Parenting in the Bitter Cold

It has been bitter cold here. When we get down to 15-20 below zero, my thoughts often turn to a certain story. . .

I was home from college at Christmas my freshman year. My folks had moved to Maquoketa, Iowa. They bought a farm way out in the country down many unfamiliar gravel roads. My friend Casey from Texas came to visit. One morning, as the thermometer read around 15 below, we prepared to go out shopping for the day. Here comes the Dave Stephens fatherly lecture, "You girls have no business going out today, but if you must, then wear your coveralls, and bring emergency food and water, and drive carefully." It was like the Charlie Brown teacher talking in the trombone voice--blah blah blah ba blah blah.

An hour later, as we slid neatly down the snowbank into the country road ditch, dressed in skirts and fashion boots, we knew Daddy was going to be really mad. This was a decade before cell phones. We decided that I would walk to the nearest farm to call for help. I got elected to go, since I had actually grabbed my coat on the way out the door. I was obviously dangerously cold by the time I got to the skanky trailer house a mile down the road and knocked furiously on the door. After what seemed like forever a lady in curlers came and allowed me to use the phone to call my dad.

He picked up the phone from his office at the bank. What I didn't know, was that my Dad's whole 50 year banking career was a ploy--a ruse. Sitting at the big oak desk behind the big oak door he was really just waiting. Waiting for the phone to ring so that he could go rescue someone, in this case his daughter and her Texan friend. He was waiting to lock up the office, go change out of his suit (he also always wore a cowboy hat and boots with his suit. . . ) and put on the coveralls, fire up the tractor, get out the chains and rescue the girls.

An hour later he pulled the huge white 1972 Oldsmobile Ninety-eight, affectionately called "The White Elephant" out of the ditch. He acted a little mad, but he was a hero. Now heeding his advice, we threw the coveralls and sandwiches and sodas in the backseat and started off again for the mall in the city.

This would not be the first or last time for my dad to rescue me. I know he would have done anything to protect me. There aren't that many people in your life you can say that about. I miss you Daddy. I miss you so much.

A story with a less happy ending--last week I sent Target gift certificates to three little girls from Louisiana. They are the children of a friend who sang in my wedding. This friend made a huge impact on my life. She died of cancer in 2009, a month before my dad died. Nine months later her husband, the girls' dad, was killed in a random car accident. I don't say this about the gift certificates to toot my own horn. I'm actually riddled with guilt. These girls have lost everything and all I can do is send a little gift certificate. . . from my suburban home with my husband and two healthy children. . . and try to be there for them in some small way.

What do these stories have to do with Suzuki Piano? The love between parents and children transcends every kind of love. We would give our lives to protect our children. (We would give our spouse's lives to protect our children--wink) Still day to day it is the people we are the closest to that we take for granted. Yet if our children were in danger, or if they lost us. . .

We all have stories like this. Sometimes when I remember these kind of stories, the happy ones and the sad ones, I take my children a little less for granted. I approach them a little happier about the everyday kind of day we will have. I approach practice with a little more gratitude and a little more patience.

Stay warm and if you have no business going out, at least throw the coveralls in the trunk in honor of my dad.