Quote of the Moment – November 2009

“If you can’t see God in all,
you can’t see God at all.” –Yogi Bhajan

Quote of the Moment – December 2008

“We are born broken, we live by mending, and the grace of God is glue.” – a slight paraphrase of a quote from Eugene O’Neill

Quote of the Moment – May 2008

“Learning to celebrate life is one of the best lessons a person needs to learn.” ~Joan Chittister

Letter To My Father

Hi Dad,

Yesterday was your birthday. You would have been 75. Although this is the second birthday that has passed without you, I still feel like I’ve forgotten to get you a gift and card.

Last year on this day I flew the kite in your honor. I’d hoped to again, but things were crazy at the office, I had to work through lunch, then deal with Mom after work… and I didn’t get to the one thing that really mattered.

I associate you with flying very much now – since you loved to do that. I’ve also re-inherited The Field Guide to Birds I gave you when I was seven years old. Two of the last things we did together, that were not medically related, were bird watch and fly the kite. So now, when I see a large soaring bird in the sky, I think of you.

Mom is going downhill. Perhaps you know this? She had another stroke in January and has been in and out of the hospital since then. She is using a walker all the time now to keep her steady. I wonder how long this will go on. Maybe you already know.

Your granddaughter, Sophie, is walking all over the place. She has a great smile and seems to be a very happy one year old. I think I see some of you through her forehead and eyes. I hope you know about her. If you’re looking for something to do, I’m sure she could use a guardian angel – or whatever kind of looking out for her you might be able to do.

I’m about the same as when you were here with us. Mom’s situation wears on me, but I don’t know how else to handle that. I’m doing the best I can, although it never feels good enough. I am hoping to take a vacation soon. Last year I didn’t have one since I took a week and we cleaned out what was left in the house. It sold in January. Now, I don’t drive down our old street anymore. Maybe someday…

I think you would be pleased with the bronze memorial marker on your grave. It couldn’t be set until after the winter, but it was up by Memorial Day. I saw it in October and took a few pictures. I’ll be back up for Memorial Day this year. I’m going to plant some perennials by your marker as it appears that is allowed in the cemetery.

It has been a very cold spring. Winter just wouldn’t let go of us. In fact, there was a freeze warning last night. Everyone seems to be waiting for it to truly warm up, although many think it’s going to be a blistering summer. I guess time will tell.

I have had many questions over the past year and a half that I wanted to ask you. Some were financial and house maintenance related. Some are about your last two weeks: what you saw, who you were speaking with that I couldn’t see, how you felt… For instance, did you feel like you were drowning in cancerous fluids? (It really sounded that way.) Were you scared? I wonder what it is like where you are. Is everything we are told at church correct? Have you reconnected with other relatives and the many friends who joined you over the past year? Are you all hanging out and having coffee and cinnamon rolls like you used to on Tuesday mornings with your retirement buddies? Can you see the future now? For instance, do you know who is going to win the presidential election? (I’m just curious.) Are you happy? Are you even out there? Could you send me an unmistakable sign if you are?

I guess that’s about it for now. I’m sure I’ll be talking to you again soon. Every time I work on the house or start the lawnmower, I wonder if you’re helping me as you once did. Two weeks ago I fixed the garage door opener and a section of the back fence and I thought you would probably be proud of me. (I must admit I was quite proud of myself!) When faced with a task like that I try to put myself in “Dad mind” and think about how you would fix it. So far, it has gone well. I miss you terribly, but I am learning to cope.

Until the next time…
~Ann

Quote of the Moment – November 2007

“Rest and laughter are the most spiritual and subversive acts of all.” -Anne Lamott

It Seems I Spoke Too Soon

At the risk of depressing the heck out of anyone who may stumble across this blog, I am writing, yet again, about death. Two posts ago I mentioned taking my mom to a funeral of a family friend and that a friend of mine was dying. Well, I took my mom to yet another family friend’s visitation last night. On my drive home, I received a phone call that my friend had died on Friday night. I’ll be attending her funeral this week. That will make seven for the year. Too many. I don’t know what to make of this. I try to find meaning in or make sense of the things that happen in life, but I have to admit that I have found myself in a quandary more and more frequently over the past few years when it comes to these life and death issues. I guess this may just be another one of those things where we must accept the mystery.

Life is What Happens…II

Thanksgiving has come and gone successfully and I have decked the halls of my house for the next holiday. Things seem to be going along okay. However, I found myself taking my mother to a funeral on Saturday for a long-time family friend. This is the fifth death with which I’ve dealt in 2007. I know this sometimes happens in life, especially as we get older. However, I would be fine with having a break from it.

On Sunday afternoon I had a phone call from a friend of mine where I used to teach. It seems that another friend of ours there is dying of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. As this information soaked into me during the rest of the day and beyond, I have really struggled with the news. I hate that this has happened, and it seems especially cruel that a teacher should be afflicted with a disease that takes your ability to communicate (as well as everything else). Apparently she is at the end-stage. It is hard to understand how someone can start the school year and be fine, and then within the semester…

It is definitely a reminder that we should all count our blessings now because you never know what may be around the corner.

Eat, Pray, Love

Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert is one of the most enjoyable books I’ve read recently. The author takes a year of her life and travels to the three countries mentioned in the title. Her journey is not only international in scope, but also spiritual in nature. She is on a quest to have an ongoing experience of God. In addition to being a fascinating read, it is full of humor too. Any woman in her 30s will really relate to this book, but I think it holds appeal for a wide range of readers. To learn more, check out the author’s website: http://www.elizabethgilbert.com/.

Loss & Grief

One of the wonderful students who works in my office left this afternoon to take her beloved dog to the vet to be “put down.” Her long-time companion and unconditionally loving friend has had difficulties for a while and is full of cancer. I feel horrible about this and, as usual in the face of loss, there isn’t much anyone can say. I know some people might think that the loss of a dog can’t be compared to the loss of a person. I understand that; however, I think that loss and grief are universal feelings that come from a variety of situations. I also believe they can’t really be measured, ranked, or compared. They come and they stay as long as they want on a timeline all their own; we don’t have much say in the situation.

As Father’s Day approaches and we are inundated with advertisements promoting it, I find myself feeling really out of sync with the general population. This is not a happy occasion to be celebrated in my life this year. Every ad and commercial for it makes me feel the gaping void more and more. I will be glad when this weekend is over.

The topic of grief and loss also comes to mind because of the loss of my cousin’s church building to fire last week. She has an excellent post on the subject of dealing with this grief and how life just seems to move on despite your difficulties.

In each of these cases, I wish for hope and grace to come and help all of us survive.

Grace (Eventually)

Thanks to an inside tip from a friend, I learned that Anne Lamott has a new book out. I am a big fan of hers (really liked her Bird by Bird, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith, and Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith). This most recent book, (Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith, is another in her Christian journey. For a preview, I offer the following clip of an interview which can be found on Amazon.com…

Questions for Anne Lamott
Amazon.com: This is your third book on faith. How has your perspective changed since you wrote your first one?

Lamott: I wrote my first book on faith when Bill Clinton was president, and I was in a much better mood. I wrote Plan B during the run-up to war in Iraq, and the ensuing catastrophe, so I was very angry, but trying to reconcile that pain and hostility to Jesus’s insistence that we are made of love, to love, and be loved, to forgive and be forgiven. Some days went better than others. Also, my son Sam was in his early teens, and that was a LOT easier than when he turned 16 and 17, his ages when I was writing the pieces in Grace (Eventually).

In general, I think Grace (Eventually) is a less angry book. I like how I’m aging, except that my back hurts more often, my knees crack like twigs when I squat, and my memory fails more frequently, in more public and therefore humiliating ways. But I think I complain less. As my best friend said when she was dying, and I was obsessing about my butt, “You just don’t have that kind of time.”

Amazon.com: What does grace mean for you? How can we better communicate it to each other?

Lamott: Grace is that extra bit of help when you think you are really doomed; also, not coincidentally, when you have finally run out of good ideas on how to proceed, and on how better to control the people or circumstances that are frustrating or defeating you. I experience Grace as a cool ribbon of fresh air when I feel spiritually claustrophobic. Sometimes I experience it as water-wings, something holding me up when I am afraid that I’m going down, or the tide is carrying me away. I know that Grace meets us whereever we are, but does not leave us where it found us. Sometimes it is so small–a couple of seconds relief here, several extra inches there. I wish it were big and obvious, like sky-writing. Oh, well. Grace is not something I DO, or can chase down; but it is something I can receive, when I stop trying to be in charge.
We communicate grace to one another by holding space for people when they are hurt or terrified, instead of trying to fix them, or manage their emotions for them. We offer ourselves as silent companionship, or gentle listening when someone feels very alone. We get people glasses of water when they are thirsty.

Amazon.com: Many of the essays in Grace (Eventually) first appeared in Salon, the online magazine, and that’s the way that many readers first found you. How do you see the Internet changing the way people read and write?

Lamott: The Internet makes everything so immediate and spontaneous, which I totally love–UNLESS it has to do with the immediacy of people’s negative response to me. Several of the Salon pieces in Grace–for instance, the story about the horrible fight with my son, and the piece about turning the other cheek while being ripped off by The Carpet Guy–generated a couple hundred letters, many of them extremely hostile. Perhaps “spewy” would be a better description. I also sometimes get knee-jerk responses to my mentions of Jesus in my Salon pieces that seem to lump me in the same tradition as Jerry Falwell. But for the most part, I love the populism and egalitarian nature of the Internet: everyone counts the same.

Amazon.com: What stories do people tell you, when they’ve read your books or know you are a writer?

Lamott: People tell me how relieved they are that I try to tell the truth about how hard it can be to be a mother, or a daughter, or an American in these times. They tell me stories about how awful their own teenagers can be, or how awful they themselves behaved towards their kids or parents; how hard it was to finally be able to adore their mothers, or to forgive their fathers. They tell me their sobriety dates. They whisper to me that they are Christians, too.
Also, they ask if I am able to read their manuscripts, and the name of my agent, and my e-mail address. They ask if we are going to survive the current political difficulties–and I promise them we are. They ask how old my son is now–17 and a half–and how he is doing, which is fantastically, after some of the hard months I wrote about in Grace.

Amazon.com: What lessons do you think you can pass on to others: to your readers, to your son? What lessons does it seem like people have to learn for themselves?

Lamott: All I have to offer is my own truth, my own experience, strength and hope. I can pass on the tool of a God Box, and how for 20 years I have been putting tiny notes in mine and promising God I will keep my sticky fingers off the controls until I hear God’s wisdom: sometimes I get an answer because the phone rings, or the mail comes, but at any rate, during every single terrible problem and tragedy, I have been given enough guidance and stamina and even humor to bear up, and be transformed, for the good. I always tell Sam that if you want to make God laugh, tell Her your plans. I tell Sam that if he listens to his best thinking, he will suffer: and to listen to his heart instead, to listen in the silence, and to seek wise counsel.

Amazon.com: You’ve written nearly a dozen books (including an incredibly popular guide to writing): does writing get any easier? Does it get harder?

Lamott: In a very important way, writing gets easier, because I’ve been doing it full time now for thirty-plus years, and just as you would get better and better if you practiced your scales on a piano, I’ve gotten better, and can try harder and harder pieces. But writing is always hard. It does not come naturally to me at all. I sit down at the same time every day, which lets my subconscious realize it’s time to get to work. I give myself very short assignments, and let myself write really terrible first drafts. But I grapple with the exact same problems every writer does, which is having equal proportions of self-loathing and grandiosity. I sort of live by the Nike ads: Just Do It. So I sit down. I show up. I do it by pre-arrangement with myself, because I know I’ll feel sad and terrible if I shirk on that days writing. I do it as a debt of honor, to myself, and to whatever it is that has given me this gift of being able to tell stories, and to make people laugh. Laughter is carbonated holiness. Other people’s good writing is medicine for me, and I hope mine is too, for my readers.