Twelve Days of Christmas: Fourth Day

On the fourth day of Christmas, my True Lord gave to me…

Candy on a plate,

a decorated tree,

the mantle full of stockings,

and a manger with wise men three.

Twelve Days of Christmas: Third Day

On the third day of Christmas, my True Lord gave to me…

A decorated tree,

the mantle full of stockings,

and a manger with wise men three.

Death of a Friend

I got the call yesterday at noon.  Although reason says at some point in life this kind of call will come, still, you are never really ready.

Aneurysm…airlifted…nonresponsive…and finally, late last night…brain dead.

I got my first (and only) real job when I was about 22.  I started by working in a temporary secretarial position in the Payroll department at Tyson Foods, but soon applied for and was awarded a full-time position in the Casualty Claims department where Karen also worked.  She was not quite realistically old enough to be my mother, but because she had gray hair and had been working at Tyson forever, she was definitely a force to be reckoned with.  However, it soon became apparent that everyone loved her, and for good reason.  She was so much fun to be around.  It didn’t take long before I was hanging around her desk every day and counted her as a good friend.  Although I quit working for Tyson 12 years ago, Karen and I kept in touch.  I was on her bowling league team for many years.  I would visit her at the office on occasion, or go out to lunch.

Karen had a brain aneurysm Friday morning at work.  If memory serves me correctly, she started at Tyson when she was 16 years old.  Since last August I went to her 35-years-at-Tyson Foods-anniversary party, that would make her about 52 years old yesterday.  That party was the last time I saw her.  Still the same.  Wiry, gray hair.  Quick smile.  Surrounded by friends.  Way too young and full of life to be gone.

I have no idea how death of any kind works, much less an aneurysm.  Did she feel bad?  Did she have a headache?  Or did she simply feel like herself until the moment where she felt no more?  All I really know is how it didn’t happen.  Surely she didn’t get up yesterday morning and say “Finally, it’s Friday.  I’m going to go to work now.  Bye, honey, don’t wait up for me.  I won’t see you tonight for supper.”

Because it never works like that.

I will miss my friend.  Many, many other people will miss her even more than I will.  But I am simply reminded today of how fleeting life is.  We wake up and have a schedule.  We have our to-do lists.  We have our calendars.  But for all of our plans, we are not guaranteed any more than this moment.  Life is gone in a breath.

Thank you, Karen, for being you.  Thank you for being my friend.  Thank you for reminding me that time is precious.  I’ll give my kiddos a hug for you until we see each other again.

                                                   

December 2011

Twelve Days of Christmas: Second Day

On the second day of Christmas, my True Lord gave to me…

The mantle full of stockings,

and a manger with wise men three.

Twelve Days of Christmas: First Day

On the first day of Christmas, my True Lord gave to me…

A manger with wise men three.

Merry Christmas 2011 from the Tollett Family

I have made my lists, checked them twice (times about 200), and am busy marking them off as fast as I can go.  With the lights already up, most of the presents already wrapped and family Christmas movies in the Netflix queue, I am determined to have a more leisurely and memorable holiday than in recent years past!

This year has been a time of adjustment for our family.  The winds of change are in the air and I can’t quite decide if they are a refreshing breeze or an ominous cyclone.  Tyler is 12 and has started middle school, making the great leap from “elementary” to “secondary”.  He has a locker, a rotating class schedule, and a cell phone.  He can eat from the ala carte menu at lunch (meaning junk food instead of trays) and no longer has to go to car line to be picked up after school (hence the cell phone).  Tyler is still involved in football and basketball, but he has also started playing trumpet in the band, joined Student Leadership Club and participates in Motion (a singing/dancing/Stomp-style choreography group with the goal of reaching other kids for Jesus).  Tyler’s favorite pastimes are making stop-action videos with his Star Wars Legos and playing any game with a shoot-em-up military theme.  (For Halloween, he was a zombie army man with a bloody face holding a homemade cardboard-tube-and-duct tape rifle he learned to make by watching a You-Tube how-to video…enough said!)

Emily is 9 and in the fourth grade and Lauren is 7 and in the second grade, but I swear they are both going on about 15!  I had “the talk” with Emily this summer and Lauren’s may possibly be this coming soon due to her sole desire of “finding a husband, getting married and having babies just like me!”   (As long as it is in that order, though, I guess I can’t really complain…)  They are starting to wear bras and deodorant, and managed to talk Grandma into shaving their legs once when I wasn’t around.  (Wes closes his eyes and ears and concentrates really hard on not noticing.)  But they are both good girls with their unique and quirky personalities.  Emily is our little artist, book reader, and the one who stops by the piano even when it isn’t “practice time” and plays just for fun.  She loves to look nice but in a very safe and conservative (meaning matching) way.  Lauren is the tomboy cut-up who is always making us laugh by shaking her rear or making faces when she isn’t scowling about something that has made her mad.  She loves dressing up in her own stylish and flamboyant (meaning sassy) way. They both still take gymnastics and sing in the church choir and are pretty good friends with each other when they aren’t arguing over whose turn it is for something.

Hannah is 4 and just started 2-day, 3-year-old pre-kindergarten.  (Try saying that five times fast).  I thought she would love the social interaction, but turns out she hated it.  Or just hated Spanish class—we never quite figured that one out.  Hannah has since adjusted fairly well (meaning she doesn’t break down into sobbing hysterics anymore) but she still doesn’t look forward to “school days”.  She is still our most difficult personality, the hardest one to break, and the one requiring the most frequent discipline.  But her “poosie” curls, her blue eyes and her “I love you’s” go a long way toward easing the frequent “no’s” (usually earning her a spanking) and “that didn’t hurt” (that sometimes follows the spanking).  I’m not sure who Hannah will take after the most as far as fashion, but she looked at herself the other day, declared she “looked dumb” in her outfit and wanted something else to wear…so it is without question that she has a definite mind of her own!  Hannah is also taking gymnastics, is a very good singer, and shows interest in the piano.  She loves to paint, play on the computer and watch countless hours of Netflix-streamed Blues Clues, Backyardigans and Pink Panther when she isn’t trailing me around asking me to play a riveting game of Sorry or Candy Land.

Penny is our newest addition to the family.  She is a Boston terrier who was born December 15, 2010.  We got her the night before the huge snowstorm came through last year in February as a surprise Valentine present for the kids.  Penny is a great dog…she housetrained exceptionally well and has a great personality.  She loves to go in the van to get the kids from school and gets extremely excited when anyone comes to the door.  Her only real vice is trailing around my feet in the kitchen and waking Wes up at 4 AM each morning to go out and play.  I get around the first by throwing treats into the living room to distract her from the food smells; Wes got around the second by allowing her to sleep with Tyler instead!

Wes is doing well.  He has had only minor sports injuries this year (Lauren took the fall instead with a broken arm in May) and continues to play basketball at lunch.  Wes coached his last season of football for Tyler this fall (next year is junior high team) and is starting his last coaching season of basketball.  It would be a very sad day indeed contemplating “coaching retirement”, except that Lauren is playing a bit of basketball herself so Wes has volunteered to help coach her team as well.  I would be worried about the gender shift, but he has plenty of experience with whining and crying girls here at home so he should be just fine.

I am staying very busy with my volunteer missions work.  Our church has a goal of sending 1000 people on a cross-cultural missions experience this year to over 15 different locations, and I am heading up the training and sending of those who choose to go to Malawi, Africa.  I have even managed to coax Wes into the madness; he has agreed to go with me on one of the March journeys to see just exactly what grabbed my heart almost two years ago.  Although this year will be a lot of work, I am looking forward to it and am so excited God chose me to be a part of this ministry.

I hope your families are also doing well this holiday season and that most importantly, you are able to take the time to make the memories count.  Have a very Merry Christmas, a happy New Year and peace and love all year!

Wesley, Beth, Tyler, Emily, Lauren and Hannah Tollett

Give Thanks

This is the day/week/month that most of us stop and reflect on all of the things we are thankful for.  I thought about a 10-item countdown, a miniature version of the 30-day Facebook countdown many have been working on all month.  But in the end I decided to just write about the handful of things that have been heavy on my heart of late.

I am thankful for…

-       A God who loves me more than I can imagine even on days (or weeks) that I barely acknowledge Him.  It is so easy to get caught up in the noisy demands of our day-to-day schedules that God can seem very far away and Heaven a distant dream.  But God is real.  His love is real.  His sacrifice for us is real.  And the relationship He longs for us to make time for is the realest kind of bond we could ever make with anyone.  I am grateful that God pursues me relentlessly in spite of my indifference and offers me the chance to experience that kind of love.

-        The comforts and provisions that I usually take for granted.  I reluctantly went to the store the other evening.  It was damp and foggy, yet because of the many lights in the parking lot and the bustle of people doing their holiday shopping, it felt almost like mid-afternoon.  I suddenly thought of my Malawian friends, sitting in the dark in the brick and straw huts of their villages when the sun goes down, no large convenience store to shop at, no fussy holiday preparations to make.  As I reflected on what it would feel like if that life were my reality, my step slowed, my countenance relaxed and I was even able to navigate the crowded aisles with patience and grace.

-        The current ministry job that I am allowed to take part in.  Without a doubt, God called me to go to Africa in March of 2010.  At the time I had no idea why and for months afterward I chafed that I could not be over there to help fill the many needs I had seen.  What I didn’t realize was that I was going to be allowed to fill an important role of service here, helping to train teams and coordinate Malawi journeys to engage many other people in service.  Although it is a constant learning and stretching for me personally and I fight inadequacy in my role, I love the job I have been called to do.  I am humbly grateful that God chose me and I answered with an obedient yes.

-        My family.  I often feel like I miss the mark on being a very good wife and mother, but yet I am grateful for the opportunity to try.  Even through the repetition of the tedious daily tasks, I have an important role to fill.  My children are my legacy.  As I learned (good and bad) from my own parents, so they will learn from me.  How to live life, how to love, how to feel about themselves, how to view the world and how to incorporate God into their lives.  The task can be overwhelming and thankless, but it is awesome and rewarding as well.  And it is a task that has been entrusted to me.

I am thankful.  Help me to always be thankful.

This day and every day.

Thanksgiving 2011