another hard anniversary

i don't even know how to put this day into words.  one year ago today, as things were ramping up with the virus, i left the store on what would be the last "normal" day.  it's so strange to remember what that time was like.  we all knew things were about to change.  the store had a very good week because folks were stocking up on books to read for the inevitable shelter-in-place order. (if only we had known what was coming.)

i got my first COVID symptoms just 5 days later.  some of the next days and weeks are hazy at best.  i was sick for several weeks.  tests were scarce then; i didn't officially test positive until mid-april.  businesses in nashville weren't allowed to reopen until mid-may.  i had to wait another week or so to get a negative test.  

i knew by then that my new landlord was not going to renew my lease and that i had to be out of the store by june 30.  i had just 6 weeks to sell what i could and pack and store everything else.  i scheduled appointments with regulars and first-timers too.  gone were the days of walk-in customers.  

the dream of my lifetime was coming to a swift end.  

it's impossible to describe what the store meant to me.  to walk in there every morning and see the fruits of my labor, to leave every night and say, "goodnight bookshop" like i was talking to a friend, was what i always wanted.

there is nothing like the feeling of having a complete stranger come in and have a good time, compliment the curated selection, the music playlist, the décor, spend a few minutes talking about their favorite book, get a recommendation and buy a few books.  that will always be my greatest professional achievement.  i don't expect anything to ever rival that feeling.  i miss it every day.  

i don't know what the future holds for me.  i try to be grateful that i got to live my dream for a little while.  but today it really hurts. 

grace and peace and bookstores forever  

the official countdown

got the official word today that the new owners of the building want to renegotiote a new lease when mine expires in june BUT that my rent will double.

so they (a university-my alma mater) "want" me to stay but they intend to make it impossible to do so.  they will, within the next 2 years, tear down this 100 year old building and build shiny, new, soulless, generic buildings in its place but they can't continue to rent to me in the meantime at my current rate?  they have to double the rent?

no, they don't have to.  they choose to.  the university representative said that if i leave they won't rent the space to someone else they will just move in some existing university employees.  so it will become office space and they won't make any money at all.  still, that's preferable to them than cashing my rent check and keeping an alumna-owned small business on the block.

it's not hard to tell that i'm angry about this.  i'm also greif-stricken and anxious about it.  i have some time before i have to let them know what i intend to do but there's only one answer:  i have to close.  there is no way i can pay more.  there is no way i can afford rent anywhere else in nashville.  so the dream is ending.  it's heartbreaking.

i have to stop thinking about it tonight.  it's exactly what i knew was going to happen so it's not at all a surprise.  it just starts the countdown in an official way.  on june 30th...i'm done.  

lent begins tomorrow and i haven't spent any time on my plan for observing.  some years i give up something.  some years i add something.  this year i have no idea how to do either and sustain it for 40 days.  i'm already overwhelmed. 

i'm gonna fall into bed and pray for sleep!

grace and peace  

lazy sunday

full disclosure:  i had plans to go to church this morning (as i plan to do every sunday morning) and then to attend a meeting at daddy's church-a biblical seminar on grief-at 1:00 BUT all i've done is walk the dog, eat toast for breakfast and finish my re-read of the fourth harry potter book.  i've also read my bible study for the day and spent a good deal of time in prayer.

now i'm watching a hockey game while waiting on the titans game to start.  i have a full day tomorrow: therapy, haircut, meeting a friend for coffee, grocery store.  i'm so exhausted these days that i need one day a week that i don't have to leave the house.  when i have no plans on monday i have an easier time getting to church. i'm making it to my wednesday night class without fail but i'm struggling with getting to church sunday mornings.  i get home saturday night so stressed out and exhausted that i'm useless until about supper time sunday night (i'm a night-owl).  

january at the store has been abysmal.  it's wearing on me like it hasn't before.  i don't know if it's because, with the sale of the building, i know my days/months are numbered or what but it's killing me.  it's obvious that the neighborhood in which i'm located can no long support a bookstore.  it's obvious that the new owners of the buiding see no value in a bookstore being there.  

it's so hard to know this 100 year old building with so much history - that is so loved by the neighborhood - is going to be destroyed.  anyway, i'm angry about it.  i'm angry that the city is changing so much.  i'm angry that the neighborhood is changing so much.  i'm angry at the people who don't come in.  i'm angry at the people who do come in, compliment the store in such glowing terms then wish me luck and walk out without buying anything.  i'm angry at more than that but you get the drift.  

i'm angry and that makes me tired.  being angry is so taxing and destructive.  i don't want to spend the last few months that i get to live my dream being so angry.  i'm trying really hard (hence all my time in prayer) to enjoy the positive things: the genuine interactions, the in depth, nerdy book talks, the compliments, etc.  i want to appreciate those while i still have them.  i do know that when this is over that those are the things that will comfort me. that those are the things i will look back on in the days and years to come when i tell people about what it was like to own my own piece of heaven - a used bookstore.

grace and peace

    

my brain feels full

i'm tired, y'all.  very tired.  i took 4 days off at new year's but don't feel rested.  i opened the bookstore sunday to do inventory and year end paperwork.  i was hopeful that since dorms were opening that i would sell some books but that didn't happen.  i was so disappointed to see my 2019 sales and final numbers that i was near tears when i left.

i had a good therapy appointment monday morning and a decent day off.  i feel a little more settled after a productive day today but i don't know how much more of this i can take.  i stopped to pick up dinner on the way home because there is nothing here to eat that i don't have to cook.  while waiting i saw a news story about the peril that nashville retail is in.  listen, i don't need to see it on the news.  i'm living it.

the building sold, my lease is up in june, but i'm not even sure i can make it that long.  the stress is likely having some serious negative effects on me.  but how would i know?  how would i know?  

i'm sick at the thought of closing but i know it's my only option.  in my best moments i comfort myself by repeating a few things that i know for sure:  "it's nothing you did," "you've worked so hard!," "you did a hard thing," "most people never get to live their dream and you did!" in my worst moments it's dark.  it's miserable and it's not worth repeating.  i'm tired and i'm sad and i'm angry.  

i don't know how this ends.  anything can happen.  i try to just go day to day but i'm really not good at it.  i know that i will survive this.  i know that i've survived worse.  i still want to avoid it.  i want to keep my store and avoid the pain and stress of losing it.  i want to avoid job interviews and a boss and co-workers.  i want to avoid feeling like a failure and starting over... AGAIN.  i want to work hard and do a service and be rewarded for it.  i don't want to do any of this.

if you pray...pray for me.

grace and peace

  

reflection

as this year/decade comes to a close i realize that i haven't written on this blog in more than a year.  it's been a blur.  the life of a small business owner, i suppose.  december is so busy that christmas comes and goes without my noticing (except that i get a day off on the 25th).  so, i didn't even consider that a new year was upon us until i started seeing social media posts about the decade ending.

that's when it hit me - this decade has been a bitch and i'm glad to see it go.  but it has also been ten years of...growth...maybe.  it begin with me in a job i didn't love but that provided me a good living, i owned a home, had a couple of dogs and a cat.  it was okay.

the flood in may of 2010 changed everything - i lost everything.  every thing.  but the most important thing i lost was me.  the trauma changed me.  it damaged me.  i know now that it also set me free.  in the best way it taught me to have no attachment to things but in the worst way it taught me to have no attachment - period.  

may-oct 2010 we rebuilt the house.  oct. 2010-june 2012 i was nearly paralyzed with anxiety and rarely left the house.  in 2011 i lost an aunt to cancer.  i started working in june 2012 at a local used bookstore and while i still suffered from severe PTSD i was able to go to work.  in 2013 i lost my 3 remaining grandparents and a great-aunt in 7 months.  i stayed there until 2014 then went to work at a friend's jewelry store where i learned a lot about sales and business and customer service.  

in august 2015 daddy was diagnosed with stage 4 lunch cancer and he died in april of 2016.  it was, is and remains the hardest thing i will ever go through.  i'd often heard people talk about the "club" you join after losing a parent.  i've heard people say you don't really become an adult until you lose a parent.  i'm afraid it's true.  it's the most untethered to life i've ever felt in a life that has felt full of floating just out of range of most people around me.  

almost immediately i opened my first bookstore (daddy never got to see it open but he was there when we painted the walls). upon reflection it's obvious i wasn't capable then of the stamina or drive i needed.  it's also obvious that i opened in a neighborhood unprepared to sustain a used bookstore. i was incapable of taking care of myself at the time and stopped paying all my bills and called my mortgage company and told them to take my house.  i didn't want it anymore - it had tried to kill me and i wasn't staying there one more night and i wasn't paying one more dime.  i was lucky that my mother had inherited a house from her aunt that was sitting empty so i took the dog and 2 cats and moved.  i left behind about 3/4 of my meager belongings because i didn't want anything that had ever been inside that house. i eventually filed bankruptcy (on just one credit card a credit union line of credit) to avoid foreclosure.  they foreclosed anyway. 

the presidential election later that year sent me into months of depression and grief that i had not had time to process.  i went to work but i talked to no one.  i moved my store to a temporary location in april 2017 for 6 months at the end of my first year-long lease.  i worked at the bookstore 1-2 days a week, at the jewelry store a couple of days a week and for a jewelry designer 3 days a week. i moved my house in may 2017.  i went to bed each night exhausted, sometimes hungry and always in mourning.

in novemeber 2017 i opened full-time in my permanent bookstore location.  my lifelong dream realized!  it's been a difficult run.  the neighborhood, in fact the city, is changing so fast and all retail is having a hard time adjusting.  the retail book business is especially hart-hit. in april 2018 i moved houses again. in april 2019 i lost my perfect, sweet, hilarious pug winston and i wanted to stop.  i wanted to refuse to go on.  i wanted to shout to the heavens that i'm tired of losing.  that last one i did.  the others i can't do.  that lost was the only of the many losses that made me feel as hopeless and as helpless as the loss of daddy.    

just last month the building in which i rent for the bookstore was sold to the university across the street.  my days/months are numbered.  there isn't any affordable commercial rent in nashville in the areas i could make a go of it.  i'm faced with another loss that doesn't feel possible to survive.  

i do know that i will survive it because i've survived all the rest but i'm sure beaten down by them.  i don't always know what to do with myself over them.  i'm not sure why i've suffered so many.  i try to repeat to myself a line from M*A*S*H that is 100% true.  BJ, in despair over what he's missing with his wife and daughter while away in a war, lashes out at margaret and hawkeye because with them being unmarried they can't understand his pain.  margaret says, "maybe you do have the most to lose but that's only because you've got the most." 

maybe i've lost so much because i had the most.

this is a long haul; thanks for sticking with me.

grace and peace

what we owe our boys

reflecting today on what is happening in our society and in our schools.  we absolutely have a gun problem in this country. i don't want to write about that today, i've written about that ad nauseam and i've argued it ad nauseam.  i want to talk about what we teach to our children (full disclosure - i don't have kids) specifically what we teach our boys.  

these schools shooters are almost always boys and almost always white.  why is that?  what are we teaching (or not teaching) our boys?  there seems to be a pattern in the past of these young men - they are almost always obsessed with guns and violent video games, they are almost always bullied in some way, they almost always exhibit violent behavior against women in their lives.  likely they seek fame and infamy in a culture where we glorify killers and give hours and days of 24 hour news coverage to these mass murderers.

what i believe is that we teach our boys (systematically and mostly unconsciously) that the world is theirs, that they can be anything and do anything, that girls are objects of their desire and for their pleasure, that they are special, that they are superior, that they are strong, that they are entitled.

what we don't teach them is that they are part of a community of "others," that the world is not solely theirs, that they WILL be disappointed, that they will be broken-hearted, that they will be scared. we call them "sissies" and "pussies" and "wusses" and "girls" when they show emotion or drop a ball or show vulnerability.  we tell them they "run like a girl" when they lose.  we instill in them that girls are weak and that they should be strong and therefore dominant. 

we don't let them be boys, we don't let them figure it out on their own, we don't let them grow, we don't teach them how to be in touch with their emotions.  we make them angry, we call them names, we tell them they have to "man up." we ply them with video games in which they earn points for the number of prostitutes they kill (grand theft auto) and then we give them easy and almost unfettered access to guns.  what in the world do we think they are going to do?  we've given them no coping mechanisms in which to deal with the hard world we all live in.  entitlement is a killer.  we've seen it 18 times this year alone.      

when is the time?

if now is not the time, when is the time?  if it's "too early" to talk about sane gun laws when will it be too late?

NOW IS THE TIME!  for many kids there will not be a later time.  

another year over

all i can think about today is that somehow, through no effort of my own, i have lived a whole calendar year on this planet without my daddy. when he died i didn't think i would live through the end of that day.  i was so surprised when i woke up the next morning.  i still have a hard time understanding how my heart continues to beat while his doesn't.  

i have hated most of this year but i could at least say, "last year daddy was here."  tomorrow i won't be able to say that anymore and it HURTS!

i got nothing else.

i'm still here

well, i'm still here.  

it's been months since i've written.  the main reason for that is that i've been busy.  also, i took some months off from communication of any type unless it was absolutely necessary.  i've moved, i've moved the store, i'm preparing to move the store AGAIN!  

i've been feeling extra-anxious lately.  the new house (i'm renting a small house) has some moisture issues.  and now there's a hurricane and the resulting flooding in houston and all the thoughts, feelings and memories come rushing back (they are never gone) but seeing the pictures that i try very hard to avoid make it so much harder!

i'm very happy to report to that i'm moving the bookstore to a prime location (where the bookstore i used to manage was) and it should finally allow me to support myself living my dream.  there's some anxiety that goes along with that but i'm feeling positive about it overall.

can't explain how much i wish daddy were here to see all of this!  i miss him to my core.  the grief is terrible!

grace and peace

some hard words about grief (from a Christian perspective)

first, i am a Christian.  i believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ and i believe that i will spend eternity with him in heaven.  i believe the Holy Spirit lives inside me.  i believe God is my Father and wants a relationship with me.

second, i believe that grief HURTS and that doubt is okay.  i believe that pain is real and that anxiety is not an affliction of the weak. 

third, i believe that as Christians we are guilty of using trite, feel-good expressions of support that undermine the grief people feel when they lose a part of themselves. 

in august 2015 my father was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer.  he lived 8 months and left this earth on april 14, 2016.  a little background:  i’m 42, single, never married, a college graduate, a small business owner, an animal lover, a music lover, a book hoarder (i own a used book store) and a terrible guitar player.  i’m a loner, a near-hermit, i can go days (weeks) without other people and as long as i have my pets and my books i’m fine.  this blog is my clumsy way of working though some of the things in my life post-flood, post-PTSD diagnosis, post-learning to live life with sometimes crippling anxiety.

daddy was my all-time favorite person.  i’m southern and we southern girls are born and raised to worship our daddies.  he wasn’t perfect but he was sure wonderful. he had 4 kids and he lived his life so that he could be there for us whenever and however we needed him. 

when he died i felt, and feel, utterly lost.  this world, which makes little sense to me anyway, makes NO sense now.  i was in the process of opening my bookstore in the last months of his life.  he wanted to see me open.  he didn’t but he did get to see the space and be there as we painted and prepared.  he saw pictures and was so thrilled for me.  i postponed the opening but was open about 3 weeks after his death. 

i now work 3 jobs.  since he died, i spoke at his memorial service, opened the store, moved, filed bankruptcy and finally had a break down.  a couple of weeks ago i had numerous panic attacks in a 3 day span and couldn’t get out of bed let alone get to work.  i spent those 3 days crying in bed and avoiding everything and everybody i could.  when asked, i told people i missed daddy so much i was physically sick.  what i heard was:  "he’s in a better place", "he was a Christian", "he was in pain – you wouldn’t want him back in pain would you?", "he loved you", "you’ll see him again", etc, ad nauseam. 

i know all these things.  what i want acknowledged is this:  when someone precious dies the person left behind grieves in their own way.  what i want people to hear is that all these things (while true) DON’T HELP ME AT ALL.  see, his pain in over BUT MINE ISN’T.  he’s in heaven, BUT I’M STUCK HERE IN THIS COLD, HARD WORLD WITHOUT HIM.  my grief is for ME.  yes, there are times when i grieve for the things he will miss – seeing his grandchildren grow up, seeing the new peyton manning commercial, seeing hillary clinton wipe up the floor with donald trump in november – but what i really grieve is what i lost. 

if i ever do get married, he won’t be with me, when i’m sick he’s not here to take care of me, when one of our favorite M*A*S*H episode is on I CAN’T CALL HIM!  I DON’T WANT TO HEAR how selfish i am to grieve.  grieving is not selfish, it isn’t weak.   it isn’t something to be glossed over by saying things like “it gets better.”  maybe it gets better for others but right now i can’t guarantee it’ll get better for me.  he’s only been gone 5 months and i have every right to feel how i feel. 

again, if you don’t know what to say, just say, “i’m sorry.”

i will glory in seeing daddy in heaven but while i’m still on this hostile planet i will miss him every day.  i will grieve for what i lost. and i damn sure won’t apologize for it.

grace and peace and grief

catching up

haven't felt like writing for a while.  life is exponentially different these days. 

my wonderful daddy died in april.  for so long my life has been defined by "before the flood" and "after the flood" but now it's "before daddy got sick" and "after daddy got sick."  he was the most important person in my life.  having him gone has opened a whole in my heart that can't be closed. 

he went to the ER on august 20, 2015 and was diagnosed with lung cancer before that day was done.  he lived 8 months.  they were a hard but wonderful 8 months.  i miss him every minute of every day! 

since then i've undergone many a change.  i opened a business (a used bookstore) i moved, i filed bankruptcy, i started a new job, i asked God to let me go to heaven to be with daddy, i asked him to have my business succeed, i asked him to show me how to live a life without daddy on this earth.  i seem to ask him something new everyday but as long as i'm talking to him i have faith that he will provide.

i don't know what life is supposed to be.  is it supposed to be a series of traumas to survive?  is it supposed to be a choice between the lesser of two evils?  is it supposed to be pain on top of pain?  i don't know.  i know that scripture tells us that hard times WILL come.  we aren't supposed to go through life pampered and pain-free.  the pain that comes is supposed to test us and make us rely on God.  i hope that i've done that. 

i know my faith is strong.  i know my daddy would want me to keep going.  i know that i will.

grace and peace.

6 years and counting

today is the 6th anniversary of the flood.  the day that changed my life beyond compare.  the day that i morphed into a jumpy, scared, fundamentally anxious ball of nerves.

today is worse in that daddy isn't here to comfort me.  i haven't been able to blog about the loss of my dear, sweet father - he's been gone less than 3 weeks.

i'm 2 days away from opening my own business, the dream of my lifetime, and he's not here to share that day either.  he was able to see the store and participate in the planning and the preparation.  last may 2 he came to my work to visit and check on me.  i faced today without him and it HURTS!

i'm tired and anxious and weepy.  i have lots of last minute things to do tomorrow and i just want to hide.  i want to stop, to shut down to hibernate. 

i want my daddy!

mourning david bowie

when i was young, 7 or 8, my older brother and i spent a lot of time listening to the beatles, the beach boys, jan and dean.  we loved music.  we both still do.

as i became a teenager and things at our house became harder and scarier we took refuge in music often, if not always.  we listened to all kinds.  i particularly took to prince, the stones and led zeppelin.  i can say with absolute certainty that led zeppelin saved my life on numerous occasions.  in high school and college it was U2, pearl jam and a lot of the beatles (always a mainstay).  i still love all these bands. 

after the flood, in the early days of PTSD and exhaustion, i had no TV and no internet.  all i did was listen to music.  the first cd i replaced after the flood was david bowie.  i was listening to all kinds of people along with those listed above, among them:  carole king, blondie, queen, sam cooke, sinatra, elvis, adele, springsteen.  but i listened to bowie EVERY DAY.  every single day.  

on the days that i was too terrified to even open the front door, let alone go out to walk the dog, i played bowie on the turntable.  on the few days i was confident enough to take a long walk i listened to bowie on my ipod.  on the days i was able to go somewhere i listened to bowie in the car. 

bowie saved my life.  when i heard about his death on monday i was crushed.  not having known he was sick it was such a blow.  i ache for his family.  i mourn for a world without him.  selfishly, i mourn for a man i didn't know but that saved me.

RIP starman!

empathy and sympathy

when i was a teenager my house was not a happy one.  i relied on friends for a lot.  one friend in particular who lived fairly close by.  her father was the chief of police in our small town.  i spent an awful lot of time in her house.  they fed me when there wasn't food in my house, they were kind to me when there was no kindness in my house, they treated me like i was one of them when there was no place for belonging in my house.

i mourn with my friend today.  her daddy died of cancer today. 

watching my own daddy go through all he's been through in the last 4 1/2 months with cancer makes it hit even closer to home.

thank you, dean, for everything.  RIP

day off

i thought i was gonna get to spend most of this 65 degree december day at home.  it's my day off.  had to go over to a friends house to help her catalog some books she's selling (if only i could buy them!) that's 4 hours.  then i was off to the vet to get orson the cat's glucose checked.  got there at 3 and at 3:30 the vet came in and asked if they could keep him until close - 6:00 - so they could check his glucose every hour. 

 

in my past life i would have gone to hang out in a bookstore or taken my book (in my purse) and gone to a coffee shop for 2 1/2 hours.  now, of course, the former is unthinkable and the latter is downright impossible.  my anxiety allows for none of that!  i came home, through heavy traffic, and watched M*A*S*H, read my book and missed orson.  fought my way back to the vet then home again through worse traffic.

 

orson has a UTI which might be interfering with his insulin (it's not been very effective lately) so he has antibiotics to add to the insulin regimen. 

 

when i was sitting at the vet at 6:10 i was pretty upset about losing my day.  but then i heard a woman crying in another room and realized her day was far and away worse than mine in that she lost her kitty or puppy today.  i don't know which but my heart breaks for her.  i've had to euthanize babies before and it's such a terrible loss.  i came home to my 3 animals and felt thankful.

 

tomorrow will come too soon as i now have 3 loads of clothes to wash and it's already 8:30. 

 

grace and peace

what now?

what do you do on the day you get bad news?

charleston, part III

this may be my the last diatribe on charleston but it may not be.

 

 open letter to the murderer:

 

we are all made in God’s image.  we are ALL His children.  to hurt another human is to disgrace God.  to believe, or at least pretend to believe, that another race (nationality, creed, ideology) is such a threat to you that it gives you the right to wipe them off the face of the earth is INSANITY.  it is hyperbole.  you, white man, are not in danger of becoming extinct.  the cradle of civilization contained brown-skinned people.  you, white man, are the process of evolution and migration. The further north we traveled the lighter our skin became for our protection.  you, white man, are from a darker-skinned tribe.  get over it.  we are all just exactly alike on the inside. what difference, outside of some made-up, fearful, hateful ideology, can it possibly make?

 

to use the language of the lynch mob and declare, “you rape our women” before opening fire on innocents shows your twisted mindset.  guess what, white women aren’t YOURS!  we are not in need of your twisted protection from the black man. the protection we need, not just women, but the world, is protection from the thinking, teaching, violence and hatred in the hearts and minds of people like you!

 

may God have mercy on your soul.

 

may God have mercy on us all.

 

grace and peace

charleston, part II

i have a few more thoughts about what happened this week in charleston: do i think this is about guns?  yes.  i think any time a person in shot down in anger it's a good time to talk about our gun culture and the availability of weapons but i honestly don't see our intransigence crumbling after one more tragedy. and really my point is that this isn't about guns this is about racism (let's call it what it is: hatred).  this is about a man who indoctrinated himself or was indoctrinated by others (i suspect a bit of both) to hate.  it's the classic "us vs. them".  you see, this world is not about "us vs. them". no matter who the "us" or the "them".  this world is not about black vs. white, muslim vs. jew, male vs. female, catholic vs. protestant, sunni vs. shia, gay vs. straight, indigenous vs. pilgrim, urban vs. suburban vs. rural.  this world is about DARKNESS vs. LIGHT (put another way SIN vs. GRACE).

 

choices – that is what this world is about.  good vs. bad, right vs. wrong.  we can choose darkness or we can choose light. God is not in darkness. He is not in hatred. He is not in fear. He IS in the hearts of the families of the viciously murdered when they can, just a few short days later, say that there is not hatred in their hearts for the murderer. He is in forgiveness and love. God is love.

grace and peace

charleston, part I

below is facebook post one regarding the shooting of nine innocent people in a house of worship:

 

i wish i could think of something to say about what happened in charleston last night that would make a difference, that would make people think about racism, gun violence and our culture in a way they haven't before but i have nothing. absolutely nothing. this kind of thing just keeps happening and we just keep doing nothing. we'll shed a few tears, give a few dollars, debate the 'whys' and 'hows' and then the news coverage will fade and we will settle back into our safe,... easy, busy lives until the next mass shooting. then we'll act surprised and outraged that it happened again. we've got one maniac in colorado on trial for a mass shooting in a movie theatre and while that's in motion we get this one on the other side of the country shooting up a church. a church! but it's all the same. it's all hatred and pain and i'm sick of it. let's pray for the families and friends of the victims, let's pray for those shattered by the actions of someone they thought they knew, let's pray for this beloved country of ours that we will do a better job of teaching our children not to hate, that we will take greater care to treat mental illness, that we will pass reasonable gun legislation, that we will treat our brothers as we wish to be treated. all our brothers - the black ones, the gay ones, the muslim ones, the female ones, the poor ones, the homeless ones, the mentally ill ones, all God's children.

 

grace and peace

the great david letterman

in my childhood it was “M*A*S*H” (11 seasons) then it was “the cosby show” (8 seasons) “cheers,” (11 seasons) “frasier,” (11 seasons) “seinfeld” (9 seasons) and “friends” (10 seasons.)  because all of these live in syndication i’ve not missed them like i will miss david letterman. 

i remember at 9 or 10 years old, on those friday nights spent at my paternal grandparents’ house, getting up to watch while the rest of the house slept.  i’ve always been an insomniac and everyone slept too early for me so i would sneak out of bed at 11:30 with my brother and my cousins sleeping and turn the TV down real low, sit just inches from the screen and watch dave. 

 

i loved it:  larry bud melman and the man under the stairs, stupid pet tricks and paul shaffer, hello deli and biff henderson.  sometimes my brother got up to watch with me.  i loved that too.  i’ve watched dave for 33 years; i’m 41.  i’ve found myself crying every night as i watch his last season.  i cried with him after his heart surgery and i cried with him after 9/11.  i’ll cry with him tonight as he says goodbye.  i’m sentimental so my attachment to a person i’ve never met or seen in person isn’t that odd but because he's the man who made a scared, lonely little girl laugh every single night i desperately mourn his leaving. 

 

for an insomniac late night TV is a lifesaver.  when i was a teenager we didn’t have cable and we only got 4 channels, ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX.  FOX still went off the air at about midnight.  while dave was on NBC, and followed the tonight show, i had those 2 glorious hours to myself while everyone else was out or asleep.  he moved to CBS when i was in college.  i watched every night. 

 

i cannot imagine his absence.  i love stephen colbert and will watch his show but there will always be a part of me that mourns dave.

 

grace and peace and dave