PEACHES

Twenty-five years ago this past December my first husband died at work of a massive heart attack. It was as devastating as you would think it to be. We had just moved into a dream apartment. After a year or more of off and on jobs with his newly acquired electrician’s license he had found a steady job he liked. We had a three year old who was the center of our lives. It was the happiest time of our 9 yr. marriage.
We didn’t have cell phones or instant messaging in those days. I had spent the day out with a friend. Upon my return home I was met by a police officer. He told me that I was needed at the hospital. I left my son with a friend and rushed to the hospital.
I waited for what seemed like forever for the doctor to be free to talk to me. He took me behind a glass wall in full view of the entire emergency room. He broke the news. I asked to see my husband. I will never forget his reply- “Sure, I’ll call the morgue and have him sent up”. That hit like a ton of bricks!
I was led to a room. From the doorway I saw them unzip the bag that held the body that had been my husband, lover and friend. I knew that body better than I knew my own. I stood in the hallway unable to go in.
I felt as if the chalkboard that had the rest of my life’s plans on it was completely erased. What we were going to have for dinner that night to our plans for the weekend to our next vacation to 5 or 10 or 20 years away all revolved around an us not a me. Staring at that blank chalkboard in my mind was overwhelming and terrifying!
But here is the hardest part of it, not only did I not get to tell him good-bye, my last words to him had been angry words over the stupidest thing in the world- a can of peaches!
He was an extremely picky eater. I resented the hardship that caused. He would not eat fresh fruit but he did eat canned peaches. They were expensive and we were on a tight budget. I had just bought 3 cases of large dented canned peaches. I had hoped that they would last awhile. The night before he died, I had noticed that he had eaten an entire can by himself. I was sooo irritated! I laid into him about his selfishness and irresponsibility and probably anything else I could think of at the moment.
We went to bed angry. It was the last conversation we ever had. It took me a very long time to forgive myself. It was a hard way to learn a lesson. I have tried hard over the years to remember it.
However, a recent change in my husband’s diet has him eating canned peaches every night. He only likes one particular brand. They are expensive and we are on a budget. Recently, I found myself staring at canned peaches in the grocery aisle. I found myself getting a little pissy again. But luckily, I remembered!! I even started laughing at my self as I said, “Kathy, REALLY? PEACHES? Let it go.” I did.
That’s the view from my side of the street, what’s yours?

Where, oh, where was Wed's blog?

As many of you know, I have come kicking and screaming into the age of technology. In fact, a few decades ago, I lived with an outhouse, oil lamps and I pumped water with a hand pump. I loved it!! It’s still my dream to retire to such a place. There is a sense of serenity and calm that accompanies that lifestyle.
There is also a sense of destiny control. There are few unexpected events in such a life. The outhouse never plugs up, the water always flows, the stove that heats your home also bakes your bread and you are solely responsible for the wood that powers it. As long as you have oil you will have light. There are no washers, dryers, dishwashers or any other type of machine to break down. There are no huge electric bills, no fear of winter storms, you depend on you and your partnership with the natural world.
I was reminded of this when our area was unable to access the Internet for almost 18 hours. That is why there was no Wednesday blog. I had not realized the many ways I have become used to having the net available until it was gone. I hated it!
Of course, I thought the kids had done something to my computer. Then I thought that I had. I plugged and unplugged every single cord I could find. I turned everything off, waited, than turned everything back on again. I did that at least 5 times!
I clicked on icons and ended up in places I didn’t even know existed on my laptop. I went away and waited for several hours. I came back and did it all over again. I was breaking out in panic sweats when I finally decided to call my server. There was a recorded message instructing us to turn everything off, wait, than turn it all back on again. So I did- AGAIN!
I called the server again only to hear a new message. This message listed affected towns and begged us to be patient if we lived in those towns. At this point, I had spent hours working on the problem. I wondered how many others had spent hours that day trying to fix a problem that wasn’t even theirs. I knew that there had to be many out there that were a whole lot more stressed out than I was because they had no net access and let me tell you, I was pretty stressed out!
It was then I remembered life before I got plugged in- ahhhhhhhhhh! So to all those who dragged me into this, I still say technology does NOT make life easier!! It just fools us into thinking we can’t live without it and than we can’t!
That’s the view from my side of the street, what’s yours?

Hope

I was so inspired last week by the story of the young woman who suspected that she was a missing person. She checked it out and found out that she had been stolen as a baby. She and her birth family have been reunited.
Some of us remember the case very well. The newborn was removed from the maternity ward by a woman dressed as hospital personnel. It shocked the nation!! Believe it or not, prior to this episode, newborn wings were open to anyone. Whenever visiting people in the hospital, I would always go look at the babies. It brought such joy!
This case also violated the sense of safety we all felt about hospitals. Suddenly, the unthinkable became thinkable. It was this case that started the hospital lockdown procedures that we are all accustomed to today.
Our hearts broke as we watched the young mother plea for her daughter’s return. We wept as we held our own little ones and tried to imagine the horror she was going thru. We, as a nation, prayed for the safe return of the beautiful 3 day old girl.
Those prayers were answered! Not when she was still an infant as we had all hoped but as a grown young woman. It satisfies my sense of justice that the case that so changed the country should do so again! When she was stolen, it was an unheard of act. When she returned, it was also an almost unheard of act. Few of our missing children are actually ever found.
How much hope that brings to the world!!! Parents of missing children all over the world can grab hold of this and continue to hope that their family, too, will be reunited one day! This ray of hope’s light will keep them going for a little longer.
It brings hope to the rest of us as well. We all have some secret heartbreak that we carry with us. We all have something that went wrong that we want to be made right. This story said to me, “Be patient, it will happen.”
It’s also a happy ending and we can’t have too many of those, can we? That’s the view from my side of the street, what’s yours?

Oil in our Lamps

There is a story in the Bible about ten women waiting for the bridegroom to show at a wedding. It was the custom of that day for guests to wait outside for the groom to show. All ten women had brought their oil lamps with them but only ten had brought extra oil. The five who didn’t have the extra oil ran out and asked the others to share theirs but they replied that they could not.
My head has always understood this story. If the five shared their oil they would also run short and be caught unprepared when the bridegroom came. I understood that the oil represented our faith and knowledge. The story tells us that some of us will be prepared for the groom’s coming and some of us will not.
In my young adult days, this story was a point of discussion on a number of occasions with some good friends. We tossed our ideas around like a ball. We always came out of these discussions feeling like we truly understood the concept of this story. And we did- in our heads. It has taken quite awhile for our hearts to finally get it.
Growth, learning, maturing, whatever you want to call our life journey, is a process that takes time and many lessons. Learning is like an ogre -it has many layers. And it is IMPOSSIBLE to share those many layers of learning with someone else in a few moments of time.
How can you impart everything you’ve learned about parenting to a new mother and father in a few moments? How can a couple married for 60 years teach everything they’ve learned about marriage to a young newly wed couple? How does an expert electrician, carpenter, plumber, etc. train someone new to the profession to take over his job in one day? It simply can’t be done!
The student must be ready to learn, he must be prepared, he must be willing but even if he is all these things there are some things that can only be experienced to be learned. It’s impossible to tell first time parents how much this baby will change their lives. It’s impossible to tell them how much they will love this unknown child before it is born. But they will understand after.
I know a young man who has been highly trained to be a sniper in the Army. He has had countless hours of teaching. He has been declared an expert marksman. But he has not had to kill anyone yet. No amount of training can fully prepare him for how he will feel when that time comes.
Life is our training field- we can not at the end of it, borrow someone else’s oil. It is up to each one of us to collect our own oil by making the most of our experiences here. And I really don’t think that pointing our fingers at someone else while we say, “They didn’t share!!” is going to cut it, do you?
That’s the view from my side of the street, what’s yours?

Grummie

Wow! Our brains are amazing things! This fact was driven home last week as I was rummaging thru my favorite antique/junk store. One of my daughters was with me. This store has so much stuff in a relatively small space that progress is slow and deliberate. It actually gives one the feeling of treasure hunting. I love it.
As we were making our slow but steady search I turned a corner, saw an item and exclaimed excitedly, “Look, it’s a grummie!!” My daughter was a bit taken aback as was the shopkeeper. But neither of them was more shocked than I!
Let me explain a little- when my brother was little he had a favorite toy. It was a stuffed Captain Kangaroo. I guess I’d better introduce those of my readers NOT of the Captain Kangaroo era to him. He was a very long running children’s TV character. He actually started on the radio during the Howdy Doody times. He was beloved by several generations of children.
Back to my brother, he and this toy were inseparable. You know, like Woody and Andy. He had named him Grummie. We never knew why. Grummie was the center of his universe for many years. Because he was a younger brother it became a big part of my universe also. Many of my childhood hours were spent finding Grummie.
Here’s the thing, if you had asked me what my brother’s favorite toy was I probably would have drawn a blank. If you had asked me what he had named his favorite toy, I would have gently explained to you that I spend a good part of every day trying to find the place I last set down my water bottle. I then would have told you that I have purchased a number of reading glasses to be placed near the areas I might be needing them. This was done because I was sick over the lost hours maybe years of my life spent looking for them.
In short, I would have answered, “How the heck do you expect me to remember that?” But there was a stuffed Captain Kangaroo on a crowded shelf and without even thinking about it, I shouted out, “Look it’s a Grummie!”
I have suspected that our brains hold everything we ever put into them before. When driving in the car one day, someone said they wanted a Big Mac. I instantly started chanting the Big Mac song- twoallbeefpaattiesspecialsaucelettucecheesepicklesonionsonasesameseedbun. My kids thought I’d gone insane. I had visions of me sitting in the corner of some nursing home muttering these words over and over. People would pass by saying “Poor old soul- does anyone know what she’s talking about?”
These fleeting glimpses into the recessed closets of my mind give me hope that all is not lost! Looking forward to the day I die, I see myself on the other side suddenly remembering all that I had forgotten. I think of the character in “Peter Pan” who found his missing marbles and danced with joy. I’ll even remember all the “safe” places I put things in. Of course it won’t do me any good but it’ll be nice to know.
That’s the view from my side of the street, what’s yours?

Who took the TP from the TP roll?

OK, somebody please tell me why I am the only one in the house that appears to be qualified to put toilet paper on the holder? Does it require special knowledge? Does it require special training? Does it require a stinking degree- pun intended?
I have always made sure that there is an ample supply of toilet paper usually within reach of the toilet. I have lectured endlessly on the benefits of replacing an empty TP roll especially for the next person to need it. I have even reminded those concerned of the enjoyment we have experienced by using the empty cardboard tubes for dozens of things.
When my large family was all living at home, I thought that maybe it was too easy to create plausible deniability. “Don’t know, wasn’t me!” works very well in large groups. It is rather hard to narrow the field down and actually catch the culprit.
This doesn’t work as well in small numbers but it is still the old standby. When asking the above “expert” question of my husband this week, he replied, “I don’t know. I’m at work all week. It wasn’t me!” It’s OUR OWN bathroom! No one else uses it! Does he really think he can pin it on me? Apparently so.
My youngest daughter will not use TP rather than replace the roll. At a visit to one of my son’s, he came out of the bathroom she had just used and declared that she had forgotten to flush (she had pooped). He said, “I’m not sure what bothers me most- the fact that she didn’t flush or the fact that there was no TP in the bowl!”
I used to think this was just a family affliction. Not so! When I had my cleaning business I had two single clients that never replaced the TP roll. Each one would get the new roll out to use but NEVER put it on the holder. One was a male doctor in his 60’s. The other was a female postal worker in her 40’s. That blew any of my gender, age, education theories out of the water! I finally asked the woman why. She really didn’t know.
So, if anyone out there knows of some government or university study that explains this phenomenon. Please let me know. I’m sure there is some significant motivation behind the action or more accurately the lack of action but until I learn differently I’ll continue to suspect laziness and selfishness. That’s the view from my side of the street, what’s yours?

Good Samaritans???

Two years ago, our small town world was hit with tragedy. We lost four young adults to a drunk driver. They were on the way home from a church dance. He was on his way home too. He had been driving and drinking all day. He had almost completed a 12 hour road trip.
His vehicle rear ended theirs at 70mph, pushing it head first into a cement containment wall. All four died instantly. The car had to be towed somewhere to be dismantled to remove the bodies. He had no severe injuries.
The four young adults were good friends. Two of them were engaged to each other and planning a wedding that was to be held in 6 weeks. The drunk driver was a multiple offender. The community was out for blood! The local DA charged him with four accounts of murder.
I knew the family of the victims well so I saw and felt the damage up close and personal . Everyone was devastated and angry that this man had not been taken off the roads a lot sooner.
Fast forward a year, I’m in the truck with my husband, Brent. We stop at a convenience store. I am walking the dog across the parking lot to a small bit of grass. I pass by a car. The driver’s door is open. The driver is unconscious, his top half hanging out of the car. His bottom half is still in driving position in the car. I can’t tell if he is old or young, dead or alive.
I hurry back to the truck to get my husband for backup. He’s on the phone. He tells me to get someone from the store. Ok, I hurry to the store. It takes a few minutes for the kid that was night supervisor to comprehend what I am telling him. Finally, he accompanies me to the car.
He taps the man on the shoulder several times. The man awakes, it becomes obvious that he is incredibly drunk and probably stoned. He is disoriented and dysfunctional. The manager heads back into the store. I assume that he is calling the police. I wait with the man. We talk. I try to orient him. I tell him that he was passed out. I stand against the open door physically trying to keep him from leaving. I try to get his keys from the ignition. I beckon to my husband to come because at this point the man is threatening to do me bodily harm.
I finally jump out of the way as he roars out of the parking lot very narrowly missing the gas pumps and two other vehicles. The manager comes out talking on the phone. I holler to him, “Tell the police which direction he’s going so they can stop him before he kills himself or someone else!!”
He looks at me blankly- “Are you talking to the police?” I ask. No, he is not. He didn’t call them. I order him to hang up the phone and call them. I tell him how close he had come to getting blown up. He makes the call.
The drunk who killed the kids had been drinking and driving for 12hrs. How many people had a chance to do something and didn’t? The Tucson shooting as well as similar incidents bring out many who “saw this coming”. Did they do anything?? What stops us? What are we afraid of? I know that personally I’m more afraid of living with the knowledge that I might have been able to do something and I didn’t than anything else that could happen. That’s the view from my side of the street, what’s yours?

Differences

One of the people I am closest to in the whole, wide world is my friend Jackie. We are sisters of the heart- our spouses know this, our children know this, our grandchildren know this. We have been there for each other through the whole gamut of human experiences. There are no words to explain the level of intimacy and love that exists between us.
We will be the two short, fat little old ladies that you see walking down the sidewalk arm in arm to keep each other up. We will be having a discussion that no one on the planet could keep up with because we talk in shorthand. We will probably be yelling and telling each other to turn up the hearing aid a little.
Why am I sharing this? There were two events in the past few days that have greatly disturbed me. One has been the emphasis that Saturday’s shooting events were caused by the political discord in our country. The other was closer to home. My sister has gone back to school. She is working on a counseling degree. In Monday’s class, her professor made the statement that if people do not have the same belief system they can not feel empathy towards each other.
To all who seem to think that we must be the same, think the same or believe the same to have understanding, empathy or respect for one another I say- HORSE PUCKY!!!! My beloved friend and I disagree on politics. We disagree about religion. We disagree about war, homosexuality, abortion and a number of other “hot topics”.
How we are similar is deeper than how we are different. Each of us is a mother, a grandmother, a wife. We love beauty wherever we may find it. Our most common trait is the deep respect that we both have for those who think differently than us. We know that it is possible to love people you don’t agree with.
I want to shout to the world, “People, our differences are what make us great!!” The most attractive flower gardens are mixed gardens- if the world grew only roses, no matter how beautiful, we’d hate the monotony!
Maybe Jackie expressed it better recently. She unloaded some of her frustration at my political party. When she was finished, I laughed and for the 4000th time remarked about how different we are and expressed amazement at our ongoing friendship. Her reply- “But isn’t that what makes America what it is?”
YES IT IS!! When did we lose sight of that? When did we buy into the idea that different is bad? My concern is that there are those fighting so hard for their own right to be different that they are forgetting everyone else’s right to be different, too. That’s the view from my side of the street, what’s yours?

Saturday's Shooting

Our country is in mourning today. We are mourning the loss of some of our citizens in Tucson, Arizona. We are conscious of the suffering of their family and friends. We are praying for a Congresswoman as she hangs unto life tenaciously. We are praying for those who love her as they stay close by her willing her to live yet another day.
I hope that we are mourning for the disturbed young man who committed the acts that caused all this. I hope that we are keeping his family in our prayers. They, too, have lost a loved one. He, too, has lost his life.
My tears are not only for the sadness and hurt. They are for the beautiful and good that I see. Yes, one deranged young man caused moments of chaos that will leave lifetime scars. There were, however, many acts of kindness, unselfishness and heroism that will also have a lifelong effect.
There was the young intern, a new employee of the Congresswoman, who ran towards the shooting rather than away. This placed him at her side to do what he could to save her life.
There was a husband, who threw his body over that of his childhood sweetheart’s, giving up his life for hers. There was a mother who did the same for her child taking bullets that luckily did not kill her. There was the 9yr old girl, born on 9/11/01, whose interest in government took her that day to meet her representative. What she was doing that day stands out in my mind more than what happened to her. It shames many of us older but not wiser who have better things to do on a Saturday morning.
And then there were the two men who took advantage of the first pause in shooting to tackle the shooter. They kept him pinned until police showed up. One of the men had a head wound, the bullet intended to kill grazed his scalp instead.
They were assisted by an older woman who grabbed the next clip out of the young man’s hand after he had fallen to the floor. Another man tore the gun out of the other hand at the same time. Not only did these people save countless lives including the gunman’s but they said loudly and clearly to him and any others with similar plans-“ We will not go down without a fight!”
There were countless numbers of people assisting the wounded, covering the dead, and doing what they could to help.
There was ugly at that Safeway on Saturday but there was also beautiful. There was evil but oh, how much good also. My hope for humanity is renewed at these times as I watch love, compassion, giving and valor. We seem to remember that we are all part of the human family and caring is what we do best. That’s the view from my side of the street, what’s yours?

Perfection

I knitted scarves for Christmas presents this year. Two of my daughters watched my fingers flying and asked me to teach them how to knit. I was reluctant due to the fact that I only had the one set of needles and I was halfway through a scarf. As they persisted and declared that they had been watching me so they knew that they could do it, I recognized a good teaching opportunity.
The older daughter watched me carefully as I showed her step by step. She then took the needles and began, she had understood the process and did well but she was frustrated that it felt so awkward and she had to do each stitch slowly. She wondered why she could not hold the needles the way I did. Each stitch was painfully made but I encouraged her telling her she had the concept but only practice would bring the grace and speed she desired. She continued for about 6 rows.
The younger daughter didn’t even want instruction. She insisted that watching me was good enough! I cautioned her that anytime we watched experts do their “thing” effortlessly it meant that they had worked really hard at it. It didn’t change her mind so I handed her the scarf and needles. She took them with an air of confidence that quickly dwindled as she realized she didn’t know what to do. I asked if she wanted me to show her. No. She became frustrated. I offered help again. Reluctantly she agreed.
I showed her step by step several times then handed her the needles again. She became increasingly frustrated with her inability to “do it like Mom”. My encouragement and advice to be patient increased her frustration so I left the room. She struggled along for 1 ½ rows. She dropped it all where she was sitting and stomped off in disgust.
Some time later, the older daughter picked it up. She held it up and exclaimed in horror, “Mom, look at what we’ve done to your scarf! We’ve ruined it! The part we did doesn’t look anything like the part you did!”
We then had a discussion about perfection and expertise. We talked about dancers, musicians, athletes and others who spent hours, days, years, and even decades working to achieve the level of perfection that made what they did look so simple to do.
In this day and age of “instant” everything with a general expectation of “faster” is always better, I’m afraid that we are forgetting that simple principle “Practice makes perfect”. Or maybe we’ve just decided that perfection isn’t desirable anymore. Are we all settling for “just good enough”?
I hope not! That’s the view from my side of the street, what’s yours?

A New Years story

I know a woman who has had a severe substance abuse problem for most of her adult life. She hit a significant age and realized that if she was ever going to change her life it had to be now. It was time to grow up. She had children and grandchildren that needed her. That was part of her motivation. But mostly she just wanted to find the her she had lost to addiction. She couldn’t get back the lost years but she was damned if she was going to lose any more.
So she quit- just like that- no more drugs, no more alcohol, no more cigarettes. And she started a diet/ exercise plan to lose the considerable amount of weight she had packed on over the years. All of this was made doubly hard by an abusive addicted husband who didn’t want anything to change. But this woman was a strong, determined person. She resisted temptations, survived withdrawal, lost the weight and finally left the husband. She took only a bag of clothes. She moved in with relatives for financial and safety reasons.
So fast forward to now- she has a good job, bought a new car, looks and feels great and is in a promising relationship. New Years weekend was spent with her new friend and his family. She had determined it was time to get rid of her wedding ring and all that it symbolized but all the pawn shops were closed. Her friend suggested giving it to someone in need maybe a homeless person. Although she was disappointed that she couldn’t get rid of it immediately she thought his idea was great.
On the trip home, she stopped at a rest area. There was a woman sitting on the ground with a pile of belongings and a sign asking for help. Our heroine sat in the car for a few moments watching. She then got out and walked straight towards the woman who lowered her head as if expecting a confrontation. Our heroine held her hand out, the homeless woman held hers out timidly. The ring was dropped in the outstretched hand and our heroine headed to the bathroom. Not a word had been spoken by either.
But this simple act of paying it forward lifted the burdens of both women. Our heroine left more than a wedding ring. In realizing how easily that could have been have been her sitting there, she left her past and embraced her bright new future. She has reached that place of healing where the voices in her head are no longer saying “No, you can’t you’re not good enough.”
She left more than a wedding ring for the other woman, too. She left hope, a feeling that someone cares and perhaps for awhile a silencing of her own voices. For both women it was a great way to start a new year!
That’s the view from my side of street, what’s yours?

Bucket Lists

Long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away from here, I took a philosophy class. The teacher was great but most of us didn’t realize it at the time. It has taken me a good part of my life to understand what he did for us. I can’t remember his name but I have never forgotten his lessons.
One thing he had us do was to write down what we wanted the epitaph on our gravestone to say. Most 18 yr olds think that they are invincible. Death has nothing to do with them. In asking us to do this simple exercise, he was helping us to face our own mortality. He was reminding us that everyone must die.
He was also teaching us that everyone must live. However long or short the time would be, there would be a life lived. By asking us to write our own epitaph, he was letting us know that how we lived our life was up to us. Ultimately, it would be our choices that affected the course of our journey. He was making us accountable for the rest of our lives.
Another lesson required us to write down everything we wished to do with our life. Today, we would call it a “bucket list.” Again, he was reminding us that our how we lived our lives was up to us. He cut through the fog surrounding us at that age and helped us to focus on the obscure, far away place that was the rest of our lives.
I recently had reason to mentally take this list out, dust it off and review it. Guess what? I’ve done almost everything on the list! That was a shocker! Another shocker was almost none of it was accomplished the way I had originally thought.
For instance, I had wanted to travel the world especially the U.S. I have yet to do the world travel but there are only 5 states I haven’t been to. I went through some with my ex and children while he worked his way across the country. I went to all the others with my truck driving husband.
I wanted to “rescue” old homes, fix them up and find them good families. I have moved over 50 times since I was 18. I remodeled every place I ever lived in. I forgot to add to my list that I wanted to make money at it. Oops!
I’m thinking that if most of us went back over our lives we’d be surprised at how many of our dreams have come true albeit not exactly the way we thought they would. I also think that whatever your age is- it might be a good time to do these two things- what do you want your epitaph to say? And write down at least 10 things on your “bucket list”. It’s a great time of year to do this, don’t you think?
By the way my 18 yr old epitaph read-“The world was a better place because she was in it.” Still can’t think of a better one. That’s the view from my side of the street, what’s yours?