Well, Thanksgiving is almost here again. What does Thanksgiving make me think of? Food, of course! But more importantly it makes me think of family. As with most families, Thanksgiving for us was about getting together to enjoy good food and good company.
My parents split up when I was 9 and the arrangement we had was Thanksgiving with Dad, Christmas with Mom. I was young enough when this tradition began that it always seemed perfectly natural to me. As a matter of fact, I honestly can’t remember any Thanksgivings before that. I have no idea what we did when my parents were still married.
So we always gathered at Grandma Brandt’s house. She always did all the cooking herself. I don’t think she would have trusted anyone else in her kitchen. Uncle Gary and Aunt Ellen would always come from Des Moines, along with our three cousins Jeff, Greg, and Eric. That was kind of special in itself because Uncle Gary and family only came to visit twice a year.
Those are good memories. The house would smell so good and there would be so many people around. Then after dinner we could go out and show our cousins around the farm. I remember one year we found a lump of some kind of chalky stuff and we used it to write all over an old shed. Then Grandpa Meril Dean saw it and made us clean it off. That was the same Grandpa that got after us for making paths through the corn. What a fuddy-duddy!
Inevitably, there came a year when Grandma said she just couldn’t do all that cooking anymore. I don’t blame her, I know how much work that is, but Thanksgiving just never felt the same after that. Instead of our home-cooked feasts, we started going out for Thanksgiving dinner. And it wasn’t long after that when Uncle Gary stopped coming. His boys were grown and they had gatherings of their own to attend.
We still had our time together with Dad and Grandma and Grandpa though. That tradition held until the mid 90’s. Grandpa died in 1992 and Dad in 1995. And us kids were grown by then too. Brad had a family of his own, and Bobbi had her family out on the east coast. Kevin was who-knows-where by then. That was around the time that I moved away too. It’s a little sad when traditions end and families grow and spread out, but that’s the natural order of things.
After that, our Thanksgivings were catch-as-catch-can. You were never really sure who might show up on any given year. In 2003, Joni and Adam came to live with me and all the sudden I had a family of my own. For the next six years we had quiet gatherings in our little apartment in Dallas. I always missed my family back home, just as Joni missed hers, but I have to admit that I enjoyed the quieter atmosphere and the beginning of a new tradition.
Now here I am back in Nebraska again, and it looks like Thanksgiving this year is going to be something really special. This year marks the first time that my three siblings and I will all be together at the same time since about 1987. I'm only guessing here, but I think Mom is kind of excited about that. I find that I’m a little excited about it too. My daughter, Brenna, will be coming so not only will us four kids be there, but also all of the grandkids; about 10 in all I think. That will be quite a crowd!
That will be on Wednesday since that was the only day we could all get together. On Thanksgiving day, Brad and family go to His mother-in-law’s, and Joni and I have decided to have our traditional quiet gathering here at the house. I find that I am looking forward to both gatherings with equal anticipation.
Traditions are so important in this crazy, ever-changing world we live in. They give us a sense of belonging; something to come home to. I said earlier that it’s sad when traditions end, but maybe they don’t really end. Maybe they just grow and evolve, like our families. The gatherings I am looking forward to this week will involve very different groups of people than the gatherings of my childhood, but it's still family, and it's still Thanksgiving. I will enjoy it while it lasts and look forward to future holidays, whatever shape they may take.
Thanks for reading today. I hope you enjoy a wonderful Thanksgiving tradition with your own family this year. And if you don’t have a tradition, it’s never too late to start a new one.
Jeremiah 30:19 And out of them shall proceed thanksgiving and the voice of them that make merry: and I will multiply them, and they shall not be few; I shall also glorify them and they shall not be small.
Showing posts with label 1995. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1995. Show all posts
Friday, November 20, 2009
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Going Blind
Well, I guess it’s about time I talked about my blindness a little bit. I’m almost 39 years old now and the story begins when I was 24, way back in 1995 that was, so this will take a few minutes.
Just a few months before my dad died, I was diagnosed with keratoconus. That’s a condition where the cornea of your eye becomes kind of cone-shaped instead of nice and round like it’s supposed to be. In case you don’t know, the cornea is the clear outer lens of the eye. The concave shape focuses light to the interior of the eye. At the time, I was told that no one really knew what caused keratoconus.
The common fix for keratoconus is hard contact lenses and that’s what they did for me. The hard lens gives the mis-shapen cornea something smooth and round to shape itself onto. The lenses work really well. As soon as they put the lenses in my eyes I had almost perfect vision again, just like that. It was amazing!
My amazement was short-lived though. Pretty soon I started getting infections in my eyes. These were painful but usually healed up quickly with the eye-drops my doctor gave me. The problem was, I just kept getting them.
After a couple of years of this, I finally got an infection so bad that it took almost a whole year to heal. I had just started a new job and so I had no insurance. That meant I had to go to the county hospital in Dallas (where I was living at the time) for treatment. At the county hospital it’s first come first serve which means you have to get there bright and early along with everyone else who’s vying for a spot.
So let me set the scene for you. This was a very bad infection. The eye-drops they gave me were extremely painful, each drop felt like a steel spike going through my eye and right out the back of my head (I may be exaggerating, but not very much I promise). At first, the drops had to be used every half hour day and night. Even with the strong pain medication they gave me, the sharp, shooting pain would take about 15 or 20 minutes to back off a little, then I would have 10 minutes with only a little pain before it was time for another drop.
Since I was new at my job I also had no vacation time so I had to keep working during this period. Half the time I was in serious pain and the other half I was fighting to stay awake because of the lack of sleep and the pain pills which made me drowsy. It wasn’t a fun time. If only I had God in my life during that time! I’m not saying God would have prevented all this from happening, but at least I would have had some hope.
Anyway, after a few days they backed off my eye-drops to every hour during the day and two hours during the night. Then after a couple of weeks I was able to sleep through the night again. After that first month my insurance kicked in and I was able to go to a regular doctor’s office and here’s where God stepped in on my behalf. He led me to a really fantastic doctor who took good care of me for the next seven years.
Well, like I said that infection took almost a year to heal completely and by then the cornea of my left eye was all scarred over so that I couldn’t see through it.
So there I was, blind in one eye. Obviously that’s not the end of the story but I think this post is long enough. I think I’ll pick it up here next time and leave you with this:
We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed. We are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted but not forsaken, cast down but not destroyed.
2 Corinthians 4: 8-9
Just a few months before my dad died, I was diagnosed with keratoconus. That’s a condition where the cornea of your eye becomes kind of cone-shaped instead of nice and round like it’s supposed to be. In case you don’t know, the cornea is the clear outer lens of the eye. The concave shape focuses light to the interior of the eye. At the time, I was told that no one really knew what caused keratoconus.
The common fix for keratoconus is hard contact lenses and that’s what they did for me. The hard lens gives the mis-shapen cornea something smooth and round to shape itself onto. The lenses work really well. As soon as they put the lenses in my eyes I had almost perfect vision again, just like that. It was amazing!
My amazement was short-lived though. Pretty soon I started getting infections in my eyes. These were painful but usually healed up quickly with the eye-drops my doctor gave me. The problem was, I just kept getting them.
After a couple of years of this, I finally got an infection so bad that it took almost a whole year to heal. I had just started a new job and so I had no insurance. That meant I had to go to the county hospital in Dallas (where I was living at the time) for treatment. At the county hospital it’s first come first serve which means you have to get there bright and early along with everyone else who’s vying for a spot.
So let me set the scene for you. This was a very bad infection. The eye-drops they gave me were extremely painful, each drop felt like a steel spike going through my eye and right out the back of my head (I may be exaggerating, but not very much I promise). At first, the drops had to be used every half hour day and night. Even with the strong pain medication they gave me, the sharp, shooting pain would take about 15 or 20 minutes to back off a little, then I would have 10 minutes with only a little pain before it was time for another drop.
Since I was new at my job I also had no vacation time so I had to keep working during this period. Half the time I was in serious pain and the other half I was fighting to stay awake because of the lack of sleep and the pain pills which made me drowsy. It wasn’t a fun time. If only I had God in my life during that time! I’m not saying God would have prevented all this from happening, but at least I would have had some hope.
Anyway, after a few days they backed off my eye-drops to every hour during the day and two hours during the night. Then after a couple of weeks I was able to sleep through the night again. After that first month my insurance kicked in and I was able to go to a regular doctor’s office and here’s where God stepped in on my behalf. He led me to a really fantastic doctor who took good care of me for the next seven years.
Well, like I said that infection took almost a year to heal completely and by then the cornea of my left eye was all scarred over so that I couldn’t see through it.
So there I was, blind in one eye. Obviously that’s not the end of the story but I think this post is long enough. I think I’ll pick it up here next time and leave you with this:
We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed. We are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted but not forsaken, cast down but not destroyed.
2 Corinthians 4: 8-9
Saturday, September 26, 2009
More History
Hi! Welcome to Drums In The Deep. If this is your first visit I encourage you to read the older posts below or this one won’t make as much sense.
Last week I talked briefly about the kind of childhood I had. I mentioned that I grew up going to church but none of it really took hold until much later in my life. This week, I thought I would expand on that a little bit.
In high school I had been a pretty good kid. I was an ‘A’ student and got along pretty well with my family. Didn’t hang around with the wrong crowd or anything like that. I earned some scholarships and went off to college with high hopes. But that was when the trouble started.
Since I was now an ‘adult’ and could make my own decisions, I decided to stop going to church. At college, I spent most of my time drinking and partying instead of studying. Inevitably, I flunked out my first year. Not long after that I got in trouble with the law for stealing. Yep, as an adult I was an immediate success.
Then it was discovered that my dad had cancer. That was in April of 1995. My family and I spent the next six months watching him slowly die, and by October he was gone. He was 50 years old and I was 24.
To cap things off, not long after Dad died I got a girl pregnant. It felt like the whole world was crashing down around me. The little amount of faith I had was eroding fast. The world was chipping away at it and I was doing nothing to reinforce it, see?
Well, guess what I did next; I made like an egg and beat it. Just ran away. I ran away from the pain of my father’s death; ran away from all the mistakes I had made and the trouble I had caused.
That seemed like a good plan, but oddly enough running away didn’t make my problems go away. It didn’t stop me from creating new problems either. Soon enough, I met someone and married her, more out of desperation than love I think. Three years later I was divorced.
I’m not trying to impress you with what a hard life I had or anything like that, I’m just setting the scene for you. By this time I had completely convinced myself that God did not exist. I wasn’t just doubting, I was sure of it. Where was the proof after all? Well, eventually God slapped me upside the head and gave me all the proof I needed, but that was still several years away.
So why am I writing all this down? Because I want you to understand how far from God I had fallen. And also to point out again that even though I gave up on Him, He never gave up on me.
Some of you may have read a book by Stephen King called ‘The Stand’. There is one scene in this book that I think of often. Nick and his companions have been drawn to the home of Abigail Fremantle in Hemingford Home, Nebraska by some inexplicable force. Upon their arrival, Nick and Mother Abigail sit down to talk, at which time she explains to him some of the things that are going to happen. When Nick asks how she knows all this, she tells him frankly that it is God’s plan. Nick says, “I don’t believe in God.” Mother Abigail just laughs and says, “It doesn’t matter Nick. He believes in YOU.”
I can’t put it much better than that. And I see that I’ve been rambling on quite long enough for today so I think I’ll stop here for now. Just remember this:
GOD BELIEVES IN YOU!
Last week I talked briefly about the kind of childhood I had. I mentioned that I grew up going to church but none of it really took hold until much later in my life. This week, I thought I would expand on that a little bit.
In high school I had been a pretty good kid. I was an ‘A’ student and got along pretty well with my family. Didn’t hang around with the wrong crowd or anything like that. I earned some scholarships and went off to college with high hopes. But that was when the trouble started.
Since I was now an ‘adult’ and could make my own decisions, I decided to stop going to church. At college, I spent most of my time drinking and partying instead of studying. Inevitably, I flunked out my first year. Not long after that I got in trouble with the law for stealing. Yep, as an adult I was an immediate success.
Then it was discovered that my dad had cancer. That was in April of 1995. My family and I spent the next six months watching him slowly die, and by October he was gone. He was 50 years old and I was 24.
To cap things off, not long after Dad died I got a girl pregnant. It felt like the whole world was crashing down around me. The little amount of faith I had was eroding fast. The world was chipping away at it and I was doing nothing to reinforce it, see?
Well, guess what I did next; I made like an egg and beat it. Just ran away. I ran away from the pain of my father’s death; ran away from all the mistakes I had made and the trouble I had caused.
That seemed like a good plan, but oddly enough running away didn’t make my problems go away. It didn’t stop me from creating new problems either. Soon enough, I met someone and married her, more out of desperation than love I think. Three years later I was divorced.
I’m not trying to impress you with what a hard life I had or anything like that, I’m just setting the scene for you. By this time I had completely convinced myself that God did not exist. I wasn’t just doubting, I was sure of it. Where was the proof after all? Well, eventually God slapped me upside the head and gave me all the proof I needed, but that was still several years away.
So why am I writing all this down? Because I want you to understand how far from God I had fallen. And also to point out again that even though I gave up on Him, He never gave up on me.
Some of you may have read a book by Stephen King called ‘The Stand’. There is one scene in this book that I think of often. Nick and his companions have been drawn to the home of Abigail Fremantle in Hemingford Home, Nebraska by some inexplicable force. Upon their arrival, Nick and Mother Abigail sit down to talk, at which time she explains to him some of the things that are going to happen. When Nick asks how she knows all this, she tells him frankly that it is God’s plan. Nick says, “I don’t believe in God.” Mother Abigail just laughs and says, “It doesn’t matter Nick. He believes in YOU.”
I can’t put it much better than that. And I see that I’ve been rambling on quite long enough for today so I think I’ll stop here for now. Just remember this:
GOD BELIEVES IN YOU!
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