And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten. –Joel 2:25

I’ve managed to come a long way, even though I’ve never won very big. Just look at the little girl on the far left in the above news clipping. That’s me in 1977, getting recognition for coming in second place in a volleyball competition. There were only two teams, y’all. Second place was last place.

When I saw this picture of me in the Winkler County News for the first time, I saw only my chubby legs. They seemed especially huge next to Cynthia’s slender legs. Cindy, as we called her, was my best friend. She lived two doors down from me on Harrison Street in Kermit, Texas. It was a Dr. Pepper-fried-burrito-tumbleweed town, and I loved every minute of the two years we lived there.

When my mother died in December, I spent several days going through her things. When I came across this clipping, I saw that little girl in a whole new light. For the first time, I saw her through the eyes of a mother. I saw more than my chubby legs. I saw a sweet 5th grader and everything she survived. Also, I’m quite impressed that I finished the volleyball game with a bow still in my hair. Ha!

Dreams of Motherhood

That little girl had big dreams, folks, and the biggest dream of all was motherhood. I wanted a Sound-of-Music kind of family. Seven kids frolicking on a mountain with Mother. Parading around fountains in Salzburg. Riding bicycles down the tree-lined countryside. Singing in gazebos.

If that was too much to ask for, I’d settle for Plum Creek and Little House on the Prairie. I’d sew calico dresses for my daughters and buy them peppermint sticks for Christmas. We’d cure meat and harvest crops and chop lots of wood for winter.

My Mother’s Dreams

All these dreams were the dreams my mother had for the four kids in this picture. Her babies. That’s me and my siblings in 1976. Weren’t my big sisters gorgeous and my big brother dreamy? What about that gold plate on the wall from Green Stamps? Divine, eh? And, the Paul Detlefsen picture on the wall is grand! I spent half my childhood trying to figure out how to pronounce that guy’s name.

The Locust Years

The unstable and unsupervised Generation X childhood left me glorifying other generations’ memories and experiences. Even their wars and hardships seemed to yield positive results against our lost and fruitless years. Every generation has its locust years, and for Gen-Xers it was childhood. They even extended throughout our coming of age as alienated adults.

Early on, I promised myself that my kids would never be latchkey kids. They would never come home alone to empty rooms and piles of dirty dishes and laundry. They would never sit in front of the television for hours waiting for Mom to get home. They would never sit paralyzed in a chair after hearing a creaking noise, worried that some stranger — the kind that took the kids whose faces ended up on milk cartons — was hiding under the bed or in the closet.

They would never worry about getting abducted and killed like Etan, Jacob, Charlotte, and Cinda or those three Girl Scouts from Oklahoma who died in 1977.

Sweet Motherhood

Sweet motherhood has been the aim of my life. At times throughout this journey, I’ve been blinded and I’ve made mistakes. I’ve also made a lot of sacrifices for my children, and when I see them succeed, it makes me so happy.

Sullivan recently took home five blue ribbons from the school track meet. It’s a small, parochial school, but the smiles were huge. It is a comfort to know that all I went through during the locust years and beyond has not been in vain. I like to think my last place finishes , among other, more salient experiences, have helped fuel their success — at least a little bit.

Having a dad who was a star athlete has also not hurt anything. Ha!

Last weekend, Bridgy placed first in her age category in two events (floor exercise and vault) at the State AAU Gymnastics Meet. She was so excited, and so was I! The best I did at sports was that 2nd place volleyball finish. There was also that time I took 4th place in the 50 Yard Dash at the Kid Olympics in that same West Texas town. I’m pretty sure 4th place was also last place, but that did not stop me from taping the ribbon to a page in my scrapbook.

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