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02/28/2005 Entry: "I need to get this out:"

From time to time, some of you have noticed, I utilize the Blog in a less topical, more online journal type way. I use it to get down thoughts on paper about assignments, "personal statements" which I feel I have to write about once a week.

Today's installment is a story I have to tell in my preaching class. It's freaking me out, quite honestly. I had this charming story in mind, and then I met with my professor and he said it needs to have an 'A-ha' moment at the end that teaches a lesson that we can see building up from the beginning of the story as we look back, but is a total suprise to us at the moment. In other words: Write your first novel over the weekend, kid.

So here's what I've got. I've never been able to get past my original story, but have built up around it hoping that someone will try really hard to have an 'A-ha' at the end. Most of this developed at 4 AM this morning when I was unable to get back to sleep. Thanks for reading.

My parents were high school sweethearts who married after college and decided to return to their hometown after grad school to start careers and a family. This put my brother and myself into a situation rare in this day in age. We lived within a ten minute drive of both sets of our grandparents.
This meant that when my parents went out of town for any extended period of time, my parents had instant baby-sitters. My brother would go to the Morris grandparents to rough and tumble with my two cousins who lived there, and I would go to the Weddell grandparents, a much more sedate environment.

This was special for me. Gram and Pap Morris were in town all year, but Grandma and Grandpap Weddell spent the Winter, from October til April, in Florida. And I would have them all to myself, no pesky older brother around.

While Grandpap was at The Rotary Club or out playing golf, my grandmother fascinated me at an early age, teaching me how to make breadcrumbs with an ancient meat grinder that she bolted to the counter. Making peanut butter cookies and putting the cross-hatches on top just so. Teaching me how to salt and pepper my buttermilk and mix it with a fork. She grew money plant, this shrub that every two years produced seed pods tough as leather. She taught me how to shuck the rough covering away with my fingers, revealing a shimmery, tissue paper thin center that glimmered in the sunlight.

I last spent the night at my grandparents house when I was around eleven. The tasks that had proved so fun and fascinating as a young child had become tedious and boring and "Really, Grandma, can't you just drop me off at the mall?"

But when I was younger, all of the things my grandmother could do seemed somehow magical. One of the earliest visits I can remember with her, I don't think I had even started school, comes to mind. She had decided that we should have a tea party. She got out the set of tin doll dishes that she kept in a doll-sized china cabinet that her father had made for her as well as tiny doll-sized cookie cutters in the shape of animals and a small pot and lid to "cook" our "cookies" in. This wasn't unusual for me. Grandma didn't have any plastic food to pretend with like I had at home. She made due with what she had.

She and I set the table for two and put the cookie cutters in the pot, covering it carefully with the lid. "Why don't you go upstairs and wash your hands while our food cooks?" When I returned, we sat down, and she said, "We should say grace before we eat." We both bowed our heads and said the perennial favorite of my house, "God is great, God is good, and we thank Him for our food. Amen."
"I'll serve the tea. Why don't you serve the cookies?"

When I removed the lid, I was stunned to see that cookie cutters had indeed "baked" and had turned into little animal crackers! I remember being being amazed and ecstatic. Grandma was magic! I didn't ask myself, "How did she do that?" until days if not years later. In that moment, I believed that my grandmother had performed a small miracle just for me. Like Jesus turning water into wine, my grandmother had made metal toys into real food. And I believed in her with the faith of a child.

06:25 AM CST |