Filling a Cavity

Had it seriously been five years?!

As I walked through the doors of my dentist's office, it hit me that the last time I was here I had brought my Dad in for some dental work. 

I think that my Dad actually didn't mind having not great teeth, because it gave him the opportunity to see one of the people his heart loved: Brian. 

Brian was drawn into Dad's tribe when he was around 16 or 17 and, once ensconced in his heart, Dad didn't let him go.

I checked in with Jen at the front desk - she has had a child since I last saw her; imagine! 

Then I sat in the waiting room and drew in a deep breath. 

On some days I feel the void his absence has left more than on others. I didn't know that this day would be one of those days. 

Before I could become completely maudlin, Jo came to take me back to the room. Jo has worked with Brian for over 20 years, and she forgave me for not remembering. She did x-rays and got me ready for Dr Brian to fix my broken tooth. 

"Did I mention to you that you're one of my oldest friends?" he began. 

"As long as you don't say I'm one of your eldest friends," I replied, and everything was as it always was.

My broken tooth contained an old silver-type filling that had to be drilled out and replaced, and then Brian built back the broken tooth so smoothly that I can't differentiate between the original and the artificial. 

While this was going on, Jo and Brian chatted over my head, their familiar voices almost like, well, family. 

Then as he was preparing to head to his next patient, he paused and — almost like it was out of thin air — he said, "Sometimes your Dad would say to me, 'You are precious to me'..." 

He looked at me. "You are precious to me," he said softly. 

A few minutes later he came up to the reception desk where I had bumped into my sister, who had booked an appointment six months ago for this very time! “You are precious to me," he said to her. 

"You were very precious to him," I replied. 

What a benediction, a bene dictum, for two daughters who had both been wanting a word from their Dad that day! 

Words ... they have so much power. They have the power of life and of death. A friend of mine who knows me gave me a splendid book not long ago, Peter H. Reynolds' The Word Collector. This book is the book I wish I had written. It is simple yet profound. I have it on my piano to remind me to use words wisely and well. There is a proverb in the Bible which says, "A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver." A more modern translation reads, "The right word spoken at the right time is as beautiful as gold apples in a silver bowl" (Proverbs 25:11, KJV and NCV).

That is what Brian's words were to us last Thursday. 

Today, February 22, would have been my Mum's 84th birthday. She loved words, as did Dad. So in honour of her I have something to give away: a box set of three of Peter H. Reynolds' books. It contains Say Something, Happy Dreamer, and, of course, The Word Collector. 

To have a chance at winning this collection, all you have to do is write a comment - either at the end of this blog post, or on Facebook or Instagram, telling about someone whose words changed your life / outlook / day for the better. The Good Rancher himself is going to be the judge! I will read him the comments, minus the author's name, and he will choose the winner. 

Happy birthday, Mum. 

We love you, Dad. 

And from all six of Dad's children I say, You are precious to us, Brian. 

Because I Choose To

It's getting close to midnight on this coldest of Valentine's days. The Good Rancher is out defrosting a frozen up waterer that his horses use. This morning he was up before the sun - all the waterers were frozen, and he had to do extra feeding today. Then came bedding - in weather like this, everyone gets straw to snuggle down into, even the grand old matriarchs of the herd. 

It has been like this all week. The weather was supposed to break a couple of days ago. Now the weather forecasters are talking maybe tomorrow, just like they have said since Thursday.

I went to church by myself and Pastor Walt and Roxie sang my song, accompanied by Sharalynn on the piano, her fingers weaving some of the sweetest harmonies I have ever heard:

After both services I headed home, fortified with a box of goodies from Roxie. The sky was bright blue, and you would be forgiven for thinking that the outside *must* have warmed up. 

Yup: -29 with a wind chill of -41. 

He didn't get in until just before 4 o'clock, his face burnt by the wind. I had asked him a couple of days earlier if we could go for brunch. 

Sorry. 

But it's our anniversary! 

The cows don't know it's our anniversary. 

Ahhhh...

I was eating leftovers from last night's quiet celebratory steak dinner. He had coffee and salad. Then he got up and handed me a bag from Lawlor's Jewelers in Stettler. It was the same bag I had picked up for him last week when I had to run in, the bag that had a stern warning on it, DO NOT OPEN BEFORE VALENTINE'S. 

Inside was a heart cradling an icy diamond and floating precariously on the most delicate chain.

He had taken the time, in the middle of the night, to go online and choose this for me. 

He had remembered our anniversary this year. 

It didn't feel so precarious this year.

A couple of months ago, when the familiar terror of not-being-good-enough threatened to swallow me, when the why-is-the-garbage-not-taken-out riff started to play in my head, when the why-can-he-not-stay-awake-for-a-conversation refrain started to repeat itself, God impressed upon my heart that I could control none of that. All I could control was me. 

A friend of mine was asked how he had kept his marriage together through three-plus decades shaped by illness and turmoil. 

"Because every morning, I choose to love," was his quiet response. 

And so I asked God to make me more sensitive to the Good Rancher, to seek out ways I could make his life easier. To choose, each day, to love. 

One week later, everything I had been fulminating about seemed to be resolving. 

Conversation ✔️

Inadequacy ✔️

Even garbage! ✔️

We were laughing together. He was starting my truck before he left for chores. We began drinking tea together in the evening as we watched the news. 

And it dawned on me that for the past seven years, when I have been so broken, so ragged, the Good Rancher has also been choosing all this time - in the midst of all his other responsibilities - to love. To love me. 

I recognised it when the little white gold heart, burnished through fiery trials, settled sideways into the hollow at the base of my throat like it had found its home. 

It's 12:17 midnight and he just came in. The water is boiling and I make two mugs of tea. "It was frozen EIGHT FEET DOWN, but the dogs and I finally got it thawed! 🎶Praise God from whom all BLESS-ings FLOWWWWWWW🎵!!" 

He settles into his recliner and sips his tea and eats a heart cookie from Roxie's box of goodies. It was a full anniversary meal in that box. Ah, well. The lasagna and French bread will keep for tomorrow. 

"This time seven years ago you were just finishing up helping your tea house kids do the dishes after the wedding reception," he recalls. 

"You should have bolted right then while you had the chance!" I retort. 

He grins. 

He turns on the TV and finds the news. He will be dozing before the second story. 

Today I broke a tooth munching popcorn on the way back from church, and I found a full box of contact lenses while looking for something else at home. You lose some, you win some. 

" Forty-nine years in dog years!" I whisper to Musket, Phoebe Snow, Earl Grey, Carly Simon and Gunpowder. 

It was a wonderful anniversary. 

Cookies from Roxie, mugs from Erin
Heart box from the GR