Carousel Moments

A little girl with a long brown ponytail, a sprinkling of freckles on her nose, and brown eyes that take in everything around her approaches the ticket-taker at the Amusement Park. She wriggles with excitement as she presents her ticket. Then she, along with a rush of other little boys and girls, races for the Carousel platform, eyes searching the available horses to find just the right one.

The gentle little brown pony? The proud white mare? The prancing gray filly? Or maybe the fierce, spirited black horse with head thrown back and nostrils flared? The urgency to make a quick decision before all the choices are gone fills her heart with a frantic grip as she nervously scans the corral full of horses, mounted in rows on the round wooden floor.

Her eyes flicker back to the brown pony and the decision is made. While she loves the adventure of riding the horses, there is a little fear involved, and the pony looks kind and harmless. She grips the saddle horn and puts a small sandaled foot in the left stirrup, then heaves herself onto the saddle. She sighs, now that the decision is made and she is safely astride the pony of her choice.

She quickly scans the crowd circling the Carousel, searching for the familiar faces of her parents. A flicker of panic grips her heart when she doesn’t see them amidst all the strange faces watching expectantly. Clutching tightly to the reins, she swivels her whole body in a desperate effort to search the crowd to locate her mama and daddy.

At that moment, the horse lurches and the loud organ music blares. She turns back to the front of the horse, one hand gripping the reins and the other grabbing for the saddle horn. Her heart is thudding loudly as the horse begins rhythmically rising and falling to the beat of the snappy music. There is yet some anxiety as she tries to grasp the idea that she might be alone on the Carousel ride, left to her own devices. The anxiety dances with the thrill of the ride and the sensation of racing through the wind astride this magnificent animal.

As the Carousel sweeps through the crowd of onlookers, she suddenly spots her mother and father, their eyes trained on her as she gallops past. A mixture of relief and happiness rushes through her and she removes her hand from its tight grip on the saddle horn and waves at them frantically. They respond with eager waves and smiles of encouragement.

As the brown pony gallops around yet another circle on the wooden platform, she eases back in the saddle and enjoys the ride. She now knows exactly where her parents are standing: just to the right of the Carousel entrance where another line of youngsters is already forming. She watches the progression of the horses and knows as she swings back by the gate that her parents will still be there . . . watching, cheering. Each time the Carousel comes full circle, she gets ready to wave at them again, basking in the attention and love she sees on their faces. A feeling of security and peace falls over her as she rises and falls to the rhythm of her pony. There is a happy exhilaration in being here today, spending this time with those who love her . . . just getting to be a kid.

In later years, she would come to Amusement Parks and Fairs with her peers when no adults were there to observe. At first, she always gravitated to the Carousel ride, the one they always called the merry-go-round. But her friends said it was too tame, a baby ride. The one time she did ride by herself felt flat and empty: there were no loved ones to wave at, no one to cheer her progress and smile with encouragement. That day, she learned the truth about the Carousel: she realized that the thrill throughout all those years was not the excitement of the ride. Her experience was joyful because she shared it with those she loved. It was an important life lesson.

Joyce with Max, Judy, Nicole at the
Greenport carousel

On one of my trips to visit my daughter and son-in-law on Long Island, we drove out to the far eastern tip of the North Fork to Greenport. In Mitchell Park, facing the Peconic Bay with a distant view of Shelter Island, sits a Carousel ride. The Antique Carousel is the focal point of the park. Built by the Herschell-Spillman Company in 1920 and donated to the village by the Northrop-Grumman Corporation in 1995, this working antique carousel is one of only a handful of carousels that still features a brass ring dispenser.

I have been to this Carousel more than once. On one particular trip, with my Aunt Joyce, we rode the horses on a sunny spring day. It was a delight to ride with this lively 70-ish lady, both of us enjoying the thrill of the ride. And yes, we had loved ones waving at us, cheering us on. This time, it was my daughter who waved at us as we galloped past. Joyce and I, along with her friend Jackie, later went together to the Kemah Boardwalk near Seabrook, Texas and posed in front of their Carousel ride.

Joyce and Judy at Kemah

My friend Hiram carves authentic replicas of Carousel horses from a time long past. He researches and carefully crafts his life-sized equines and has brought joy and delight to those who have seen them.  

Hiram's carousel carving won a
blue ribbon at the State Fair of Texas

A sense of beauty and nostalgia lives in our memories of those old Carousel rides and their majestic animals. But I think for me, it isn’t just about the horses, about their beautiful carved detail. The music was fun, but that too is not very important. The memory for me is tied up in a single concept: encouragement.

Without the encouragement of our loved ones, where would we be? We might accomplish great things, but why would it matter if we did it alone? Every significant moment in my life has been tied to memories of those who love me. Whether they cheered me on as I rode the Carousel, or played in the high school band, or won an award, the significance of the moment was linked to having a network of support.

My parents were always faithful cheerleaders for my sister and me. I had teachers who believed in me and offered their encouragement. Friends throughout the years have been my staunch supporters, and numerous extended family members have continuously cheered me on as well—not because I was developing a cure for cancer or any vast accomplishment, but because they thought I was a person of significance and wanted me to know they supported me. My children are some of my biggest encouragers today.

Who are the people who enthusiastically wave at you as you gallop past on your Carousel? And can you be the person circling the Carousel platform who waves without abandon when your loved ones ride by? These are memory-making moments, maybe even life-changing ones; don’t let them get away. 

A Mommy Remembers

Mother’s Day brings a rush of memories about our mothers. We hear about the significant roles they play and the way they impact our lives. While I have infinite stories I could tell about my own precious mom, I decided to share instead about my role as a mother to my two children.

There is absolutely no way a woman can ever understand motherhood until it happens to her. And even once she holds that tiny bundle in her arms, she still finds that she cannot find words to adequately define the flood of emotions that hijack her heart.

My experience with motherhood began when I was a very young twenty-two year old. I was not quite two years into my marriage when we welcomed our first child into the family. During the pregnancy, I grew not only physically larger but more and more excited about the upcoming role of motherhood I would play. That’s how I saw it—a role I would play. It was all still a fantasy to me about how the day-to-day mothering would happen. Being a good Girl Scout who always wanted to be prepared, I had read books: yet I felt unprepared and frightened. Simultaneously I felt excited by the adventure.

After a fourteen-hour labor and enough drugs to keep me from being fully present during the birth, I delivered a son instead of the daughter I had assumed we would have. It wasn’t that I preferred one sex or the other—I just expected it would be a girl. But a boy! That was a totally unexpected emotion. I was pretty clueless about raising any sort of child, but a boy was a mystery to me, and the skills to raise one not anywhere in my repertoire.

I didn’t get to see my baby boy immediately, but when the nurse placed him in my arms there was that immediate surge of mother-love that surpasses any kind of explanation. I just gazed at him with wonder, and with a love so deep and eternal that it defied all understanding.

With each passing day with my little boy, I loved him more fiercely. I admired all the things he learned to do, basking in the perfection of his little mind, the expressions on his face that changed minute by minute, how physically beautiful he was. His endearing personality and his desire to please us made him such an ideal child that I honestly thought I might never have another baby because how could I possibly love another as much as I loved him?

Then the time came that we decided to have another child. I still felt fearful that I would not love the next baby as much as I loved my son, but I was assured by more experienced mothers that it would not happen that way. So I trusted their wisdom as I awaited the new baby.

This time, even though the labor was equally long and hard, I was fully awake and present for the birth, and my little daughter was placed on my chest immediately. I still vividly remember the look on her tiny face as she opened her big brown eyes and gazed into mine with a look of absolute and certain recognition. Without words, her expressive eyes told me, “So that’s what you look like, Mommy!” It was an incredible moment.

All my fears vanished in the hours and days to come as I held this new baby who looked and acted very different from the first, yet already had captured my heart in her tiny fist. My love for her was equally as fierce and undivided as what I had felt for her brother.

My baby girl was quieter than her brother, more uncertain in her world. She just needed more time to process things and get comfortable with what was going on, but given time she eased comfortably into new situations. As bright as her brother, she demonstrated very early that she was not only smart, but had an innate kindness and sensitivity toward others. She was physically beautiful too, and had a delightful sense of humor. Like her brother, she became an absolute joy to us.

Through all their growing years, my children delighted me. I can’t say with honesty that they never exasperated me or caused me pain, but my overriding emotions were gratitude and awe that God had given me these two special creatures to raise and nurture. It never stopped being a job that was humbling, gratifying and terrifying, all at the same time.

I watched these little ones grow more capable, gain more understanding, become more compassionate, find their creativity, learn how to treat people, and discover who God created them to be. It was a wild, exhilarating ride for this mother. Their achievements and accomplishments were even more gratifying to me than if they had been my own. I physically ached when they were hurt or sick. My heart felt broken when they experienced their own heartaches. I would have stood on the tracks facing an oncoming train for them if that had been necessary.

When they each left for college, there was an unfamiliar tug on my heart. Part gladness and pride, part painful separation. I watched in amazement from a distance as they navigated the adult waters of college and swam successfully to the other shore.

In the years following college, they each found true love and married. Another wrenching—not because I did not want them to be happily married or because I disapproved of their choices. It was just another change in the relationship that took them to a new place and put me in a different supporting role. 

As our relationships now are adult-to-adult, I bask in the friendship between my children and me. I will always be their mother, and they will probably always—at least until I lose my mind!—look to me for answers and wisdom. But the fun and gratification of conversing and interacting with them as the best of friends is priceless.

How blessed I am!

My story is not your story. Every woman is not called to motherhood nor given the gift of children. And truthfully, while being a mother was always most important to me, it is not the only way God has used me. He has developed gifts in me apart from those required to nurture two children. Therefore I would never want to suggest that women are not fulfilled or complete or adequate apart from motherhood. This is simply my story.

The role I auditioned for in the beginning turned out to be a much more key part than I ever imagined. After a long run on stage, I stepped back into more of a supporting role. There is no Tony award for my work, but the rewards are worth far more than anything else I ever wanted to do with my life. My children and the way they bless and serve others—the way they give glory to the Lord Who made them—is my Tony award.

International Children's Book Day

The radio announcer commented this morning on my drive to work that April 2 is “International Children’s Book Day.” Even though I have never heard of this holiday, I am willing to take off work to celebrate it! (But my boss probably would not be as eager to commemorate this special day, so I will forge ahead with my day on the job and just celebrate on the inside.)

Such a day does bring a nostalgia for some of the books I loved as a child. I am not certain I can name a favorite, but here are the ones that come to mind ~

Earliest memories are of the Little Golden Books (yes, they had those in my day!). Cinderella was a favorite; what little girl doesn’t dream of getting to dance with a Prince who comes back to claim her from her life of misery? When my daughter went for summer visits with my parents, she would do household chores to help out. She and her Maw-Maw had a joke about the times she swept the porch and thought she was Cinderella.

Little Red Riding Hood was another Golden Book favorite of mine . . . although I could never fathom how Red could have possibly not seen that the wolf in her grandmother’s bed did not resemble her Granny in the slightest. Even to a child, that was obvious. I always assured myself that if that happened to me, I would know the difference!

I also had Goldilocks and the Three Bears and the Poky Little Puppy. But one of my favorites was The Three Little Kittens. My parents and sister read me the books until I learned to read on my own, and the images in those books are seared into my memory.

As a child, I inherited beautifully illustrated copies of Little Brown Koko and Little Black Sambo. I never knew they were not politically correct. I just knew that I loved the sweet innocent face of Koko, and could always identify with his exploits of mischief. Reading the book now, I can understand that the stereotypes of Black people in the book would be offensive, but at the time, I just loved it as a sweet, endearing story with memorable characters.

I don’t remember as much about the Sambo book except when the tigers chased each other around the tree until they melted into a river of butter. As with many of the books for children, this one had some good character-building lessons.

We didn’t own a lot of books, so I read over and over the ones we did have. As I grew older, I read Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women many times. My sister owned several Nancy Drew books, and I read those multiple times as well.

My aunt Velma was once a school teacher in a one-room school in the Texas Panhandle as well as eastern New Mexico. She had accumulated some children’s books that she gave us, so I read The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew along with some other classic children’s novels . . . again, reading them over and over because of my voracious appetite for words!

When I grew into a teenager, my aunt Millie from down the street invited me to come to her house anytime to “borrow” books from her shelf. So I read stories of Eddie Rickenbacker, World War I flying ace, and other books about historical events. Until this time, I had to re-read our books at home or check them out from the school library. But in my teenage years we got a community public library, and I became a frequent visitor.

When my own children were born, books were some of their first possessions. We read to them and bought them not only the Golden Books but Dr. Seuss and Richard Scarry tales. They, too, grew up loving books. They were good students, which I attribute largely to becoming good readers at an early age.

Even today, I love reading even more than I love writing. I could probably count on one hand the number of days in the past year when I have not read at least a few pages from whatever book (or e-book) is close by. Reading books, for me, is like breathing. It is just something I do without planning to, and I feel deprived if I haven’t read something for pleasure that day. It is how I relax; it is my method of self-soothing.

Thus I celebrate today for two reasons: (1) today commemorates my Dad’s 103^rd birthday and (2) today is Children’s Book Day, which reminds me of where so many of us had our beginnings. We are who we are today, partly because we learned to love reading at an early age. Parents and grandparents, go read a book to a child! You will be making an investment in something that has no price tag.

Rotten Remnants

Yesterday brought about an opportunity to do something I would really rather not keep doing! But before I tell that story, I need to give some background information.

Last summer, on one of the hottest days of the season, I went with my sister after hours to the church office where she works. When we unlocked the door, we immediately caught a whiff of something unpleasant. We looked around the office and could not find anything in the trash that would give off such an offensive smell. So I went roaming through other parts of the building, and when I started downstairs to the children’s wing, I knew I was getting warmer. I opened the refrigerator in the small kitchen downstairs and stared at one lone object in the freezer: a long, rolled package of hamburger meat. The refrigerator had obviously quit working, and the meat had apparently been there for days, undetected. The plastic wrap was puffed up with an obvious bubble of putrid gas sealed inside, and looked ready to burst. The smell was one of the worst things I have ever encountered.

Like one facing a time bomb, I slowly backed away from the scene and backtracked to inform my sister that I had found the culprit. We brainstormed what to do, and having drawn the short straw, I eventually crept back down the stairs with an open trash bag in hand. Fearing that the bloated package would explode with little encouragement, I sneaked up on it, threw the bag over the meat and scooped it inside, quickly twisted the open end closed, and with my gag reflex working overtime, I hurried outside to the trash container and literally threw it inside. I was almost expecting to hear a huge explosion when it landed, as it felt very much as if I were disarming a bomb. The “de-scentsitizing” of that area of the church took a few days; and the memory of that horrible smell had finally been filed in the basement of my mind.

Until yesterday.

Again, my sister (cohort in crime) accompanied me to a neighbor’s house because we had volunteered to check on things in her absence. We had suspected on the previous trip to the house that something in her refrigerator had spoiled, so we came equipped with baking soda and a plan to clean out the offending object and do our good deed for the day. In and out in twenty minutes, tops. A rotten smell swept over us when we unlocked the back door. We opened the refrigerator and started pulling out things that appeared to be spoiled and throwing them into the trash bag. Soon, I realized that the things I pulled out were not really cold to the touch, and we suddenly grasped the awful truth that the fridge had bitten the dust! Opening the freezer confirmed it as a rush of putrid smells poured into our nostrils.

After gagging a few times, we put together a plan of action and began to haul all the ruined food out to the dumpster, washing out the slimy shelves and putting the empty food containers in the dishwasher. Six trash bags later, we unplugged the offending appliance and left a couple of bowls of baking soda inside to do battle with the smells. As we dragged ourselves home, we couldn’t help but think, “Why us? How did we get lucky enough to discover something this rotten twice in six months?”

We did manage to chuckle about it finally, but it took awhile for all the bad smells to leave our memories.

This morning, I was reading from a book that was a Christmas gift (Extravagant Grace—God’s Glory Displayed in our Weakness by Barbara Duguid) when I had an “aha” moment. The book speaks to John Newton’s writings about grace, and in this specific chapter, Barbara Duguid writes about how we often struggle with our own weaknesses, and may feel abandoned by God when we find we are not victorious over a continual, besetting sin. She proclaims that we ARE victors when we recognize our weaknesses, and admit that we are not able in our own power to defeat them. Please indulge me as I quote a few lines from the book:

“I am speaking here to . . . people who struggle repeatedly with sins that they think are beyond God’s reach . . . Although God did not create your struggle or tempt you to it, he has called you to walk with it. He has assigned it to you, and he loves you as he calls you to walk through it. He is not disgusted by you. There is no sin under the face of the sun that can surprise him or repel him from you. You are not the worst of the worst or more depraved than those who struggle with more socially acceptable sins such as gluttony, pride, or overachievement . . . The roots of sin in the heart are all the same, even if the outward workings of those sins vary immensely.” ¹

Your mind may not be making the leap with me, but what occurred to me as I read that passage this morning was that my heart is much like the rotten smell coming from that broken refrigerator yesterday. From the outside of the house, everything looked fine. The house was neat and trim, and when we stepped inside, everything was clean and in its proper place. Even the refrigerator looked perfectly functional and attractive from the outside. When we opened it and looked inside, however, the reality was obvious: something ugly and dirty, something smelly and foul, was hidden inside.

The same was true of the church building. We walked inside and the floors were clean, the carpet vacuumed, all appeared to be in good order. But going into that basement and opening the door to a refrigerator that was seemingly in good working order, the truth rushed at us that inside, something rotten was hiding.

Those of you who know me may think that to compare my heart to a pile of spoiled food is a ludicrous analogy. I appear to be a decent, good person, and you might argue that I am blowing things out of proportion. But I think if all of us truly examine our hearts, we know that there are things inside that are not pretty. Just one of many ugly things in my heart is pride. Sometimes I hide behind a know-it-all attitude because I am really insecure and recognize that I don’t know it all. But in some areas, I really am prideful about things I know or areas where I excel. And because there is a part of me that doesn’t like to be incompetent in ANY area, I tend to plump up those places where I shine to try to make myself look really capable and smart. Not only does it create a prideful spirit in me when I do that, but it hurts other people because I cause them to feel not so smart, or I alienate them because they recognize my boastfulness for what it is.

There is something rotten hiding inside all of us. The reason for writing this is neither to make us victims or martyrs nor to glorify our sins. Neither is my intention to have us feel defeated because we haven’t “arrived” yet in our struggles against the weak areas we all have. My purpose for such introspection is to point to the Scriptures for more understanding of how to deal with those imperfect areas of our lives.

In 2 Corinthians 12:9, the Apostle Paul writes, "But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.'  Just as Bill Wilson encouraged those Twelve Steppers long ago, there is victory for me in admitting where I am powerless. If I can admit to myself the areas where I am weak, the instances where I know I can’t do what God has asked me to do, and if I can honestly admit to others that I am a flawed human being, God can use my broken heart. He can do for me what I cannot do for myself. The walls of pride and self-sufficiency come down. The arrogance that causes me to act as if I know more than you do becomes a humility that does not wound you, but instead invites you into an honest, supportive dialogue rather than one in which we have to “one-up” each other in order to feel better about ourselves. We no longer have to hide in shame over the unlovely things we harbor in our hearts.

Jesus Christ addressed people like me who were smug in thinking they were “good people”: “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy—full of greed and self-indulgence! You blind Pharisee! First wash the inside of the cup and the dish, and then the outside will become clean, too.”  (Matthew 23:25)

Perhaps God had a purpose in allowing me those two nasty cleanup experiences. Lord, please don’t make me deal with another of those stinky messes again! As Br’er Rabbit said to Br’er Fox, “Please don’t throw me in that briar patch!”

But if a nasty cleanup job is my briar patch—if that’s what it takes for me to see the ugliness inside my heart that needs the ultimate cleansing—then I will do it. (I won’t like it, but I’ll do it.)

I think I get it, Lord. I am convicted of this prideful attitude, and I know that the only way I can be cleaned up is through your grace. But could you maybe teach me next time through some other method than a stinky refrigerator?

¹ Extravagant Grace, by Barbara Duguid, P&R Publishing, 2013, p. 152