Weaving our tapestries together

Danny found his spring/summer project last week. He's combining two old trucks into one refurbished vehicle, so it will once again be roadworthy and useful. It all started with the leaf springs, which were a lot harder to find than one would think. Since his truck is equipped with a heavy-duty utility bed he has no use for the bed on the "parts" truck he recently purchased and so is planning to turn it into a trailer. Should work, and will undoubtedly be equally as useful as the truck is.

But the very thought of a homemade trailer evokes childhood memories of my family's move from Mesquite, Texas, to Aurora, Colo., in the summer of 1962. We had gone to Colorado on vacation the previous year and Daddy was ready to trade the humid air in Texas for the drier atmosphere in Colorado. He finagled a transfer from his employer, JC Penney, and spent evenings and weekends toiling in the driveway, fabricating a trailer in which to carry all of our worldly possessions. I think he was using the rear axle from an old car. I mostly remember staying out of his way. I also remember the night of our departure. Dad had put a sheet of plywood across the back-seat, effectively turning it into a full sized bed for my sister, Debi, 8, my brothers, Dave, 5, and Dean, 2 and me, 6, to share during the first leg of our journey, from Texas to Iowa. Mom was in the front seat with Danett, who was just a babe in arms. The plan was for Dad to drop all of us off with family in Iowa, while he found suitable housing for us in Denver.

So far, so good. Until we got on the open highway. I remember hearing my dad complain, none too quietly, about how the trailer was pulling behind our sedan, and I could tell from his vocabulary choices, he was not pleased. We ended up turning around, grabbing whatever would fit into the limited space left in the car, leaving the trailer, still loaded with the bulk of our worldly possessions, behind. The neighbors promised to find a way to get everything to us, someday, but that day never came.

I remember Mom mentioning it just once, when she bemoaned the loss of her grandmother's dining room table, complete with ladder-backed chairs.

This time in the remembering, it suddenly occurred to me just what a change that must have been for Mom and Dad. Their family was complete, as Danett was the fifth and final member of the 5Ds (as Mom would sign our Christmas cards for years), but all of the stuff they had accumulated in more than nine years of marriage, was suddenly gone. After all, in my eyes, they had always been Mom and Dad, they had always seemed old to me, certainly set in their ways, with no earthly idea of what it meant to be 8, or 12 or 16. It turns out, I barely knew them at all.

I know now that they traveled their life paths one day at a time, just like we all do. And heartache, passion, fear and faith accompanied them just as each does each one of us.

In small towns, you have the luxury of traveling parallel paths and so have no trouble remembering some things best forgotten, such as what a troublemaker Ron was in high school or how Sissy once peed her pants in second grade, but as you grow old together, it all becomes part and parcel of your collective recollections. And those collective recollections include any number of high points as well. Weddings, graduations, baby showers, all shared memories.

When Danny goes "home" he goes home to the same neighborhood where he grew up, with many of the same neighbors from his childhood, his elementary school unchanged, still serving its original purpose as is his junior high school. Other things around the neighborhood have changed, but once you turn onto Irving Street, it's like traveling back in time.

I don't have a "home" like that. When Daddy picked us up at the train station on what had to have been the hottest day of my life thus far, in August 1962, he drove us out to a new housing subdivision in Aurora. We didn't finish the school year there, moving to Federal Heights, then moving seven more times before finally settling in Arvada, Colo. Only my brothers and sisters traveled a path that paralleled mine, a path that divided when I was 16.

I don't know which lifestyle is preferable. I can see the benefits of knowing and sharing the same experiences, forging bonds that will stand the test of time as parallel paths grow steep in latter years, but I can also see the benefits of fresh starts, new friends, new stories to hear and new people to share old stories with.

I can also see the drawbacks to each. On one hand you have the long-term memories, some of which you can't ever seem to shake -- a troublemaker in high school remains a troublemaker forever to some people. On the other hand, no one shares your remembrance of the first-grader you had a crush on, or that day in sixth grade when somebody slammed your head into the lockers for looking at her girlfriend's boyfriend in math class. (I couldn't help myself, he was dreamy!)

What I do know is that every day that has preceded this day has contributed to who I am and who you are, today. And if our paths intersect, today, we will become a thread in the fabric of one another's lives, part of the tapestry God is weaving.

Whether the thread is long or short, a color of grace or one of dark bitterness, is up to us. Because we cannot know if someone's path has been steep, rock-strewn and winding, we must do all we can, today, to make straight paths, wide enough to share with whomever joins us on this day's journey, contributing a thread of golden grace through the tapestry of life.

"Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; and make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed. Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord." Hebrews 12:12-14 (KJV)