Hands Across the Planet

[image from cleveland.com]

Hands Across the Planet – Love Abounds!

Wasn't that freaking scary, when Blogger was out of commission? I worried about my entire year's writing, which I do not have backed up, a situation I must rectify very soon. Scared me to death. This has been my most prolific year ever. Losing all that writing is not an option!


But now we're back to normal. And today, kids, I am going to pass along to you a cool little story I’ve come across recently. It is just one small thing that happened on this big old planet, among people who choose to remain nameless, that shows the hearts of most people are basically good, and that it is in small acts of kindness that we can each, if we choose, profoundly impact the world or, at least, someone else.

So, out in blogger-space, one aging woman connected with one young student in Africa, who writes passionately about social justice. Drawn by his poetry and his passion for righting the social ills of the world he inhabits, they make a connection, form a friendship. Within mere weeks, he becomes another grandson.

He was once a little boy sleeping on the ground under a blanket of stars by the village campfire, with the other nomads. But he dreamed big dreams, under those stars and, in time, someone arrived in his life to help put him through school.

Now he is on the last legs of a long push towards completing some post graduate work, some time yet to cross the finish line. He is doing it on his own. His sponsor, who first recognized his brightness and gave it a chance to blossom, told him some time back the rest is up to him. He has been trying to hang on, to make this last push to the finish line. And now, at this very moment that he is scrabbling desperately to complete his objective, the universe sends him a grandmother in the West. The West is wealthy, but she is not. By Western standards, she is at the bottom of the heap. But by African standards, she is certainly far more comfortable than anyone this young lad knows.

First, she thinks small: she will send him a gift.

Then, she has an apparently “random” conversation, in town, one day, in the course of running her errands. But nothing, in this life, is random. She was actually leaving the store when she decided to turn back and tell the storekeeper the story of this young man. Over the years, they have recognized each other as folks who love humanity. They have big hearts for the suffering of the world, and a wish to contribute something good. So she simply thinks, “This man will enjoy hearing about my young friend in Africa.”

Only partway through her story, the storekeeper says, without qualification, and wholeheartedly, (which is the way he does everything): Tell him I will send a hundred dollars a month, if he can find a child to put through school.

At first, she doesn’t understand. He repeats his offer.

In that single moment, in a “random” conversation between two tiny beings on this big but interconnected planet, the lives of children on the other side of the world begins to change.

She recognizes, with the open-hearted and selfless manner in which the young man is thrilled at the chance to help other children as he once was helped, that she has within her means enough to help him in his final push towards his goal, small amounts of western money being able to do great things across the world. Thus, it all comes full circle.

The young man is flabbergasted, humbled and also empowered with the joy of being able to do for other small children what was once done for him. He tells her that the amount of money the man proposes to send is enough to send TEN children through school. Ten children, five little boys and five little girls, who are bright and needy, whose smiles will shine brighter at this unexpected act of kindness from across the world.

This is one amazing world, both the cyber world, and the real, green and blue planet we are making this sojourn on, together.

Never forget: People are capable of great kindness, enormous hope. And life is very good.

No Place for Kids or Mules

I watched a remarkable film about hardship last night, kids. It is about a family of children trying to survive on their own, on the Iran-Iraq border in the mountains,  in unimaginable conditions, after their parents' death. To make money to save the life of their disabled brother, the oldest son joins those smuggling goods across the border. This involves dangerous treks over the snowy mountains, including attacks by bandits.

The title refers to the donkeys the smugglers load up  with staggeringly heavy burdens, including two gigantic truck tires per donkey. They put alcohol into the water they give the donkeys before they begin, to give them some heart for the impossible journey. Some of the harshest scenes involve donkeys staggering and falling under the loads.

I watched the unimaginable hardship in fascinated horror, the more so because this was filmed recently, using the people and children who actually live there, not actors, so what I was witnessing was actually happening in reality. Such terrible hardship, such a struggle to survive.

I came away thinking you don't want to be a kid or a mule in those conditions.

All the Christmases That Were

Stephanie, Jeff, Jon and Lisa

[I actually wrote this some years ago, but 'tis the season, so will post it here. Nostalgia all the way, kids!]

This year, for Christmas, I decided to make each of my four children an album of their childhood photos. I spent one evening on the floor, poring through my albums, revisiting those busy years which seem, in retrospect, to have flown by at the speed of light.

There were all their faces, alight with laughter. Kids playing, mugging for the camera, on jungle gyms, kids grinning out through tire-hole climbing structures, one face atop another, Baby Steph's at the bottom. (Steph's favorite saying in those years, "I'm NODDA Baby!") Lisa and Jeff, hanging upside down by one leg each from the metal bar. Jeff and Steph, upside down, butts to the camera, grinning at me through their legs. Jon with his first rocket, his new bike. Jeff and Steph, arms wrapped around each other, beaming. Jeff and Steph dancing, faces aglow with gaiety too great to contain. Lisa leaping into the air, her mouth square, shrieking her joy at getting the new clogs she wanted so badly. Jon fishing, hiking in the hills. Jon on a roughly made raft, poling up the lake in the dead of winter. Lisa cuddling a furry little pet under her chin, looking out at me with the same tender softness I see in her eyes now, cuddling her children and her kittens.

Jeff and Jon, plastic swords over their shoulders, marching to the Tolkien-like music we liked during the winters when my boys read Lord of the Rings over and over. Jeff, tongue hanging out comically, his head inside the mouth of the concrete Ogopogo statue in City Park, pretending he was being eaten by the monster.

All of us, up Knox Mountain, flying kites. All of us strung out in a row on bikes. All of us, having a winter picnic at Gyro Park, on ground white and frozen, grinning around our sandwiches.

And there were all the Christmases, when somehow, against all financial reality, magic happened in our living room, and the wee hours of Christmas morning resounded with happy shrieks and an orgy of gift-opening. Now, I dont know how I did it, but I remember my determination that, on that one day of the year, my kids would have everything they wanted. I was trying to make up for the daily reality of never enough money, never quite enough food, and all the times they wanted things in silence that they never asked for, because they knew our lack of money by the contents of our fridge.

That Christmas magic lasted until my children hit their teens, when our family hit rough waters for a time, as my children, like so many others in our culture,  explored drugs, alcohol and paths that took them away from me and any magic I might have available. As I looked at their shining pre-teen faces in their childhood photos, my throat closed over a massive lump.  Back then I could still afford some slight protection, or so I thought. I had not yet learned the most perilous years lay in wait, full of dangers far scarier than my childrens' worst childhood nightmares. We entered those years all unaware and unprepared, and none of us came out unchanged.

What the photographs don't show is the other side of Christmas, in the years when my heart was aching for my children, when I valiantly traveled from place to place among them, bright smiles and cheerful wrap belying the hidden pain, the unspoken words one or the other of us was not yet able to say. Christmas lost its magic for me in the years when one, then another child was away from home. And in the years when Jeff, who had been so sunny a youngster, made his lonely trek through the valley of despair.

I remember the Christmas concert just after one daughter left home too soon, and the depth of sadness in my heart as I watched the two children who were still with me, up on the stage, the sweet sound of children singing piercing me through like a lance. Another year, another Christmas, and Jeff, wan and pale, fragile and shaky, singing, "If I were a swan, I'd be gone," me encouraging his talent and brilliance, at the same time trying to anchor him to this earth he had such a fragile hold upon.

Some Christmases we spent scattered, me traveling among my children. Some we spent together, with inner distances between us we didn't mention, our smiling faces turned to the camera, our secret pain and memories within.

There are no photographs of the fractured Christmases, when one or another of my children was either physically or emotionally distant from me. No photographs mark the passage of those years of family unraveling and reweaving. Years when I learned to stay steady,  cling firmly to my life and carry on, believing in the power of a mother's patient, steadfast and unconditional love - and the healing powers of the passage of time - for my children to make their inner journeys away from and back to me.

Back and forth among my children, as the years passed, I traveled, a little shorter, a lot tireder, a little more frazzled with every year. Encouraging, supporting, trying to instil my belief that life holds goodness and wonder, once we are ready to let go of all the pain and anger. For a time, I thought the Christmases we once had only came with small children, and were forever gone.

For years, I could not bear to look at the photos of those young faces, knowing the pain we all had gone through since. There were years I took photos mainly of scenery and tried to heal myself from all the pain and struggle. This year, I could look. This year was the right time to give my kids back some of those happy childhood memories, remind them there were many more good times, much more laughter, than there were times of trouble. My children are on their own journeys now, have made peace with the past, embracing the present. They have become spiritual warriors on the path, and I watch with amazement as they grow in strength and wisdom and awareness.

And I am traveling too, to the season of my life when time becomes more finite, when there is a lot of looking-back and summing-up, and a wish to pass on all the love and gifts and wisdom one possesses while one still can.

While my children were growing, I was growing too, willy-nilly. I did some growing whole, some seizing of the reins of the galloping wild horses that were my children in those years. There were times when I felt utterly unable to cope, knowing I had no choice but to cope with what felt like too heavy a load. When my children were floundering in treacherous waters, somehow I had to encourage them from shore, throw life preservers, guide them through. Sometimes I felt like I was hanging onto the tail of a lashing dragon, that was wagging me.

Those years have been past a long time now. My children are no longer children. Some time back they assumed the reins and tamed their own wild horses.

Grandparents' faces are now missing around the table;  I find myself the matriarch and wonder how it all happened so fast. But my children have been coming home for Christmas most every year, and  some of the magic has been creeping back into that day.

This year was like the Christmases of old, kids disappearing under a sea of wrap, their heads poking out above the surface. Jon, giving me the best gift he could possibly give, in gifting his brother with a ghetto blaster to play his music. Jeff, more himself than he has been for years, hovering protectively over freshly caught fish Jon was cleaning, like a young priest, telling them "It will be okay." Lisa filling with new strength and awareness of her worth and rights as a human on this earth. Strong enough to hold her head up bravely under judgment of those who do not know, in order to live her truth. Gifting me with the honesty of her communication. And Steph, who for so long  sought family outside of our family, now finding it with her brothers and sister, as the family mends and re-weaves itself, growing strong at the broken places.

My friend had a similar Christmas with her children, her son giving her the verbal gift of forgiveness first thing Christmas morning, reducing her to tears. As we remark on the growth we are seeing in our children and the richness of our new relationships with the adults they have become, she remarks, "Our Christmases will be different from now on. Consciousness is growing in our children." And she is right.

I feel less lonely on my path, now that my children are so strongly embarked on theirs. Our conversations have new depth and recognition. I feel proud of the journeys they are making: journeys of the heart, of finding and living their own truth, pride in their heart and courage and honesty.

This year, once again, we took the Christmas photo. This year I have been privileged to see deeper into who my kids really are. We are now a mutual cheering section for each other, comparing notes on the journey. My health is faltering, exhausted from decades of pain and struggle, wanting only rest. But my childrens' light is outshining the darkness, and it is an awesome sight, brighter than any yuletide tree. Sometimes I feel it is by my sheer determination that we all made it safely through.

If I had one gift I could give them, it would be the incredible gratitude and reverence I have always felt for life, just life. I made it through my dark times because there was always blue sky and sunshine and trees, filling my heart with thankfulness, to keep me looking up. I wish that heart-lift for my children, that gift of seeing past the pain to all the beauty that is available when we are ready to reach out for it.

Sometimes I worry about what might yet lie ahead,  knowing I dont have the strength for much more. I feel the deep tiredness of someone who has been paddling hard for a very long time, whose arms are growing weaker. My mother's heart is always braced against the possibility of unbearable pain should anything happen to any one of my children.

This year the difference was, my children were helping me and easing things for me, instead of me helping them. And it felt really good, like we're all in this together, so maybe I dont have to be so strong any more.

As I lose strength, my children are gaining it. With what pride I survey my life's work: four very special young people who emerged from some very perilous passages with the mark of the wayfarer on their faces, and knowledge, compassion, caring and strength shining from their eyes. We are now journeying together, and can recognize and applaud each other's progress as, by different paths, we find and live our truths. The cycle of life is turning, turning, and my children are leading me Home.

The Big Four: Jeff, Lisa, Stephanie, and Jon

Obelisk Moon

[image from flickr.com]

[I am posting this in response to Poets United Thursday Think Tank prompt: Family. I wrote it some years ago the night before Mother's Day. I am happy to report all are doing very well now. But when it comes to a poem about family, this was ours at one time. We loved our way through to calmer seas. I now understand an obelisk is a tower, not this pregnant-shaped moon. But I love the sound of it, so will leave it be.]

Obelisk moon
suspended in the sky
like a seven-months
pregnant woman
gliding by,
four times I sailed
proud and serene
like you,
small voyagers
aswim in a sea of dreams
all safe within.
I tacked and drifted,
set the mainsail fast
those sunny days
we thought would
for forever last.

How I dreamed
such simple dreams
of happiness:
the future
such a whole
and shining thing
life's songs
all waiting there
for them to sing
joyously
like laughing lovers
in the sun
and be happier than I
when I was young.

Now one son laughs
and lives his life
and one son weeps
in a maze from which
he cannot
find his way.
One daughter struggles
but goes on,
one daughter sweeps
from depth to wave-peak
in a single day
four small precarious
passengers
hanging on
without the chance
to choose
to a mother
not completely here
they are afraid
to lose.

And I?
My heart still sails
through seas sublime
my compass pointed
firmly towards
a hope
that I would keep
but all the time
a nightwatchman
lives on board
who never sleeps
and I wait
for that call
that knock in the night
to sound again
that is my world
come crashing down
in pain.

My heart lives now
four other hearts
inside.
Their journeys
become
my journey
and it is
a bumpy ride.

32 mother's days
sailing by so fast
on this sea of hope
where nothing ever lasts
days of unbearable beauty
unbearable sorrow
the best gift:
my children,
all alive
tomorrow.

L'CHAIM

[This is a fictionalized account of true events I read about some years ago, about two people who met at a grief group, and wound up falling in love and getting married. And the toast made at the end is true as well. That is the bare bones of it. I invented the story around that situation. But way cool to think this stuff really happens!]

At 3:17 on a snowy Thursday afternoon in November, Keith Govnell fell over his desk, dead of cardiac arrest at thirty-eight. Life as his loving wife and two small children knew it was appreciably over at that moment.

When they came to tell her, Karen reeled with shock and incomprehension. How could this be? Keith had hugged her goodbye that morning, smelling cleanly of toothpaste and his morning shower; they had shared a casual, distracted smile over the heads of seven year old Jared and six year old Samantha, who were noisily slurping their cornflakes and arguining over toast, and he was out the door. Not long after, his wife shepherded their children out to the car, dropped them off at school and proceeded with her normally busy day.

That night, after the police, the hospital corridors, the watchful nurses, the weeping friends and relatives, after all of that horribly unreal day was over, she stopped short at the door of their bedroom, staring at their marriage bed. It now was an alien and unthinkable country, and she retreated, closing the door quietly.

For months, she would sleep on the lumpy couch with a fuzzy blanket clutched around her. She wondered if she would ever be able to sleep in a bed again. She was certain she would never again know the joy of being loved, of being held, of sharing the comfortable darkness and the coming of a new day with a lover and companion, her soul-mate. It was cruel enough that Keith was dead at thirty-eight, that they had had only eight short years together. It was harder to be her, to be left, knowing her one shot at love, at happiness, had been and gone. It was for the children that she remained; for the children that she got up every morning, to make breakfast, to start them through their days, the days that yawned emptily before her to infinity, the days she would somehow have to live through, breathe through, move through until her useless stump of a body finally withered and she could be with Keith again.

A huge weariness moved in, once the initial raging grief subsided, and it took up residence in her sluggish limbs, her hopeless heart. It looked out through her tired, unseeking eyes and the absent smiles and abstracted murmurings with which she tended her children. Sometimes she'd give herself a shake; the childrens' grief and loss was terrible too. They needed her, desperately. Then she'd clutch them to her, almost too tightly. Sometimes their hot tears mingled together and after, as she dried their faces and wiped their noses, she'd promise them - and herself - that they would make it through. But how were they supposed to do it, without Keith?

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

At 9:54 on an icy Sunday morning in December, on a country road not twenty-five miles outside that same small city, not far from the farmhouse she shared with her husband Peter and three year old daughter Ariel, Amy Fraser felt the icy road under her tires suddenly fall away. In an instant, it had turned into a glassy skating rink. It felt like the wheels were toboggans that lifted, lifted her off the lip of a mountainside, then spilled and spilled her back to earth again, landing in a pillowy soft cloud of snow, brilliant with sunlight, where she could feel and hear nothing at all but peace.

Afterwards, as people repeated what had happened, how fast it had all occurred, they hoped the velocity of the crash had spun her safely beyond the physical realm on impact, sparing her any pain.

Pain was what was left behind for her loving, grieving husband and baby daughter. Peter lost, in that instant, his wife, his companion, his best friend and childhood sweetheart - his soul mate.

Bewilderedly clutching his uncomprehending little daughter, rocking her back and forth in the nursery chair Amy had used nightly to rock Ariel safely into the land of dreams, Peter's broken heart spilled out of his eyes and ran down his cheeks. The house, once so alive, was suddenly big and dead around him. It was so still, he could hear the whispery breath of his sleeping child, the eeriness of the wind outside, every creaking stair and dripping tap and ticking clock. So silent he could hear icicles cracking under the eaves. As he stared emptily and unseingly into the dark night, he wondered how on earth they were going to make it, Ariel and he, without Amy, who had been the laughter and sunshine of their days, the light of both their lives.

***** ***** ***** *****
Hovering close by, concerned, Amy's radiance was tinged with a hue of sorrow. She now understood life and death were simply other sides of the same reality. But her heart ached for her sorrowing husband, her innocent and unaware baby daughter, for the depth of her husband's grief and for all her child had lost.

Wistfully, she held back from her journey beyond. She could not quite let them go, could not move forward, until she knew that they would be all right. Through the days afterward, through the dark nights of the soul when Peter's tears soaked Amy's pillow, clutched tightly against him in the suddenly cold and too-large bed, beside him as he walked gravely up the aisle at the funeral, (the same aisle they had walked, so radiantly in love, at their wedding), and in the evenings after, when Peter had put his child to bed and sat staring into the lonely dark, Amy was never far. She longed to comfort him, to help him understand that her love, her presence, was still there, that this was all part of the plan, the divine mystery whose meaning is only revealed at the end of life.

Another had made the crossing with her; a young husband and father had suddenly found himself on the other side. He, too, was worried about his wife, his children. Because both had left so suddenly, so abruptly, in the time of their lives when they thought their married lives lay long before them, there was unfinished business keeping them attached to the earth plane. There was no way to say goodbye, with their loved ones in such pain. These two remained close behind the veil that separates the living from beyond, and in moments whispered hints of their loved ones' presence comforted Peter and Karen, in a way neither  could fully understand, yet neither  would deny.

***** ***** ***** *****

At first Karen wanted only to be home, hidden from others' eyes, from the rushing, bustling noisy world that was an affront to her, whose life had stopped that snowy afternoon. She drew the children close to her; the winter evenings found them all sharing the firelight, talking quietly, eating popcorn, watching television.

But by spring, she saw her children responding to the natural life cycle that was happening outdoors. And she knew she needed to get some help to pry her out of her armchair, out of her reverie. She would never get over Keith, never. But she had so many years ahead of her. She needed someone to help her, to tell her how she was supposed to manage to live out the rest of her life.

She was quiet and shy for the first while at the grief group. There was a vast tiredness on her face and living inside her body, the certain knowledge that her last chance at love had been and gone, too soon, and somehow she had to make something survivable out of the years ahead. One night she finally found her voice and spoke.

"Help me," she asked simply. "Help me to know how to keep going."

And somewhere, not very far away, her husband smiled.

***** ***** ***** *****

Peter resisted friends' suggestions that he turn to the local grief group. No use talking about it; that wouldnt make the pain go away. His tendency was to withdraw, to not talk. That certainly was easier than baring your grief in front of strangers.

But in the months that followed, there was no one he knew that he could relate to any more. His family, his friends were sympathetic and tender, concerned. But they didnt understand, how could they? How could they know that simply coming across Amy's scarf unexpectedly plunged a knife of agony into his innermost being. She had always been there; now she was gone. And how was he ever - ever! - going to get over that? How could life - that glorious taken-for-granted happy ease of daily life - ever get back to normal again?

Finally one night he opened the door of the church basement meeting room, and peered inside at the circle of people. They made him feel welcome, they gave him coffee, they didnt expect him to speak and so, of course, in time he did.

"One thing I know for certain: Amy would want me to go on. She was so alive, so vibrant. But the only trouble is, I'm having trouble figuring out how to do it."

Beyond the shadows, two spirits smiled at each other, and linked hands.

***** ***** *****

For six months, Peter and Karen related particularly to each other, as they shared their journeys of love and loss and tried to find their way back to life in the support of the circle. Their situations were so uncannily similar, their losses so recent. They were feeling so many of the same feelings. And they both feared they would never love again.

Then Karen found herself one day thinking, idly, "He's cute!" and, stunned, a moment later: "If I think he's cute, then I must be alive!"

Peter saw the great weariness in Karen's face and told himself, if it had to be, he preferred being the one to be left. He would not have wanted his wife to go through what Karen was going through. He began to feel protective and supportive, wanted to help ease her burden.

By the time the first year anniversaries of the deaths rolled around, they had begun to meet for coffee to talk more privately, to share their common experiences more deeply than they cared to in the group. They began to phone at odd hours, when the nighttime lasted too long and was too empty; each knew the other would understand as no one else possibly could.

After a while, they dropped in at each other's homes, made friends with each other's children, began going out on joint outings. Out of the broken pieces of their lives, they began to find a way to pick up some of the pieces and move forward.

It was in the second year that they knew that they would marry, would make a home for the most precious legacies their mates had left behind: their children.

It was a wedding of joy and tears. Each of them remembered other faces coming towards them down the aisle; each ofthem loved the new face in a way that somehow included the beloved former partner's face and encompassed all the pain they had passed through together. It was like the four of them somehow united on this day, all soul-mates.

When Peter rose to thank family and friends for their support through these hard years, he told how their coming together brought he and Karen the companionship and strength they both needed and wanted, and brought Jared and Samantha the father and Ariel the mother the children so badly needed.

As he raised his glass in a toast to his bride, the tears came and his voice caught in a sob, as he added, "I raise my glass also.....to Amy and to Keith.......for gifting us with three beautiful children and making us a family. To Life: L'Chaim!"

"L'Chaim!" everyone echoed, clinking lifted glasses, wiping away tears.

Somewhere, not too far, two spirits glided ever so softly away.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Indigo Children

image from squidoo.net

The news on TV
is not palatable.
It is dark.
I turn away,
turn off my ears,
and redirect
my mind.

But on this
same screen,
lately,
I have been seeing
children who bring
my poor old
tired heart
to tears.
They display
the most amazing gifts,
other-worldly voices,
angelic faces,
beyond-their-years gifts,
and a grace and aplomb
and assurance

that tell me
they are responding
to the accelerated consciousness
on the planet,
the transformation
that is trying to happen
right now
(hopefully
in time.)

They have come
to show us
we are much more
than we
think we are,
or we have been,
can reach
so much higher,
so much deeper 
than we do.

They show us
what is possible
when we stop
thinking
it is
impossible.

They are demonstrating
the next stage
in the evolution
of human consciousness.

They point the way
to the remaking
- the re-visioning -
of our world
(because before
we can achieve it,
we have to believe it.)

They light the way
with the radiance
of their beings,
the purity of their voices,
the simple offering
of their
amazing gifts,
and
their attunement
to this higher vibration
we sense,
but are too mired
in yesterday
to trust.

They look out
from the screen
with smiling eyes
and old souls
that convince me
there is still
a lot of hope
for this old world.

BECAUSE I BELIEVE IN LIFE

Wickanninish Beach, Vancouver Island

[posted for the Poetry Pantry

at Poets United]

written August 22, 1998

Yesterday my sister

called me up
to say they were

dropping bombs

on Afghanistan:
peasants bombarded

under a morning sky
another slice of

toxic political pie

Instead of turning

on the news
I walked the beach -
dogs frolicked in the waves

with loopy grins,
as another radiant

west coast day begins
All we can do is send out

love and light,
no limit to how far
our love can reach

A young woman,

huddled under quilts,
says her life "sucks"
while outside

her bedroom door
a little miracle
with jam on his face
needs to know

the world's
a happy place
A child of hope
striving to survive
his mother's pain
living childhood days

of fleeting grace
that will never

come again,
waits for her

to look outward and see
we are all part

of the glorious mystery
life unfolding
when we stop withholding

This morning I read

a polar ice cap
the size of Connecticut

is slowly breaking
and when it does,
whether three years

or five hundred

in the making,
the sea will rise up

in a single night
sweeping the coast away
that's what they say

But all we ever have
is this one day
to be grateful

for each moon
each morning star,
each song that opens doors
to who we are -
we all travel so far
to find that place

of love within
where we finally begin
to know we're not alone
and let love guide

our footsteps
on the journey home

My friend is dreaming

of babies
a little soul is asking

to come through -
she wonders

how can she bring a child
all sweet and new
into a world

so helter-skelter,
so askew

Because I believe in life
and life believes in life
I say -
we open our eyes

to miracles
every day,
are only asked

to give back

what we can
along the way

This afternoon
a young couple

playing music
in the summer sun
set all our toes

a-tapping to the beat -
gracefully, two women

started dancing
on the village street
We all were smiling
because life is fun
These are the moments
when we most feel
as one
each bringing gift's

to the universe's table
as we are able

We all want life
our souls all long
to fly
we bring our babies
into a world
of starshine
and blue sky
of song and wonder
rainbows
love and laughter
and they will thank us after
for giving them the chance
to love and live
to share the joys we know,
give our souls
the chance to grow
while teaching us how much
we have
to give

No matter what

is happening
everywhere
life holds
a million gifts
we still
can share
as simple
as the sun warm

on our faces,
as profound as love
found in

the most unlikely places -
love enough
to plunge our souls in,
fill ourselves right up
with plenty spilling over
to fill our children's cup

Oh how they teach us,
as we share each day,
that the love

that makes us happiest
is the love we give away
In them is our re-birth -
we send them forth
with love too deep to say
trusting that

the beauty of the earth
will carry them
the rest of the way

GOODBYES

Agh. Today was a killer. I attended the goodbye party for the three little wayfarers I have looked after for three years, who are going to their adoptive home tomorrow. A hard day for their foster mom, and for me, as we have loved these kids. A harder day for the grandpa who is seeing them leave town to go farther away. And for the young uncle who wanted to adopt them and couldnt because he is already a single dad and it would have been too much. Lots of hidden tears and turned away shoulders, that straightened up and turned back around to present to the kids smiling faces that tried to be happy for them finding their forever home.

When I first arrived, the boys came running, calling my name. Three year old J. told me excitedly, "We're going with our mummy and daddy!" This was very positive. Five year old R. is trying to roll with yet another big change in his short life - the seventh! - but has fears and anxiety of course. He has been through this before. I doubt he understands that this will be the last move - to him it is the next move, and he has been happy with the foster parents.

The new parents are nice but brand new in their lives. I stayed for two hours, playing with the kids, grabbing a hug where I could, helping them with food, just watching their day unfold around them. Someone gave the boys bug catchers and they were out stalking in the field looking for crickets. Then I could feel my strength ebbing and my own emotions surfacing, and knew I had to leave while I was still strong enough to do it well, for the kids.

I hugged J. and told him I love him, hugged R., told him I love him. But the baby squawked every time I put her down, till I had to lie and tell her I'd see her soon. I put her in her little car, beeped the horn, played the "Bye" game we play when she rides the car, and walked away.

God.

Drove home in tears with this poem in my head :

Why is
life
all about
goodbyes?

Will there
ever be
anyone
who stays?

The answer
that comes
so easily
it must be truth:
not likely,
because
all loving has
a price to pay.

At every "hello"
the inevitable
"goodbye"
already starts.
There is really
precious little
we get to keep,
other than
the memories
and love
we carry
in our hearts.

The Marr's~Early Days

Florence Fitzsimmons, age sixteen, on her family farm. This is the happiest photo I have ever seen of my Grandma. She was the youngest in her family, and she said her sister Dolly grumbled that she was "spoiled", and didnt have to do chores because she was the Baby. Flo was the first girl in that farming community who had her own saddle horse and rode for pleasure. She cut quite a stir when she galloped into town, pulling the reins up smartly, so her horse reared up.

"Who's THAT?" asked the dreamy-eyed young new bank manager that all the town girls were swooning over. Soon he came calling. My Grandma used to dance up a storm at the county dances too. She said the town girls were put out that he had gone courting a farm girl. He always called her "Floss". Grandma said they were engaged for two years and that it was hard to wait that long. But he was trying to get himself established.

Flo and Kentucky saddle horse Monte, whom I just found out was bought by my grandfather, so he could ride with her.

Wildred Lloyd Marr. "Wilf". On Monte. In the scrapbook, I have just found a typed note of some of my Grandma's memories of my grandfather's history, as told to my aunt and transcribed by her.

"I Remember" - Flo, as told to her daughter.

Wilf was born in Ontario, to a photographer who came from Scotland, David Lloyd George Marr. He married Kate (Kitty) Little, who was very sweet. They never had a cross word. She would meet him at the gate when he returned home, with little Wilf in tow. When Wilf was four years old, Kitty died in childbirth and the baby boy died too. Grandpaw Marr took Wilf to visit his mother's grave.

[Grandpa felt sad all his life about his mother, who was French. I have a cane, which my Grandma used until her death, that apparently belonged to Kitty. It is so treasured I dont use it. It leans against the wall in my bedroom.]

Wilf's father spoke little about her after her death, except to say he loved her very much.

Some time later he remarried and a number of children were born. Two of Wilf's half-sisters died.

Wilf joined the Union Bank when he was sixteen years old. He was transferred to Esterhazy by the bank as teller when he was 24 or 25 years of age. That is where he met Flo.

He bought a Kentucky saddle horse so he could go riding with her, since horses were her first love. After three years of coutrship, they married at St Mary's Church in Esterhazy. He was bank manager at Guernsey then, very handsome, a smart dresser and a gentleman. The notes say "There was no one quite like him either in or out of the bank."

"The second Mrs Marr didnt approve of the marriage between Wilfred and me for religious reasons and as a result, inter-family relations were pretty well terminated, though Grandpaw Marr came to visit as often as he could, and Dad would take you kids to visit him as well. He was a delightful man, and love was mutual. Just as Wilf loved Maw Fitzsimmons, I loved his father. He died suddenly in Saskatoon at 66 of a stroke, on New Year's Day."

"Your Dad went to Oregon while we lived in Brandon during the first war to seek a better paying job. He landed a position as accountant, but when he returned his company offered him a position to match the offer in Portland, so we stayed in Brandon. His various positions were Bank Manager, collector for International Harvester, before going into the IH office. At my insistence, he took a position as bank teller in the Bank of Montreal, but toward war's end returning soldiers would take up the jobs they had left. So he resigned. His family had meantime moved to Saskatoon so he returned to that city and took a position with an accounting firm, subsequently moving on to become credit manager for Cockshutt Plow.

Depression days arrived which forced staff layoffs, he being one of them.

He practiced bookkeeping for various companies and individuals and became involved in the herbal business. He was offered a position as auditor for the Workman's Compensation Board which put him on his feet so he was ultimately able to devote full time to what later became Health Products.

I Remember: Audrey (the youngest daughter, second youngest in the family of five children)
Dad wished that he could have joined the Navy at the outset of World War I but as Mother was expecting the birth of LaVergne at that time it wasnt possible. He couldnt leave her. She wouldnt let him. He wanted to serve his country.

He had a great fondness for Oregon. [I do as well.] But Mother didnt want to move there.

I remember him taking us to play around the farm machinery in the warehouse of the Cockshutt Plow where he was credit manager. Quite an adventure. The steel ball bearings were marvellous toys, but everything had to be left tidy as it was before we arrived.

I remember his unwavering love and trust.

On the back of this photo is written, perhaps by her mother : This was your wedding outfit. That's her dog, Tango, beside her. Grandma told me she sent away for this outfit, which was patterned after a New York fashion. I vaguely recall her saying it cost eighteen dollars, a fortune in those days.

Flo and Tango in front of their first home, Guernsey, Saskatchewan 1914

Flo with LaVergne, her first child. I love the soft wistful look on her young face, gazingly so wonderingly at this small creature who had suddenly appeared in her life.

I have this one out of sequence - Flo with Monte, Wilf with Punch. At least that is what the handwriten note on the photo says. So Flo must have been still on the farm when this was taken, I believe the date was 1913. And Punch was still alive. Unless the notation is incorrect.

The note on this one says "Guernsey Bank 1913" . Wilf and Flo are in the centre, and the writing says Irish is on the left and Rocky on the right.

I love this one. Underneath it in the scrapbook, it said "Bank after Hallowe'en". But when I turned the photo over, it says "Feeding eggs to the dogs at noon at Four Corners Store near Meadow Lake." The store is the size of a small cabin and there isnt a road or a corner in sight:)

Out of sequence again . Flo and ranch horse at the farm. I wish my mom was here to fill in the gaps in the history. I remember her saying she got "sent to the farm" in the summers. I assume this must be either the old family farm, or my grandmother's brother Frank's farm. Or perhaps he took over the family farm. Horrible how history disappears with each generation. Not many people left to remember all this any more.

Here is my grandma holding my mother. My mom had the same face her whole life, and a very distinctive personality. She had "star power" and was always quite dazzling.

In my grandma's writing, it says "dirty '30's" beside this photo. Life was hard in those years. It was the Depression, and they had five young children to raise. My grandpa did the books for various stores and businesses, in exchange for a sack of coal, or whatever they could offer in exchange. My grandma washed all the pinafores, dresses, leggings, smocks and sheets for five children by hand in the bathtub. She would walk for miles down to the railway tracks, to buy bruised bananas cheap, to make dessert for the family. Hard hard work. For a young girl who had been rather pampered, I wonder how she found this adjustment.

Family legend says she ruled the kids with an iron hand when they were young, and they rebelled in their teens. I knew her as a highly responsible, disciplined woman, with a high sense of propriety. But she also had a wicked sense of humor and was a source of unending comfort and care to all of the grandchildren, most of whom she spent some years looking after when we were small.

I like this photo as it is the one photograph where she isnt a mom or a grandma, but simply a woman. A young woman, in a pretty dress. My grandparents had a long marriage, of over sixty years. It was a given that they loved each other, though given the times, there was little affection shown in public.

I hope they were wild about each other. I hope they had joy.

I hope they had a blast!

OBELISK MOON

Obelisk moon,
suspended in the sky
like a seven-months
pregnant woman
gliding by,
four times I sailed
proud and serene,
like you,
small voyagers
aswim in a sea of dreams
all safe within.
I tacked and drifted
set the mainsail fast
those sunny days
we thought would
for forever last

How I dreamed
such simple dreams
of happiness:
the future such
a whole and shining thing
life's songs
all waiting there
for them to sing
joyously
like laughing lovers
in the sun
and be happier than I
when I was young

Now one son laughs
and lives his life
and one son weeps
in a maze from which
he cannot find his way
One daughter struggles
but goes on,
one daughter sweeps
from depth to wave-peak
in a single day
four small precarious passengers
hanging on
without the chance to choose
to a mother
they are so afraid
to lose

And I?
My heart still sails
through seas sublime
my compass pointed firmly
towards a hope
that I would keep
but all the time
a nightwatchman
lives on board
who never sleeps
and I wait
for that call
that knock in the night
to sound again
that is my world
come crashing down
in pain

My heart lives now
four other hearts inside,
their journeys become
my journey
and it is a bumpy ride

32 mother's days
sailing by so fast
on this sea of hope
where nothing ever lasts
days of unbearable beauty
unbearable sorrow
the best gift:
my children,
all alive
tomorrow.

A heart full of tears

Wow. An emotional day for this tired old heart.

My elderly dog is letting me know very soon it will be Time for him to leave.

This evening I packed up three adorable beautiful happy children that I have provided respite care for for three years, and said goodbye to them for the last time. They dont know it's the last time. Two of them are too young to comprehend what will soon be happening, and the oldest, only five himself, knows the information, but doesnt yet understand what that really means.

Soon they will be going from their foster home to an adoptive home on the mainland. Ultimately the best thing for them, but in the process, their little hearts will go through some wrenching days and weeks, I am sure. Each of them carried with them the biggest softest stuffed animal I could find, nearly as big as they are, and I told them if they are ever feeling sad, to give their animals a hug and it would be like a hug from me.

One thing for sure, they - and I - will have so many happy memories of times we spent together.

THEN, I watched what is perhaps the most beautiful, moving, heartbreaking, uplifting movie I have ever seen: My Name is Khan. Anyone who loves humanity and has hope in their hearts will love this film. It is the love story of a Muslim man with Asperger's Syndrome and a Hindu woman. But it is much more than that. A tragedy befalls their family after 9/11, and Khan goes on a journey across America, with the trueness of his heart showing people "I am not a terrorist." I spent the last half of the movie in tears.

Whew. An emotional workout for this old stoic! Off to bed. Tomorrow is Gnarly Boy, aged fourteen and with his own challenges, and another day in the life :)

A Miracle in Africa

photo from commpassionatejourneys.com

[This was sent to my inbox today and I looked it up on the internet to verify the author. I consider myself to be a "spiritual" rather than a "religious" person. Having been rather scared away from organized religion, I prefer a wider view of matters spiritual.

The priest who related this story says that God knows our prayers even before we are born, and answers them before we even ask. This brings a certain comfort on this lovely cool-ish sunny late-summer morning, and it is such a beautiful story I decided to pass it on. We can take from it what we wish.

I sit here, so grateful for the sun, the trees, the freshness of the air, my morning cup of tea, my two doggy companions..........and connection with all of you, each starting your day somewhere else. Blessings abound!]

***************************************************

Many stories and "urban legends" make their way around the world through the Internet. Some cannot be verified, many can be proved fictional, and some, like the one below, can be authenticated.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

THE HOT WATER BOTTLE - A True Story By Helen Roseveare, Missionary to Africa

One night, in Central Africa, I had worked hard to help a mother in the labor ward; but in spite of all that we could do, she died leaving us with a tiny, premature baby and a crying, two-year-old daughter. We would have difficulty keeping the baby alive. We had no incubator. We had no electricity to run an incubator, and no special feeding facilities. Although we lived on the equator, nights were often chilly with treacherous drafts. A student-midwife went for the box we had for such babies and for the cotton wool that the baby would be wrapped in. Another went to stoke up the fire and fill a hot water bottle. She came back shortly, in distress, to tell me that in filling the bottle, it had burst. Rubber perishes easily in tropical climates. "...and it is our last hot water bottle!" she exclaimed.

As in the West, it is no good crying over spilled milk; so, in Central Africa it might be considered no good crying over a burst water bottle. They do not grow on trees, and there are no drugstores down forest pathways. All right," I said, "Put the baby as near the fire as you safely can; sleep between the baby and the door to keep it free from drafts. Your job is to keep the baby warm."

The following noon, as I did most days, I went to have prayers with many of the orphanage children who chose to gather with me. I gave the youngsters various suggestions of things to pray about and told them about the tiny baby. I explained our problem about keeping the baby warm enough, mentioning the hot water bottle. The baby could so easily die if it got chilled. I also told them about the two-year-old sister, crying because her mother had died. During the prayer time, one ten-year-old girl, Ruth, prayed with the usual blunt consciousness of our African children. "Please, God," she prayed, "send us a water bottle. It'll be no good tomorrow, God, the baby'll be dead; so, please send it this afternoon."

While I gasped inwardly at the audacity of the prayer, she added by way of corollary, " ...And while You are about it, would You please send a dolly for the little girl so she'll know You really love her?" As often with children's prayers, I was put on the spot. Could I honestly say, "Amen?" I just did not believe that God could do this. Oh, yes, I know that He can do everything: The Bible says so, but there are limits, aren't there?

The only way God could answer this particular prayer would be by sending a parcel from the homeland. I had been in Africa for almost four years at that time, and I had never, ever received a parcel from home. Anyway, if anyone did send a parcel, who would put in a hot water bottle? I lived on the equator! Halfway through the afternoon, while I was teaching in the nurses' training school, a message was sent that there was a car at my front door. By the time that I reached home, the car had gone, but there, on the veranda, was a large twenty-two pound parcel!

I felt tears pricking my eyes. I could not open the parcel alone; so, I sent for the orphanage children. Together we pulled off the string, carefully undoing each knot. We folded the paper, taking care not to tear it unduly. Excitement was mounting. Some thirty or forty pairs of eyes were focused on the large cardboard box. From the top, I lifted out brightly colored, knitted jerseys. Eyes sparkled as I gave them out. Then, there were the knitted bandages for the leprosy patients, and the children began to look a little bored. Next, came a box of mixed raisins and sultanas - - that would make a nice batch of buns for the weekend.

As I put my hand in again, I felt the...could it really be? I grasped it, and pulled it out. Yes, "A brand-new rubber, hot water bottle!" I cried. I had not asked God to send it; I had not truly believed that He could. Ruth was in the front row of the children. She rushed forward, crying out, "If God has sent the bottle, He must have sent the dolly, too!" Rummaging down to the bottom of the box, she pulled out the small, beautifully dressed dolly. Her eyes shone: She had never doubted! Looking up at me, she asked, "Can I go over with you, Mummy, and give this dolly to that little girl, so she'll know that Jesus really loves her?"

That parcel had been on the way for five whole months, packed up by my former Sunday School class, whose leader had heard and obeyed God's prompting to send a hot water bottle, even to the equator. One of the girls had put in a dolly for an African child -- five months earlier in answer to the believing prayer of a ten-year-old to bring it "That afternoon!" "And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear." Isaiah 65:24

Helen Roseveare a doctor missionary from England to Zaire, Africa, told this as it had happened to her in Africa.

***************************************************

KOSOVO 1999

AP photo/David Brauchli

Sister Refugee,

your hopeless, tear-streaked face

looks out at me

from my tv screen

and I recognize

how easily

it might have been

reversed:

I finding myself

sitting in your place.

It could so easily be

me instead of you

huddled

on that muddy hillside

in the rain,

looking so tired and old,

so resigned and full of pain,

cradling a sleepy grandchild

against the bitter cold.

What do we know or care

of politics?

Our lives are about love,

and keeping children safe.

We walk the same earth,

share the sky above;

that yours rains bombs

and mine rains tears

a trick of fate

that could just as easily

reverse

this time next year.

photo by BBC
Your eyes meet mine

across the miles

with bitter dread.

In the midst of

all this folly

how do we keep the children fed?

How nurture the future,

how hang on to hope,

when life hangs

suspended

by such a fragile thread?

We both agree

that this is not

The Way,

are helpless

but to endure,

having no say,

until the tide

can turn

and turn

once more,

tossing us up

upon a kinder shore.

THE GONG OF TIME

[Note: this is written entirely tongue in cheek, intended as humor - I hope no one is offended:)]

The gong of time rings with a resounding thunk at the moment one looks back on all the years, realizing with a sudden shock how, the last ten years having zipped by in a nanosecond, the years stretching ahead are ominously few. After sixty, one thinks (or tries not to think) of best and worst case scenarios: ten to fifteen years no longer stretches ahead lazily, but looms as a finite entity which must not be squandered.

One tricks oneself into moving through lazy self-directed days, one still wastes whole chunks of time, hours, days, even weeks. There is still next week, next month, next year to clean out the detritus in the cupboards, write the book of one's life, make out a will, tell everyone in your life what they mean to you. Until there isnt.

After sixty, the sense of infinite possibility changes. Once one envisioned white knights who may yet arrive. Now the probable scenario switches to handy-dart drivers, meals on wheels, even hearse drivers who may pull up to one's door unexpectedly. Why unexpected? Why is it that each of us knows that everyone dies, but continues to believe it will always be Somebody Else? Possibilities now include knee replacement and orthotics, the challenge of living on too little money, and the stunning dental lottery by which one races one's teeth to the Final Demise.

One has long since stopped clicking through the leering hairy photos on match.com. Who needs a grizzled bad-tempered wart-encrusted lothario with wandering eyes and expensive tobacco habits cluttering up one's living space? The lifelong pursuit of peace is attained and re-embraced with every bout of solitude, finally underlining that this is my chosen and preferred state, reclaimed after each relinquishment with stronger fervor.

The time factor begins to press urgently when someone who started one's life fully expecting to have books published has been so busy raising children, that she has written only one, as the second and perhaps the most definitive clamors insistently. The time is now to tell my story, proof against my children's claims that they had the most traumatic childhoods on the planet. Yes, even worse than Rwandan children, or those raised in caves in Afghanistan! I remember all those years, all the laughter, all I put into it - my life's blood, a trend that continues into my declining years, head bloody but unbowed. I shall write it down, all I remember, hoping at least one of my offspring will read it:)

Declining years - somehow when I look back at the trajectory of this path I bumbled upon, I see an ascent, rather than a descent. Flailing and wretched, I stumbled by fate and fortune onto some magical turnings, and grew with every decade deeper into myself and the journey. If this be close to the pinnacle, it might give one pause to take stock: the fatigue of shoring up other peoples' journeys; limbs showing the wear and tear of all the self-flogging required to assume a load big enough for two or three, toppling about precariously on my shoulders; days when I can barely stagger about with yelps of pain; finances best not even mentioned; in need of help, after all the helping, and a future that promises no ease of these difficulties.

BUT! The riches! Having raised those children alone with all ofthe energy and heart I could summon. Being a loved and appreciated grandma and now a great-grandma. The coffeehouse years that showed me Another Way. Having made one of the strongest dreams of my life come true in my move to the ocean. Ten glorious years immersed in the wonders of nature, in a community of kindred spirits. Having come home fully to myself, being okay with who I am and the life I have lived. Loving my little trailer, my books and music, my furry companions and the peacefulness of my life, waking up each day to a day that is my own, at last, at LAST!

I heard the gong clearly when my mother died, in that passage conferring the mantle of family matriarch on me. With her passing, there was no longer a buffer between me and my own mortality. Her presence had kept me young, still someone's child. With her death in 1994, perforce I became a grownup.

I see in the younger generation the self-absorption of the young, the youthful unawareness of just how mortal I am, just how finite my years. They think they have lots of time to work out the issues and the anger. They dont know that their perception of the years I gave my heart and soul to rewrites history in a way that erases my life, removes all the joy and striving, all the effort, that I put into our lives together.

The gong reverberates inside more frequently; the press of time ahead being extremely finite, is still there. Yet human nature is such that one wakes to the promise of a new day as if one always will. Unable or unwilling to grasp the reality, even as one sits by the deathbeds of others, that one morning will dawn without one being present to witness it.

In response to death, one can only live, as fully and consciously as one can, appreciating the gifts and the glory, the way a new bud unfurls under the first warmth of spring, or a newborn opens its eyes on a world tinged with wonder.

Walking with my sister and the dogs the other night, after my son had once again unthinkingly flattened me by a careless comment that erased his entire childhood, I moaned, "It's going to be horrible having to go through my Life Review at the end of my life. It's been hard enough living through it once!"

My sister smiled. "I'm sure when St Peter sees you, he'll just say 'dont even bother' and wave you right in," and we both cackled hopelessly.