I saw firsthand recently how early the focus on “looks” begins. When I arrived at a salon to get my hair cut, I spotted a young boy in a chair, his hair being styled so the number “1” would stand out on the back of his head. The grin on his face told me how important this was. Later, the stylist told me that young boys are even more conscious of their hair than girls.
     Body image among kids is a big deal. Take the issue of weight. I’ve read that 81 percent of ten-year-olds in America are afraid of being fat. By teenage years more than half of all girls are on a diet or think they should be.
     This made me frightened and angry enough that a few years ago I wrote a children’s book for my grandkids about our airbrushed society. I didn’t want them to fall prey to this pressure.
     In the book, a little brown hen named Emma thinks she’s homely. She undergoes a ridiculous makeover where she’s nipped, tucked, snipped, and liposucked. She’s crowned Miss Poultry and becomes cover bird of the Barnyard Gazette with a centerfold spread. But is she happier?
     No. As we all must discover, outward appearance doesn’t equal inward happiness. The stakes are high: either we develop a healthy self esteem, or we keep bobbing around the choppy waters of others’ opinions.
     I’ve just re-released “Hooty McTooty Discovers True Beauty” in paperback, ebook, and hardback. Through its Seuss-like rhyme and sophisticated humor, kids and adults share good laughs while entering the topsy-turvy world of self image. You can join Hooty’s campaign for a positive self image by exploring the book here.

     We’ve never experienced the need for community more than these crushing days when our six-year-old granddaughter Lydia died. As one of the pallbearers observed, the coffin was light, but the burden was heavy.
     I thought about a man I knew who found that his best place for community was at a bar. Before heading for home after work, Frank often stopped at The Tap, lifted a longneck, and share some laughs. Everyone knew his name. Everyone accepted him.    
     Then Frank died.
     Most of his family lived out of town, so they pulled together a memorial service at the local church. The minister read ritual out of a little black book. Nothing personal.
     Afterward, the family sat alone in Frank’s home, longing for remembrances from his friends. “Let’s go to The Tap,” one said. So they drove to the tavern, pulled open the door, and peered into the darkness. “Anybody here know Frank?”
     Heads flew up and arms pointed their bottles skyward. “Everybody knows Frank.”
     The siblings took stools and got to know their father better through the eyes of his friends.
     Like Frank, we all want a place where we’re accepted, where everyone knows our name. If we don’t find it in one setting, we’ll grab it in another.
     So here’s the challenge to me from Frank’s story: Do I help create the kind of community I need for both the bright times and the dark times? If I don’t, I miss out.
     And do I welcome others into the communities where I live, work, play, and worship? If I don’t, they miss out.
     A lot of it is up to me.

     How do you survive when you’re left behind after your older sister dies?
     That’s what’s happened to our four-year-old granddaughter Maggie last week. Her big sister Lydia died from a sudden, unnamed illness. Her bunkmate and playmate - gone.
     No explanations work fully for her, not even that Lydia has gone to Heaven to be with Jesus. That doesn’t work fully for us either. We can’t wrap our heads around it.
     My heart aches for Maggie because I was about her age when my mommy told me Daddy had gone to Heaven to be with Jesus. A sudden, unnamed illness then, too.
     I watch my daughter trying to explain things to Maggie, and I remember my mommy trying to explain things to me. So as I observe Maggie, I’m seeing myself as a little girl. The grief. The aloneness. Feelings too heavy to hold. Questions too big to answer.
     Even Moses, the Hebrew prophet who knew God closely, couldn’t wrap his head around all the mysteries. Moses reconciled this by concluding that the secret things belong to God, and the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, and that was good enough.
     We’re wrestling with a lot of secret things now. A lot of mystery.
​     But of this I’m clear: the death of a loved one dents a life forever, yet hope intertwines with the sorrow. From the time I learned that Daddy’s in Heaven with Jesus, I’ve understood that who I am and what I do lasts forever.
     My sorrow hasn’t been wasted. Maggie’s won’t be either, and that’s good enough.

Maggie and Lydia beach bumming together

     My little Ladybug unexpectedly flew away home.
     Ladybug is what I called my grandchild Lydia. For her six short years, she crawled into my heart with her singing and dancing and flirtatious grin, a princess who could turn birch bark into a crown.
     Then a slight fever, a seizure, a blaring ambulance ride, the whirl of a helicopter carrying her to another hospital. Days and nights on beeping machines. Tests, and more tests. Yet no name for what had attacked her brain and robbed it of oxygen. She never regained consciousness. She slipped through the thin, invisible veil between this life and the next.
     The sky wept, then sobbed. So did I.
     I am broken, yet I know Lydia is whole.
     I climb a mountain of grief while she sings and dances and shares her flirtatious grin with Jesus.
     I have no answers to the “why” questions. It does no good to raise them.
     Only last week I was preoccupied with the hassle of a leaking sink. It’s no big deal now. Death has a way of laser beaming what really matters.
     Recently as Lydia and I read the children’s version of “Pilgrim’s Progress,” she was entranced by the tale of Christian on his journey through life’s perils. We never completed the book, but she finished the story on her own, reaching the Celestial City before any of us fellow pilgrims.
     I’ve been pondering a prayer of Moses, who implored God to teach him to number his days so he might gain a heart of wisdom. I’d heard that the average life span of Americans is eighty-five years for women and eighty-three for men. Lydia’s meter ran out so much sooner, but she made good use of every heartbeat by loving God and loving people.
     That’s what I want to do until I fly away home.
***
     A GoFundMe campaign for Lydia’s medical expenses has been established here. Please share this.    

    The three of us were so close in college that our closets became one. At the end of the year we weren’t sure who owned what. We had supported each other through midterms and finals. Cried through loves lost and found. Then we graduated and geography separated us, with the years bringing marriages, kids, and careers.
     We hadn’t been together for decades, so you can imagine my excitement when we gathered for a breakfast that lasted until lunch. Our table filled with stories of “remember when,” followed by deep laughter.
     Then one person brought up politics, and the other jumped in enthusiastically. She was onboard with everything the first said.     I wasn’t. I remained silent and hoped they’d move on because I didn’t know how to express my cautions.
     But they noticed my reserve, and I was on the spot. I struggled for words. The room turned hot and frosty at the same time. They didn’t understand me.
     We left each other awkwardly. They gave big hugs, but I sensed I was suddenly “suspect.” The ties that had bound us tightly had loosened. Was I falling out of the picture of our friendship?
     Since then, we’ve texted articles to explain our views. And here’s the strange thing - we want the same results, but we place our hope in different means to get there.
     I know they’re partly right and I’m partly wrong - that’s how conflicts play out. But are we so cemented in our views we can’t hear each other? Will partisan beliefs kill our friendship?
​     I don’t know. And my heart aches.