Nous Sommes Sept

I always thought it was interesting that in the french language you introduce your family by saying, “dans ma famille, nous sommes…” Literally translated it means, “in my family, we are…”

I keep referring to the five of us because for a long time that’s all this house knew. Boring old (in this case we are talking redundant and are not trying to qualify age, though we could also build an argument for the latter) Mom and Dad and then the three kids. Plus there is the approximate 7 feet of white picket fence tacked on in front of the garden because Dad promised Mom such grandiose things in his proposal and the man is good on his word.

That was us. We were five. Number six came along when my brother made one of the best decisions of his life ever and married one of the best things to ever happen to him. Her name is Stephanie. I’ll tell you more about her later, but for now I inform you of her existence for the sake of setting the stage for the first “scrap in a box.”

News of Number Seven came along this past Christmas and we were ecstatic, sure that this would be one of the best things to happen to us ever. Exciting as it were, I knew to be looking out for that particular announcement. What I wasn’t prepared for was to come down the stairs on March 6, 2010 and find this sight:

Further inspection revealed this:

Confirmation from the baby himself (and his parents’ loving gesture) that it was, indeed, a boy. To be named Truett after my Mom’s dad– who died when she was in college. Also because it’s a sweet name, if I do say so with my biased self.

So in a nutshell, this scrap tells the story of the precious time we spent anticipating another.

Dans ma famille, nous sommes sept.

Scraps of a Story

I’ve introduced a couple– the couple– of persons on 4 Beeson Ct. But the tagline promises a discussion of persons, places and things.

By things I mean scraps. And by scraps I mean memories. And by memories I mean little pieces of life my Mom put away for safe keeping.

What scares me is the location chosen for said “safe keeping.”

Are you with me?

But, hey, it’s not like my Mom hasn’t spent her time raising 3 kids and marrying one off and working at a hospital and giving her time to others. So this really is not about shaming her for the storage system. I am, above all, glad they are saved. It’s the closest anyone in my family has come to living up to my sentimental standards

Clearly, though, these pieces of our family history will not be contained by the 80′s-colored baskets much longer. Nor should they have to rest there– among our vases and linens in the secluded laundry room. Yes, these scraps are getting a new home, too. As they move in, I’ll do my best to tell their stories– our story. Thank you for caring to listen.

And So It Begins

I received a text from my Mom on Tuesday.

It sort of shocked me.

In a “this is really happening” sort of way, more than anything. And in that way, a “this is sort of sad” kind of thing. But then my Mom attached this jewel:

“And so it begins… or should I say Bekins.”

While Mom is always good for a laugh, I should warn you– this is not her humor. What you see there (the really corny, cheesy kind) is the direct result of being married to my Dad for exactly 30 years. There are many more advantageous correlations, I assure you.

Matter of a fact, though I credited my Dad as being the beginning of “us” in my last post, Mom coming into the picture is when we really began. In more ways than one, he couldn’t have done it without her. If the man– his character, his integrity, his discernment– set the bar for this family, then his choice of my Mom for a wife reveals just how high he was aiming.

To us she is baby, Trudy, cruvy, honey, tutu and fro-no-mo. Of course, we also call her Mom, but that title– almost like my Dad’s professional titles– doesn’t begin to really cover her role. Or the amount of fun we have with her. Oddly enough, the use of these nicknames should really convey the amount of respect we have for her. Trust me, if she didn’t want us calling her these things, we wouldn’t be. a.) because she demands of us a certain amount of consideration and respect for her and others that we would not just slide by without showing and b.) because something about Trudy Susan Nash Smith makes you decide early on that this is a woman you want to keep happy.

NOT for fear of the consequences if she weren’t, but she is the friend, wife, Mom, daughter, sister, and aunt you want to make happy because of how she counsels, teaches, loves, prays, and leads. Because of the irreplaceable role she plays in anyone’s life lucky enough to have her. I don’t say that just to sugarcoat it. That wouldn’t be her style, the sugarcoating. She’s a “say what you mean, mean what you say” kind of woman– a real inspiration to this daughter who scarcely inherited her mother’s personality.

She is strong. Really.

Exhibit A? Her first reaction to moving to Fayetteville was to assure Dad that she wouldn’t let resentment build up for having to move away from her home of 21 years– instead she’d paint it in her mind as this wonderful adventure, embarking on empty nest 2.0 (the phase when kids are done awkwardly coming home to live intermittently), just the two of them.

Then he asked her if she really meant that or if she was grasping at air to find a way to “get happy” about it.

She advised him not to ruin it.

She is a nurse by trade, a caregiver by nature. Calm in the face of mothers worried sick about their kids as they go through pre-op. Patient with the parents hysterical with fear when they see their babies in post-op. Reliable to friends and family whose bedsides she sits herself next to out of love, not occupational obligation. Strong for the friends and family they leave behind.

She is a giver. She thinks of the perfect gifts and the recipients that need them the most. In the face of offense, she developed compassion, not bitterness. She, like my Dad, believes in the God whose gift of mercy is most perfectly embodied in Christ. So desperately has she sought that mercy, so she began to show it herself. Mercy is defined by Merriam-Webster as “a blessing that is an act of divine favor or compassion.” Many describe Mom as exactly that.

Exhibit B: Around the time Mom was most inundated with sharing the grief of friends losing loved ones– of losing friends herself– her best friends moved away. Just another one of those things that happens; just another thing to bear. It so happened that my best friends were the daughters of her friends moved off, so I, too, felt alone. Having the self-confidence of a 7th grade clam didn’t help along the prospects of laugh-out-loud, share-your-soul sort of friends. But there was Mom. We giggled and we cried– tears were shed in both occasions. No need for loneliness. Years later, when by a miracle I did have new, great as well as vibrant, old friendships, they were all the better for having my relationship with my Mom to model.

You see she does so much, has given so much of herself (so much of this house!) to see other people through that you just don’t feel right when she isn’t happy. It applies to the little things– if she weren’t happy with us calling her “baby”, we just simply wouldn’t be– as well as the big. So when she says she’s getting happy about the move, then by golly, the rest of us will get happy, too.

And when she sends a text captioned “and so it begins,” we are– if not physically, then in spirit– right behind her.

(Then she sent me this text and I nearly gagged and thanked the good Lord for bringing me 1000 miles away for school: )

Us

I figure you’ll get an idea of who we are before all of this is over with. After all, it’s really the stories behind the pictures and pieces I’ll be sharing that make us us. At the same time I think a general introduction to the persons of 4 Beeson Ct. is in order. This is why there is a “persons” category of this archive.

We’ll begin where it began.

Dad. At least, that’s who he is to me. He is also Chris E. Smith, M.D., Medical Director of the PULSE Center, Associate Medical Director of ACH, and Vice Chairman for Education, Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Director of Hospitalist Service, UAMS College of Medicine Department of Pediatrics. But I just had to google him to come up with that correct list of titles. I admire the understanding, patience, and humility that goes into the way he does his job and does it well. I appreciate the dedication that goes into 21 years of investing in one hospital. I am proud of his accomplishments, this much is sure.

But to this family he is so much more than those titles could begin to cover. And to this daughter filled with admiration and pride, my Dad has never let on how important he really is. Why? Because he doesn’t buy into it himself. Recognition hasn’t ever really been his thing.  He’s happy to be a respectable, reliable, encouraging worker. So what I recognize in him is not the hours he’s toiled at the office or patients he’s struggled to treat, though that’s certainly there. I don’t see the titles or positions. I see the caring person behind it all. I see the man honest enough to admit, “sometimes I’m more confident in what God can do with what all I don’t know than I am in my own ability to do what little I do know.” I see my Dad.

He is the reason we’re moving, true. But who he is is the reason we’d do anything to support his every move– boxes or no boxes. Because he’s been nothing less than supportive at each step (and perhaps more importantly, through every misstep) of this growing up process.

Before this blog goes any further– before I let you in on anything more that I have, that I love, that I hope for– it should be said that if all I had was that support, character and example of my Dad and the relationship he has committed to every member of my family, I’d still consider myself blessed beyond what many know, beyond what I deserve.

If there is anything desirable in the posts that follow, know this: I don’t treasure these things. And I wouldn’t know most of it if it weren’t first for the man born of James Erle and Joyce Simpson, who took a bride named Trudy, who established a home of communication and laughter, who never set his own achievements at its foundation, who worked diligently and with integrity, who gave grace and discernment a human face, who modeled a faith in God that led us all through the reality of the joys and sorrows represented in the little boxes of materials I’m archiving, and whose existence and example led me to choose that faith for myself.

I do treasure that. I treasure the experiences behind these documents and within these walls and between these people.

I cherish Dad.

The beginning of us.

Dear Owner,

In childhood, we press our nose to the pane, looking out. In memories of childhood, we press our nose to the pane, looking in. –Robert Brault

I remember being the kid Robert Brault is talking about. I was 6 and had the chicken pox and had to look out at all of the neighborhood kids playing in the once-every-five-years snowfall. “If I had my way,” I thought, “I’d be out there… I could do whatever I want.”

Well, here I am. On the other side of that front door, 1000 miles away, I’m making a new home for myself. But home? Well, it’ll always be associated with the house in which you now live. Since it would be creepy for me to return in the years to come and literally press my nose to the panes, I’m taking this opportunity in the months leading up to our move to do so metaphorically. Besides, even if I did actually sneak a peek in the house in the future, I wouldn’t see the life I’d hope to find. I’d see yours.

So what is to become of mine? The life, the past that’s spent 21 years feeling right at home within those four walls, behind that door marked “4″?

I’m making a place for it right here. This is the pane I’ll press my nose to in the years to come when I want to remember. And I will want to remember, because it’s been an amazing run. I also want you to know. I don’t like the idea of leaving you a “manual.” I can’t give you limits and instructions for the way you go about pumping life through the frames and across the floors. It’s yours now, and I’m glad for you to have it.

But you should know. When you’re lying still at night I hope you can almost hear the laughter the five of us let spill out well into the morning hours. Before you paint the walls your own fancy, warm colors I hope you can almost see the words we children scribbled in permanent marker surface. When you hang your coat in the closet under the stairs, I think you might come close to seeing the fort we created annually at Christmastime. When you’re conversing in the master bathroom on Sunday mornings, you should know that the kids can hear you from the hall bathroom. The window in the back that opens to the roof is ideal for jumping from the second story to a ground floor trampoline, so look out for that. When you’re having tough conversations, the stain of tears shed over lost friends and financial woes and relationship difficulties might keep you company in the sunroom.

We screened that room in. We decorated the garage like a lighthouse and Mom diligently led a bible study and cooked for what became a group of around 40 kids every Tuesday morning. Every room in the place has been painted or papered over at least once. It is a wonder Dad’s hands haven’t turned to grout and spackle, since it seems he’s always working with it. We’ve gone through approximately 15 telephones, 7 computers, 8 cars, 3 living room tvs, and 2 dining room tables. That’s 21 Thanksgivings, Christmases, birthdays (x5), and Easters.

We moved into this house when I was 3 months old. So all of it amounts to, quite literally, a childhood.

You should know I love the creak at the top of the stairs, that all-too-thin wall between my bedroom and my parents’, the sound of the rain on the skylights, the permanent fog in the windows. You should know as you make it all yours that it was once ours. And we loved it.

Really, though, we loved each other. We’ll undoubtedly take that with us. But I honestly hope some of it stays in the nooks and crannies. Because I can’t take those with me and I’d like to think we aren’t leaving them the same.

The persons, places, and things behind the “4″ on Beeson Ct. brought me a childhood of security, comfort, and happiness that I wish for your experience more than you know. Herein lies my attempt to document the move and archive the memories.

The rest is all yours.

Love,

Sadie