Mid-December, 1995.  It was a dark and slushy night.  I stopped by the library just before it closed to get a book on hold.  I was at the front desk when my friend Cindy walked in the door, looking distressed.  Her car wouldn’t start, she lived 30 minutes away, and her husband wasn’t home yet.  And it was December. 

“I only know one thing about cars, but I’d be glad to try it,” I offered.  We had an Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera Wagon that was easily flooded.  My husband had taught me how to open the hood and stick a pen in the carburetor to hold it open. The car often flooded, but I could always fix it.  It was that kind of car.  I had used the pen-in-the-car trick many times to keep from getting stranded. 

I left my books inside; we held onto the rails as we threaded our way down the steps to the street.  The snow had turned to rain. Cindy popped the latch, I opened the hood like Mechanic was my middle name, and stuck the pen in the carburetor.  “Now try it,” I coached.  The car started like a top.  Oh. my. goodness.  I danced in the  puddles, whooped and hollered.  It was a moment of victory unlike any other in my life.  I  fixed a car! 

Sometimes it only takes one piece to solve to puzzle.  When the odds of getting an answer look bleak, when the chances seem impossible, you don’t need a dozen possible choices.  There may be many interviews, but it just takes one job offer to become employed.  There’s no need for a dozen Mr. Rights to choose from.  It only takes one. 

Tucked in between the happy chaos and loud gatherings of the 22nd and the 24th was a quiet reading evening. 

It was reminiscent of my childhood: siblings sprawled in various positions between horizontal and vertical, the quiet occasionally punctuated by a chuckle, hum, or gasp.  Curt was working late, Carson had taken Noah out to look for who-knows-what. Those of us at home were at home with a book. 

Taryn, my daughter-in-law, was reading Kristin Lavransdatter.  Collin was chuckling his way through P. G. Wodehouse’s The Heart of a Goof.  I was dipping into Michael Ruhlman’s The Soul of a Chef: The Journey Toward Perfection.  The tree twinkled, the fire crackled; the only other sounds were barely audible breathing.

When the missing men arrived back home we popped a bottle of champagne to celebrate.  Son #2 toasted to God’s goodness in his life: three years of marriage and an inquisitive one year old boy.  While Carson was toasting I had a flashback to a day seven years ago when he experienced a rare bout of angst.  He knew what he wanted (a family of his own…I believe his words were “a wife, a house and a kid”) but it all seemed so very far off and unimaginable. 

His dream was out of my sight too, but I encouraged him to wait and hope…and to work while he waited.  Seven years ago I couldn’t give him a snapshot of his life today.  But it is glorious to look back and see the gifts, stacked to the ceiling and spilling over, he has been given.  Praise God from Whom all blessings flow.   

It’s a funny thing: in my work, I repeatedly see names of people whom I have never met.  Some are hysterical (I’d love to give some examples but discretion is the better part of valor), some are mellifluous, some are common, some are abrupt, some are odd in other ways… 

Do you ever think objectively about your name?

Carol is becoming the Edna of my youth–a dated name that says old lady.  Oh well!

When I was a bank teller in LA, a customer came to my window with a check made out to me.  I stammered and stuttered and protested that she should make the check payable to Cash or to Security Pacific but not to me!  She tilted her head, squinted her eyes, stared me down, and replied  “Whachuu talkin’ bout?  That’s mah nay-eem!”  

My real question is this: do you hear a name and form an idea of the person who owns the name?   Isn’t it weird how our preconception almost never matches reality?

 
Free TBOI (tasty bit of information):  Ecuador is named after the Equator.  How could I have just learned that for the first time today?