by Luci Swindoll
What would happen if you stopped asking “if only” and “why me?” and started asking “what if?” and “why not?” You’d enjoy life a lot more, for one thing! “Adventure is an attitude,” says Luci Swindoll, “not a behavior.” She should know. No one (we know of) has more adventures than our friend Luci. In this inspiring account of her courageous life, Luci teaches us how to live savoring each moment . . . how to let go of regrets and embrace dreams instead. Learn to see your life through the lens of possibility and begin Doing Life Differently.
Excerpt
CHAPTER ONE: REMEMBERING THE VOICES OF THE PAST
My father gave me my first road map—the way to Momo’s. At the end of the journey, he had drawn a picture of her house, a large, two-story, white wooden frame with tall columns on a big front porch. I loved that house, and I loved my grandmother. She could do everything. Play the piano like a house afire, sing, laugh, encourage and lift my spirits when nobody else could. When we came to visit, there was always cold pop in the refrigerator and Momo’s arms were open to greet us.
My family lived in Houston, Texas, at the time, and I remember going to El Campo to visit when I was eight years old. World War II had just started, and Daddy had a 1941 Ford. He drove, Mother sat beside him, and we three kids lollygagged in the backseat. My older brother, Orville, was nine; my younger brother, Chuck, was six; and I was the eight-year-old girl in the middle. The Swindoll kids: Bubba, Tutta, and Babe. On many of those trips, we stood on the floorboard of the backseat right behind Mother and Daddy (driving them crazy probably), waiting for the first glimpse of El Campo’s “skyline”—a big cotton gin. Whichever one of us said aloud, “First one to see El Campo” got a nickel from Daddy. This, of course, caused us to stay quiet and watch the horizon. That nickel was a great reward.
We had lived in El Campo before moving to Houston. On Saturdays, the three of us went to the Normana Theater and spent the afternoon. Daddy gave each of us a quarter, which bought a hamburger for a nickel, a Coke for a nickel, a bag of popcorn for a nickel, and the movie for a nickel. We always gave a nickel back to Daddy as change—maybe the same nickel he gave us for seeing El Campo first.
And the movie wasn’t just a movie. It was Disneyland before there was one! We saw a double feature (Westerns, usually), cartoons, two serials, and RKO News. Sometimes there was even a live talent show. Afterward we rode imaginary horses all the way home across the lawns of neighbors, clacking out mouth noises as horse hooves stomped the grass, holding tightly to the reins so they wouldn’t get away from us. Worn out by the long ride, we’d flop down on the bed when we got home or stop by Momo’s for a cold pop. Often she was playing the piano when we got there or working in one of her dozens of scrapbooks, pasting in black-and-white photos or articles she had cut out of newspapers or magazines.
Momo and I talked often about life, the little things that mattered to her and to me. I would tell her my problems or concerns, and she would say, “Let’s sing. You take the melody, and I’ll take the harmony.” I didn’t want to sing—I wanted to pout. So she’d let me pout awhile then fix a sandwich and cold drink and tell me something funny about a neighbor or somebody in the family, and before long I kind of forgot my problem and we’d sing. Usually a hymn or something patriotic. Maybe a campfire tune. In the middle of our rendition, she often got up from her chair, went to the piano, motioning for me to follow (not missing a note), and started playing in the key in which we were singing. We’d stay there for maybe an hour. Singing and singing and singing.
I don’t remember Momo ever correcting or scolding me for my little feelings of disappointment. She rode them out with me and was generally very cheerful and encouraging, ignoring my pout, continuing her happy spirit . . . listening to my concerns all the while.
Momo never met a stranger. She had her fingers in every pie. She’d plan a gathering, and somebody would tell her they couldn’t come after all, because their brother’s family had arrived unexpectedly with six kids and it would just be too much. “Absolutely not,” Momo would laugh. “You pack up that family and bring ’em all over here for dinner. I’ll add another bean to the pot.” We often sat around the dinner table at Momo’s with complete strangers and, on rare occasions, with other nationalities.
My mother also enjoyed entertaining. She set a beautiful table, was a wonderful cook, and knew how to make folks feel welcome—young or old, educated or uneducated, happy or sad. Mother’s thoughts were close to home, while Daddy thought far away. As I grew older and was in college, Mother’s letters told of neighborhood happenings; Daddy’s quoted Scripture and poetry. Mother mailed a new blouse or skirt, and Daddy sent books and my allowance. Both had their place. She kept my feet on the ground, and he helped me dream.
“You can be anything you want to be,” Daddy would say to me. “You can go anywhere you want to go, achieve anything you like. You just have to line your desires up with the Lord’s and go. You have to take a few risks and head out.”
Once when I was really little and spending the night at a friend’s house, I got very homesick at bedtime. I called Mother and Daddy and asked them to come get me. Immediately, Daddy got in the car and drove the few blocks to pick me up. I was embarrassed and told Daddy how sorry I was that I wasn’t able to stay. I felt like a baby and asked him if he was mad at me because I called.
“Honey,” he said, “of course I’m not mad at you. You can always call when you’re afraid. I will always come get you if you need me to. But remember this—you are never alone wherever you are in life. God is with you. God will take care of you. Never be afraid to talk to God when you get homesick.”
As we drove home that night, Daddy tucked into my heart a seed thought that has over time and travels grown into a giant tree, enabling me to go far and wide, high and low, across the world, virtually unafraid and excited about what lies down the road or over the horizon. And when I’m homesick, I talk to God about it.
Last year when I was landing in Europe, I whispered to myself, “First one to see Paris.” Thank you, Daddy.
. . .
When I was about twelve, something interesting happened that impacted my thinking about the future. My folks gave me elocution lessons (probably to cure me of the Danny Kaye syndrome), and I absolutely loved that. Betty Green Little, a respected drama coach in Houston, taught the classes. She was probably the first person outside my own home who encouraged me to aim higher than the norm—the expected. Schoolteachers inadvertently conveyed that thought, of course, but this woman did it in a more personal way. Miss Little passed out sheets of paper that taught us proper pronunciation of words. We were given one sheet that had only the word “Oh” on it. She said, “When I call on you, please say ‘oh’ in the manner I tell you. Think before you speak how this ‘oh’ would sound, and then with all your heart, say it with that inflection.”
I was in heaven.
“Lucille, please say ‘oh’ as though you’re in pain.”
I let out a cry as though I were dying. She smiled then said, “Now say ‘oh’ as if you were handed the baby to whom you had just given birth.”
I let out the same cry. Miss Little laughed, as did the rest of the class.
On and on this exercise went with each of the five students saying “oh”in a dozen different ways: “Oh, how beautiful.” “Oh, you can’t mean it.” “Oh no, not again.”
Somewhere in the recesses of my mind that day I must have envisioned giving birth and disliked the idea. That guttural response to Miss Little’s request was more than an answer to her question. It was a metaphor for things to come. Why? Who knows? It just seemed clear that getting married and having children—a most natural longing and certainly the course “expected” from girls of my generation—was simply not on my radar. I don’t want to follow the traditional path, I thought. I want to do life differently. Can girls do something besides get married and have kids? In my twelve-year-old brain, I pondered that idea a lot. Of course, it was too early in my physical and emotional development to know exactly what I wanted in place of what most girls my age were aiming for. But I believe the seed thought Daddy had planted earlier began to grow heartily during those days: you are never alone . . . God is with you.
Unwittingly, I had already left the dock on a unique journey the Lord had charted especially for me.
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Excerpted from Doing Life Differently. © 2002, 2010 Luci Swindoll. Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Used with permission. All rights reserved.
