Making Lemonade

Since March of last year, my husband has been working from home.
Neither of us imagined he would be working remotely for almost an entire year.
Working remotely has come with its own set of challenges.
However, a year later, it has become the norm.

If given a choice, I think most people would say that a hybrid model would be best.
Working some days from home and some days in the office would be good.
People are realizing that it is possible to work from home.
Companies are realizing that they can have a different business model and still be successful.

For essential workers, the choice to work from home is not an option.
Medical personnel, grocery store workers, police, and firefighters are necessary workers.
They do not have the option to work from home.
I am so grateful for their faithfulness.

My husband teases me about his long commute.
He travels from the kitchen island, through the family room, the living room, and into his office.
This is much nicer than the forty-five minute commute he used to make each day.
He comes into the kitchen for coffee and has lunch with me most days.

My husband sometimes latches on to a catch phrase, which he will repeat over and over.
Anything in excess is a bit much at times.
I lovingly let him know that enough is enough.
That happened with one such catch phrase: back to the grindstone.

I wanted to see if that expression had an origin.
I wanted to see if that expression had meaning.
Surprisingly, I was able to find it in my search.
It did indeed have meaning.

The “grind” is boring, tiring, repetitive labor … which wears you down like a grindstone wears down a metal blade or crushes grain into dust.
A related expression is “to keep one’s nose to the grindstone”, which means to concentrate, focus hard, on one’s work.
“Back to the grind” means one is returning to work after a break, which could be something as brief as a coffee break or as long as a four-week vacation.
The expression is used even when the work isn’t particularly backbreaking, usually for comical effect.

Since my husband enjoys his work, I knew he meant the expression as a joke.
But even the best joke, day after day, can wear on the listener.
I let him know.
I remember one day when I had heard him say it multiple times.

Ok, I won’t say it anymore, he said.
I was not sorry I let him know that it was a bit much.
We both live here.
We both are with each other all day.

The next day, when he got up from lunch, he announced: I’m making lemonade!
I did a double take to make sure I heard him correctly.
What did you say? I asked, confused.
You know, if life give you lemons…he left the words hanging in the air.

I wasn’t sure if I should be glad that the old expression was gone.
I know my husband, after almost forty years of marriage.
He stopped saying one thing, but I was sure he was about to say another.
I waited to see what the next day would bring.

Making lemonade, he said as he walked to his office on his long commute.
He laughed as he said it.
I decided that I would say nothing.
Maybe it would not be said quite as much.

It was repeated with a little twinkle in his eye.
It was not repeated as much as the other expression.
I was grateful.
But then one day, our oldest granddaughter was here with her mommy and sister.

Pop-Pop is making lemonade, my husband said as he got up from the island after lunch.
I have lemonade, Pop-Pop, our granddaughter said.
He missed her comment at first.
She said it again.

I have lemonade, Pop-Pop.
She loved having a bit of lemonade in the summer.
I saw the look on my husband’s face.
How do you explain an expression to a two-and-a-half year old?

How do you tell your sweet granddaughter that there is no lemonade?
How do you admit that Pop-Pop didn’t really make any lemonade?
How do you distract the one-track mind of a toddler who is already choosing her cup?
It was in that moment, my husband realized the positive and negative effect of his words.

Let your yes mean yes, and your no mean no. Anything more than this comes from the evil one. (Matthew 5:37)

Children are extremely literal.
They take us at our word.
They have no trouble believing what is said to them.
That is why it is so important to tell them the truth.

An adult will wrestle with Biblical truth; yet a child accepts it with ease.
Because God says so, is good enough for them.
Of course we all have to grapple with our faith so that we grow in our understanding.
The innocence of a child should keep us on our toes.

We should be careful that we tell them the truth.
We should be intentional in our choice of words.
We should be diligent in our explanations.
We should never lie to them.

My husband had to explain that he didn’t really make lemonade.
He looked at me and began to understand.
What we say, matters.
It really does.

His explanation was not quite understood by our sweet granddaughter.
She looked at her mommy.
She looked at me.
I pushed her cup a bit closer; Have a sip of milk, I said, as my husband made his long commute.