time I heard Karen say to someone in the next room, “Mother is wearing shorts. Mothers wear shorts. Jeffrey’s mother wears shorts.”

I am afraid that the girls’ interpretation of the Golden Rule is “Do unto your sister as she does unto you, and do it twice as hard.” Tattling got so bad, and accusations worse, that I resorted to telling them to settle their own troubles – I had troubles of my own. Otherwise I must spank both of them to be sure in getting the right culprit. Though there is still an occasional tattle, the reduction in number of times per days is considerable.

Hardly a day goes by that we don’t learn by picture or by oration just how much they love us. At these times everyone is lovey-dovey (practically gooey) and we remind the girls how much better it is to be loving than fussing. They agree wholeheartedly.

There have been a few times when Peggy, after being punished, has asserted fiercely, “You love Karen more than you do me!” (it’s funny, but Karen says we love Peggy more than we do her). Then there have been a few “I hate you’s” but I merely reply “You may hate me, but I still love you.” This may bring on a barrage of “No, you don’t, or you wouldn’t spank me.” I was beginning to worry a little about the latter until Peggy announced that her class had to make a little speech on whether parents should or should not spank their children, and that her speech went, “Parents should spank their children ‘cause if they didn’t it would mean that the parents didn’t love their children, and the children would grow up to be spoiled brats.”

How proud can a mother get? I am beginning to think my girls will be sweet-well-behaved girls after all.

“MOMMA. TELL KAREN TO GET OUT OF MY BEDROOM AND STAY OUT!”

Excuse me, please. I am referee again. Why do children…?

Playing Hide and Seek with God

Does God live in your house? In your place of work? In the busyness of your life? Or do you (like many of us) "save" God for worship services, religious holidays, Bible readings, or church work? Do we think that God prefers stained glass and pews to a tree decked out in autumn colors, or a good time shared with a friend?

I've been guilty of choosing when and where I could meet God and experience his love. I've thought, "I can find him on a retreat, but not when I'm driving the carpool. He can speak to me from the Bible, but not from a TV show." But when I arbitrarily decide where God can be found and where he can't I've drastically curtailed his avenues of reaching out to me. It makes about as much sense a not opening a gift because we weren't planning on it being wrapped that way! Every moment of every day holds the possibility of encountering God's love.

Nicholas of Gusa, a fifteenth century bishop, is reported to have said, "God is he whose center is everywhere and circumference is nowhere." If you think about that for very long, it will fill you with awe. There is the same feeling reading Paul's claim in Romans 11: "From him and through him and for him are all things."  In Genesis we see that God's original intention seemed to have been an intimate and perpetual communion with his creation. But human beings began to lose touch with the sense of God's presence everywhere, all the time. During the Exodus, the Israelites began to think of God's presence localized with the Ark of the Covenant. As Old Testament history progressed, God's presence was considered to be enthroned in the temple in Jerusalem. The splitting of sacred and secular had begun.

With the coming of Jesus also came an incredible expansion of the perception of God in the world. God was now among us in human form. It was Jesus who re-established the fullness of intimate communion with the Father. At his death, the curtain of the Temple was literally torn in two -- God was  no longer hidden behind a veil.

Evelyn Underhill observed that we are surrounded on all sides by God. But often we're no more conscious of him than we are of the air we breathe. Why is that?

When I was in grade school the art teacher, Mrs. Muncie, was always bustling around so busily that she'd get easily sidetracked and forget what she started to do. The joke of the class was that Mrs. Muncie was always losing her glasses and her keys -- she'd run around frantically, accusing us of taking them, when most of the time the glasses were stuck on top of her head and the keys were laying in plain sight on the desk where she'd put them. It's the same sort of nonsensical thing we do with God: he's right here in plain sight, brimming over with love for us, while we run around frantically crying "Where is God?"

But knowing God is everywhere and realizing he's with you is only the beginning. How many times my children have come to me to tell me something important to them, and I was busy and distracted and didn't listen with my full attention. Being truly present to one another requires that we be open to each other, that we really listen. It's the same way with God: we need to clear away the distractions and stand ready to let him in.

A group of scholars came to see a religious teacher, who surprised them by asking what seemed to be a foolish question: "Where is the dwelling place of God?" The scholars laughed and replied, "What a thing to ask! Is not the whole world full of his glory?" The teacher smiled and said, "God dwells wherever man lets him in." In the book of James we read a similar statement, "Draw near to God and he will draw near to you."

When my daughter Joanna was little, she loved to play hide and seek. A favorite hiding place was behind the living room curtain. She would stand as still as a statue, waiting while I "searched" for her. What she didn't realize was that her little feet stuck out from beneath the curtain, and of course I could always see immediately where she was. But I would pretend to look for her, with my running commentary of "Joanna, where ARE you? Now where can that girl be?" and so on. Then I'd make a great show of discovering her: "There you are! I looked everywhere!" She'd giggle with delight and the game would begin again, with Jo never realizing that I'd known all along where she was. "Where are you, Jo?" I'd call, searching her out because I loved her and wanted to find her.

And so it is with God -- he loved humankind enough to search us out before we even knew we were lost. Even when we think we're hidden from him, our feet showing from under the curtain give us away every time. And just as Joanna shrieked with laughter when I "found" her, we can feel similar excitement and joy when we let God find us.

God dwells where we let him in. In our homes, in our cars, at our workplaces, standing in line at the grocery store. He is with us where we are.

Even when we think we're hiding.


(adapted from a devotional given at Sunset Presbyterian Church in about 1982).

Listening for the Silence

"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven...a time to keep silence, and a time to speak." (Eccles. 3:1-7)

I have to admit that a lot of the time I don't feel that there's much silence in my life. So often, so many needs clamor for my attention! There are days that the phone seems to ring every time I try to start any job at all. The noise of TV, the washer and dryer, the dishwasher, the vacuum cleaner, the doorbell, and on and on. And when school's out each afternoon, it's "Mom, I need help with my homework," or "Mom, I need a new folder for my class" or "Mom, I'm starving - I can't wait til dinner!"

If God tries to talk to me, how can I hear him over all the noise? How I sometimes long for silence!

And yet there are times when I do have that silence, and my soul is uneasy because I can't feel God's presence at all. What is happening when we can't hear God? Is God then mute?

When persons lose their hearing, children still laugh, birds still sing. The loss of hearing means that one's ears no longer interpret the vibration of the sounds around them, not that the sounds themselves cease. Those persons out of necessity sometimes learn to compensate by developing other methods of "hearing."

When I can't hear God, I also must compensate, by holding on to my faith even when I can't feel Him or hear Him. What are we to think about those times that we can't hear God, when we feel alone and forsaken?

In the Winter, leaves are stripped from the trees, flowers die, grass turns brown. Birds fly away and animals go into hiding. But then something wonderful happens -- Spring comes. And we realize that winter comes, but it doesn't endure forever. So it is in our lives. We will certainly have times of loneliness or feeling forsaken, but they will not endure forever. God has promised never to abandon us. Those silences are like seeds and bulbs lying dormant in the earth, waiting for spring. As the writer of Ecclesiastes tells us, all of life has cycles and seasons. Faith gets us through the Winter of our lives, because we know that Spring will follow. Contentment comes with learning to weather all seasons, even those of doubt and silence.

Life is full of paradoxes. Birth is death from the womb. Death is birth into the hereafter. Jesus died so that we might live. Paradoxes seem to be separated by a thin curtain. Our perception depends on which side of that curtain we stand. If I walk from this room into the next one, you see me as leaving. But a person standing in that other room sees me as arriving.

A much-loved children's book, The Velveteen Rabbit, describes what many of us might consider ugly and reveals the beauty within. In a nursery scene, an old rocking horse, the Skin Horse, befriends a rather new and uncertain Rabbit. Their encounter goes like this:

The Skin Horse had lived in the nursery longer than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away. He knew that they were only toys and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.

     "What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
     
     "Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

     "Does it hurt?"

     "Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

     "Does it happen all at once, like being wound up, or bit by bit?" 

     "It doesn't happen all at once. You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or who have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."


Well, if ugliness can be beauty, and leaving can be arriving, and dying is birth into another existence, is it possible that silence might even be hearing? Perhaps in some ways our souls hear best in silence.

When my girls were younger there were times I had to send them to their room to rest. They didn't usually like it and sometimes felt that I was shutting them out, but I knew that it was time they needed to rest and recharge. Can it be that God deals with us the same way? When we are feeling shut out, could God be allowing us to regenerate in quietness? Can what we perceive to be negative actually be positive?

I think the story of the Velveteen Rabbit and the Skin Horse can speak to all of us. In order to become REAL, a conscious child of God, you and I may be asked to endure long silences that at first hold no meaning for us. The process may hurt sometimes. It may not happen all at once. We may have to "become" and it may take a long time. Maybe that's why becoming REAL doesn't happen to people who break easily, or who have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Maybe, by the time we become REAL, most of our hair will be loved off, our eyes will drop out, and we will be loose in the joints and very shabby! But these things don't matter at all, because once we are REAL, we can't be ugly--except to people who don't understand.

So I hold on to the assurance that there is indeed a time and a purpose to everything.

Even silence.


(presented as a devotional to Sunset Presbyterian Church weekly prayer group, probably in late 1980s).

Mother of the Brides

(This was published in Southern Lifestyles Connection, March 2008)

As the parents of three daughters, Jack and I heard numerous times over the years, "You poor things - three weddings!" Nobody says that to the parents of boys.

Since we had eloped, I had no experience with planning a wedding. I was grateful that when oldest daughter Jill married she wanted a simple church ceremony, with the reception at a local hotel. Nothing unexpected happened, it was all beautiful, and we had a wonderful son-in-law in John "One down, two to go," I thought, and the years went by.

Joanna is five years younger than Jill, and Janet three years younger than Jo. I naively assumed that their weddings would eventually follow at chronological intervals based on the difference in their ages.

Silly me.

Both girls began dating their future husbands at about the same time, and after four years were ready for marriage. Jo wanted a spring wedding at White Rock Lake, and the only weekend date available was in April. Janet was graduating from college in May and wanted to be married before starting her new job The result was one wedding scheduled for April 7 and the other for June 24. Of the same year. Eleven weeks apart. That is not a misprint.

I broached the possibility of a combined wedding, with no success. The girls are very different in personality. Jo wanted things very laid-back, no attendants, and no fuss. Janet wanted a traditional church wedding, bridesmaids and groomsmen, and a fancier catered dinner.

With strong opinions about what they wanted, and making substantial financial contributions themselves, both girls did much of their own planning. Even so, for months I was in a daze. I'd lie sleepless in bed at night worrying that I'd get one wedding confused with the other. Janet was away at school, finishing her master's coursework, and already pretty stressed juggling school, work and wedding plans, so I was reluctant to bother her with my concerns.

Jo lives in Dallas so it was easier to work with her. She was a marvel of organization, with detailed poster schematics, supplies, and dedicated work crews. Her sunset ceremony at Winfrey Point was to be outside under an arbor, with the reception indoors. When we arrived in the morning to set up, the weather was glorious. When we returned at 4:00 p.m., there were gale-force winds causing whitecaps on the lake. Twenty minutes before the ceremony we had no choice but to bring everything indoors. We lugged in the arbor and set up chairs, while the guests sat at the reception tables enjoying the novelty. In spite of the last-minute frenzy, the ceremony was lovely, the barbeque dinner terrific, and the reception pure fun, with the bride and groom (who wore leather Chuck Taylor Converse sneakers) handing out Twinkies and Ding Dongs and other nostalgic snacks late in the evening.

The rearranged, non-traditional wedding was a fun way for Jo and Trey to enter their married life. Except that, as it turned out, they didn't legally enter married life until a couple of months later, since the County Records office lost their first marriage license. They had to get another one signed and recorded six weeks after the wedding. But that's another story.

Graduation behind her, it was time for Janet's wedding. Last-minute plans went fairly smoothly, although I wound up having to alter all four of the bridesmaids' dresses. We were fortunate to have close friends as caterer and decorator, and they did a masterful job. The ceremony was beautiful. The reception hall was spacious and inviting, and the dinner was delicious. We sent the newlyweds off in a shower of bubbles. Then, when the last guest left, the building manager informed us that we were required to haul all the trash to the dumpster. There we were, in our wedding finery, tiredly dragging out trash bags dripping leftover beverages. It's a quick way to bond with your new out-of-town relatives.

And oh, yes, the hotel had scheduled the wedding night reservation for July rather than June. By the grace of God I discovered that error in advance, otherwise Janet and Jeremiah would've shown up that night to find that they had no room reserved.

Each wedding was memorable, and we are blessed with two more wonderful sons-in-law and extended family.

But now I understand completely why my mother was so happy when Jack and I eloped.

The words that must be said

(This was originally published as a Dallas Morning News Community Voices column on November 27, 2008)

In 1991, when my daughters' school district faced a controversy over a textbook shortage, public outcry resulted in the scheduling of community meetings to explain the situation. Parents had the opportunity to voice their concerns. As I sat, intending only to listen, a Hispanic woman approached me. I didn't know her, but recognized her from my youngest daughter's school. The mother, obviously concerned that her limited English might prevent her from expressing herself clearly, pulled at my arm and pleaded, "You talk for us. You have words. Please, you talk."

So I registered to speak and addressed the representatives on her behalf. She hugged me and thanked me. Seventeen years later, I can't recall what I said to that Dallas ISD panel or what they said to the audience. What I do remember is that mother's confidence in my ability to express her concerens. I gave her a voice that she might not otherwise have had.

Not long afterward, a dear friend decided to leave her husband after more than 20 years of marriage. When she called to tell me, she said she wondered if there could ever be a chance of happiness after years of sadness. She said, "He told me so many times that I was worthless, that I was stupid. I stopped believing in myself."

I was heartsick. I had witnessed that emotional abuse and heard those caustic words, yet I had not spoken up to dispute them. I had told myself it was none of my business, that I must be over-sensitive, that surely if the verbal mistreatment bothered her she would stand up for herself.

I had kept silent.

Recently I participated in an event hosted by a domestic violence shelter and advocate agency. Two women who had left abusive relationships shared their stories about the positive changes in their lives made possible by the services the agency provides. They had made the decision to seek help after someone close to them had told them that there was hope for a better life. Someone had cared enough to speak up.

I thought back to those two experiences. I remembered how good it felt to help someone have a voice - and how terrible I felt after that long-ago conversation with my friend. I called her and asked, "If I had spoken up in your defense when I heard your husband ridiculing you, if I had let him know I disagreed, would it have helped?"

"I'm not sure it would have stopped him," she replied, "but it  might have helped me find the strength to do something sooner. I felt awfully alone."

A person I barely knew asked me to speak up for her at a public meeting, and I was glad to help. A person I love needed someone to speak up on her behalf, and I was silent. In the first case, I spoke up and barely remember it. In the second case, I said nothing and have never forgotten it.

Isn't life often that way? We hear unkind words and keep silent, or see unkind actions and keep silent. Not because we don't care, but because we're afraid of what the reaction might be to speaking up. Not because we don't care, but because we don't feel that it's our business to interfere. Not because we don't care, but because our lives are so busy we don't make the time to get involved.

But if we don't speak up, perhaps the necessary words remain unsaid. If we don't protest, perhaps the hurtful actions continue. If we don't show that we care, perhaps a person who needs that caring feels awfully alone.

I still regret that I didn't speak up for my friend when I should have. She made me realize that it may be a good thing to speak up when it's easy, but it's often a better thing to speak up when it's difficult.

In the years since, I have tried always to speak up against unkindness, cruelty and injustice. Not stridently, not angrily, but firmly. If I can be a voice for someone who needs an advocate, I will. All I have to do is remember my friend's words, "I felt awfully alone."

Never again. Not if I can help it.