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Posts Tagged ‘encouragement’

Food Gift of $10.51 From the Real Santa

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 29, 2014| 4 Comments »

I want to live life in such a way that if a photograph were taken at random, it would be a cool photograph. (David Nicholls) 

On a January Friday the main roads are clear and there are a few hours before the next arctic blast, so Jay and I run errands. We stop for lunch at a fast-food restaurant, not our first choice, but it works with the time we have.

A man with long white hair, Santa-style beard, and red T-shirt stands looking at the picture menu. We step back to let him enter the line ahead of us.

“No, you go first. I haven’t decided yet.” We talk about the weather as Jay and I wait to order.

“That will be $10.51,” the woman at the register says, sounding terminally bored.

The gentleman with the flowing beard tosses his credit card onto the counter. I turn around, stunned. “Thank you, but…”

“You don’t have to thank me. Thank, Jesus.”

I hold my breath, fearing a lecture on Christianity. It doesn’t happen, and I am grateful. My church has strong Christian roots, but I believe that a person’s spirituality can develop from multiple sources. The proof comes in the individual’s life, in an ability to love. This man makes his statement. Once. Then chooses to live it. He speaks of other matters: retiring in the distant future, current outside temperature, different kinds of chicken sandwiches. He waves to one of the employees working in the back.

His blue eyes sparkle. He definitely gives the impression of an individual who lives outside-of-the-box. But that is the way with geniuses, artists, and saints. “Just pass it on,” he says.

This may be January, almost a month after Christmas. However, I wonder if Santa, or Saint Pass-On-Some-Kindness hasn’t been hanging out at unlikely places lately, waiting to give folks a smile just when they need it.

The sun brightens—for a while, a blinding blue on top of the last coating of white. It won’t last long. No weather pattern in this part of the world ever does. It just feels that way. The result of generosity? Well, it can be a seed that grows into almost anything that is beautiful.

how you treat others

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Peculiar Gift From a Stranger

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 16, 2014| 1 Comment »

I suspect the most we can hope for, and it’s no small hope, is that we never give up, that we never stop giving ourselves permission to try to love and receive love. (Elizabeth Strout)

I am tossing two-for-one-sale whole-grain tortillas into my cart when a woman behind me speaks.

“Those are really good.” Her musical twang signals more than enthusiasm. She wants to talk. At first she tells me about baking sun-dried tomato tortillas and serving them as snacks. Then she says she is a southern girl with down-home ways and opens the stories of her past.

For a change my agenda doesn’t have the feel of a block of frozen spinach, leaves frozen together so that the pieces can’t be separated from one another. As long as this pause doesn’t turn into a filibuster I can handle it.

She tells me about her health and how she has overcome emphysema sufficiently to function without oxygen. “I’m 76 and a survivor.”

Her mini-memoir includes the story of her ex-husband’s mental abuse. “He told me that as long as he gave me food and a roof over my head he didn’t owe me anything else.” She has family and has given them love, even though their father could not. I nod when she mentions Women Helping Women. They made it possible for her to make her own way. She was in her sixties when she left her husband. I suspect there is more to her tale. Much more.

I want to reach out and touch her arm—but don’t. My nod says that she made the right choice, whatever that involved. A touch could signal the pain that brought her to seek survival. Moreover, I don’t know her. Instead I step back, just a little, not out of avoidance, but respect.

Besides, I am only a stranger in a large grocery store. Did this woman stop other shoppers also? Did they listen, or did they look at her as if she had two heads with three mouths? I have never seen this woman before this moment, and may never see her again. Probably all she wants is the reassurance that she has strength, that it shows in her being. Somehow. She never asks for my name, nor does she offer hers.

“Peace,” I say. “Have a blessed day.”

I pray for her now—days later. May she no longer need to rely on strangers for support. May she have people with her that she can count on. Perhaps I could have done or said more, offered to pray with her—right there. I’m not sure I would have had that much courage. It would have been less embarrassing if she ran away, than if she decided to shout alleluia in the middle of the bakery department. Perhaps I haven’t arrived at perfection in any form just yet.

Thanks to all my friends, the ones with the huge shoulders and the fine-tuned ears. I am grateful for our shared laughter and tears.

feel what I feel

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Hurray For a Younger Sister

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 11, 2014| 1 Comment »

Sisters function as safety nets in a chaotic world simply by being there for each other.   (Carol Saline)

When I was sixteen-years-old my mother gave our family the gift I always had wanted—a sister. Sure, I had great brothers. But I was an all-girl girl, and I didn’t understand the male species.

My brothers would engage in rough play with Dad until they cried. I declared outrage, but seconds later my brothers would be at it again with a grin on their faces I interpreted as lunacy. I soon learned that it made no sense to try to protect them.

I remember telling Mom I wanted an older sister. She never seemed to understand that even at the age of six I’d figured out that was impossible, although I suppose secretly I wanted someone else to guide me through the make-believe and the real world with wisdom. Life didn’t always make sense, and grownups definitely belonged to another galaxy. They knew all the rules and expected kids to know them, too. Most of the time I learned rules by breaking them first.

Of course by the time my sister was born my dolls and childhood belonged to a long-ago past. As a teenager I played the role of built-in-babysitter and big sister.

Claire’s birthday is Monday. She hasn’t been a baby in a long time. She works as a pastor’s wife, which means she has a schedule that requires a wall-sized calendar. She has a married son and a daughter-in-law now.  I could call her my little sister, but she isn’t tall. However, I’ve shrunk, and she is quick to point that out.

I don’t mind. Our relationship has nothing to do with height. I don’t recall when the bond between us developed into something that transcended the difference in our ages. Once, when my sons were still at home, Claire and I got into a deep discussion about our lives. We were standing outside my house by the barbecue grill, white with flaming charcoal. Our mother could see us from the back window. She came outside to see if we were all right. We had shared how we really felt in a way only sisters can understand. Of course we told Mom everything was just great. We told the truth even though we had spoken of sadness and fear as well as hope: we had each other and I knew we always would.

Happy Birthday, Sis! Thanks for being you.

from Positive Energy

best kind of people from Positive Energy

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Funerals and Beginnings

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 18, 2013| 2 Comments »

Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending. (Maria Robinson)

Our family waits for the arrival of my husband’s mother and sister. They live six-hours west of us where nine inches of snow is possible. Jay’s mother, Mary, is 93-years-old. One of her daughters is driving her into town for a funeral. Mary’s sister has died and she is the last living person in her family.

As soon as the travelers arrive I let my sons know. We are concerned; Mary can barely stand. Yet, her heart remains rooted strong in family.

Part of Mary’s agenda includes plans for her own funeral. I’m familiar with the process, although I have never done it with the honoree  present. Mary’s other daughter has material handy for us to view. Whenever my mother-in-law shows emotion I know we are on the right track. When she says, “How do I know? I won’t be there,” I realize the mechanics of planning may be present; however, heart isn’t. She adds that she doesn’t want a eulogy that praises her; it should praise God. She also wants humor.

I suggest asking my older son, Greg, both a stand-up comic and a man active in his church community. The conversation drifts into a discussion of his latest book, “Open Mike,” the tightness of his style. She grins, proud, and laughs with us. A suggestion is made to complete the outline. “So, who do you want to do your eulogy?” But I sense a return to how do I know? I won’t be there.

Let our list of whats, wheres, and whens be sufficient as we return to the moment, to life as it is. Now. More family members arrive, just what Mary needs as an extrovert’s extrovert.

I think about the struggle I’ve had in the past few months with a pesky virus that is only now beginning to subside, even though my soprano has been knocked out by a throat as dry as desert-baked sand. A little alto sneaks out occasionally, but it is weak and inconsistent.  I realize that this is nothing in comparison to the suffering many people experience. No one is invincible, although as a young person I certainly lived as if I were.

Somehow I expected to be in my twenties forever, slender without needing exercise and diet control. Possibilities lay ahead of me—but I rarely chose them. Tomorrow would always be there, or so I thought. Those days will never return. Nevertheless, this moment lives, ready to be seized.

In my last blog I mentioned how three words, consider the source, became valuable advice from my father. My mother-in-law showed me how rich grandparent bonding could become. Since I worked in hospital pharmacy my hours didn’t fit a Monday through Friday schedule. I was off Fridays and asked to watch my first granddaughter on that day even though my son and daughter-in-law already had child care. I have never regretted that choice.

In fact my gift has tripled. I now have three grandchildren. I don’t think a day goes by that I don’t think about my granddaughters. Somehow even a Cheerio in the couch cushion isn’t the irritation it could be when I consider the source, a beautiful blonde four-year-old girl with a smile that could light the city.

I have no idea what legacy I will leave my sons and granddaughters, but I’m not sure the spiritual can be weighed anyway. I prefer to live this moment and build upon the next, with as much gratitude as I can manage. Today. Tomorrow isn’t promised.

more beginnings than endings PIQ

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Consider the Source

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 11, 2013| 2 Comments »

Learning is weightless, a treasure you can always carry easily. (Chinese proverb)

The anniversary of my father’s death was this week. One of the gifts he gave me is a phrase he repeated during my teens: “Consider the source.” Like most adolescents I didn’t have a clear notion of who I was. Every critical word ate through me as if it were acid. I reveled in J.D. Salinger’s coming of age novels. Romance bored me. I wanted to read about people who saw the world from a unique perspective. I wondered why I was so different, and didn’t realize that my self-questioning probably wasn’t much different than other kids’ thoughts about themselves.

Being one of the popular kids—such a glorious thought—but for me it would have been easier to understand how to make rain fall back into the clouds, fountain style.

“They’re just jealous,” my mother would say. That notion escaped me completely, even though it felt good at the time. Jealous of what? Sure, I’d written a one-act play that won first prize in the Greater Cincinnati area. My grades were better than average. I sang soprano relatively well. But those things never came up in ordinary conversation, especially when the other kids told me I had cooties. I looked in the mirror and wondered what set me apart; it never told me.

I didn’t know that consider the source, three simple words, needed decades to learn. The source of people’s actions and words come from diverse places. Most of the time they tell more about the giver than they do the recipient. The flatterer may want something and the detractor could be jealous, self-involved, or simply unaware.

I can still hear my father’s tone as he spoke to me. It didn’t carry censure, as if one person were right and the other wrong. He asked me to consider the whole. If the taunt came only to make the speaker appear superior, it had no substance. If I chose to be mean-spirited, that would create a win for my adversary—and a loss for my character.

Now, I don’t remember the specific events of three days ago. So, if I decide to live in a past decade most of it will be false memory. Even if I recall every uncomfortable second exactly as it occurred, I would be losing this precious present moment. My skin doesn’t fit as well as it did then, but my spirit has a better notion about who this 67-year-old woman is. Oh, I still have plenty to learn. I misunderstand often enough to need to apologize more often than I would like to admit.

However, I cherish my father’s teaching and I cherish the life he gave me. This day is an opportunity. I pray that I use it well.

only visit the past

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Sound, Words, Imagination

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 22, 2013| 3 Comments »

What a pity every child couldn’t learn to read under a willow tree… (Elizabeth George Speare)

“Book,” Ella says with enthusiasm.

She hasn’t been talking for longer than a few months. However, our four-year-old granddaughter reads.

When she first began vocalizing she chose the alphabet and tried to sound-out such letters as e-x-i-t in stores and libraries. But, most of her communication remained through sign language. Now she reads with me as I turn back to page one of “The Wheels on the Bus” for the five-thousand-four-hundred and sixty-third time. Well, I feel like the doors on the bus have opened and closed at least that many times “all day long.” Ella knows these last three words especially well and repeats them with a joy that is contagious. How can I mind the repetition when she is so excited?

When we get to the last page she turns to the vocabulary words, takes my finger and points to them. She wants to absorb each one, learn, grow—and I want to celebrate that expansion with her.

I decide to see how much more our little girl understands. Down syndrome has limited, but not stopped her. Among the books is a Dora the Explorer coloring book. I ask if she wants the crayons. She answers, “yes,” but then hands them to me. I decide to turn this situation around.

“What color should I use?” I ask.

She gives me green for the grass, and then points out places that I have missed, including hidden background. The walk, as she calls it, close enough for sidewalk, needs to be gray. She chooses red for the barn. Usually when I color with my grandchildren I shade the edges, layer color, blend yellows and oranges, play the artist. Not now. The focus is not on perfection, but on Ella as director. Not many four-year-old kids gets to legitimately play that role. In less than an hour we will need to tell her it is time to get her coat, get in the car, and go to physical therapy. For now she can be the guide for the next move, however simple it may be.

Early in the evening I see a video made by Ella’s maternal grandmother on her phone: Ella and her daddy are in a restaurant. He is printing words on a placemat: up, down, do, cat, and dog. Ella reads them all with a voice so sweet I could listen to her as many times as I have read “The Wheels on the Bus.”

She isn’t performing. She reads for the innate satisfaction of language. Competition from others hasn’t appeared yet. I consider my creative projects and question my motives. Do I approach them seeking success or to live this moment through them?

I love you, Ella, and I hope to become a better me because of you.

flower blooming in adversity

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Asthma, Focus, and Putting Myself in Another Person’s Shoes

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 15, 2013| 2 Comments »

There is no such thing in anyone’s life as an unimportant day. (Alexander Woollcott) 

Ordinarily quiet and I get along like cake served with ice cream. However, I’d rather be at my aerobics class. Unfortunately, my breathing sounds as if my lungs were tossing pebbles at one another. After a while those pebble turn into stones and they sting. This isn’t the best time for lively exercise. Left kick, right kick, mamba, turn, and wheeze. Besides, my cough could scare off a class of battle-trained marines.

Since the monster wheeze responds only to steroid treatment I am now faced with the steroid monster’s side effects. I have the attention span of a two-year-old who has devoured half a bag of candy, and I probably won’t sleep much for the next twelve days. However, breathing is not generally considered an extra.

Okay, Ter, focus. How can I do that when one-thing-at-a-time feels as possible as collecting a foot of snow in a thimble?

First, drain that coffee and switch to herbal tea for heaven’s sake! Then try one task that requires physical effort—but not too much since my mind may think I’m marathon-ready. My body will balk.

Ah yes, one small section of an untidy cabinet. Face it, girl. Only one portion of cabinet. Slowly. Yeah, I know buzzed-on-prednisone brain, you also want to write an entire synopsis, make your Christmas presents, scrub the floors, finish this blog, annihilate every cob web in the house, and do laundry…all before your husband comes home from that beloved exercise class and the grocery store. Oh, and you will check your e-mail 47 times in between.

Right. Maybe that’s not the most efficient plan.

After that one reorganized section looks decent, I notice there’s a spill in the microwave. My actions snowball, with only one, okay two stops to check e-mail. As I struggle to keep my thoughts under control and lungs working properly, I think about the difficulties other people face. My husband is reading, “The Reason I Jump,” by Naoki Higashida. When Jay is finished he has promised to let me read it. When he comes home from class and the store he tells me he is ready to share the book.

I turn to David Mitchell’s Introduction and I’m lost in words, in pages, in this world opened by a boy born in Japan in 1992. This story explains the autistic world. It isn’t what an observer sees; it is as different as the interior and exterior of a locked cabinet, a wrapped gift, or a capped unlabeled bottle. Seeing the actions of an autistic person doesn’t tell what happens inside.

Day dissolves into dusk and I continue to read, needing to pause once for a drink of water and once for an inhaler break. Naoki answers questions that appear almost rude, with style and grace. He is thirteen. He cannot speak. He uses an alphabet board. Not all autistic people are alike any more than all people are alike.

One experience Naoki relates concerns listening to others instead of looking at them. Eye contact is too overwhelming. He sees with his ears and that is sufficient stimulation. Thanks to Naoki for helping me to focus, using my heart, paying attention to someone else instead of my own petty miseries.

Here is the Amazon link to his incredible and beautiful story: http://www.amazon.com/Reason-Jump-voice-silence-autism-ebook/dp/B00BVJG3CS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1384473869&sr=8-1&keywords=the+reason+i+

walking in someone else's shoes

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Saying Goodbye to the House of my Childhood

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 29, 2013| 8 Comments »

Life can be difficult sometimes, it gets bumpy. What with family and kids and things not going exactly like you planned. But that’s what makes it interesting. In life the first act is always exciting. The second act, that is where the depth comes in. (Joyce Van Patten)

Thanks to my savvy brother, my father’s house has been transformed—from worn and dreary to modern and beautiful. Floors shine; appliances sparkle. Even the landscape feels different. The family homestead is for sale.

The memories are not. They simply don’t live in the same space anymore. My siblings and I need to maintain them, in our own ways. Strange how the moments I recall first aren’t necessarily the most significant. I smell Mom’s chicken soup wafting into the living room and up the stairs into my room. Our food budget wasn’t huge, but Mom could make a feast out of almost nothing. Then there was Christmas, the house uncluttered for a change, the lights from the tree reflecting in the front picture window. I watched more television as a child than I do now. Bullwinkle Moose acted as a perfect companion to homework, at least I thought he did. The television is where I learned about the Harlem Globetrotters and laughed with my father, deep hearty guffaws that expanded me a bit because I hated sports. Gym and I were oil and water. I didn’t throw like a girl—any round object could throw me. Meadowlark Lemon lightened my approach.

Not every memory brings a smile. Life doesn’t work that way. Grief, death, and trauma also touched those seven rooms. However, they didn’t live there. They moved on, as the clock moved from one hour to the next, as my parents accepted heaven’s invitation.

Sunday, just before I entered the small area where my church community gathers, I spoke with a man who said he had just found a place to live. His apartment had been sold, so he had been kicked out. He said someone gave him a sandwich, but it was getting cold. I heated it for him in the microwave. He didn’t seem to know how to use one. I was struck with how much I take for granted.

I always grew up in a house, small maybe, but a house. My father called me his little girl even as I reached my sixties. My childhood is gone, at least externally. My parents live with the angels. Nevertheless, I am grateful, for the good and the bad. I wouldn’t be me without both.

May I live in this day, with whatever comes, and find its blessings. Peace upon all.

enough

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A Son Who is Sunshine on a Rainy Day

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 23, 2013| 2 Comments »

A well-developed sense of humor is the pole that adds balance to your steps as you walk the tightrope of life. (William Arthur Ward)

My raincoat may repel the drizzle, but cold penetrates the coat’s surface anyway. Maybe I’d better get the gloves out soon. However, as soon as the revolving door of Mercy Hospital spins open, a blast of warmth runs through me. That sudden change reminds me that today is my second son’s birthday. Steve is the practical talent son. He holds a belt in Six Sigma; he’s the thinking-out-of-the-box problem solver of the family. Steve has a lemonade-out-of-lemons attitude. The party starts when he arrives. “Nobody is sillier than Uncle Steve,” one of his young nephews claims.

When Steve was a kid he would sneak a pony between cereal and eggs on my grocery list. He would walk with his arm around my shoulders at the mall without fear that one of his friends would see him being attentive to his mother. Sure, kids learn from their parents, but it works the other way around, too.

Last week we needed an old smoke alarm and carbon monoxide detector replaced. Steve had little time to do it. However, he managed to replace our detector and get his daughter, Ella, home to bed at a reasonable time, too. He didn’t complain.

Steve plays an active role in Ella’s development even though he works sixty hours a week. While Ella has Down syndrome, there is nothing down about her smile—or her daddy’s.

Yes, Ella’s Daddy will get the standard birthday gift, but sometimes words need to be spoken—or written. There are other folk like my Steve, people who give just because it is the right thing to do, because it is who they are. Blessings to all of them as well; to all of you, peace.

live like someone left the gate open

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Once Upon a Blue Spruce

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 11, 2013| Leave a Comment »

What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset. (Chief Crowfoot, Native American warrior and orator, 1821-1890)

The rumble of drills, hammers, and machinery runs from the curb to our basement. We are getting new gas lines this morning. The connection must be occurring right now; I smell it. The energy of the work extends from the basement to the living room floor. Nevertheless, reaching for the ceiling while using my core muscles, I finish one back exercise and begin the next. Let the work on the street and in my basement continue. Let me trust that it will be completed well, that all will be well—whether it appears to be or not.

At least my husband and I know our blue spruce will be spared. When we saw the painted yellow planning line on the grass next to it we feared that our friend of at least thirty-seven years would be lost.

When our evergreen was planted as a sapling our older son, Gregory, was a toddler. It was planted for him. We have pictures somewhere of him watering it, in the days when he could touch the ground with his head without bending his knees. Our son is now a father of two girls and the author of two books. “Open Mike” came out recently. The tree is the front yard. It’s a bed and breakfast for birds in any season. At one time my husband and I considered moving. Our son’s first thought was about the loss of the tree. It arrived as a gift from my husband’s uncle who owned a nursery at the time. That gift has cost us a fortune in maintenance. The tree contracted a fungal disease and blue spruce isn’t covered by any health insurance policy. Fortunately, treatment has brought color back into our spruce’s limbs.

The tree represents life. Birds thrive in our evergreen’s branches despite snow, wind, or rain. Yet, they remain prey for hawks and other predators. We have seen scattered feathers and dead sparrows, an occasional Cooper’s Hawk, a squirrel feasting on the birds’ seed.

If our spruce had been lost, it nevertheless would have been a symbol of life. And we would have mourned it. But it carries on and reaches for the sky, as I do with the final exercise count as I strengthen my core muscles and feel the smallest twinge of pain in the small of my back. It’s okay. Anything worthwhile has its cost. Eighteen, nineteen, twenty…finished for now.

blue spruce

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