Terri Barnes's Blog

“And how could we endure to live and let time pass if we were always crying for one day or one year to come back — if we did not know that every day in a life fills the whole life with expectation and memory and that these are that day?”

~ C. S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet

The year I turned fifty, plenty of people tried to reassure me – and possibly themselves – with the mantra that “fifty is the new thirty.” Now, a decade later, the latest iteration of the mantra is trying to convince me that “sixty is the new forty.”

I’ve been thirty and forty. I’ve been fifty. They were all good. Very good, but this is none of those things. Sixty is definitely a new experience, not a recycled or reimagined version of those years. I am sixty, and I’m not—at least I’m trying not to be—intimated by the number.

It’s easy to believe one decade’s birthday is just a new version of another. Easy, because at forty or fifty, and even now, in some ways I still feel the same as when I was thirty. In some ways.

I won’t lie. I often want to think of myself as younger than my years. But I’m not. All those years, while making an impression on my physical self, have also deepened my experience and my appreciation of life, even my older self.

My daughter was born when I was thirty, and it was a very good year. A hard year in some ways, but a good one. We were overseas in a tough military assignment, far from home. I had a toddler and a new baby, and sometimes I wondered what happened to the twenty-year-old me. I still wonder sometimes.

Anyone who reaches any milestone beyond thirty will tell you it’s hard to comprehend the number of years as they go by. When I was young, I thought the years would make me feel old, that they would weigh heavily, but they don’t. Instead, they are frighteningly weightless as they fly past, and when each year is gone, I wonder how it happened so quickly. 

In late summer, I took a train journey with my daughter who has reached her own “new thirty” this year – the real one. We marked our milestones together as the train raced down the tracks.

The metaphor is almost too easy. Our train speeds along the track, and we see vignettes of life as they flick by: a man leading a horse out of a paddock, birds rising from a marsh, an old truck traveling along a country road. These slide past so quickly, too quickly to take in each one, or have time to exclaim, “Did you see that?”

The wider landscape is slower-paced, easier to absorb: clouds in a blue sky, green mountains, a glassy lake. We enjoy it all, the wide vistas and the narrow moments as they fall behind and we speed along the track.

The week before my birthday, all three of our children (with help from their dad) surprised me by showing up from three different states. They rearranged their schedules and crossed the miles by car and plane for a weekend celebration of my sixth decade. Those sweet days flicked by all too quickly, but you can be sure I savored them as life kept speeding along.

Now I’m sixty. Can’t stop this train, so I’m taking in the broad vistas and savoring the small moments even when they pass much too quickly. I’m celebrating where I am.

We don’t have to convince ourselves that what we now are is the new-something-else to justify where we are in life. We are here. Every year, every decade is new when we get here. We don’t have to convince ourselves otherwise. This is where we belong for this moment.

This is my new sixty, and I’m celebrating it.

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“If you could reason by pure logic for the occurrence of miracles, they would not be miracles, would they?”

~ Ellis Peters

It isn’t much to look at, a dented fruitcake tin with cutouts from old Christmas cards pasted all around the sides. The contents might not seem very impressive either, but my grandmother’s button box holds the collection of a lifetime.

Collecting buttons wasn’t a hobby for Meemaw, though. It was a practical necessity. She kept her family of six supplied with clothes and linens, and her button box is a homely history told in sewing and mending projects. New buttons still on the card and used buttons saved from clothing outgrown or outworn. Replacement buttons for my grandfather’s work shirts and anchor-embossed buttons from his WWII navy uniform. Pearl buttons left over from a wedding dress. Tiny heart-shapes for baby clothes and big Bakelite flower fasteners from a bygone winter coat.

When I was little and visited my grandmother, sometimes my best friend would come along. On one visit, Meemaw gave us fabric scraps, needle and thread, and the button box to make clothes for our dolls. I don’t think we made many doll clothes, but we were captivated by the buttons, sorting them by colors, sizes, and shapes. We created tiny table settings, imagining the buttons as cups, bowls, and platters, topping them with other buttons for lids, cakes or casseroles. Meemaw put the button box back to work when we left, but on many more visits the buttons became playthings again.

Years later, in her nineties, Meemaw moved from her home into a care facility. Knowing how much I loved her button box, she bequeathed it to me when she no longer needed it. I told Meemaw I would put the box in my carry-on when I flew back home from Oklahoma to South Carolina. It was much too precious to let out of my sight in checked luggage.

Dementia was already stealing away pieces of her memory, but not all of them. Not this one.

“Well, I’ll say,” she exclaimed, using one of her favorite expressions of amazement. “You never know what’s going to turn out to be a treasure, do you?”

It’s always cause for wonder when the ordinary becomes extraordinary.

When all our children lived at home, I bought clementine oranges for our family of five by the four-pound crateful. I packed clementines in the kids’ lunches, and they ate them after school. We all enjoyed them, but our youngest, Wesley, who was nine or ten at the time loved them most of all. So much so that at Christmas, I put a whole crate of oranges under the tree – all for Wesley. I’m pretty sure he polished them off before the holidays were over, and I doubt I gave them another thought when they were gone.

Last year after Christmas dinner with our grownup children, we sat around the table talking about our favorite holiday memories. The first one Wesley mentioned was enjoying that crate of little oranges, the way they smelled and tasted, even how they peeled so easily and came apart in perfect little sections.

When he was telling that story, I thought of Meemaw’s words about the button box.

“You never know what’s going to turn out to be a treasure.”

Every Christmas we spend a lot of time looking for good gifts, but sometimes the best ones catch us unaware. A gift may be ordinary in the moment yet become extraordinary when enjoyed and savored, transformed into an unexpected treasure.

In my childhood, an orange in the bottom of my Christmas stocking was a given – expected if not appreciated. I can’t recall that my sisters and I ever ate them. I figured my mom put an orange in each stocking to fill out the toe and prop up the candy and presents above. Maybe she did it because her mom always put one there. Her mom may have done so because an orange was a special treat for a little girl who grew up with little or nothing, as my grandmother did.

A treat for one generation might seem like stocking filler for the next, but the sweetness of simple gifts has a way of coming back around.

Wesley is a ceramic artist, and the clementine motif appears occasionally in his work, keeping the spirit of a sweet memory. As a gift for the opening of his Bachelor of Fine Arts senior exhibition this month, our family brought him a crate of clementines. His thoughtful classmates included a bowl of clementines with the reception food offerings.

We’ve all heard that the best things in life aren’t things. But sometimes they might be – an old button box, a little crate of clementines. The best things in life just might not be the things we expect.

“If you could reason by pure logic for the occurrence of miracles, they would not be miracles, would they?”

~ Ellis Peters

It isn’t much to look at, a dented fruitcake tin with cutouts from old Christmas cards pasted all around the sides. The contents might not seem very impressive either, but my grandmother’s button box holds the collection of a lifetime.

Collecting buttons wasn’t a hobby for Meemaw, though. It was a practical necessity. She kept her family of six supplied with clothes and linens, and her button box is a homely history told in sewing and mending projects. New buttons still on the card and used buttons saved from clothing outgrown or outworn. Replacement buttons for my grandfather’s work shirts and anchor-embossed buttons from his WWII navy uniform. Pearl buttons left over from a wedding dress. Tiny heart-shapes for baby clothes and big Bakelite flower fasteners from a bygone winter coat.

When I was little and visited my grandmother, sometimes my best friend would come along. On one visit, Meemaw gave us fabric scraps, needle and thread, and the button box to make clothes for our dolls. I don’t think we made many doll clothes, but we were captivated by the buttons, sorting them by colors, sizes, and shapes. We created tiny table settings, imagining the buttons as cups, bowls, and platters, topping them with other buttons for lids, cakes or casseroles. Meemaw put the button box back to work when we left, but on many more visits the buttons became playthings again.

Years later, in her nineties, Meemaw moved from her home into a care facility. Knowing how much I loved her button box, she bequeathed it to me when she no longer needed it. I told Meemaw I would put the box in my carry-on when I flew back home from Oklahoma to South Carolina. It was much too precious to let out of my sight in checked luggage.

Dementia was already stealing away pieces of her memory, but not all of them. Not this one.

“Well, I’ll say,” she exclaimed, using one of her favorite expressions of amazement. “You never know what’s going to turn out to be a treasure, do you?”

It’s always cause for wonder when the ordinary becomes extraordinary.

When all our children lived at home, I bought clementine oranges for our family of five by the four-pound crateful. I packed clementines in the kids’ lunches, and they ate them after school. We all enjoyed them, but our youngest, Wesley, who was nine or ten at the time loved them most of all. So much so that at Christmas, I put a whole crate of oranges under the tree – all for Wesley. I’m pretty sure he polished them off before the holidays were over, and I doubt I gave them another thought when they were gone.

Last year after Christmas dinner with our grownup children, we sat around the table talking about our favorite holiday memories. The first one Wesley mentioned was enjoying that crate of little oranges, the way they smelled and tasted, even how they peeled so easily and came apart in perfect little sections.

When he was telling that story, I thought of Meemaw’s words about the button box.

“You never know what’s going to turn out to be a treasure.”

Every Christmas we spend a lot of time looking for good gifts, but sometimes the best ones catch us unaware. A gift may be ordinary in the moment yet become extraordinary when enjoyed and savored, transformed into an unexpected treasure.

In my childhood, an orange in the bottom of my Christmas stocking was a given – expected if not appreciated. I can’t recall that my sisters and I ever ate them. I figured my mom put an orange in each stocking to fill out the toe and prop up the candy and presents above. Maybe she did it because her mom always put one there. Her mom may have done so because an orange was a special treat for a little girl who grew up with little or nothing, as my grandmother did.

A treat for one generation might seem like stocking filler for the next, but the sweetness of simple gifts has a way of coming back around.

Wesley is a ceramic artist, and the clementine motif appears occasionally in his work, keeping the spirit of a sweet memory. As a gift for the opening of his Bachelor of Fine Arts senior exhibition this month, our family brought him a crate of clementines. His thoughtful classmates included a bowl of clementines with the reception food offerings.

We’ve all heard that the best things in life aren’t things. But sometimes they might be – an old button box, a little crate of clementines. The best things in life just might not be the things we expect.

Everyone remembers what they were doing when the attacks happened on 9/11, and I’ve often wished I was doing something more significant than the usual weekday routine. On Sept. 11, 2001, after putting two of my children on the school bus, I waved to the driver, walked back to the kitchen and poured my second cup of coffee. With my youngest still asleep, I sat down with my Bible and journal and wrote that this was the “most peaceful part of my day.” The television was off. For me, it was still a Tuesday morning like any other. I wrote about the sunshine and gratitude for our new home and assignment at Moody Air Force Base, Georgia.

I had no idea what was happening at the Pentagon, or Shanksville, or Ground Zero, or even at the base—less than a mile away from our home—where my husband was already dealing with the tragedy unfolding and planning what would follow.

In the moment, I was oblivious to events that would affect every part of our military life from that day forward, but the prayer I wrote in my journal before I knew my world had changed would sustain me in the days, months, and years that followed.

 “Life is full of change,” I wrote. “Life is change … Lord, when the circumstances of my life seem too good to be true, help me to look only to you. I know that my joy doesn’t come from these things but from the hope I have in you … Your ways are higher than my ways, as high as the heavens are above the earth.”

Twenty years after writing those words, another eleventh of September has caught me off guard, unprepared and unsure how to mark this milestone. In some ways, I wish I was taking part in something symbolically significant, a commemoration or a ceremony on this day of remembrance. At the same time, I’m happy to be where I am, on a visit to see my family in Oklahoma.

Ceremonies are important, time set aside to remember the lost and honor their sacrifices. Symbols matter because they stand for something real: lives well-lived, people well-loved, events far beyond our comprehension. As high as the heavens are above the earth

This morning, I stood on my mom’s front porch with my second cup of coffee and watched the sun rising over the neighbor’s pasture. This is a good day to notice the significance of the small things, little ceremonies that make up a life well-lived. Kissing a sleeping child. Waving to the bus driver. A hot cup of coffee. Singing birds. Grazing cows. A funny text from one of my now grownup children. A walk to the farmer’s market with my husband. Lunch with my mom and all my sisters.

A beautiful blue sky on another September morning.

These really aren’t small things at all.

Terri Barnes is a writer, book editor, and book lover. She is the author of Spouse Calls: Messages from a Military Life.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Isaiah 55:8-9

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“I’m Nobody, who are you? / Are you a Nobody too? / Then there’s a pair of us! Don’t Tell!”

~ Emily Dickinson

Being nerdy now carries a cachet of coolness, even universality. “We’re All Nerds Now,” a New York Times headline declared a few years ago. This is good news, though belated in my opinion as a fifty-something. I like to think I was ahead of my time, because I was a nerd when it was not cool. At all.

I wasn’t great at math or science, so I wasn’t the kind of nerd who became the class valedictorian—more’s the pity. I was in band and wrote for the school paper. I squeaked by in Algebra I and II. I made it through Chem I because the smartest kid in the class was my lab partner—and I wrote about it for the school literary anthology. Yeah, that kind of nerd. You know, book smart.

I spent a lot of time with my nose in various books, or newspapers, or magazines. If I had time on my hands at breakfast, I was probably reading the back of the cereal box. If I was supposed to be cleaning my room or taking out the trash, I was probably reading then too. In grade school I created a library under my bed, stocking it with stacks of books and a flashlight. I dreamed of becoming a librarian. We had no shortage of books in our house. When I finished reading my books, I read my mom’s, or I read my favorites all over again. Or both.

By the time I was in high school, my head was full of obscure words, marginally useful facts, and phrases from nineteenth century novels—none of which fit very well into teenage conversation, but I did try. I have the embarrassing memories to prove it. I also may have had a few anachronistic expectations about falling in love (see again nineteenth-century novels) but those gave me a healthy skepticism for what passed for romance among my classmates.

Mamas, do let your babies grow up to be book smart. There is an upside. Also some downside.

Back then, being called “book smart” came with a condescension that implied a lack of other more important kinds of smarts. I know now that book smarts, street smarts, common sense, and other kinds of sense are not mutually exclusive. I had to earn some of those smarts from living life too, not just reading about it. But then and now, reading—while putting knowledge into my head—was also showing me how much was out there in the wide world waiting to be discovered and lived.

Now it’s cool to be geeky, nerdy, dorky, and book smart. I say not a moment too soon, and I’m not the only one.

“Becoming mainstream is the wrong word; the mainstream is catching up,” said actor and author Wil Wheaton in the New York Times story about nerdiness. (You tell ’em, Ensign Wesley Crusher.)

Etymologists give much of the credit for this welcome cultural shift to the personal technology explosion of the early 2000’s, which turned a few nerds into billionaires and all of us into potential computer geeks—or wannabees.

Thanks to those geeks and their creations, we’re all more free to aspire to our own brand of nerdiness, making the world a kinder, better place for those of us who have always been proud to be “book smart.”

Terri Barnes is a writer, book editor, and book lover. She is the author of Spouse Calls: Messages from a Military Life.

“It was a dark and stormy night …”

~ Edward Bulwer-Lytton

“Death, in particular, seems to provide … a greater fund of innocent amusement than any other subject.” 

~ Dorothy L. Sayers

For me, there’s nothing better on a dark and stormy night or a rainy afternoon than a cup of tea by the fire and a dead body in the library—the fictional variety. of course. In other words, I love a good murder mystery. It’s not the gore or lifeless corpses that draw me in, although a bloodstained rug makes an excellent clue. I’m there for the mystery. Give me a plot that thickens—plenty of twists and turns and the promise of a solution in the end.

The first grown-up books I read were Agatha Christie mysteries, passed down to me by my mom. I worked my way through the entire Christie canon (more than once) and soon discovered other mystery writers from Golden Age of crime fiction, Dorothy Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham, and others. The classic whodunnit remains my favorite literary genre—not to be confused with cozy mysteries with titles far more clever than their plots.

Over the years, I’ve wondered about my morbid reading habits and the abundance of murder-centric stories on my shelves. I’ve come to the conclusion, though, that my affinity for mysteries is not a fixation on death but a desire to make sense of life. A murder puzzle presents a deadly event in a prosaic setting, a trail of clues, and the reassurance that someone is at work to solve the mystery, reveal the culprit, and make everything right in the end. With that reassurance, I can endure even a gruesome murder—as long as it is not my own—and look forward to the unraveling.

“Detective stories contain a dream of justice,” Dorothy L. Sayer’s sleuth, Peter Wimsey says in Thrones, Dominations. “Detective stories keep alive a view of the world which ought to be true. Of course, people read them for fun, for diversion … but underneath they feed a hunger for justice, and heaven help us if ordinary people cease to feel that.”

In this meta moment, the fictional detective acknowledges the real-life purpose of the literary world he inhabits. As murder mysteries bring order and justice to a fictional world, they remind us there is a true north in the real world and a reason to aim for it.

 The mythic elements of mystery stories embody archetypes of humanity—and even faith. There is injustice, wrong, chaos and death; people ensnared by circumstances, lost in confusion. There is someone who saves them—sometimes from themselves—by revealing the truth. Someone who turns confusion into a coherent narrative that begins: “The mystery is solved …”

Cue the thunder.

Terri Barnes is a writer, book editor, and book lover. She is the author of Spouse Calls: Messages from a Military Life.

 “No, the wisdom we speak of is the mystery of God … That is what the Scriptures mean when they say,

‘No eye has seen, no ear has heard,
    and no mind has imagined
what God has prepared
    for those who love him.’”

I Cor. 2:7-10

It’s the time of year for bouquets of freshly sharpened pencils and a visit to the Shop Around the Corner. In other words, time to watch You’ve Got Mail—for (approximately) the thirty-seventh time. Eye-rolls will not deter me. It’s a feel-good movie worth watching for so many reasons: for sweet, melancholy songs, for online communication as a novelty, for its less-than-perfect happy ending. All that … and a bookstore.

As always, writer/director Nora Ephron infuses her feel-goodiness with meaning. Reminders that despite our best efforts, our plans will not always work out the way we wish; that we may have to let go of what was—even if it was beautiful—to take hold of what is. That the people we love may not be easy to love, but we can love them anyway. And there’s nothing like being stuck in an elevator to give you a closer look at yourself and your life—as experienced by Joe Fox, played by Tom Hanks.

For the past few months, like Joe Fox, we have been stuck in an elevator of sorts. A long time ago, or so it seems, we had big plans for 2020. We thought it was the perfect year for seeing clearly. We thought we were on our way up or at least out. It turns out we’re going nowhere—stuck between the sixth and seventh floors, wondering how long before we’ll be free again. In this in-between time we’re learning a few things about ourselves, our lives, about the world and who’s in charge.

Cut to the scene, just in time to hear Charlie, the elevator operator, say, “I hope this thing doesn’t plummet to the basement.” A nervous passenger responds, “Can it do that?”

We’ve been wondering the same thing while watching the COVID numbers climb, knowing each upward tick is a family’s worry or loss—wondering if ours is next. We’ve realized the inequities in our country revealed by this crisis, and we’re all hoping to avoid a precipitous fall. Meanwhile …

“Hi, this is Joe Fox,” our hero says into the elevator phone, asking Juan to call 911. Well, Joe, your name may open doors in some situations, but it probably won’t get you out of this elevator any sooner. Then again, Patricia, neither will screaming threats at potential rescuers, but maybe it made you feel better for second or two. Calm and kindness are usually better tactics. Even if they don’t open the doors, they make close quarters a bit more bearable.

We’ve seen our share of useless ranting and crazy ideas, like this one from Charlie: “Everyone should jump in the air.” More evidence that the guy in charge of the elevator means well, but he has no idea how to get this thing started again. Terrific. Finally, the elevator occupants resign themselves to wait out their captivity, and introspection begins (for some) as they take turns finishing the sentence, “If I ever get out of here …”

 It goes like something like this:

“I’m going to start speaking to my mama. I wonder what she’s doing right this very minute.”

“I’m marrying Oreet. I love her … I don’t know what’s been stopping me.”

“I’m having my eyes lasered.”

“If I ever get out of here …”

Patricia’s next angry outburst while searching for some very important Tic Tacs in her handbag prevents Joe from finishing his sentence. But he sees clearly without benefit of lasered vision. He knows what to do—or at least where to start.

Where will we start when our doors open and we are free again? What have we learned we can do without or that we need more of? Certainly, we have been short on more than toilet paper—or Tic Tacs. What intangibles should we have stored up in our hearts and minds to sustain us when the world narrowed down to strictly defined horizons? What essentials had we been neglecting in our rush to get wherever we were going before the world stopped?

It’s important to take stock of what I’ve learned and would do differently next time, because next time is coming. Maybe it won’t be a pandemic that grips the whole world, but there will be something. Life is like that. It might be a situation that grips only me—or you. Narrow days will come again, and before they do I want to fill up on what I need to see me through—and waste less time and space on what I don’t need.

In unexpected ways, 2020 has been the year of seeing more clearly. This narrow time and space has been contradictory—freeing me by confining me to face myself, my life with fewer distractions. This simplicity is refreshing, but when life opens up again, I’ll return to wider horizons. I won’t stay in the elevator just because life is simpler in here. I want to go out to a wider life and take simplicity with me.

Terri Barnes is a writer, book editor, and book lover. She is the author of Spouse Calls: Messages from a Military Life.

Get stuck in an elevator with Tom Hanks in this scene from You’ve Got Mail .

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“ ’Tis not all gold that glisters and every man was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth."

~ Cervantes

I poured cream into my first cup of coffee and, somewhat bleary-eyed, reached for a spoon to stir it. A mug beside our coffee pot holds an eclectic assortment of spoons for this purpose: ceramic from Japan, pottery from Poland, a couple from thrift shops in Virginia and Illinois, others from an antique market in the Netherlands. That morning, I pulled out a silver baby spoon from Texas, engraved with the initials of the spouse club at Sheppard Air Force Base.

None of our three military children were born with silver spoons in their mouths, but they did each receive one soon after they were born. Silver spoons, teethers, cups, and other silver gifts for births and christenings go back a long way. As far back as the middle ages, they were given as symbols of wealth and good fortune. They were also believed to provide protection against disease, probably evidence of silver’s antibacterial properties. When our kids were born, some military spouse clubs still followed the tradition of giving silver baby spoons, at least that’s where a couple of ours came from.

Many of the gifts we received when our children were born, though well used, are long gone. Yet the silver spoons remain. First they fed our babies, and now they’ve joined our mug-full of coffee stirrers, still lovely and still used daily at our house.

I sipped my coffee and looked at the engraved letters on the spoon, considering military life and the lasting gifts our children gained from it.

Some weren’t gifts they really wanted at the time, of course, but they had to take them anyway. The gifts of military life are seldom delivered on a silver platter—or a spoon. Instead, they are hard won treasures, mined from the rocky experience of being the new kid again; smelted in the crucible of tough goodbyes of moves and deployments; hammered out between siblings and parents when family is among the few constants in a lifetime of change.

Living a life marked by many changes is a good way to discover what doesn’t change—faith, family, love, hope—and to learn to navigate by those constants. In military life we learned to ride out the waves of uncertainty by keeping our eyes on a steady horizon. Perhaps those regular doses of change and uncertainty inoculated our children, making them hardy and strong to face the change and uncertainty that is part of every life.

Our children began early to carve out a sense of belonging for themselves wherever they went. We watched each of them grow and cultivate this ability as they forged new places over and over. For parents, this is painful to watch. It never gets easier—for us or our children—but the process proves it is possible. Recognizing the possibility gave them a reason to try again each time, even when they didn’t want to.

Our kids didn’t always feel completely at home in every school or every community where we lived, but they learned to appreciate a sense of home when and where they found it. We all learned that home is less about the place and all about the people who share it. 

Pouring my second (or third) cup of coffee, I realized that although I had been focused on the gifts my children gained from military life, I was also thinking about myself. We all lived this life side by side, after all; it’s true that as parents, we learn and gain as much as we teach and give. Military life has given me many gifts, both hard won and well used. Some of them are gifts I hope and believe my children have gained too. Gifts we can all use every day.

Terri Barnes is a writer and book editor and is the author of Spouse Calls: Messages from a Military Life.

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How do I love thee? Let me count the moving trucks. I admit, sweetheart, some of the reasons I love you don’t lend themselves well to poetry. Definitely not the stuff of greeting card sentiments and romance novels — and thank heaven for that. The chapters of our love story have been punctuated by cardboard boxes, moving trucks, trips to the airport, long distance phone calls, and temporary housing. Our life together has always been less about expensive gifts and more about priceless memories made by accident. Maybe that’s why the reasons I love you are less about gourmet meals in exclusive restaurants and more about understocked commissaries in remote locations.

In honor of Valentine’s Day, the conventional day for making such declarations, here are the unconventional reasons I love you:

I love you, because you are not always with me. You’re dedicated to a calling that has often taken you away from all you love most, including me. Those outside the military may label the demands of our life as a Sacrifice, an abstract concept with a capital S. But I know the tangible cost, the hours and minutes you can never get back: sweet days with our growing children, celebrations experienced secondhand by phone and photographs. In the line of duty, you set aside your own safety. You’ve also regularly given up the small comforts of home: hot showers, morning coffee in your own kitchen, and Sunday afternoon football. These are some of the big and small things you give up for the larger purpose of service to your country, and I love you for that.

I love you, because you never know where you’re going. You rarely get lost, being one of those fortunate few who can navigate nearly anywhere without benefit of GPS. But in the military journey of our lives, our next destination has often been uncertain. That uncertainty made us stronger. If we knew about difficult assignments before we got there, we’d worry uselessly. We might try to avoid the difficult experiences that made us grow. If we knew all about our favorite duty station ahead of time, we might have wished away precious time, as if we could get there faster. Not knowing what’s next means we’ve learned to enjoy what’s now. You may not know where you’re going, but you always know where you are. That’s all anyone really knows, and I love you for that.

I love you for what you never say. You do say you love and appreciate me. I never get tired of that, but I also love you for what you don’t say. You never say, “My job is important,” even though it is. You’ve never asked, “Will you take care of things while I’m gone?” or “Will you be here when I get back?” Those are unnecessary questions, because your trust in me is absolute, and I love you for that.

I love you because you’ll never be rich. We’ve rarely wondered where our next meal would come from. We can usually count on the next paycheck arriving on time, but military life is never about the money. You could have been successful at many more lucrative careers if you had chosen another kind of life. But you didn’t, and I love you for that. You saw a need, and you chose to spend your life meeting it. It has taken plenty of scrimping, saving, training, and preparation to do what you do. Along the way you had opportunities to take easier detours for a bigger payoff. You passed them by, gaining treasures more important and lasting.

I love you for all those reasons and more: not for where we go, what you say, or what you earn, but for who you are. Most of all, I love you for that.

Portions of this essay first appeared in Spouse Calls, my column in Stars and Stripes . 

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Our family’s traditions include celebrating the Twelve Days of Christmas, which begin with Christmas Day and continue through Epiphany. For us, these days are a reminder that opening gifts on December 25 is not the center of the Christmas story or the season. When the planning and shopping, baking and making, wrapping and unwrapping are done, a dozen extra days provide space and time for rest and reflection. We may have to return to work or school, but before we pack up Christmas and put it away for a year, these days are a gift of extra time for quiet pursuits, conversations over a cup of coffee, writing letters, or reading a book.

I have a collection of books for and about Christmas, and during the holiday season I take them out, put them on my shelves and admire them. Sometimes the busy-ness of the season keeps me from reading these books, but during the Twelve Days of Christmas I find more opportunities to enjoy them. Here are some my recommendations for books to celebrate the end of this season and the beginning of a new year:

The first and foremost of my Twelve Books of Christmas is the Nativity story from Luke’s gospel. A favorite version when our kids were small is the picture book, B is for Bethlehem by Isabel Wilner, with artwork by Elisa Kleven. “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace …”

The tale of Good King Wenceslas on the Feast of Stephen, Dec. 26. This legend about a Bohemian king who cares for the poor is retold in a Christmas song: “Ye who now will bless the poor, shall yourselves find blessing.” I recommend the picture book version, Good King Wenceslas, with illustrations rendered from woodcuts by Christopher Manson.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, by C.S Lewis. This is a perfect Christmas book for so many reasons, including Father Christmas, who announces the end of the White Witch’s enchanted freeze, when it was “always winter and never Christmas.

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, obviously a classic for any season. The story begins at Christmastime when the father, a military chaplain, is serving far from home. This story has resonated with me through many chapters of my life.

Santa Calls by William Joyce. This book has so much to offer: adventure, siblings learning how to get along, letters from Santa, and the illustrations! Joyce is the creator of George Shrinks and A Day with Wilbur Robinson, the inspiration for Pixar’s Meet the Robinsons, both story and artwork. I found this treasure on a bargain rack at the base exchange years ago, and we’ve loved it ever since.

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson. I read this every year, usually during Advent. This year I didn’t take it out until one morning after Christmas, when I read it in one sitting with my coffee and a piece of pie. I wrote about the many reasons I like this book, especially the shelf-worn copy I found in a library discard pile, for Military SpouseBookReview.com.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. A winter evening is a perfect for a good ghost story, particularly if the weather outside is frightful. No matter how many movie versions you’ve seen (our family favorite is the Muppets) the original words are the best. At only five staves, or chapters, Dickens’ quintessential holiday tale is perfect for one dark and stormy night. Pot of tea recommended.

Hilary Knight’s Twelve Days of Christmas, is about those crazy gifts and how a generous and creative recipient puts them all to good use. But don’t worry, no poultry is harmed in the telling of this tale. Parallel story lines and endearing characters in Knight’s intricate illustrations make his version particularly engaging. Hilary Knight also illustrated the Eloise books by Kay Thompson, best known for her precocious creation and her quick-time rendition of “J-J-J-Jingle Bells.”

When Christmas Came, by Eileen Spinelli is a sweet picture book about a Christmas Eve church service. Eileen is a poet and the author of books that relate to military families, including While You Are Away and Where I Live. Over the years, I have had several opportunities to talk to Eileen and her husband, Jerry Spinelli, a Newbery Award winner, including this article for Books Make a Difference magazine.

This recommendation is for two similar books, Letters from the Jolly Christmas Postman written and illustrated by Janet and Allan Ahlberg, and Letters from Father Christmas written and illustrated by J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Baillie Tolkien. These books include a few of my favorite things: handwritten letters, postmarks from all over, decorated envelopes, and whimsical illustrations. The Tolkien book is based on letters and drawings the author created for his own sons when they were young.

The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg. Opinions may differ about the movie, but nothing diminishes or matches the magic of the original story and its haunting illustrations. Pairs well with a cup of “hot cocoa as thick and rich as melted chocolate bars.”

The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry. The Twelve Days of Christmas are bookended by Christmas Day at the beginning and Epiphany at the end, celebrating arrival of the magi. The visit and gifts of these wise rulers bring the Nativity story full circle, from Christ's birth in a stable to the recognition of his royalty by earthly kings. O. Henry’s story of Della and Jim reveals the value of giving and receiving gifts to celebrate Christmas.

It’s never too late to take time for a good book, no matter the date or the season. In fact, reviewing this already has me thinking and planning ahead, for good gifts to give and thoughtful ways to spend each day of the year.

What books do you read or recommend for this or any season? I would love to hear your ideas and suggestions if you would like to send me a message. For these and more literary ideas for the Twelve Days of Christmas, follow me and #Terris12books on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter.

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