Write Now!
This blog started as a 'Lenten Writing Project', where we wrote each day in Lent. Now that Summer is here, let's keep up the discipline of writing with a weekly writing challenge! A prompt will be posted each week and anyone is welcome to join in and post their writing here or participate just by reading it.
Every writer has their own special light to add to this blog and all of your writing offerings are appreciated, whether poetry, prose, essay, thoughts, lists or comments and encouragement.
My parents divorced when I was only 10 months old. From my earliest memories, I had my weekend father, and my "Daddy George," my mom's boyfriend. Daddy George was very strict, but also very loving. They were together 6 years before my mom moved to Louisiana, and I ended up living with my father back in my home town, also where Daddy George lived.
ReplyDeleteI was very unhappy living with my father, and I greatly looked forward to when Daddy George would come pick me up for an outing together. At a time when I felt very alone, Daddy George was looking out for me - checking in with me and supporting me through those rough times.
When I was in college (not far from my home town), the doctors discovered Daddy George had cancer. It wasn't too long later that Daddy George went through a rough divorce. Although I did not go as often as I now wish I had, I would go visit him sometimes. After a few years, he was in a wheelchair, and I would sometimes go pick him up and we would go somewhere. A few years after I graduated, Daddy George died.
When I was in my early 30's, I went through a rough divorce. A few people in my family felt I was making sinful decisions during that time, and I felt constantly judged and watched. One night, when I had a particularly bad day, I fell asleep in tears. In the middle of the night, I got up to go to the bathroom, bleary-eyed and trying to keep my sleepy state of mind. I went to the sink to wash my hands, but when I looked up into the mirror, I saw Daddy George looking at me.
I suddenly felt loved and embraced. I didn't want to turn away from the mirror, but I stayed there for a few minutes, gazing at Daddy George's face, thankful for his visit.
I returned to bed, knowing that things would be ok. Daddy George is still looking out for me - checking in with me and supporting me through any rough times. It's nice to know I have my own angel who loves me.
My Father
ReplyDeleteHis voice silenced by death
I see his face still
Looking back from the mirror
(I wrote this before I read Anja's writing. It is a powerful experience!)
Honesty, finally.
ReplyDeleteby Pat Mason
My best friend in junior high committed suicide over Christmas break when we were both15 years old. There, now it's out there.
I was the last person to talk to her and I had no idea what she was going to do.
After the initial shock, grief and confusion wore off, I then began to feel something new. I was angry with her. Her family was devastated, I felt horribly guilty for not being able to help her, she took something so precious as a life and just destroyed it. I was mad.
As the years went by, I began to feel less guilty and angry, I began to think more about what she might have been going through to make her do something so drastic. I began to at least try to understand her motives. But I was still mad, but maybe just slightly less so.
Honestly, it has only been recently (and I am well over 15-years-old now) that I have begun to be able to forgive and maybe even understand her. Not that she needed my forgiveness, what she did was between her and God. My being able to forgive her or not has no affect on her now. The forgiveness was for me.
I was hurt when she died, I felt betrayed and abandoned and I felt that she felt that our friendship had no value. Now I know that these were all my feelings and maybe (probably) were not what she intended to make me feel. I had taken personally something that very likely was not meant to be personal.
I spent many years being very selfish with my feelings. Maybe this is part of being human, I don't know. Forgiveness for her and for myself was the only way out but I just couldn't get there.
Eventually though, one must face what one has avoided if one is to make any spiritual progress at all. Any time I spent in Bible study, any inroads make in my spiritual life, anytime I felt I was truly making progress in living righteously seemed to only go so far and then stop abruptly when the topic of forgiveness came up.
I would like to say that there was one magic moment when I just was able to forgive but it really didn't happen that way. There were just little 'nudges' along the way that eventually all added up. My three daughters went through the teen-age years and I was able to better understand how chaotic those years can be. I like to think I was more patient than I might have been had i not had this other experience to draw wisdom from.
I spent many years as a Confirmation Group Guide. The subject of suicide would come up. I dreaded talking bout it but I could and I did.
Other friends and family would talk about their stories of abuse or betrayal or losses and I like to think I was able to relate to them and offer an understanding ear because I had been where they were.
You often hear that forgiveness is not so much for the person you need to forgive but more for your own peace of mind. I'm not here to encourage anyone to forgive someone else, I'm still working on it myself. I would encourage you though, to don't disregard any little nudges you may be receiving along the way. Step away from yourself sometimes and let forgiveness truly be welcome in your heart. There really is room.
I never got to know—or even see—my great-niece Erin. The only image of her I remember is the tiny white casket in the church where my niece asked me to speak at the service for her newborn daughter, who had breathed earthly air for the briefest of moments before succumbing to the numerous physical afflictions that she carried like heavy baggage into this life.
ReplyDeleteScrambling for something to say about this little stranger, I decided to talk about what-ifs—what if she’d been born healthy and grown strong in the love of her mom and dad? What if she was a toddler now, out for a stroll, hand in hand with her parents, taking in the world? As part of my short eulogy I asked the people gathered in the church to imagine it, and I quoted lines of lyrics from a John Denver song—“For Baby”: “The wind will whisper your name to me, little birds will sing along in time, leaves will bow down when you walk by, and morning bells will chime.”
During the service a young woman with a wonderful voice had sung a couple of songs, and as the service ended, she began singing another one. But this selection was unplanned. Given no previous hint at what the content of my talk was going to be, with no prompting or rehearsal, she sang a beautiful interpretation of “For Baby.” The words and music swept us out of the church, wet-eyed. One stanza went like this: “I’ll walk in the rain by your side, I’ll cling to the warmth of your tiny hand, I’ll do anything to help you understand, and I’ll love you more than anybody can.”
On my way home, alone in my car, uncomfortable with the quiet, I turned on the radio to a rock station (this was twenty-five or so years ago), expecting of course to hear rock music. And that’s what I heard—kind of. The first song that came on was Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky,” the first words of which are, “When I die and they lay me to rest, gonna go to the place that's the best, when I lay me down to die, goin' up to the spirit in the sky.“
Coincidence? Of course. Probably. Maybe. I’m kind of skeptical by nature, but I had some things to think about, then and still.
—Dave Patneaude
The Sounds,Aromas,Tastes and touch of Family Love
ReplyDeleteA whislte
A familiar tune
It's my father, I feel safe
The dryer door opens
A pile of warm, fragrant clean clothes tossed into my lap
I feel warm and cozy: Mom
A cup of hot sugar water with Grandpa: I feel special!
Grandpa playing the harmonica, Dad in a quartet
My love for them will live on in my appreciation and love for music! JackieD
My sister Mary died in January. We came from a close and loving family, but Mary and I were polar opposites in many ways. Our relationship with each other had many painful ups and downs. In fact, after our Mother died we rarely spoke to each other.
ReplyDeleteI hoped and dreamed for the kind of relationship I thought sisters should have, knowing each other so well. I mailed cards and letters to her, and I prayed for openings to see her and talk about whatever was wrong. But it was not to be. She did not want to see me or talk to me.
When I got the phone call that Mary had died in her sleep, I was heartbroken. My beautiful sister gone – and now no chance to restore our relationship.
At the celebration of her life several weeks ago, several of Mary’s friends spoke of how her life had brought light to them. Her friend Ginny sang Amazing Grace. We have heard those lyrics so many times that we almost cease to hear them. Yet that day as I heard the words, a healing balm flowed over my heart. “…was blind but now I see… Grace will lead me home … ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun … when this flesh and heart shall fail, and mortal life shall cease, I shall possess within the veil, a life of joy and peace… I once was lost but now am found, was blind, but now I see.”
Then Pastor Mike spoke of the water of baptism and Jesus, our light. I don’t remember his words. I only remember being washed with healing. I had assurance that Mary now could see the answers to all her questions and all her pain. And that I could begin to forgive myself for the ways I hurt her, or wasn’t able to be who she needed me to be. Somehow “was blind, but now I see” was coming true for both of us.
Kairos to Chronos
Born
Sisters
Love – Together
Misunderstanding
Estrangement – Apart
Confusion – Longing
Death
Grief – Darkness
A candle
Hope
Water – Light
Forgiven
Eternity
You came a long way quickly RuthAnn. Amazing grace for sure. Blessings.
DeleteDyAnn
I wrote today about my grandparents - my Dad's parents. Too much to sort out - unfocused & too long to post, so I will have to revise it & read it at a later meeting. In their honor, however, I will post a poem about my Grandpa Millar that I read at his funeral in 1993:
ReplyDeleteSage
Gentle eyes
And gentle heart
Takes my tiny hand
And leads me the top of the hill
His small shuffle and my biggest steps
Are in the same meter
He finds a blade of grass
Which he raises to his lips and lets out a
Noise like a trumpet
His eyes look upward merrily
Reaching the very top of the hill
He points to
A beautiful golden treasure
It melts into the ocean
Filling the sky with pink
Until it slips away beneath the sea
Leaving only the diamonds behind
We walk home with the twilight to eat spoonfuls of blueberry yogurt
Lunch with Florene
ReplyDeleteBy Marlene Obie
A couple weeks ago, a guy on the radio asked "If you could have lunch today with someone who's no longer part of your life, dead or alive, who would it be?" My first response was my great grandmother because I had a lot of questions about her life which I didn't get to ask since she died when I was in sixth grade.
Yet when I looked at today's prompt, it was my friend Florene who came immediately into my thoughts. In addition to being part of the Marlene-Charlene-Florene triad in high school, she became my niece by marriage, despite her warning I shouldn't get too serious about her uncle (9 years older than me). The three of us moved around in subsequent years, sometimes farther apart, sometimes closer together, but our bonds of friendship were always secure. We shared our innermost thoughts, opinions, and dreams and a good deal of laughter. We envision ourselves in our dotage after our kids had grown up and given us adorable grandchildren and our husbands had passed on, traveling around together or sitting in a row of rocking chairs on a porch. However, at the age of forty, Florene died of germ cell cancer after about a year and a half of treatments.
After 30 years, I can see her smile and hear her laughter as she fills a very large glass of soda or iced tea as soon as I enter her house, so we could talk without having to be up and down refilling or her asking as she was making a sandwich if you liked lots of mayonnaise as she smeared a thick layer on the bread.
My mind just now replayed her singing "This is the Day That the Lord Has Made" as we walked across a parking lot.
As a gifted artist, she touches me still through her seascape on the wall across from my bed, the print of her truly life-like Madonna and Christ Child on the wall next to me, her bright yellow abstract sun painting (a wedding present from her) above the fireplace and other prints of her paintings I have.
I am struck with sadness sometimes now that she didn't get to meet and know her wonderful daughter-in-law or her terrific grandchildren. They would have had the greatest of times together.
If we could have that lunch together, I'd invite her son and them to come along. But--as sure as I know she's still checking on what Char and I are up to, I know she's helping God out by watching over them.
Before another 30 years are up, if there is a row of chairs in Heaven, we may be sitting in a row together, or more likely, we'll dance around a bit and see if we can stir up a rainbow.
Feb. 26, 2012 Sunday
ReplyDeleteI once had a Grandmother whom I adored.
I was her eldest grandchild.
She was my youngest grandmother.
Thus, our special nicknames to each other became
"Youngest" and Eldest".
While I lived on the West Coast, she lived far away, in the Midwest; and from the stories I heard, she seemed to me saintly and flawless (except for exceptional snoring abilities).
On our many summer visits, she baked mouth-watering, buttery cookies and buns. She sang in the choir and prayed a lot. She knitted marvelous sweaters, mittens and socks...to order; told magical stories about family and trolls, and sang the most mezmerizing lullabies. She always seemed happy (in truth, she had a very hard life), with a ready hug or snuggle. She could keep secrets, and she made me feel special and loved...and that I was her favorite (even if she had no favorites).
In the Spring when I was 16, she died.
I panicked. I had plans for us. This wasn't in the plan.
Against my Parents' wishes, I managed to blindly make my way, alone, all 2000 miles to the funeral, to a village of 300. I had to be there to say goodbye.
The country church was standing-room only because, she was loved and respected by many others, whom she had also made feel special and loved. The line of cars to the cemetary was 1 mile long!
Long before she died, she had joked that when she did die, whenever we saw pink clouds, she would be sitting on them, looking down on us.
After her death, and my initial torrent of tears, I went numb and didn't cry for anything for over 20 years, but that's another story. She began to appear to me in my dreams, as well as to many other family members (Mother, sisters, 1st cousins, etc), always comforting us and making us feel better. We never made the connection until several years later at a reunion. Pink clouds began to appear a lot, too. "There's Grandma Ruth!" someone would shout out.
As I grew up, and had my own children, the stories of Grandma Ruth and the Pink Clouds were passed on to my family, as well as through the cousins' families. I became very involved, and felt at home, in the Church, partly because of her example. She was one who taught me how to live in the Light.
Today, my grandchildren, all know about Grandma Ruth and the Pink Clouds. I now live in the very Village, outside of where she is buried (and where I will be buried); yet I don't visit there a lot, because I know she's not really there. She's in my heart and memories; and in the faces and names of my family---yes, I named my first child Ruth---And, best of all, I know I'll get to see her again when my turn comes to die. s.h.
Song 8:6...for love is as strong as death...
I Cor 15:55b O Death, Where is thy sting?
Ps 116:15 The death of the LORD'S faithful is a costly loss in His eyes.
Isaiah 25:8 (God) will swallow up death forever. The LORD God will wipe tears from every face.
Rev 21:4b...Death will be no more. There will be no mourning, crying, or pain anymore,....
Returning
ReplyDeleteMy father and I were very close. He was a loving and nuturing father. We "played" for endless hours. Many games were simple and silly.
My fondest memory was riding in his "real" WWII Army Willys MA jeep. We climbed up hills, bounced over rocks, and zipped along the highway many summer evenings feeling the warm and cool pockets of air. Of course in the summer the top was off and often the windshield was "down". Seatbelts, not yet.
One of my proudest accomplishments as a young girl was learning to drive a stick-shift in the Army jeep. That included double-clutching, which I still absent mindedly do today. It was one of my father's proudest moments too.
My father served in the U.S. Amy's 6th Armored Division under General Patton, driving tank during the D-Day invasion of France. He fought in five major fire battles in less than seven months. The winter in France was cold and harsh as was the enemy. His unit's job was to liberate prison camps. He saw horrors beyond words. He never talked about any of this. He only talked about the people, the farm animals, and the country side.
As he and my mother grew older, age and dementia took it's toll on my father's brain and his ability to reason. The Germans were now in the upper garden area of his beautiful yard. The doctors said this was becoming a common occurance as these warriors aged. WWII's delayed stress syndrome.
He also became the victim of Borderline Personality Disorder. A nasty, and ruthless condition for him, my mother and me. After my mother's sudden death I became his target.
His actions were heart breaking, devastating, and humiliating. The courts became involved as did mental wards.
My world shattered. My heart broke.
I was their only child. I knew I was the most precious gift to them. But, no longer to the stranger who was my father. Funny thing, he was very lucid and knew everyone to the end.
I stood by his bedside at Evergreen hospice as he was in the process of dying, three years ago. God showed me my father was in his "second" labor as he was being made ready to go to the other side. My heart was still broken, but I had peace.
I never stopped loving my father. God gave me unconditional love for him.
With God's patience, love, and mercy my father is returning to his old self; fun, honest, trustworthy and loving. I can smell him at times. It is the smell I knew when we cuddled in his big chair watching "Gun Smoke' or playing silly finger games. Yes, he is proud of me again and his love is returning. I love you Daddy!
DyAnn Alison Shaw Dennie
When I was two in the summer of ‘75, I took a short walk on a hot afternoon with my mother and grandmother in the alley just behind my grandparents’ house, a house that would become the one I grew up in. The alley was full of gravel and cinders. I grabbed a quick handful, reached up to yank down the collar of my grandmother’s housecoat, and threw the cinders down her body. I giggled, not so much because of what I’d done, but because I could see the outline of her breasts as the thin polyester housecoat caught some air and lifted away from her. Dust then rose up around her feet as the cinders hit the ground. My grandmother shrugged this off as silly, but my mother was mad and, justifiably, scolded me.
ReplyDeleteTwo weeks later, I sat with my mom on that house’s front porch with my grandparents’ next door neighbor and her adult daughters, who were visiting. My grandparents weren’t home. My mom and the other women—childhood friends—were smalltalking and laughing. I remember the outline of one woman’s knee as she sat on the arm of the old sofa on that porch, and how the warmth of the sun colored its white walls a warm peach. The phone must have rung. The house had one phone, a heavy black receiver I couldn’t lift and a rotary dial that sat on a thick telephone book toward the back of the house at the edge of the kitchen. 219-931-5789. I remember hearing my mother scream. I don’t remember running down the shotgun back to her, but I am suddenly standing next to her in that darker end of the house as she bends over with her face near the phone book’s yellow edge, at my eye level, holding the receiver. She screams into it. I cried and asked what was wrong over and over, but she couldn’t answer me. I just remember focusing on that vertical vein on her forehead.
I later learned it was my grandfather calling from a hospital in Berwyn, Ill., to tell her that my grandmother had a massive heart attack at the crowded bus shelter just outside Hawthorne Racetrack where they had gone for a fun afternoon. She was lucky and often won at the races. He was with her. She collapsed while they waited for the bus, turned blue, and never regained consciousness. She was 61.
I only have three memories of my grandmother: the day of the cinders, once hiding in fear behind her back on that porch sofa while a neighbor had his tree chainsawed down, and crying in the car's back seat while Grandma and I waited in a parking lot for my mom to get groceries. I do remember, though, that at each of those times, I was afraid or upset. And yet my grandmother was calm. She was a calm presence that didn’t ruffle easily. I’ve only recently recognized that about her in recalling meaning in those three toddler memories, and I’m thankful.
- Rosemarie Buchanan