There was a note at my door when I arrived home, along with the books and DVD’s he had borrowed the other night. He wondered if maybe I would want to watch a movie together later.

I welcomed him down but declined to watch the movie he brought with him (I didn’t think it was appropriate despite it’s rating).

He wanted to tell me about the first day of football practice – of how they have to get down on one knee and look the coach in the eye when he speaks, and how they only get ten second water breaks and how today they practiced at his old middle school but tomorrow they get to practice at the new one. And he pulled out last year’s yearbook so I could see his school picture (which he didn’t like but smiled when I said it was a great picture) and to show me the picture of the girl that he likes. He answered my questions about her and told me a little about their relationship. He likes her but she turned him down. He still texts her, though and he thinks maybe she does like him a little. It was cute and innocent and sweet.

He walked the wet puppy with me and then spent some time looking for more books in Flash’s room. When he emerged I told him I’d be busy tomorrow night but perhaps if he wanted to come visit again on Wednesday, I would be around. He said goodnight and thanked me again for letting him take more books with him. I thanked him for sharing his yearbook and movies with me. As he left he told me he had straightened up Flash’s bookshelf. I thanked him for that gesture and he responded by saying, “It was the least I could do.”

He is so very different from my own child, despite being the same age. But the fact that he so readily comes to my door, so easily sits down with much on his mind to talk about, so grateful for a book to borrow, a movie to watch again, someone just to talk to that my heart aches a little. He has a good mom, a hard working, single mom. I just hope she gets these wonderful, tender moments with him, too.

I posted a few weeks ago about my upstairs neighbor. The music has been toned down, but I didn’t get any response to my invitation to do something together. After my trip to the peach orchard, I took a handful of fresh peaches up, but they weren’t interested in peaches and I left feeling defeated.

Then, the other night when I arrived home late from the movies, I had three missed calls in quick succession on my cell from upstairs. As I arrived home wondering what might have prompted the calls, I found my doorknob had been greased. There’s only one culprit I would even suspect and I found the same frustrated feeling rising in me again.

I left a voicemail that night for my neighbor (for him mom, really) just asking if there was anything the matter or something I could help with. I didn’t catch up with her until the following morning when she explained her frustration at her son for calling me. “He’s so bored,” she went on to say, “but it doesn’t excuse him from just calling you like that.” He hadn’t left a voicemail. I don’t know if he was actually trying to reach me or just see if I was home, but in any case, I waved it away and didn’t mention to her about my doorknob. I didn’t want him in trouble.

I’ve spoken with his mom outside at 7:30 the past couple of mornings. She’s on her way home from work and I’m on my way out to work. We’ve been talking about the new middle school down the road and whether Flash will be attending with her son. We’ve talked about the bus route (or lack thereof) and about her desire for her son to “start fresh” at the new middle school and not be around the “hoodlums” he’s been hanging with at the old school.

I spent some time while babysitting the other day trying to brainstorm some ideas on what I could invite her son to do with me some evening that might be enticing to a 13 year old boy. You’d think I’d know that sort of answer, but he’s a different sort of child than my own.

Tonight, my question was answered for me.

When I arrived home tonight, there was a book and a note outside my door. Without even looking at it, I knew it was from upstairs. His note was an apology, as it always is, and a thank you to Flash for lending him this book long ago. He asked if he might borrow another some time and asked if I would just knock or leave it outside his door.

I took Eli for a walk and thought about my options. when I came in, I opened the mail and had my answer. My Netflix movies had arrived. One of them I remember putting on my list, but hadn’t realized I’d bumped up to the number one slot (so it got mailed now). It was a movie I had intended to watch with Flash when he arrived back home. It’s a sci-fi action thriller rated PG-13. Perfect for a 13-year old boy…

I called upstairs and told my neighbor that he was more than welcome to come down and borrow any books of Flash’s that he was interested in, I know Flash won’t mind at all. And by the way, I was going to watch this movie tonight, did he have any interest?

He asked his mom and got permission and will be down in just a few minutes to join me.

I know it’s just a movie. I know it’s not a big deal. But somehow, it’s one less bored night for this boy, and a night when I get to have company for a movie.

I see it as a win-win.

Down the road at the bar, is a man who is talking about the places where he has lived and laughing when he finds out the stranger next to him has lived in many of those places, too. Down the road, watching the Red Sox game, is a man, a father, who is telling this woman about the business he owns, his involvement in a community she is familiar with, about his family. Down the road at the bar, is a man who is witty, flirtatious and intelligent.

On the stool next to me is this man. He is telling me about his kids. He is reminiscing with me about places “back home”. He is watching me now, and not the game. He is telling me about his life, his family. He is unconvincingly without a ring, leaving gaps in his life story that only a wife could fill. He is telling me about his unhappiness. He reluctantly tells me about his wife.

Somewhere in the next town over tonight, is a woman. She’s a mother of four boys. Her sons attend the schools in the district where I work. She’s at home tonight. But her husband is not.

Somewhere out there tonight this woman is waiting. She is wondering what sort of errand to WalMart takes four hours. She is alone at home.

Somewhere tonight is a husband. Left alone on his barstool. Rejected for his offer to go elsewhere, he’ll finish his beer alone or find someone else to tell his censored story to.

For somewhere in the next town over is a woman. Who, tonight, was offered more respect for her marriage by a stranger on a barstool than from her own husband.

It is a small consolation, perhaps, but I hope it is something.

I just woke from dreaming of you and it was so real and so vivid, I had to write it down.

I was in a grocery store, perhaps with my niece, although she would have been younger. The grocery store was small, but higher quality, and we were buying ingredients to make homemade macaroni and cheese. I was going to make it for my sister, apparently, who came into the store on her lunch break (or some such) and I explained to her that had I known earlier that I was going to be making that, I would have put in the effort to do it well – and so that’s what we were doing now, we were getting whole grain pasta noodles, and then I asked my niece if we should get ham to put in it and she agreed that we should. (I should admit here that I don’t know what happened to my niece as she isn’t in the rest of the dream, so I’m hoping I didn’t somehow lose her. And my sister changed form quite dramatically from the start of my dream where she looked like she actually looks now to the end, but I’m getting ahead of myself).

I went over to this little serve-yourself sort of dream-strange counter where the ham would be. Things were in big ziploc bags and there was chicken (which was like chicken legs, only some of the bones that people had apparently either eaten or taken chicken off of, was now back in the bag…) and I found the bag that had some ham, and there were some really good ham pieces in the bottom of the bag and so I got my own little ziploc and I was forking out some of the really good ham slices. And this man came up to my left and was waiting patiently to get whatever it was that he came for. But then I saw this bag with bread in it. It was a dark rye-looking bread and I thought that would be perfect (I’m not quite sure what part of my mac and cheese needed this dark bread, in my mind now, it seems like it was going to have some sort of soft crouton-ish purpose in the mix) and so I reached to my left to this bag of bread and started selecting some pieces, but there was some sort of spread on the corner of some, a tartar sauce-looking sort of spread, and I was trying to get pieces that didn’t have that.

The man, it seemed, was waiting for that bread as well, and yet I managed to take nearly all of it. I apologized to him, but he just laughed this perfect, casual laugh and I realized I was entertaining him with my antics as I tried to avoid the sauce. I don’t know if I started to explain to him what I was doing or what, but the next thing I can remember from my dream is we were talking.

And then it was like we were at the store for a second time, having run into each other again, but this time we were eating at a table next to each other. No one else was at the table and we sat side by side, not across from one another. We were talking about nothing, but I know I was nervous. I liked him and as I became more and more aware of that, I became more and more aware that he wasn’t at all affected with nerves the way I seemed to be. He was funny and witty and flirting with me. He was teasing me in a way that told me that he was interested, and yet, he wasn’t afraid I wouldn’t be interested back. It set me on edge and I got up and started packing up my lunch things which mainly consisted of about ten water bottles of various color and size. I was putting them all into this bag, walking even to the other side of this man to collect all these bottles, when I realized I was packing up his bottles, too. The red ones were his, or some of the red ones were and so I started to take them out of my bag, angry with myself for being so flustered. I knew he noticed that I had packed (and was now unpacking) his, but he just went on telling me whatever witty thing he was saying (as if I could even hear like a rational person at this point) and went on eating. I remember asking the man if he Facebooked (oh heavens tell me it’s not true) and he laughed this sweet little laugh and said, no, he didn’t facebook (and how much more I liked him for that) but that he’d do anything for this crazy new stranger he’d met. And I kept thinking “he called me crazy?” realizing I was acting as strangely as I ever had.

It was then that my family arrived. And by family, I mean my dad, my sister (who had changed into a blonde with long-hair) and several other people, I’m not sure who they were, really. They were apparently ready to go, although my sister was with someone she wanted to introduce me to, but I went to her and drug her by the hand over to this man as if I was going to introduce them.

I don’t remember actually doing so, what I remember is that I loaded up my things into my cart or some such thing, and when I came back for the last of it, my dad was talking with this man and I felt the need to introduce them somehow. I said something else first and then realized I was being inappropriate and they were both waiting for an introduction (as if they realized this was the start of something much bigger) and so I said to the man, “this is my father, Roger Wilson” and then I looked at my dad and said, “This is Rodger…” and before I could even say his last name, I felt the need to know, and so I asked the man, “do you spell it with a ‘d’ or without?” And he replied with the same flirtatious casualness that he’d shown all afternoon “well, how did you spell it?” And I was about to explain that I hadn’t yet had reason to write it down when I woke up.

I want to say his last name was something like Clemons, but obviously that’s just baseball stuck in my head, and even having written that, it makes it all seem so much more like some crazy dream.

But for a moment, a short while ago, it didn’t feel like a dream at all. It felt like I had met him. It felt like he was real. He had a name. He had dark hair and this amazing smile. And while I acted like a bumbling fool, he liked me. And I knew somehow that he was going to be important enough for me to introduce to my father. And to spell his name correctly.

I spelled it with a ‘d’, Rodger. It seems like that’s the way you spell it, but I didn’t get the answer from you to know for certain. I hope that was the right way.

I should point out, that this dream only disturbs me in that his name wasn’t Charlie. For those that recall, I once had a similarly real-feeling dream that I was getting married and his name was Charlie and that we met in a pastry shop (see? I can remember all the details even now. I’d link to the post if it wasn’t 5:45 in the morning.) For the vividness of this dream, it feels only a contradiction that his name didn’t stay the same. The realness of this man still feels tangible in the early morning hours. I know he’s not. But out there somewhere he is.

My house is easily 112 degrees. My dishwasher is running a full load and I still have two bit pots on the stove that will need washing. I have four beautiful jars of canned peaches on my counter waiting to be processed. I have 5 processed and not so pretty jars sitting on my table cooling off. I have 7 jars in the canner at the moment boiling their little hearts out although I’m wondering why I bother at this point since I pretty much filled the jars with peach goo.

When I visited the orchard two days ago, the woman asked me exactly what I wanted peaches for, and I said, “for canning.” She asked me when I would be canning and I replied, “within the next few days.” And with that information she led me right to very specific trees with very specific instructions on just what kind of peaches to pick.

Two days later I have a house full of fruit flies, smooshy, gushy peaches and I’m so disgusted that I may never actually eat a peach again.

This has been the most disgusting, disappointing, frustrating process. My only saving grace is that it cost me a grand total of $30, so if the canned peaches taste as bad as the process, well, I won’t feel too badly.

It’s currently 11:15 and I still have 15 minutes left on this batch in the canner and then another batch to go, which easily takes 30 minutes to get up to boiling and then they need to process for another 30 minutes.

Ugh. I think that’s my word of the day. Ugh.

Bear and Jules are having a party. They’ve invited Bear’s entire office over for a get together at their house. This week they’ve been busy with preparations: getting the lawn in shape, making sure the music system works outside, stocking up on beverages, and cleaning the house.

Yesterday, George was talking with me about parking for the party, making suggestions as to where people might wish to park their cars when they come for the party.

And then he said, “If you bring your wife to the party, you can get drunk.”

It took me a minute to realize he was referring to the idea of a designated driver for the party.

I responded by saying, “What if the wife wants to get drunk?”

Not missing a beat, George quipped, “Then you’d better start drinking first!”

Yep, I think he’s ready for a fraternity.

He married young, as they did back then, with a child on the way. A baby that would only live a few short days. He was a farmer his entire life, raising hogs and cattle, corn and soybeans. He had a stroke when my mom was still alive; they used to joke about making a “complete person” with her good right hand and his good left. He moved to town awhile back, abandoning the overalls he always wore for “proper city clothes”. If by ‘city’ you mean a town of a few thousand.

Whereas Grandma taught me to go to church, how to garden, the best places to find newborn kitties on a farm, Grandad taught me to shoot pool, to drink Shirley Temples and to lie to Grandma about where we’d been (“We just went into town to get water for the well. I have no idea why we smell like the pool hall!”) He drove an old pick up truck way too fast and often on the wrong side of the road. He always used a toothpick and he never called my sister or me by name. We were always, affectionately, and nondescriptly, “Kid”.

In addition to the baby, he has buried two grown children, a son, a daughter and more recently, his wife of nearly 70 years. He has lived in a nursing home for the past many years but is still sharp as a tack if only he could hear all your questions. You can see Grandma’s old apartment out the back through his window. She used to visit him every day the weather would permit her to walk across the lawn and would watch for his light to go off in the evening.

This past weekend, I rode along with my sister and her family to celebrate Grandad’s 90th birthday. Officially, he turned 90 on July 28th. As one of the nurses pointed out, we were “late”. Grandad simply smiled and adamantly reminded her, “But they’re here.” He wanted nothing more than to be taken outside in the sweltering heat to sit in the gazebo. A simple but rare treat.

My sister had ordered cake. Enough to feed the entire town, it would seem, but well worth seeing my Grandad’s lips turn green from the icing.

Being a diabetic, he shouldn’t have been allowed a first piece, but when you’re 90, I think you deserve the right to choose for yourself. And Grandad chose to have a second piece. And a third. And he scolded my sister for wiping the icing off his arm saying, “I was saving that for later!”

We saw my uncle, Grandad’s only surviving child, the one relative we feared the most when we were kids. Not because he was particularly scary, just that we only saw him when he came in for supper and he would come through the house hunting us down and tickling us when he did find us and we thought that was scary enough. Birdy and George will never have such fearful memories of their great-uncle. They love his teases and tickles!

It was a great day spent with a great man. A man I thought was old even when I was very young. I am grateful for all the years since that have given me a chance to grow old with this man I love.

Happy Birthday, Grandad!

Not to live in the bliss for too long, as I was driving home from the orchard, there was a severe accident on the road. A car coming from the other direction had gone off the road and head first into a tree. There was an ambulance, two fire trucks and at least 5 police vehicles at the scene. A man was being loaded onto a stretcher, but I don’t know if there were others involved or not. It was a terrifying scene.

Just a mile or two down the road, the car up ahead of me put on his signal and turned right. I wasn’t too close behind, but stepped on my brakes to slow a bit as he turned and had little resistance as my foot went slowly to the floor and the car only slightly slowed. I pumped the brakes, thankful that the car ahead had already easily made the turn, but to no avail. Brakes seemed to be absent.

I slowed the car a bit, pushing the pedal all the way to the floor and doing a tremendous amount of praying and found that in a pinch, I could bring my car to a crawl, but any sudden need to stop was completely out of the question.

Fortunately, I had turned off my usual path home to bring my sister a taste of heaven (a peach or two) and wasn’t just discovering this problem as I tried to slow on the exit ramp off the highway. I called my sister, asking if she’d meet me at the mechanic in her town so I could drop off my car hoping they could work on it in the morning when they opened. I explained the problem and as Bear listened in, Jules said, “Bear says to bring it here. He’ll look at it first.”

I prayed and crawled the last ten miles or so to my sister’s house. Thankful for plenty of room in front of me and for patience for the driver behind me. I had to peel my hands off the steering wheel when at last I parked in her driveway (thankful that her drive is UPhill).

Bear came out, took a look and then said he wanted to test drive it. I cautioned him, concerned my Taurus would become part of the corn field at the end of their drive, but he buckled in and took it down the drive and down the road. He returned proclaiming, “I think you’re just low on brake fluid.” And off he went in his truck to fetch some. He was back before I could blink, filled it up and tested it out and all was fine and perfect.

I cannot express my gratitude. Not just for Bear, which was no small thing. He saved me a mechanic’s bill, the hassle of swapping cars and shuffling around while I work to get mine fixed. But as all the ‘what ifs’ run through my mind tonight, I could sit here terrified of what might have happened. What if I had gone home on the highway? What if I hadn’t had so much room between that car in front of me when he turned? What if I had been rounding one of the many curves when I needed my brakes instead of out on the straight road? What if I had been in PA, without Bear to calmly and easily solve the problem?

I know that I am always in God’s hands. But tonight He gave me a reminder of just how carefully He holds me. I won’t soon forget.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about Heaven lately. We’ve had a couple sermons on the topic. I’ve read a book or two. And I’ve just been letting my mind wander to imagine what God might have in store for my eternity.

Tonight, I think I had a taste.

People asked why I had to drive all the way out to Crane’s to pick peaches. We have roadside stands every where in Michigan with an abundance of fresh, local, produce, including my much-desired peaches. But Crane’s has always been a near-spiritual experience for me each fall when we go to pick apples and I wanted the experience of picking peaches right off the tree.

Despite picking apples at orchards for years, nothing quite prepared me for the “awesomnosity” (to steal a word from Flash) of the peach orchard. It’s the SMELL along with the feel, and the sun streaming through the branches. It’s the gentleness of your touch as you pick each one. It’s the juice running down my arm. It’s looking around on a Tuesday night and feeling as if I was the only one present in the whole field.

I didn’t have my camera with me, or you’d be blessed with a million shots, all fallling short of capturing even a fragment of the experience.

To top it off, as I went to pay with my debit card, as I always do when we pick apples at the orchard (easier to hold a card in my pocket than the cash required for all of our apples) the woman in charge politely informed me that the peach side of the orchard does not take debit cards. Being several dollars short of the cash I would need, I began to think back to where the nearest ATM was. Before I could even utter outloud that I’d be right back, the woman began writing on a piece of paper saying, “It’s not a problem. You can mail me a check when you get home. Here’s our address.”

An angel. Well, of course, it is a piece of Heaven.

And so if you’re wondering what Heaven might be like, might I suggest a trip to Crane’s Orchard in Fennville, MI. For me, it’s complete bliss.