Category Archives: love

Put your heart to paper

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Valentine’s Day has always seemed, to me, to be so commercialized. Stores begin building their storefront windows with lavish hearts, teddy bears, cards and flowers to lure you into the belief that love comes with a price tag.  But Hallmark has gone above all of the tangible commissary items and done me in this year.  They have a new campaign that has me buried under a mountain of used tissues and it is simply wonderful.

It is easy to say ‘I love you’.  We can utter those words without really giving them a second thought when we are in a relationship.  But Hallmark asked several couples to describe their partners without using the word ‘love’.  The results are overwhelmingly emotional and the video below is only one of the couples interviewed.

I don’t have a lot to write today because every time I think of this video, I cry.  This couple is asked, after 56 years of marriage, to describe their partner without using the word love.  This is what every person in the world should experience.  A love that could swallow the alphabet a million times but not be able to form a sentence to do it justice with words.

Maybe my goal of finding that love is too lofty. But I call bullshit.  I’m not willing to settle for any less because this type of love should be felt by everyone at least once in their lifetime.   The type of love that simply makes you happy and makes you regret nothing.   The type of love that makes you crave that person every second you are apart and makes you appreciate everything that is different because it compliments who you are.  Sure it will never be perfect, but love rarely is.  Love is a struggle.   Love is about compromise.   And, at the end of the day, love is about knowing you are in the right place with the right person.

Damn you, Hallmark…..where is the tissue?

When our hearts finally meet

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I can spend hours gazing into your eyes,

even though you may not even exist.

I can feel the lingering trail of your fingers,

slowly caressing my cheeks,

but your hands are invisible.

 Your words fall on my ears,

like a soft, warm rain in July,

and yet they are only the whispers of the wind.

 These things are promises of you,

ethereal harbingers of a time that may come.

I can’t get the thought of you out of my head,

 perhaps because you are supposed to be there.

You are the dream I keep dreaming,

the ghost that haunts my subconscious.

When we are brought together,

whether in this lifetime or another,

two souls will appreciate their journey,

because no distance can keep us apart.

two hearts2

When our hearts finally meet,

they will speak a language,

that they are only meant to speak to each other.

~~

(image credit)

Boys will be boys, and then they make you cry

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I knew this Christmas season would be difficult for me.  I’ve done my best to write my feelings into submission but they are stealthily lying just below the surface, waiting to bubble up when I least expect them.

Last night I celebrated Christmas with my brother and his family.  Nagging work schedules bumped the holiday up by a couple of days but any change in the old routine is a welcome change.  I arrived at the house with my food contributions, my secret Santa gift and the scrapbook I made of pictures of my mom so she could be with us in spirit.  What I wasn’t expecting was this:

shrine

My nephew had taken one of the candles I made for my mom’s memorial service in May, created a beautiful Christmas display and placed it in the middle of the room so she was with us during our celebration.  I now know how the Grinch felt when his heart grew three sizes.  I was so moved and my heart swelled so much that I thought it would burst out of my chest.  It was all I could do not to hug him until he turned blue.

That gift, that display made by a 14-year-old boy to honor the memory of his Nana, is, by far, the best gift of 2014.  I could not bring myself to show too much emotion for fear that the tears would come and never stop.  Instead, we high-fived and continued on with the merriment.  Gifts were opened, food was consumed and a great amount of laughter was shared.  I learned to never again go in a swimming pool with my brother (future blog post) and I learned that the spirit of Christmas was not tarnished by the absence of my mother, but lives on in the way we keep her spirit alive.

The tears finally came shortly after I got home.  They did not come slowly or poetically but exploded out of my body to make room for my swollen heart.  I can only hope that both of my nephews learned a few things about Christmas.  It isn’t about the material things wrapped in bags or boxes.  Christmas is about the people who are wrapped in your heart and doing everything you can to make sure they stay there.

Merry Christmas to all of you and may you enjoy the true spirit of the holidays.

Redefining traditions and stocking up on tissues

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With Christmas rapidly approaching, my resolve to not spend the entire holiday season in tears is very strong.  It is going to be tough this holiday season without my mom but we have been doing our best to redefine some of the traditions we have known for so long and create some new ones.  I had carefully delineated a plan of not leaving the house, but that seems to be going off the rails so I’ll have to do my best to keep a brave face.  I’m sure a few tears will leak from the corners of my eyes and stain my cheeks but that is to be expected and will certainly be understood by all who see those tears fall.

Holidays are about tradition – whether adhering to old ones or beginning new ones.  This year will be a bit of both.  My mom’s famous Grasshopper Pie will surreptitiously make its way to the table after our feast of turkey and our best attempt at her stuffing.  But because of work schedules, our Christmas food bonanza and subsequent turkey coma will be on the 23rd so that will be the first of the changes for this year.

grasshopper pie

My brother and his family will attend the church service on Christmas Eve (I don’t think I can get through that step this year) and we will meet afterwards to show the newly purchased or creatively engineered ornaments to adorn the Charlie Brown Christmas tree my mom loved so much.  We will tell stories of why the ornament reminds us of her and take turns sharing our memories.  I may even sneak into town and hide in a quiet driveway somewhere to watch Santa Claus go by on the fire truck.  I don’t think I can let that tradition go and I know a few tears will find themselves frozen to my face before the truck has passed.

The most important thing to focus on, especially this year, is that Christmas is about family.  My brother, sister-in-law, my nephews and the family and friends scattered around the globe will always be the presence and the only presents I want during the holidays.  And somewhere during the festivities, I know that my mom and dad’s eyes will be looking at us through those twinkling lights and sharing those moments with us.  That is a tradition that will never end.

 

 

 

The only one

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The night lay in wait.

The sun fell through the sky

and the trees held the ball of fire close to them.

The air grew cold and the stars lit the sky with their light.

Dusk had come

and lent calm to the end of the day.

The songs of the birds has ceased

and the sound of night crept up on the pair

as they sat with wine in hand.

His stare caught her off guard.

She brought the glass to her lips and drank.

She could feel his gaze burn her skin

and his smile made her heart warm.

The fire roared and the sparks lit the sky.

This was the night.

She knew it, she felt it.

He got down on one knee and gave her the box.

It was carved from a branch of the tree they knew,

a tree that saw two friends grow since they were young.

The ring and the box were pure love.

She lay a kiss on his lips

and said yes.

~~

This was written in response to the Daily Prompt that was my suggestion today!!  Write about anything you choose using only one-syllable words.  It was also inspired by a friends recent engagement and the ring box was carved from a branch of a tree they played under as children.

That glue really is Krazy stuff

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My mom and dad both battled their share of medical problems.  There were many trips to local hospitals and many chats with our family doctor to make difficult decisions.

In early 2003, my dad became so ill that those decisions were unable to be made by us or by our local ER doctors.   He had been flown by air ambulance to Toronto with an upper G.I. bleed and his stomach was sprayed with super glue to stop the bleeding.  According to the specialists, it was the only thing they could do to save his life.   By some miracle, it worked.

krazy glue

My mom and I basically moved in with my aunt and uncle in Burlington and drove into the hospital in Toronto each day.  I became an amateur resident doctor in a span of a few weeks.  I would check his chart each morning and even yelled at a nurse when I read that he had been given Aspirin, a blood thinner, during the night to control his fever.

When he finally regained consciousness, he had been in a medically induced coma for two and a half weeks and suspended in his own state of consciousness for another four days after that.  He had been on a respirator that had since been removed and he was initially unaware that he had to cover the hole in his throat to be able to speak.

It took him a while to acclimate and, once we showed him that he had to put his finger on the opening to have a voice,  the first question he asked me was “what day is it?”

“It’s Wednesday, Dad.”

Without missing a beat, he put his finger back on the opening to his throat and croaked, “I’m not happy about that.”

I looked sideways at my mother and we both had to look away.  After three weeks of sitting vigil at his bedside, wondering if he would even recover from all of the things going wrong in his body, we started to giggle.  I was dumbfounded.  He was mad because it was Wednesday!  He wasn’t angry that he was attached to a plethora of medical equipment.  He wasn’t concerned that my mom and I were covered from head to toe in gowns and masks to prevent contamination in the ICU.  He wasn’t upset that he had to put a finger over the gaping hole in his throat to utter any words.  He was mad because it was Wednesday.  The stress-releasing laughter continued and my mom and I were quickly ushered out of the ICU.

That moment in time left an imprint on my brain.  I regaled my co-workers with the story and, since my dad was home and on the mend, it became our go-to phrase in the office.   Every time something went wrong, one of us would cover a phantom hole in our throat and squawk, “I’m not happy about that”.

My  dad passed away in March of 2006.  That memory had sadly disappeared until one of those friends typed the line “I’m not happy about that” into one of her emails today.  After all of the things we had gone through with my mom recently that moment in my life had become buried in the recesses of my brain, but I’m glad it’s back.  I forgot a big part of the journey with my dad and “I’m not happy about that”.  At least the memory is back and I will hold onto it this time.

Under his spell

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lempicka-saint-moritz-1929

What wouldn’t she have done for his love,

for the forbidden taste of his lips,

for the soft caress of his fingers tracing lightly upon her skin.

She savored the memory of his smile,

she recalled his sweetness as he spoke his words of love,

words that were meant to only fall on her ears.

But his carefree words deafened the ears of the spoiled.

Those words were never meant for her.

His life had been promised to another.

And now her soul was trapped,

forced into everlasting damnation,

compelled to bear witness to his life with another.

Their black magic hardened on her skin like a crust,

holding her face in sadness for eternity.

Her body now a statue,

held fast in its place,

her eyes meant to watch him,

reminded every day of what she cannot have.

Her consciousness banished

to a lifetime of anguish and melancholy.

In the darkness he would sneak out to visit her,

his touch was just as warm and his words of love, just as sweet.

~~

Written for the Grammar Ghoul Challenge – combining the above painting, Saint Moritz, by Tamara de Lempicka with the word prompt:

Crust (noun):

A hardened layer, coating, or deposit on the surface of something soft

gg-wkbadge-e1411321572196

What do you mean you “end up with”?

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I reluctantly admit that I have been watching too much television lately – and the “reality” television that I have succumbed to is the most destructive of all.  But there is an alarming trend on these shows that really bothers me. After the self-promotion and sensationalism of parading their relationship across television screens across the world they always seem to describe their potential life mate as “the one I end up with”.

Now, I know I’m not the most romantic person on the planet but if someone described me as the person they “ended up with” I would be more than moderately offended.   The quest for love should not result in who you end up with but who you are fortunate enough to forge the path of your life with.  That person should not sound like second prize in a raffle because you didn’t get your first choice.

If you truly fall in love with someone, that person consumes every ounce of your being.  It’s like winning a lottery that you never entered. They become such a part of your life that you don’t know how you existed before you met them.  They understand what you are trying to say without you having to speak a word.

I can only imagine the person you “end up with” would never have the capacity to know what you are thinking before you formulate the thought.  It makes me wonder – if those words are sufficient enough to describe the relationship, the feelings generated from that union are most likely not sufficient enough to make it last.  You need to be with the person you can’t live without and not just the one you can live with.

Perhaps we, as a whole, need to take the time to redefine the feelings that brought us into our relationship. If that person is your true life partner, don’t belittle that relationship by describing them as the one you ended up with.  Let them know that you consciously chose to have them in your life because there is something they bring into your existence that nobody else could ever bring.

Give your relationship the truth that it deserves.  If you have found the person you are meant to spend your life with, be bold enough to describe them that way and don’t ever let them think they were the runner-up.

Wow…..maybe there is a more romantic side to me after all.

Heed the signs – or make them up as you go

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My dad was a cunning individual and in the years before he launched his illustrious real estate career he sold insurance. He innocently entered a doctor’s office in Oakville, set his sights on my mother during a routine sales call and he was smitten. She was the secretary in the doctor’s office and she would be lying if she said she wasn’t a bit taken by his boyish charm.  He shamelessly flirted with her before he left the office and my mom, engaged to someone else at the time, was nevertheless flattered.

new-52

(how could you not be taken by that face?)

His creative approach to making that next contact was brilliant – coy with a hint of brazen boldness. He knew there was an undeniable connection and he did everything in his power to make sure that, even if it was not face to face, they would be in contact again. His devious plot mixed with a relatively innocent phone call asking if he had left his non-existent galoshes in the office began a romance that blossomed and turned into 44 years of marriage.  They have both since passed but I’m sure the romance continues in Heaven.

People who know a good thing when they see it will find numerous ways to insinuate themselves into another person’s life.  It may be glaringly obvious, or it may be a slow acclimation into their every day routine.  Regardless of how it happens that strong connection should be embraced.  We are drawn to these people for a reason and our souls were meant to collide with theirs.  Call it what you will – serendipity, fate, Kismet – but it’s hard to argue the feeling when you meet a kindred spirit.

Meeting someone who your soul connects with is an experience that can be sadly overlooked.  Whether it flourishes into romance or blooms into an exceptional fondness that lays the foundation for a great friendship, we need to heed the signs that lead us into the company of that kindred spirit.  It is rare to find someone who you can have a boundless affection for and it deserves to have a chance to grow into a lasting relationship.

Have you ever met someone and just known you had to be a part of their life?

Maybe next time

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There is something hiding behind his eyes,

a mystery,

waiting to be revealed.

Maybe next time.

His gaze meets mine,

but his real truth hides under those spheres of blue.

Those eyes suspend me in an alternate reality,

never able to see the truth,

or never wanting to.

 No promise is ever made,

but the promise of what could have been is uttered.

An opportunity presented too late.

A ship had set sail and lost its way in the sea of realism.

 Two souls meant to meet,

were two decades too delayed.

 Maybe next time,

a new life, a new circumstance.

Maybe next time

he’ll find me first.

maybe_next_time____by_bohomaz13-d3990q5

(image credit)