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Posts Tagged ‘inspiration’

If a Genie Could Grant One Wish

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on October 7, 2012| 2 Comments »

Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.  (Aristotle)

Imagine a genie sprung from his lamp, ready to grant one magic wish. Not three like there are in fairy tales. Three give space for creative answers and tricks. This genie is a tad stingy.

When I was young, I would have asked for either fame or fortune without thinking about it. Heck, at sixteen I could have wasted this moment thinking I wanted a boyfriend. But I’m now officially a senior citizen who has been married for a looooong time. And happy about that.

“How about world peace?”

He shakes his head. “Hey, I’m a genie! Not the creator of the universe. Take it easy, will you? I said I could grant you a wish. Jeesh!” He folds his arms across his chest and gets that insulted genie look, a pathetic sight.

One wish. “Health sounds good. Actually, it sounds great.”

The genie smiles and begins to twitch up my wish.

“Nah, that could go bad again. What about . . .?”

He gives me his biggest impatient genie expression. Not much better than an insulted genie look.

“I got it. I got it! Genie, I want wisdom.”

He looks at me like I have three heads and four noses. “I give up. You can’t get that from me. You have to earn that on your own. Hard work. Years of hard work! See both sides of everything. Take the long road. Listening. Hard knocks. You have to know who you are first, accept, grow. Forget it.”

With that the genie goes back into the lamp. In the smallest voice I hear, “I’ll wait for someone with smaller vision and a little more ego.”

At my feet is a crumpled dollar bill. “Hey,” the tiny voice inside the lamp continues, “It’s against the Genie Union to go without leaving something.”

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Age Three Plus Age Ninety-Two Equals Just Right

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 3, 2012| 2 Comments »

What is straight? A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, it’s curved like a road through mountains. (Tennessee Williams)

Two people smile at one another. One is three years old, the other ninety-two. A little girl and an older woman. The little girl, my granddaughter, blows kisses. The older woman, my mother-in-law, accepts them. A large portion of the day my mother-in-law sleeps, lost in day-long snoozes. I’ve often witnessed these in my father’s nursing home. Except this woman is in a house miles from where my family lives. Some of us have been traveling for hours to get here—through a hundred miles of construction zones, over two states.

Our little one is a good traveler. But she needs to expend pent-up energy now. Her excited voice and antics amuse her great grandmother. Ella is excellent medicine, joy in size three-toddler stretch pants.

But Great-Grandmother has been sick the past few days. What is enough company? What is wearing for both the elder and younger?

“How are you?” we adults ask.

“I’m fine,” Great-grandmother answers. “Tired.”

But then her eyes meet the spirit of three-year-old Ella, and together their hearts run across mountains the rest of us don’t see. We are mired in the duties and responsibilities of living, the middle of the journey with its endless road work and detours. They know the beginning and the end, the segments closest to God.

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The Phone Is Where?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on September 27, 2012| 2 Comments »

Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things. (Robert Brault)

My younger son, Steve, calls Wednesday evening with an unexpected proposal. “If you can collect all your portable phones, right now, I’ll give you two-hundred dollars.”

It doesn’t take me long to figure out the search would be useless. “Ah, you’ve got one of them, right?”

“In Ella’s diaper bag.”

Now I don’t believe in false accusation, but since our little one thinks a phone belongs in the precious treasure category, circumstantial evidence is present. Fortunately, the loss causes no real harm.

“I need to go into your part of town tomorrow anyway and drop off Grandpa’s laundry. I’ll get it then.”

After a re-charge the phone should be just fine. I am grateful for the gift of communication—and for the fact that Steve’s call comes before I searched under the bed, between couch cushions, among scattered toys, finding nothing but frustration.

Instead I find a laugh, as well as the opportunity to celebrate the day again as I look through the kids’ fresh art work, the books they enjoyed, and remember the simple moments that don’t seem like much on the surface, but are part of our common history.

However, in the future I may need to check the diaper bag  for contraband.

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Happiness Is a Scribbled Chalkboard And a Good Family

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on September 23, 2012| Leave a Comment »

What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make. (Jane Goodall)

Our youngest granddaughter politely coughs into her hand. Her hand is full of blue chalk, but it’s the thought that counts. I smile at her blue face and she smiles back before she goes back to filling the chalkboard with her spontaneous creation.

She pauses and hands me a piece of yellow chalk. I get a turn, too, albeit short.

Ella has spent her first overnight with us. I’m amazed at how smoothly it went. I’m even more amazed at her mommy and daddy, Sarah and Steve. They are busy talking to Steve’s daddy right now, in our living room after Sunday breakfast. Steve and Sarah have no idea what words I’m conjuring about them—about what a blessing they are.

It isn’t always easy to care for a child who not only needs physical and occupational therapy, but has medical concerns as well. (Of course Ella helps in her own way. She has the personality of at least three angels and the heart of four.) Nevertheless, it takes time—and money to be the parent of any child with exceptional needs. My son and daughter-in-law both work; then they volunteer for the Down Syndrome Association.

This past summer Steve and Sarah earned over seven-thousand dollars and placed seventh among contributors in Greater Cincinnati for the Down Syndrome Association. Of course they had help from friends and family. My assistance was minimal. I painted a few cups for a raffle. Jay and I babysat while the more organized folk prepared a huge festival.

However, it’s the simple, everyday dedication I love most about my own family, the fact that our little one has learned to cough into her hand instead of into the air, the way she waves good-bye at preschool with three-year-old independence, the fact that she is learning the alphabet with enthusiasm.

Her development is a direct reflection on her parenting, on two of the most wonderful people in the world. Ella is blessed, and so am I.

photos taken at the Buddy Walk

at Sawyer Point in Cincinnati on September 8, 2012

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The Old-Person Corner of Kindergarten in the Jungle Gym

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on September 21, 2012| 1 Comment »

What a bargain grandchildren are! I give them my loose change, and they give me a million dollars’ worth of pleasure. (Gene Perret)

Rebe (Rebecca) and I are the only persons in the playground at two in the afternoon on a Wednesday. It’s Grandma and Rebe time, those precious moments when I take our middle granddaughter out of the house so Grandpa can get her cousin Ella ready for a nap. Then, Rebe and I will pick up Kate from school.

The playground soon turns into an imaginative world.

“Come on up to the top with me, Grandma?” Rebe calls from the other side of an orange tunnel, on a metal portion of one of the play structures.

Ordinarily I wouldn’t consider it. I mean, this stuff was designed for children between the ages of five and twelve. I hesitate mentioning how many times I have been twelve. Besides, there’s no sign mentioning weight limit. However, Rebe doesn’t have anyone else to play with.

“Okay, sweetie. But if there is any hint of a creaking sound, I’m going to have to go back.”

The wide, but low tunnel between slide and steps doesn’t groan. I’m grateful that I am barely five feet tall. Perhaps a parent or two has needed to rescue a sobbing child once in awhile. Maybe the engineer had that in mind. Nevertheless, I regret a hardy lunch.

“This is kindergarten,” she announces in her official I’m-the-teacher voice, then begins mimicking the sign language posted in one corner. Good. Reality. I can follow this, even with an almost five-year-old girl as instructor. Then Rebe says she is going to sit in the old person corner of the classroom—the entrance to the slide. (The way downhill, I guess)

“In the where?” I’m lost again.

“I’m an old person now, so that’s where I go in the kindergarten room.”

“Okay.” Rule number one in let’s-pretend interaction: Accept any scene as long as it is innocuous. “How old are you, old person?”

“Ninety-nine.”

Well, at least that truly is old. I expected her to say nineteen or twelve—or something closer to my age.

I break pretend mode and ask, “When you go to kindergarten next year, can I go with you? I didn’t get to go when I was five.”

She shrugs. “Sure.”

That game ends. Perhaps I broke the spell. We go to a bench with a steering wheel attached at ground level. Rebe is now my mother. The front and back seats merge in the imaginative world—no sense mentioning inconsistencies. That would only confirm my lack of pretending experience.

“Can I drive, Mommy?” I ask.

“No, Mommy has to do it.”

“Because it is dangerous for kids to drive?”

“Yes,” she says with mock certainty.

But I have brought too much adult truth into play. “Why is it dangerous for kids to drive?” she asks later as we leave to get her older sister.

“Because kids don’t know how to do it yet.”

But that doesn’t mean you aren’t someone now, I think. That what you know, decides much of anything. Sometimes simply being is enough. I notice that the tightness in the back of my neck from weeks of stress, has relaxed.

“I love you, Grandma.”

“I love you, too.”

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When “Down” Leads Up

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on September 18, 2012| 2 Comments »

Let’s stop “tolerating” or “accepting” difference, as if we’re so much better for not being different in the first place. Instead, let’s celebrate difference, because in this world it takes a lot of guts to be different. (Kate Bornstein)

Ted Kremer won a day as bat boy for the Cincinnati Reds. The story appeared as front page news on Sunday, September 16,  By many folks’ standards, Ted, also known as Teddy, is different. He was born with a tripled twenty-first chromosome: Down syndrome. The full article is worth the time.

 http://cin.ci/PGyzar by John Erardi

This story has been posted and re-posted more than any other on Facebook, and it makes me smile. In fact, I shared it, too. There are enough stories about fraud, murder, and messy politics to pollute the press.

During the game, Ted (Teddy) got excited a tad prematurely. This exchange was taken directly from the article:

“We wait until we get three outs before we count this one as a win,” said Votto, gently.

Teddy took the hint and waited for the final out.

And what did Votto tell you then, Teddy?

“He said, ‘I love you, Ted. Thank you for everything.’

It’s an upbeat attitude like Ted’s that makes this world bearable.

I know. I have a three-year-old girl in my life with an extra chromosome that somehow blocks out negative thinking. Ella has sunshine-white hair, and I have often wondered if it isn’t part halo. Oh, she has her human side, too. She knows how to test limits, and loves to throw any object—ball or not. It is not wise to leave eyeglasses within her reach. However, she doesn’t seem to learn trouble-making as quickly as she does love.

Last Wednesday when we had all three of our grandchildren at our house, I was on the phone with Ella’s daddy when I heard some minor fuss between her two older cousins. They were fighting over who got to play with Ella. I doubt she enjoyed being an object in the fight, but I’m sure she realized she was wanted.  She knew she was loved, just as Ted understood it.

Folk like Ted and Ella, who have to work harder to walk, talk, and learn the alphabet take the straight path to the important. Ego doesn’t get in the way.

It makes me want to alter the description special needs, to simply special.

photo from Circle-21

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A Conversation With My Refrigerator

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on September 14, 2012| Leave a Comment »

We should tackle reality in a slightly jokey way, otherwise we miss its point. (Lawrence Durrell, novelist, poet, and playwright, 1912-1990)

Hi there, Refrigerator! Yeah, I know. We haven’t spent time together in awhile. Usually I just take what I need from you, or ask you to hold another few sacks of items from the grocery. In other words I take you for granted.

Oh, I hope your feelings weren’t hurt when you were leaking water from the freezer all over your interior. We threatened to replace you. I never asked whether you wanted to retire or not. I mean, some folk are a little sensitive about their age. But you came through in the end. Thanks—a little late.

But today, well, you looked kind of empty for a change, and I noticed you needed a good cleaning. Yeah, I know, I should have taken care of that weeks ago. Cans of expired soda. Guess it’s a good thing I’m not giving my grandkids junk drinks very often. Besides the cans were taking up shelf space that could be given more worthy attention.

What’s that? I couldn’t hear you over your compressor. Oh, you think this is some kind of metaphor. That the cleaning could really mean something else. That after all these years I should dump out old resentments hidden behind the sour tuna salad—something like that. Heck, I did that years ago!

But then, the oddest twinge comes up in me that has nothing to do with the pile of garbage rising on the floor. Sure I said I forgot all about that misunderstanding, moved on. Uh huh. That’s why I put the rotten lettuce next to the fresh milk right now. Hmmn, wonder if not-good-enough is hiding under the maple syrup ring. And fear of making a mistake is lurking in an unwashed corner. Okay, Ter, one more time, from the top, focused.

Guess you have a point, trusty, rusty old friend. Maybe we should get together more often.

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