DailySusan Humor Blog

GRADUATION: BEAMER GROWS UP

(F)or the joy of the Lord is your strength.
-- Nehemiah 8:10c

Our new little bundle of joy was nestled in my arms, just weeks old, with her two older sisters looking on, when she broke into the biggest, cutest, most radiant baby smile in the universe.

“Look at the beamer!” I exclaimed. I was thinking of the rays of sunshine that we see sometimes, beaming down from between high clouds. This was either the happiest little person you ever saw . . . or she had a little gas.

“Beamer” it was, though. And even though the nickname was occasionally mistaken for crass materialism (no, it has NOTHING to do with a BMW) or the semi-famous Beemer Standpipe in fabulous Beemer, Neb., which, ironically, was fabricated by my husband’s steel company many years ago, the nickname has grown up along with Eden Elizabeth.

In fact, the senior class recently voted her as having the “best nickname.” They see what we see. There’s a light that comes out of this young woman, and that light is joy.

She graduated from high school last week. During the whirl of festivities, I watched her interacting with others. What do you know: she got through chem, calc and Advanced Placement classes, and is STILL a beamer!

It’s striking how much of a sunbeam she really is: bright, light-hearted, and warm. She exudes personality. She just makes people smile. Always has.

Beamer has a special calling, a form of leadership you don’t see every day. She showed it in school, and on the elite softball teams on which she’s played. She’s one of those people who just knows how to be happy. She chooses to be. Happiness is a fading art. But hers is an example we all should embrace.

Her secret: she has never been afraid to be herself.

As a first-grader, she did a stand-up comedy routine for the school talent show. She wrote her own jokes, and came up with a zany costume. It was also a ventriloquist act, and involved a finale with her jumping down into the audience from the stage with a barrage of water-gun squirts. This would never pass in the post-911 world; back then, it was high humor.

She told her first joke, looking tiny on the stage. It had to do with a pregnant butterfly with stomach flutters. Nobody “got” it. They murmured, but nobody laughed. There was an awkward silence.

All of a sudden, the wackiest, most delightful laughter you ever heard came roaring out of a little boy who was mentally handicapped -- beloved at that school because he was good and kind and sweet.

He “got” the joke! His laughter was so infectious, pretty soon the whole gym was laughing with him.

Beamer was on a roll. Her act was a rousing success. Saved by another little beamer – another person who knew enough to choose joy.

Now Beamer is all grown up, and setting out for college in Minnesota, where she is going to play softball and pursue her dream career in communications. It’s an adventure, and a challenge. But we’re not scared for her one bit. She’s ready.

One recent Saturday night, her dad was out of town, and Beamer and her friends were grouped around our kitchen island having a snack.

I was up in bed. As I lay there, I could hear the sound of Beamer’s musical voice, saying something funny, and then the other kids would roar with laughter. Rapidly, she would say something else, and they would respond again, in hysterics. This went on and on.

It was like she was the choir director of joy.

I got a little teary-eyed at how little she’d changed and how much I loved her. I went to sleep with a smile, too.

How we need the Beamers of this world. How desperately important they are.

My prayer and my hope is that she can stay true to herself, and yet grow. May she find her place in the world, and continue to make it a little brighter, a little happier.

May she always be our Beamer, a joyous heart that reflects God’s love from above – and beams it back again. †