My brother, Terrell,  over at Alone on a Limb has re-told an exciting and frightening true family story - “Baptism By Water and Fire” - from my father’s childhood.  Terrell re-tells the story to commemorate today - the 20th anniversary of my father’s death.  It’s worth a trip over to read the story and see the old photos.  Thanks, Terry! 

I won’t write another lengthy post about today - the 20th anniversary of my father’s death - but instead I will point you toward’s last year’s post which was entitled “November 22nd, September 11th…and for me, December 3rd.”

If interested, you can also read the following posts about my father, a wonderful and great man:

May 21, 1919

The Twentieth Thanksgiving

Dreaming of Daddy

Monday Memory: Sitting Under Daddy’s Wing

A Poem for my Father

That Thanksgiving Day twenty years ago is one I will never forget. My mother tells us that God’s grace was with our family that weekend because we did so many things right - not knowing that that Thanksgiving would forever be etched in our memories.

Twenty years ago, RT and I had just moved to Nashville, and we invited my whole family to spend the Thanksgiving weekend with us. I’m one of seven siblings - so it was no small event. There were about 25 people staying at our home for three days. My parents and all but one of my siblings, along with their own families, were here. Every bed was full, and we had people sleeping on the floors. We set up a meal schedule and a clean-up schedule.

The three days were packed. Besides all the family Thanksgiving activities, we visited the monthly Flea Market at the state fairgrounds and we attended the Grand Ole Opry. All the grandkids had a great time playing together.

Saturday morning came, my parents said their good-byes and started out of the driveway. My nephew, Andrew, stopped them. He’d just gotten a new camera and wanted to take some pictures. So Mother and Daddy pulled the car back up to the house, came back inside and posed for pictures. Everyone who had a camera took pictures. One photo is of Daddy sitting in a chair with Mother standing behind them, and with grandkids in their arms and clustered around them. When all the shutterbugs were fully satisfied, they left again amidst all the goodbyes and waves. Soon everyone else was also on their way back to their homes. That was Saturday morning.

The next Saturday, it was all over. Daddy died that Wednesday - sudden heart failure. One minute he was eating oatmeal with Mother and chatting about their Christmas plans, and the next minute he was dead. One Friday we were visiting the Flea Market and going to the Grand Ole Opry, and the next Friday we were gathering around his grave, weeping for the loss of our beloved father.

You never know which time will be the last time.

My younger sister, Debi, is celebrating her birthday today. Debi is two years younger than I am - which makes her . . . well, I won’t say.

My mother wrote about one of Debi’s early adventures here. And last year I wrote a birthday tribute to Debi here.

This photo of “Debi in a drawer” is indicative of our lives as children. Debi looks a little pitiful, but I think that’s the charm of the photo. There were seven children in our family - living on a preacher’s income. However, I don’t remember being poor at all. In fact, I remember a very rich and happy childhood. We had what we needed, and we had each other. Happy birthday, Debi!

Sweet Stuff and Sunshine went with us to Sunday School and church this morning.  Immediately after Sunday School, I took them to the ladies room where a friend of mine asked me, “What do the girls call you?  Grannie?  Grandma.”

Sweet Stuff looked at her with amazement and said, ”We call her Grandma Carol.  THAT is her name!”

This morning in church, our minister, Pastor Tom, sang a solo at the end of his sermon.  In his sermon he talked about how salvation isn’t just for getting a ticket to keep us out of hell.  It’s a ticket for a joyous life.  (I hope I didn’t butcher the main point too badly!) 

(Note added later:  Pastor Tom read this post and told me I had gotten the basic sermon idea, but he added: “Another point is that we are to serve because we love Christ and not use the gift offered in Him just as ticket.  In fact one without the other is useless. One cannot have a true abundance until we get a real glimspe of the intentional, circumstancial, and ultimate will of God found in and through Christ.”)

The song he sang was “His Eye Is On The Sparrow.”  Click the title if you’d like to hear the music and read the history of the song.

“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father…So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.” Matthew 10:29-31

The previous post told about a dream that my older sister had the other night.  The dream was about my father who died 20 years ago.  It provoked some interesting comments. 

My mother emailed our family the following:

I have no idea what, if anything, it means.  But it is interesting to me that I have dreamed about him several times in the last couple weeks.  It is good to see someone you love in a dream.

As I have mentioned , when I was a child I longed to dream about my “papa” and in recent years longed to dream about my husband.  Neither one kept me from living as we have to continue on when those we love, as someone said, “outruns us to the Father’s House.” 

Your dream about your Daddy is interesting in that I have had several very real dreams about him recently.  Strange…it happened several nights in a row…no specific conversation or anything except that he is really here.  I wake up and it is so real I am putting my hands on his side of the bed and when he is not there…thinking he must already be out of bed… Then It takes me a few seconds to get back to the reality that he has been gone nearly twenty years.

My mother told us about something that happened not long after her father died.  Her mother and father had been particularly close.  She remembers how tender they always were with each other - how they sat on the porch swing talking each evening.  Here’s what she told me:

Mama said she had hardly slept since he died and was crying one night…PAPA came back in a dream that seemed more like a vision and told her all about heaven. He told her about a beautiful hymn they were singing when he arrived in heaven. You have to know Mama was a Christian and was not the type to talk about visions.  Mama told me Papa sang the hymn to her and she thought it had the most beautiful lyrics and music she had ever heard. She said she sang it over and thought, “I will never forget it”. She said Papa then put his hands on her shoudlers and told her, “Now go to sleep and get some rest,” and then disappeared. She said she went to sleep with the feel of his hands on her shoulders and got the best night’s sleep she had had since he died. When she awoke the next morning, she could not remember a word of the hymn…only remembering it was the most beautiful hymn she had ever heard.

Dreams.  They’re quite a mystery.

I got an email from my older sister awhile ago.  Here’s what she wrote:

I rarely dream (or if I do, I don’t remember the dreams the next day). The ones I do remember afterwards are usually just jumbled stuff.

Last night, I had a short, very realistic, incredible dream about daddy. I don’t believe that I have ever dreamed about daddy before.  I want to put the details down on paper so that I won’t forget them!

I have no idea where I was, but I was sitting on a sofa; I looked up and daddy was walking around the back of the sofa to come around to where I was.  It was just incredibly real — he had on a white round neck undershirt with short white sleeves and plain pants, hair sort of messed up like he had just come inside — and smiling such a warm, understanding smile.  He held out his arms and sat beside me; I put my head on his shoulder and sobbed my heart out.  Then, he reluctantly said he had to go (but it was like he had done what he had come to do, but now had to leave). He patted my forehead with his wonderful hands that we all remember soothing our hurts, stood up and walked away.

Our father died almost twenty years ago - in December of 1986.  I remember dreaming of him not long after his death.  The dream was vivid and real.  I still remember it clearly.  My mother, whose father died when she was a child of 9, told me that when she was a child she would pray that she would dream of her father because she knew that was the only way she could see him again.

Reading about my sister’s dream brought tears to my eyes. It made me think about my own dream of our father.  Dreams are puzzling things. 

RT and I went camping Friday night. We camped at the building site for our new house - which is less than three miles from where we’re living now.

The air was crisp, the fire was warm, and the mood was relaxing. There is something about relaxing by a campfire and listening to the night sounds around me that makes me chill out. I could feel anxieties and worries literally draining away.

We have a routine for setting up camp. I set up the tent - a quick and easy job - while RT gathered firewood and got the campfire going. Friday night, since we didn’t have a hammer with us, RT came around to give the tent stakes a final boot-shove to make sure they were deep enough. Once the fire burned long enough to have a good bed of coals, we started dinner.

Dinner Friday night was hoppin’ john (black-eyed peas, mild Ro-tel, sliced turkey sausage). Hoppin’ john traditionally includes rice, but I forgot the rice and it was great without it. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten any camp food that wasn’t delicious. There’s just something about food that’s been cooked over a campfire that makes it wonderful.

After dinner we heated water so RT could have some hot chocolate and I could have my camomile tea. Then we just sat by the campfire talking, sipping our drinks and enjoying the peace and quiet. Comfortable. . . relaxing . . . soothing.

We’ve got our camping “sleep system” figured out. We have two twin-sized inflatable mattresses and a cordless pump. It takes me about a minute to inflate both mattresses. I’m careful not to inflate them too much so that they will be cushiony rather than hard. That’s the secret! The tent is small - and both mattresses side-by-side completely fill up the width of the tent. There’s still a foot or so of space at the foot of the mattresses for our other stuff. We put our sleeping bags and pillows on top of the air mattresses, and we’re good to go.

As it got later, the air got colder, but we were warm and snug and slept wonderfully. There is something about sleeping outside on a cold night in a tent. As long as the bed is comfortable, the sleep is deep and restoring.

Breakfast Saturday morning was bacon, eggs and biscuits. The bottom of the biscuits were burned black, but the tops were perfect.

Another fun camping trip in the books.

My baby - my precious Joey - is 28 years old today. Happy birthday, Joey! He was born at 3:50 p.m. on October 5, 1978. My, how the time flies past. Sunday evening we will have a family get-together to celebrate his birthday. He has asked me to bake a chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting. Yum! Can’t wait! Joey and his wife moved into a new home last week - and it’s only about 5 -10 minutes away from where RT and I live. I’m very excited about that! Click HERE to read last year’s post and see photos of my sweet baby boy.