10,000 Miles - Part One

Where do you start when you visit three countries in two weeks?  We traveled approximately 10,000 miles by plane, another 850 by train, over 160 miles driving on the left (which I submit is the RIGHT side of the road!) and another 100 or so on the OTHER side of the road.  Not to mention the countless footsteps exploring small villages, cities filled with noise and energy, and everything in between.  How do you capture all those moments that bombard the senses?  What words can describe the feeling of being transported back in time at the Tower of London, or the utter beauty of Le Louvre and the stab of illogical fear when they locked the gates to the German castle behind us?  To say it was a whirlwind is an understatement and yet in the best tradition of fabulous experiences it took us so far from our everyday world that when we returned it felt like we had been gone for a couple of months.

We arrived in London the weekend of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.  I was seven the last time I celebrated a jubilee and distinctly remember the street parties and my Mum making me a new dress in red, white and blue.  I felt a familiar sense of nostalgia when we walked off the plane and were immediately greeted with big smiles from girls dressed head to foot in red, white and blue.  They presented four dazed boys with flags and pins and coerced them into signing a book of good will messages to the Queen herself.  They seemed quite amazed that a welcome party had been ordered for their arrival and we will wait a few years before breaking the news to them that the girls were not standing by solely for their visit.

Hungry in only a way that traveling for a day can make you, I asked for the nearest English breakfast and we received directions.  I may have lost some of my stiff upper lip over the years because the gentlemen saw the look of disbelief on my face and reassured me it was very good.  We found the café easily and at 7:30am in London, five Americans and a Brit sat down in a Thai café and ate their first English breakfast of the trip.  Let me amend that; one American had spaghetti for breakfast and pronounced it the best he has ever had.  Who knew we had to travel so far and find that Thai café to experience the best spaghetti in the world?!  Within a couple of days another member of the party would start to ask at every meal if baked beans were served with EVERYTHING in England??  I consider this to be a rhetorical question. 

The next two days were an immersion into all things English in the capital.  We took the Tube to the London Eye and saw the city from every angle.  My adorable husband proposed to me at the top of the Eye and everyone was relieved I accepted or the next 15 minutes locked together in a capsule on the way down could have been the longest of all our lives ;o)  

The dungeons followed which was more designed for children than adults yet reminded me of some of the more gruesome parts of English history.  We spent almost an entire day at the Tower of London, including the Bloody Tower (pardon my language) breathing in the history and reveling in every moment of being part of its present.  The castle and walls are a living, breathing part of history that we were encouraged to touch, walk on, understand, and enjoy, as long as we didn’t go on the grass!  We took a boat up the Thames mere hours before the Queen would lead a pageant of 670 boats on the very same river and had much better weather for our trip than she did for hers.  Sitting up top we took photograph after photograph like crazed tourists, deliriously happy, slightly jet-lagged, and seemingly always hungry.  When we left London to head north it was amid a persistent drizzle but it did not hinder our spirits or our progress; we were eager for the next leg of the English chapter…more to come...

Love and Sharing

Our favorite 10-year old was struggling a few months ago with the idea of sharing and more specifically sharing his parents and them sharing their love with others.  Our family has six members and Dad’s family also has six members.  He has two stepbrothers at each house, and of course the big brother I was nice enough to burden him with, for a total of five brothers when you add them all up.  Trying to draw some conclusions from what he was able to articulate about what was bothering him, we offered an analogy.  It is pertinent at this point to know that this little boy eats more than his mother most meal times and is fondly referred to by his brothers as the garbage disposal.  

Perhaps that is why we thought to compare love and sharing to a big pie.

We had his attention immediately although not necessarily for the right reasons.  I asked him how large each piece of the pie would be if it represented all my love and I shared it between him and his brother equally.  Easy!  Half each he said, looking mildly like he had no intention of sharing a pie with his brother when he knew he would want to savor that crust and warm fruity inside all by himself.  Next I asked how much everyone would get if I equally divided my pie between him, his brother, his Stepdad and his two stepbrothers.  I think he was still trying to figure out when he was going to get an actual slice of pie and hesitantly said that each would receive a fifth.  I was feeling pretty good about the direction we were heading in and said that although that would be the case with an ordinary pie, love is no ordinary pie.  

This pie, I elaborated, is never-ending and you will never run out of love pie.  The more pie you eat, the more pie there is…big brown happy eyes looked up at me.  He realized that I was saying that our family may have grown but there was plenty of love to go around.  Everybody’s portion did not get smaller in fact, the portions get bigger each day and there are more people to share their pies.  I could see that in his mind he was having seconds and thirds.  My analogy had taken on a life of its own when he brought me back down to earth and said, “I get it Mom.  Can we have dinner now?  I’m hungry!”

Real love is indefinable and unconditional.  It is one of the few things in our lives that can grow and grow and yet does not become unmanageable.  It is both nebulous and demonstrated in everyday actions.  It is whole and complete and demands nothing in return.  If our boy equates the love he has for pie and multiplies it by an indescribably large factor he still will not come close to knowing how loved he and his brothers are; perhaps we’ll make them a pie instead ;o)   

My Mum

Diane Fay Vevers   

December 30, 1941 to March 3, 2002

My Mum was born in 1941 in a small village in England called Astwood Bank.  She was the only child of Alfred George and Frances Ethel.  When she was six or seven the fair came to town and her Dad promised he would take her.  When she came down with measles he promised her he would bring her back whatever she wanted and she asked for a balloon or a doll.  Her Dad brought her back both and whenever I was a little girl I was allowed to play with that same doll when we visited my grandparents, she was still in pristine condition and dressed in clothes my Mum helped sew.  They were humble beginnings for a lady who managed to adapt to any situation with grace, elegance and love.

In her spare time my Mum loved to sew and knit and make jams and plant gardens and restore furniture.  Once she knitted herself a suit, remember that this was the seventies; she later became a great seamstress and whenever I needed or wanted skirts or dresses she would take me to pick out a pattern and material.  Sometimes within hours, always within days I would have the new item I had seen in a magazine.  When my brother and I were about thirteen and six Mum knitted us matching sweaters.  I cringe when I think of those sweaters now because they looked curiously like the one Charlie Brown wore in mustard and brown but at the time we were perfectly happy with the soft yarn and the product of our mother’s love keeping us warm and safe.  When my sons were babies my Mum knitted them wispy blankets and off white sweaters that were beautiful.

When I was seventeen or eighteen and knew I would be leaving home to head to university soon, I was asked to participate in the Mother’s Day service at church.  My Mum did not know about this so she was surprised to see me at the front of church proclaiming to all that would listen how much my Mum meant to me and how I knew that I was only ready for this next leg of my journey because of the wings she had lovingly hand stitched to my shoulders.  We both cried tears of joy and sadness that day.

Three years later I called from college to announce that I was going to Japan.  The line was silent as I explained that I had been given the opportunity by the British Embassy to fly, Business Class no less, to Tokyo for a training course and then onto Okinawa to teach English to high school students.  Her words were prophetic but I did not believe them at the time.  My Mum told me “You’ll never come home” and she was right but she never let the thread that connected us be severed.  We wove our relationship together into a fine tapestry of phone calls and letters and photographs.   At first I spoke no Japanese and sometimes I felt incredibly lonely.  My Mum picked up the phone at any hour and her calming words wrapped around me like the clothes she used to make me with her loving hands. 

After I spent three years and not just one as I had planned in Okinawa, I moved my life to Colorado with the strength of knowing that a safety net embroidered with care would always catch me if I fell.  I slipped and faltered many times and that web of acceptance and faithful support that my Mum spun around me, like the blankets she made with care for my sons, comforted me from afar.  For my beautiful, giving, and gracious Mum, I am horrible with a needle so I offer you my blanket of words that simply say I deeply respect you, I miss you like you wouldn’t believe, and I love you always.