Di'a de los Muertos

Each year my friend and Spanish teacher, creates an altar at school to teach this Holiday. Dia de los Muertos, AND if that stuff is a tad on the tacky side, even better. I think I saw a cross made with coke bottle caps???It could have been a vision???
This is a holiday where people honor those love ones who have passed on. Died, left the earth, no longer with us. They put out pictures and items that their loved one enjoyed, food, some even lay out a pillow and mattress, hoping the spirits will stay and visit. The flower of choice, is the stinky marigold, it is suppose to attract the departed??? When you are missing someone, you will do anything, trust me.
Perlotta always uses Superman, Christopher Reeves as her main altar person. She figures he got, a raw deal, for sure. Plus children, sort of, know who superman is?? This year, I asked her to add, My Ward!!!! So his picture is next to superman, and that would thrill him, as it does me.
He is surrounded by the youth of children, religious folk art, superman and the love of my friend.
Visiting cemeteries is often, a weekly ritual in the south, we did not need a holiday, to go clean the graves of all our relatives!!! We would visit strangers, bring flowers and letters and love. EVERY WEEKEND, we would visit, like these people were going to get up and leave "Greenlawn"
or was it called "Evergreen?"
Loving people in life and in death is very important. How you do it, is personal.
Ward's photo next to Christopher Reeves, Thank you Maria.

We Are Grown-Ups!!!!

I have just returned from my forty year high school reunion. My heart is still so full!!!
Beautiful people! Under and Over weight, bald and more bald, wrinkled and worn. Some with too much make-up and some who needed a little more!!! Each one more glowing than the next. Smiles stretching from Jackson to Lee long. Hugs that left me breathless, and tears easily flowing from our eyes. A room full of love, we were all grown UP!!! No Kids Allowed!
Fragile life stories, mixed in with the laughter of long ago stories. Memories reaching, way back, coming to the surface, as if it were yesterday. Can it be forty years ago???
I know these people, they are the same. I still see the twinkle of youth in their eyes, it doesn't vanish with age. You just have to look Harder!!!but its there.
A year ago, I would not have been able to go to a restaurant, much less a high school reunion. Grief over the loss of my son, had me paralyzed with grief. But Life is not inclined to let us escape. I needed these people to help me on my grief journey.
When we returned to Georgia on Sunday, I hugged all of my kids, and then went to Ward's jar, as we like to call it!!! Telling him, that I made it to my reunion, and his artwork traveled with me, and people celebrated his life, by asking me about him. I think he would be smiling, and then he would ask me, if my Ta-Ta's were showing!!!!(my kids know their mommie!!) I told him, I used some back to back tape to keep them in check, but My cups runneth over!!!!
Debbie told me I should have used duck tape!! Next time!!!
Thank you, Tigers for just being you!!!
I had a great time, and more stories to tell!!!! Love, love and more love. AND MORE!!!!

Seymour, FEED ME!!!

There is a wonderful parable, that came to my attention, while waiting for my mammogram today.
"One evening a Cherokee elder told his grandson about the battle that goes on inside people. He said, "My son, the battle is between wolves, that live inside us all. One is Unhappiness. It is fear, worry, anger, jealousy, sorrow, self pity, resentment, and inferiority. The other is Happiness. It is joy, love, hope, serenity, kindness, generosity, truth, and compassion."
"The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, which wolf wins?"
"The old Cherokee simply replied, The One you feed."
OMG, here Iam sitting with all these women, fearing the worst.
I will not feed this fear. I will celebrate these women who take the x-rays of all these boobies, and the doctors who give good news and bad. That they have strength and compassion, and warm hands!!!!
This parable, was in a magazine article, under the title, Happy for No Reason!!! It was about making yourself live from happiness, rather than for happiness!!! This made me happy!!!, the weather made me happy, I will not feed this beast of worry, sorrow, fear!!!
My focus today is practicing happiness instead of pursuing happiness!!!!
It also reminded me of the plant, in the play/movie, Little Shop of Horrors!!!!! FEED Me, Seymour!! That too, made me happy!!! See, its working!!!

I need more time!!!!

I have about six blogs, scribbled out, and no time to connect the dots!!!!
No excuses, at least that is what the personal trainer said!!!!

PT- Bonnie, do you have a goal?
M-(me)-Not really?
PT-YOU HAVE TO HAVE A GOAL!!!
M-NO..OK, I just want to dance.
PT-How much weight do you want to loose?
M-I'm comfortable with me, OK, the flapping skin under my arm, you can fix.
PT-Let me measure you?
M-am I getting a new bra?
PT-WHAT??
M-Have at it.
PT-Now when do you want to come see me next?
M-Never, don't take it personally!!
M- I'm signed up for three dance classes, and swimming, that's good, right?
PT-Weights, you need weights!!!
M-Lucy the Lab weighs 88lbs, that will work.
PT- YOUR real age in fitness talk is 54!!
M-That is great, since I am 58 and feel like I'm 100!!!
M-Start the Zumba music!!!!!!

I Don't Mind Straight People, As Long As They Act Gay In Public!!!!

I believe we are all born Gay, and we make the choice to be heterosexual!!!!
Would that put a stop to homophobic maniacs, causing these young children to take their lives? Teenagers jumping off of bridges, hanging themselves, being bullied because of being Gay!!! Good lord people, this has to stop.
Some religious people are even protesting at funerals of our boys, who have fought for our country, saying that they were killed because we let gays into the military??!!!
As my daddy would say, "We have not evolved much Bonnie!!"
We are suppose to love each other, all people!! What would Jesus do??I think he may have been gay, he hung out with fishermen and had great hair, and turned down Mary Magdalene. Before you begin to stone me!!! Do you know if he was gay or not?? No, he just said to love all people. Why is that so hard for Christians?? and non Christians also.
I care about people of any sex finding someone to love, and if same sex couples want to marry, Mazel Tov !!!!
Celebrate each other, love each other. It's simple, it's Father, Son and Holy Ghost( all same sex) good.

Once Upon A Mattress

Bill and I will celebrate thirty years of, waking up together, next week.
It could be the next, next week?? I know we married in October!!!
Thirty years is?? How many years in a dogs life?? A zillion???
For our gifts to ourselves, we purchased a new mattress. No diamonds, rubies or pearls. A Serta perfect sleeper, pillowtop, BIG mother mattress.
A good nights sleep trumps EVERYTHING!!!!
I also joined a Health club, that was my present to Bill. I told him maybe it would make me nicer??
He wanted to know, how fast it would work!!
We make each other laugh, and that is the secret.
I was watching, Young and the Restless, YES I tape it and watch it, no apologies here. When I was reminded of how long I have been in love with Victor Newman, thirty-seven years!!!!
I like to keep my hubby on his toes, so often I let him know, there were others!!!
Love the one your with!!!! Happy Anniversary Bill.

IMAGINE

Sunday Morning TV show, at 9 o'clock, had a segment with Julian and Sean Lennon. They were celebrating their father turning seventy!!!! I took to the bed!!! Fell OUT!!!
We are just here a minute it seems. I think I was just watching the Fab Four on the Ed Sullivan Show, and John Lennon would have been seventy! I know this must be the Twilight Zone!!! In my minds eye, he is young and writing songs. Of course I was going to marry Paul, but I knew John had the gift.
I was a newly married lady, and I knew that I had picked the right man, when John Lennon died, and Bill took me to New York. The front of the building, where he was shot, had yellow tape all surrounding it, a hole in the front door, where my memories stopped. Bill circled several times, so I could, maybe blink, and wish it looked different. It remained a crime scene, and there were no more songs. John left us too soon, but look what he left us.
Julian Lennon had a photography exhibit, where the whole Lennon family had gathered. Yoko and Cynthia, hugging like old friends. Now I know I was in the Twilight Zone, so much bad blood, and history, and sadness, now healed because the Lennon brothers love each other.
All he was ever saying was, "Give Peace a Chance"
Happy birthday, old man with the gift.

A Picture,Tells A Story

An article in the Atlanta paper, jumped off the page. Actually, I was startled. The photo of this precious baby was looking at me. One of the captions read, family photos hold moving message.
An exhibition at Emory University's Visual Arts Gallery, show photographs that Polish Jews took with them to Auschwitz-Birkenau. These are family photos, that were grabbed and hidden from the Nazi's, and found later. The Jewish people would hide their pictures, in their shoes, undergarments, anywhere to keep the Nazi's from taking their memories. Most were destroyed, burned with the bodies of so many. The Nazi's goal was to take this group of people from history. The pictures, if left behind, would prove these people existed, Hitler was having none of that. Somehow, 2,400 were found after the camp was liberated. Yet they were hidden in a warehouse until Ann Weiss found them in 1986. Ann Weiss researched and put names to faces, and later produced a book, called "The Last Album:Eyes from the Ashes of Auschwitz-Birkenau"
This exhibit, "Testaments of the Heart" celebrates these peoples lives. Birthday Parties, weddings, family snapshots, not the usual photographs that we see from the camps.
I will be going to look, and honor these strangers lives. I can not pretend to understand their senseless deaths, but I can call them by name, and remember them.
I place photographs of, my Ward all over places, with his name on the back, and the day he was born and died. Hoping whoever picks it up, will call him by name, and honor that he was alive, and happy.
These millions of people who died at these camps, were loved and mourned, and we will not forget them.
And my Ward, we will not forget you.