Author: Lindsey P. Brackett

When I'm not wrangling four kids and a middle school classroom, I sit on my back porch in the mountains and write southern fiction that's short and long. I believe in Jesus, library fines, supper at the table, the Edislow life, and strong coffee. Pretty much in that order.
marriage

Four Necessary Conversations Your Marriage Needs

Lindsey P. Brackett1 Comment

Four weeks ago when I thought my husband was having a full-blown heart attack at age 32, I had to face an uncomfortable truth.  If he died, I wouldn’t know what to do.  I don’t mean that in an emotional, how-could-I-raise-four-kids-alone-he’s-my-rock sort of way, though there was certainly that.  I mean, seriously, four weeks ago, I wouldn’t have known how to pay our bills, plan his funeral, or request his life insurance.

Like most marriages in which one partner is the primary financial manager, I was in the dark on even the simplest of tasks.  Sure, I know him well enough that I could hack our accounts and figure everything out, but the point is, at such a state of emotional turmoil, I shouldn’t have to do that.  Since then, we’ve had some heavy conversations.  Some were topics that aren’t usually brought up among couples our age because the idea of losing your spouse seems so far away and talking about funeral plans seems like tempting fate.  Others were conversations we just needed to have anyway to keep our marriage financially healthy.

Here are four conversations you and your spouse need to have, not because you’re preparing for the worst, but because if you’re married then it’s time to act like a grown-up and talk about the harsh realities of life.

1.  Funeral and Burial Plans
Could you oversee the planning of a funeral for the one you love?  Do you know if your husband or wife wants to be cremated or buried?  Do you have any idea if the music matters or who the pallbearers would be or which pastor he might prefer?  We didn’t talk about any of this until after because it was in the after that all these questions occurred to me and I didn’t know most of the answers.  It relieved me to know after that I would have guessed correctly on most of the big questions, but there are little preferences he has that I didn’t know about like certain music and a tombstone over a grave marker.

2.  Life Insurance
I knew we have life insurance, and I can even tell you the name of the company and who our agent is, but I didn’t know the amount.  This is actually a conversation we started to have while he was finishing Men’s Fraternity, a bible study for men at our church.  He was encouraged to talk with me about whether or not I felt we would be financially stable if something happened to him and the steps we might need to take to increase that level of security.  I think we all hate to think about the idea that if something happened to our spouse, at least there would be money in the bank.  I know I do; but reality is that money in the bank is necessary for the worst of afters and especially in our situation as a one-income family, it is a place we need to put some of our monthly budget.  I could and would go back to work if Joshua wasn’t here, but that likely wouldn’t happen right away, so we’d have the insurance for the meantime.  If this seems like an expense you can cut from your budget, I encourage you to consider that a small expense now could mean much less debt in your future.

3.  A Will
This is the area we’ve been the most negligent in completing.  Obviously in a marriage is something happens to one spouse, the other becomes the benefactor, but what about the awful situation when something happens to both of you?  We have four kids and right now, with no will in place, they would go into foster care until someone else sorts out their lives for them, and that’s a terrible legacy for me to leave them.  I prepare everything else for their lives from lunches to outfits to sleepovers, so why wouldn’t I leave behind preparations for who and how to raise them?  It’s easy to think that’s never going to happen, but if I’ve learned anything in the past month, it’s that “never going to happen to me” happens more often than we like.  We’re making an appointment with a lawyer and wrapping this one up because it’s not just about me and him anymore; it’s about the fates of the four little people we’d be leaving behind.

4.  Bank Accounts and Passwords
While my husband can rattle off the numbers for all our our accounts and the purpose behind each one, I tend to only worry about the one I’m allowed to spend money from.  I know in a lot of marriages, the wife is the financial manager, so many of you are probably now picturing the lost state your husband would be in if something happened to you.  So do him a favor?  Tell him where and how to find things.  Joshua and I worked for three hours on his third day home from the hospital talking me through the accounts, the bills, and sharing the passwords so I don’t have to figure that out on my own.  I hate analyzing finances because it only serves to remind me how tight our belts are right now, so I usually avoid it at all costs.  Well, the cost is that I’ve placed all the burden for earning and dividing our income on my husband and that’s not fair.  I know it works in most marriages to only have one spouse managing the checkbook, but it also works to have you both knowledgeable about what is coming in and going out and to where and when.  Don’t let your finances be your control issue if you’re in charge, and don’t let financial matters be your frustration if you’re not.  A marriage that avoids sharing information about the money that is yours collectively is on a path towards destruction.  There’s a reason finances are the number one cause of divorce.

I’m encouraging you if you haven’t talked about these topics to pour yourselves a glass of wine or sweet tea, put the kids to bed, turn off Downton Abbey and have a conversation.  I’d love to hear from you–how do you handle these topics in your marriage?

http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post · motherhood · reflections

A Day Worth Remembering

Lindsey P. Brackett1 Comment

It’s warm here in our little house tonight.  A/C went out completely this afternoon after struggling along for a few hours and giving me hope that it might just have been the filter.  Today we had Joshua’s truck engine repaired, and this weekend I had a meltdown about trying to make the grocery budget fit our reality.

It’s life, really.  Messy and complicated and full of mistakes that are only glaringly obvious when looking backward.  But it’s ours.  And sometimes it’s worth bottling up right now and keeping it just like it is.

I’d love to store all these precious little moments somewhere….the way they ate the strawberries as fast as I could cut them this afternoon on the back porch while they were dripping wet from the inflatable pool….when I asked Amelia what she did at VBS today and she said, “Well, we did NOT ride in the bye-bye buggy, but we did dancing with Mrs. Katie”…oh, baby girl, you and your friends are finally getting too big for that buggy and it makes me so sad….how Gus barked “arf, arf!” at the office dog today when we went to pick up Joshua…that Madelynne finally finished a chapter book she read all on her own….how Annabelle has taken to doubling everyone’s names, “Mil-Mil, Ma-Ma, Gus-Gus”….

It’s just random moments.  Everyday mundane, extraordinary only because these moments are so very ordinary.  I remember once telling my husband early in our marriage that I could live everyday reliving our perfect wedding day, and he told me he’d rather live over an ordinary day, a day when we actually were just together.

The older I get, the more I think about that.  How if I had to live just one day over, I’d choose the most ordinary of days, a day when we were just at home, just weeding the garden or playing in the water hose or drinking coffee at that beat-up kitchen table.  A day when naps were taken and pizza was made and the floor was swept a half-dozen times.  A day when I probably got a little exasperated, but got over it quickly enough to enjoy the silliness.  One of those days when there’s an afternoon rainstorm and a family movie and a whole lot of laundry that needs to be folded.

One of those days that’s just pulsing with everyday, ordinary life.  That’s the day I’d bottle right now and keep in my treasure chest of memories because these are the days that matter most.

Those are the days that remind me how passionately I am loved.

Friday Five

Listen To Me {five minute friday}

Lindsey P. Brackett4 Comments

So on Fridays, I like to just write.  Freely without much forethought, just writing to see what comes out.  Lisa-Jo hosts this party and her blog’s my favorite and my go-to for encouragement on motherhood and writing.  Five Minute Friday, check it out, write your own, link it up, leave some love.

Listen

There’s a bird outside making its morning chirping so loud I can hear it over the humming of the fridge and the cranking of the AC and the whirring of the laptop in this early morning quiet.  Their doors are all closed and I can’t hear them breathing but I know they’re there waiting until the coffee maker dripping or the cabinet door squeaking or the faucet running clean water makes them think it’s time to rise.

I’m hiding in the quiet trying to listen.  And trying not to.

Trying not to hear a voice that sometimes whisper this is no good, this is not worth it, this will never amount to food on the table or a new pair of shoes or engine repairs on the truck.  Trying not to believe the lie that if I try, I’m going to be crushed under by the weight of words and judgement and criticism.

Trying instead to listen hard to the hum in my head, the buzz of language and beauty and grace and story that begs to be told somehow in all different ways.

Friends · motherhood

How to Know You Have a Friend

Lindsey P. Brackett2 Comments

There were only four and they were all less than that in years the first summer I pulled my girls up that hill in their wagon and stopped in her front yard.  They were playing in a plastic pool in the front yard and next thing I knew, my girls in all their clothes, were in it too.  We sat on a towel in the grass and talked about babies and jazzercise and how she stayed home because she couldn’t bear the thought of someone else raising her kids, but I went to work because I still wasn’t sure I was the best person to be raising mine.

She offered us egg salad or pb&j for lunch, and somehow in that mystery way of motherhood we  fused a friendship that day even though we could not have been more different.  Together, we watched our children move out of preschool years and into the tumult and delight of elementary school.  She had another baby boy, and a year later, I had another baby girl.  We talked about how three was enough for both us, and that it was definitely harder than going from one to two.

We walked the half-mile hill between our two houses so many times I’m surprised there’s not a path in the pavement.  There came a day when her middle son taught my middle girl to ride a bike and my oldest talked me into letting her coast her bike down the hill.  She stood beside me at the mailbox with their name handpainted and talked my heart down out of my throat when my big girl left behind a streak of pink and white.

Somewhere along the way, our kids began to believe we all belonged to each other.  The oldest ones made plans to be President together or at least build a bridge between our two houses.  The middles ratted each other and everyone else out at any chance available.  The littles just tried to keep up.  And I began to think that maybe she was right and I could find my joy in just raising these rambunctious girls.

She never made me feel I had to fake my way through, even when life handed me a plan that was more than I thought I wanted.  I could be real and I could be honest, and I hope I still managed to show her, even at my darkest moments, that I knew there was Light at the end of the tunnel.  She walked that journey toward grace with me, and I hope now she knows I’ve found my joy.  Even when they’re all screaming in the car and there’s cereal all over my floor and I’m walking up that hill now just to escape for a few minutes.

She held my baby boy when he was just hours old and reassured me that I could do this.  She built confidence in me with one simple tactic: she never says something she doesn’t really mean, so when she compliments my writing or my hair or my kids, I know it’s true.  She trusted me with her kids, which for her is the ultimate sign of confidence.

Then one week after she went to my daughter’s honors day in my place because I was in the hospital with my husband, I helped her pack boxes and empty closets and drink a bottle of wine before the truck came.

Isn’t amazing that you can pack seven years of life into one moving truck?  But where do you put the memories, the laughter, the friendship?  I know some friends come into our lives for a season, but the friend who loved my children like her own, who helped me find my way back to where I belong, who made summers shorter and girls nights richer, is more than just someone I’ll remember fondly one day.

She’s someone I’ll cherish for a lifetime.

Uncategorized

Just an Ordinary Day {miscellany monday}

Lindsey P. BrackettLeave a comment

We’ve spent the past six weeks living in various states of mourning and fear and chaos and joy.  It’s been a roller coaster of emotions that have worn us all down and made me grateful for all these days that are just ordinary and normal.

Except I’ve also learned that by treasuring these moments of the mundane, I’m embracing a life that can be so much more.   So here’s to the ordinary, the normal, the basic routines that make life delightful.

One.

Joshua has finally been given the green light to return to work.  While it’s been great to just have him here and know he’s fine and should be for many years to come, I’ve been feeling like we’re in some holding pattern circling our regular routine.  Getting him back to his normal means that I feel free to go back to my normal routine as well, which in turn reassures me that he really is okay.

Two.

Hold on, my baby is walking.  I shouldn’t be so surprised.  He’s one and all his sisters walked earlier than that. But it happened so suddenly that I’m still startled when I see him toddling down the hall when I know I left him sitting on the living room floor.

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Three.

We sent Madelynne off to camp for the first time this summer.  Always, because we’re Berry grads and worked Camp WinShape ourselves, we thought that would be her first experience, but instead we were given the opportunity to keep her a little more in our neck of the woods and send her to Strong Rock Camp.  It was a great experience.  The camp is a bit smaller and there were plenty of other girls there from her school, so she didn’t feel quite so alone.  Plus, Strong Rock is known for its horse barn and she was able to ride everyday which made her incredibly happy.  I’m sure someday we’ll send her over to the WinShape Nation, but for now we’re really happy with Strong Rock.

That’s her with another camper and the son of one of the camp directors.  They are friends of ours and she was happy to play some game involving Gobstoppers with Carver!

Four.

Last week while Madelynne was off at camp, Annabelle was off on the Appalachian Trail.  Ever since her retirement, my mom has been hiking the AT in as many increments as her bum foot and shoulder allow.  Last summer she did about 600 miles of the trail between Harper’s Ferry and Great Barrington, Massachusetts. But she’s had foot surgery since then, so she’s building her endurance back up.  She took Annabelle on the 15 mile stretch between Hogpen Gap and Unicoi Gap in Georgia.  They spent two nights on the trail, ate a lot of Pop-tarts and mashed potatoes, got a little wet, and Annabelle returned with twenty mosquito bites because she’s just that delicious.

Five.

I’m such a teacher nerd who must miss the classroom because yesterday I wrote us a lesson plan for the week.  I’ll probably post more about it later in the week.  It’s the first week that we haven’t had anyone gone, so we’re finally able to settle into a bit of summer simplicity and enjoy the library, the $1 movies at the local theater, and our own backyard.

Although since I wrote this earlier I’ve already had to remind myself to be thankful for the normal, even if it means I can’t get a post published before 10 p.m. and the sink remains full of dishes even after the dishwasher is loaded.

Linking up with Miscellany Monday over at lowercase letters.   Check it out, there’s a giveaway!