IN MEMORY OF JENNY BARNEY

Seventeen years ago on February 28, 1997, two beautiful, sweet West Point girls, Jenny Barney and Sarah Van Komen, completed their work in mortality.  I have often imagined them holding hands as they began their journey back to the arms of awaiting loved ones to begin their missions in Heaven.

How joyfully vibrant they both were!  Even after so much time, it is easy to picture their bright faces  as they share the Plan of Salvation with those who didn't have the opportunity to embrace it in this life.

Sometimes, I can still hear Jenny's laughter as she romped through my home with my two youngest daughters, as she frolicked with the other girls in my Activity Days class, and as she brightened any soccer field she played on.  I loved the way she'd giggle and say, "I rock!  Jenny really rocks!"

Not surprisingly, those words found their way into a poem I wrote for Jenny the day I learned of her death.  Out of state at the time, I couldn't get home for her funeral, and the only way I could calm myself was to write down this poem as it came in one unedited draft from my heart:

Jenny's feet

flew over soccer fields, 

her honey-kissed hair

glinting in the sun.

When she could run,

she never walked.

She was the one

whose laughter rippled--

filled the air

and lingered there,

until the whole

world "rocked."

"Jenny rocks!"

She said it in a way

that made you want to stop,

cast off the ordinary day,

and wear the sun 

upon your shoulders

like she did.

She never hid her appetite for life,

but managed in

a few short years

to weather challenges 

and measure tears.

Joy, unrationed,

filled her cup.

Wherever Jenny was,

the sun came up.

Often, I pause at the cemetery near my home and spend a quiet moment at Jenny's grave, thanking my Heavenly Father that I had the privilege to know her.   My heart is warmed by a picture I have of Jenny on an Activity Days outing.  See how she is nestled in an alcove of the Temple (left top row). 

Jenny at the Salt Lake Temple (Top left)

"Returned With Honor"

I know Sarah Van Komen was a gift to those around her, too.  How often I've heard the people who knew her describe her as an "angel" in expressing their love for her! I was able to attend her funeral and had the impression that she was truly one of Heavenly Father's choice spirits.

Until we meet again, Jenny and Sarah...

PUCKER UP FOR PICKLES

My kids love pickles—not the sweet, syrupy Gherkins, but those walloping plump Peter-Piper-picked-a peck-of-pickled-pucker-power sours, the Kosher kind that look like green, embryonic blimps preserved in enough vinegar and dill to turn your lips outside in.

We buy them in barrel-shape crocks and keep them on the top shelf of the refrigerator with other essentials, like milk and orange juice.

There used to be a rule about asking “mother” to help a child poking around to pick his preferred pickle.  But, like getting bedtime drinks of water for our brood, that routine got old fast.  “Get your own!”  I relented.

Jennifer usually pokes for her pickles with a toothpick.  She likes the popping sensation of piercing through the skins with a factory-honed wood splinter.  That’s why her siblings all think a proper pickle comes with three or four holes punched in the top.

Stacee is more practical.  She uses a fork to efficiently dangle her dills.  Tines down, she studies her prey and harpoons it in one stroke.

But Matthew, the little guy who contributes his own measure of three-year-old vinegar to our pickle- pecking pack, is a prehensile pickle poker. Dill pickles never stay Kosher for long at our house. Pushing a bar stool over to the fridge, Matt resembles the proverbial monkey raiding the cookie jar. He puts his whole grimy fist in the pickle crock. And, sometimes, he can’t get it out.

Pickle flavor perpetually permeates his dimpled hand.  Heaven help him if he ever tries sucking his thumb—he'll be instantly hooked!

Strangely enough, with all this pickle picking, none of my kids likes dills on hamburgers.  Last time I took Matthew to McDonalds, he ordered a “Big Mac,” without the meat.

We buy our pickles in crocks!

EATING WORDS EASIER THAN GETTING CHILD TO EAT VEGGIES

"My children are not going to be picky eaters," I told my mom on a day when my youngest brother had been caught poking his peas down the furnace vent beneath his kitchen chair.

Though still in high school, I already had strong opinions on the art of raising perfect kids.  For example, a youngster whose parents introduced vegetables at an early age would live happily ever after with a sprig of spinach between his teeth.

And so, years later, when I had a child of my own, I ladled in the goods. Green beans and strained peas were menu staples, each pureed spoonful introduced by great smackings of the lips and snatches of a tuneless song called "Yummy, Yummy, Yum in the Tummy, Tum, Tum."

Richard Simmons had nothing on me when it came to enthusiasm for healthy food.

Sure enough, that first little girl, Jennifer, complacently accepted such offerings, right up to the moment when she learned to say no.

How clearly I remember that day!  In a cozy, little restaurant well-known for its tranquil setting, my cherubic daughter looked up from a plate of mashed asparagus with a smug pursing of her Cupid's bow mouth and shrieked, "No, no, no!"

After that she went into hysterics every time I approached her with anything green.  On St Patrick's Day, I had to wear the color in component shades of yellow and blue.

And the next time my husband and I were invited to my parents' house for dinner, I arranged to have the highchair strategically placed directly over the furnace vent.  Then, when Mom wasn't looking, I poked all my daughter's peas down the louvered grate.

No, I do not eat veggies!

WAR IN THE CABBAGE PATCH

The tug-of-war began the moment Christie unwrapped her birthday Cabbage Patch preemie doll and escalated to hysterical squeals, shrieks, and grunts.

It seemed that Julie, just 17 months younger than the 4-year-old birthday girl, wanted joint custody of the pudgy, google-eyed Xavier Roberts creation that lay with its amphibian-like, pooched out cheeks and bald pate in her older sister's arms.

As the battle intensified, I was mystified.  This was a doll whose face was like no newborn human I had ever seen.  By comparison, even the most wrinkly, red-faced infant would look downright cherubic. 

Somewhat ruefully, I remembered the first time I'd seen the words Cabbage Patch connected with a doll.  Just one year earlier, in a local supermarket, at least 20 of the pot-bellied orphans had been waiting for adoption on the shelf above the store's produce bins.

"They'll never sell," I'd told my husband back when you could become a Cabbage Patch parent for a mere $25.

Within three days the shelf was empty, and the homely dolls were selling for upwards of a hundred bucks to anyone "lucky" enough to be the first one answering a classified ad.

Now, some twelve months later, my two youngest daughters lay in their shared bed.  Christie's arms were locked possessively around the funny-looking toy, while Julie gazed with covetous eyes at her sister's birthday prize.

Pulling up the corner of the bedspread to wipe away Julie's tears, I tried to sympathize. "You want to share Christie's Cabbage Patch doll," I said.

For a moment Julie looked surprised.  "No," she set the record straight.  "I want to share her Cabbage Patch fwog!"

Imagse from All Things Clipart

 Click on the link below for a darling infant-sized Cabbage Patch hat pattern:

http://www.repeatcrafterme.com/2013/09/crochet-cabbage-patch-doll-inspired-hat.html

TV CREATES ITS OWN ZOMBIES

“And now,” the mad scientist in an old, horror flick said with a diabolical twist to his plastic, putty lips, “I shall play out my scheme to turn all humans into ravenous, glassy-eyed zombies!”

 

“Are you getting hungry?” With acute lack of timing, I had chosen that exact moment to query my 6-year-old son Michael who sat cross-legged in front of the television set.  As he waited for a horde of walking dead to stagger across the screen, that little boy didn’t even look my way; he merely raised his hand, palm out and fingers splayed, in a gesture that could only mean SILENCE!

“With all mankind under my power, I shall be in position to take over the whole world,” the seedy looking madman laughed.

“Honey, would you rather have tacos or spaghetti for supper tonight?”  This time I addressed my husband Dave who sat on the edge of his leather easy chair, looking anything but easy.  Glancing from father to son, I marveled at how much alike they were.  From their pale blond hair to the way they both watched with clenched fists and open mouths, they could have been clones.

 “I’ll take the pizza,” my spouse mumbled without blinking.  Meanwhile, the caricature on screen began foaming at the mouth in anticipation of seeing his hideous scheme carried out.

“Gentlemen,” I employed my most patient voice, “which topping would you prefer on your pizza—chopped grasshopper knuckles or deviled caterpillar warts?  And do you want your salad hard-boiled or french-fried?”

“That’ll be just fine,” Dave grunted, while Mike managed a slight bobbling of the chin that I took to be an “uh huh.”

By then, the film’s cameramen had begun a panoramic sweep inside a crowded supermarket.  From the number of shoppers in the store, the scene could have only been staged the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving.  Bumper-to-bumper shopping carts jammed every aisle, each cart manned by a lurching automaton with glassy, ravenous eyes.  Even the lobsters in the Pick-Your-Own-Seafood Dinner tank were in zombie-like trance.

“All the world is mine!” the villainous scientist ranted, after which huge, white letters spelling out THE END were superimposed across his heaving chest.

Retreating to the kitchen, I could hear Michael and his Dad discussing the film.

“There’s no such thing as zombies,” Mikey said.

“Couldn’t ever be,” his dad agreed.

Each cart was manned by a lurching automaton with glassy, ravenous eyes.