and the horse you rode in on

other than 2010 (AKA "the year of the flood") i have never been so ready to bid adieu to year in my life.  that year was full of tangible loss, you know them by now...say it with me...job, house, car, all my belongings but the worst losses were the unquantifiable:  the safe, secure place called "home," the "amy" i used to be, the ease of pre-flood life, the "normal" that was so easy to take for granted.

 

but 2013 has been a year of loss so unquantifiable and so hard that it's given 2010 a run for its money.  the first week of the year came with a surprising (at least for me) cancer diagnosis for my maternal grandfather.  by the second week of april, 6 days after my 39th birthday, he was gone. 

 

my great-aunt, only 9 years my mothers senior, died in may, followed in august by my maternal grandmother (rather unexpectedly.)  my paternal grandmother died just last month at age 96.  in 7 months time i lost 3 grandparents and a great-aunt to whom i was very close.

 

my grandparents (all 4 of them) were instrumental in my life.  almost all of my good memories of childhood took place in their homes.  i didn't have the sanest of childhood homes and my grandparents were saviors.  we relied on them for money, time, a safe place and some normalcy. 

 

i feel rather like an orphan with 2 living parents.

 

the last month of the year came with surgery for 2 of my 3 pets:  winston the pug and moxie the cat.  only kentucky the cat was spared.  they, all 3, are fine and healthy now though we still have to have stiches removed for winston and moxie.  also, i'm recovering from a nasty bout of the flu.  all in all i'd rather the year be in the rearview!

 

grace and peace and hope for a better 2014

no words of my own

i have nothing to say today at all but i just wanted to share a beautiful poem from mary oliver:

 

march

 

there isn't anything in this world but mad love.  not in this world.  no tame love, calm love, mild love, no so-so love.  and, of course, no reasonable love.  also there are a hundred paths through the world that are easier than loving.  but, who wants easier?  we dream of love, we moon about, thinking of romeo and juliet, or tristan, or the lost queen rushing away over the irish sea, all doom and splendor.  today, on the beach, an old man was sitting in the sun.  i called out to him, and he turned.  his face was like an empty pot.  i remember his tall, pale wife; she died long ago.  i remember his daughter-in-law.  when she died, hard, and too young, he wept in the streets.  he picked up pieces of wood, and stones, and anything else that was there, and threw them at the sea.  oh, how he loved his wife.  oh, how he loved young Barbara.  i stood in front of him, not expecting any answer and yet not wanting to pass without some greeting.  but his face had gone back to whatever he was dreaming.  something touched me, lightly, like a knife-blade.  i felt i was bleeding, though just a little, a hint.  inside i flared hot, then cold.  i thought of you.  whom i love, madly.  



7 days and counting...

i am not good at anniversaries.  i overthink them and dread them and remember them to a fault.  today is one week since i buried my grandmother.  today has been beyond sad for me. 

 

i feel the weight of all my recent, and not so recent, losses.  there are plenty to remember and i don't intend to rehash them now.  i just need to acknowledge that i am tired and sad and that i feel like i should be able to call "time out" and keep myself from having to face any more loss.  as we all know, life doesn't work that way even when it seems more than fair to wish for such a thing! 

 

grace and peace

is it just me?

i finished a book today and now i get to go through my all-time favorite ritual:

 

first - i write down the name of the book just read on my "books read" list.

 

second - i wander through the house picking up 7 or 8 books i think might be "the one."

 

third -  i read the backs or inside covers of all of them.

 

fourth - i weed out a couple based on similarity to the last book read, subject matter or my general mood.

 

fifth - i consider what i've been thinking about or influenced by that day, e.g. today i saw a college professor of mine so i'm thinking i might choose a book on the civil war, i also talked with a customer about presidential biographies so i might read a kennedy book in my stack in honor of the anniversary we have this week, i've been listening to willie nelson for the last 2 days almost non-stop so i might choose a music biography, the last 3 things i read were all fiction so i might go with non-fiction, etc.

 

i know i can't be the only "book person" who gets ultra-excited about what to read next, right?

 

grace and peace

1917-2013

mildred lehr crownover bradford

 

a week ago today i lost my grandmother:  the world is a little less sweet, a lot less funny and infinitely less righteous!  she was the strongest person i’ve ever known. she lost her mother at 4, moved around from family member to family member as her father worked to support his second wife and his 6 children.  she married and had 5 children of her own – 2 of whom she outlived. it’s not natural to outlive your children but she told me that she just figured that’s the way life was:  young people die before their time and we have to go on.  she outlived my grandfather, her henry, by 17 years.  she helped raise all 7 of her grandchildren and loved her 8 great-grandchildren beyond compare! 

she believed in God above all else and was comforted by His Word and His love to an extent that i will aspire to my entire life.  she could quote scripture as well as she could the children’s rhymes she learned as a child. even in her 96^th year she quoted rhymes and poems we had never heard her say.  it was amazing.  she was amazing!

i never visited that she didn’t make me laugh and ask me to “stay all night” with her though i had a home, at times, less than 5 miles away.  she loved peanuts and chocolate and peanuts covered in chocolate more than any food save potato chips.  she sang hymns while she cooked, did dishes, ironed the sheets, etc.  if she had never done anything to remember except the way she treated daddy it would be enough.  She never ate a meal that she didn’t say, “did buddy (joe) get enough to eat?,”  he was never out of her sight that she didn’t wonder, “where’s buddy?”  “is buddy here?”  “did buddy leave?”  he didn’t.  he was there for the last 15 years of her life.  he was with her as she took her last breath.  and he was by my side as i cried and cried and cried. 

i will miss her all my life.  she was the world to me. i praise God for her 96 faithful years. 

grace and peace  

 

save the ta-tas

a few weeks ago i noticed some sharp pains in my right breast.  then last week i noticed a burning/stinging pain on the underside of the same breast.  i did some online research while waiting for my numerous phone calls to be returned.  the good news:  breast cancer rarely presents with pain.  the bad news: i'm uninsured, not 40 (though i am 39 years, 6 months and 3 weeks old) and poor. 

 

it took 3 hours at the neighborhood clinic, an exam and a week before i was able to get a referral to yet another clinic.  i  go in the morning for a mammogram and possibly an ultrasound (to the tune of $400).  THIS is why we need the ACA.

 

if i didn't have a little money in the bank from my grandmother's estate i would be unable to get these tests.  it's abhorrent to me that i might die before i could get these tests just because i'm 6 months too young.  i'm 39.  my grandmother had a double-mastectomy at 39.  my aunt had breast cancer in her 20s. 

 

no matter, i will pay the $400 and get health insurance in january whether i have breast cancer (AKA a pre-existing condition) or not.

 

take THAT republicans!

 

grace and peace

 

the princess and the pea

a little more than three years ago when i moved back into this house after the flood i moved in a set of $25 mattresses that my mother bought at a yard sale.  i've slept on them nearly every night and EVERY night that i slept on them i was reminded that they weren't MINE.  they didn't feel like mine, they didn't sleep like mine, they weren't mine.

 

the first thing i wanted to do with a little money from my grandmother's estate was buy new mattresses.  i did.  my mother had to go shopping with me and daddy had to be here today as they were delivered but tonight i will sleep on MY OWN MATTRESSES!

 

nearly 3 1/2 years since the flood and things are still undone, in disrepair, unpainted, neglected and downright ignored but this one little thing is a BIG thing.  i spend so much time bemoaning the fact that everything i own is a replacement for something i lost and while that is true and disconcerting i hope i will not feel that way when i lie down tonight.  it's gonna get cold tonight and the dog and cats and i are gonna pile up in our new bed and start a new book. 

 

grace and peace