Sunday, June 19, 2016

Sunsets and Sorrow

June 1, 2016

Sunsets and Sorrows

Now the days go by slowly like the tears running down my cheeks until I reach night to embrace one more sunset followed by more sorrow.

Only sunsets and sorrows are all that I have since you've left me baby I'm so sad, oh so sad.

The first time I saw you across that pond my heart leapt for joy until our first embrace and we became one.

Together we were so perfect with all our dreams coming true, truly true.

Our marriage brought family to complete our life as we watched our love fulfilled, nothing could defeat us only complete us.

Then in the blink of an eye, before we could imagine, you were gone and with the shake of my head sunsets and sorrow are all I had.

Sunsets and Sorrow

June 1, 2016

Sunsets and Sorrows

Now the days go by slowly like the tears running down my cheeks until I reach night to embrace one more sunset followed by more sorrow.

Only sunsets and sorrows are all that I have since you've left me baby I'm so sad, oh so sad.

The first time I saw you across that pond my heart leapt for joy until our first embrace and we became one.

Together we were so perfect with all our dreams coming true, truly true.

Our marriage brought family to complete our life as we watched our love fulfilled, nothing could defeat us only complete us.

Then in the blink of an eye, before we could imagine, you were gone and with the shake of my head sunsets and sorrow are all I had.

Left at Parks Edge

June 1, 2016



As I glanced out the door at the parks edge, the memory of that cold January day comes flooding my way.  You professed your love for me but still you had to go never wavering to my plea don't leave me, please don't leave me.

No sweet memory recalled could persuade you to stay, no child on your lap, no soft embrace would make you sway from your still solid path to go away, far away.

One by one they came to your side to be told of your great love,  but each one cried stay, stay, please stay.  But no, you went away, far away.

As you handed me your ring, forever no more to wear, the symbol of your holy pledge to love cherish and care, I knew you would not stay for you must go away, far away.

When will time heal my grief and loss as I wait for your return to me at the parks edge, waiting, waiting on you to see some day returning to me.

HELLO HAPPY

HELLO HAPPY

Looking for peace?  Peace of mind, quiet peace or that peace that transcends all other.  Peace from grief, though I think only comes with time or at least for me with time and God's help.

Some people I understand, have never been very good at accepting their circumstances and embracing their blessings.  Not because we don’t enjoy our blessings and some people even overlook blessings as they consider it just life.  We are told to "Count all things Joy!"  I have a friend that has that written on a beautifully framed chalkboard as you enter her home and what a nice reminder to anyone entering that her home embraces joy.

The fifth of next month it will be 29 months since my love left.....my heart, my soul...

Being married to Glen has not been a detriment, by any sense of the word.  I’ve been manicured, pedicured, massaged, fluffed, buffed, polished, cooked for and just basically pampered so much more than the average person, that I qualified as a kept woman.

I remember when we lived on Elm after moving back from Pennsylvania, as I was walking my Daddy to his truck.  He stopped and said "Babe, you are truly happy."  I said, "yes, it doesn't get much better than this."  Then, within a few weeks Daddy had a stroke.  I tried to revisit and reclaim that moment with my Father.  That "no time better than" moment.  But then, that feeling of desperation that something terrible is going to happen or you are facing another day where your loved one is sick and you feel so helpless and all this after just being at that ultimate lofty blessed above all site.  How do I reclaim those moments.  My life with Glen, I love you Baby, forever and ever Amen! The special time with my Daddy.  Happy Fathers Day, Daddy.

Well, my love showed me.  All you that know me, know I love flowers, not just selfishly for myself but I love to give and share.

As I sat out back in our special place on the swing where many a day and night we enjoyed the garden and parks edge together, I looked up and said "Happy 52nd Anniversary, Baby" and from the still quiet moment the wind forcefully began to blow from the North.  The trees whipped to and fro,  the wind chimes beat against the house and then just as quickly as it started it stopped.  I looked up and said "very impressive sweet heart, very impressive".

I love you so much, Glen.  I know you and our baby son are having a great day.  I thank you for coming to me in our garden where the Lord gives us all peace.  You know where God suddenly fills us with JOY where just a moment before we were empty.

Finding a beautiful, silent place to call your own is necessary for me.  I found it in a garden and the Lord gave it to us in the 23rd Psalms..  like

 2He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:  You see, He’s giving us PERFECT REST
 3He restoreth my soul: You see, PERFECT HEALTH
 I will fear no evil:  PERFECT SAFETY
 5Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: PERFECT CALM
 and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.
You see, there it is…. DWELL IN HIS HOUSE FOREVER…He gives us that PERFECT PEACE.
Those moments are, for me, the ultimate thing to be grateful for. The real reason my life really is meaningful, and the reason why I’m grateful for having it.
And that is a blessing I can feel grateful for every day of the year.

Friday, June 3, 2016

Memories of Home

Memories of Home
By
Carol Nichols
1989

Tony finally calls about my hair appointment.  Perm at one --- can hardly wait, the humidity and rain keep my hair constantly in my eyes.  It was a wet May with record rainfall and little sunshine.

It has been over a week since I've returned and I finally washed a few curtains and cleaned a little yesterday finding it hard to get back into day-to-day things.

As I glanced out the door, the grass is heavy from last night's rain.  Cricket whines impatiently in anticipation of the opening door and the woods that lie ahead.  I halfheartedly give in as I gaze at the now overgrown vegetation vividly remembering, in prior months, it's barren image.  My two months absence, vacationing at home in the southern state we had moved from two years ago, had given the tall monarchs time to fully clothed themselves in green splendor.

As I step from the house to the full sun, I feel it's soothing warmth on my shoulders while taking a deep breath of mountain air, I predispose myself to acclimate to life in Pennsylvania.  This was our second move, choosing to wait until our children had graduated from high school before accepting any career promotions.  Our son had made the first move with us to southern Illinois which helped to buffer the initial shock.

I quickly found that accepting change was not one of my strong suits.  We had always lived close to family with both of us being born and raised in the same small town.  We had even lived next-door to my parents for almost 15 years.  I know I'm a momma's baby.   I've heard it before!

As they say, home is where the heart is, and there are two hearts now in the Keystone State. Nevertheless, what could home have to offer over this beautiful state??  Hot stifling days with stormy tornadic nights, winds that never cease blowing grit and dirt over every part of your body, miles and miles of open prairie with few if any trees---a daughter and a son, family, friends, two precious granddaughters and memories, memories, memories.  I suddenly awaken to the realization that whatever your current surroundings hold,  opulent beauty or endless rolling plains, like the sea turtle returning, year after year to her place of birth, home will always have an innate compelling call that can never be quenched.

As I inner abruptly, almost magically, into the depth of the forest with lush northern fern covering the ground before me, I glance in the direction of Cricket, now in heavy pursuit of a chipmunk and become once again amazed at how fast those short little legs can carry that skinny long body.  I continue forward remembering last winter, anticipating the awakening of the forest, enabling it to reveal the identity of its diverse vegetation.

Making my way through the low hanging branches, I am gently showered with droplets of cool water that have been held unyielding until now awaiting release.  I go deeper, the fern disappears, void of sunlight except for an occasional sprig being nurtured by the rich mulch of a decaying log and suddenly, if not mystically, it is replaced by clusters of erupting mushrooms standing in colonies like little monuments to prior organisms.

A daddy long legs appears, easily scaling the obstacles before him, looking as a small orange dot until entering a patch of leaves that reveals the brown extensions that so arduously carries him forward to his unknown destination.

A vine-entwined branch reaches toward the ground, in a nefarious looking manner, as if waiting to be released by an interloper to abruptly catapult upward and reclaim its previous lofty heights.

Cricket, entering a patch of sunlight, red coat glistening, ears perked, sees some foreboding quest and at a glance, beckons me to hasten or be left by myself.  Unexpectedly, from my side, I catch a glimpse of red.  Bending down, I retrieve a child's lost possession, which, unfortunately, awakens me to the reality that I am not the only Pilgrim to make this trek.

As I exit into the mid-morning light, I stop to pick a bouquet of wild daisies and Queen Anne's lace and head from the solitude of the forest to the porch to reflect once again on memories of home!!!