Pink Bags and a Special Birthday

Today our adorable first granddaughter becomes a teenager! This is a special day of memory for our family because July 22 was also my amazing mother-in-law’s birthday! This will be Mom’s third birthday in heaven but she had a couple of very sad birthdays over the years. Mom’s brother—her only living sibling—died on her birthday in 1991. And unbelievably, five years later, Ken’s dad, my dear father-in-law, also died on Mom’s birthday!

I know it was hard for her to come to terms with those tragic anniversaries, but she always said she knew she needed to turn a negative into a positive. And she did just that. I so admired the way she determined to turn a difficult seeming coincidence into a special way of remembering and celebrating the lives of these two men she loved so dearly. Given the history of Mom’s birthday, you can imagine how absolutely overjoyed we all were when our first granddaughter, Brynn, made her appearance in this world on July 22! Mom made the trip to Iowa with us that year to meet her birthday twin and they always had a special bond.

Every year on this date, I’m reminded of the lesson Mom’s attitude taught me: We can mope and groan and wonder why—or we can say, “Lord, I don’t understand, but help me to allow You to turn this difficult thing into something good.”

Our granddaughter’s birthday is a fun date to share a special tradition with my four granddaughters that Brynn started when she was barely three years old. Ken and I had gone to Texas to babysit Brynn and her brother. When I commented on a cute pink bag in her bedroom, that sweet girl offered it to me to take home. I said, “Oh, no, honey, I couldn’t take it.” But Brynn insisted and filled it with cute drawings for me to also take home.

I asked our daughter-in-law how she felt about it, and she said, “Please take it!” But when we got ready to leave and Brynn saw the bag beside my suitcase ready to go back to Kansas with me, I could tell she was regretting her decision a bit. So I told her, “How about this? I’ll take the pink bag home, but next time I come to visit, I’ll bring it back to you with a surprise inside.”

She liked that idea, and so for ten years, that bag and others like it have become part of a little tradition I now share with all four of my grandgirls. The bags have a little heart-shaped pocket to hold a photo, so each girl has a little collection of pictures tucked in the pocket to show how they’ve changed and grown over the years.

During the year, I collect little trinkets, many of which I find at garage sales or the dollar store. Nothing fancy or expensive, but just fun little items to share with the girls. Hair clips, lip balm, costume jewelry, candy, etc. Whenever all four of the girls are together, we find a few minutes to slip away and open the bags together. 

When our second and third granddaughters were born, I searched high and low for matching bags and finally found and ordered the last two from a vendor, but when our son married and brought his stepdaughter, our sweet now-16-year-old into our family, I could not find another bag anywhere. My talented sister, Vicky, stepped in and sewed not one, but two new bags, so now we even have an extra, just in case.

And I’m excited to tell you there IS a new baby coming to our family around Christmas time. But it’s not a girl. Our oldest son and his wife have a baby boy on the way! That will make 14 in all for us, and we couldn’t be more thrilled to have another Raney boy joining the family!

Happy birthday day, sweet girl! We couldn’t love you more!

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Deborah Raney

DEBORAH RANEY's first novel, A Vow to Cherish, inspired the World Wide Pictures film of the same title and launched Deb’s writing career. Forty books later, she's still creating stories that touch hearts and lives. Her novels have won RWA's RITA Award, the ACFW Carol Award, the National Readers Choice Award, and the HOLT Medallion. She is also a three-time Christy Award finalist. Deb is on faculty for several national writers’ conferences and served on the executive board of the 2,500-member American Christian Fiction Writers organization for 18 years before retiring in 2022. She is a recent transplant to Missouri, having moved with her husband, Ken Raney, from their native Kansas to be closer to kids and grandkids. They love road trips, e-biking, Friday garage sale dates, and breakfast on the screened porch overlooking their wooded backyard.

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