Sunday was Mom’s birthday and we celebrated by going to Callaway Gardens, which was once a place my family visited often. Mom and Dad have gotten older, and Dad just can’t drive long distances any longer. But I think they look really sweet in this photo. We had a wonderful time being together and remembering days when our entire family—aunts, uncles, and cousins would meet here for a picnic lunch and fellowship.

The gardens are suffering. Low attendance and a tumbling economy has made an impact. Still these roses are beautiful and wonderfully happy. In fact. a friend told me their name is laughter.

For 10 years prior to his death, co founder Cason Callaway (his wife Ida was the other founder) planned this chapel that was dedicated to his mother. The Callaway Garden Web site said, “He spent days walking the property looking for the perfect spot to build this chapel. A week before his death, he finalized the plans for it. Although he never saw it completed, he already had seen it in his mind’s eye.”

The chapel is reminiscent of 16th-century Gothic chapels. It was constructed of fieldstone quartz and natural materials and also contains a custom-built Möller pipe organ. On Sunday, the organ was being played during a concert and you could hear it out over the small lake that is in front of the chapel.

Nothing fancy with this photo. I was in a hurry to get back to Atlanta. So this was just a snap shot, but it is a good enough place holder for me to write that the chapel was dedicated in April 1962 by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale. You better believe that in this settling plenty of weddings have taken place over the years.

Wow! Yesterday I had an opportunity to see my cousins on my Dad’s side of the family for the first time in years. We were once scattered from north to south. Rosalyn lived in Jacksonville, Florida with her family; and Debbie (Madden) and her family were in Miami; and Georgia grew up in Ohio. I was the only one who lived in Georgia, but we had connections through loving aunts and uncles, who made sure we reconnected from time-to-time, especially in the summer. Family truly does matter, and I’m grateful we were together again even for a short amount of time.

We even had an opportunity to recreate the photo (below) that was taken at Aunt Sally’s home in Palmetto, Georgia, when we were very young. Debbie and Carl, thank you again and again for hosting our family’s reunion yesterday! Your lake house is absolutely lovely!

The four cousins: Georgia, Debbie, Angie, and Rosalyn.

Mom is getting older, but her backyard is still beautiful. I know that one of the things I’ll always remember about her is her love for flowers. She told me last week that she gets up in the mornings and walks through her garden talking to God. And that sometimes, He talks back. Then she reminded me that there was a hymn about this:

I come to the garden alone
While the dew is still on the roses
And the voice I hear falling on my ear
The son of God discloses.

And he walks with me and he talks with me
And he tells me I am his own
And the joy we share as we tarry there
None other has ever known.

I don’t mind still being “Daddy’s girl.” I love my Mom, but Dad and I always did things together. He never hesitated to take me with him wherever he went. He showed me how to throw a softball, climb a tree, and dance. (He never played dolls with me though. That’s a relief!) I remember our first dance together. I had to put my feet on top of his shoes and let him swirl me around the room. If I got hurt, Mom would take care of me; but my Dad would tell me how to avoid letting it happen again. “Think before you take a step forward, and you’ll be okay,” he would say to me. There are times in the past when I wish had followed that advice a little more closely.

Mother’s garden is always beautiful. She is in her ’80′s and still out in it every day. She says it keeps her young.

Celebrating Daddy’s Day!

Recently, Dad and Mom and I drove to White Plains, Alabama, to visit the church where Dad often worshiped as a boy. Though he grew up in Atlanta, he had lots of relatives in While Plains, which is a “bare” mention on the map. In fact, if you blink, take a breath, or for that matter turn your head, you have passed through White Plains. We stopped at an abandoned grocery store where Dad told me that he once sold freshly gathered eggs to the owner for thirteen cents a dozen. Before we drove away, I asked him, “Dad, where is White Plains?” He smiled and said, “You’re standing in it!”

Dad begins to tell the story that we had heard so many times. Still, whenever he tells it again, we always draw near and listen as if we were hearing it for the first time. He was fourteen years old and had been drafted by his Grandfather and the other men of the community to help clean the graveyard at the church. Shortly after sunrise on the day of the event, his Grandfather tapped lightly on the door to his room and told him it was time to go. The horse and wagon had been readied and Grandmother was standing ready with breakfast. Aunt Ollie (Grand Daddy’s sister) was there and she packed him off with a fresh homemade biscuit stuffed with cured ham. “This is for later, Jack, when you get hungry,” she told him as she folded the heavy piece of paper over and wrapped the small package up with a thin piece of twine. Once they arrived at Sweet Home, Dad jumped down from the wagon, greeted the other men, and he reached down and put his mid-morning snack in what he thought was a secure place—under the buck-board of the wagon. After a couple hours of hard work, he turned to his Grandfather and said, “Grand Daddy, I think I’ll go back and eat the biscuit Aunt Ollie gave me.” His Grandfather nodded and said, “Go, ahead,” and Dad returned to the wagon only to find that his biscuit was gone! “I remember thinking, ‘How did that horse get my biscuit? But I realized the horse did not take it because it was hitched to the tree. Someone else had. We were in the middle of the depression and many people did not have anything to eat.” In the above photo Dad is standing in the exact spot where his Grandfather’s wagon had been parked and where his biscuit was stolen.

Dad looks down at Aunt Hat’s grave. Uncle Belton—”Uncle Belt” her beloved husband—is buried beside her.

Here’s another view of Sweet Home Methodist Church. I noticed the attendance board in the front of the church had only 32 people listed for the first Sunday in June. I love the two separate entrances. In the old days, men would enter on one side and women on the other.

We walked through the unlocked church door, and the first thing my Dad said was, “My Grandfather taught Sunday School in this room.” His words took my breath away because I knew I was standing in the place were my spiritual heritage was born. “Are these the same pews that you remember sitting in when you were a boy?” I asked. “Oh, yea,” Dad answered. “It’s all the same.”

Then I asked Dad to sit down were he naturally would have sat. Mom said when they had visited together after they were married, they sat over to the right side. But we noticed that Dad had taken a place down front. “So, you sat down here?” I questioned. He responded: “To hear the preacher, we did.”

Just a sweet country church that at one time was lit by . . .

kerosene lamps.

In the back of the church, I found a stack of really old Methodist hymnals. The piano was a Kimball and the choir “loft” was comprised of a couple of pews lined up to the right of the pulpit.

Here’s the serpentine road that leads away from Sweet Home and toward White Plains. I’m glad my mother was with us. She knew exactly how to get us back to the main road. If not, Dad and I would still be wandering along dirt roads. Our sense of direction must be identical!

My sweet Dad is standing in front of the barn in White Plains, Alabama, that he fell out of when he was fourteen-years old.

When I was a kid, I remember this rose bush being in our backyard. In fact, I can’t think of a time when it wasn’t there. Usually, it was on its way to being moved from one spot to another. Amazingly, it survived each move! Mother has always rotated plants like some people rearrange furniture inside their homes. As a result, her yards are beautiful. And even though she is now in her 80s, she continues to do what she has done for years—work outside almost every day.