When you have all your ducks in a row

The antagonism has risen to a new level. After we housed and fed and entertained my daughter, son-in-law, three of the grands, and a grand-dog for five days—five days—we started finding tiny plastic ducks. Everywhere.

On our bookshelves, in the fridge, on the fireplace mantle, in coat pockets and backpack pockets, in our spice rack, in the pantry. I mean … everywhere.

My daughter, son-in-law, and the grands are avid Oregon Duck fans while Dan, who attended Oregon State University, supports the Beavers.

Generally speaking, this competition hasn’t made a difference in family dynamics. For the most part, the Johnson/Conn Ducks and the Lawry Beavers tolerate each other’s quirks and peculiarities.

Until last week.

We couldn’t get a straight answer from my daughter or the boys as to how 72 ducks ended up in our house. No one knew anything about the ducks. They were all innocent.

Payback will be fun. But until then, consider this ancient proverb:

As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.

Proverbs 27:17

In ancient days, iron tools were sharpened with another piece of metal. The friction caused heat, which was necessary in order to have an effective tool in one’s tool belt. This verse refers to people rubbing up against each other through friendship and conversation and how that makes us sharper, and wiser, and more refined.

I belong to a writers’ critique group, and we are iron-sharpening-iron in action. “Seriously? You want me to cut this part of the story? But it’s my favorite part!”

And yet, their critique, their iron-sharpening skills are always, always for the improvement of my writing.

I’m pretty sure the author of this proverb didn’t have our “excessive duck” situation in mind when he wrote about friction and the importance of people in our lives who help sharpen us. But hiding 72 ducks in our house? That’s the kind of iron-sharpening that has stimulated our brains to come up with a brilliant idea of our own that says, “We were here” (not that their idea was brilliant, or anything).

It was Jane Howard, an English novelist, who said:

Call it a clan. Call it a network. Call it a tribe. Call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.

Jane Howard

In all honesty, it makes us smile every time we find another duck (we’re pretty sure there are more hiding). Truth be known, I’m grateful for our clans. We have more than one set of dear friends who are estranged from their closest family members. And their pain hurts our hearts.

Dan and I both have kids and grands who like us, and who like each other, and I want to always recognize that as a priceless gift.

Quite honestly, we would get all our ducks in a row … if we could find them all.

P.S.

I had a visitor the other day and when she heard the duck story, she started looking around the house. “I want to find a duck!” she said. Sure enough, she found one. In a jar. In our pantry.