Category: love

A Repaired Heart

On By SandraIn faith, family, love, stressLeave a comment

I write to you on the fifth week after my quadruple bypass surgery.  According to the professionals, I am progressing right on schedule. Even so, it is slow progress.  I am a “let’s get it done and I mean right now” kind of a person.  Unfortunately, this is a slower than molasses recovery process.  After four weeks I got the staples out and thought I would be ready to go.

I was beyond shocked when my wonderful surgeon let me know I had two more months (not weeks, months) of picking up less than ten pounds. My purse weighs almost ten pounds. This is miserable. No raking, no sweeping, no cleaning, etc. What can you do?

So I am in a situation of evaluating my life. I thought I had a handle on life. Work. That is what life is all about. Doing, doing, doing. I grew up in a home that did not understand the word play. My mother always worked. She owned a five and dime store. I stood on an apple crate to ring things in the cash register when I was eight years old. Work was what I was taught to do.

Each morning you wake up and go through your list of things to do. You prioritize your list and attack it. Each evening as you go to bed you reflect on your list. You think of those things you have accomplished and you get some rest because you have worked hard and you are ready to start another day of doing, doing, doing.

My husband, on the other hand, knew how to play. He grew up in an orphanage and had chores and worked on the farm, but he also learned how to play. In our relationship he pushed the play button and I pushed the work button. I never learned the value of play. Now, I am having a hard time learning how to relax and be still.

Not only does the activity level throw you off, but the self worth and emotional levels are out of sync. When you work all the time, you use your accomplishments to boost your self worth meter. When you are sitting all day and you evaluate your worth at the end of the day, there is not much in the plus column. That leads you to battle emotions of low self confidence, low self worth, hopelessness and depression.

Questions such as “Why did God leave me here instead of letting me die?”  “What am I suppose to do with my life now?”  “What did I do wrong that led me to have this issue?”  “Will I ever get my energy back?”  “Did God use this to give me a message?”  “What if I don’t get the right message from this?”  “What am I suppose to do with all of this?”

My three daughters are doing their best with me. My daughter that lives in Alaska even came down to help out. They are trying to re-educate me. I have a list of Stress Relievers that one daughter helped me put together. Twelve things to help me relieve my stress.

It is stressful to look at it.

I am listening. I am learning. I am trying. I pulled out my Erma Bombeck books. I am reading and laughing out loud. I am watching a movie each night. I am reading and re-reading all of the cards that my friends have sent to me.

I am slowly finding my way to a new life. One year ago that my life was torn apart. I adjusted as best I knew how to through the tragedy. Now I am adjusting again. I know a few things. One, I have a very strong faith. If God left me here on earth then I have a purpose and I will find what I am meant to do. Second, I am an eternal optimist. I will find the positive in the situation. Third, I have a great family and wonderful friends that will help me along the way.

The repairing of the heart will take time but it seems I have plenty of that.

 

Big Mouth

On By SandraIn gratitude, loveLeave a comment

A few days ago we all listened and watched a tree frog on the banister of our second floor porch. Now, you all know how small these creatures are. It is about the size of a fifty cent piece. Of course, you have to be my age to even remember fifty cents pieces. Nevertheless, it is a tiny little thing.

But if you have one of these creatures close by you will not believe the sound coming out of his body. He squeals loudly and then answers himself with a little bit softer squeal.

One time, many years ago, my husband and I heard this loud squealing. Several nights in a row we would hear this noise. My husband decided that it was a wild turkey out in the woods. The sound continued until one day my husband spent a good bit of the late evening tracking it down.

Turns out, there was a tree frog caught in a pipe right outside our bedroom. My husband rescued him and we gratefully slept that night without the squealing sound. It was amazing what a loud sound could come from such a small frog.

After seeing the little tree frog, I thought about how small he is and how loud he is. Maybe, his loud mouth is his way of getting attention in this great big world. We all need to get attention. Some of us do it by having our talent displayed. Some children do it by breaking all of the rules. Others do it by being like the tree frog; yelling out loud.

It is important for all of us to be heard. We each need to get our share of the attention. It is important for us to feel that we can safely share our opinions and voice our objections. We need to say to the world, “Here I am. I am here. Notice me”. And if I have to interrupt or disagree with everything, or be louder than others, it is OK. Because I have a personal need to get all the attention that I can.

God makes all of us differently. He allows our personalities to show us off in different ways. I have to remember that when someone jumps over others to be the center of attention. I must try and be extra tolerant when someone pushes their way in.

Just like the tiny tree frog, people use their voices to get the attention that they need. I appreciate the way God has made this beautiful world. I love the tiny tree frog. Squeal on and let’s be heard.

Talking to the Moon

On By SandraIn family, loss, loveLeave a comment

I am working long hours trying to get houses ready for the beach rental season.  So, after a particularly hard day the day before, I slept til 7 am one morning.  (Normally I am up by 6 am.)  Suddenly I hear my Echo Dot playing a song.  I did not ask it to play a song. I am in the house by myself so I know that no one else asked it to play a song.

I am stunned and bewildered.

I listen to the song.
It was “Talking to the Moon” by Bruno Mars.

I listen to the lyrics.  “I am talking to the moon because you are not here and I want you bad.  You are all I had and I sit by myself and talk to the moon trying to get to you and hope that you are on the other side talking to me too.  Do you hear me calling because every night I am talking.”

I immediately remember all of the years spent traveling with my job. Every night my husband and I would talk to each other.  Many, many nights we would do this while we were looking at the moon.  We knew it was our connection.  Both of us were looking at the same thing in spite of the fact that we were thousands of miles apart.

As I was enjoying this memory I was trying in the back of my mind to figure out how my departed husband could get “Alexa” to play on my Dot.

I knew God could do this.  
God can, in my belief, do anything.  

But I did not think God would really turn “Alexa” on.  And It was kind of spooky to think that my husband could do this.  But I have seen him dance in the body of a squirrel so maybe this was just another message from the other side.

Oh, yeah.  This is getting weird.
I mean I have a lot of faith.

I am so intimate with God that I would not hesitate to believe it could have been another “God Wink”.  But somehow my logical and rational brain would not let it be that way.  I had to figure it out.

The night before I had noticed the amazing moon.  It was almost full.  The sky was clear and the moon was so big you felt you could reach up and touch it.  It was glorious.  I had texted two of my daughters to ask them if they had noticed the moon.  I wanted to share the beauty of the huge globe in the sky.  They had both noticed this magnificent sky gem.

Then, my logical and rational mind kicked in.  I called my daughter and asked, “Can you control my “Alexa” from 200 miles away?  She said she could.  She said, “How did you enjoy ‘Talking to the Moon’ ?  I admitted it was beautiful and it was sweet of her to remember me in this way.

I did not let her know that I thought my dead husband had sent it to me as a love message.  I really do not want to give my children any more reason to file for guardianship papers.  But just between you and me, I will tell you a secret.  It was my husband that put in her mind to do this.  He was always such a romantic man.

I bet he and God are having a lot of fun.  They are up there finding lots of ways to keep me on my toes and loving both of them.

Thank you Ray for your love message.
Thank you God for taking care of my sweet husband and making me so comfortable in your love.

You are holding me in your arms and helping me know it is all OK.

 

Be My Valentine

On By SandraIn death, grief, loss, loveLeave a comment

Since I was fourteen years old I have had a boyfriend give me something special for Valentine’s Day.  Even before that we had boxes in our classroom where each student would put a paper valentine in for all other students.  We coded our names by putting numbers for the letters in the alphabet so it was fun to figure out from whom the valentine was sent.  Valentine’s Day has always been a special day for me.

This year I decided to ignore Valentine’s.  I knew that my true love was not going to be here.  I knew that I would not get that special card, those flowers and that extra long hug. I had prepared myself for the fact that my husband had died and Valentine’s Day for me would be just another day on the calendar.

I did great.  I was rocking along getting my chores done and my “to do” list was getting checked off in the speed of lightning. I was proud of my moving along and ignoring the special day of love.

Then my wonderful daughter comes up to me, gives me a great big cuddly long hug and says, “This was sent to you from heaven from Dad”.  That was it.  I looked at her and lost it.  My big bravado heart broke wide open.  I could no longer ignore the day.  I loved him so much while he shared my life and I love him now in all of my many memories; I could not act as if it didn’t matter.

Valentine’s Day is a special day to acknowledge our love for our special people.  I know it is usually marked for the romantic love in our lives.  It is designed for dinners out, flowers, candy in heart shaped boxes and expensive jewelry.

But shouldn’t it be a time that we say “I love you” to all of our special loves?  I, as much as I tried, could not get past the hole in my heart where my true love had lived.  I ached as I let myself release those feelings of emptiness, loneliness and sadness.

I was on the way to church for Ash Wednesday services and the radio seem to play every song that my husband and I had called “our song”.  I cried through everyone.  Then the next song would play and it was, once again, another of the songs that we loved.  Those songs reminded me of many special moments that only the two of us shared.

By the time I got to church I was a basket case. Probably, for the sake of others, I should have turned around and gone home, gone to bed and cried through the night.  But I didn’t.  I sat through a very moving service and thought about repentance and the sacrifice of Jesus and how I was going to ponder that for the next 46 days.

Thankfully my friends are sweet, caring people and they accepted my quiet sobs.  They knew my distress because they knew how much my husband and I were in love.  They understood my pain.

I made it home and the next day I was moving on with life.  But I learned that as hard as I tried to ignore the love that is expressed on Valentine’s Day, it has to be acknowledged. I hope that everyone could have a Valentine in their life as dear and loving as mine was. He was a true romantic. We fell so deeply in love that it is hard to imagine living without him.

So now in my memories, I think of him and want to say, “Please be my Valentine forever”.  I love you and miss you.