Category Archives: spiritual
Sometimes you just need a hug
2 CommentsEmotion is a very worthy adversary. It can lay dormant and sneak up on you when you least expect it. On Monday I fell victim to its stealthy attack and was on the verge of an ugly cry in my office in the middle of the day. At that moment, all I wanted was a hug.
Being affected by a wave of feelings is nothing new to me. I get overwhelmed by, not only my sorrows but, the melancholy felt by those around me. Like a kettle that is too full of water, that emotion has nowhere else to go and eventually it spills out.
In those moments, I feel like a child holding my arms in the air, waiting for someone to come and pick me up and tell me it’s going to be okay. I know the surge of sadness will pass, but sometimes you just need a hug to make everything feel better. The comfort of an embrace is what we are born knowing and trusting.
We had a senior’s bus tour at the lodge this past fall and I met one of the sweetest ladies during that tour. She was all of 4 feet high and spoke with a wee Scottish brogue. Every morning she would come into the office and ask if I wanted a hug. I never turned her down. And she did the same thing with the 38 other people on the tour, always careful to ask the wives’ permission to be able to hug their husbands.
She gets it. She knows there is nothing more heart-warming than a genuine embrace that will make the sorrow seem less sad, that will make life seem more manageable and that will make reality more acceptable. A hug can speak more than words, can drain sadness from your soul and can let people know how you feel about them without having to say a word.
While life may try to challenge your reality, one simple hug can bring you right back to where you need to be. Hugging is the most beautiful form of communication and it allows someone to know that you truly care.
Energy never dies, it simply changes
Leave a comment“As long as there is one person on Earth who remembers you, it isn’t over.” ~ Oscar Hammerstein, Carousel
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I speak aloud to them and their faces later hover in my dreams,
those gone before me.
Perhaps it was their time.
Maybe they were taken before I was ready for them to be gone.
They leave a void on my plane of reality,
a chasm of memories that I jump into during random moments.
I bathe in the forgotten sound of their laughter,
I warm to the memory of their embrace.
But their energy never dies.
They yearn for me to engage them.
They delight in the moments that I recall our past together.
I keep their memory alive with every thought of them,
each recollection of their journey with me.
If I take that moment to remember,
to seek what I saw in them in the physical world,
I give those reflections a new vitality.
When I look into the darkness,
I see beyond the black veil of loss.
I see the light they brought to my life.
The case that once held those beautiful spirits may be gone,
but the mark they left on my soul never leaves me.
They remain in my heart for as long as I am alive.
Each time I look into the stars,
I know they are looking back at me.
Their energy never dies.
~
It lies just below the surface
5 CommentsThe pain of losing a parent is overwhelming. It has been over eleven years since my dad passed and over three years since my mom passed. Most days, even though I still find myself reaching for the phone to call them, I can manage the loss. But every so often, there is a glaring reminder to make me deal with that sense of loss all over again. It may be a completely banal event but the flood of feelings cannot be stopped.
Last night, it was a television commercial for the Heart and Stroke Foundation with Canadian figure skater Joannie Rochette. Joannie lost her mom only 2 days before she competed in the Winter Olympics in Vancouver in 2010 and every time I see the reminder of her story I am reduced to tears. I know that loss all too well. I feel the pain her heart feels. But what I can’t imagine is having to perform at the highest level of competition a mere two days after losing her best friend.
The pain of loss never really goes away. It lies just below the surface, ready to surprise us at any moment. It can come back gradually or it can hit us all at once. Regardless of how it arrives, I am now able to remind myself that the pain is so hard to take because it represents the huge amount of love we had in our family. It doesn’t stop the tears from flowing, but now I can smile a little through those tears.
Life gets in the way
5 CommentsI made myself a promise that I would post a blog every day through the month of November and, although I gave it a good run, I have failed. Yesterday was the first day I didn’t post something and, although I feel slightly disappointed, I am not going to beat myself up about it.
Trying to find something to post about every day is difficult. Sure, I could rely on old posts or memes to get me through but that would not be me and yesterday was a busy enough day without having to make time to create a meaningful post.
Having posted every day for 18 days in a row has been a blessing. It has re-awakened my passion to write. It has helped me to harness that creative flow within me and has given it a chance to speak again.
Life gets in the way of our best laid plans but, if we can keep the big prize within our sights, we can overcome any obstacle to make that plan a reality. I want to write. I want to be published, and life is not going to get in the way of that. Even if I miss a day or two of blogging, it just means my creativity is being stored for the days that my words will have more meaning.
Me scribere.
Outside looking in
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My breath fogs the glass,
the palms of my hands
absorb the chill from the window pane.
I have not run away,
merely left the inside
to see it from another view.
The scene plays before me
like a TV drama.
The characters retreat to their dressing rooms
and the stage is empty.
The dialogue is unwritten
and replaced by silence.
Emotion paints the walls,
hurt settles like dust on the furniture.
My breath stops,
I cannot exhale,
the palms of my hands
absorb the chill from the hidden pain.
My reality looks so different
from my current view,
outside,
looking in.
~~
Hope is the most important thing
2 CommentsI was speaking to a guest of the lodge yesterday who is currently embroiled in a nasty divorce. He skimmed over a few of the distressing low-lights of his battle and said something during our conversation that really struck me. Responding to one of my remarks he said, “Hope is a dangerous thing.”
I thought about his comment for most of the morning. I carried it with me throughout my day at work. It followed me while I was delivering meals to the Food Bank and even while I was walking my dog after work. How disheartened he must feel thinking that to hope that there are good things waiting for him in his future is a treacherous slope to climb. How unfortunate that he is so skeptical of the one thing that he should embrace – hope.
Hope is not a dangerous thing. Hope is the most important thing. It is the thing that provides the light at the end of that dark tunnel. It is the thing that gives us the aspiration to dream of something better. And it is the thing that makes what we see through the windshield so much more important than what we see through the rear-view mirror.
Hope is anticipation. Hope is longing. And hope is having enough faith in our choices to think that leaving the stressful things behind allows us to carve a better path for our future.
I know that he will never see this blog post but, Richard, my wish for you is that you are eventually able to see the goodness in hope. It will support you in ways your relationship never did and it will give you the chance to have the true happiness you deserve.
If I say I’m fine….I’m lying
5 CommentsMany memes and many jokes (mostly at men’s expense) have skirted around the fact that if a woman says, “I’m fine”, there is an emotional undertone that means something far beyond being fine. My experience with the phrase ‘I’m fine’ has completely surpassed that, to the point that nobody in my immediate family uses those two words to describe their current state of being.
Both of my parents were alcoholics and suffered through a myriad number of complications through their later years. It is an ugly disease with ugly consequences. The worst part of watching the effects of alcoholism deteriorate a human body is having that person tell you that, while they are suffering numerous symptoms and contrary to every doctor’s diagnosis, they are fine. Fine is no longer a word I use to describe how I feel and for very good reason – it’s bullshit.
I sent a text to a friend yesterday to ask about their well-being and was given the response “I’m okay”. Although it was not the tried and hated response of “I’m fine”, it ranked right up there and it made my Spidey senses tingle. I knew there was more going on but I also knew not to push.
When you get a text message from someone you know on a very personal level, the inflection in their voice is heard loud and clear above the silence of a text message. The only thing I can do is be here when they need to vent, to be present when they realize that I know they are not “fine” or “okay” and just be ready to listen.
I will love you until….
3 CommentsAfter watching a few back-to-back episodes of Hoarders yesterday morning (yes, you may roll your eyes now), my Sunday chore list became exponentially longer. What started as a routine house cleaning day turned into a fridge and freezer purge, the breakdown of every cardboard box within my reach, two dump runs and a full afternoon in the kitchen making healthy lunches and soup for the week.
As I spent that time in my kitchen, my iPod playlist shuffled through every type of music you can imagine but the more I listened, the more the songs reminded me of my mom. I have been thinking about my mom a lot lately. She had a huge heart and she would continually think of little things to do for people just to see them smile. She would spend the weeks leading up to Christmas baking until she could bake no more. Her house always had the essence of fresh-baked cookies and squares and the Christmas tins would be piled high on her dining room table.
Her favorite day was not Christmas day but the day that she would drive, or later be driven, to all of the places where she would deliver her goodies. The local Hardware store, the post office and the local veterinarians would excitedly open the tins to see their favorite type of cookie and their reaction was the only present she ever truly wanted. My mom was the type of person who would learn those little things about you and she would make sure that those little things made their way from her home into your heart.
I was reminded of this wonderful quality when, during my furious Hoarder-inspired clean, I was rearranging some things in my kitchen. There in the midst of my jar of utensils was a lone yellow rose. I had long forgotten the bouquet of flowers my mother had given me so many years ago. She had stealthily used my key to leave the flowers on the island in my kitchen and attached to the fragrant arrangement was a simple card that read, “I will love you until the last flower dies”. I thought it was an odd message but after really looking the arrangement, I saw the flower in the middle of the bunch. It was a lovely yellow rose, but it was artificial. It would never die.
That was my mom. And those little nuances that made her who she was are the things I miss the most. Some days I’m fine, a phrase we are no longer allowed to use in my family, and some days, like yesterday, the emotion snuck up on me and I could not control the flow of tears.
But it is not just the rose that reminds me that she will always be with me. My mom is somehow still able to pull strings and make wonderful things happen in our lives that we never expected. And it is these things, the things that only my mom would know, that make the gestures so special and so meaningful.
To say I miss her is a gross understatement and I hope she knows that I will love her until that last flower dies.
I apologize for nothing
Leave a commentIt has taken me a long time to get where I am.
It has taken strength and tears.
It has taken determination and a few breakdowns along the way.
But I am here.
There may have been a few detours along the way
but I apologize for nothing.
My path has led me to where I am now.
I have gained courage along that path.
I have learned to trust myself and my values
and not to second guess my beliefs.
I have learned that my thoughts matter
and that my advice is appreciated.
I have found strength in my wisdom
and I have found comfort in my gut instinct.
I have made many mistakes in my past,
but valued the lessons learned from those mistakes.
I have followed the roads,
but have been blessed by those detours.
I have accepted my life and where I am
because I am truly happy,
and that is what matters.
My life may not be what others think it should be,
but it is my life.
I am happy.
And I know the best is yet to come,
so I apologize for nothing.
polysyllabic profundities 