The summer has definitely arrived here on Long Island. It is 97 degrees here today and not a very June day at all. Our June days are easy on the heat, usually pleasant but not unusual to need a sweater now and then. June is always synonymous with the end of school and the beginning of summer vacation in New York—a time of year when even the month’s name itself even sounds like a big sigh of relief. June.
I hope you will take time this summer to enjoy your children. I always made big plans for each summer. Lots of goals, lots of things I wanted to do with the kids. Lots of things I wanted them to learn. To be completely frank, we did not have a lot of money to go out to eat or to go places or to buy things. But I tried to make the most out of what we had. A special day would start off nice and early with English muffins and tea out on our back screened in porch. Our son, Tim, was always an early bird and he loved it when it would just be him and me out there, listening to the birds, sipping tea, and talking over life’s big issues-as big as they get for an eight-year-old. I always kept the kids on an easy schedule for the summer-but a schedule just the same. Mornings were for their various chores, practicing their instruments and so on. Lunch was always served at noon. It wasn’t often anything to write home about—just a few sandwiches, chips, iced tea or juice. But they would come in when I called them and the table would be all set and we could sit and chat for a few minutes then.
The afternoons were always long and lazy and always included tall, colorful ice pops and on some days a trip to a lake to feed the ducks or go fishing. Most days, our four children were out in the yard, building forts, or exploring, riding bikes, running under a sprinkler, or spreading a blanket under a tree and reading. We didn’t indulge our children with too many material things, but to this day-strangely enough-they thank us for that.
At dinnertime, when my good husband came home, everyone was so glad to see him. Dinner would always be served about the same time each evening and the conversation would buzz around the table. After dinner, my husband might go out and play kick ball with the kids or throw a baseball around with the boys while I cleaned up the kitchen. Evenings were for riding your bikes until twilight, catching fireflies, song times around a little open fireplace, and what the kids always called “heart-to-heart” talks.
Before long it would be shower time—with reminders for the boys to make sure they dried themselves. After snack time—for heaven forbid they should be sent to bed without a snack—it was onto the tucking in ritual: lying on the boys’ beds, talking, looking at hunting magazines or Yankee yearbooks-depending on the boy, and praying. Then onto the girls and listening to all of Jenni’s inspirations and ideas—which always seemed most prolific at bedtime. And finally, slipping under the tent Ashley had made out of her covers, to find her there, wide-eyed with her flashlight and The Box Car Children. And so their day was done, and they were all clean and cozy and prepared for the night’s long rest ahead. I can still picture their faces: Tim, always brown as a bunny after a long day in the sun, Jen’s face all rosy and John and Ashley’s faces sprinkled with sunshine induced freckles. The summer had finally come to call.
I never got to go calling very much as a young mother-even though I was a “Pastor’s wife.” I never felt the urgency to go running all around trying to solve everyone’s problems while I left my children on the front doorstep. The way I saw it—the way my good husband very strongly felt about it, was that nothing in the world was more important to us right then, than investing in our little children, and loving them, giving them security, and developing their character. And in so doing, create life long bonds with them that knit our hearts and lives together so much so that today, the bonds are powerful and secure. They have, at times, been tested by adversity and stretched by distance, yet, they are always there, because they have been nurtured, bolstered, and cherished. The most significant consequence to all of our handiwork with our children is this—and this is the sum of this entire article: because we obeyed the Lord and invested in our children, our children followed our faith. They sit around our table like olive plants, thanks be only to God, just like the Psalmist said they would.
Who can tell the lifelong affect you will have on your children, or, of the bonds that will be established, just by your investing in their lives this summer. Here's to ice pops, jars of fireflies, and never losing your child's heart.
