Praying for Traveling Mercies

Our oldest grandchild, Tara, and her two little boys Aidan (almost 3) and Maddux (3 months) are on the road coming down from Chicago and will be here before I finish this, I hope.

Daughter Jeannie Eiler and her Cecelie (who was 10 on Thursday) arrived last night about 10, and were up at 6 this morning. After a quick breakfast, they left the house by 7 in hopes of arriving at Belmont to go to worship service with Leslie this morning—if they did not get lost in Nashville. (What I remember about Nashville from our daughters’ lives there is that it is one of those cities where a street can suddenly change its name.) I suspect Cecelie is already known there since Leslie had a goodly number of her buddies plus the college choir send her birthday greetings Thursday. (You can see it on Facebook.)

In the morning, again after a quick breakfast, Tara and boys and her other grandmother are starting to Georgia to see Tara’s parents. Tara’s husband is taking some kind of architect exam this week, and the mother of the baby she baby-sits for is on vacation, so it was the perfect time for Tara to go. And her Grandma Shirley has just trained someone to help her brothers take care of their mother and handicapped sister. So Shirley was free to accompany Tara down.

Gerald, though still somewhat red and blotchy faced, is much better and braved his first public appearance at an annual farm management meeting Thursday night. Since then we have been celebrating his birthday, which was today. Because he had been telling me he wanted to go to Georgia to watch softball for his birthday, I did not plan any celebration up here. Actually I could have since he is not going to Georgia until tomorrow when he follows Tara, Shirley, and the boys down. He and Aidan have great plans for play.

However, we met his two brothers and wives at the Friday night fish place called Fox Hollow near the Mississippi River in Union County. Then today, he and his brothers had their usual brother’s birthday breakfast meeting that they always make sure to have when one of them has a birthday. (They do get together for breakfast often in addition to the birthday times, but those are special to them. Various wives, nieces, and/or nephews sometimes join them as schedules permit. Nephew Tim did today. I was home eating breakfast with Jeannie and Cecelie, so I did not plan to go.) They had a big debate whether to go to Cracker Barrel, where they’ve usually gone in the past, but they settled on the Old Home place in Goreville.

Gerald had helped our neighbor with a break-down of some kind yesterday morning and then needed to run to Wal-Mart, so I asked him to just eat lunch in town because I would be off the farm.

I was busy yesterday with the usual Saturday activities plus running over to Murphysboro to the General John A. Logan Museum, where the traveling exhibit on “Mapping the Trail of Tears through Southern Illinois” is currently displayed. Vickie Devenport of SIUC television had arranged a program with the Illinois Chapter of the Trail of Tears Association to promote the upcoming We Shall Remain programs on PBS. We got to see a 20-minute preview yesterday. I finally got to see that museum that I have read so much about. Mike Jones and the others have done a tremendous work there, and now is a perfect time to go see the TOT exhibit and all the beautifully presented memorabilia of John A. Logan if you haven’t been before. Or for that matter, even if you have been before. .

Well, it is 11 and Tara and the boys are here. I am going upstairs to greet them.

Now I am back. Aidan went right to bed, and as soon as Maddux is fed, so will he.

Once again, I thank God for traveling mercies.