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Posts Tagged ‘family’

Ella and the Dollhouse; three stories, one staircase

Posted in positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on May 25, 2016| 2 Comments »

Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it. (Maya Angelou)

Ella finds two dolls inside the top floor of the dollhouse set up in the library. The male figure is noticeably smaller than the female doll. Nevertheless, they become Daughter and Daddy. Daughter and Daddy are their names.

One staircase and three floors is incidental. No problem. The characters move to the higher levels as if walls and open air did not exist. Hops are required on stairs. I become Daddy. Ella is Daughter.

When I comment that the leap from Daughter’s bedroom to attic has been a doozy, Ella does not respond. Either she is too involved in the game, or the slang term doozy is outdated.

“Carry me to bed, Daddy,” she says.

One plastic doll next to the other looks more like the letter X. But I have been living in the real world too long.

“Okay.”

And the same scenarios repeat. In cycles so rapid day and night have no meaning. The relationship between child and father does.

“Carry me to bed, Daddy.” Followed by, “Daughter needs ear drops.”

And Daddy carries Daughter safely—over the chasm of rooms that have no entrance or exit. Her ear infection disappears within two minutes per the library clock, and perhaps four trips up one set of toy stairs and one jump into the impossible.

I am Grandmother. Playing a role. When I first sat down on the floor my mind was immersed in the plot for a short story for grownups. It got sidelined temporarily. Somewhere between make-believe and the profound. In make-believe I enter the imagination of a little girl with special needs and special love.

Daddy is always available, whether he is big enough for the task or not. He shines. Daughter’s physical problems dissolve. Ella idolizes her father.

I speak in hushed tones. This is a library. Ella talks as if she were in the toy room in my house. A woman sits at an adjoining table. She does not complain. When Grandpa pulls out his car keys as we get ready to go, Ella offers to drive.

The woman bursts out laughing. She has been amused, not annoyed. I am happy to have the job of grandma.

Ella has left a few blessings behind.

Ella back view at Mt. Airy Park April 2015

 

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Dancing in Heaven by Christine Grote: Inspiration Touches Home

Posted in book review, positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 12, 2016| 2 Comments »

Be who you are. / Give what you have.  (Rose Ausländer )

 I watch my precious six-year-old Ella in Occupational therapy as she threads the letters to her name through a fluorescent green pipe cleaner. She recognizes the letters—she has been reading for more than a year. But she struggles through fine motor skills exercises because of her small hands and shortened fingers. typical for persons with Down syndrome.

At times she breaks away and puts on a show, her head between her knees, a look-at-me-I’m-cute expression on her face. I remain calm without reacting, showing no censure. Only what I hope is a you-can-do-it look. The OT is in charge. And she encourages Ella. With both experience and love.

And I realize how much I treasure my granddaughter because another image of someone with handicaps far more severe, appears in my mind. Her name is Diane Smith. I have never met her except through the written word, Dancing in Heaven, a sister’s memoir by Christine M. Grote.

The book is available through Amazon.

front cover

dancing-in-heaven cover

When Diane was born young Christine had difficulty saying her name. Diane became Annie. In the 1950’s diagnostic skills were primitive. And Annie and her family went through hell as the frightening news appeared. Annie was seriously brain-damaged. She would never walk, talk, live a normal life.

Through Christine’s sensitive, never-glossed-over memories about her sister’s life, Annie becomes real.  Beautiful. An angel spirit in a broken body. Yes, I suggest a box of tissues nearby. But I also recommend absorbing every word.

 Then, perhaps, the next time a man, woman, or child appears bound to a wheelchair at the mall or some other public place, that individual won’t seem either frightening or repulsive. The natural response will be an ability to look the person in the eye and see a unique spirit, perhaps someone with far more courage than many people could fathom.

the author, Christine M. Grote

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

 

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Large Seeds, Small Seeds, and a Thank-you or Two

Posted in positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on April 16, 2016| 4 Comments »

The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

We planted our blue spruce tree forty years ago. It was a gift from my husband’s uncle who owned a nursery. Some of the tree’s branches no longer thrive. However, I only recently learned that no blue spruce trees have survived in a neighborhood less than a thirty-minute drive east of ours. I had no idea how lucky our front yard has been. Of course, the spruce’s care has cost a small fortune. But human life isn’t always easy either. Life was never promised to be an effortless road.

Dakota gathers cones scattered on the ground and gives them a ride in his toy yellow dump truck.

“Can I take these home?” he asks.

“Sure. As long as your mom says it is okay.”

I have probably stepped on or over the huge seeds and never noticed them. Dakota studies the shape and size of each cone. He lets the super-wet ones dry in the sun. Dark and semi-disintegrated cones remain with the lighter, more attractive ones. I don’t ask our almost-five-year-old why he is so enamored by spruce cones. It doesn’t matter. He has discovered something of wonder, and has given me the opportunity to observe nature—and a beauty that has been waiting for me to notice it.

The top of the spruce holds more cones not yet dropped. I think about how many seeds there are and yet how few produce trees. How often do I expect every kind act to yield results—or at least a nod of recognition? I ask the question, but don’t expect an answer. I need an awareness, not a count.

Gratitude comes in layers, over time. I got a call last night, about a gift a very special person wants to give me. He was shopping with his sister. They were having difficulty making a decision. At the time I’d been tired, lost in my own fatigue—and I almost missed the moment to know how important this call was, a far larger gift than any wrapped present. The what of the purchase wasn’t important. To me. But it was to him. And that is where my awareness took hold. I don’t remember whether or not I said thank you. But I do recall ending the conversation with, “And I love you, too.”

Now, Dakota’s cones go for fast rides up and down the lawn. And I wonder what a four-year-old boy envisions as he leads the truck through imaginary adventures. The dandelions, tucked in his pocket, fall out. He calls them pretty weeds. I call them gifts for the bees.

“Play with me,” he says. I Do. However, I always remain on the edge of his world. And catch occasional glimpses of the newness he sees. With the kind of appreciation that lets growth begin. For both of us.

cones

 

 

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A Little Time with Little People

Posted in positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on April 3, 2016| 1 Comment »

Childhood means simplicity. Look at the world with the child’s eye – it is very beautiful. (Kailash Satyarthi)

Ella, a toy Mickey Mouse, and I cook with plastic plates, cups, anything that could act as a pretend utensil. The fact that Mickey, Ella, and I are not even close to being the same size doesn’t matter as we share Ella’s chicken, both invisible and delicious. Reality can be stretched in any direction with a strong imagination.

We need to leave for the ten-mile drive to kindergarten soon. Very soon. I tell Ella. To her time is as invisible as the chicken that could turn into brownies at whim.

Nevertheless, we make it to the car. And go on a bear hunt, with a few changes in the script. The bears become white or red, according to Ella’s whim. And the drive becomes beautiful instead of ordinary and tedious.

***

Dakota cooks using the same play utensils and Play-Doh. Usually his creations become chocolate cake. And he expects me to eat far more than a sumo wrestler could handle at one sitting. I feel full even though the blue or yellow clay has never touched my lips. His attention span doesn’t last long, however.

He picks up the book I wrote for Ella. It was never meant to be published. It is in a three-ring plastic binder. I printed two copies. One for Ella, one for her bus driver—a principal character.

I ask Dakota if he wants a book about him for his birthday. He thinks for a moment and answers, “With me and with Ella.”

The world through a young person’s eyes. Simple. Honest. Beautiful enough to make my tear ducts leak. Just a little.

My adult agenda gets overwhelming. Sometimes I wonder if I have enough time to stop and play with my little ones. Then I realize the stopping is life. My writing agenda merely talks about it.

Ella and Dakota playing

 

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The Abundant Ordinary

Posted in positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 26, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.  (Eckhart Tolle)

Sure I can take one thing at a time, I tell myself as I grab a breakfast bar to save time, then open the dishwasher to unload it. Uh, maybe not. Nothing like rewashing dishes because they have peanut-butter residue on them.

I’m trying to decide how Terry as overwhelmed-monkey-in-the-middle-of-chaos could have been averted yesterday…by multitasking on my own time today. Okay, from the top. Take one thing at a time, and acknowledge the goodness in each moment. As that moment occurs.

I try to plan for every contingency—in advance. Something like directing raindrops into rain barrels. Without overflow. Or flooding. No real-life messiness anywhere.

Simultaneous requests will probably not go away. Some folk may need to wait. Some tasks, too. Do I need breakfast first or should I return plates and silverware to their designated homes within my home? Either way I drop things if I move too quickly.

Right now I’m glad my grandchildren enjoy being with Grandma and Grandpa. My son has taken over plans for a family birthday party. I turn seventy soon. A friend offered to take me shopping for a much-needed bathing suit, although she can’t do it today. My suit has faded and thinned. If it could talk it would beg to be euthanized. I find a replacement. It won’t last forever either. Nothing does.

Humor and gratitude: a winning combination. My health is improving. And I decide not to take it for granted anymore. This day is a gift, a syncopated, less-than-choreographed, clumsy dance.

But each minor imperfection doesn’t matter.

Life is innately good.

Dance even if there is no music

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Happy Birthday, Kate

Posted in positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on March 12, 2016| 1 Comment »

Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant filled with odd little waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don’t always like. (Lemony Snicket)

Something peculiar has been happening with my computer. Definitely malicious and now repaired—costly, but repaired. Now, my iPad refuses to interact with our Internet system. My husband’s  relatively new computer doesn’t want to have anything to do with it either. He is on the phone now trying to connect. Nothing.

I have three kids at the house. All three of them—and my husband—are trying to connect with me. Something like sharing one Cheerio among four people.  My stress level escalates. I am not winning the serenity award.

Moreover, it is my oldest granddaughter’s birthday today, March 11. She is twelve-years old. This is not how I planned to celebrate the beginning of her last year before she becomes a teenager.

However, since I need to find the jewel in this situation, I realize she is the gift. While I run like water overflowing the sink, she keeps her cousin Ella occupied and out of Grandpa’s way. She dresses her young cousin for the birthday party. She makes me proud of her.

Kate is a rare and beautiful girl. She lacks the self-centeredness most teens and preteens develop because they don’t know who they are yet. She and another child have dreams that are filled with integrity. They want to establish a foundation for the homeless.

I’d like to say that my oldest granddaughter’s example has completely pulled me out of my funk. It hasn’t. Yet. The electronic world and I have bonded. It’s the tool I use to communicate beautiful truths when ugliness wants to take over the world.

But utopia hasn’t arrived yet. The restaurant I visit serves unexpected problems as well as Play-Doh cakes made by four to six-year-old cooks, and the lids to the colored clay often get lost long enough for the clay to dry out.

In the meantime, I have a brand new twelve-year-old granddaughter named Kate to keep me somewhat on track. And I am most grateful. Happy birthday, beautiful!

perfect moments PIQ

 

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Imaginary Bears, Ella, and the Water Park in February

Posted in Down syndrome awareness, positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on February 20, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Children re-invent your world for you. (Susan Sarandon)

Ella and I play in the shallow end of the water park. We pretend to be in a world where blue, green, and red bears roam with white, brown, and black bears. With mock fear we run from all of them. Ella has told me blue bears eat grass and red bears eat cake, although it could be the other way around. She remembers. I don’t.

Her six-year-old imagination enlivens me.

But when another little girl enters the water with her grandmother I step out of the way and give the children a chance to meet. The other girl hugs toys to her small chest.

Ella notices. “Toys,” she says softly.

The other girl, obviously several years younger, sits in the water next to Ella. She hands her two of her treasures.

“Wow!” I say to the girl’s grandmother. “Unusual for such a young child to be so generous.”

“Well, she isn’t always like that.”

While the children play we grandmothers chat. I celebrate the moment and watch the kids’ stages of interaction, sometimes distant, sometimes close. Never expected.

The girl’s grandfather enters the water. The little girl goes to him and I carry Ella through the oval channel of the Lazy River. Ella points to the little girl and calls her, sister.

I feel blessed by my granddaughter’s simple love. Another woman in the channel comments on the beauty of Ella’s large blue eyes. They relay the honesty of her spirit. Down syndrome limits her body; it does not limit her being.

After Ella and I are dressed and ready to leave, the little girl’s family is in the lobby of the Y. The little girl wants Ella to come to her house. A precious, yet unrealistic request. Ella’s mommy will be picking her up in less than two hours.

I see again the gift of Ella when Mommy and Ella are seated on the floor in our living room. I wish I had a camera ready as our granddaughter leans into her. Ella lets her light shine. Our little girl reaches out to soothe and comfort Mommy, as if she knows she had a long work day.

My world gets complicated even if I don’t work an official eight-hour day. I plan more for one twenty-four-hour period than a planet-toting Atlas would. Then life comes along and adds more. I need to spend time with Ella, choose love first, and then realign my priorities.

No, Ella isn’t an angel. She is human and has her stubborn moments just like everyone else does. But, she doesn’t live in a funk, and she doesn’t hold grudges.

For her each moment is what it is, no more, no less. An incredible opportunity simply to be. I suspect that since I read too much into situations, I have more handicaps than she does.

Thanks for the fun day, Ella.

the world as it should be

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Recipe for Fun: the Baking is Secondary

Posted in humor, positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 24, 2015| Leave a Comment »

I had the epiphany that laughter was light, and light was laughter, and that this was the secret of the universe. (Donna Tartt )

Sure, Kate and I should use the food processor to crush the cookies to make the truffles. But rolling them between two sheets of waxed paper turns the task into a game. And that is the purpose of our day—to spend time doing something fun.

Besides all I have is a recipe held precariously in my head. A superb baker, who owns two ovens, told me how to make the delicacies. Last week. I’m counting on my fallible memory.

Kate and I laugh as some of the crumbs escape across the table top. At least the cookies came from the organic section of the grocery. The mess contains fewer unnatural ingredients.

The final results taste fantastic, but won’t make the cover of any food magazine. We don’t take the time to make each ball even. And we run out of melted chocolate.

“Are you going to blog about this?” Kate asks.

“Why not?” I answer. Some of life’s most beautiful moments happen during mundane, messy, silly, and this-isn’t-the-way-it’s-supposed-to-happen experiences. Cookies-smashed-into-cream-cheese-and-scraped-off-with-the-blunt-edge-of-a-knife fit into that category.

As we work I think about how privileged I was to take Kate with me to find last-minute holiday gifts. I tend to be a get-required-items-then-skedaddle shopper. Kate and I stopped to look, to see, to celebrate, to talk over hot chocolate while Grandpa and Kate’s little sister, Rebe, had the chance to swim at the YMCA.

Kate wanted to help Grandma catch up. I feel honored.

The sink looks like it has taken over for a commercial chain of restaurants. Kate and I also made pumpkin bread. The stainless steel appears to be bleeding, in orange.

Then when Rebe comes back with Grandpa she decides she wants to bake, too. She doesn’t want to be left out. I agree only if she takes some of the finished products home with her. More food would end up in the freezer than we could give. Contents would need to be stacked like mortared bricks. For the freezer’s system this would be something like trying to breathe inside a basement wall.

And my waist line doesn’t need to hold what the refrigerator can’t.

After all our creations are completed the girls make a tent with blankets and couch cushions. I play with my granddaughters and crawl inside their play environment, too. I grab a plush toy cow and tell them it gives chocolate milk. Kate readily accepts a pretend squirt. Rebe claps her hands over her mouth and says, “I’m lactose intolerant.” She isn’t. But she has definitely inherited her father’s quick wit.

My neck should hurt more than it does. But perhaps laughter heals in unexplained ways. My considerably-past-middle-age years will return, sooner than I want them to appear, long before I see in a mirror the ridges in my neck. Probably sometime during the clean-up. For now I have discovered a great secret of the universe. The light in my granddaughters’ laughter makes me feel whole.

Kate and Rebe, thanks. Just for being the wonderful girls you are.

May  everyone find peace, love, joy, and plenty of laughter during the holiday season.

laughter words to inspire the soul

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Lessons on How to Be a Four-Year-Old Kid, from four-year-old Dakota

Posted in inspiration, positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 17, 2015| 1 Comment »

Love as if never getting tired. (Mother Teresa)

My energy level isn’t where it belongs—I choose a get up at 4:30AM, write, start-crockpot-soup and-then-marathon-until-10:00 PM regimen. At mid-afternoon I would crawl into bed and call it a day if I could. Four-year-old Dakota comes to my side. Jay and I are babysitting. I would be fatigued even if my schedule were as blank as copy paper sealed inside the original packaging.

“Play with me,” Dakota says.

He’s wearing his ubiquitous tool belt. I suggest we find something suitable to repair with a plastic wrench. But his pretend mind and mine aren’t in sync yet. Eventually I pick up my iPad. We find scenes from “Home Alone II.” Then he discovers a game where Santa’s beard is decorated—or mangled—in a barber shop. I help him find a razor in the set of game tools. Santa will be bald this year, with green fuzz. We laugh. Dakota’s dark eyes light up brighter than our tree’s.

The world as he recognizes it during each moment, is all that exists.

We are not officially his grandparents. Perhaps, someday, his mommy and my son will marry. In the meantime, I painted him in as the fourth cool snow-person grandchild on our seasonal wall hanging. I bought it several years ago and added the details.

Dakota is two years younger than our youngest granddaughter. The only boy. He creates an even number to our children’s group. The two older girls have already made future family plans for the fuller set, far beyond a reasonable expectation, including home-away-from-home rooms in our house. I don’t care. The girls’ enthusiasm is both encouraging and beautiful.

When Grandpa Jay arrives home Dakota meets him at the door. Jay has achieved rock-star status in this little guy’s eyes. And all Jay needed to do was take him to the YMCA to shoot baskets. My husband wore out long before Mr. Dakota did.

Later Jay fights sleep at our son’s house and Dakota reaches into the refrigerator for two tubes of yogurt—one for each of us.

“Want to see my room?” he asks.

Really I’d rather ask Jay to move over. I won’t. My neck is begging for a hot compress. I feel twice my age, a feminine form of Methuselah reincarnated.

Instead I answer, “Sure.” Mother Teresa did not leave the words “as if” out of her statement about love. Real life limits remain.

The rewards, however, continue.

4 grandkids

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For My Husband: the other half of our ordinary kingdom

Posted in positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 11, 2015| 2 Comments »

Not what I have, but what I do, is my kingdom. (Thomas Carlyle, historian and essayist, 1795-1881)

At dinner my husband Jay compliments my cooking and then suggests we go shopping soon. For my Christmas gift. “I don’t want to get something you need,” he adds. He knows I have a pair of shoes with heels that have been losing a battle with city sidewalks. The soles would not be road-worthy if they were tires.

“We will get whatever you need; I want you to get something extra,” he says. “Something you want.”

I understand the difference, yet don’t have a ready answer. Certainly, if I think about thing-possibilities long enough I could probably come up with an idea. But what I want most no one can give me. I want more people to get along. I want violence to stop, listening to come first and speaking to arrive second. I want my friends who are suffering to see an end to pain. I want the depressed to see a purpose in their lives, the grieving to find comfort, the people I have hurt without knowing it to find healing. I don’t feel well now. Neck spasms. Lying down and getting up again has suddenly become monumental. Health cannot be purchased and wrapped.

I smile and tell my mate we will shop this week. And we will. Probably. Next week at the latest.

I recall driving through a fog to my small community’s church service. I was halfway down a long winding road, no other car in sight, when I realized my lights aren’t on. I could see reasonably well without them, but turned them on anyway. Light, one small passageway, created a clearer path.

One small change in perspective makes a difference. Perhaps it is not the item, the purchased thing, that matters. The gift is no more than a symbol. I think about the built-in imperfections of life. Many people have complimented Jay and me on our ideal marital relationship. I smile because we live the muddy, you-said-what real as well as the let’s-go-to-a-park fun times. Moments arise when work-it-out hasn’t found a solution yet.

We don’t live in Utopia. We have our moments of discontent. Neither one of us has sprouted angel wings, levitated, or prophesied before the masses. We are 100% human, flawed, and complicated. Mind-reading 101 could help with the misunderstandings, but it exists only in fantasy. One of my characters in “The Curse Under the Freckles” has this gift. But, even this character finds it noisy, distracting, and annoying at times.

I suspect a perfect world would be predictable and boring—even in fiction.

So, I have no idea what toy I will choose on shopping day, but the product isn’t my focus. I imagine a journey with someone I’ve known most of my life, yet don’t completely know yet. Even if that journey includes a mundane thirty-minute mall walk. In the meantime, sweetheart, I’ll take your hand and you take mine.

At ages 69 and 70 neither one of us is too old to learn. From a geological point of view we are infants. From today’s practical position it doesn’t matter anyway.

how awesome you are

 

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