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Many may recall the Character Camp post from nearly two years ago. This post is a continuation of that event. Nearly two years later, a bit of deja vu.

Prior to the Meloch family reunion in 2011, I spent a week going through the stuff in my parent’s basement and sorting it into keep, donate, and throw away piles. The week became infamously known as Character Camp. (Spending a week in a beautiful location, working the entire time to build some character.) The Manry clan, some of my siblings, various nieces, nephews, and Mom participated.

Mom was then and continues to be the most unwilling participant.

I offended many people with my bossiness and ‘get-rid-of-it-ness.’

Consider yourself blessed if you did not attend last time or this time.

For the last two years, my parent’s home has been unoccupied except for the occasional visitor. The house on Blue Lake is greatly loved, but it is not able to meet my parent’s need for care and so they must live somewhere else. The house goes up for sale today.

For Mom’s birthday this year, I sent Mom a ‘Good For’ a day of work in her garden when I came for their anniversary dinner. Mom has a small garden plot in the community garden where they live. I figured I’d spend the day shoveling compost and planting peas.

Regretfully, I didn’t specify which garden the day of work was ‘good for’.

When I called Mom on her birthday, she let me know that I would be digging up her roses from her Blue Lake garden and shipping them to myself as well as transplanting her perennials to my sister Marie’s garden. Also, my brother Mike wanted me to go through the items remaining on the main floor of the house and in the garden shed, and get Mom to decide what would be kept and what would be given away.

After the lovely anniversary dinner on Saturday and the family lunch on Sunday, Marie drove me out to the Lake and helped me get started with the sort. Marie had earlier gone through the kitchen cabinets and transported items being kept to their various locations. Mike and my brother-in-law Rich had started cleaning out the garage and Mike ordered a dumpster to be filled on Monday.

I began to sort the various books, knick-knacks, papers, junk drawers, clothing, bedding, large framed pictures, and towels still in the house. I went to sleep at 0130 with the call of the loon after Mom’s cubby hole of stuff overwhelmed me. Mom loves having a cubby hole to pile stuff (knitting, books, papers, cards, photos, light bulbs, vases, baskets, pens, paperwork, toys, gift wrap…) in.

The first thing she showed me in her new apartment was her new laundry room and the second thing was her new cubby hole.

I awoke with bird song and the sun rising over Blue Lake and got back to work.

My brother Rob had offered to help me on Sunday and Monday, but with an airport run and a nephew’s baseball practice, he didn’t get out to the Lake until Monday morning. I asked him time and again to make sure Mom was there at 0900, knowing that if she wasn’t there early, I wouldn’t be able to finish in time. I asked Mom repeatedly to schedule an aide to help Dad in the morning so she could leave right away.

At 0900, I received a text message from Mom: “Rob is having breakfast w dad in Atrium. We won’t be leaving here before 10 probably “No worries mate” :)

Most people who know me know I have a temper. It is sinful and I am not proud of it. When it flares, it flares. My kids describe it in levels. The maddest level is known as “Mom is mad angry.”

When I got that text, I was mad angry.

Once I had finished with the sort inside the house, I began pulling things out of the garden shed. At 1100, Mom arrived and came running over “It’s my fault, don’t be mad at Rob. I suggested the breakfast with Dad. I’m sorry. You have to forgive me. That’s what you tell your kids when someone apologizes.”

“I forgive you, Mom, but you still have to do what you are supposed to do,” I replied.

I went inside and told my younger brother to help me with the shed. He was focused instead on filling the dumpster. I then proceeded to get into a yelling match with my brother. It was as if 30 years had never passed and we were once again 16 and 14 years old having a sibling spat.

30 years trying to become more like Christ and in an instant, I’m right back at the start.

I stomped back outside, hauled the rest of the stuff out of the shed and began to dig out of the garden 10 rose bushes, 3 primroses, 2 daisies, 1 peony bush, lungwort, yarrow, and 1 cherry tree.

There’s nothing like fighting with a 10 year old rose bush that refuses to be moved to work out my frustration. These were huge old roses with enormous roots. The exhaustion of the task in 80 degree heat, got me level headed enough to apologize to my brother.

We ate a lovely lunch provided by Mom’s dear friend and a delicious cobbler provided by Mom’s neighbor.

Marie continued working inside getting Mom to make decisions and packing boxes. Rob filled the dumpster. At 1430, Marie and Rob left for the airport.

Mom was supposed to have driven Rob to the airport, but her punishment was to stay with me at the house and finish. She fought me every step of the way. She didn’t want to do it and tried every delaying tactic there was.

We boxed up the 84 pounds of roses and drove 25 minutes into town to ship them. Mom wanted to call it a day, but I refused. I told her she could drive back to Dad, but I was staying until the job was complete.

She decided to be as stubborn as me and ride it out. We went back to the house and I threw everything left (sorted or not) into the remaining bins and began jamming them into Marie’s van. Throughout this process Mom kept telling me to leave it and she would do it later.

“You’ve had 2 years to do it, Mom, and you haven’t. It has to be done. The house goes on the market in 11 days,” I said.

“I’ve told you I’ve tried. I’ve come back to the house, but I can’t face it, so I just leave without doing anything,” She said.

I have many friends who have experienced this same painful process of helping move their parents out of their old home to a more realistic living situation. Not one person has described this process as easy. It is full of anguish, arguments, hard feelings, resentment, doubts, and loss.

When I had Marie’s van packed with all the bins for Mom’s storage unit and the garden plants and tree, I threw my hands up in the air. I proclaimed, “Victory!”

“In Jesus,” Mom responded.

We drove to Marie’s house and I told Mom to drive back to her place and I would follow later with my nephew Sam to unload bins after he and I planted the Cherry tree. I went inside to put away food in the fridge and came out to find Mom digging a hole for the Cherry. She and Sam planted it. I hauled the water.

We drove back to Mom’s place to find Dad sitting in the dark watching T.V. I walked up and gave him a kiss. He looked me in the eye and asked, “Did you finish?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“Good,” he said.

Sam and I visited with Dad a little while and then went to unload the bins into the storage unit. Sam did all the lifting. By this time, I could barely move. We left at 2215.

The next day, I flew back to Virginia and unexpectedly, the realtor went to the now empty house and took pictures. Two days later the roses arrived. Josiah dug the holes, I planted, and Blaze tore up the paper bags under the mulch.

Throughout this whole process, I was yelling, crying, and stubborn as a mule. I have no excuse for my behavior.  It was character camp for me, and I was completely lacking in character.

Thankfully, I serve a gracious God who forgives my sins and I have a gracious Mom who ignores the worst and sees the best in all her children.

At the beginning of May, my parents celebrated 50 years of marriage.

How did they do it? How did their marriage last 50 years?

It was by the grace of God.

On Sunday morning after their anniversary celebration dinner, I was in church with my sister and brother singing “I see a generation, rising up to take the place with selfless faith.” As we sang, I watched as my niece and nephews walked up to take communion. I pondered how the decision my parents made to follow and serve Jesus Christ has impacted generations.

I shared these thoughts with Mom later and she told me the following story:

Back when we lived in Northern Minnesota, Mom was hanging clothes on the line. She heard God say to her that it was time for us to start attending the little Evangelical Free Church in our small town.

Knowing she would lose close friendships and disappoint family expectations, she asked God, “What if I don’t?”

God told her that she would miss out on blessings.

Mom never wants to miss out.

50 years of blessings is a terrific gift indeed.

Down in Louisiana on our one clear day, we took a stroll around the American Rose Society Garden in Shreveport. The majority of the roses were not yet in bloom, but being me I enjoyed the stroll none the less.

I felt justified while looking at the health of the rose bushes, because the rose bushes that looked crummy in their garden, looked crummy in my garden and the rose bushes that looked good in their garden, looked good in mine.

“It’s not the gardener, it’s the rose.”

The cousins were not as keen as I was to look at shrubs, plants, and trees. When we started walking, they told my kids, “If we walk fast, maybe they’ll hurry to catch up and we’ll get this over with sooner.

To this my children replied, “You’ve never been to a garden with our mother.”

We traveled down home to Louisiana for Easter, and as always happens when we visit Natchitoches, it was quite memorable.

We arrived with a spring storm of pouring rain and high winds. As my children will attest, when traveling, I spend a lot of time arguing with the GPS. It often wants me to take a route that may be less mileage, but proves not to be less time. When we were 1 1/2 hours away from Natchitoches, in the midst of the pouring rain, the GPS told us to leave the interstate and take the back roads through Kisatchie National Forest and all the little towns. Dale could barely see the road and the wind was howling, so I let the GPS have his way in the hopes we could get south of the storm.

It was a good thing I listened to the GPS. There was so much hail in Shreveport, it looked like it snowed. If we had kept going, we would have driven right into it. (My children insisted I make this public confession that the GPS was right.)

Unfortunately, the storms weren’t done with us after arrival. On Easter Sunday, just as church was finishing, straight line winds came barreling through the town knocking out power. The sound of the mighty rushing wind, reminded me of the description in the book of Acts detailing the arrival of the Holy Spirit. The sound was ferocious.

Unfortunately for my sister-in-law, Adina, our gracious hostess, her house lost power for two days. She had put the ham in the oven before going to church, but had the potatoes and beans ready to cook upon arrival back home. For Easter dinner, we ate ham sandwiches. I love hot ham sandwiches and didn’t mind at all. I thought Easter dinner was quite delicious.

The kids and their Manry cousins kept us entertained with songs played and sung on the battery operated keyboard. The cousins definitely have the Manry clan gift of music. Listening to Christina sing with her daddy brought tears to my eyes. I can still recall Tommy singing with his Mama. It is such a blessed gift to pass down generation to generation.

Another fun part of the Manry Easter celebration was holding week old kittens. Zeke loved them all and it was a good thing they were too young to leave their mama, because I don’t know if I would have gotten out of there without one. The mama cat was not too happy with all the people holding her babies, however. She would grab them up in her mouth and hide them under the bed, the claw foot tub, or in the back of the closet.

No matter where she hid them, Harley always found them and brought them all back out.

Dale’s sister, Tami was able to come up and visit us from Baton Rouge and we had a nice day in the Shreveport rose garden together. Tami’s son, Robert also stopped by on his way back to his duty assignment in Kansas. He and his wife Lisa had just gotten a Catahoula cur and that puppy was full of energy and spots. Robert, with his military bearing and high and tight haircut, has a striking resemblance to my memories of Dale at 25 years old.

Watching Robert, I occasionally did a double take.

In the “What will those Manrys do next?” category, Dale’s daddy has grown out a ponytail. After 75 years of military haircuts, he has decided to let his red hair grow. Dale claims he is now going to grow one out as well. With Josiah soon heading off to college where he will no longer have haircut regulations, he may grow one too. Gabe and Zeke bought coonskin caps to join in on the fun.

Three generations of Manry ponytails. I can’t wait.

1. You go to breakfast and there’s an elderly gentleman in a white suit.
2. People argue passionately about BBQ.
3. You find yourself saying “I’m gonna fix me a coke”.
4. At church, the preacher and his wife break out into song…