March, You Were A Cold One

To keep a blog going, is much like a diary, with the exception there is no key! Anyone can read my thoughts, words and ideas. I just lay it all out for the masses. It brings me great joy to spill my guts, and heals me.
Just like this beautiful spring day, it is glorious!! March has been a beast, and she goes out in glory. The sunshine makes me pick up my pace, and do it with a smile.

So I am  going to steal a few minutes to share a couple of books that I devoured in this month of March.
The Aviator's Wife: A Novel  by Melanie Benjamin and Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala. They were both warm, with the March winds blowing the house down.

I love to read about The Lindbergh family, their complicated life. Heroic and demonic is an absurd combination, yet Charles was both. However this novel, is written with Anne's words. Its historical fiction, and nearly strangled me with grief and love. Why people stayed married in a loveless relationship fascinates me, and how they survive the loss of a child, unfortunately hits close to my heart. Below are some of my highlighted pearls:
    Contemplation, rather than action; seems to be my lot in life, and I was ashamed of it even as I craved it.

    Why couldn't confidence be bottled like perfume?

    Charles eyes were the color of morning ( wow, love that)

    She was as silky as he was rumpled ( divine)

    the duty drilled into me by my parents; dreams may have been paintings on my walls, but doubts and fears were the bars on my windows

   I didn't feel privy to know what was on my mother's heart

   I want to be one of those marvelous old ladies covered in scarves who rock in their chairs with mysterious smiles, remembering their scandalous affairs of their youth.

  walking slowly back to my bed, carrying my hope and terror both, one fragile, the other already so stolidly familiar I couldn't remember life before it, within my heart.

  and I understand that betrayal is more enormous than forgiveness. One more thing that Charles has taught me, in a lifetime of lessons and lectures. ( a lifetime of lessons and lectures, seems so painful)

It is hard for me to stop, this book, The Aviators Wife, it was quiet. Better yet, it made me be still and think.

Now if I have any more room???  Wave read like the tsunami that it was about. This true story of a women that lost her entire family in a wave of the ocean, is often too much to bear. How quick life changes, and how we learn to live among the living, again is a healing book for me.

Here are some of the beautiful language of love;

     In a few hours it will be light. It will be tomorrow. I was terrified of tomorrow the truth would start.

     how do I tame my pain?

    I cannot reconcile it with the impossible horror of how they were severed from me in an instant

    If I allow any of this, I will go mad for wanting them

    Their promise, my children's possibilities, still linger in our home

     By knowing them again, by gathering threads of our life, I am much less fractured. I am also less confused.

    I can only recover if I keep them near ( this was written seven years after her loss)

So powerful, words.
Life, so fragile and strong,
This March day, stunning, reminded me that the tomb is empty.
Happy Easter 2013

   

Are We There Yet?

How many times have I driven this road to home? Too many to count, I recognize the grass growing in strangers yards. I know the smell of the ocean, and the paper mill are near. The back roads to Mom and Dad's are littered with ghost motels, and farmers stands.The moss hanging in the trees, causes me to pause, and wait for the humidity to hit me. Some people count car tags, my family counts road kill. After all we are headed to or from Jacksonville, Florida. The flat roads separate us from south Georgia, buy a hair. Cotton grows on both sides of the road, and many a time, I have pulled over with the kids to pick some. Pecan trees planted neatly in their rows, and someone surely is selling boiled peanuts around the bend. My children repeat my stories, and now drive their Miss Daisey, me, home.

They begin the trip, asking me how many times will we have to stop, to look at something?? No more do they ask, " Are we there yet?" All of them have been trained to look for the signs!!! I have my camera ready, because there will be a sight to see!! There is a screen door, that I always like to see, with a crane on it. I want one, and I need to go ask these people where they purchased it. As of yet, no one has ever let me stop. The concept of talking to strangers has missed my bunch. Often, they tell me, I will talk to anyone, dead or alive. Well....stop the car , so I can talk to this family with the cute door...yes the area is poor and could be flying a Confederate flag....and locked and loaded but.....we can forgive them for lack of evolving, the door!!!!

The empty motels, they know, must house serial killers...but they slow down long enough for a couple of photos. I stop for palmetto bushes, should be on my bumper. I crave the south, my very bones ache for it. Once I have had my fix, I'm ready to head back to Atlanta, my home of twenty years. ( I never long for Pennsylvania??where we spent twelve years, or was it thirty!!)

On our recent return home, Queen Emma was my driver, and I gave her a long heads up, about where to pull over. I had already cased the joint!!! So she did, a classic if I ever saw one. A drive through liquor store, with a church on one side ( Jesus is everywhere ) and crosses on the other side where you have to assume, were drunk drivers coming out of the booze store with a ROAD DRINK!!! You can not make this stuff up, I blame it on the heat!!
I took my pictures, and shook my head, at the irony. Glad it was out of business, and Emma got to see....well she did say, " Are you kidding me!!"

Goodbye North Florida, until next time, you crazy place that I love.

Cousins Galore

 I have to be one of the fortunate few, that have many cousins. In all shapes and sizes, brains and without, near and far, first, second, third down the line, by marriage or blood. My people are precious to me, they have all molded my life, indeed I am lucky.

 This week I was thrilled to visit with two of my best cousins, whom I adore. Not for a great reason, due to surgery, but any reason to get the tongues to wagging is great. Sally from Arkansas, and Jeannine from Georgia.
 My precious Jeannine has been down, due to extensive back surgery. There is light at the end of her tunnel, but she has to look HARD to see it!!! Her burden is huge, as my friend Vicky so often says. She stripped down to let me see her scar, and we hugged and loved each other up!! while nurse Sally was preparing something?? I was pleased to see J in a nice fancy black bra, these things are important to cousins!! and always we remember that modesty is thrown out the window with us, we are wide open, more like sisters. We examined her x-ray and screws that had been removed, and hollered with laughter. Everything is funny, it has to be, because its all toooooo hard without hooting like a baboon!!! The familiar chatter went on for hours, stories from the grave to the present. So easy to slip into these relationship, even though the years can be long between visits.
  In between sips of diet cokes and tab (which I did not know they made anymore) and a few pain pills thrown in, we did talk of serious stuff. Both of these women are my prayer partners, and I think they have a great discipline to GAWD!! I lean towards a Bless everyone, God help us all kind of prayer, so I rely on their personal attention to prayer!! J even writes names down and problems to address. Sally is an awesome prayer person, even when Ward died, she asked the lord for her to bare some of my pain, to give me some relief, these girls are good!!! So I loaded them up with needs. Sally said, " My list is getting hideously long!" and I fell out of the chair. Her long drip of water, southern drawl, it took her a good five minutes to say hideously!!  A pure joy to my ears, and heart.
Jeannine spoke from her recliner, after she was spent with all the talking, with her eyes closed, " Bonnie, you bring joy into the room every time you come over!" (could have been the meds talking!!) (nah)
  I love these women. I love all of my cousins. I am so blessed, somebody must be praying really hard!!
Thank you a billion times for sweet moments like these.

Smoke Signals

  It certainly seems appropriate in this windy month of March to be discussing religion. It is Lent, and a Holy time of the year. Especially in organized religion, this is Jesus reason for the season. Coming down from the cross and away from the tomb, is BIG, in any spiritual journey.
 Right now, I'm engulfed in angst, looking for white smoke, like a crazy catholic. Which I am not, I am  just an unbalanced episcopalian, who frequents the nearest catholic church.
The doctrine is very familiar, I know all the prayers, and I even like that they give Mary her due.
What I don't like is MUCH!! I do take communion, Jesus said that all could partake, not just Rose Kennedy. I believe in Planned Parenthood with all that is in me. Birth control is a miracle!!! Being a pedophile is Satan, so the catholic church has some big problems. Confession, don't care, I like talking to people, shrinks, priests, anyone who will listen. When I think about it, all churches have their crosses to bear. The catholic church just has more ornate crosses, and I do like pretty.

So I have an intense interest in this new pope. I want him to be able to change things. He has to be younger then 80, and sweet looking. He should embrace women in all stations of the church, and allow priests and nuns to marry. Being married to Jesus, is not working. I also think he has to think about the church paying taxes, in fact all churches should not be owning property like the Vatican or New York and not pay taxes.
Also this kissing the ring, reminds me of the Godfather, so that can go too.
Cardinals wearing the red, is a little freaky ,unless you are Father Ralph in The Thorn Birds!

So while all the cardinals were out to lunch waiting for the next time to vote, I have been in prayer for this group of religious leaders.
Here is my prayer:
               Oh My God, you have to help these people. They are stuck in some time warp, and are hurting people. Let them listen to you and walk toward your light of strength and peace.  Oh...and thank you for letting me have a nice Catholic church a few blocks from my home, I wish it were Episcopalian, but it has nice stained glass windows and candles to light, so thank you.
AND waiting for this smoke seems really slow in this age of computers, so think about it, when the next time rolls around. I pray for a nice, smart pope.
                             Your child,
                                Bonnie
Oh I love you, and please take care of my boy in heaven. I know you are busy, but you promised!

Amen and Amen
( note I could not decide to use capitals for Episcopalian or Catholic, sometimes the computer would correct it, and sometimes it left them alone, so I left them as they appear. All different, just like all of us. Its a God thing, I'm sure)

I Never Know

I never know when grief will surprise me, but it is wicked and pops up whenever it pleases.
I often have a handle on my heart, but she will also turn on a dime, and leave me reeling.

Just a few days back, I was having my eyes examined. As I sat, and looked around, I was overcome with gratitude about being able to see. So thankful for this ability, and doctors to keep my eyes working so well, that the waterworks began to fall. The precious, young, lady doctor, was out of the room, so I let go. By the time she returned, my chest was heaving and she was alarmed.

" Mrs. Baron, are you OK, are the drops burning your eyes?"
Whimpering I replied, " No doctor, I'm fine, its just you cannot help me?"
"There are no magic drops to bring my child into focus, no stronger lenses on my glasses to let me see my Ward again."  Grief had enveloped me at the damn eye doctors office, with my pupils, as wide as, saucers!!
The sweet doctor, listened to my story, and treated me with gentle hands, in order to give me the semi-bad news that I have cataracts growing!!! Then she proceeded to explain to me that I could blame my age for this problem, "Its common!!"she said.
"That's nice, but I am anything but common! I'm special!" lord she may have needed glasses!!!
She smiled and left the room again.
Then I heard a sweet voice, "Mom, you see me all the time, what more do you want!"

I know, I know, " I do see you Ward, and obviously I hear you, or mommy is headed to the loony bin!"
I guess.........I want to touch you, and hold you and smell you......"I miss you Ward."

My doctor returned and let me go, with my dark glasses perched on top of my regular glasses, looking like an old person!!! Jesus, that's me. (I think I heard Ward laughing!!)
I hunted in the parking lot for a LONG time, because I left the building through a different door. Honestly, don't they know my eyes are dilated, I'm getting old and I see dead people!!!
Again I hear Ward laughing, through the wind.
I sit in my car, for the longest time.
I never know when sadness will come, but I do know I will find something to laugh about.
Laughter trumps grief, always.



My Ward, I even see him, when I type!