The last of my grandparents passed away at the end of January, and on this day of love, I’d be honored to tell you a little bit about her.
Some of you, actually, may already be acquainted: I was lucky enough to feature her in my Marvelous Mama series at the age of 90, where she charmed many readers by recalling the August night she was ready to hand off her would-not-stop-crying baby to any random passerby :)
That interview also gave me one of the simplest and dearest nuggets that I have tucked close to my mothering heart for the last eight years. Best tip for a new parent? I asked. Enjoy being a mother, she said.
That’s it.
Enjoy being a mother.
Not sleep training advice or picky eater advice or how best to think about balancing independence and safety or how to help with homework while instilling responsibility or how to balance work and home duties.
Also, not the stinging, “cherish each moment, the years go by so fast!” admonishment, well-intentioned but with embedded heartbreak.
No — here and now, just enjoy what you have. Enjoy who you are and whose you are and the role you get to fill.
To me, the simplicity of this invitation stops the blustering parental advice machine in its tracks. It quiets to the truth: This is my life. (I am a mother.) These are my kids. (I am their mother.) These are the people I have been given to care for and teach and discipline and feed and listen to and read to and tuck in and… enjoy. In all of that and more, it’s my choice whether I will enjoy.
And since this interview, which came when June was in her first year of life, I have (imperfectly, but faithfully). I wrote about it on June’s first birthday; I’ve thought about it daily. I speak it over myself like a prayer.
And I have had a model in my grandmother, because from what I can tell, she did enjoy being a mother. In fact, she seemed to enjoy every aspect of her life.
This is not because it was easy.
Bang was born in 1926, a true Depression-era baby. After a wealthy childhood (her family had a maid!), she rolled up her sleeves and moved to a dairy farm in Connecticut, raising six children with her husband. She patched clothes and devised frugal meals to feed a crowd. Her career path, though winding, always involved helping those in need: she worked with the Red Cross, for the Department of Children and Families, as a teacher, and with special needs kids. She served on many boards and committees and stepped into countless volunteer roles. Most painfully, she lost her beloved 32-year-old daughter to a drunk driver.
My grandparents at their 50th anniversary party
But Bang would tell you she had a wonderful life. She was married for over fifty years. She continued the legacy of a beautiful and historic family farm (the oldest continuously-working family farm in Connecticut, in fact). Her six children gave her seven grandchildren and five great-grandchildren, all of whom adored her. Until she needed nursing care at the end, she never lived more than a mile from at least one of her children. She was surrounded by loving community at every stage of her life, from her church, to her farming extension, to regional choruses, her extended family, and her island community in Maine. She did work that mattered. She spent time in the sunshine every day.
Playing on the beach in Maine while pregnant with Shep
Her worst offense? Trying to insert herself into every conversation within earshot (simply to listen – she was not one to give unwelcome advice). She had a ready smile and a generous, head-thrown-back laugh. She delighted in the people around her and was content to simply be near her family, even if she couldn’t follow our conversations as closely in the last few years.
Her Depression-era upbringing made for some of her most memorable characteristics. She didn’t want anything to go to waste, obviously, so she indulged in all the usual practices like folding wrapping paper and picking turkey carcasses to the bone. Her home was a maze of books to be donated and stacks of china a grandchild might one day want to have.
This actually led to an unusual family tradition I remember quite fondly. For several years, Bang provided all of the gifts for our extended-family Yankee Swap — by way of my aunts: they selected random items from her house and wrapped them for the exchange, seeing it as a way to remove a few items from the house in a way that Bang would accept. Some years you got a brand-new set of steak knives, sometimes you got an oven mitt imprinted with a local realtor’s contact info.
Family photos on the steps at our cottage in Maine, decades apart (in the top photo, my Dad is in yellow and Bang is in pink)
If there’s one tradition that sums Bang up, though, it’s probably this: at every holiday, she set a very long table (even when the table wasn’t her own). Our family has its share of glue at the seams, but that didn’t phase her. For years, our Christmas, Thanksgiving, or Easter dinner table might include her children, their spouses, and her grandchildren, yes, but also her children’s ex-wives, their new husbands, and various step-children. Everyone was not only welcome, but personally invited and expected to show up. Most people wouldn’t even think to extend the invitation, or if they did, would worry about awkwardness ensuing. That was not a concern for Bang, and her guileless, sunny personality made everyone feel welcome. Her love for people was unconditional.
So — there is clearly much to love, and much to emulate, here. In 2016, I wrote that “I would be thrilled to be just like her when I turn 90,” and I still feel that way. So the important question for me, now, is this: how can my life, in my home and in my 2024 setting, look more like hers? How can I, with my own circumstances and personality and responsibilities, be more like her? Our contexts are different, yes, but the direction to move in is the same, I think:
Love God.
Love and honor my husband.
Work on things that matter. Aim to help the least of these, no matter my job description.
Value extended family. Gather with them. See each imperfect person as the image bearer they are, and show obvious delight in them.
Focus on tending my mind and heart more than my looks and wardrobe. Think less about what I wear and how I look. Do more crossword puzzles.
Cherish simplicity. Be easy to delight.
Commit, and then show up. Give my best to help my church, schools, and local circles thrive. Act as a “pillar of the community” would.
Remember and honor the past. Tell family stories, even the worn-out ones everyone knows by heart.
Be “everyday active.” Build a life that’s as outside and active as possible.
Give generously and relationally. Don’t be afraid to see people up close, to draw near to them in their messiness and suffering.
Sing loudly and often. Laugh loudly and often.
And just try to enjoy it all.
Dancing with my Dad at my wedding
Bang lived a wonderful life. She is with Jesus, my grandfather, and her beloved daughter, whom she has waited so long to be reunited with (truly, the only part of this post that makes me tear up as I write it). She is no longer suffering, and she can listen in on all of our conversations with perfect clarity :)
Thank you, Bang, for everything. And thank you, friends, for letting me share. xo
If you’ve been around for a few years, you know that most years, in the fall, I share a post marking another year of Articles Club. Last year, I missed that post – but it was for a good reason! Behind the scenes, a few of us were working on a very special guide, and I waited to post until it was ready. And now it is!
Meet: The Articles Club Guide! Over the last eight years, we’ve fielded many questions about our beloved AC:
What is an articles club? How can I start one? How can I find people to join? How have you kept this going for so long??
We are genuinely happy to answer these questions – all of us want to spread the good news of articles club! – but also, if you’re really interested in starting your own group, I don’t just want to answer a few questions: I want to dump everything I’ve learned, and all of my considerable enthusiasm for what this group has meant to my life, into your lap, in the hopes that you will, indeed, go on to start your own.
That’s not always practical on a large scale. So — we made a guide! After brainstorming as a group, four of us got together and wrote out everything we know about starting and sustaining an articles club. Here’s a glimpse at the table of contents:
Fun, right? We put everything together into a beautiful package and you can purchase it right here for $20. All proceeds will go toward funding our annual weekend together, so rest assured you’re contributing to adult friendship bracelets, brownies-still-gooey-from-the-oven, and a polar plunge off the lakeside cabin’s dock. (Eep! We’re going with a Parent Trap theme this year, so it only seemed appropriate. Bathing suits will be worn. Fingers crossed no towels get stolen from the shoreline.)
So far, we’ve spun off three other articles club groups across state lines, and few things bring me more joy than knowing we’ve played a small part in spreading the joy we’ve experienced to others. In a world shadowed by loneliness, this feels like a small way to beat back the darkness.
Speaking of darkness: I was putting June to bed the other night, and she was telling me how she doesn’t like it when she’s trying to fall asleep and it’s quiet downstairs, but “my favorite nights are when you have Articles Club because I can hear everyone laughing.”
My heart!
My children may grow up in a world where true friendship – friendship that sits with you when you’re broken, and makes you laugh til you cry, and follows up on your prayer request, and doesn’t gatekeep anything – is rare. But hopefully, because they’ve seen it modeled by my beautiful friends, they’ll know what they’re looking for – and maybe even be inspired to create their own candlelit nights around a messy table, with good food and lots of laughter, for others. May it be so.
Generally, I prefer to look forward. I love to dream and imagine the future, and we’re lucky to have reason to hope for good things ahead.
Looking back can be harder. It’s a reminder of the good things that have happened, yes, but an inevitable reminder of the passing of time, too – and, depending on my mood, that can be fraught. (I know I’m not alone in this!)
Still: looking back in intentional ways has helped me to take what I can from each year, to appreciate what it had to offer, to learn what it had to give, to acknowledge the hard and appreciate the good. Our lives are what we give our attention to, and these posts are my way of giving a little attention to the year of my life I just lived. Thank you, as always, for indulging me!
As always, our year started by celebrating our best big girl turning another year older – this time with a birthday hike on the big day and a petite pottery painting party a few days later. We said goodbye to the CWM commercial office space and I headed to the beach for a weekend with the Articles Club gals. On the blog, I shared my reading list, my goals, and – for the first time – our family goals for the year.
There were more celebrations in February! In lieu of 2022 Christmas gifts, my sisters and I (and husbands) chose to go out to dinner together – not so easy since we don’t live in the same place! – and we were able to make it happen at Kindred over Presidents Day. We also stuffed our Valentine’s mailbox, went to see the Duke basketball team play and Riverdance tour for my birthday (reflections here), finished the first Harry Potter, and started composting (a long-awaited splurge).
We spent lots of time outdoors in March, including on the field and sidelines for another soccer season for June and Shep. I chaperoned my first elementary school field trip (a dream come true, as silly as it sounds!), we replaced our roof after hail damage, and we kicked off our spring break trip with 20 hours in Serenbe, a nostalgic treat from my SW days.
In April, we reached our spring break destination – a return to Watercolor, Florida, to celebrate John’s parents’ 50th anniversary with the whole family! This is where we discovered Annie is obsessed with belly flopping into pools, ha. We celebrated Easter in Greenville, SC on our road trip back (complete with an ER visit after having to administer the epipen.) We took another little weekend trip to Asheville, where we met up with my younger sister to celebrate her paying off her student loans, and I traveled to Texas for work. Whew!! In between trips, we picked strawberries and June had her first piano recital.
With school out for the summer, June swam on our neighborhood team for the first time (and greatly enjoyed learning group dances on the pool deck), the kids played street soccer almost daily with neighbors, and June and Shep camped in the backyard solo. I hosted another book swap, biked the American Tobacco Trail with a dear friend (44 miles!), and we took one of our favorite trips of the year to Beaufort, NC before heading north to spend a week with my parents, sister, and cousins in Connecticut.
We began the month of July in Maine at our island and concluded it with Shep blowing out the candles at home on his fifth birthday. In between, we had a stopover in DC on our road trip south, an insane rash from moths (!), many evenings at the pool, and a joint birthday party with Shep’s best friend at a local park. On the blog, I shared a few takeaways from Habits of the Household, my favorite nonfiction read of the year.
In August, we welcomed two of our nieces and nephews for a week of cousin camp, highlighted by the debut of the Best Friends Snack Shack, hikes, and our nephew learning to ride a bike! We discussed the Barbie movie with an all-pink Articles Club, stayed with John’s parents for a week at their new home in Virginia (so much closer to us!), and kicked off another season of soccer at a field we can walk to. And then school started – second grade for June and a final year of preschool for Shep!
September saw the advent of Team Thomas Tuesdays, a dream many years in the making. It’s been (mostly) a delight! We also organized our garage – a sore spot in our home that had been dogging us for years – with some professional help. In honor of our 11th wedding anniversary, John and I had a special date night to see Wicked and took a quick weekend trip to Charleston (not without its relationship lessons). We led a book study at church onThe Common Rule and I started volunteering weekly in June’s classroom to run a reading group.
We had another favorite trip in October – to Boone, NC – as well as a memorable gathering for the 8th anniversary of Articles Club, a visit to the state fair, our annual camping trip with the Rays, and a chocolate chip cookie tasting party. Sadly, John’s back pain flared up again and he continued to battle it for the rest of the year.
In November, we met up with cousins for a coooold day at the zoo, I biked the ATT one more time, we had friends over for what we hope will be many more Sunday pizza hangs in 2024 (more about that soon!), and we celebrated Thanksgiving in the Florida Keys with my family in honor of my parents’ 40th anniversary. (Annie’s first flight!)
December felt full, slow, and all about community. We fit in lots of beloved Christmas traditions – many with friends or family in tow – but worked hard to keep plenty of white space for playing, baking, and reading books at home, too. Shep started the very lowest-key basketball, a new delight of his life, and at the end of the month, we hosted my family for a few days of Christmas fun and then flew to California to be hosted alongside all of John’s family at his sister’s home for even more.
For us, each year in the life of our young family is a delicate balance – between travel and staying home, between “new” and “the same,” between pushing and choosing rest, between work and play, between freedom and control. We do not get it right all the time, not by a long shot – but we try. We think deeply about it, and pray for wisdom, and act carefully, and adjust as we go. It’s both rewarding and overwhelming to see a year in our life summed up like this, but as always, I’m choosing gratitude. It’s not hard, and for that I am, well, grateful.
Friends, I know I’ve said it before, but I am SO excited for what we’ll discuss here (and elsewhere) in 2024. Thank you for being here, and for sharing so generously with me! It’s one of the delights of my life. Wishing you a healthy, happy, and abundant new year. My 2024 goals are just about ready to share, so I’ll see you soon! :)
I hope you’ve all had wonderful holidays, friends! Our days have been full – hosting family, traveling to see family, and squeezing in some favorite traditions. Still, I’ll always make time for the two posts I have planned for this week: today’s best of and my traditional final post, our year-in-review. They help me count the fruit from another precious year, and that’s an opportunity I’ll fight for even in the midst of these full, chaotic, slow post-holiday days. I hope they can serve as an opportunity for a little reflection on your own 2023, if you haven’t had a chance for it yet! In the comments, please share a few of your best memories, finds, and favorites from 2023, if you’d like. As always, I can’t wait to hear!
Best adventure, travel, or trip: Though there was a lot of superlative travel in 2023, two weekend trips rise to the top in my memories: our Father’s Day trip to Beaufort, NC and our fall break trip to Boone. I’d repeat both of those any day. Though I love to travel with extended family, John and I still find it a bit thrilling to structure a trip around our immediate family’s culture. They feel like a chance to live out what matters to us in a concentrated way. (Yes, cinnamon sugar donut moments included.)
Best trend you tried: Though I maintain a dark skinny jean is still the best and most versatile bottom, I have branched out – particularly with these cropped wide leg pants. The green (“olive oil”) goes with a surprising amount and they’re fun to wear. I take a S.
Best new podcast listen, newsletter subscribe, or blog follow: Even though I’ve admired his work since 2018 (when I first read The Coddling of the American Mind), Jon Haidt’s Substack was a new follow for me this year. If you’re interested in what we’re going to talk about at The Connected Family, you’ll likely want to hit subscribe on Jon, too.
Best book: This was a banner year of reading for me! I read 44 books, significantly more than in the recent past, including 22/24 from my reading list. (Last year, I read 21 books total.) The Maid, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and The Lincoln Highway took top billing for fiction and Habits of the Household won out for nonfiction. (I shared a few of my takeaways here.) A special honorable mention to the first four books in the Vanderbeekers series, which June and I passed back and forth over several months. Adore!
Best TV show:Slow Horses on Apple TV. We watched three seasons this year! (They’re only six episodes each.) It’s a bit of an acquired taste, what with a central character who gives the word “slovenly” new meaning, but the plots are fantastic. “What makes the series better than virtually anything else on television right now [is] its ability to be both a riveting espionage drama and an absurd workplace comedy, without ever flubbing the mix.”
Best movie:Mission Impossible 6, continuing our tradition of going to the movie theater (almost) only on opening nights for Tom Cruise films.
Best album, song, or artist: If our Spotify Wrapped is any indication, it’s Seven by Brooke Ligertwood all the way.
Best kiddo milestone: After seven years, we finally removed the baby gate at the bottom of our stairs. It’s the end of an era!
Best friend memory: Rewinding to the first month of the year, the first annual Articles Club weekend retreat was, well, a treat. We ate delicious meals, laughed until we cried, and built another layer on our 7+ year friendship. Biking the American Tobacco Trail (twice!) while discussing one of my favorite books of the year with a favorite friend is a sweet memory, too!
Best beauty purchase: My cheeks got a glow-up this year! After being taught the proper order to apply bronzer, blush, and highlighter, I put my newfound knowledge into practice with this, this, and my discontinued BeautyCounter blush. Love them all!
Best faith grower: This doesn’t feel like the “holiest” answer, but I’m going with it: watching the first two seasons of The Chosen, the historical drama TV show based on the life of Jesus. By telling the story through the eyes of those who knew him, layering in prophecy and present, it truly brought the Gospels to life in a way I’d never seen before.
Best new tradition: I’m not sure if this is a tradition or a habit or a little luxury, but I’ll drop it here. Our Sundays really settled into a restful rhythm: for most of the year, we’d attend church, go out to eat, head home so everyone could take a nap (except June, who would read), then tennis lessons for me and June, the easiest and most crowd-pleasing dinner (frozen meatballs, Rao’s, pasta), and finally a little light prepping for the week ahead.
Best habit you created: Driving 20 mph in the neighborhood. After a tragedy struck too close to home earlier in the year, I committed to driving under the speed limit in our neighborhood whenever possible. This feels like the kind of vow I might have made in the moment and then forget in the bustle of life, so I’m grateful to have stuck with it.
Most surprising goal progress: I set a goal to reach 5,000 minutes on Peloton this year and am shocking even myself by rounding the corner to 8,000 this week – a big jump from last year, when I logged just shy of 4,000! I was helped by Peloton adding tracking for outdoor walks and cycling, but I significantly upped my stretching and strength classes, too.
Best mama moment: There were so many favorite moments, remarkable in their ordinariness and preciousness, but reading the first Harry Potter with June is a particularly sweet memory. And, of course, our weekend together at camp!
Best home improvement: Our green bathroom cabinets make me happy every single time I round the corner!
Best little luxury you’ve enjoyed: Hear me out: getting places on time (or even with time to spare). John has many incredible attributes, but getting places on time is generally not one of them. Add in three children, and our default is often a late arrival. When I transitioned from working four days to three days at the beginning of this year, I suddenly found myself arriving places five or ten minutes early on my two weekdays off, and it truly felt luxurious.
As always, I’m ending the year so grateful for the delights, big and small, that filled our year. I’ll be sharing more in my year-in-review post soon, but in the meantime, please do share: what are some of your “bests” from 2023? Can’t wait to hear!
