Our Children As Food

If Walker was a food, he would probably be a hot dog. As a grown man, now married and a father, he might disagree. He might argue that his mission experiences and his wonderful wife have improved his dietary habits so much that he is now a non-fat, whole-grain, organically-grown vegetable or grain of some sort (like cauliflower, maybe, or brown rice). But I still insist that he would be a hot dog. As a child, starting at a very young age, he would want hot dogs for meals. By age three or four he often carried a frozen hot dog, wrapped in a napkin, to gnaw on. Fuel stops during road trips were typically meal sources for Walker, as he delighted in gas station hot dogs. We figured that he had probably eaten his body weight in hot dogs by the time he started school. Furthermore, Hot-Dog kind of fits Walker's personality. He loves to be first. He is an academic standout somewhat due to genetics, partly due to scholastic opportunities, and largely due to his own personal desire to out-perform his competitors. He is humble and appropriate, but a show-off to be sure. Yes, there is a very strong case to be made for Walker being a Hot-Dog.

Belle would be ham. She eats ham samiches in her school lunches, daily, and her favorite hoagie is a ham on white bread, with nothing else -- no lettuce, no mustard, no tomato, no mayonnaise, no pickles, no ketchup, no flavor -- just ham and bread. Her samich is the easiest to make at Subway, but often takes the longest to convince the worker to construct such a barren variety of their offerings. And just like Walker, Belle's food choice is also an indication of her personality. She LOVES to have her picture taken, to perform dances or songs or piano music for a livingroom audience, and to tell a whopper of a story amongst her friends. She has been known to lead the after-school bus crowd in the singing of church songs that they had never heard before. Nobody that knows Belle would disagree that she is a Ham.

Courtney, on the other hand, eschews ham, hot dogs, bacon, hamburgers, roast, ribs, etc. I cannot recall the last time that Courtney has eaten any red meat, although her aversion seems to have started with an episode of sibling-teasing wherein her older brother was kinda graphic about the origin of bacon and her response was immediate and enduring. (It is difficult to know if the strong response was inspired by a revulsion for the meat or the brother.)

No, Courtney is not a meat of any kind. Courtney is the bread that surrounds, supports, and contains the meats and cheeses and sauces that go into a good samich. She loves to eat rolls and bread and bagels. And just as the bread is not the headliner of a samich (it's called a hot-dog or a ham samich, not a bread samich with a piece of meat), Courtney is wonderfully adept at supporting and loving those around her. She is an un-heralded source of emotional comfort and absolute responsibility in our family. She is an ever-reliable babysitter and companion to her demanding little sister. She is an uncomplaining and low-maintenance off-spring that learned how to cook for herself at an early age. She is an always-popular friend at school and church and goes out of her way to make would-be outsiders feel included.

Courtney is the middle of our three children. If Walker is an over-achiever and Belle is the center-of-attention, Courtney is the un-sung wonderfully normal, healthy, happy, beautiful, sweet, and generous child that is the bread to our family samich. We parents are so blessed to have Courtney in our family, and whether they appreciate it yet or not, her siblings are blessed more than they can know to have her as a sister.

Happy Birthday, Courtney. Thank you for being in our family.