Tag Archives: mellie

Just Like You Are

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Just Like You Are
©2007 Words & Music by Cameron Gray

I am missing your smile babe
Your smile is far away
Call you up on the telephone
Just to say
Don’t forget that I love your smile
Like honey to the bee
That’s just like you are to me.

I am missing your voice babe
Your voice is far away
Call you up on the telephone
Just to say
Don’t forget that I love your voice
Like sugar to my tea
That’s just like you are to me.

I am missing your moves babe
Your moves are far away
Call you up on the telephone
Just to say
Don’t forget that I love your moves
A precious commodity
That’s just like you are—

Don’t go so far away
Don’t go so far away

I am missing your love babe
Your love is far away
Call you up on the telephone
Just to say
Don’t forget that I love your love
Like water to the sea
That’s just like you are
That’s just like you are
That’s just like you are to me.

Written and recorded for Mellie, Dec 07. Hooray for Mellie!

Old Fashioned Lullabye

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Old Fashioned Lullabye
©2007 Words & Music by Cameron Gray

Slow summer nights and old fashioned lullabyes
Underneath a blue, blue moon,
Voices in union, a sweet perfume,
Holdin on like a juniper root,
Feelin fine, just to know you’re mine.

Standing shoulder to shoulder, arm-in-arm to uphold
The strength of our love—just you and me up against the world.
Looking forward to getting older,
The warmth we share won’t never, never, never grow colder,
I’m gonna love you til the day I die.

So bring on those days of slow change, those years of age,
I’m falling for you like a fool, like when my youth was young,
Let’s make a melody of you and I,
Making love in sweet slow time,
Like an old fashioned lullabye.

I went dreaming last night, of a lullabye,
Dreaming…
Dreaming last night, of a lullabye,
You were there, just dreaming by my side,
And we went dreaming all through the night.

Dreaming of those days of slow change, those years of age,
I’m falling for you like a fool, like when my youth was young,
Let’s make a melody of you and I,
Making love in sweet slow time,
Like an old fashioned lullabye.

Time gonna change us, take liberties outrageous,
Make mockery of vanity and pride,
Oh but love lingers on,
Young and strong.

So bring on those days of slow change, those years of age,
And someday, baby when all our youth is gone
We can look back upon the melody of you and I
Making love to last all our lives,
Like an old fashioned lullabye.

Written and recorded for Mellie, Dec 07. Hooray for Mellie!

Way Back Home

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Way Back Home
©2007 Words & Music by Cameron Gray

I’ve seen the stars in your eyes
We’ve slept out under a sky-blue sky
We’ve heard the sound of angels all around
And we know the way back home.

We’ve drunk a taste of the sea
We’ve painted purple mountain majesty
I’ve whistled a tune with you beneath the moon
And we know the way back home.

Oh, ain’t it hard
Learning how live with love
Is bound to break your heart
Don’t be afraid
Don’t give up, don’t give in
Don’t be ashamed
Let’s bring a little bit of heaven to this side of Revelation

I’ve seen the stars in your eyes
That steady constellation has been my guide
And with you by my side, I know that I know
We know the way back
We know the way back
We know the way back home

Written and recorded for Mellie, Dec 07. Hooray for Mellie!

Sacred Harp

Joining a Sacred Harp singing is now on my short list of highly recommended, along with New Zealand and guacamole. The physical power of this strange, haunting, apocalyptic music is not captured at all by this video (sorry Richard). Mellie and I stumbled across Sacred Harp a few years ago through this great documentary. We’ve been waiting for the west coast convention to arrive in San Diego ever since. Very nice folks took us in and even let us lead a song or two.

Jeremy’s Mosaic

mosaic

Today we went to the unveiling of Jeremy Wright’s incredible mosaic. The project covers the outside of God’s Extended Hand Mission, wrapping around the entire front of the building at 16th and Island in downtown San Diego. I say it’s Jeremy’s mosaic, but it is actually an amazing community project, created by over 90 people over the past four years, including homeless, students, neighbors and friends. It is truly magnificent to behold, and it was super cool to see it finally completed. Jeremy was on hand chatting it up, taking pictures and telling stories from the last four years of this project. He’s already making plans to expand to the intersection’s other three corners.

I stumbled across the work-in-progress about a year ago and immediately knew Mellie would dig it. We came back together and it turned out that she knew Jeremy’s mom from her north county days! Small world. We were super stoked when Jeremy invited us to join in. We went back a few times to add our little bits to the project and even brought Nate and Sarah along. It’s fun to think that the pieces we contributed will probably last longer than we do.

God’s Extended Hand is the oldest rescue mission in San Diego, and has been providing meals and shelter to homeless folks since 1925. Over the years the building had fallen into serious disrepair. When Jeremy showed up the city was threatening to declare it a blight and give it the wrecking ball. You know you look bad when you’re declared an eyesore in that neighborhood. I love the fact that this beautiful community art project adorns the ugliest building around, and has brought new life and hope to a pretty hopeless place. What a picture of grace.

Check out all the photos here!

Benign in 09!

Just got back from the endocrinologist. Mellie is officially benign!

We are relieved, joyful, stunned, a little confused. The original biopsy was highly suspicious for cancer, but the final pathology report came back completely clear. It is much more likely that surgery confirms a suspicious biopsy, or the biopsy is negative but surgery reveals cancer. The doctor said that in her 11 years of practice she has only seen it happen this way twice.

I knew Mellie was special.

So we are stoked. But confused. Mellie is now down one thyroid and has to take a pill for the rest of her life. What was all this about? Was there ever any cancer? What are we supposed to take away from this episode?

I believe God is sovereign, which means among other things that nothing random happens. I also believe he is good. I don’t always know how those two fit together.

But I know Mellie is cancer-free. She’s on the mend. Thank you God. Thank you family and friends.

She’s gonna have the cutest little scar.

Assets

appendix, one kidney, one lung, half a pancreas, bone marrow, a good portion of your liver, tonsils, gall bladder, ear muscles, thyroid gland, adrenal glands, vomeronasal organ (look it up), tail bone, wisdom teeth.

The above is a list of body parts which you can have removed and still maintain a manageable lifestyle. From our experience, one thyroid gland equals one week’s worth of friends bringing us tasty home-cooked meals. There are 14 items on this list. That’s 14 weeks worth of food. Multiplied by two people, that’s a solid 7 month stockpile of supplies.

In these tough economic times it’s good to know what you can count on.

Benefit

No one looks healthy in a hospital. The confident surgeon, the caring nurse, the visiting friend, the coffee cart worker, the smiling child in her mother’s arms—all of them sickly. The proximity of the suffering patients and their grief-stricken families, glimpses of red-rimmed eyes and shattered countenance behind swishing curtains, pacing past knotted clots of coagulated whispers in the hall—the dying diffuses through the air, bending the light in some unflattering way, highlighting an ugly commonality. The same broken lines etched across our faces, the same hinting hue in the soft blue shadows beneath our eyes. We are all residents of the terminal ward.

Standing in the bathroom outside the third floor Post-Op, recognizing these things in my own reflected face, doesn’t prepare me for her pale lips and large dark eyes swimming above the gauze-obscured wound at her throat, iodine-yellow. She is the color of milk. There is a dark red line drawn across white bedsheets, beginning at her neck and ending at a machine crouching in the corner making sucking noises. We are in a crowded room full of clatter and wheeled gurneys and beeping machines and hurrying people. Her eyes unfocus, slip off me to the movement behind. God, her eyes are so dark and so large. The air crowds in, bending the light.

When Jesus Christ walked the earth he healed our diseases. He multiplied our food and we were full. He calmed our storms, he restored our community, he freed us from spiritual oppression. He pulled the money we needed from a fish’s mouth. We had no lack of wisdom. Even death obeyed him. He claimed he could forgive our sin.

All of this, every conceivable need of our sickly race, met in himself. And yet he had the audacity to say, straight-faced, It is for your benefit that I am going away.

And he did it. He left us here, in sickness, in hunger, in poverty, in conflict, in sorrow, in hospitals, in ugly commonality, for our benefit. He left us here, where his own sufferings flow over into our lives, in between resurrections, for our benefit. He left us here, part of a body and in the company of a counselor, for our benefit.

It is a strange gift, and I can’t get my mind around it, lying here at 3:00AM on a makeshift bed of chairs, red-eyed behind swishing curtains, listening for her breathing.