Thank You for the food we eat
Thank You for the birds that sing
Thank You, Lord, for everything
It's a simple little childhood table grace that has been on my mind a great deal lately. Sometimes simple prayers are the best ones, and sometimes they are the only kind we can muster. My prayers this week have been very childlike indeed, often very brief and usually kind of desperate.
"Lord, please help..."
"Please protect..."
"Please grant us peace..."
"Thank You so much..."
Thanksgiving came with an abundance of family, fellowship and, of course, food. The Hubs and I made it to lunch with a big contingent of my Mama's side of our family, with my beautiful and precious Aunt Ruby as the centerpiece. My cousins, her kids, some of the grandkids, great-grandkids and even the great-great-grandbaby were there. As far as the menu was concerned, I had safe food choices and enjoyed my lunch greatly. Turkey is a great lean protein for weight loss patients if it is not dry, and the turkey we had was moist and flavorful.
We visited there most of the day until it was time to mosey over to Bonus Brother's house for supper with that branch of family. Dad, Bonus Mom, Bonus Brother and his family and some friends were in attendance, and we enjoyed a feast there as well, including freshly fried catfish (yes, I ate half a piece and yes, it was delicious! And yes, I brought home some leftover catfish to enjoy, in small portions.) Was a fried food in strict keeping with my food plan? No. But I kept my portion small and enjoyed what I ate.
Thanksgiving came and went this year without a single bite of any kind of potato passing my lips, which is a minor miracle. No cake or pie or cookies, either. I had 4 yogurt-covered pretzels, but not all at the same time, and a very few bites of dressing. So while I was not 100% adherent to my program, I am claiming a victory for the holiday because I managed to eat sensible amounts and didn't even really feel like I was missing much of anything. I will advance to phase 4 diet in a week and a half, when I will be allowed starches in small quantities. Thanksgiving was just practice!
Changes are coming in my extended family which have us all doing a lot of soul-searching and, for those of us who pray, a lot of praying. The time has come for my Aunt Ruby to move to an assisted living facility. She is 87 years of age, nearly blind from diabetes that has become brittle, and needs a walker to get around. Her kids, my cousins, are sad that this decision needed to be made, but they've done their research and this is truly the best option they found. My prayers are that peace and comfort will attend all of us, that God's protection will be strong where it is needed most, that Aunt Ruby finds friends, engagement and companionship in her new surroundings, and that the adjustment will be a smooth one.
Every family has someone like Aunt Ruby...or at least, every family should have someone like Aunt Ruby. She has always been the even-keel, placid soul who brought stability to everyone else. I don't know how my Mama would have survived raising us without Aunt Ruby's calm influence! When my brother was very little and fussy/colicky/crying and Mama was at her wits' end, she would ask Aunt Ruby what to do. Aunt Ruby's solution was a simple one that always seemed to help: give the baby a warm bath. There was nothing magical about the bath, as it turned out, except that it helped calm Mama as much as it calmed the fussy baby, and they both ended up feeling a lot better. For years and to this day, when I am stressed, upset or needing come peace, I often find it in the bathtub (sometimes with bubbles, a book or a beverage, non-alcoholic of course). When we were little and Mama needed a break, we'd often load up in the car and "go to Aunt Ruby's for a glass of tea". Mama and Aunt Ruby would have their tea and their talk, and we had time to play with our cousins and whichever other neighborhood kids happened to be around.
For many years, Aunt Ruby was a plus-sized lady as well. When she became diabetic, she managed her condition for years by controlling her diet, and lost a lot of weight in the process. She told me once a long time ago, after her diabetes had begun to steal her eyesight, that she would starve herself before going to the doctor in hopes of getting a good checkup, then leave the doctor's office and go get a donut on the way home. She said she would do differently if she could go back, if it could give her a few more years of decent vision. She made most of my clothes when I was a kid, and lots of them even through my college years, including the red satin dress I wore for my senior voice recital. She was an avid quilter as well, often spending hours around the quilting frames with Mama and Aunt Martha and "Mamaw" Allred, our next-door neighbor until I was almost 17 years old. Those quilts grace many of our beds, surrounding us with love and memories. And Aunt Ruby loved to read, often devouring books into the wee hours after her family had gone to sleep. Diabetes gradually stole her eyesight and her ability to enjoy doing the things she loved the most.
Aunt Ruby is philosophical about the coming transition and trying to see it in a positive light, as we all are. I've been very close to her all my life and we've talked about a lot of things over the years. In her moments of deepest sorrow and heartbreak, when she lost Uncle John, when she has had her own health problems, as she has watched her siblings die one by one, when she has agonized over the troubles of her beloved children, her response has always been the same. She has always said, "God will take care of me." Since I learned that she will be moving to assisted living, the old hymns have been playing in my mind and heart...the ones that assure me that God will take care of us all, that we will understand it all by and by, that His eye is on the sparrow. That Jesus cares.
"Does Jesus care? I know He cares.
His heart is touched with my grief.
When the days grow weary, the long nights dreary,
I know my Savior cares."
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