Category: faith

  • life as it goes on, and sometimes it unravels…

    life as it goes on, and sometimes it unravels…

    Here lately, so much has been happening that it is difficult for us to know the extent to which it impacts us – we just have a lot of swirling thoughts and those that remind us of the past, of course, as life has a habit of digging up those and bringing them forward. 

    Our friends’ daughter was killed in an auto accident last week, and swiftly all the events of their lives were set out, on a different path.  Instantly, just like that.  It happens.  These are reminders that we are not in control here.  We only have glimpses that we call control, like my fingers on this keyboard.  Fleeting.

    We hold onto our forward course, but sometimes the course changes – and we are disrupted onto a new course of moving forward, just in a different direction.  Similar events from my past are re-lived in understanding and empathizing with my friends.  We share the road of the common experience.  Our minds adjust, as much as they can – but they are changed minds.  Human experience is that way.

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    She was a beautiful girl, but had challenges throughout her life.  Where she seemed to flourish the most was at the time she had her babies but still she seemed challenged to attain a solid happy spot in her life.  We will miss her and it goes to remind us how people touch our lives, no matter how distant they are, you do get pulled into the relationships once you meet them, watch them grow up, and become young adults…

  • Another one joins the choir

    Another one joins the choir

     

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    It was a weird week. 

    We had flooding.  We rescued our friend’s 89 year old father from the airport as the storms had lessened somewhat, he was marooned there, waiting to leave the next day on his flight home.  Lots to let us know that the best made plans aren’t anything but plans…

    We lost Prince this week.  Prince The Artist. 

    He was an amazing, push the envelope kind of guy – a musician who was flamboyant, artistic, emotional, moving, and at times, just fun and crazy – he made us want to dance and express ourselves – at least people in my crowd were inclined to do that when we were at parties or dances and his music began to play.

    Wow, the big up yonder is certainly filling up with musicians and artists here lately.  I think that a big band is getting ready to play.  We can, in the meantime, listen to his music and imagine that it is still 1999, that we are driving a red corvette, and wearing a raspberry beret in the purple rain.

    Farewell, Prince – we hope the pain has lessened and that you are rocking once again.

     

  • I get these thoughts… and then…

    I get these thoughts… and then…

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    I had not visited in a while.  I thought I would just go out – it was a sunny day, late afternoon – I got a Frappuccino at Starbucks as I usually do, before the visit – you know – having a coffee beverage with him was a common mom-son event. 

    I would sometimes get the call or text – as I was wrapping up work – “Mom, can you go by Starbucks and get me a Venti Iced Coffee with three Splendas, puleeeeeze?!”  And how could I not? 

    He needed to be able to stay up and hang-out online with friends.  It was a good thing.  Those friends turned out to be some real friends, in person – who didn’t know him in person – but, nonetheless felt compelled to come pay respects.  I thought that this was something. 

    It’s been, now, nearly eleven years.  As this time of year approaches, I think of the months leading up to the events that turned the page for him.  The lighting is changing.  Soon it will be hot.  School coming into its last months.  Remembering the homebound teacher, and her realization that what I was telling them was entirely accurate – not just some excuse for a teenager who did not want to come to school.  Imagine that.

    I am certain that I will always think about the Starbucks visits – one place to go with a teenaged son where it’s “cool” and the conversation is surrounded by the smell of roasting and brewing coffee.  So, we can’t actually go to Starbucks – as I bring Starbucks to wander and talk with him, as I do.  This is the way it is.