Tag Archives: family

better than most ~

18 Thursday Feb 2021

Posted by in Rambling, spirituality, Storytelling

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At the recent passing of my aunt, I am reminded of all the things I love and loved about her – how she enjoyed blueberry syrup, her love for coffee, the sound of her laughter.  I also reflect on the things I’ve surely gathered from her – my backbone, my stature, my love for pepper on cantaloupe, and the way I hold my hand over my heart when something touches me.

I’m humbled in the blessing of our lives clipped together, these ‘things’ that we share (we carry, we keep).   But, I am also grateful to know about them – to know what she loved as well as how she loved.

We should want for nothing more than to have someone truly know us – what we dream, what we grieve, what we love (when the dark is night and the ground so very cold).

I am reminded of an instance some years ago. My husband and I had a pretty deep discussion about my assertion that he might not know me as well as he thought. To prove my point I asked, ‘what’s my favorite color’.

Let me say here that I’m painfully aware that I am far more observant than most people. I listen for every hint of the story. If you mention some author to me over coffee in January, don’t be surprised when you receive a signed edition for Christmas. It’s what I do, and yet, I like to think myself forgiving of those who aren’t made the same.

But I also want to believe that those who love us most should be inclined to know us better than most.

Anyway back to the story. This ‘conversation’ occurred during a time when my brother-in-law traveled quite a bit and as a result, my sister and her little ones stayed with us a few nights each week. It so happened that they arrived just as the above discussion was ending.

Cameron, her two year-old son, was beaming as he came through the door, declaring he had a present for me (sure payment for the fact that I always had one for him). His little hand was clutched tight in front of him as I knelt down, excited for sure, and asked what it might be. As he slowly uncurled his fingers, I could see that a red M&M had melted all over his hand. O wow, I said.  Then he looked straight at me (through me) and said ‘I got it for you because it’s your favorite color.’ ❤️

Even now, I’m smiling just as I did in that moment………….

I pray that I never have cantaloupe and pepper without thinking of my aunt Lillian. And when I die, God help the poor soul who dares to bury me in blue…

might that you remember
the color of my eyes –
the way my fingers
warmed against your skin
how I take my coffee
and where my weakness lies
what I love –
for who I’ll come
again

. . .

when roses bloom in winter ~

18 Thursday Feb 2021

Posted by in a time for telling, Poetry, spirituality

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what of time
was ever ours
eternity to claim
when roses bloom in winter –
will one recall
our name

tis there we live
immortal beat –
for years beyond our years
a photograph
of a photograph –
as love we reappear

as blessings
where we left them be
a smile remembers when –
love was all we knew of life
– is there we touch
again

until the night
is drawn
across the memory of us
would that another
speak aloud –
a name
the same as love

. . .

Lillian Rebecca Smith George
grace in a cotton dress
1923 – 2021

small –

07 Friday Aug 2020

Posted by in Poetry, spirituality, Storytelling

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As I was looking for something else today, I happened upon this photo….and the quote, “life isn’t a station to arrive at, but a means by which we travel” came to mind.

Though it surely seemed like many miles from granny and grampa’s house to the store, it wasn’t at all. Let us forever remember the little things as big….life as way more than we expected. The picture – little steve, sis, and hannah making the trek back to the store from granny’s…..remembering for me a path they never realized was so blessed. ❤

rush ~

10 Wednesday Jun 2020

Posted by in Poetry, spirituality

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beyond the rivers edge

too soon
the rush –
of stars to flight
of lullabies
rehearsed –
warming how our hearts
were broken through

beyond the bend
a river flows –
in rifts of joy
and sorrow
lines are stretched
to frame an endless blue

there you are
awaiting –
with wishes for us here
where love remains
with every thought of you

. . .

for daddy
four years and counting
the days between

 

met with rhyme –

11 Saturday Apr 2020

Posted by in Poetry, spirituality, Storytelling, Uncategorized

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for every time
forgotten you
the road between
begun
and counted for my worries
every mile
for cares
I thought it mattered
now it seems I’ve lost my way
returning your
remembrance
as a smile

a verse or two
maybe three or four
as meter met
with rhyme
stories we were telling
on the way
sits the same
an unlined page
fevered fight with time
how few the poet knows
have less to say

places still
my soul recalls
the miracle of pen
as hush before a poem
we appear
crowded vowels rewritten
backward to my hands
words are given voice
tho none can hear

. . .

little hands ~

07 Tuesday Apr 2020

Posted by in a time for telling, Poetry, Storytelling

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windowtomyheart

Of all the things we carry with us, home is perhaps the lightest.

Every year or so, I find reason to be in the area where my grandparents lived for most of my life. Each time, my initial response is the same ‘who moved the house closer to the road?’

In my memory, the yard was huge, as was the orchard and the pond. It was surely a day’s walk to my grandpa’s store (rather than the quarter mile it is now). And how could such a little house and little porch hold so many people, so much love?

In the confines of my heart, the roof pushes against my breastbone and apples fall to the safety of little hands.

We may move, and we may know the feel of many floors beneath our naked feet……..but always, there is something greater we carry with us. We may wander, but we never really leave.

*sigh*

there’s no sign
to point the way
no wear upon the road
but I’d swear
the air is cleaner
in this place

beyond the want
for getting back –
someone waits me now
denied the fault
for leaving –
opened arms of grace

. . .

Republished from original – 2014

through my bones ~

06 Monday Apr 2020

Posted by in Poetry, spirituality, Storytelling

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beyond

it’s been awhile
these days between
the first kiss
and the last –
years have rolled
as thunder
through my bones
reminders of the summers
we laughed
until we cried
knee deep in the river
that was life

. . .

in loving rememory –
Robert Brady
9/11/32 – 4/6/2016
love is the best of all we carry

❤

whispered into sorrow ~

22 Sunday Mar 2020

Posted by in a time for telling, folklore, Poetry

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silencewing

lest I awaken
mourning dove above my head
whispered into sorrow
by his song
will all I have
a pittance make
compared unto his loss
a place alone
where silence beats the same

sworn to birth
some other time –
before the sky burned black
was here
the reasons scattered us apart
folded as a memory
into the great unknown –
while fortune sleeps
beside us
in the dark

. . .

on father’s day ~

27 Thursday Jun 2019

Posted by in Poetry, spirituality, Storytelling

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A friend shared this with me on father’s day.

I wish I were the author.
I wish I didn’t know what the author speaks of.

asIhavelovedIamknown

Disappearing Fathers
by Faith Shearin

Sometime after I turned forty
the fathers from my childhood began disappearing;
they had heart attacks during business dinners
or while digging their shovels
into a late April snow.

Some fathers began forgetting things:
their phone numbers,
which neighborhoods belonged to them,
which houses.
They had a shortness of breath,
the world’s air suddenly too thin,
as if it came from some other altitude.

They were gone:
the fathers I had seen dissecting cars in garages,
the fathers with suits and briefcases,
the fathers who slipped down rivers
on fishing boats and the ones
who drank television and beer.
Most of my friends still had mothers
but the fathers were endangered, then extinct.

I was surprised, though I had always known
the ladies lasted longer;
the fathers fooled me with their toughness;
I had been duped by their jogging and heavy lifting,
misled by their strength when they slapped
me on the back or shook my hand.

I kept imagining I would see them again:
out walking their dogs on the roads
near my childhood house,
lighting cigars on their porches,
waving to me from their canoes
while I waited on shore.

. . .

still ~

11 Tuesday Dec 2018

Posted by in Poetry, spirituality, Storytelling

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day begins at night

Over the last week, I have the experienced the blessing of speaking with two individuals I dearly love about Christmas and also about loss.

I know they are not the only ones who find it difficult to enjoy Christmas due to the weight that is surely heartache.  And while both of these beautiful souls have suffered loss I have not, in other ways I cannot speak clearly of, I lost the same as they, for loss is something we all know. Unfortunately (or fortunately), grief is not a one size fits all thing. It is unique to each of us and the loss is unique to each of us. How we carry it and how it carries us is only ever ours.

For all I know about loss and grief, I know much more about love. I know that love never leaves us, never empties us, and never disappoints us. I’m sure you’re already thinking I don’t know much. But I stick to my belief. Love doesn’t disappoint or leave us, but that doesn’t mean that people don’t/won’t. Love doesn’t fail; people fail. And sometimes in the midst of our grieving or mourning a loss or rejection, we push the thought of love away because to linger with it is too painful, too much of a reminder of our own failures.

But eventually, it is that very love and those very thoughts that heal us, that strengthen us. We may abandon love, but it never abandons us. That which is true doesn’t somehow become less true because we deny it.

I work with a company that handles health insurance and benefits. More than once, I’ve heard from a member who is distraught because data was stored and visible on an ‘ex’. Each time (every time), I laugh to myself at the thought that any of us could ever totally remove someone from the place they held in our hearts, memories, life. It is impossible, as well it should be. I’ve often shared this quote – “The problem with having everything you ever wanted is having everything you once wanted.”

If I ever loved you, I love you still. If I can un-love, then surely I never did.

Love remains whether we want it to or not. It becomes a part of us, changing the ways we navigate life and future relationships. It may evolve or change, but if we allow it to, it becomes the best of who we are and what we know to be true when everything else fails. It becomes the fragile vase we could never put back on the shelf.

So, while Christmas may prove hard for some, take comfort in knowing that another day will come when the memories that torture us will bring us unimaginable joy. We will laugh again! We absolutely will!

This season – this gift – is a time for remembering (even when it hurts) and holding on to that which makes life worth living. We cannot lose it, and it can never lose us.

Let us love and love some more!

. . .