A long time ago God blessed me with a good girlfriend.
It was 6th grade, I had been at the infant school Lee Academy since 3rd...in third grade there were three girls, I was relieved that now there were at least seven or eight. Terri Belcher was one of the new girls. She was cute and petite, smart and popular....all the things I normally didn't like in a person. I was kind of quiet and none of those other things. I was happy to at least have other girls to walk around the playground with at recess. Terri and I weren't instant "best friends" but when you go to a school as small as ours you learn to stick up for each other outside of school a lot like siblings do.
At the end of our short elementary stint together we plowed into junior high. It wasn't all that different but we felt really grown up. I remember the style back then was short skirts and long socks...funny. Terri was a cheerleader in seventh grade....she was a cheerleader in EVERY grade. I tried out but didn't make it my first attempt...didn't have the urge again until the end of ninth grade. This is when we started hanging out more, our JV cheerleading squad was pretty tight. I saw for the first time what being a team really was. We had a lot of fun but at the end of the season I didn't want to try out again...I figured I'd let somebody else who wanted it more have my spot. Silly, I know but I had other things to do...I didn't like my legs in the uniform, I couldn't decide if I was the cheerleader type or a hippie. So, after another year of not being a cheerleader I tried it again. Our senior year was the best year of my young life. It was just about as sweet and crazy as a teenager's life gets. It was this year that Terri and I forged a friendship that would stand against the storms of life.
I had never been diagnosed with ADD but I knew something was not "normal" about the way I learned or saw the world. I had a very difficult time memorizing things. I loved art and English, could tell you any song, artist and title but forgot about economics or any math! My grades were so-so. It was a bonafide miracle that I got into college but it was something else that got me that high school diploma...I will never forget the night before our senior econ exam Terri helped me study. I even got to the point that I wanted to just give up and go to bed. Terri would shake me and say, "You are not going to sleep until you know this stuff backwards and forwards". I don't remember what my test score was but I remember Terri was as proud as any mama I knew that I at least passed the class and was allowed to graduate with the other 15. I knew she was bound to be a teacher!
I went away to school, like I said it was an act of God that got me there for sure. Terri stayed at Auburn and excelled as I knew she would. We saw each other from time to time and kept up better than most. It was around our junior year in college that she introduced me to a fiery hispanic looking cowboy named Jack. It was not a friendship made in heaven. He was the polar opposite of what I thought my best high school pal should be ending up with. He was a trash talking, wild, partying fool. I wondered what in the world Terri saw in him. You can imagine my horror when she said she was going to MARRY him! I did my best to mess that up but as they say, love is blind (I thought it had gone deaf and dumb too!) I was working at Ridgecrest Baptist Conference Center near Black Mountain, NC the summer of their wedding (I didn't recognize him as such but I had met the man of my dreams there just a few weeks earlier). I drove home, 7 hours, to be a bridesmaid in what I thought was going to be a record short marriage. I drove during the night and dropped a friend off in Atlanta. By the time I got home I could not talk...at all. I'm sure it was just God telling me that he was in charge and I needed to keep my mouth out of his plan. Even at cheer camps I had never lost my voice. Now I was a mute and my sweet friend was getting married in two days. That was the first lesson I learned about staying out of God's way when Terri was concerned...instead he always prompted me to pray for her and her husband. I remember telling Jack that when I had my baby he was not coming into my house with that foul mouth of his. I laugh out loud sometimes when I think of those days because although this note is about the relationship between "us girls" I have to say the Lord turned my hard heart to mush for Jack. After a while Jesus saved him and boy what a transformation. There are only a few men I would trust the way I would Jack now. He used to sing a song that would just destroy my makeup not long after he found the Lord. It said "the greatest of all miracles was when God saved me, yes I know what Jesus did for me." I knew too and it was a beautiful thing.
Back to the story, I had that baby I threatened to never let Jack talk to... Hannah. A few months after she was born a little blonde spitball named Dacy was born to the Rubios. Terri and I joked that Dacy and Hannah HAD to be friends, we just wouldn't have it any other way. We didn't even have to push them, they were like night and day and loved each other like two puppies or maybe one puppy and a bit of a wild cat. I have so many happy memories of all three of our girls playing and growing up in church together. They also went to the same little school similar to how Terri and I started out. The girls were so much fun as teenagers and were pretty close...until the boy came along. His name was Robert and Hannah just didn't know what to make of Dacy with a serious boyfriend and someone who seemed so different from her...are you starting to see a pattern? Hannah cried like a lost child during Dacy's wedding but learned in a short time that God's hand was just as much in her sweet friend's life as he had been in her mother's.
Hannah married her true love a couple of years later and was the first of the two to start a family. Dacy was there with Hannah during the early stages of labor on March 11, 2008 when our precious little Aiden Elizabeth was born. She was a rock and a comfort to us all in the waiting room. She even came to the rescue along with Aunt Micah a few days later when Aidie's daddy got a stomach bug and couldn't take care of his girls for a day or two. I knew if Hannah had Dacy close she would be okay. Then the news that rocked all of us, Hannah and Michael and baby Aiden were moving to Virginia. Dacy and I both grieved and wanted it not to be true but it was once again a God thing that was gonna have to happen. The shoe was on the other foot so to speak because Terri wanted to tell them it was a mistake and Dacy prayed they would stay but they both fell mute when trying to talk to Hannah about it. It didn't matter just like it hadn't mattered what I thought about Jack we all have to do what we have to do. It's all about what God whispers in each one's ear. We would all be better for listening to him in the end.
Dacy helped my Michael and me by announcing that she was pregnant! At first they weren't going to find out what the baby was but her sweet Rob was a mess not knowing. When we first heard she was a girl I rejoiced that baby Aiden would have a girlfriend! A third generation girlfriend...little did we know that the little baby Dacy was carrying had a point to prove. She was due April first, anyone who knows Dacy had to laugh a little to hear this. I love that girl with my heart and one of her best qualities is she can act like a fool (she gets it from her daddy). She is FUN, yep, all caps. I thought it was very appropriate for her baby to have this due date and didn't think about it again until Hannah called me on her way to Alabama for spring break and to celebrate Aidie's birthday in March!! Dacy had been in labor! She had gone to the hospital a couple of times but it looked like she was going to have her baby on March 11, one year to the day of Aiden's birthday. Words cannot describe how that felt to us. It was a miracle! Hannah would not only BE THERE which she had so wanted but just knew she would miss, but she would forever be bonded to Dacy in a new way...babies with the same birthday.
Of course I juggled everything my life holds to get to Birmingham that day and I did only a couple of hours after Dacy Caroline was born. I got to hug my two babies, my best lifelong friend and her two babies all in a matter of minutes. It was a happy moment for all of us.
I think about what the future holds for these two little girls. I picture them as old women after their Grammies are memories and their sweet mothers have joined us once again. I see them sitting together laughing over one cake their joined families have brought for them. I see them there with a twinkle in their eyes that only comes from years of happy times. They have so much together and between them. Grade school, summers, secrets, inside jokes, clothes and shoes, a tank of gas, a box of Kleenex, boys who were wrong and ones who were right, weddings, babies, death and life and knowing someone so well, and sharing so much... good and sometimes not so good but loving just the same.
I see a deep connection that few get to experience, one born from God that goes back three generations.
It was 6th grade, I had been at the infant school Lee Academy since 3rd...in third grade there were three girls, I was relieved that now there were at least seven or eight. Terri Belcher was one of the new girls. She was cute and petite, smart and popular....all the things I normally didn't like in a person. I was kind of quiet and none of those other things. I was happy to at least have other girls to walk around the playground with at recess. Terri and I weren't instant "best friends" but when you go to a school as small as ours you learn to stick up for each other outside of school a lot like siblings do.
At the end of our short elementary stint together we plowed into junior high. It wasn't all that different but we felt really grown up. I remember the style back then was short skirts and long socks...funny. Terri was a cheerleader in seventh grade....she was a cheerleader in EVERY grade. I tried out but didn't make it my first attempt...didn't have the urge again until the end of ninth grade. This is when we started hanging out more, our JV cheerleading squad was pretty tight. I saw for the first time what being a team really was. We had a lot of fun but at the end of the season I didn't want to try out again...I figured I'd let somebody else who wanted it more have my spot. Silly, I know but I had other things to do...I didn't like my legs in the uniform, I couldn't decide if I was the cheerleader type or a hippie. So, after another year of not being a cheerleader I tried it again. Our senior year was the best year of my young life. It was just about as sweet and crazy as a teenager's life gets. It was this year that Terri and I forged a friendship that would stand against the storms of life.
I had never been diagnosed with ADD but I knew something was not "normal" about the way I learned or saw the world. I had a very difficult time memorizing things. I loved art and English, could tell you any song, artist and title but forgot about economics or any math! My grades were so-so. It was a bonafide miracle that I got into college but it was something else that got me that high school diploma...I will never forget the night before our senior econ exam Terri helped me study. I even got to the point that I wanted to just give up and go to bed. Terri would shake me and say, "You are not going to sleep until you know this stuff backwards and forwards". I don't remember what my test score was but I remember Terri was as proud as any mama I knew that I at least passed the class and was allowed to graduate with the other 15. I knew she was bound to be a teacher!
I went away to school, like I said it was an act of God that got me there for sure. Terri stayed at Auburn and excelled as I knew she would. We saw each other from time to time and kept up better than most. It was around our junior year in college that she introduced me to a fiery hispanic looking cowboy named Jack. It was not a friendship made in heaven. He was the polar opposite of what I thought my best high school pal should be ending up with. He was a trash talking, wild, partying fool. I wondered what in the world Terri saw in him. You can imagine my horror when she said she was going to MARRY him! I did my best to mess that up but as they say, love is blind (I thought it had gone deaf and dumb too!) I was working at Ridgecrest Baptist Conference Center near Black Mountain, NC the summer of their wedding (I didn't recognize him as such but I had met the man of my dreams there just a few weeks earlier). I drove home, 7 hours, to be a bridesmaid in what I thought was going to be a record short marriage. I drove during the night and dropped a friend off in Atlanta. By the time I got home I could not talk...at all. I'm sure it was just God telling me that he was in charge and I needed to keep my mouth out of his plan. Even at cheer camps I had never lost my voice. Now I was a mute and my sweet friend was getting married in two days. That was the first lesson I learned about staying out of God's way when Terri was concerned...instead he always prompted me to pray for her and her husband. I remember telling Jack that when I had my baby he was not coming into my house with that foul mouth of his. I laugh out loud sometimes when I think of those days because although this note is about the relationship between "us girls" I have to say the Lord turned my hard heart to mush for Jack. After a while Jesus saved him and boy what a transformation. There are only a few men I would trust the way I would Jack now. He used to sing a song that would just destroy my makeup not long after he found the Lord. It said "the greatest of all miracles was when God saved me, yes I know what Jesus did for me." I knew too and it was a beautiful thing.
Back to the story, I had that baby I threatened to never let Jack talk to... Hannah. A few months after she was born a little blonde spitball named Dacy was born to the Rubios. Terri and I joked that Dacy and Hannah HAD to be friends, we just wouldn't have it any other way. We didn't even have to push them, they were like night and day and loved each other like two puppies or maybe one puppy and a bit of a wild cat. I have so many happy memories of all three of our girls playing and growing up in church together. They also went to the same little school similar to how Terri and I started out. The girls were so much fun as teenagers and were pretty close...until the boy came along. His name was Robert and Hannah just didn't know what to make of Dacy with a serious boyfriend and someone who seemed so different from her...are you starting to see a pattern? Hannah cried like a lost child during Dacy's wedding but learned in a short time that God's hand was just as much in her sweet friend's life as he had been in her mother's.
Hannah married her true love a couple of years later and was the first of the two to start a family. Dacy was there with Hannah during the early stages of labor on March 11, 2008 when our precious little Aiden Elizabeth was born. She was a rock and a comfort to us all in the waiting room. She even came to the rescue along with Aunt Micah a few days later when Aidie's daddy got a stomach bug and couldn't take care of his girls for a day or two. I knew if Hannah had Dacy close she would be okay. Then the news that rocked all of us, Hannah and Michael and baby Aiden were moving to Virginia. Dacy and I both grieved and wanted it not to be true but it was once again a God thing that was gonna have to happen. The shoe was on the other foot so to speak because Terri wanted to tell them it was a mistake and Dacy prayed they would stay but they both fell mute when trying to talk to Hannah about it. It didn't matter just like it hadn't mattered what I thought about Jack we all have to do what we have to do. It's all about what God whispers in each one's ear. We would all be better for listening to him in the end.
Dacy helped my Michael and me by announcing that she was pregnant! At first they weren't going to find out what the baby was but her sweet Rob was a mess not knowing. When we first heard she was a girl I rejoiced that baby Aiden would have a girlfriend! A third generation girlfriend...little did we know that the little baby Dacy was carrying had a point to prove. She was due April first, anyone who knows Dacy had to laugh a little to hear this. I love that girl with my heart and one of her best qualities is she can act like a fool (she gets it from her daddy). She is FUN, yep, all caps. I thought it was very appropriate for her baby to have this due date and didn't think about it again until Hannah called me on her way to Alabama for spring break and to celebrate Aidie's birthday in March!! Dacy had been in labor! She had gone to the hospital a couple of times but it looked like she was going to have her baby on March 11, one year to the day of Aiden's birthday. Words cannot describe how that felt to us. It was a miracle! Hannah would not only BE THERE which she had so wanted but just knew she would miss, but she would forever be bonded to Dacy in a new way...babies with the same birthday.
Of course I juggled everything my life holds to get to Birmingham that day and I did only a couple of hours after Dacy Caroline was born. I got to hug my two babies, my best lifelong friend and her two babies all in a matter of minutes. It was a happy moment for all of us.
I think about what the future holds for these two little girls. I picture them as old women after their Grammies are memories and their sweet mothers have joined us once again. I see them sitting together laughing over one cake their joined families have brought for them. I see them there with a twinkle in their eyes that only comes from years of happy times. They have so much together and between them. Grade school, summers, secrets, inside jokes, clothes and shoes, a tank of gas, a box of Kleenex, boys who were wrong and ones who were right, weddings, babies, death and life and knowing someone so well, and sharing so much... good and sometimes not so good but loving just the same.
I see a deep connection that few get to experience, one born from God that goes back three generations.
Dacy Caroline and Aiden's birthday!
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