Verklempt

Verklempt

My very limited Yiddish vocabulary I learned from my disciple and “darling Friend” Jett Segal. She’s a Messianic Jew, classy, smart and savvy. We roomed together back in the 80’s before Mr. Ten Days came roaring onto the scene of my life. It was through Jett that I learned this wonderful word, “verklempt”, meaning “moved by emotion”.

The Jewish people are infamous for their deep well of emotion…think “Fiddler on the Roof”. But I have to say that many other people groups are also known for the same kind of intensity. For instance if you are lucky enough to have Egyptian friends like I do, then you have witnessed some sweet, passionate emotional displays.

 Now if you know me at all you know that I bleed Red White and Blue. As a young girl one of my life’s ambitions (not that there were many beyond going to college and getting my MRS.) was to never leave the South. I was not the least bit interested in “foreigners” as my Daddy called anyone who hailed from north of the Mason-Dixon line. Our anthem was that country song that says “If Heaven ain’t like Dixie, I don’t want to go”. Although I am half French (which explains a lot) and half German by bloodlines, I am still sort of a fourth or fifth generation of generic American. I think that somewhere along the line many of us “generic Americans” lost our individual culture. Maybe we adopted too much of our Mother country, Great Britain (sorry Heather) where they are stoic, reserved and very private. All my Downton Abbey peeps can attest to this.

But, to skip a huge part of my life story, which believe me you do not have time to hear, I ended up in the last place I had ever thought I would be, all the way from Dixie to serving as a Campus Minister in places like Hawaii and California.  Campus Ministry in (very) short means ministering to any one who will listen to you regarding the Gospel. This was the beauty of being a Campus Minister, where the nations literally come to your doorstep. So, without knowing it, through a radical act of obedience, basicly God  set out to introduce me to His children. What a “surprise party” is was for me. One of the best surprises was my new found ability to recognize and embrace moments of verklempt-ness.

Today I was verklempt. Although I usually get this way on grey days, it happened right in the middle of a gorgeous sunny perfect pre-Spring top-down day. I walked into Starbucks, laid my eyes on the lovely lemon iced pound cake in the case and there I was. Longing for my friend Kim White who adores the lovely lemon pound cake.

It all got me to thinking… About being “reserved”, and “cool” and God forbid sounding “needy”. I remember the old days …ok, I realize most of you don’t remember any of this but maybe you’ve seen it in “period” movies. Back when people put their strong feelings down on paper. You do remember paper, right? They put pen to paper, dropped a tear on it and put it in the mail. And then they waited. Waited for their dear one to receive it, then for the reply. Postmen were quite popular back then.  And, gone are the days of the of the thrill of the very expensive so, consequently very short, long  distance phone calls. They didn’t “shoot” them an email, or a text, or an instagram… I love that we can all stay connected like that, really I truly do.  But I believe, because we have each other at our finger tips we have lost the need for and the ability to say unapologetically --I. MISS. YOU.-- With the heart-felt fervor of yesteryear. It just seems to this old girl that we’ve all become mighty “cool”. I don’t like it. I like the unashamed passion of my ethnic friends who are taught by their culture that  its ok to really  lay their feelings out there. Ok, there are  ‘generic’ Americans that can do this too, I’m talking in general terms of the majority of people  here…  I want boisterous, emoting people. …Maybe I should move to Italy.

OR NOT, since Italy is somewhat northeast of the Mason-Dixon line.

“Are You the Tooth Fairy”?

Being born an old soul, our daughter Coco was what my Daddy use to call a “Philadelphia Lawyer”  from the day she started talking. If you are privileged to know her, I think you would heartily agree. She was a quiet and easy baby. She didn’t “say” much but just kind of took in everything with these huge blue eyes. Frankly, I was a little concerned. If she had not had her Daddy’s eyes, I would’ve thought I’d gotten the wrong baby at the hospital. But she was unmistakably marked by her Daddy. So much so that the first Sunday I brought her to church someone looked down into the carrier and said, “Well it’s Gregg Tipton in a bonnet”!

Knowing that she was a genetic mixture of my personality and Gregg’s (something akin to fire and gas) I expected a pretty hyper (crying, colicky, whining, up-all-night) baby. But, there she sat, curious but cool as a cucumber.

Then one day she woke up and remembered who she was. It was the day she started talking. And it wasn’t a word here and there, Coco was communicating in full blown sentences. She was under two and sounded like a four year old.

And with all of that talking came the Philadelphia lawyer-type communicating, and negotiating. Immediately she had a plan for everything. She had my day planned out for me and sweetly asked a string of unending questions. And mind you, not questions like "where did the moon come from" or "do dogs smile", but questions concerning the family’s schedule. As I patiently answered them, thinking this was how she learned, (silly me) she was actually giving me (truly) great ideas on how to improve the plan for the day ahead.

So you get the picture that our little Coco was a bit ahead of her time. Not one to “read” a picture book quietly in the corner, and certainly never one to play with age-appropriate toys (“Momma can I slice this tomato?”) she was a bit of a handful.

So, don’t ask me why I thought I could ever pull off the whole tooth fairy deal. I am not one to belabor the idea of the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus, but I thought it might be fun for the first tooth or two. I got Caroline and Coco a little tooth Fairy pillow with the itty bitty pocket for the little bitty tooth, and we set about waiting for the first fall.

Even though Caroline is slightly older than Coco of course Coco was the first to lose a tooth. Kissing her good-night I happily tucked the sweet little pillow in bed with her and once she was asleep, I placed a dollar in the itty bitty pocket of the pillow (mind you I had to convince Mr. Ten Days that we should not give her $5.00 for that tooth! I gently reminded him of how many teeth were in each of our daughters’ pretty little heads and that we could not afford to pay that much per tooth.) That night I placed Coco’s precious little tooth in my button box….I mean, it’s all I could think of, where did you keep yours?

A few weeks later, I sent Coco to my room to wait for me to come and “correct” her. That was our politically correct word for spanking. The phone rang, I answered and Coco spent some time sitting in my bed. Bored in a nano as usual, she began to look through the button box on my night stand and happened upon the tooth.

As I walked in she was turning the tooth over in her little fingers with the look on her face of a prosecutor examining ‘Exhibit A’. I sat down beside her, already feeling the tension mounting. I sensed I was ‘in trouble’. She slowly lifted those baby blues from “Exhibit A” and pinned me like a D.A. in cross-examination (I swear I expected her to say “where were you on the night of…”). She squinted her eyes and steely asked “How did you get this tooth”? I swallowed hard and said what any Mother on trial would’ve said: “The Tooth Fairy gave it to me. Yep, she came in here after she left your room and gave it to me, just like I asked her to.”  Not put off for a second, she raised up on her knees, took me squarely by the shoulders, looked into my eyes and said firmly, “Momma. Don’t lie.” I tried to look as innocent as possible under such intense interrogation.

Then came my hour of reckoning. “Momma. Are YOU the Tooth Fairy?”

Yes. Guilty as charged. Tooth Fairy. Cook. Santa Claus. Cleaning Lady. Booboo-Kisser.  Chauffer. Spanker. Consoler. Teacher. Counselor. Cheerleader. Prayer Warrior. Sibling Referee. Ambulance Driver. Biggest Fan.  And Momma. A Momma who misses those days.