Tag Archives | our story

life on my sill

i turned my back on my kitchen sink and headed off to bed tonight…even the minimal in me grinning at the cluttered state of my sill…

there’s a little purple saintpaulia…with two sweet little blooms…that grammy brought to cheer her mama,  gramma mary, when she was living out her last few days here.  and it just stayed on…thankfully…the thoughts of them it continually conjures up keeping me company while my hands are so often in the sink…

and there’s four, plump, red-ripe tomatoes that somehow found their way there from our always-generous mister paul and miss mary across the street…

and there’s a little, white bottle full of melatonin…that my midwife knew would help my pregnant brain settle down to sleep…

and there’s (even) a bloody tooth that was yanked out by that determined ten-year-old right before she headed off to dream…

and there’s a curiously-angular rock that grampy and that emma-girlso very little at the time…painted during one of our visits with them.  his sweet little red heart in the middle…her splotches of color o’er the rest…

and there’s a tiny rectangle of wood framing one of my most favorite pictures of him…when we were both still so young…and relishing in one of those most-memorable days on “our” island

and there’s a dainty, little silk sunflower that three-year-old jack found and presented to me when we were very first settling in here…“picked” for me from out of the overabundance of gramma mary’s craft supplies still left over down in the basement…

and it should probably all be tidied tomorrow…especially that tooth!

but for tonight…it’s just an utterly lovely reminder…againthat there is life here!

so much life having been lived…being livedright here!

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dear wee little one,

i’ve just been thinking…and thinking…and thinking so much lately…

about how you…and each of your brothers and sisters…all came to be…

with just this all-of-a-sudden unmistakable nudge

that sometimes your daddy felt…

and sometimes i did…

and…with that little eian…your daddy and i both felt…through alex and emma and hannah all asking!

maybe just to be sure…that at 39…we wouldn’t doubt…

that we would still “know” Who it was that was doing the nudging

but with you…it was me who unmistakably felt it…

and it came just as suddenly…just as so unexpectedly

and it caused me to stop…and to whirl right straight ‘roundand to just shake my head!

and, oh, how i wrestled with it!

and i questioned it…

“but i’m 41!  and we were all done!  and we have more than our fair share…
these 8 already!”

and…“what would people say?”

and…“what would family say?”

but…all that while

i just couldn’t escape the thought of you

and then…i doubted it

“but what if this wasn’t a “nudge” at all?  what if this was just “getting older”…just being selfish…just truly not wanting to move on from this season of my life?”

and so on…

and on

buttrulyi just couldn’t shake the thought of you

and finallyi just had to stop…and just ask…

what if it was? 

what if this was just more of being 40…or selfishness…or just wanting to slow-up time?

wouldn’t that still be His purposestill be His using?  His means to bless uswith you?

and what of His purpose?  What of your purpose?

what if we said “no” for any or all of those reasons?

what of who you were to become someday?

if this was truly His nudgingtruly His planand you were meant

we would’ve said “no” to His always best gift!  His always best plan!

an alex…

or emma…

or hannah…

or claire…

or bits…

or jack…

or will…

or that little eian…

or you!

and that nudging was just so unmistakable…

that thought just so utterly unshakable

that thought of you

that overwhelming thought…

that if we had said “no, thank you”…just once…to any of those times that He nudged…

we would have missed out on so much…so many some ones!

every one such a gift!  every one with a purpose…

everyone

and what will it be?

what purpose?

such an overwhelming thought…

and i’m just so beyond gratefulfor His nudging nine times!

and for that inescapable…unshakeable…overwhelming thought

of you!

very sincerely,
me (your amazed-at-the-thought-of-you mama)

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#9

i felt it

His unmistakable nudge

and him and me…caught all-utterly-by-surprise…just shook our heads with a, “wait…what!?!”

and…us?!?”

so we sought counsel from some much…much…wiser than us…

and they all said…“yes!”

and we sought more counsel from some of these 8 already…

and they all said…“YES!!!”

so we came to Him and said, “if You would…thenyes, please!

and then…HE

6-10-13

did this!

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on this day in…

~ 1993 ~

3-17-13

we three

3-17-13 - 2

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dear colleen,

it’s hard to believe

but it’d been just shy of two decades when you pulled up to the farm last summer…

almost 20 years since that very first time we lugged us…and him…and all those props…up all those flights of stairs to your old warehouse loft down town…

him in his little uniform…with his daddy’s equipment…the little bench he’d built…and that chain link fence you just happened to have lying around!

alex…the little baseballer…

then 4 years later…up we trudged again…with her…and all of that frippery…and my poor honey loaded down with that enormous mirror!

emma…and the “dress ups”…

and again…after 3 years…my poor honey and those stairs!  with the bandana her nana brought special from europe…the white picket fence her daddy constructed…the tools…the old wooden crate branded “challenge”…and the wheelbarrow!

hannah…the little gardener…

then 2 years…and the easiest trek of all…with just her…in her birthday suit…with only the little wings i’d fashioned…and the little copper halo her daddy’d pounded…

claire…the little christmas angel

and then…20 months…and out to your garden full blooming…with its bees full buzzing…and your dear daddy helping us tote.  with a handful of lemons…a juice-filled pitcher…that same crate…and the “lemonade 5¢” i’d scribbled with their crayon…

elisabeth…and the little lemonade stand…

and after 2¼ years…we came to you…from idaho!  into the old cedar school-house…with that beautifully worn wood floor…his oshkosh railroad cap and overalls…the “crossing” sign…and that wonderfully well-used lantern…

jack…the little engineer…

and back again…in just 17 months…with a little slingshot i’d crafted from the willow in our idaho backyard…his daddy’s baseball…a nest from our beloved property…grampa calvin’s pocket knife…gramma mary’s blue ball jar with a “bug” in it…and gramma florence’s marbles…

william…and “boyhood” treasures…

and then…4 years and a bit…

and then…those almost 20 had passed…

and then…we found ourselves out on the farmwith the biggest prop yet!

3-8-2013

gramma ruth’s favorite tractor…grampa bert’s work boots…that fancy new hat…and those same well-worn overalls that all of his siblings had donned for grubbies…that two of them had worn in their one-year-birthday picture…

eian…the little farmer…

and those two…always peaking out at me when i look at him…

her eyes…and his chin…

and you…always gracious…always accommodating!

always letting me…but mostly him…lug those props!

always letting me create

always simply asking, “what would you like me to capture?”

and you did!

and it’s amazing, really…because we couldn’t have possibly known then…

they were all still so little!

but some truly did grow into their picture as their personalities took shape!

emma…our little girlie girl…

hannah…our little lover of flora and fauna

jack…our little in-so-many-ways miniature of his train-loving papa…

and now eian…the truest little deardorff-hubbard of them all!

what a treasure these images are to us!

what a special…unique…place you’ve settled into in our lives…

just a truly special place!

for nearly as long as i’ve been a mama…you’ve been capturing their growing up

helping us tell our story

through all those one-year pictures…those family pictures…

and remember?

those “just for fun” ones!  with just us two…bathed in light from those massive loft windows…four-year-little alex in his flannel plaid pajama bottoms…and me in that little white cotton nightgown…all full round with emma!

oh, colleen…how grateful we are for you!

how very much i just wanted to saythank you!

very sincerely,
me

3-8-2013 - 2

colleen’s images of our little farmer on his one-year birthday (august 22, 2012)…post sneak peak!

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on this day in…

~ 2004 ~

2-7-9 - our last day on our property - going on a walk - alex and bits - b

homestead farewell walk

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our winter time

four novembers have come and gone since all of life seemed to be falling in on us…

four whole years since we picked up all the pieces of our life-tangible and packed it into boxes…

since the desperate longing…the wanting so badly for it to be just that simple to pick up all the pieces of our life-intangible

but it wasn’t…and we couldn’t…so we left…

left idaho to come back here…to come back “home”…

11-30-12

only, we hadn’t any home here…

no work here…

absolutely no idea what life would look like here…

and the future seemed all swallowed up in a dense, frosty fog

and my heart felt just as bankrupt as that judge declared us to be.

11-30-12

and then…amidst that packing up time…a note arrived for me…

“…seems like this season may be a bitter cold wintry time in life…hard, long and full of leafless trees – seemingly no harvest or sunshine.  but you, my dear friend, will be the sunshine for your family, you will smile and rejoice your way through whatever you are standing in the middle of.  you will be a shining example to everyone of how God can take a seemingly painful, embarrassing, and terrible thing and make it a beautiful story of God’s faithful provision and His song in the middle of the dark times.”

11-30-12

i’m not so sure i’ve been as faithful as my sweet friend thought me to be…

i’m not so sure i’ve been that sunshine for them…that i’ve smiled and rejoiced my way these four years through…

but i am certain that He has been everything she said He would be…

certain that He has been faithful

certain that this sometimes painful, sometimes dark, sometimes bitter cold season has been a very important, very necessary part of this incredibly beautiful story He’s written for usthat He knows the end of our storythat He will be faithful to walk with us all the way through!

11-30-12

so although…these four novembers later…some patches of fog still persist…

my heart is ever-more hopeful

for i am ever-more certain…expectant…

that in His always perfect timingwinter times are always followed by springs

– images from that november in 2008

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