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Melancholy Holidays

by Nathan Marchand
December 2, 2016

grumpychristmas Holidays are often melancholy times for me. Not just Thanksgiving and Christmas, but most holidays throughout the year. The only one that had managed to avoid this stigma was Halloween, but as of this year, it has now been tarnished—my grandmother, Ruth Sitton, died at age 94 October 31, 2016. She was my last grandparent, so, you could say, I’m a “grand-orphan” now. You can read my tribute to her here on my own blog.

Sadly, holidays have either been the days marking tragedies in my life or they serve as reminders of what I don’t have. When I was 12 years old, my Grandfather, Max Sitton (Ruth’s husband, obviously) died suddenly two days before Christmas. He and Grandma Ruth had just finished eating breakfast at a restaurant before coming to visit me and my family, as they always did, before having the big family gathering on Christmas Day. For many years, my Mom had difficulty celebrating Christmas because she associated it with her father’s death. She kept expecting other tragedies to befall the family around Christmastime. Unfortunately, that did happen. Five years ago, I was dumped by my then-girlfriend over the phone two days before Christmas. She was the first girlfriend I’d had close to the holiday season. (more…)

December 2, 2016 - Tags: family, holidays, Nathan Marchand, personal Posted in: Blogs

Tell Me A Story, Daddy!

By Nick Hayden
November 11, 2016

Alexas_Fotos / Pixabay

We here at Children of the Wells began this project because we’re storytellers and we thought it would be fun to tell a longer, interconnected story together. We’ve sometimes stalled along the way, partly because, since we are storytellers, we each have other individual stories we’re also working on. (Excuses, excuses, I know.)

There’s a thing about being a storyteller that, for me, starts to make each project a drawn-out affair. I’ve gotten more and more concerned on writing well, on making things interesting, in editing completely, in somehow making the tenuous web that is fiction hang together. And this is very good. But it is sometimes paralyzing. So, now and then, it’s freeing to just throw the rules of well-structured fiction out the window and do things crazy and off-the-cuff.

Exhibit A is a live brainstorm my podcast partner-in-crime Timothy Deal and I did in the second half of Episode 70 of our podcast on storytelling.

But, more personally, it happens with my daughter Serenity. Her new favorite thing (though the Shopkins voices are still active) is for me to tell her a story. Usually, it needs to involve at least one Minion, since Despicable Me 2 is her current watch-it-every-day movie. And whenever I try to move toward an ending, she helpfully adds, “But there were still 200 problems in the world,” which is her way of adding conflict — because a hero’s job is never done. (more…)

November 11, 2016 - Tags: family, Nick Hayden, personal, philosophy Posted in: Blogs

Adventures Around Grandma’s House

By Timothy Deal
August 5, 2016

Last year, shortly after both grandparents on my father’s side had passed away, I started a short series of blogs I call “Lessons Learned at Grandma’s House.” Today I pick that series up again with a lesson well-suited to this time of year. (In yet another case of “great minds think alike,” expect some overlap with Nick’s latest blog.)

Adventures abound outdoors, especially when you take your imagination with you.

I talked about indoor activities in previous entries of this series, but one of the charms of going to Grandma’s house was exploring her expansive property. Purchased as a hobby farm way back before anyone was moving to that obscure corner of Noble County, the area around Grandma’s house included a barn, a couple garages, sheds, chicken houses, Grandma’s aviary (more on that in a future blog), a field perfect for kickball, woods, a creek, and one of the best sledding hills in northern Indiana. (more…)

August 5, 2016 - Tags: childhood, family, personal, Timothy Deal Posted in: Blogs

104 Days of Boredom

By Natasha Hayden
July 1, 2016

A couple years ago, my family was introduced to Perry the Platypus, his evil(?) nemesis, and 104 days of summer vacation. It was glorious! From the 3-year-old to the 33-year-old, we all loved it. Still do.

“I know what we’re going to do today, Ferb!”
From Disney XD website

But I always wondered…from what calendar did they come up with 104 days of summer vacation? (I suppose, if that’s the only thing that had me scratching my head, there’s something wrong with my logic.) It certainly wasn’t from Indiana’s! In our county, we’re lucky to get 66, and the push seems to be for school year-round. Why?

What’s wrong with a good ol’ lazy, long summer? What’s wrong with ditching the books and hours of boredom? You certainly don’t see Phineas and Ferb doing homework (unless they’re reading a building manual). While I wouldn’t generally take my notes from a cartoon…why don’t we for a moment? (more…)

July 1, 2016 - Tags: creative process, family, media, Natasha Hayden Posted in: Blogs

Let’s Play it Again, Dad!

by Nick Hayden
June 10, 2016

“A child kicks its legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, Do it again; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough… It is possible that God says every morning, Do it again, to the sun; and every evening, Do it again, to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike: it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.” -Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton

If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you know that I have kids, three of them. The middle child, Serenity, is four, and her favorite game, which she requests nearly everyday, is a little romp she calls “Shopkins.”

The game is called Shopkins because it centers around me playing the part of her five Shopkin Happy Meal toys as they are introduce to her various friends. These friends are normally stuffed animals, though Renny’s baby sister, her Elsa carpet, and Darth Tater have all enjoyed the company of the Shopkins. (more…)

June 10, 2016 - Tags: family, imagination, Nick Hayden Posted in: Blogs

Rejoice and Be Glad

By Gregory Meyer
March 24, 2016

Figure 1 Found on Pinterest

I originally planned to spend this blog post as a launching point for a multi-blog series on the creation and process behind The Seekers and the Hidden, my soon-to-be-released contribution to the Bron/Calea side of our novel series. Yet given what’s gone on in my life as of late, I decided to postpone it and talk about life.

See, my grandmother passed away this month after battling cancer. She was a strong and beautiful woman, and watching cancer rapidly deteriorate her health was difficult to watch. Yet through it all she stayed positive and feisty to the very end, and I’m proud of her for not allowing her condition to rule her spirit.

During the funeral, I got to see my extended family and all of the lives that she touched. We celebrated her life together in a beautiful ceremony, and I know she would’ve been happy with how everything was done. Afterwards, we shared stories about her, the things she would say, and laugh at her little quirks.

I know one day I will see her again, rejoicing, healthy, and cancer-free. This is the hope that we have as believers in Jesus Christ. Death is the end of this life, but not of the next. (more…)

March 24, 2016 - Tags: christianity, family, Greg Meyer, personal Posted in: Blogs

The End of Life As We Know It

By Nick Hayden
March 4, 2016

Not the Hayden Household
geralt / Pixabay

First–no, this is not a commentary on the current political races.

This is, instead, a much more personal reminiscence.

Back when Natasha and I were preparing for the birth of our first child, our calendar was filled with the usual appointments, get-togethers, and reminders, at least until THAT DAY. After the expected birth date of our child, there were no events planned. We couldn’t even conceive (pun intended) what life would be life after THAT DAY. We scheduled nothing after THAT DAY. It was a wall, and beyond it was a void shrouded in deep fog. (more…)

March 3, 2016 - Tags: family, Nick Hayden, personal, schedule Posted in: Blogs

A Shared Birthday

By Timothy Deal
November 11, 2015

Twenty years ago, something happened that forever changed my life: my baby sister was born on my birthday.

It was an astonishing event that had been foretold months before. My parents had announced that the new baby’s due date was around November 11. After the initial shock had faded, I was left with the deepening sense of fatalism that only an eleven-year-old boy who knows in his soul that he will likely forever have to share his birthday with another can experience. I dreaded that no longer would my special day be about me, but it would be about some smaller, cuter lifeform. As the eldest sibling, I had seen it happen before; the youngest kids got all the attention. I would have resolved to face the future with stoicism, if I knew what the word meant at the time.

We celebrated my twelfth birthday the night before, just in case. And sure enough, early in the morning on November 11, 1995, my dad woke me up to let me know he and Mom were heading toward the hospital. It was as I had foreseen. I confess I gave my mother a somewhat accusatory look before they left, as if to say, “I’m not angry with you, Mom. Just disappointed.”

After the the birth of three previous baby sisters, it was beginning to feel routine to be brought over to Grandma’s house while Mom and Dad were at the hospital. When Dad called to say Mom and newborn baby Danielle were safe and healthy, of course we were all happy, but then my conversation with Dad went something like this:

“So…another girl, huh, Dad?”

“Yeah…another sister.”

“….”

“….Yep. Sorry, looks like we’re still gonna be the only men in the family.”

“Well…that’s life.”

Okay, so I don’t know if that’s really what I said, but that was kinda my attitude at the time. It wasn’t entirely the best, but from a twelve-year-old’s perspective it’s hopefully understandable.

What I didn’t realize at the time was just how much fun it would turn out to be having a baby sister as a teenager. Little Danielle quickly stole my heart with her chubby cheeks, shiny hair, huge smile, and imaginative personality. In her preschool/kindergarten ages she delighted in grabbing onto my legs, climbing all around me while I was lying on the couch, and generally treating me as one of her most beloved toys that she could pose and ride on. (One of her strangest ideas during this period were her attempts to make me “relax,” which apparently involved looking disinterested in the world while holding specific poses.)

As Danielle grew, she continued to delight and surprise all of my family with her boundless creativity which found expression in drawings, costumes, stories, unusual pet chicken names, hieroglyphs made of crushed dandelions, oral histories of imaginary worlds, ceremonies to mark new seasons, sketchings, rubbings, paintings, designs, calligraphy, photography, and probably a lot more that I’ve forgotten. As a creative nerd, I love being able to share my interests with all my sisters, but I’ve had some of my deepest conversations about creativity and favorite stories with Danielle. She has continued to inspire creativity in me during times when I felt creatively dry. And I hope to reciprocate that inspiration as much as possible.

And instead of being a burden, sharing my birthday with my baby sister has turned out to be a huge blessing. As a friend of the family correctly predicted, I wound up getting more attention (and more presents) during my teenage and young adult birthdays because I shared them with my kid sister. While she was still small enough, it was a fun tradition to have Danielle sit on my lap while we blew out our candles, and we still get a kick out of anticipating our special day day or calling/texting/telling each other Happy Birthday when it arrives.

12239688_895688946803_5262903489939655094_n So with all of that said, Happy Birthday, Danielle! Thanks for being the best birthday present I’ve ever been given.

November 11, 2015 - Tags: family, personal, Timothy Deal Posted in: Blogs

Halloween: A Scary Good Time

By Nathan Marchand
October 30, 2015

Me as Captain America blocking an attack from Catwoman at a Halloween dance party last week.

I love Halloween.

There are some Christians who might stone me—proverbially speaking, of course—for saying that. Many believers won’t have anything to do with the holiday because they can’t get past its occult origins. I can understand that…and yet I can’t. See, if you dig into the history of any major holiday, you’ll discover that it had unsavory beginnings until the Church “Christianized” it. Even Christmas and Easter, which Christians love.

But I digress. (more…)

October 30, 2015 - Tags: family, holidays, Nathan Marchand Posted in: Blogs

Personal Reflections on a Year of Change

By Natasha Hayden
October 2, 2015

It is barely October (my favorite month!), but for many reasons, I have been looking back over this year and the challenges and changes my family has gone through.

In January, our contentment and happiness was rocked by a sledding accident that put my three-year-old daughter in the hospital with potential brain damage. I was deeply shaken, wondering if the rest of our lives would be different. But the bleed into her brain dissipated with no obvious lasting physical effects. The emotional trauma lingered a little longer and will, perhaps, stay with her father and me for a long time to come.

In May, after a year of wondering and waiting, I found that I was pregnant with our third child. It wasn’t an easy decision to make to have a third. We already had a boy and a girl. Our small two-room house fit us, and we were getting close to paying it off. I wavered back and forth about whether or not I wanted a baby. Ultimately, it wasn’t up to us. We struggled to get pregnant with our first child, and this time, we had some trouble again. We left it in God’s hands, and he decided it for us…about a year after we thought we were ready.

The Hayden Family

In August, we became more serious about looking into new houses, and in the space of one very interesting week, we found a house, got our initial paperwork in order with the bank, made an offer, and began the process of closing. That process is nearing completion now, about a month later, and soon, we will be moving from our home of 12 years, a thought that brings both excitement and melancholy.

Last week, I watched my cat Chewbacca, who’s lived with me nearly as long as my husband, fight his last days of a disease I didn’t even know he had and be euthanized before my eyes, his little body stilling under my hand.

I laugh (and cry a little) to think that I had hoped for a less eventful year at the close of 2014. This one’s not even over yet, and ahead, I know there are expected joys and unexpected losses, blessing and pain all mingled together so that sometimes it is hard to tell one from the other. Such is life. We can prepare all we want, but only God knows what’s in store for us.

This is illustrated so well in even that first moment we draw breath into our lungs. No matter how much a mother prepares for the birth of her child, when labor hits, she has to go with the flow. I wanted to try a natural birth with my oldest, but I had gestational diabetes and had to be induced and ended up with an epidural, thank God, and that’s just how it goes.

As I’ve shared before, two of my pregnancies ended in miscarriage, and a little bit of that fear that my children’s lives are out of my control has remained with me ever since. I can no more protect my children now than I could at their conception and birth, as I was so strongly reminded in January and again, a few weeks ago, when my five-year-old son ran a kid-size motorcycle into a tree, five feet away from a lake. He walked away, but part of my heart still beats on the ground where I stood. We plan and plan and live in frustration when control inevitably slips from our hands.

On these contemplations, I venture into the last quarter of the year, preparing as best I can for a future that is, really, out of my control. But one thing I know for certain: God has brought me through so much and will bring me through the rest, little scrapes and lifelong changes all. I can trust in his control. I might rather remain in comfort and security, going at a slower pace than the rest, but contentment is found in letting go amidst the chaos and knowing he will catch me wherever I fall.

October 2, 2015 - Tags: christianity, family, Natasha Hayden, personal Posted in: Blogs