The official sound on an airplane is the murmur. The pilot murmurs the cruising altitude. The nearly silent flight attendents dole out pillows and 2 ounces of Diet Coke per passenger. The business travellers have nothing to say, saving their words for saving their jobs. Couples cuddle together and curl whispers until they tangle. Grunt, snore, stare.

Aidan, who never got the memo announcing she was to gaze knowingly at a laptop screen or read “Fit” magazine, shouted: “There are squares! Squares on the ground! Why haven’t I noticed that before?”

Because you’ve never been up this high to see the ground. The squares are farms. I murmur.

“Do the farmers know about it?” she demanded.

Yes.

We had just taken off, flying into a sunrise and away from a night I was glad to kick to the curb. It gave me no rest. I was too excited about our trip to Chicago.

Christmas 2004 brought an American Girl Doll to Aidan’s eager arms. It was a gift from my parents, a dream come true. When she discovered there was a Place for American Girls, she wanted to go. We’d talk about how much fun it would be for the two of us to jet off to Chicago for tea with her doll, never really believing it would happen.

On Christmas morning, 2005, a silver envelope appeared on the tree, addressed to us. We saved it for last and opened it together. Inside was an airline confirmation, a hotel reservation, tickets to the theater, and a ticket for a dinner reservation. We were going to Chicago. Hubby had done it all—played travel agent and put together every last detail of our trip. It was a complete surprise.

Aidan and I found ourselves in the sky, two weeks later. The four pajama’d boys and hubby had been kissed goodbye and we were off, not knowing exactly what we would encounter in Chicago. We laughed, we cried, we had a crazy and unexpected meeting with a family member, we met the King of Chicago and have photographic proof.

We are now home, recipients of God-given journey mercies. Aidan is back at school, I am once again Suburban Mommy in brown clogs and a purse with a two-feet-long SuperTarget receipt stuffed inside.

I am going to spend this week writing about our adventures in Chicago.

The following post originally appeared here on December 5th, 2004. I am reposting it in honor of my Grandma Alice, who died on December 23rd, 2005. Today would have been her 90th birthday.

Tea and the Tempest

It wasn’t tea for two, but it felt cozy anyway.

Yesterday I took my grandma to my church’s annual Christmas Tea. It is a very well done and elaborate event, with a reputation that draws in women from all over the Denver metro area. They hold it on three dates and ultimately host 1000 women each season. This year’s theme was Celtic—the music, the decorations, the favors. It was lovely.

I have always admired my grandma. She is sharp, inquisitive, courageous, funny, and has a taste for adventure. She raised seven kids—five boys (one of them is my dad) and two girls. Merely talking to her is an adventure. She has stories that can make you laugh, cry, and contemplate. She has been practically everywhere, from above the Arctic circle on a fishing boat to the African savanna on safari to the sublime landscape of New Zealand.

My childhood memories of her are vivid and my impression of her then was that she was always on the move. She cross-country skied for years, was a member of the Colorado Mountain Club, and loved hiking the Rockies. The pictures lining her living room walls show her at various locations all around the world, on mountaintops or seasides, surrounded by the expanse of nature in its might. She loves the natural world and she loves the God who is the Creator.

So it was especially meaningful when the Celtic-themed program began yesterday and we were reminded how the Celts were intuned to nature and God’s creation. Living on the green isles of what we now call Britain they were surrounded by astonishing lush and craggy beauty, both sea-swept and woodsy. Pictures of the landscapes where the ancient Celts dwelled were flashed in front of our eyes while the music played. The room was lit by hundreds of candles, and these things came together in an atmosphere of reverential awe.

The story of Christmas was interwoven in this backdrop, a reminder of what the season means. Seasonally speaking, it is the darkest and coldest time of the year, but renewal is ours when we remember who lights up the dark nights and warms our cold days—and why. The Celts were some of the first in Europe to embrace and protect the faith, and they planted their intricate art and passionate music into their expressions of faith. We were shown pages from the Book of Kells, which is an illuminated manuscript of the four gospels that I remember studying during my art history days in college.

We were also given the words of St. Patrick:

I bind unto myself today
the virtues of the starlit heaven,
the glorious sun’s life-giving ray,
the whiteness of the moon at even,
the flashing of the lightning free,
the whirling wind’s tempestuous shocks,
the stable earth, the deep salt sea,
around the old eternal rocks.

I felt a profound connection between these words and my grandma’s outlook on life. She has been around the world and back again. She has weathered the “tempestuous shocks” of loss and stood on the eternal rocks. Through it all, she has maintained her devotion to God and lives showing so much love, not only despite the tempest, but because of it.

As I drove her home, she made me laugh, like she usually does. We were talking about how hard it is living with short daylight hours. She told me about her grandmother, who thought that February 2nd was a wonderful day—the first day of the year you could eat supper without having to turn on the lights!

I don’t have to wait for February 2nd or the first day of Spring to know that warmth and light are near. I have Emmanuel and the gift of a grandmother, and many other family members, whose lives demonstrate that beauty.

***Photo of my grandma at six months old