Question and Answer session.

1. What is your favorite thing right now? 

Books and nature nearly always hover near the the top of my favorite things and nature is currently winning out because it's Spring and all my plants are doing their thing.  I'm currently keeping watch over a Giant Elephant Ear.  It's my first time growing one.

Hmm.  What is my favorite thing right now?  I guess the April photo on my wall calendar, because I refuse to change it to May.

https://www.amazon.com/Out-Porch-Wall-Calendar-2018/dp/0761193758


2. If money (and access) was no object, what would you buy today? 
 
A lovely cottage by the sea where I could invite my friends to visit -- one by one.  I mean the kind of house one envisions being built 100 years or more ago.  Not the contemporary shells builders throw up today.  I would also change out my mother's tombstone.  I would buy her the loveliest marble stone I could find.  She does have a lovely granite stone, but I especially love marble's aesthetic. 

3. Have you ever gone on a pilgrimage?
While a professed Christian, I'm not religious minded enough to make a pilgrimage based on a spiritual belief, but I would like to visit Thich Nhat Hanh's Magnolia Grove Monastery in Northwest Mississippi.   My inherited nature could greatly benefit from the practice of mindfulness.  The place I feel spiritually drawn is my mother's grave.  By way of gastronomy, I'm drawn to Paris.

4. What is your Kryptonite?
Pookie.  Thank goodness he moved across the country. 

5. What is your favorite time of day?
Early morning and early evening.  It's all about the softness of the light.  I was a kid who loved summer and all day sunshine, but these days, the harsh light of midday makes me uncomfortable.  I think of it in the same way I view today's culture -- burning a little too bright. 

6. Do you have a go-to “power” song?
Nah, and I'm not someone who listens to music every day.

7. What is your happy place? 
Anywhere free of stress.  The library.  The beach.  A good movie.  A spontaneous family gathering -- those are so much better than organized family gatherings (too much stress).

8. If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be?
Abraham Lincoln, but I may already inhabit him in many ways, so I should probably pick someone mischievous like Mark Twain.

9. What do you think you do best? 
Empathize with others.  I tend to put myself in others shoes, which allows me to see where he or she is  coming from.  For example, I'm personally not a fan of the current President, but I understand a good many of the reasons why people made that fateful choice.  I just hope we survive it. 

10. What is something you do to cheer yourself up?
I don't think I do anything to cheer myself up.  I believe it's necessary to feel all emotions, including sadness. On the other hand, I regrettably soothe myself with my favorite non alcoholic beverage and too often with junk food. 

11. What is the best advice you’ve ever been given? 
There's nothing to it but to do it.  (I like that mantra, but no one gave me that advice, I read it somewhere).  The two bits of advice most commonly expressed in my family's home were:  "Where there is a will there is a way" and "This Too Shall Pass."   Another bit of advice came by way of an aunt (through my mother) -- she said if you ever find yourself with a case of the mulligrubs (blues), get up and do something.  That's solid gold right there.

12. Who would you like to see interviewed here?  Hmmm.  I'm gonna have to get back to you on that question.

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Let's see if this works, nothing else has.

For the sake of those around me, I've got to pull myself out of negativity.  I've been listening to Jen Sincero on The James Altucher Show (via podcast) and she said that we are ruled by our beliefs.  She went from making peanuts to rich.  I'm not money driven, but I am freedom driven.  Admittedly, I tend to shake my head at people who went from nothing to being successful as a life coach.  That's the trend of late, and it's not my habit to chase a trend.

However, what do I have to lose other than negativity?  If it's true that we are ruled by what we believe, I'm going to believe that the world is a wonderful place, that we all love each other despite our differences, and that I'm happy. Oh, and that I'm capable of becoming totally self-sufficient. I like the idea of that.


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What kind of society have we become?

My God.  If you aren't as soul weary as I am after the past two years, I don't know why not.  Not only are Americans insulting and bullying one another online over national politics, they are leaving behind any semblance of civility on the local level.  I feel like I'm living in one of those perpetually turbulent countries.  Maybe I am.  Maybe this is the way it's going to be from now on.  If so, I want off the merry-go-round.

Earlier today, one of my co-workers took the brunt of someone's vitriol because she works for a man who happens to serve as a county commissioner in addition to his day job.  Our community and a neighboring bedroom community (people work here, but they sleep there), are at odds over our local hospital and a potential hospital the bedroom community is pushing to be built.  There are lots of complaints about our local hospital -- ranging from care to cost.  On the flip side of that, there are lots of people who have been pleased with the care they received there, and it is the major employer in our region, not just county.  As they say around here, I don't have a dog in that fight.  Mainly, because I've decided if I get sick, that I'm just going to lie down and die if God sees fit to put me out of this misery.  Even though I am neutral on the hospital issue, I'm not neutral on verbal abuse directed towards the easiest target.  Take it from me, an assistant doesn't get paid enough money to put up with foul language and shouting from a caller who isn't lucky enough to call when the intended subject is in the office.  Before today, I thought that people would not act in real life in the same way they behave online  OBNOXIOUSLY.  I was wrong.  We have truly degraded ourselves as a society.  We think nothing of eviscerating the very companies that sustain our communities and we have ceased to be civil to our closest neighbors, which is beyond sad.  My neighbor around the corner was beaten unconscious and robbed two weeks ago by seven or more African American males, because he had the audacity to ask them and their friends to break up a party that was being held in a small neighborhood park well past midnight.  My neighbor's house along with others sit on a circle around that park, and there are posted laws forbidding use of any city park after dusk.  The police had repeatedly been called about the ongoing disturbance, but didn't show up until my neighbor was being loaded in an ambulance.  

Is this truly the greatest country in the world?  Maybe it once was, but we no longer expect greatness from ourselves. 

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23 months later

Nearly 2 years have passed since my mother's death from pancreatic cancer.   I wish I could tell you that I'm on the other side of grief, but I'm not.  There are days (like today) when I still despair, but I don't feel quite as bereft as I did during the first year after her death.  That first year, I mostly wanted to be dead. I guess life had other plans, because I'm still here without my Mom.  I don't know about you, but grief is the loneliest experience I've ever encountered.  The most comfort I've found is in a stack of memoirs written by people who lost their loved ones ("The Best of Us" by Joyce Maynard being a favorite) and by people who were dying from a terminal disease ("The Bright Hour by Nina Riggs -- a hands down favorite).  The next best comfort I receive is from complete strangers in the "Option B -- Grief" group on Facebook.  Those people get it.  They really get it.  And, they don't try to talk you out of any feeling.  They understand not wanting to live without the person you most loved in life.  Only by immersing myself in sadness have I been able to emotionally move forward.  As you may know from your own experience(s) or have heard from others, grief is like the waves of the ocean.  It sweeps over you, then retreats, only to come back again.  While sad, I can also simultaneously experience joy when spending time with friends and family.  Today though I have a gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach with no accompanying joy.  It's not a good feeling and I don't know why I'm so down today.  Maybe emotional loneliness has temporarily gotten the better of me.

So as not to burden others with my feelings, I spend a lot of time by myself these days.  Usually reading.  Or working in my yard.  Did I mention that last year (January, 2017) the scariest storm I've ever experienced, other than Hurricane Camille, swept through our city and directly through my neighborhood.  I lost three huge pine trees and a prized Sasanqua Camellia shrub, but thankfully no one was hurt and I did not incur any damage to my house or car.  Others were not as lucky.  In addition to the three trees and shrub I lost, I also lost my newly installed privacy fence on the alley side.  I'm still without that fence.  After paying for the damaged trees to be removed I didn't want to spend more money on a fence.  After the trees were gone, my once shady back yard was full of sunshine.  After about a year of sunshine, weeds starting taking over.  It kind of feels like the ongoing theme of my life. 

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Pass me a parasol

Sigh ... my mother's funeral was held on June 3, and despite the sad event it was, it went smoothly for all purposes.  While my father, siblings, and I easily made all of the choices one has to make for a funeral, it was clear that I was the one who had the strongest feelings about our tribute to my mother.  Although they love her as much as I do, my mother and I had another layer of relationship.  She was my best friend in this world, and although I am not the eldest child in my family, my siblings  honored my extremely close relationship with my mother by giving their sweet deference to my final wishes.  My mother even did so a few years prior to her death by allowing me to circumvent her original plan of burial.  My parents had purchased plots in a local cemetery long ago, but I was resistant to the idea of my mother being buried in a cemetery wherein she knew no one.  Over our many years together, death was a frequent topic of conversation between my mother and I, and I always told her that I wanted both she and my father (and myself) buried in my parents hometown cemetery when the time came, because that is where a good many of my mother's family are buried.   So, that's what we did, we held a church service in the town in which we live (my hometown), and then traveled 2.5 hours away to hold a graveside service in her hometown. 

When we got there, we were greeted by a whole different set of fellow mourners -- my father's siblings, my mother's brothers and other family relations, and people I didn't know.  After a short graveside service, we milled about on that hot humid day visiting with people we have not seen in a long time.  You can imagine the scene.  Everyone was fanning themselves with one of those funeral home hand fans, and drinking water from bottles plucked from the cooler provided by the funeral home.  While there was a tent provided, there wasn't enough room under it for everyone, and even if you were lucky enough to get a seat under the tent out from under the sun, the air beneath the tent was stifling hot.  The more outdoorsy folks were smart enough to bring their golf or stadium umbrellas.   I quickly gained a great respect for those prissy parasols ladies used to sport back in the day.  After visiting with everyone, we encouraged them to get themselves out of the heat, and we too took our own advice.  We drove away leaving my mother in a beautiful wooden casket covered with fresh flowers, at the foot of her aunt's grave, under a tent, beneath a scorching sun with nary a breeze to be felt. 

I miss her.
Such an understatement.

Bitter sweet ending

It has been a life changing couple of months for my family.   At the end of April (2016), my mother mentioned that she was having some digestive problems.  By early May she was undergoing tests to determine the cause of these troubling issues.  Within a week she was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer.  On May 31, she passed away.   During that extremely short time in which she was sick and clearly dying, I cried and cried.   You do a lot of pre-grieving when someone you dearly love is dying, and the last thing you want for anyone you love as much as I loved my mother, is for your loved one to suffer.  Since my grandmother also died of Pancreatic cancer in 2000, I had an idea of what my mother was facing, and her comfort was my top priority.  My next priority was to spend as much time with her as I could. 


For my entire life, my mother has been my one true love.  Over the years, I would imagine her dying.  It was my biggest fear in life.  During that distressing imagination, I imagined myself laying down and dying if something ever happened to my mother.  The shocking reality is that life goes on.  I have been unnerved by the surprising sense of peace and serenity I currently feel.  I liken it to what "Peace Beyond All Understanding" must feel like.  Oh sure, my first thought when I wake up every morning is that she's gone and that knowledge brings up that lifelong feeling of fear, but I quickly pray or turn on a sermon on television, so that I don't have to dwell in that fearful feeling.  I keep waiting for the shock to wear off, and for despair to knock me on my backside when I'm not looking. 


While I wait for that to happen, I want to write a few things that I remember from the last few weeks of my mother's life.  One day, my mother went into her room and returned with her wedding rings which she then handed over to me.  She told me she wanted me to have them, and that if she did survive, that I could give them back to her.  I was concerned about what my father and sister would think, so I told her I wanted her to tell them that she had given them to me.  She did, and they are okay with the fact that her rings are now mine.  My biggest worry now is losing them.  She had the tiniest fingers, and while mine are not big, they are not tiny.  I wear her rings on my pinky, and they are loose, so I need to find a way to preserve them in their present state, yet keep them with me at all times.


Another day, I was seated beside my mother on the sofa, and she started to cry.  While I tried to comfort her, she said that she wished she had done it better.  I took her to mean that she wished she had done marriage and parenting better.  I told her that none of her children were addicted to drugs and that none were murderers or in jail, and that was something to be thankful for.  I told her we aren't perfect, but we could be a whole lot worse. 


One weekend, my overly religious uncle came to visit and stayed longer than my mother's tolerance level could muster given the fact that her body was letting her down.  He pushed her last button when he started talking about "end times" and how Obama was to blame for every problem in the world.   She was not an Obama supporter, but she thought it was not right to blame one man for every problem in the world (or for every problem in our country for that matter).  When someone is dying, they apparently don't give a damn who the President is, and they definitely don't have the energy to worry about the entire world.  My mother got up from the sofa, went to her bedroom and shut the door.  Within a few minutes,  my uncle and my father went to Sunday school and church service.  I went into the bedroom with my mother and crawled into the king size bed with her.  She started to talk about the conversation she had just had with my uncle (her brother).  She deeply loves him, but he can test her patience even when she's feeling well.  We had a conversation about him which was familiar, because it is one we have every time he visits.  She then asked me to go get her computer, and for me to pull up her pinterest page where she had a board of videos pinned.  She wanted me to play some of those videos for her, so I did.  We mostly watched southern gospel videos (some sung by Elvis, others by the Gaither Vocal Band, etc.).  She told me that if she didn't survive, that she wanted "How Great Thou Art" played at her funeral service.  I played for her a second line New Orleans type song for her which I found on YouTube.  She and I both really liked it, it was toe tapping music.  She said offhandedly, "You can play that too."  How little did I know that I would be arranging for both of those songs to be played at her funeral in such a short time.  I thought we had 3 to 6 months left together, but it turned out to be about 3 weeks.  While I questioned myself countless times, I did end up playing that second line song against my better upbringing judgment.  Who knew it would go over so well with those who attended my mother's funeral  Here's a link to that song "Cry For Me" by the Golden Honeydrops:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XzZsVWeR9Y


My mother walked an arduous path towards death, but she did it with more grace than I've ever witnessed.  Any time she was doubled over in pain, she raised her hand towards God and said, "Thank you Jesus for my Healing."  She never once got angry with God.




I'm finding it hard to write any of this stuff ... even now, six weeks later, but I wanted to get some of it down, before I start losing any memory that I would rather keep.  I'll be back when I find it easier to write.  


Oh yeah, about that British possibility.  We still chat, but he never came to see me.  I was successful in talking him out of wanting to date me.  I see now that the Universe had other plans for me during the time I would have spent with him.  I instead spent that time with my dying mother.  And spending time with my mother is something I will never regret, because she was (and is) the love of my life. 

You're cheeky today. What do you mean today? I'm cheeky every day.

Someone recently asked me, "How do you get involved in these sort of situations?"  Hell if I know, I was just sitting in my house minding my own business when someone pimped me out on Facebook.  So now, I've been chatting for over a month with a citizen of the United Kingdom, and come April, he will be boarding a plane and crossing the Atlantic.  I have scheduled vacation a month earlier than I normally would and I've been trying to think of fun things to do and interesting places to take him.  Being a creature of annoying habit, I've found this turn of romantic events both engaging and slightly uncomfortable.  April is not my preferred month to go on holiday.  Late May, early June and anytime in October are my favorite times of year to vacate work, but I'm going to make an exception for this guy, at least once.  If, after spending a week with him, I find that we lack chemistry and/or compatibility, I will chalk the experience up to taking a chance, and for that I get a gold star.  If we do have chemistry and don't wish to kill one another within days, we could be facing something more serious.  He's so much more romantic than I am, and that will require more effort on my part if things become serious.  If we get along like peas and carrots, I will have to think of sweet things to do for him, or naughty things to do to him.  God help me, because my previous boyfriend told me that I was the least romantic girl he had ever met.  I thought being less romantic was a positive trait to have as a woman, but apparently that is not so when dealing with a man who values romance.  Personally, I value people who don't add to my daily annoyances. 

Perhaps to offset possible rejection upon our first physical meeting, I've been steadily relaying to him all of my unattractive features and traits.  He keeps telling me that it makes him sad to hear me talk negatively about myself.  I tell him I'm not being negative, I'm being realistic.  In the event I have to reject him, I would rather do that before his plane ever lands, so I've thrown all my romantic deal breakers right out front -- I don't date smokers, I cannot live with pets, and I'm never EVER leaving the South.  Those are my big three, the rest are negotiable.  So far, I've not been able to shake him.

Only a week in April will tell us what we both need to know.

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