The Trim

 This is where I grew up in a close knit, competitive family (count ’em, butter bean), with Dad, Mom, Larry, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.

Being back here is like being a giant string of taffy – being pulled this way and that, trying to see everyone and make everyone happy!

And being here has made me reflective.  A close friend of mine told me a story about his son, Charlie.  The father and his wife had been measuring their son and daughter’s growth for several years with a pencil against a wood framed doorway in their house.  The son, Charlie, wrote a fifth grade essay about “The Trim.”  The trim on the door, it turns out, was the symbol of the love that was embedded in those penciled lines, as this family grew and melded together into a strong tapestry.  The house may change, but the trim goes with you.

Being in Tulsa with my first family is wonderful, and I can’t wait to see my own family in Georgia soon, as well as dear friends in South Carolina.  All of you make up the trim of Tanner’s and my life, the interwoven threads that tell our story, make us strong, make us celebrate, make us cry, make us pull together harder – and even when we are apart from each other, our lives are inexplicably woven into colorful lifelines that multiply and create our own patterns and markings on the door.

France is many land and nautical miles away, but really, it’s just another embroidery life thread.  [Maybe it’s a FRENCH KNOT!  🙂  hahahahahaha]

So happy to be with you all,

Mindy