Rhoda Schultz

My sisters are all kinds of fabulous.  We share a crazy, immediate, and thoroughly entertaining connection.  My older sister and I come from the same Sonny & Cher/Pop Shoppe/Shakey’s Pizzeria-colored world, but the Little One didn’t come along until 1979, and our connection is equally formidable.

Just the other day, we simultaneously broke out in a ‘spoken word’ lyrical rendition at the dinner table, and no one blinked an eye or paid any attention to our private moment.  As the ‘I believe that children are our future/Treat them well and let them lead the way/Show them all the beauty they possess inside/Give them a sense of pride/To make it easier/Let the children’s Laugh…Ter/Remind us how it used to be’ spilled from our lips, the family continued in their dining pleasure, quite used to our spontaneous outbursts.

We kiss our babies’ necks the same way.  We sing interpretive, improvisational, story songs to the infants.  We quote movies and our mother with impeccable likeness.

A vast generational valley does, however, exist between us.

It’s kind of fun to think about the list of differences.

Here’s the condensed version.

Enjoy…

She is drawn to ingredients with names like ‘curry’.  I remember seeing Tim Curry in the Westminster 6 midnight showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

She drinks natural, cane sweetened soda.  If it doesn’t have a distinct aspartame after-taste, I pass.

She uses cloth diapers.  An entire mound at the Golden landfill is dedicated to my personal disposable diaper use from 1989-2002.

She buys cool albums and plays them on her turntable.  My entire ‘cool’ album collection, including Peter Frampton’s Live LP, sits in a box in my garage.

She never uses paper towels.  I desperately reach for paper towels on a regular basis, and have even been known to toss a roll to my kids when they tell me we are out of TP.

She lives downtown.  I live in the suburbs.

She resists crock pot meals, due to the overuse of ‘canned soups’.  I buy canned soup in bulk at Costco, liberally slopping cans of condensed goodness in my meals like a boss.

Her chicken meals are often graced with tarragon and delicate sprigs of rosemary.   My chicken meals enjoy a delicate dusting of salt and pepper.

She has a Masters Degree from Columbia University.  I have been mistaken for a Columbian.

She resists department stores, opting for vintage thrift finds or home-made goods.   The sales clerks at Anthropologie know me by name.

Her husband plays drums for a rock band.  My husband whistles the Andy Griffith theme song.

She lived in Brooklyn.  I live near Broomfield.

She uses natural skin care solutions from the 1861 old-world apothecary in New York’s East Village neighborhood known as Kiehl’s.  I use a silky soft moisturizer for silky soft skin known as Johnson’s Baby Oil.

We like the valley.  Our voices echo across the chasm.  Fabulously.

I remember the neat lime green jello with pear halves, resting elegantly on lettuce leaves.  I remember the creamed corn.  The rolls.  The colorful salad with creamy ranch dressing.  Serious white family food, I thought.

I remember the mom’s name was Judy.  The dad’s shirt pockets were laden with pencils and pens.  Everyone seemed happy.   Soft spoken.   And very tidy.

What I remember most was the look on their faces when I told them my parents were ‘divorced’.   It was as if a grey cloud descended upon the happy Lutheran home.  Directly above our heads.

The dinner conversation turned toward me, their teenage daughter’s friend, and very quickly, the interrogation uncovered my dark secret.

While scooping the creamy corn goodness, they asked, ‘So.  Who do you live with?’.  ‘My mom and stepdad during the week, and my dad and stepmom on the weekends.  They share me in the summer’.

Horror.

‘So.  The toddler is actually your half-sister?’  ‘Technically.  Yes.  But.  We are sisters.’

Pity.

‘Has it been difficult?’  ‘Actually, no.  They are really quite loving and supportive.’

Disbelief.

‘Well, I suppose it is rare to have parents who stay married.’

Silence.

I wished for a scarlet letter, proclaiming my ‘shameful’ broken home status, so I never had to endure such conversations.  Like Laverne, it would be a decorative ‘D’ and I would embroider it on all my shirts and sweaters.  That way, we could just get the disappointing news out of the way, and get on with our introductions.

My face said ‘wrong race’, and my letter could have said ‘wrong family’.

I didn’t have a letter.  Instead, I was forced to gracefully endure the conversations.   Even my future in-law’s conversation sounded strangely like the one above.   Down to the fine details.

I learned to lean into the discomfort.

I learned to resist the shame and unworthiness.

I somehow conveyed my worth, love and belonging in the midst of a ‘broken’ situation.

I found tenderness along the way.

My ‘outsider’ status expanded my perception and compassion.  It urged me forward in my desire to make others feel included.  It fueled my fire to extend a sense of acceptance, healing and wholeness in the face of brokenness.

I may not say it with lime green jello on a neat bed of lettuce, but I long to extend a table of love and belonging.  A table where the name of Jesus levels all classes.  A table where imperfection is not a scarlet letter, but a mark of worth.

‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye’ ~ Miss Piggy

At the wise and seasoned age of 45, I understand how physical beauty fades, while deep, inner beauty continues to flourish and nourish others the entire lifetime of a woman.  As a brown, fuzzy 7^th grade girl, however,  these wise sayings ring hollow.  By the 7^th grade, I was well aware that I was considered the ‘girl with the great personality’, and the ‘girl who sings’, even the ‘girl who could make everyone laugh’.  You know what I’m getting at here.  I was that girl.

You see, when girls reach the 7^th grade, they long to be, at the very least, pretty.  Or pleasant looking.  Not hideous.  I could maybe be described as boyishly ‘cute’.  And that might be stretching it.   Most of my ‘cuteness’ was derived from the combination of the whole personality package of ‘lighthearted, sweet, compassionate, fun and mostly comfortable’ girl.

Now, please allow me to take a moment to assure you this is not a case of false modesty.   For those of you who know me, I do tend to edge toward the dramatic exaggeration of events, but by no means am I stretching the truth here.  For those of you who knew me in the 7^th grade, you know I am not stretching the truth, and therefore this paragraph was redundant.

In my heart of hearts, I always longed to have blonde hair and fair skin.  I was fascinated by the prettiness of blonde little girls, wearing their blonde little clothes. Their eyes were pretty.  Their smiles were pretty. Their school supplies were pretty.  Even their lunch sandwiches lunch looked ‘blonde and pretty’ compared to mine.

By the time we reached 7^th grade, we filed neatly into established social groups, and at the tender age of 12 and 13, the groups leading the pack were the pretty cheerleaders and cute boys they cheered for.  Our school was no different, and our cheerleaders were, you guessed it, mostly blonde, fair, pretty girls with names that ended in ‘i’, like ‘Debbi’ and ‘Kelli’.  Who ever heard of a cheerleader named ‘Rhoda’.  In fact, who ever even heard of the name ‘Rhoda’?  My established social group remained the same from 7^th grade through the end of my high school years.  Music Department.  Go figure.

East Arvada Junior High School was located on the corner of a busy intersection in Old Arvada, and sadly, has since been torn down and replaced by a small business office park and 50s-style greasy restaurant.   It was a great old brick building, built in the early 1900’s, and was originally Arvada’s High School.  Many of our classes were held outside in ‘temporary’ buildings, called ‘temps’, which were strangely not at all temporary, but rather permanent.

One day, while walking outside to my temp, I caught up with a boy named Kelvin, whom I had a terrible crush on.  Adored him. He pretty much held my heart in his hands, and in no way did he ever indicate a hint of attraction to me.  He was wholly disinterested.  We walked together for a short while, and before entering the building we paused to talk for a moment just outside the door.  Exactly what it was we were talking about shall always remain a mystery, but what happened next is forever burned on my brain.

He leaned closer to me, as if to curiously study my face for a moment, and just before I could lean back…..he said….’you have a mustache.’  Just like that.  He actually said ‘you have a mustache’.   Unapologetically.  Dismissively.  Like someone would remark, ‘the sky is grey today.’

I quickly looked for the angel of death to come and sweep me away from the cruelty of my life, or for the ground to Biblically break open and swallow me, but instead, I recoiled in horror, and brought my hand to my mouth and said, ‘no I don’t.’  To which he replied, ‘yes you do’.  And so on.

I somehow made it through the class, never meeting Kelvin’s eyes, and skulked my way through the rest of the school day, hiding behind my peechee folder.  Hating all the Debbi’s and Kelli’s, and their  light and breezy, mustache-free lives.  Images of my Grandmother, and her beautifully lined face and thick mustache filled my every thought.   After the insanely torturous bus ride toward Lake Arbor, via Wadsworth, I marched home,  where I let the tears flow freely.  Shaking my fists up in the air, both at my Latin heritage and the God who made me dark and swarthy.   My mother curiously asked what happened.  I told her, ‘a boy at school said I have a mustache!!’, to which she replied:  ‘Of course you do.’  She turned and motioned me towards the kitchen, placing a potato peeler in my hand and went about her business.

OH THE HUMANITY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Finally, my rescue was to be found in the form of my 18-year old sister, Rhonda.  She was older, wiser, and although not quite as dark and swarthy as her little sister, had in her possession the answer to the cruelty of my life.

She proceeded to set me on the bathroom counter and show me how to mix  the crème and powder mixture that is ‘facial hair bleach’  called Jolene.  It was in a small green box,  safely stored in her top secret box.  My mysterious older sister not only rescued her small, defeated and very hairy little sister that day, but every day since.

The same genetic makeup that somehow graced me with a glorious, thick mane of blackness, also blessed me with a stunning Frida Kahlo unibrow and a distinctive Latina mustache.   With a little management, tweezing, bleaching and waxing, I found my way.

I no longer shake my fist at the heavens, but I assure you, my bathroom vanity, on every day of the week, from that day forward, holds a box of Jolene facial hair bleach.   And every time I break it open, I give a small, silent, ever so triumphant nod to the boy named Kelvin.

As I dialed through the options, looking for the most lush and sympathetic Korg sound, I quickly decided to forego the Spanish verses I scribbled in the margins of my charts.   The family lingered in their last few private moments alone with the open casket, as I whispered through my very discrete sound check of the two hymns they asked for.   English hymns will have to do.

I didn’t know the ‘hermana’ very well, but she and her husband were church kids with my mom and dad.  They spent their newlywed years sporting their Friday night best as they met my parents at the Wheat Ridge Dairy for slices of pie and cups of coffee.  Lavish treats on small budgets.

As the guests were trickling in, I sat in quiet awe of the slideshow.  Humble, sacred photos commanded my attention.  Images of her life flashed to the backdrop of Bette Midler’s Wind Beneath My Wings.  Weddings.  Anniversaries.  Babies.  Holidays.  Vacations.  Five children.  Lots of grandchildren.

I perceived her strength and kindness.

A distinct gap in her teeth.

A look in her eye.

The kind of look that made me think she might be the kind of mama who cut the crusts from her sandwiches.

The slideshow was interrupted by the not-so-silent wails of her children gathered around to say their final goodbyes.  Pure, unchecked grief poured into the room and enveloped the close family members.  Choked moans.  Heaving gulps of pain flooded the air.  My initial discomfort gave way to appreciation for the raw emotion.

I saw great freedom in the fluid listening to their heart of hearts.

We often ignore our heart of hearts, but feel strangely incomplete. 

We sell ourselves short by ignoring our hearts.

It takes great courage to listen. 

I drove away with renewed courage.  Courage to pay attention.  Each day is a gift and each moment is heavy with opportunities to love others.  Raw kinds of love.  The kind of love that gives way to heaving gulps of grace.

‘Mom, can I take Rhoda to the mall?’

‘Absolutely not.  Why do you girls need to go to the mall?’

‘Just to shop.  And look around.  Pleeeeease?  We’ll be safe.’

‘No.  Just stay home.  The devil is there.’

It was 1982, and clearly our negotiating skills were pretty weak.  It would be years before the Back to the Future parking lot scene would be filmed at the very Hacienda Heights, CA mall we wanted to visit, and even though my cousin and I were 16 and 18, my auntie would have none of it.  Why?  Because the devil was there.

If this is how our conversations shaped up on the subject of malls, you can imagine how they sounded on the subject of music.

My auntie’s reasoning was very basic:  if the artist was not inspired by the Holy Ghost, the song was from the devil.

I love my auntie.  Deeply.  I owned the same faith passed through her parents, my beloved grandparents.  But I owned my own amended view on music.

I saw the heartbeat of God in an Ella Fitzgerald song.

I felt the love of the Spirit in Donnie Hathaway’s phrasing.

I heard the voice of Jesus in a Bob Dylan lyric.

Admittedly, I am the person who sits in an art museum and cries in the solitude of beauty.  Allowing my tears to flow freely.  Not once wondering if the artist is a believer in Jesus.  I weep at the wonder of a newborn child.   Not once wondering how the child came to be.

I praise the creative Giver of these gifts and His uniquely loved collaborators.

So I know I should be routing for the boy who sang the worship tune on American Idol, but the truth is…I’m not.   Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure he’s a fine young man and all, and ‘yay’ for singing a worship song.  I know he will gather the momentum to do great things, if his twitter messages from all the great CCM artists are any indication.  He has my sincere support.

It’s just…well…I’ve grown tired of the genre.  I was drawn to the gravitational pull of CCM long ago, and by long ago, I mean looong ago.  Back to the golden days of Keith Green, 2^nd Chapter of Acts and the early, edgy sounds of Miss Amy herself.   They will always compile a beautiful chapter of the soundtrack of my life.

In the grand scheme, I am a big fan of art forms who gather hearts together in praising the Creator and Preserver of all things.

The thing is…I have grown tired of the stale.  Klunky.  Obvious.  Reworked.  Uninspired.  Boring.  Clichéd.

I am literally blown away by a surprising song.  A song who lifts me with her freshness, or paradox, or humor.  Her questions.  A song who nudges my curiosity and tugs at my sleeve.  A song who coaxes me.  Builds me.  Challenges me and leaves me carrying the emotional weight in a cadence I never heard before.

It comes down to taste.

I am simply looking for a song who reaches for fresh imagery and avoids trite phrases and overworked chord progressions.  That’s all it is.

I appreciate the audacity of fresh, God-inspired art.  Rather than say the CCM art form is ‘wrong’, I simply whisper, ‘it doesn’t always work for me anymore.’   I’m not saying the fabric of CCM has frayed, I’m simply suggesting the tapestry of varied genres of music and art paint a broader revelation.

They get inside my emotional metabolism.  Drawing me closer to the Creater of said metabolism.

I know, I know.  Strong words for someone who admittedly watches American Idol.

Taking a break from the current Denver blossoms of  Spring bromance which is Elway/Manning, I decided to reach back to a March piece I wrote a while back.   The Journey continues.

A rare crack of ‘alone time’ found me today, and I jumped inside the opportunity.  Our weather is still sketchy, at best, in early March, but the mercury climbed to a glorious 60 degrees.  For those unfamiliar with Coloradospeak, 60 degrees on an early spring day is downright balmy.  The healing sunlight on the heels of a long winter is beyond therapeutic, and I decided to celebrate Boulder-style.

I tucked into my favorite stores and strolled down the crowded streets, wrestling with the grocery list filtering through my brain.  My window of time was small, and my familia was waiting.

After a brief visit to my favorite kitchen store, I lingered in the most glorious store of all time, and every 43-year old mama of five’s dreamy space:  Anthropologie.  This store speaks to me.  It ‘gets’ me.  I even tuck into their web site now and then, and dream my own little virtual fantasies.  Décor.  Dresses.  Floppy blouses.  Fragrances.  Hats.  Shoes.  Bags.  Journals.  Scarves.  Linens.  Ridiculously overpriced jeans.  Books.

Delightful.

I was determined not to leave a stone unturned, and near the end of my excavation, I found the ‘travel book’ section.  Destinations.  Travel Journals.  Maps.  Cities.  Far away places.

I hate travel journals.  They mock me.  Like a bikini competition with large bosomed women.  My heart instantly felt the familiar pang which whispers, ‘your life is so small’…’you’ve never been anywhere’…

When I am in a particularly spicy mood, I feel like buying a travel journal just to spitefully inscribe ‘Arvada, Colorado’ in every single page.   With a thick ballpoint pen, allowing extra pressure for sarcastic emphasis.

I picked up a journal, and flipped through the empty pages, unsure of what compels me to pick them up.  My hands run over the pockets reserved for tickets and memorabilia.  I set it down and pick up a book of maps.  Another book.  This one highlights subway systems.

And then I had a moment.

Out of the Anthropologie blue-green, I was reminded of my extensive and valuable travels.

Soul Journeys.

My life journey of nurturing souls.  The journey of attending to my own and other’s search for God.  The journey of attending to my own faith – and the faith of those in my care.

The journey of my family.  My husband.  My children.  Their daily lives, and the home I have fashioned for them.

The vulnerable looking and listening for God along the way.

The journey of beauty and sincerity.  Of celebrating the goodness of God.

The journey of pain and loss.  Of music expressed.  Of loving deeply, and being loved by others.

The journey of real relationships and the experience of community.

The journey of others.  The other-ness of my entire life, and it’s priceless rewards.

The small, deep destinations.

The grand, sweeping mysteries along the way.

The beauty, glory, and unbridled enthusiasm in the mundane.

It was then I realized the travel journals I held in my hands were too small.  The petite pages were not strong enough to hold the vast worlds of my journeys.  And the journeys yet to come.

With satisfaction, I set them down, and walked away.  I smiled at my discovery, and welcomed the grocery list to the forefront of my thoughts.  Dinner was my next destination, and little Miss Claire requested homemade pizza, thank you very much.

The journey is sweet.

 “This is going to ruin our Easter picture” (15-year old Amanda Rose, firstborn of five).

The thought flooded into Amanda’s head as her dad screeched the white Chevy conversion van into the adjoining bank parking lot and quickly shot out, ‘take your brothers and sister to their Sunday School classes.  I’m going to get Mom.’  As she peered outside, she could see the scene unfold on the sidewalk.

Crazy people descended upon our church on Easter Sunday with hate-filled picket signs, and marching toward them in the bright, glorious Easter sunlight was the church’s choir director.  Her mom.

On the first of two annual holidays where she was dressed in matching pastel finery with her young siblings, she huddled them like little ducklings and deposited them to their respective Sunday School classes, trying desperately to balance her little sister’s white hat while clutching her tiny, white-gloved hand.

Outside, obnoxious signs marched with titles like ‘God Hates Fags’, ‘9/11 Was God’s Punishment’ and ‘Your Pastor is a Liar’.  Although I was nearing the end of my 30’s, I was still living in what I call the ‘days of innocence’, and I had no idea what I was stepping into.

The exchange went something like this, (me), ‘Hi.  Happy Easter.  Um.  Do you know my Pastor?’  (hateful man with Southern drawl), ‘No ma’am.’  (me) ‘why are you calling him a liar?’ (hateful man) ‘Does your Pastor tell people that God loves everyone?’  (me), ‘yes.’  (hateful man)  ‘Well that’s a lie.  God most certainly does not love everyone.  He only loves his elect.  Those who love and obey him.’   (Insert a stream of scriptures justifying his hateful spin).

Gathering my jaw from the pavement, I returned a stream of scriptures justifying my ‘God’s love for ALL’ spin.

Enter handsome husband who gently and wisely gathers me in his arm and guides me away before one last exchange of (me), ‘I’m going to pray that God shows you His love’ and the (hateful man) reply, ‘Don’t pray to your God wohman.’

That’s how it went down.

That’s when I realized that I would rather live inside the words of life I find in Scripture rather than debate them.

I have lived a lifetime filled with ‘this word means this’ and ‘that word means that’.  A lot of ‘sons’ can mean ‘sons and daughters’ except when it doesn’t.   A healthy dose of ‘one wife’ means it can’t be a woman, but it doesn’t necessarily mean ‘one wife’.  And most recently, the round and round which is ‘all’ doesn’t actually mean ‘all’.

The debate doesn’t change the fact.  These words are life.  They sustain me.  I don’t always understand them perfectly, but I wrap myself in the goodness of their message.

Most recently,  I have a deeper understanding of this passage:  ‘love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never fails.’  (from I Corinthians 13:4-8). 

I am happy to say my ‘spin’ on this verse is beautiful in its simplicity.  All means all.

I suspected it back then in my ‘days of innocence’, even on that sunny Easter morning, as I snapped beautiful images of my precious babes.  I know it now.

The calendar says March, and in Colorado the translation goes something like this:  ‘Winter is over.  Fling open the windows.  It’s time to wear shorts.’

In reality, we are still deep in snow season.  Some of our massive blizzards have buried us in the month of March.  We just get a little giddy when a 70 degree day taunts us on the tail of a long winter season.

Some of us even get delusions that sound something like this:  ‘Winter is over.  I should start running.  If I start now, I could be in running shape for the Boulder Boulder.’

Some of our delusions even go as far as to flirt with the ‘athletic clothing section’ at Costco as we scramble toward the bulk sausage section for dinner.   Nah.  I already have some stretchy pants with stripes down the sides.

My running history reaches back to the Ralston Creek Trail, warming up and down with the East Arvada Jr. High School track team.  At the urging of my friend, Sharon Maes, I found myself pounding the pavement with my fellow Huskies, wondering why people would actually choose to torture themselves in such an unusual, cruel and hateful way.   The highlight of my East Arvada track experience was my ‘Grease’ soundtrack bus serenades on our Wadsworth trip home.   Nothing cured my shin splints like a few bars of ‘guess mine… is not the first heart broken, my eyes… are not the first to cry…I’m not the first to know, there’s just no gettin’ o-ver you’.

I want to run.  But I’d rather stick with my long, leisurely strolls.  Long enough to tucker out my Yorkie and slow enough to take a photo along the way, if necessary.  I like to call it Instagram slow.

I can’t even spit correctly.  It should make it to the ground, but instead it dangles off my chin and then lingers on the back of my hand, like it’s mocking me.

Yet here I am, dangerously close to pulling on my stretchy pants.  Lacing up my sporty shoes.  Leaving my Yorkie and iPhone behind.

It’s March.  I should start running.

A year ago this week, my journey of joy and release began.  I reached back to my old ‘Letters from the Edge’ to revisit my narrative.  So much has happened since this day:  she graduated from college, married her love, and moved to Florida.  

It began like this:

Six days ago, my daughter did not have a ring on her finger.

It was President’s Day, and one of the many to-do’s was a Starbucks between my husband, Craig, and my daughter’s boyfriend,  Jeremy.  We suspected Jeremy’s coffee motives had something to do with his newfound worship position combined with Amanda’s impending college graduation.

What transpired at the small round table at 80th & Wads became a hallowed meeting between two men.  Two men who love the same girl.  A sacred impartation of blessing.   A confirmation of acceptance.  A profound exchange of wisdom and love.  The beginnings of release.

When Craig returned home, the silencing of the mob was priority one.  The mob being the mass of younger, very talkative siblings living with Amanda, who had been chanting all day, ‘Dad’s meeting Jeremy for coffee…Dad’s meeting Jeremy for coffee…Dad’s meeting Jeremy for coffee.’

Priority two was a small pocket of time between the mama and papa.  Just the two of us.  Waiting in the car for our youngest miss, who at any moment would come skipping out of her dance class, wearing the cutest little dance tights, carrying her small pencil bag, loving that the contents of her pencil bag was none other than a single tube of lip gloss.  As we sat in measured calm, we reflected on the beauty of Amanda’s life and her hopeful future.  I broke the calm with some fairly large gulps of tears and finally sunk my face in my hands and said, ‘I’m going to miss her so much.’

From the moment I held her, and fell into her deep brown eyes, I have been in love.  I felt some kind of ancient shift inside.  Locking me into what I was made to be.  Calling me to my own self.  This journey of motherhood began with the simple compass of those gorgeous brown eyes, and continues to this very moment.

Amanda Rose.  The baby turned woman, whose very presence is a constant source of nourishment to those around her.  Her understated generosity and insight grace every person she comes in contact with.  Her unselfish, remarkable beauty serves only to shine light on others as she gives comfort and value to every person she meets.   My girl.

I’m going to miss her so much.  It’s a completely selfish thought, but I must admit to feeling it.  As she spreads her wings and flies from my nest to prepare her own, mine will be missing such a profound piece.  This selfish thought is balanced with hopeful, honest  joy for her new marriage and family journey.

Last night, Jeremy invited our family and his own wonderful family to complete a beautiful dinner experience with his future wife.  He left her notes filled with hints, leading to rose-filled destinations, and as she followed the note to their final ‘dessert’ location, she could not help but see the discrete mob lingering inside the coffee shop.  As he placed the ring on her finger, the screams of joy and applause made all of Larimer Square smile.

The woman whose beautiful ring now graces my daughter’s hand is a complete stranger to me.  The ring is a family heirloom, belonging to Jeremy’s grandmother.   It will remain with my daughter for her lifetime.

My daughter now has a ring on her finger.