Smucker - Sunlight through dusty windows: the Dorcas Smucker reader

SUNLIGHT THROUGH DUSTY WINDOWS

Copyright 2017 by Good Books

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

ISBN: 978-1-68099-307-3

e-ISBN: 978-1-68099-308-0

Cover photograph by iStock

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Family Life in a Farmhouse

More Family Life in a Farmhouse

Acknowledgments

Thank you to the Register-Guard for your support and for carrying my column for 17 years.

Special thanks to my family for all the love, laughs, and patience, and for letting me write our stories.

Ordinary Days

Table of Contents

Introduction

M y relatives were wonderful storytellers. Fertsayluh they called it in Pennsylvania Germanthe art of spinning tales and of seeing the quirky and unusual in the most ordinary events.

At family reunions, my Aunt Vina would mesmerize us with stories of how Grandma cured warts or the time the cat ate the dishrag. Even if we had heard the story a dozen times before, we always savored that same delicious waiting as the story progressed and anticipated that expertly timed ending when the room exploded in laughter.

I dont fertsayle much at family gatherings, but I like to think that I learned from my relatives to see the profound and the humorous in simple things. I have many opportunities to do so, living with a husband and six children in a 95-year-old farmhouse in Oregons Willamette Valley.

This book is a collection of stories about our lives, telling of simple blessings and ordinary days. Many of these stories refer to our five children. After this book was written, we welcomed a sixth child into our family: Steven, an active, imaginative, 10-year-old boy from Kenya.

These essays do not appear in chronological order, and they are meant to be sipped one at a time like a mid-morning cup of tea, rather than devoured in one sitting like Thanksgiving dinner. I hope they will echo in your own life, reminding you of family times, lessons learned, and Gods loving touch on all of us.

Family

Expecting the Unexpected

O ne of the first things I noticed about my friends house, when I stopped in last Christmas, was that her Nativity set looked like it hadnt moved an inch from where she first set it weeks before. This friend, I should add, doesnt have children.

I have five children and, at my house, I never knew what my Nativity set would be doing when I walked into the living room. Sometimes I found Joseph and the shepherds lying on their backs because 1-year-old Jenny thought they needed to go night-night. At other times, Ive found my 10-year-old using the figures to act out the Christmas story, with Mary pinch-hitting as a wise man and riding off on the camel.

I cant help but compare my friends life, with its order and routine, to mine, with its constant unpredictability.

When our first child was born, I didnt know what to expect in my new role as a mom. Fifteen years and four more children later, I still dont. This was a journey into the unknown, with unexpected curves in the road and surprises around each corner. Motherhood keeps me guessing, always a bit off balance, braced for a twist in the plot when things appear most predictable.

For one thing, I am often amazed at how much it hurts to be a mom, from the pain of childbirth to the sick, bottomless ache when a child is lost. Even more, I am stunned by the joywhen I hold each child for the first time, when the lost ones are found, when I get a hug from a difficult child when I least expect it.

Another unexpected twist is the questions. I always knew that young children ask a lot of questions. What I didnt expect was when, where, and on what subjects. The most startling ones were hissed in my ear when I was absorbed in the sermon at church.

Mom! Do you have a baby in your tummy or are you just fat?

Did you know the Blackbird airplane flies so high that the pilots have to wear space suits?

In addition, there are what I call Clear Blue Sky questions, which pop out with no preliminaries.

Did we go opposite of the other people?

How does Becky hold carrots?

Whats that stuff beside the other stuff?

Appearing out of nowhere, these questions make me dizzy, and I end up asking 10 or 15 questions myself before I figure out what theyre talking about.

As a mom, my plans seldom work out like I think they will. My fear of snakes and crawly things is, I believe, a learned phobia, and I was determined not to pass it on to my children. So I let them read National Geographic books with explicit photographs of snakes and even took them through the reptile house at the zoo. Oh, look at the pretty snakes, I gushed, and tried not to let them see me shudder.

I was successful: none of my children is afraid of snakes. But I was much more successful than I planned to be. Matt wants a snake for a pet, and Emily sits in the garden and drapes earthworms over her hands. One day, when the baby was fussy, Amy gave her a rubber snake to chew on. I turned around and there she was, blissfully gnawing. I gasped, horrified, and thought, This wasnt what I had in mind at all. All I wanted was for them not to be afraid to walk through tall grass.

My family, I found, doesnt fit into the experts easy models. Discipline, according to the books, is supposed to fit a formula: clear instruction plus logical consequences would equal disciplined kids and satisfied parents. One spring I bought an expensive rainbow-colored stamp pad for making greeting cards. I knew my daughters would want to use it, so I gave them clear instructions.

You can use this, but when youre finished you always slide this little knob over here so the colors dont run together, and you always put the cover back on so it doesnt dry out. Do you understand?

They understood.

A few days later, I stopped by my rubber-stamp desk and there was my new stamp pad, cover off, colors bleeding together. Nine-year-old Emily was the culprit, I soon found out.

Do you realize how much I paid for this thing? I ranted. And I told you to take care of it, and you didnt, so you wont be allowed to use it anymore.

Emily looked at me with big, blue, tear-filled eyes. Im sorry, Mom. Then she added softly, I used it to make a Mothers Day card for you.

Then there was the day when I had four children under nine years old and we were all having a bad day. Everyone was grouchy and uncooperative. Nothing I did seemed to change things, so, even though I knew better, I tried to fall back on guilt.

I feel like quitting! I announced dramatically. Nobody likes me. Nobody listens to me. Maybe I should just quit and let someone else be your mom.