Legacy

Han and John...I love this picture. For once, they are not yelling at each other. Our kids are growing up quickly--too quickly for Momma.

Sarah Beth and Drew, her good friend and fellow emcee at Senior Banquet. This picture kind of typifies their relationship. They're so goofy together.
Sarah Beth and her friends Rachel and Marcus at Senior Banquet. It was a really great night.

Sarah Beth and her "Becker"--Rebecca--at Senior Banquet. Are they gorgeous, or what?!

I will sing of the lovingkindness of the LORD forever; to all generations I will make known Your faithfulness with my mouth. Psalm 89:1

It is a gray, yucky morning here in Moscow, rainy and cold and just gross. No big deal to me--I have no plans for today except to pack and clean my refrigerator--but poor Marc has a cub scout campout with John today. Yuck! Pray that the weather lightens up a bit before they head out to the American Embassy's dacha.

I have to admit to you that I'm feeling a little melancholy this morning. Today is my cousin Morgan's wedding, and I am not there. When Morgan was born, I announced to my kindergarten class that I had a baby brother. I'm sure the teacher was amazed, since she saw my mother every day and there were not signs of a brother on the way. Smile. I have loved Morgan with a passion his whole life, and not to be there on his big day...well, it's hard. It's not the end of the world, and his day will be wonderful, but I wish I could be there. It's just how it goes when you live overseas. There are definitely things you miss. So I am up this morning early (when am I NOT up early?), and I'm thinking over the thousands of memories Morgan and I have together. And I'm smiling, because tied up with those memories is the memory of my grandmother, or as we all called her, Mimsey, and my grandfather, Papa. Mimsey and Papa have been gone for fifteen years, but I still miss them, still think about them often, still praise God for the legacy of their lives. My love of teaching comes from Papa. His love for every student was legendary, and when he passed away, his funeral was populated by those students on whose lives he'd left such an indelible mark. One of my favorite stories about Papa is that I called him when I got my very first teaching job. By then, he was into his nineties. He said, "Now are you teaching math?" (He'd taught high school math, been a principal and superintendent, and then gone back into the math classroom.) "No," I replied. "I'm teaching English." "Well, somebody has to do that, I guess." HA!!!! He made me laugh so much, and he had thousands of stories about being a teacher.

But it is my Mimsey who is holding my thoughts this morning. She loved being a mother and a grandmother and a great grandmother. She was gentle and kind. Whenever I do something particularly nice or giving, Marc will say something about making Mimsey proud or making Mimsey smile. She was just a truly remarkable woman. Maybe she wasn't remarkable in any way that the world counts, but she stored up for herself those treasures that mattered, things that moth and rust cannot destroy and thieves cannot steal. She raised a family of kind people, people who have spent their whole lives giving to others. She was devoted to her church. She passed on to us a legacy of a quiet faith, a faith that does not boast, does not shout out its accomplishments to the world, but a faith that has hands and feet, a faith that ministers to those around it. If Mimsey were here, she would be pleased with my life. I imagine she would be pretty stunned by the thought of a grandchild living in Russia--my goodness! she would say--but she would think that the life I'm living, while maybe not important in the eyes of the world, is a life focused on the things that mattered. And she would be particularly pleased that none of my children are named after her--she made me promise when I was pregnant with Sarah Beth that I would never give her name (Agnes) to a child. They just didn't deserve that kind of punishment, she said. I'm smiling just thinking about it.

And so, even though I am missing the wedding today, I am still smiling and being thankful for the legacy of faith that has been passed down to me. I am grateful that I have that legacy from both sides of my family, that I spent every summer in Tennessee, witnessing firsthand that faith in God and devotion to family were the most important things in life, that my own parents instilled in me the things that really mattered, that I've been allowed the opportunity to pass these things on to my own children. Wherever you are in the world, I pray that you are thankful for the people who have shown you God's hands and feet throughout your life, and that you are enjoying a second cup of coffee on a cold, rainy morning. Blessings to you and yours!

His,

Kellye