February 15, 2018
AM Entry:
Ash Wednesday, also Valentine’s Day, as we sat at the little restaurant
just a few miles from our home in Laurel Fork.
In the corner, the national news headlines flashed across the television
screen. With the volume set on low, I
could not hear what was being broadcast, but I could read the captions and see
the terror. I wanted to avert my eyes
but I kept glancing back. Another school shooting. More innocent lives lost to the violence has
become our norm. This is our reality. We
can’t pretend it doesn’t exist and that our children are going to stop killing
each other. We can’t pretend our world
is safe. The blame has begun as the
right and left lash out at one another.
I find myself again contemplating where I am supposed to be in the midst
of all of this and I come back to this thought, so appropriate for the season
of Lent:
Love
That’s not the easy way out.
Love is the hardest road to walk.
It is often misunderstood, condemned, ridiculed, and spat upon. It is often seen as weak. Sometimes standing in love means even friends
deny association. Love means standing in
truth when being flogged by a crowd who are seeking to find a scape goat, who
have the need to lay blame at the feet of something or someone so they can feel
vindicated.
Love often doesn’t make sense.
There are a lot of other things that make more sense in a desperate
world and we can make a thousand excuses as to why we need to choose some other
way rather than love. That road to the
cross is pointless. In the end, what
does it matter as Love hangs there abandoned by disillusioned followers and
darkness covers the earth?
Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things
not seen. Without faith, love makes
absolutely no sense and it is in our most desperate of times, when we have
nothing left to which to cling that brings us to the foot of the cross where we
can choose a path that seemingly makes no sense.
I’ve been there when the world turned dark. For me it was the night my son was shot. I will never know the truth of that night but
I know enough to know it was the darkest day of my life and brought a darkness
that I must battle for the rest of my life.
In the darkness the only glimmer of light I could see was Love. It was and is my only hope.
Love keeps believing when there’s nothing left to believe. Love keeps on giving when there’s nothing
left to give. Love never fails.
PM Entry:
It was a beautiful day in the mountains. We started off with just a bit of rain but
the sky cleared and the temps reached near 70 degrees. We have had the house closed off for what
seems like months now to conserve heat, but it has probably been more like six
weeks. Having the sun porch shut off (by
hanging quilts) and shutting all the doors to unused rooms made it warmer but
also made it darker. I hadn’t really
minded but when the quilts came down and I opened the house up today, it was
such a relief. I opened the windows and
let the fresh air blow through the house for most of the day. I thought I would carry out the ashes from
the fireplace and deep clean the bedroom and work until around noon with
housework. Once I got started, I didn’t
want to stop, and I didn’t. I worked
until five o’clock just cleaning house. When I finished, I stood looking out
the windows toward the east from the sunporch and saw a large flock of turkeys
in the meadow with the mules. It was
nice to be able to watch them from the windows again. Mike went out just after breakfast and worked
on clearing and burning brush among other things. With sunset being later, he is able to stay
out until well after six now and we are eating our supper later. I made Delmonico steaks from our grass
finished beef, limas and corn from last year’s garden and a fresh salad. It was a peaceful day.
Our days in Staunton this past week were especially busy. Kristin had some things she needed to do and
I watched the twins along with Alissa’s girls on Monday morning. The kids had a good time and the twins were
not ready to go home but we promised them they were coming back Tuesday for a
Valentine Party. Hudson was so cute when
he got in the car. He said, “I’ll be
right back, Tita”. Rory was so wound up
with the twins there that she would not settle down and take a nap until after
they left. Then, she slept for two and a
half hours. Analia slept too and I might
have taken a little nap with them. I was
so tired. I had the girls until Alissa
got home at 8:30 but Gabino did help me with them when he came in from work at
6:30.
I got in bed about 10:30 on Monday and then got up around 4:30 Tuesday
morning to clean the house. I knew
Mike’s mom was coming up to see the kids and I thought his sister might be
coming as well. The house was pretty
much a disaster from all our activities the day before. The kids had built a blanket fort by draping
blankets over all the living room furniture and I had a lot of blankets to fold
and put away. I gathered the toys in a
heap for Analia to put away when she got up.
Then, I swept and mopped the house.
The house in Staunton is about 3800 square feet. Of course, not all of that is living space
but it is still a very big house to clean and just getting the floors swept and
mopped seems like such a huge accomplishment.
The house looked decent and was halfway clean when I made a run to The
Dollar Store in Verona to grab a few last-minute items for our Valentine
Party. When the twins arrived at 11, I
had everything prepped. I let them help
me make mini pizzas out of English muffins which we had for lunch. Then, we rolled out cookies and cut them
out. The had a blast doing that. Hudson had been wanting to do that project
for a long time and was by far the most dedicated to getting it done. We had flour everywhere but the kids had so
much fun. I had a few cookies already
baked so we were able to flow right into decorating. I had bought new little paint brushes for
them to use to coat the cookies and that worked out well. After we finished with the cookies, we made
Valentines. We had ribbon of various
designs that I had found really cheap at the thrift store and stickers to
decorate our hearts cut out of construction paper. The kids seemed to really enjoy that project
as well. After we finished with all the
planned activities, everyone played first upstairs and then down. At one point, the older three all had their
balloons and were running around the room making them bounce up and down. The balloons were tied to weights which were
covered in some type of red tinsel. With
three adults sitting right there, Rory popped a piece of tinsel that had fallen
to the floor in her mouth and swallowed it before any of us could move. There she was gagging and struggling to get
her breath. Alissa go to her first and
turned her up and pounded on her back.
Still she struggled. I grabbed
her and stuck my finger back to her throat and made her gag. She managed to catch her breath and we all
were greatly relieved but took the tinseled weights and got rid of them. The kids all stayed until late afternoon and
Rory refused to nap again. The twins and
Kristin left around four and Alissa went to class around five. Finally, Rory slept for a bit but Analia
never took a nap. Tuesday is Alissa’s
late class and she didn’t get home until around 9:30. I slept well Tuesday
night. Again, I was exhausted.
Wednesday morning, I went to The Factory Antique Mall and worked for about
two hours. Wednesday was Valentine’s Day
but Mike and I rarely celebrate holidays for the two of us. We do things for the children or
grandchildren but neither of us care anything about “Hallmark Holidays” when so
much emphasis is put on spending money for flowers and gifts. I told Mike I didn’t want to go out to eat
because I didn’t want to fight the crowds on Valentine’s Day. I am a true introvert and the older I get,
the more I just really want to be alone.
That doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy intervals of interaction with close
friends and family, but I tend to be extremely selective these days. We had to make several stops along the way
and by the time we were getting close to our home in Laurel Fork, we decided to
check the little restaurant just a few miles from our house and see if there
was a “big crowd” there. There was a
“big crowd” of probably 20 people in the restaurant but even an introvert like
myself can handle a crowd like that. It
was nice not to have to worry about “fixing supper” when we got home. A couple from our church was finishing up
their supper and spoke to us as they left.
It was good to see them. Arriving
home, as usual we had a car load of things to unload and get put away. We continue to sort through items in Staunton
as we give things away, donate, trash, and move the things to Laurel Fork that
are important to us. For Mike, more than
30 years of living in the same house and being someone who doesn’t throw
anything away has resulted in a lot for us to sort through. Having moved multiple times in my adult life
(having been previously married to a military man turned traveling
plumber/pipefitter), I have never been one to accumulate a lot, although having
been living with Mike for the last thirteen years, I have a fair share of
things to sort through as well. We are
fortunate we can take this a little at a time.
The contrast between the recently, nicely organized place in Laurel Fork
and the general disarray of things in Staunton as we sort and move is quite pronounced.
February 17, 2018
Today is a day of grace. Every
day we draw a breath is a day of grace.
I am overwhelmed with the feeling that I need to embrace life because
time is running out. It doesn’t matter
if I have another fifty years, it is simply not enough to embrace and enjoy
life fully! Clearly, the events of this
week have caused me to recognize once again the brevity of life. I rarely immerse myself in national or world
events but I do listen to the radio in the mornings when we are in Laurel Fork
and the local, classic country station gives news highlights on the hour. The voices of parents bewildered and
devastated at their incomprehensible loss who are trying to determine how they
will face another day without their child made my heart spasm with pain for
them………..for me………..for all of us.
Without even realizing it, I spoke aloud to an empty room offering
empathetic words that were, in an odd way perhaps, a prayer for peace.
Grief is such a difficult thing to explain and my place in this journey
is hard, I think, for others to understand.
Raw grief is somehow easier to understand perhaps than mature grief. I can
only speak for myself, but as the years have gone by, my grief is something I
have learned to accept rather than reject or try to push aside. In the
beginning of a loss even those who are not especially close to us may be able
to connect in some way. As time goes by,
it is only right and natural that the world moves on but for the one who has
experienced a great loss, their world is never the same. Rejecting those feelings of loss, trying to
mask them, or distracting ourselves from them only leads to more pain. Because ongoing grief is not something that
people are comfortable with and because many people feel that one must “get
past” the grief and do not understand there is a natural maturity that takes
place with time, the reactions of people who are honestly trying to be helpful
can sometimes be completely off base.
After almost ten years of living with the loss of my Josh, while I have
moments when I may cry out in deep agony over my loss, mostly it is something
that I have learn to accept having learned to balance those feelings of intense
pain with the joy that life offers. As I reach out and try to share some of my experiences
with others, I am aware that many times they cannot see beyond the mention of
my loss. They miss intention of my words
as I try to share the richness of what I have learned on a difficult journey
because they are so horrified by my loss or because they think the mention of
my loss means that I have not found a way to “get past” what has happened in my
life The loss of a child (or anyone with whom an individual has a close bond)
is something that doesn’t just go away.
The joy is that one can learn to live with that loss and in some ways
perhaps, even live more fully because they understand loss. That is where I feel like I am at almost ten
years into my grief journey. The paradox
is that the secret to being able to experience joy after a great loss lies in
actually making friends with that loss.
And as I contemplate the brevity of life, it hit me like a brick that
Mike will turn 58 this year. I mean, I
know he is 57, has been 57, and 58 is a natural progression after 57 but it
just kind of hit me how fast the years are going by and how I take for granted
all that Mike is physically able to do. I am sure that my constant interactions with
my grandmother, even though she lives two states away, are also influencing my
thinking. I looked at a picture of her
from just four years ago and thought of how much she has declined not so much
physically, although the difference is quite marked in the worry on her face
now, but primarily mentally. The reality that we are aging and that time is
moving quickly has caused me to want to grasp on to as much life and as much
joy as we can possibly hold. Yes, life
is filled with sorrow. That is a
fact. It is also filled with a
tremendous amount of joy. We need to
deal with the grief. We need to address
the sorrow. We can’t push it aside or it
will come back in various ways to destroy us.
On the other hand, we must be open to all the joy that life has to offer
and not let trivial things keep us from experiencing that joy. If there is one thing I could change about my
life, it would be that I would let go of all the things that don’t matter. My son, whose life ended at 18 years of age,
was an old soul. Many times he said to
me, “Mom, the housework and all that other stuff isn’t important. Time with family is what is important.” I have thought about his words many times
since his death. The most important
thing to Josh was family time and time spent with friends. If there is one thing I would tell those
younger than myself it would be to really determine what is important in life
and make those your focus. Mostly, I
think I have done well at determining what is important in life because mostly
I have revolved my life around the people I love. But, I wouldn’t worry about what people
thought of me. I wouldn’t let churches
control my relationship with God. I
wouldn’t spend so much time on house work.
I would find more balance between work and fun. I think, at 50, I am more aware, but I wish
that I had been there at 20.
**************
Mike were driving this morning and talking about getting things in
order to move the Jersey cows to Laurel Fork.
I told Mike that I did not want him stressing about getting things
done. It will all work out, even if they
need to calve in Staunton. We will just
deal with wherever we might be in the progression of our transition. It is just the two of us and always has
been. We can only do so much and we
don’t HAVE TO stress about it.
Mike continued to work on the chicken house this week. He moved out the rolls of old carpet someone
had decided was a good idea to keep. I
am guessing from the style, it was probably from the 60’s. Old rolls of carpet kept in an old chicken
house means a lot of mold and mildew that needs to be trashed. We still have to haul a truck load of trash
out of there but it is all in one place and easily removed at this point. We talked about it and decided to go ahead
and section off the front third of the chicken house making it into a feed room
and a place to start peeps. Everything
he used to build the wall including the old screen door Mike installed was
repurposed. I am excited now to find
some pullets. We are almost ready. Even with the rain we had this week, Mike
worked outside every day pushing brush, burning trash, and just general clean
up.
I was itching to get in the
kitchen and spent the day making French bread, cinnamon rolls, and a good supper. There was plenty of organizing, cleaning and
laundry to do as well. We hadn’t had built
a fire on this trip, but as the temperature began to drop, I made a fire in the
fireplace. The house felt like home with
the sound of the open-hearth fire crackling in the bedroom and the smells of
bread baking in the kitchen. It’s these
gentle comforts of home that soften the harshness of an often-cruel world. Truly, these moments of peace are a gift and
it is our choice to recognize them as such or to pass them by.
February 18, 2018
Sunday mornings are a bit bittersweet for me. By nightfall, I will see the girls and be
immersed in the bus world of preschoolers and toddlers with hardly a moment to
catch my breath. Being able to watch
them grow is a blessing. Yet, I hate to
leave the quietness of our little, mountain home. Yesterday morning while we were getting ready
to go to an auction, we saw that large flock of wild turkeys that is sometimes
in the meadow across the road and sometimes on the backside of our property as
they casually walked through the barnyard.
They could have appeared to have been a flock of domestic, free ranging
birds had someone not known the difference.
A couple of them perched on a wood pile, several Toms displayed their
beautiful tail feathers, and most of them scratched the ground for something to
eat. We watched them for quite a while
just a short distance from the house. I
have never been able to get an accurate count with some of them always behind a
tree or two or three standing together making it difficult to decipher as they
move along together, but a rough estimate is that the flock is about 20
birds.
There was a cold rain falling with maybe a touch of ice here and there,
but mostly just rain. The temperature
hovered above freezing all day. We
couldn’t work outside and we were ready to get out a bit. Well, Mike was ready to socialize and I was
ok with that. I would have been happy to
stay at home but once we were out, I relaxed and enjoyed the interaction. After attending this same auction for almost
a year now, we have gotten to know a few people that attend regularly. Once I can get past the initial phase of
meeting someone, if I feel comfortable, then I enjoy teasing and joking. I am at that point now with some of the folks
at the auction and it is always nice when someone understands and accepts my
sense of humor and we can laugh together.
The atmosphere at the auction house as been a little tense the past few
weeks. I am not sure what is going on
with the owner, but he has been stressed and a little short tempered with
folks. Yesterday seemed more like “old
times” and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. There was a quilt that went up for sale that
I really wanted but I had already set a price of 25 dollars max in my head and
when it went higher, I regretfully stopped bidding. There are few things that I bid on that I
just really care whether I get or not but for some reason, that old quilt
really caught my eye. Mike got several
“shelf lots” with smaller items on them.
Often when we buy a shelf lot, we don’t even know what is in some of the
boxes. We are required to take it all,
the good with the bad. However, this is
often how we get some really good deals and are able to make a small profit
when we sell in our booths. I always
complain just a bit because it requires a lot more time and involvement when we
buy shelf lots or box lots. Initially,
everything has to be packed and carried to the car. Once we get it home, everything has to be
carried into the house and sorted. There
are always items that are simply junk and of no value at all. We have to decide what to do with those. If it is truly trash then we just dispose of
it. Many of the items are not something
we can use at our booths because they are neither vintage or antique. We then have to decide if these things are
worth holding onto for a potential yard sale or if they should just be donated
to a thrift store. Then we begin the
process of separating and identifying the items of interest. Many times we must research things and try to
determine their use or application so that we can identify and price them. As we price the merchandise for resell, we
give each item an inventory number and I enter it into my computer with a brief
description as well as what we paid for the item and what we are asking for the
item. I also identify at which antique
mall we have placed the item. I didn’t
use to be this organized about it, but I have learned that keeping good records
helps us fight against theft and loss as well as manage things better. After everything has been sorted, identified,
priced, tagged and recorded, then we must box it up, carry it back to the car
and haul it to Staunton where we divide it between our two booths and the one
booth we share with a friend. Mike
manages the smaller booth at Verona Antiques simply because they are closed on
Tuesday and Wednesday which are the only two days I am available to work the
malls. I manage the booths at The
Factory Antique Mall. In the beginning
when we first started sharing booths with our friend, we managed things for him
as well as far as stocking the shelves and picking up items he had won on
online auctions in the area. However, he
now has a man he hired that comes out of South Carolina periodically to restock
the booths and I simply manage our portion.
I do manage all the paperwork however.
Twice a month I get all the labels from the items that both parties have
sold and I match them against the paperwork from the malls. It is not uncommon for them not to
match. Often there will be items for
which we have not been paid and I have to go to management, have them research
it and make it right. I also take a lot
of pictures of our booths and pay close attention to the possibility of stolen
or misplaced item. Finding missing items
in such a large mall is often impossible and there are times when they are
simply stolen and can’t be found.
However, I have been successful on more than one occasion of finding
misplaced or stolen items. It is funny
because when our friend Al and Mike started this, I told them there was no way
in heck I was helping because I knew I would end up with the majority of the
responsibility. I begrudgingly tagged
along for a while and when Mike had shoulder surgery, I helped because he
simply wasn’t able to do it. I ended up
really enjoying it and now Mike and I have a good partnership and have a lot of
fun sharing the responsibilities. We
both bid on items and together end up with a good mix that appeals to a wider
customer base. He will sometimes buy
things that I think are just a terrible choice or even pull out something from
a shelf lot that Al or I would reject and be able to sell that piece. Having two different sets of eyes and two
different perspectives works well for us.
We don’t make a living at this venture.
It is a hobby. We do turn a small
profit which pays for our booth rental, the merchandise, and allows us to add
antiques and vintage items to our home without dipping into our savings. I think the best part for me is rescuing some
of these items and watching them go into loving homes.
February 19, 2017
Before we left for church yesterday, the turkeys were back. Mike pointed them out to me, this time on the
south side of our house by the stream.
We watched them for a while before I decided to try to sneak out the
door and take a picture of them. I knew
I probably would not be able to get a shot without them recognizing my
presence. I got one shot of a few of
them and then the one turkey was aware and alerted the others. They immediately flew over the road and into
the woods. We had a nice time after church
visiting with folks. I had told Mike I
couldn’t stand around long after church but an hour later we were still
there. They are sweet, good people and
we enjoy them so much. We got home and I
was rushing around like crazy to get lunch, get our things packed for the trip
home, get the car loaded with the things we are taking to the antique mall, and
get the house closed up for a few days.
We stopped to look at some chickens on the way home and told the man we
would be back Wednesday to pick up the ten pullets he has for sale. They are a mixture of different breeds and a
few mixed breed birds thrown in as well.
It is a start. Most of the trip
home I talked to my cousin who stays with my grandmother. We are so blessed to have someone who loves
my grandma so much stay with her four days a week. My grandma is struggling with a lot of
anxiety now. It is so hard to watch my
grandma who was always so calm and a source of peace and comfort so many reach
a point in her life when all the things she shared with so many people for so
many years are not enough to keep her from experiencing what is sometimes
debilitating anxiety. She was always
quoting the verses from Proverbs 3:5-6 about trusting in God and leaning not on
your own understanding. She always said
them with such faith and finality that one did not question that everything
would be ok. She wrote the verses on
most every letter or card that she signed.
She believed them and lived them in such a way that others never doubted
their truth or her belief in that truth.
But now, she is anxious and can’t find peace. It isn’t her.
It is the struggle of age and the fear of losing control. She is unable to trust in the ways she use to
trust. Watching her struggle breaks my
heart. Life can be so weird. Why would life take the one gentle, trusting
soul who never doubted and lived a peaceful life even in the midst of losing
her only child (my mother) and bring her to a place where she is unable to find
peace during her most senior years?
There are some things that we just can’t understand and for me, this is
one of them. Yet, even in the not
understanding or perhaps especially in the lack of understanding, there is room
for growth. It is not in “the answers”,
but rather, it is in the searching, in the stretching, in the reaching for
answers that brings growth. I think
where we get hung up is when we think we have it all figured out and I think one
of the big ironies of life is that about the time we start to feeling smug
about having all the answers, we find out we really don’t. Just that thought would have made me feel
uneasy at times in my life but there’s a peace in just accepting this moment
for what it is: the good, the bad, the
indifferent.