I Steal A Peek

This child has captured me from the beginning of his life. He did not allow me entrance for a time. He held me at bay with his need for his mama or his dad. But I would steal a peek at him and know that one day he and I would be the best of friends.

Time passed. Our moments together grew longer. I thought my heart would burst with pleasure and with joy. He would be the mailman and I would wait for him to bring the mail. He would ask for the hundredth time for me to read his favorite book called "Piggy Pie". His eyes would slowly close as sleep came softly to him and I, in that sacred moment, would steal a peek of rosy cheeks, long eye lashes and the patterned breathing as his chest rose and fell with deepening breaths.

The day he knew his dad was not coming back home to live, dear God in heaven, his pain and his sense of loss tore my heart from my chest. A helplessness like none I have ever known crushed my heart. He stood so small and crying said good-bye. I stole a peek and made a silent vow to stand in the gaps with him if God allowed. God allowed.

Today we rode to church together. Almost 10 years from the day he was born and 8 years from my vow. We laughed and talked and fussed over music. He spoke of a girl at school and we day dreamed a bit of summer possibilities. He knows I think he is wonderful. He knows that I will love him until forever. He gave me a grin, turned his attention back to the game he was playing and I stole a peek. My heart is full. Another peek and I am content to let him be as I drive to church.

God loves me some kind of good and he loves my grandchild in the fierce way that God loves children and that is when I steal a peek at the heart of my Father God. I am blessed to be a blessing.

Say What?

A friend of mine who knows my family dynamics well was talking with me today about my mom. My mom is 87 years old. She lives near me and I spend a lot of time with her. My father died several years ago and I have been looking in on my mom all of that time. She and I are often at odds. Nothing dramatic and loud but silent and passive aggressive.  My friend has a unique position in our lives so, over time, she has made her own observations of my mom and her relationships with her three chuldren. I am the oldest. My brother is the middle and my sister is the baby.

To keep a long, long story short, my mom identifies most with my sister, adores her son who is bi-polar and has conquered many challenges and has, as long as I can remember had an ambivalent response towards me. I don' t even want to know what birthed her response to me but I have felt it for years.

Time has  passed and in my life today my mom's preferences have become visible to my friend. I did not think anyone knew or noticed. I felt foolish like a petulant, jealous child as this woman told me one day how much she admired my involvement with my mother and how she did not think she could handle it. I was shocked. Since then we have talked about my mom and I have had the opportunity to get out of denial about my relationship with her. I have struggled with the truth and grieved it.

Today I was talking with this dear friend about a recent event with my mom. We were both laughing when she said, "In your mom's eyes your sister was born with a silver spoon in her mouth, your brother is the son and you? You are shit outta  luck!" I realized how far I have come when both of us burst into laughter without an edge to it or resentment in my heart. My friend told the truth! Giggling. And I found the truth hysterically funny.

Say What?!

Measuring Out My Day

I played with a squirrel yesterday. He was chattering in the water oak tree by my mother's porch. At first I thought it was a loud and intense bird. It dawned on me the mad chattering could only be coming from a squirrel  because squirrels fuss with great vigor and this squirrel was letting me have it. So, I talked back. Well, I talked back in my secret squirrel talk learned in the wild woods of .....o.k., maybe not a squirrel language. I talked back in an attempt to calm this furry creature down. While looking for this gray and angry fellow I discovered, high up in the top limbs, the squirrel's nest. The squirrel was fussing like a banshee in order to drive me from the nest. I caught a brief glance of him, smiled to myself and did the right thing. I walked away.

Sadness and Grief Deeper Than The Deep Blue Sea

waiting inside suspended animation, bathed in the numbness of sadness mixed with the heat of grief building upon itself. No answers. No way out. "So brave," they say, "to stand your ground." I hear "so brave" as a distant voice shouted towards me from far away. I am confused. Who is so brave? Not me. Not me inside this silent place waiting for a reprieve, a momentary release from the exquisite, laser sharp focus fueled by sadness and grief. A sense of loss intrudes. I look around me. I am a stranger in this place. I wish to be excused, please.

Where is my darn pocketbook?

It is a rarity for me to lose something for a long period of time and  more of a rarity for me to lose something and not find it again. Having made that statement I am constantly misplacing items. This results in late starts as I frantically search for my keys or my glasses or my pocketbook. In addition I plan to decide what I am going to wear and lay it out so I can get dressed quickly. This does not happen either. The plan is made. The execution of the plan remains an attractive option to throwing clothes into the air as I search for two things that will fit and match. I have gained weight. My clothes refuse to comply with the extra pounds. They are so stubborn in that respect. My tops have blotches of this or that on them. I often find those blotches when I see myself in the bathroom mirror of the doctor's office or the restaurant. This is when I adopt my, "I don't care how I look because I am in the middle of a potential mental breakdown" pose. I drop a few sentences by way of explanation. This is a creepy mind-set. Since I have gained weight I go out less, dress with little consideration for how I actually look, buy no clothes and think about losing weight one day. Always gonna start tomorrow. I don't know if this depresses me so much as it surprises me. Like so many things in my world at this time eating and weight take place far in the back of other concerns. I am more puzzled by my lack of self-discipline. I greet that character trait with a hesitant hello. Yes, I understand. Yes, I know, I know! I mutter to myself during my quest to find first one thing and then the other. Our cats are well versed in my chatter as I roam from room to room and back again. If my husband is awake he asks once in awhile if I am talking to him. When I say I am looking for one thing or the other he is not surprised. He volunteers to help find the lost thing and I say no. Not because I don't want his help. At his point in his life he cannot walk far without falling, his balance is tenuous. The searches I have asked him to make end as his body begins to collapse in a puddle towards the floor. We are a pair these days. Our lives have taken unexpe
cted and abrupt turns. The result is this combination of non-ambulatory meets no clue. It begs the question of why he believes I am dependable and trusts me with his life. We have developed our own form of marriage and relationship. I imagine all long term relationships come to a place where the odds and ends of each other make peace with themselves and settle into a wholeness full of contradictions, familiarities, hard won acceptance and a fondness for knowing what the other of us is going to say even as the other of us protests with indignation. None of this finds my pocketbook for me. All of this puts that loss into perspective.

Begin Again

Spring arrived before I felt winter. Winter must have happened or maybe it was just cold rain, day after day after day. I wonder if life can go by even faster than it does now. I could meet myself leaving an appointment before I arrive. My life is full and focused on meeting needs, anticipating future needs, lost in an overwhelming array of data. There are people who organize well. Prioritize well. See the big picture well. I am not one of those people. The requirements on my time, need to focus, plan, prioritize require an incredible amount of mental energy for me. I am a smart woman. I can do many things well. Yet I am at a point in my life where I am avoiding the thinking parts and living in the reactive parts of daily events. Oddly enough, to me, at least, I have a calm that arrived recently, on the heels of what appeared to be an impending nervous breakdown. God works in my life twenty-four hours a day. He worked out this calm thing. He has not, as yet, given me the organizational part. I am calm despite the chaos and sneaking suspicion I have that important things are going undone. They go undone while I look for my keys, my purse, a shirt to wear, shoes, that bottle of ketch-up I know I bought at the store. The list is long. I was diagnosed with ADHD in the past two years. Stress exacerbates the symptoms of ADHD. I can bear witness to that sentence.
Tomorrow is Easter Sunday. I celebrate the Risen Christ. Easter Sunday is special because it has always been special. When I met Jesus Christ as a living God and knew Him as a reality in my current life; not an idea or a concept but a real, living Jesus, Easter became a remembrance opportunity. The reality that Christ is risen is an every day reality for me. He is as much a part of me as my DNA. He is risen, made manifest, living now, at this moment, in me and around me and for me. When I met Jesus in this reality I became alive. I became resurrected in the sense that I died to myself and became a bond servant of my Lord Jesus Christ. Easter is a remembrance. Maybe more of a birthday of Jesus than Christmas is for me. When Christ chose to die and was resurrected He became the Christ I serve today. My life in and with Him is far from a cake walk. I am challenged, unsettled, often straining to be full of my own will over my surrendered will. Life with Christ is vibrant, breath-taking, life more abundant than I could ever imagine. Abundant with the love and surrender of my will to His. Come Lord Jesus! Happy Easter, friends!

Flotsam and Jetsome

Why does this font look so little? I have chosen "large" and saved it at least six times. Yet I persist with a degree of determination that would be better spent on cleaning my poor home. But that is of little value to me except to use as a battering ram when I begin to like myself a wee bit.

"Oh sure, how can you feel good about yourself when you pay no attention to your home. You abandon it for any whim that comes along so don't think you are all that, girl!"

So I take the obligatory guilt and shame trip and even organize a completely  irrelevant drawer or two before distraction takes over and I am blowing bubbles for the cats or playing a game on the ipad. 

I do have plans, mind you. I plan to paint and pull up carpet and rid the house of clutter and scrub the deck and buy things in matching colors. That is what I need. I need a color scheme. Then I realize that I could give a fig about a color scheme and the front tires on my car are nearly bald and I return to other , more intriguing ventures that are, for the most part void of value. I spend an inordinate amount of time remembering dates and times of appointments or looking for my glasses or my phone. I lose the memory of where I place items the moment I let go of them. I am either quite smart or the village idiot and I'll be darned if I know which one I am or if I care for that matter.

Another day...

Standing at a high point looking out over the ocean all the way to the horizon, straining to see a little further reminds me of the place in me that only God can fill. There is always a tension of being away from home, watching to get a glimpse of home's distant shore with a delicate homesickness pulling at my heart. It permeates every breath I take though I do not find it intrusive. Rather, I find it hopeful. I am gone from home for a time such as this and I long for home with sweet abandon yet I know this is where I am meant to be for now. At the most poignant of those moments when I feel the joy of a future reunion I think I cannot bear the wait but my Father comforts me. He comforts me and sends me back into this world to live this life He gave me. Sometimes this home, the here and now, feels pulled by an aggressive gravity bearing down heavily. I wonder if I can stand or fully breathe. The mystery that lightens the burden is for me to stop trying to stand or fully breathe. At the exact moment I choose to abandon the effort and stop trying to save myself the gravity releases me. I find myself free