For the past four years, NPR has been airing a weekly series called "This I Believe" during which people share essays describing their core beliefs in 500 words or less. I wrote a "This I Believe" essay for a project at church two years ago, but try as I might, I couldn't get the word count down. "Words, words, words" as Hamlet said -- 577 to be exact. I figured I'd get around to editing it and submitting it to NPR another time.
Well, another time was today. Now or never. A few years' distance made me much less proprietary about each and every word, and without too much difficulty I managed to shave off 109 of them. There's hope for me yet! NPR stopped airing "This I Believe" earlier this year but This I Believe, Inc. is still collecting essays for its database, so perhaps my essay will appear there one of these days. With 60,000+ essays already in the database it's unlikely that anyone will ever read mine, but then again, that seems to be my preferred medium. I don't know who the heck reads this blog and that doesn't stop me!
I highly recommend going to www.thisibelieve.org and exploring some of what's there. You might just get inspired to give it a go. In the meantime...
This I Believe
The teasing whine of bagpipes; the magical glimpse of a hummingbird; pale pink geraniums bursting into bloom in November: all proof of something I know exists, not because I can see it or hear it but because I can feel it.
Bagpipes. My father’s parents were born in Scotland and he indulged his love of everything from that land. Many a morning we would wake to the oily smell of kippered herring frying on the stove. My dad dragged me to the Scottish Games to watch the caber toss and a wee bit o’ Highland dancing. And he arranged for each of my brothers and sisters to be serenaded by bagpipes at their weddings as he was, later on, at his memorial service.
When I was planning my wedding, I mentioned bagpipes to my mother and she replied firmly and without hesitation, “That tradition died with your father, Nancy.” No arguing. Done.
One glorious summer afternoon years later, I went for a run down a deserted path through the Vermont woods. The silence was eventually broken by a familiar drone; peering through the trees, I saw a bagpiper, in full regalia, standing on a small bridge of land between two ponds, serenading me. “Your bagpipes, Sister,” I could hear my dad saying as he tickled my knee. For the rest of my run, he was right there by my side.
Hummingbirds. In her later years, my mother became fascinated by hummingbirds, by their beauty and their fragility and their rapidly beating wings. As I’d never seen a hummingbird, I didn’t share my mom’s passion. Yet shortly after she died, I was lying in a hammock in her beloved Adirondacks and turned my head to see a hummingbird hovering nearby. Several weeks later, standing on the deck of our new home, I was visited by a ruby-throated hummingbird. I’ve since snapped photos of them, notoriously shy, just feet away from me, happily feeding on purple verbena. I even rescued one that was trapped in our garage with the help of a butterfly net. When I see a hummingbird I’m filled with my mother’s presence.
And the geraniums? I didn’t inherit my mom’s green thumb, but after she died I did inherit one of her prized potted plants. Determined not to kill it, I fed it and watered it and brought it inside at the first hint of frost. And five months later, on November 11th, 2004, it burst into full bloom for the first time, a spectacular birthday present to me from my mom.
I believe that bagpipes, hummingbirds, and geraniums are a loving reminder that my parents are always nearby. I believe these reminders are a gift from God, a manifestation of God’s love for me. I can feel it, I can sense it, and it’s heavenly.
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