The perfect gift

Pete, Judi, and me August 7, 1999

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father. – James 1:17 NIV
   
   
When I opened the card from my sons on Christmas Eve, I cried. I totally didn’t expect a round-trip airline ticket to Montgomery, Ala., where my brother Pete lives.
   
I haven’t seen Pete since our sister’s memorial service nearly 11 years ago. You never know what’s around the next bend, so it’s a crying shame that over decade has passed since I’ve spent real-time, face-time with the only sibling I have left.
   
But life gets busy, and a trip to Alabama was more of an item for the bucket list than the do-list—for more reasons than I just couldn’t find the time.
   
First, the expensive airfare. Second, after my last flying fiasco, I vowed never to fly again unless it was absolutely necessary. Third, we didn’t have a vehicle that was trip-worthy until last year, and a drive to the Heart of Dixie wasn’t feasible or affordable. There were too many other, more immediate needs and concerns.
   
But when I bought myself a used elliptical machine two weeks before Christmas, my boys had to come up with another gift idea for me.
   
It was my husband who suggested it. He knew my brother, who is 5 years older than me, has been dealing with health issues for several years, and the past couple of months brought a few scares.
   
So today I’m flying out of Pittsburgh—first class—for a one-week visit with my brother and his wife—and I’m not taking my laptop. Work is not on the agenda for the next week. I’m going to spend the time with my loved ones.
   
It’s the perfect gift. My boys have not only given me something I couldn’t afford, they have also given me the precious gift of time with my brother.
   
Time is an excellent gift. It requires sacrifice—giving of something that you can’t get back, something that costs nothing in dollars and cents, but is priceless in terms of value.
   
You give the gift of time:

• When when you stop what you’re doing and listen—really listen—to what someone is saying. 
• When you put away what you’re working on and play a game with your grandchildren, even though you’re on a deadline. 
• When you have lunch with a friend. 
• When you make a pot of soup for a neighbor who’s ill. 
• When you crochet afghans for each of your grandchildren. 
• When you make your son’s favorite pie from scratch. 
• When you make homemade noodles for your husband’s birthday dinner. 
• When you do something that’s on your wife’s to-do list so she can have time to do something she really wants to do. 
• When you stay with a young mother’s children so she can get some precious time to herself or go grocery shopping. 
• When you spend two weeks at your daughter’s home while she recovers from surgery.

   
Look at the list of birthdays and anniversaries coming up. Where can you give the gift of time?
   
   

Father, show me more ways to give the gift of time. Amen.
   

The family Bible

The Bible that was in Grandma Huey's house

      
“In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them.” – Joshua 4:6–7 (NIV)
      
      
Searching for pictures to use for Facebook’s “Throwback Thursday,” I’ve been rooting through the boxes of photos—all unorganized, of course—scattered throughout the house. I’ve found some great pictures—color family portraits, sepia-toned photographs of my husband’s forebears, black-and-white snapshots of our families. Few were labeled with who was in the photograph, where it was taken and when.
      
So I decided to make it a winter project to sort, label, and catalog the family pictures, including the ones that look like they date from the 1800s.
      
All this, of course, got me thinking about genealogy.
      
Back in Old Testament times, very little was written. But long lists of family lines are painstakingly included in the Bible (you know, the “begats” or “so-and-so was the son of so-and-so, who was the son of . . .”). Did you ever wonder how they remembered the names and places for thousands of years? Children were required to memorize their ancestral line.
      
Compare that to this: I know only as far back as my grandmother, who arrived in this country on May 4, 1910, from the town of Lenarts in what was then Hungary. I have her obituary, which provides the names of her husband, children, siblings, and parents.
      
But, shame on me, I don’t have the obituaries of my own parents!
      
Time to do some digging.
      
I called my brother, Pete—the only living relative from my past besides my cousins—this past week and asked him what he knew. I was especially interested in my father’s military service records. Two years ago, I wrote to the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, requesting my father’s service records, only to learn they’d been destroyed in a fire. 
      
Pete had a copy of my father’s obituary, which he photographed and emailed to me (isn’t modern technology wonderful?), but not my mother’s. While we were talking, he found the Maddock family Bible stored in a closet. I’d forgotten all about it.
      
The thick volume used to sit on the first shelf of a built-in bookcase in the living room when I was growing up. I loved to read all the information Mom and Dad wrote in the front, where pages were provided to record births, marriages, deaths, special events—and military records!

      
Recorded in Dad’s careful printing was everything I’d wanted to know—duty stations, years of  service, injuries, awards—he’d been awarded a Bronze Star! Pete took a picture of the page and emailed it to me.
      
I opened a new file on my desktop and labeled it: “Family History Project.”
      
Looks like I’m going to be digging for my roots.
      
I wish I had done that over the years. But it’s not too late to start making a record of family history for my children and grandchildren.
      
Roots are, I’m learning, as important as wings.

      
Guide me and direct me, Father God, as I begin this journey into the past—a journey that will add meaning and purpose to the future and help me to understand myself better. Amen.

Thanksgiving

Huey family, 1986

Here's a poem I wrote one day when the kids were little and I was sitting at the dining room table, looking at the mess around me:

THANKSGIVING

I’m thankful for the muddy floor that greets me everyday;
I’m thankful for the dirty socks that on the floor doth lay.

I’m thankful for the fingerprints that deck both chair and wall.
I’m thankful for the daily dust that on the desk doth fall.

I’m thankful for my kitchen sink that hides the dirty dish;
I’m thankful for the splattered wall from when I fried the fish.

I’m thankful for the Cheerios,™ Playdoh,™ and other yuk;
And all the stones and crayons that plug my sweeper up.

I’m thankful for the toothpaste smeared on the bathroom door;
I’m thankful for the wad of gum stuck to the kitchen floor.

I’m thankful for the scattered toys that often pierce my feet
when I must run to get the phone before I've time to sweep.

I’m thankful for the mending I love so much to do
That I hide it in  the corner and buy them something new.

I’m thankful for the unmade beds that mean I’m not alone;
I’m thankful for so many things that make our house a home.

For I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.
- Philippians 4:11 (NIV)

© 1996 Michele T. Huey. All rights reserved