~From a place far above us~

Early evening greetings friends and family in whatever place you might find yourselves this day.  The calendar says that it is nearly the last day of July and for the life of me, I cannot tell you where the days of this summer have gone.  But gone by they surely have.  Tomorrow, the very last day of July, is a special day for all of the members of the Scott Family, a time when we remember the day that our parents, the late John and Lois Scott, were married.  In my first year of writing this blog in 2011, I wrote  a post on what would have been their 71st wedding anniversary.  Hope you don't mind, but I'm "reposting" it, as shown below for anyone who would care to reread it once more.

My siblings I have been "orphans" for many years now with our father passing away first in 1982 and our mother, now nearly 6 years ago in 2007.  And you know, the sad truth is that I miss them and even though  I am nearing the autumn of my 58th year, even at my age I still have a longing in my heart from time to time that my folks were still here.  What I wouldn't give to call them up and visit with them on the phone.  How I wish that I could stop by Mom's house and bring her a hamburger from McDonald's once more.  Perhaps some of you reading this who have already lost your parents feel the same way.  My folks' lives ended and those of us who remained behind, well our lives continued on without them.  That's what they would have wished for us, their children~that we would go on living and living well.

I was looking back at some old photos the other day and ran across some I had taken of a special gift that I made for my mom on her very last Mother's Day in 2007.  I had really been coming up "blank" on ideas for a gift for her when I came up with the notion of making a paper quilt filled with the story of her life.  It was a lot of fun putting together the "9-square quilt blocks" and when I was finished I took it to her room at the nursing home there in Hutch and put it together for display on the wall of her bedroom.  4 months later just two weeks after her 87th birthday as she lay dying in her bed, we encouraged her to look at the quilt on the wall and told her that it was time to go and find that handsome young man named John that was shown in the photos.  She couldn't say much to us any longer but her eyes told what she was feeling as she gazed intently upon our dad's picture on the quilt.  At 3:30 a.m. on the 25th day of September, with all of us by her bedside, she slipped away to join our dad in Heaven above.  With that, the two people who had become our parents and  had raised us to adulthood, were both gone.

Shown below are a few of the quilt blocks that she looked at that night, now so long ago as well as the blog post from two years ago in July of 2011.  I loved them both, my mom and dad.  I love them still to this very day.  I will see them some day in Heaven and we will know one another right away.  I thank God for those two people that He saw fit to have made them my parents.  They were by no means perfect, but they were mine.  Have a great evening everyone and if you are blessed enough to still have your parents, never forget what a special gift that truly is.

Happy 73rd wedding anniversary in Heaven, Mom and Dad~We love you!

Sunday, July 31, 2011

71 years later-love still wins

   "All because two people fell in love"~
John B. Scott, Jr. and Lois Scott-July 31, 1940


I miss hearing Mom tell the story of how she and daddy eloped that day.  Heck, when I first heard it I didn't even know what that word "eloped" meant.  But I soon learned and every July 31st that rolled around after that, we kids would sit wide-eyed and pay attention as the story of their marriage was lovingly retold once again.


Mom and Daddy loved each other very much and by the summer of 1940 they had decided to be married.  But my maternal grandparents, Andrew and Catherine Brown, must not have liked my dad too much.  In the weeks preceding their July 31st marriage, I am sure they must have tried to dissuade my mom from making him her choice for a husband. Not sure how long it took for them to figure out that all of their pleading and begging for her to make another "choice" was not going to do any good.  Lois Scott was stubborn...yes MOM, I said that!  You WERE stubborn. LOL, and that strong will and determination was going to make the decision about who to marry.


You know, the really goofy thing about all of that was that we kids never got a straight answer as to why they felt that way.  To us, our daddy was the most wonderful man alive and we couldn't understand why anyone wouldn't have chosen him to be the "one" for our mom. 


Be all things as they may, in the early morning hours of July 31, 1940, Mom wrote a short note to her parents, dressed in her best outfit, and crawled out the window of her bedroom at the family home on the Sandhills farm.  I can't imagine that she had slept much that night before and I'm guessing that my Dad didn't get alot of sleep either.


She met Daddy at a pre-arranged time and place....6 a.m. at the very end of the lane of her parent's farm.   It brings tears to my eyes to imagine how much they must have loved one another, especially to do such a "daring deed" as to disobey their parents and run off to get married.  


Don't know how long it took for them to make the journey from the farm just between Burrton and Halstead to the Sedgwick County Courthouse in Wichita.  But they made it!  And at noon that day, the Justice of the Peace for the city of Wichita pronounced them "Mr. and Mrs. John B. Scott, Jr.". 


I would be so remiss if I told you the story and left out the BEST PART-the strawberry pop story.  After the ceremony was over, I'm sure the reality hit them as to what they had just done. They might have been married but they were still two very young people.....Daddy only 17 and Mom two years older, age 19.  They'd run off to marry against their parent's wishes and now had to go back home and "face the music".  But they didn't worry-


It was a very hot day, long before the days of AC in ANYTHING!  They were thirsty, so before they made the long journey home again, they used the money left in Daddy's pocket to buy a bottle of cold strawberry soda from a pop machine there.  And so they sat on the courthouse steps that "fateful" day and passed the bottle back and forth between themselves, sharing their own personal "toast" to a future together.  


I can't even imagine what that first meeting back home with my grandparents must have been like....but whatever was said, it didn't matter.  Eventually everyone figured it out that "love wins" in the end and in no time at all,  Daddy became a part of their family.  The seven little babies born because of their love for one another said words of "thanks" as well!

This is mom and dad and 5 of their seven kids on July 31, 1982.  Daddy was dying from cancer and we knew that his "fight" with that awful disease would soon be done.  We wanted to give them, the wedding "reception" that they never had that day.  So we kids and our spouses and children joined them for supper complete with wedding cake, mints, punch and gifts! 


 Normally, Daddy would have put up a fuss about doing something like that.  But I guess knowing that your days are "so numbered" allowed him to see how very important it was to allow us kids to honor their life together.  5 months later, he was gone and life never was the same again for any of us.  They made it 42 years~not too bad for two kids who many thought would NEVER make it together.  


Later this afternoon, their children who still remain will join together with their own families and friends to celebrate the life that they enjoyed so much during that 42 year span of time.  We'll be in a place they called "Home" for so very long....Haven, Kansas.  We surely shall say a prayer of thanksgiving that despite all they must have had going against them, that their love for each other was strong enough to survive.  Why would anyone have ever doubted?