It used to be that I would say that my favorite holiday, hands down, was Thanksgiving. There was just something about putting together that plate...a little stuffing, some mashed potatoes right beside, a lot of turkey on top (white meat, of course!), a drizzle of gravy over all of it, next to it some cranberry sauce, then, in no particular order, a buttered roll and a scoop of everthing else, including Grandma Remke's Sweet Potato Casserole. I'd top all of that off with a sliver of pecan pie and a sliver of pumpkin pie - with whipped topping, of course!
And as if that feast was not enough, an hour or two later, I would always lay down for a long, luxurious nap while the menfolk watched football. And I was thankful - for the simple pleasure of good food, family to enjoy it with, and the freedom to lay down and take a nap whenever I darn well wanted to.
Today, I realize that I really do not have a favorite holiday. That's because I like them all - equally. Growing up in the Remke household, holidays were prized special events to celebrate. My mother made sure we didn't let a holiday or birthday pass without the proper mix of fun and festivity. She was big on tradition, but also knew when to throw the rulebook out and try something different. Many a new tradition came to be through her efforts - and some (thankfully!) didn't stick, like her Coca-Cola gravy. Yuck!
I believe my mother's favorite holiday was Christmas. I say it was her favorite only because it was the one holiday for which she made the most effort. We nearly always had a real tree, usually a Douglas fir or a blue spruce, and it was always decorated beautifully with a mix of hand-made and store-bought ornaments. Each holiday season, I still walk past the tree stand outside the local grocery stores just for a whiff of evergreen goodness. My allergies and the modern convenience of a pre-lit tree keep me from dragging a real one home, however.
Back in the day, my brother, sister and I always helped decorate the tree. Mom would pour each of us a mug of eggnog with a splash of whipped cream on top and we would put on our Christmas albums, including my favorites, The Carpenter's, Andy Williams, and a compilation album, that included the Beach Boys "Little St. Nick" and the Muppets singing "The 12 Days of Christmas."
In 1976, my Grandpa and Grandma Remke began the tradition of buying a Hallmark ornament for each grandchild. When we each left home, we received a box full of the ornaments with our names written on them in my mother's beautiful handwriting. Over the years, Mom added to the collection with ornaments for my children, continuing the tradition my grandparents started so long ago.
Last night, I dragged the tree out of the attic, along with boxes of ornaments, stockings, and other decorative items. The tree was assembled in less than 10 minutes and soon, Jared, Jade, Dwayne and I were sitting in the living room with Christmas music playing and eggnog in our mugs. And my children, excited and joyful for the coming season, put the ornaments on the tree, including some that are more than 30 years old.
There was the 1976 ornament of a shepherd and a sheep; the ornament with Jack Frost painting on the windowpane; the Wedgwood ornament with a relief of the wise men; a little gingerbread house that was stamped 1977; and so many others that brought back such wonderful memories - of my grandparents and times spent with them; of my mother and the joy she found in Christmas, a gift she gave to each of her children; of Christmas music, old and new, and how precious each song is to my heart.
Best of all, I felt close to Momma, as we celebrated the season the way she would have if she were still here. I like to think she was there last night, maybe sitting on the couch next to Dwayne as he snapped photographs of our little decorators. As I touched each ornament, I took comfort in the fact that her hands also had touched them so many years ago. I recognized in that moment why human beings need tradition and celebration. Tradition ties together our past and our present and is the source of happy memories. Celebration entails living our lives each day to the fullest and recognizing that everything about this life is special and worthy of our best effort.
My mother taught me that. How blessed I am to finally "get it" at the ripe old age of 40!
Fifteen years ago today was one of the happiest days of my life. I married Dwayne Henderson.
In February 1994, on the way back from a visit to my parents in Owasso, Dwayne stopped the car near a cove on Lake Eufaula. We sat and looked at the stars for a long time and then, Dwayne got down on one knee and proposed to me. After four years of dating, most of it long-distance, the time had come to move forward with our lives whether together or apart.
I chose together. I said "yes," a decision I have neither regretted nor questioned as the years have passed. As I look back on it now, I realize that God's fingerprints were all over it - from the mailbox key that didn't work, to the chance meeting at a desk, to the friendship that blossomed and grew, to the simple, effortless way we fell in love and stayed there.
On November 5, 1994, I walked down the aisle of East Cross United Methodist Church, the same aisle my mother walked down to meet my father 27 years earlier. I was nervous and scared, because the magnitude of the moment seized my heart and I realized that things would never be the same. Plus, I had stage fright, big time! When you dress all in white silk, chiffon, and pearls, everyone's going to turn and look at you and it can be overwhelming. But once I was at the end of the aisle with my man, the world and my cares melted away.
The rest of the story is simple. We settled into everyday life. We loved each other. We fought with each other. We made up. We moved. We bought our first house. We had a baby. Then another baby. We been poor, we've been comfortable. We've changed jobs and we've owned our own business. We made money, lost money, bought cars, sold cars. We moved again, this time to the house of our dreams. We made friends. We've lost some along the way. Loved ones died and we were sad. We've been angry, unreasonable, and out-of-sorts. Our children continue to grow and bring us great joy. We've been compassionate, generous, and kind. We've laughed until tears came out of our eyes. In short, life has happened, all around us.
But the one constant, the one thing I can count on, is that when I go to sleep at night, the person I love most in this world is right there beside me. Sometimes, our hands touch in the middle of the night and my heart says a simple prayer of thanks to God for the tremendous blessing of being able to love someone and knowing that person loves me in return. There is peace, comfort, and safety there - a notion that all is right in this world.
Dwayne, thank you for choosing me. Thank you for loving me. If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't change a thing.
God bless that key that wouldn't work - wherever it is!
What I love most about my husband is his kind heart, followed closely behind by his tremendous sense of humor.
My first exposure to Dwayne's sense of humor was Halloween 1989. He had dressed up as Leatherface of Texas Chainsaw Massacre fame (complete with chainsaw) for our dormitory's annual Halloween dance. I was supposed to be a pink bunny rabbit, but was battling a chronic sinus infection and decided to stay in. Dwayne noticed that several friends were missing, myself included, and decided to bring the "party" to us. He enlisted the help of our friends Steve and Holly (for camera work), knocked on the door and when the unsuspecting victim opened up, he kick-started the chainsaw. Steve snapped photos of the shocked and horrified residents for posterity's sake. We now have an album full of these photographs - human faces contorted in terror - which Dwayne thoroughly enjoys looking back through from time to time. I had heard him revving up the chainsaw down the hallway and knew better than to open up, therefore my shocked face is absent from the collection.
Dwayne's offbeat humor has gotten us through some pretty tight spots over the years. In 1999, I gave birth to our son, Jared. I was in full-blown labor when we got to the hospital because Dwayne did not believe my water had broken back at the house. It didn't "gush," as he put it. After pointing out to him that I had been through five pairs of underwear and a whole stack of washrags, he finally conceded that perhaps my water had, indeed, broken. While I was being admitted, the nurse who was starting my IV was not impressed by Dwayne's running jokes. After she left, I begged him to get rid of her because I knew he wasn't going to stop joking and I knew I wouldn't be able to watch Ms. Sourpuss roll her eyes all evening. He left the room to take care of the problem, and I never saw her again, thankfully.
After giving birth, I had fourth-degree tears and had to be stitched up. Unfortunately, someone on the medical team didn't count the sponges and one got sewn up inside. On the third day I was home from the hospital, I developed a smell that can best be described as fishy. I started taking five baths a day, trying to rid myself of the stench, to no avail. Jared was still in the neonatal intensive care unit, so we were driving back and forth to Tulsa every day twice a day. The smell was overwhelming - for me and for Dwayne - and particularly in an enclosed vehicle. One night, Mom and Dad came with us to the hospital, and the smell, if it was possible, was worse than it had ever been. I was beyond embarrassed. My Dad, proud of his grandson, was talking about how cute Jared was. He asked Dwayne when we were planning to have another baby. Without missing a beat, Dwayne said, "Whenever Ang stops stinking like a tuna fish factory." I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
Dwayne's current favorite way to make me laugh is finding creative ways to write "toilet paper" on my running shopping list. He keeps hoping that I will see it in the middle of the grocery store and crack up laughing, but I'm far too quick for that. Some of my favorites from his TP substitute collection include: "bunghole papyrus," "asswipe," and "cornhole rollies."
When he isn't trying to be funny, Dwayne cracks me up anyway with some of his silly antics. A few years ago, Dwayne's riding lawn mower crapped out. He needed to get the yard mowed, because the grass was getting pretty tall, but it's too big to be push-mowed. He got out his push lawn mower, cranked it up, tethered it to his four-wheeler and pulled it around the yard. I came outside to put something in the trash can and nearly wet my pants laughing at him.
The best part of living with Dwayne is watching him with his kids. He has so much fun with them and they think of him as a walking, breathing jungle gym. Jared loves to wrestle with Daddy and Jade is Dwayne's shadow. Dwayne even taught her how to water trees this summer. He is indoctrinating both of our children to be good OSU Cowboys and has introduced them both to the finer points of Led Zepplin, Judas Priest, Ozzy Osbourne, and Deep Purple.
Tune in tomorrow for the final installment...
Twenty years ago, two weeks into the fall semester of 1989 at Oklahoma State University, I met the man who would become my husband. He was working as a desk clerk in the front lobby of our co-ed dormitory. He had auburn hair and was studying something that looked faintly like trigonometry. Not that I would know anything about trigonometry. I was lucky to make it through College Algebra and obviously did not seek further education on the subject, as I can barely balance my checkbook to this day.
I had made my way to the mailboxes seeking a tuition check my father had sent. I put my key into the lock several times, but each time I tried to turn it, the box would not open. Frustration setting in, I made my way to the front desk. There he sat. Love the hair color, I thought. Nice smile, I thought. Wow! He's a math genius, I thought.
I smiled back and asked if he could help me with my mail situation, as I could see the mailboxes were accessible just around a partition beside the desk. He said, "You know, taking someone's mail out the back side of the box is a federal offense." As my face fell, he asked me what room. "305," I replied. He went around the partition, took the mail out of the box, and handed it to me. I decided right then never to prosecute.
I learned much later that I had made an impression as well. He still, to this day, remembers what I was wearing, the way my hair looked, and the color of my eyes. He immediately looked in the card index to find out the names of the two women living in Room 305. Kristen or Angela.
The dormitory we lived in was populated by both the normal and the weird and unusual. Upon reflection, it was more weird than normal. There was Joseph, a biker dude who was rumored to be a devil worshipper; Rambo, a man in his 30s who was separated from his wife and had returned to college to escape the situation (and, he had a penchant for picking me up and carrying me around, which I never quite figured out); Senor Gomez, a strange little man with a Gomez Adams moustache (thus the name), who watched "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" repeatedly, while dressing up and dancing each time; a whole wing of lesbian chicks who swapped rooms; Peng, a horny Asian student who liked to wear flip-flops, eat food reeking of fish heads, and propositioning women in the stairwell; Richard, a 400-pound man who tried to buy me at the annual "servant sale," and thoughts of what he planned to do with me still make me shiver; Daniel, a slightly-off-balance savant who once literally gave the sweater off of his back for a clothing drive; and Mick, the Pizza Shuttle guy, who delivered pizzas to the dorm and apparently liked it so much, he took up residency in the lobby.
Through this mass of strange humanity, Dwayne and I were drawn to one another, if for nothing else because we were two of the least damaged. Dwayne was a gentleman, kind, quick-witted, and hilariously funny. We became good friends. I found him easy to talk to and fun to hang out with, something I had never experienced before with a man. There were no expectations, no foregone conclusions. He was graduating at the end of the semester and I was just starting my junior year. After the failure of a relationship just months before, the notion of being "just friends" with someone seemed safe and comfortable.
Little did I know that Dwayne's feelings extended well beyond friendship, but he didn't let me know that. He knew I was still hurt and I think he knew I needed some space. Secretly, I wanted more, too. But I was too afraid of losing his friendship to admit it. I needed it like I needed the air that I breathed.
We began dating in earnest in the summer of 1990, after he invited me to go waterskiing at the lake with him and his friends. I thought it was just the fact that I wore a polka-dotted bikini to the lake that made him plant a flying lip-lock on me when I got ready to leave, but there was more behind that kiss than just the appreciation of a teeny-weeny bikini.
Tune in for more later...
