Puppy Love

It was a clear-cut case of love at first sight. And it couldn't have happened at a more opportune time. 

My brother had just passed away unexpectedly. He had been doing so well, and then, he wasn't. Just like that. And I never got a chance to say goodbye. And it was so sudden, so wrenching, so ... raw. 

I'd been initially planning to get a puppy at the end of 2020. But here it was, end of February, and I was scrolling through the 'puppies for adoption' page at a site I frequent. And there it was. Someone not 30 minutes' drive from me was selling puppies, of the breed I was looking for. I clicked on the ad. The mother dog had given birth to five puppies and they pretty much all looked alike - except one. I clicked on his picture. And he was standing there so pretty, so proud, so sure of himself, and showing so much personality and yet gentleness that my heart almost skipped a beat. 

After talking it over with my family, and given the current restrictions of Covid-19, I decided to send the breeder a note and see if I could set up a time to visit the litter (this was before the isolation rules started.) She said sure, and before long I and my daughter were knee deep in little dogs. All of them Pomeranians!! Some looked like the standard image I had in my mind: orange with big floofs around the face and a plume-like tail. But these were different. They were white with brown and black markings. Only this little guy was white with black markings, and just a touch of brown. 

I left holding him to the last... wanting to give the others a chance. But it was no use. He had stolen my heart from the first click. And when I picked him up, and saw how curious, interested, and confident he was, even though he did let me roll him over on his back - when I saw him not once ask to get back in the pen with his siblings - he sealed the deal for me. And I was absolutely, 100 per cent smitten. 

I reserved him with the breeder and waited for him to be old enough to come home with me. That would not be until another few weeks, after we had completed our 14-day self-imposed isolation. 

Bullet - born Feb 7, 2020, age 9.4 weeks

We picked him up last Friday. And it seems now like he has always been here. What a ray of sunshine in otherwise dark times! What a reminder that there is still some sweetness, light, and humour in this crazy climate of rules and distancing and fear! He's melted the hearts of all who have seen his pictures or met him in person (like the vet, earlier today). I've filled an album already on Facebook with photos and videos of him. 

He loves his harness. He loves his kibble. He loves his pen and his crate. He loves pleasing us and learning new things (like going potty outside). 

He loves his bully sticks. He loves his Miss Kitty, a soft plush kitty with a heart-beat inserted into her (which we can control off and on through a button on the unit). He loves me and my husband and my daughter. Plain and simple, it's a terminal case of puppy love, which is whole-hearted, unreserved, unadulterated, super-intense and highly focused, unconditional positive regard, for which there is no cure. He loves the way I want to love. With the passionate love of a puppy for everything and everyone in his world. 

And at this point in my life, I needed a daily, constant reminder of that kind of love. Perhaps it is no coincidence that d-o-g is G-o-d spelled backward. I'd like to think so. Because if any being on this earth can show the kind of love God does, it's a little, 2.2-pound ball of fluff who is right now chewing on his bully stick at my feet. He's happy to be with me, happy to be doing what he loves, and confident in my love for him. 

What a lesson. What a beautiful, soft, gentle, fun-loving, joy-bringing lesson to my heart. Live in the moment, love with all your heart, and keep doing that. What a gift! I am so very blessed.



 

Unspoken

A year ago today, my world got rocked. 

No, I don't mean in the way that someone made my day or anything like that. I mean, it was rocked. It was hit by rocks, knocked off its moorings, blindsided, and so much so that for weeks, even months, I was unsure of anything anymore. 

I have thought about the experience often since then, painful as it is to do so, and all I can figure out is that I was a victim of - or more likely a participant in - a miscommunication that destroyed a promising friendship. And it all came down to expectations. UNSPOKEN expectations. 

You see, I had planned to stay a few weeks with this person while I was out of town. I was willing to pay for the cost of the groceries I would be using, and I was so grateful for their generosity in offering me a place to stay at less than I would have paid for regular accommodations. 

But, well in advance, every time I would mention or even ask what this person expected to receive, that person changed the subject.   They preferred to joke around - and I could take so much of that ... and then it became so much that I had to just make an excuse and go do something else. And this was before I even got there.

We should have talked. We should have talked about EVERYTHING. 

This person's idea of friendly banter was teasing. I hate teasing. Teasing was always malicious when I was growing up, and I grew to detest it. So when this person started doing this, laughing at me, twitting me about my height and telling me to keep up, and making fun of my Maritime expressions, it didn't feel like friendly banter to me. It felt like criticism at best and persecution at worst. 

So one evening this was happening and I started to react. And I reacted badly. And I said things that were, in fact, malicious. And this person was hurt. That was the first mistake... unspoken expectations. Not talking about what things meant to us, where the boundaries were. 

That night before bed, I apologized for losing my cool and then proceeded to explain where I had been coming from. All this person heard was someone who pretended to apologize and then justified her position. Resentment grew, unknown to me. I thought things would be better. But they weren't. They got cold. Real cold. Real quick. The teasing stopped, but it was replaced by stony silence. And I assumed that the person just needed time to recover. But that wasn't it at all. The individual had made a judgement of me and my motivations based on that person's upbringing ... and not mine.

You see, this person was brought up in a home where if you screwed up, you apologized without excuses, you took all of the blame for everything, and then you moved on, letting everyone be the way they were beforehand.  In my upbringing, nobody ever apologized that way; if there were apologies at all, they happened in the midst of people trying to understand why the other person did what they did. So to this person, my apology (which would have been accepted with open arms in my own family) was suspect, and not to be trusted.

But there was something else, too.  There were other unspoken expectations, and rather than talk about them, this person never even considered that I might come from a different perspective. It had to do with the rules surrounding house guests. In this person's home, everyone - even guests - pulled their weight, and nothing was free. The unspoken rule was that you cleaned up your own mess, you paid your way, and you did it without being asked and without expecting any thanks. To do any less was just plain rude and selfish.

Photo "Girls Looking At Each Other" by Stuart Miles.
Courtesy of www.freedigitalphotos.net

I, on the other hand, grew up in a home where, whenever anyone came to visit, they would offer to help out, and my mom would shoo them away from the kitchen and say, "No, you are guests here. You don't need to do that." If they offered money, it was, "Keep your money. Your money is no good here." So I had the unspoken expectation that hosts waited on guests hand and foot. And if a guest insisted on helping, they were profusely thanked (unlike the family members, who never received a thank you, not. even. once. ... but I digress.) If I (as their daughter) tried to do something on my own, my help was not appreciated, and I was often criticized for not doing it right. So I learned to only help when I was given explicit instructions, because to do otherwise would invite parental anger.

So, back to a year ago.  It only took a few days of staying with this person after the initial misunderstanding when things really fell apart. I was not feeling well, for various reasons, but yet the task of carrying this person's things fell to me and I was never thanked. Not. even. once.  I felt as though I was treated like a slave.  All the while, I felt hesitant to do things like wash dishes and put them away, and I was keenly aware that this was someone else's kitchen and not mine. I didn't feel free to move around, and I was kind of scared of the dishwasher - had never used one of the more modern ones, and wasn't even sure how it opened, or where to put things in it. So I stayed away.  

So of course, this person thought I was an ingrate.  

I didn't know how to pay for things; at the grocery store, they would whip out their bank card before I could even speak - and all the time, resentment built on both sides. 

Each of us felt put-upon. So when the blow-up happened, it happened BIG. 

I won't go into the gory details, but when this person finally confronted me, three days later, there was a list of things that took 20 minutes to deliver... and I was not used to confrontation. I apologized; my apology was not accepted and the person accused me of justifying my behavior because I mentioned not knowing how to help and not knowing what the rules were. I paid the person twice what they had already spent on me in groceries. I did not receive any kind of comment or even a statement that it was too much.

Unspoken expectations.

That evening and the next morning, I tried to chip in and show that I was trying to follow the rules this person had laid out, but it was too late. The cold shoulder persisted. I no longer felt welcome. I was on the verge of tears the whole time - partly because of the experience and partly from lack of sleep. Finally, when they left to do something with their family, I arranged to move out and pay strangers to live elsewhere, like I should have done in the beginning. 

The relationship never recovered.  It took a long time for me to recover from the experience. I was not used to not being believed, not used to essentially being called a lazy, selfish liar, even though those words were never used exactly. It rankled that this person could feel this way about me. And to this day, the memory of how things happened and thoughts about what I could have done differently plague me. And all I can figure out from all of it is that if we had just talked about things without judging each other - if we had just listened to each other without making assumptions - our friendship might have survived.

A Gilded Cage

She sits in her room.  Or she wanders the halls, sometimes with her walker, sometimes without (because she forgets.) Her mind flits about like a butterfly, from memory to memory, all of it disjointed and from different time periods. But to her, it is all the same. 

There is only one consistent thought.  She wants to go home.  That's where she belongs.  She must get out of this place.  And she asks every visitor who comes to see her if they would just help her with her things so she can leave and go back home where she is needed. Her desire is so great to go home that at times, she has gone to the door and pounded and kicked at it. All that gets her is more medication so that she can be more "manageable."

Her visitors, when she begs them to take her home, change the subject. They let her patter on about the same stories, let her ask the same questions over and over again, and when they must go, they make some excuse to get out of the room ... knowing she will forget they were even there in a minute or so. And then she will complain because "nobody ever comes" to see her. 

Mom (in the foreground) in her element - August 2015.
My sister is in the background.

I spoke with her this morning on the phone. She was so pleased to hear from me, and talked about needing to have someone drive her home so she could fix supper because she was working and couldn't come home for lunch. So today, she was stuck in 1992... 25 years ago ... and in that brief period of time, she wasn't even in the hospital. I just let her talk.  It wouldn't have done any good to tell her that this was 2017. She would have forgotten anyway. Time has no meaning for her anymore - except for the interminable wait to go home and how the seconds seem like hours when nobody is in to see her. 

Her nurse tells me that she is doing fine, that she occasionally gets agitated, feeling like she is trapped there (which she is, really), and they just give her an olazepin and she calms down. So I look up that medication on the Internet, and I think about how offensive it would be to her if she realized she was on an anti-psychotic drug, something to keep her from freaking out.  But she isn't in control of that anymore. And now, as never before, I realize that neither am I.  The hospital staff are in control; the government is in control. 

I know that she is safe and protected where she is, that she is fed nutritious food and sleeps well at night with no danger of her wandering. I get that. And it's probably a blessing that she doesn't realize how powerless and dependent she is. It is just wrenching to watch, even from this distance, to hear her lose more and more of her sense of time and self.  One minute is pretty much the same as the next.  She is incredibly lonely, a nearly empty shell looking for a place to lie down, the homing instinct being the only thing she has left.  Much of what made her what she was, is going or gone. The spark, the chutzpah, those are disappearing into the fog of dementia.

And it's Mother's Day. 

Wow.

More Lessons from Yarn

I keep learning from these crocheting projects! 

After I finished my first real "clothing" project (a hat) which turned out to be too small for an adult, I donated it to a local charity for a yard sale they had coming up. So ... it went to a good cause, and I learned a whole passel of stuff.

I decided to try again. This time, I had some black yarn I'd picked up at a local craft shop. Applying the lessons I learned from my previous project (see my previous post) I took my time, relaxed my grip, unraveled when I made a mistake, and trusted the pattern. 

I'm about half-way through and it's looking fairly good so far. However, I have learned even more from my second than my first, especially because I used black yarn.

Black yarn is harder to work with than ... say ... pink. It's DARK!

So, here are the things I've learned from crocheted (crow shade) work (yes, I know it's a very old, very bad joke!)

Increase the contrast
Use a hook that will contrast well against the color you're using. This helps you to see where the stitches are on the hook and will prevent you from messing up the stitches. 

It helps to have a guide like that, to be sure of where you are and where you want to go. The backdrop of a clear vision of what you really want to do is the starting place for accomplishing it. 

Try not to get discouraged
Sometimes the mistakes look hopeless. Taking your time with it, finding out where it went wrong, and having a little patience to work your way back to the blunder can take extra time, but it is worth it if it results in a successful piece. Setting it down for a little while can help recharge the batteries and give fresh perspective.

In our dealings with those who are closest to us, sometimes we think too many mistakes have taken place on both sides. However, it's worth the extra time that it takes to ferret out what went wrong, deal with it honestly, and work it through (individually or together) without succumbing to the tendency to have a chip on our shoulder.

If it's stuck, it's stuck
Backtracking can sometimes only go so far; at times there has been a hanger-on that has caused a tangle beyond which it's impossible to go. The tighter you pull, the tighter the knot gets. At such a time, the choice remains to go with it the way it is, or cut the yarn and start over from scratch. Either way, it is what it is and all you can do is accept it.

Some things can be lived with. And, like it or not, some things aren't fixable and it's time to say goodbye. True in crocheting, true in relationships or circumstances. It does no good to get upset about it - accepting the situation as it is, is the only way to relieve the stress and find some peace.

Turn on the light
Making it easy on yourself is sometimes no more complicated than reaching up and turning on a light so you can see where to go next, count stitches to find out where you've been, or do a row count to make sure you're on the right part of the pattern. It's a great way to orient yourself and get a general idea of where you are.

At times, in relationships, it helps to clarify the rules, to shed light on expectations and let each other know where we stand. It's so easy to "coast" in relationships with those we love or with whom we work or volunteer. Checking to see if we're playing by the rules, taking each other for granted, or crossing boundaries that are better not crossed, is a wonderful exercise to do once in a while.

It keeps us from perpetuating errors that can destroy relationships. 

Go by feel
Sometimes, given the difficulty of knowing where the next stitch is (especially with dark-colored yarn) the only thing left to do is to "go by feel" - to follow the stitches with your fingers, even poking around in behind stitches to find the right opening. 

That's okay. Sometimes the feeling can give clues and cues that your eyes can't. Learn to work with it, to recognize what the stitches feel like. Then you can trust your sense of touch to guide you as well.

Feelings can sometimes be the only thing we have to go by in relationships; if the feelings are uncomfortable, it's a pretty safe bet that boundaries are being crossed and it might be a good idea to figure out what is going on and where things have gone astray. After a while you can even trust your feelings - contrary to popular belief.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Those are the most recent object lessons from the world of crochet. I'm sure there will be more. All I can do is keep my eyes and ears open, and trust my feelings.

I could do worse. ♥  

On Hold

"Your call is important to us. Please stay on the line and your call will be answered by the next available agent."

It's no secret that I hate waiting. In a sense, I guess that's why I think I do so much of it: the cosmos appears to try to neutralize negative pressure. ;)

In other words, "Get used to it."

The theme in the last couple of months for me has been to get used to waiting. I freely admit that this theme has been met with a lot of kicking and screaming. Waiting to get my old computer fixed. (and waiting). Waiting to see an answer to prayer for a friend. (As usual, God let us wait until the last possible moment before charging in and working a miracle!) 

I've even hated waiting for a diagnosis for our eldest whom we strongly suspect has torn at least one ligament in her knee and severely sprained her patellar tendon. Waiting for that appointment with the specialist, even though it was far sooner than we thought, has seemed interminable as I have watched her take with grace and aplomb the events of the last few days. 

Her attitude has been amazing. Mine? Not so much.

I know that in my relationship with God, if there is some lesson He wants to teach that I'm either just not getting or am unwilling to learn, He finds a way to get me to listen. Usually it's through circumstances that force me to do the thing He wants to teach me to do. When that doesn't work, there is that last resort ... sickness.

So you guessed it - I'm sick. It's "only a cold," but by the Mister Man, those little critters can sure pack a wallop! 

It started yesterday afternoon at work. I couldn't concentrate, and I caught myself "zoning out." Last night, it hit. I felt awful.

Suddenly, all around me, people are making ordinary plans, doing regular things, going on about their lives - and I can't join in. I'm too weak, my throat is too sore, and my body is too tired to do much more than sit at the computer and lurk on Facebook, bolstered by Advil, DayQuil, Vitamin C and coffee to stave off the drowsiness. Even then, I find myself drifting off to sleep.

A nap. A nap might really help. 

Life slows down to a snail's pace. And I spend a lot of time ... waiting. 

Waiting for others to finish doing what they're doing. Waiting for the medicines to kick in. Waiting for my body to fight the virus. Waiting for my throat to be well enough to eat the yummy - yet scratchy - foods that everyone is eating all around me: pizza, for example. 

Normal living - well, as "normal" as it gets for me - is "on hold." My definitions of what's important, what's essential, are being rewritten. Again. 

Okay God. I'm listening. This is me ... waiting.

The Comfort Zone

By definition, a person's "comfort zone" is that realm of living in the everyday that feels comfortable, right.  At ease.  It's a combination of social circles, circumstances, individual relationships, job duties, and other miscellaneous expectations, routines, and habits to which a person has become accustomed.  It's the place in life where one feels safe.  

That makes a major assumption.  It assumes that the person has an inner comfort zone.  Such is not always the case.

The comfort zone I mean is the one where one feels comfortable inside - at peace with one's self.  The French call it "être à l'aise dans sa peau" - or "being at ease inside one's skin" - and it involves one very difficult - but essential - relationship. 

It's the relationship with oneself. For, as I understand the two most essential commandments of the Jewish law, identified by Jesus, it is necessary to have three relationships in life - and in this particular order of importance: with God, with oneself, and with others.

LINK for this photo

I've said a lot about relationship with God on this blog, so I'll leave that one alone in this post. Besides, I think that most people would agree that it's necessary to have a friendship with the Creator.  But I've seen a lot of people skip over that relationship with the self ... thinking it's somehow selfish ... and focus on other people exclusively.  Then they wonder why their caring for other people seems difficult, or forced, or why they are continually burning out and becoming resentful of the people they are nurturing.  I did that - for years.  I still fight the tendency to do it.  There seems to be a collective / cultural guilt surrounding the idea of being a friend to oneself. Perhaps it's that whole religious thing - the idea that paying attention to the self is egotistical, arrogant, and selfish. (Absolutely not the case. Just saying.) But as I keep telling my friends, "You're the only YOU that you have. Look after YOU ... please." I guess I need to keep reminding myself of the same thing, too.  Self-care fills my emotional tank and allows me not to get burned out as quickly (if at all) when I need to show compassion and caring to someone else.

Notice I said to show caring.  That doesn't mean that I rush in without permission into someone's life and start dispensing advice or (worse yet) barking orders - something I need to keep reminding myself about because that's what I used to do --- and on a regular basis.  It means that if someone needs a little help getting their bearings, I give them a soft place to land, to rest, to get their feet under them, to believe in themselves, and to learn to fly on their own.  It doesn't mean I create in them a dependency on me, on my advice or whatever else I think they might need. If I do that, then the relationship with the other person becomes about me.  That's not healthy.

But showing compassion and caring is the end result.  It will naturally flow out of relationship with God and then relationship with the self.  Many people focus on the end result of caring for others and showing compassion to them, - give, give, and give some more - and end up frustrated over time because ... well, there are any number of reasons but they all stem from a desire to have some sort of acknowledgement from the other person for their self-sacrifice.  It's been my experience that if I am looking after myself, I don't NEED that acknowledgement (I won't turn it away or be unthankful if it happens, but that's not my motivation or my goal) because I'm operating out of a place of fulness rather than running on empty all the time. 

As a matter of fact, when I actually DO start feeling edgy or resentful of someone else, that's my warning sign that I haven't been looking after myself. That's the time for some "me time" - to look after myself and be at ease inside my own skin - to find my own "comfort zone."

Forgetting it

"Do you remember when..." can be the start of something beautiful, the shared memory of a wonderful time spent together.  Or it could produce just the opposite (such as sharing where we were when a horrible atrocity happened, be it the assassination of a president, the advent of a hurricane, or the crumbling of twin towers and the loss of some three thousand lives). Or it can be the start of a pathway to resolving a long-standing feud or grudge. Or starting one.

Memory is God-given.  It is a tool to remind us of better times and to help us learn from the worst times, to use to help others who are struggling with the same issues we once faced (or still face).  It might not always be pleasant. It might even hurt.  But it's better than the alternative.

Great article on Alzheimer's safety here

When a person starts to lose his or her memory for whatever reason, it can be a frightening, even confusing and distressing thing for the person or for his or her loved ones.  Ask anyone with any kind of dementia (whether Alzheimer's or permanent brain damage from decades of alcoholism!) The reasons are immaterial. Whether someone "can't help it" or "brought this on themselves" by a lifestyle or an addiction ... matters not: once the memory starts to go, it's too late to go back and fix it, so judging serves no purpose.  Forgetting where something is: from car keys to cell phones to where you parked the car to even where a particular store is located - can cause panic and stress.  Forgetting where someone lives when you've been there dozens of times before is frustrating.  Forgetting where you were going when you're half-way there is confusing.  Sitting in a parking lot trying desperately to remember why you came to this store (or how to get home) ... is horrible.  

And it's horrible to watch someone you love going through this memory loss process.  The short-term memory goes first.  Living in denial that there's anything wrong, the sufferers often blame those around them for hiding things, keeping secrets. Or they forget small things that inconvenience others, and then berate themselves when the truth comes to light.  

As the memory loss expands, the baser fears start to come out - and show their true character, which they may have been able to conceal from some people until that point.  And then the long-term memories start to go. Gaps develop in the memory that are small at first - then whole incidents, certain types of behaviors which they deny they ever did or said.  They accuse their loved ones of lying about the past, making things up, contradicting them.  They remember incidents differently than the way they actually happened.  The result is a lot of upset for them and for those who are closest to them.  Eventually they may not even recognize the people who've known them all their lives, a tragic state of affairs.  Some even revert to a child-like state and live in that pre-traumatic era for the rest of their lives, relying on others to meet their every daily need because they are incapable of doing it themselves. 

Witnessing the permanent effects of memory loss on someone's life has made me rethink expressions like "forgive and forget" and "wish I could forget that whole year..." and "forgetting those things which are behind..." all of which refer more to an intentional forgetting - a choice (though the incidents are remembered and can't be forgotten) to not let those unpleasant events define who I am in the now, even though they are a part of my history and I can draw upon them to help someone out of a rut they might be in today.  

I've come to realize that the memories I have, the experiences I have had, can be (as they say in the recycling world) "repurposed." I'd like to think that (whether the memories I have are pleasant or painful) I have lived the life I have lived so that someone, someday, would be able to look at the beautiful things that God has done in my life in spite of the pitfalls, and say to themselves, "She has something special.  I'd like to know what it is."

That would be something to remember.
 

Bumpity-bump

I have a vivid memory from when I was six years old.  It's a happy memory.  

My grandfather lived down a long mud lane.  He drove a twelve-year-old Chevy truck built in the early 1950s with those bouncy-jouncy shocks that allowed passage over a dirt road but were pretty hard on the occupants.  He smelled like pipe tobacco and all the outdoors.  I loved him with everything I knew how to love with.  He never spoke a harsh word to me.  He was a short man - spry - and generous.  

This memory I have is brief.  It was of a day when my mother and I had been visiting him and Grammie at their house for the morning. I'd spent the morning exploring the property, going down to the edge of the lake, heading back up to the barn, visiting with the cows, hearing the grunts from the pigsty, trying to spy the kittens in the loft. And of course, sitting in Grammie's kitchen listening to her talk about the memories she had of my dad growing up, of adventures he had.  

Grampa offered to drive us back home after lunch, well over a mile if we were to walk, and the footing would have been difficult on that lane.  

We accepted.  

And here starts that memory so vivid I can almost smell the dust off the dashboard, mixed with the other smells I'll describe here. It's one of my earliest memories, so it's full of images, feelings.  Very potent.

Source (via Google Images):
http://www.classic-car-history.com/1947-1955-chevy-truck.htm

He got behind the wheel, and I sat in the middle between him and my mother.  

I loved riding in his truck.  It was so much fun!  Up and down, over the ruts and rills we would go, dangerously close to the edge on both sides of the lane. The ditch went down about fifteen feet on a sharp grade on both sides, so it was important to stay away from the edge.  Yet strangely, I was never afraid of him straying too close to the edge.  I only knew I was with Grampa, and he was driving us home, and that's where we'd end up. I felt safe when I was with him. It wasn't something I was consciously aware of, it just WAS.

Bounce, bounce, bounce...  He navigated the quarter-mile-long lane with calmness and aplomb, confidence and quietness.  I was enjoying the ride, being jounced around almost like a rag doll as we headed toward the main road.  And then I said what I always said, "Here we go again, bumpity-bump in Grampa's truck!"  And he laughed - but not in a shaming way.  His laughter said, "I'm enjoying my granddaughter SO much!"  He knew how to make me feel so important.  He knew neat things like that.  He knew lots of things my other relatives didn't seem to care about.  Like how to feed cows and pigs. That was cool.   


I don't remember getting back home, I just remember that little snippet of bouncing and enjoying the ride over that mud lane with all its ruts and rocks.

A little over a year later, Grampa would die in hospital of internal injuries, after his tractor wheel slipped off the edge of that narrow lane and rolled over and over on its way to the bottom of the ditch.  It truly was a dangerous passageway.  At seven years old, dragged to the scene in a panic by my mother after she received a phone call, I struggled to understand how come the ambulance was there, what had happened to Grampa, why they wouldn't let us near, how come he wasn't climbing up the side of the ditch by himself.  It all seemed so surreal, and totally disconnected from that care-free memory from over a year previous.  

I found myself just recently thinking about that ride with Grampa in his truck, how safe and protected I felt - and pondering in my adult mind how that at any moment we could all have plummeted to injury or death down into that same ditch.  

I guess it's because I'm covering some pretty rough territory lately and it feels rather scary.  And I suppose that it's God's way of telling me, "Trust Me.  I've got the wheel and I know the way.  It's going to be bumpy, too. But that's okay, I'm here.  And I'll NEVER leave you.  I will get you safely home."

I can't ...

There are a lot of things I can do.  I can think, work, eat, drive, and so many more things.  But there is a sense in which I can do absolutely nothing.  That realm includes the area of my own ability to consistently say and do the right thing, or to not choose the wrong thing.  

I cannot control other people, circumstances, or outcomes, either.  Much as I want to.  In fact, there is very little over which I have control.  I like to think I do, but I don't.

For most of my life I tried to live life the way I was taught to.  I tried really hard: straining, striving, and forcing myself to behave a certain way.  Trying to get people to behave a certain way because that's what I believed that I had to do in order to be a good wife, mother, friend.  

Not until I started into this journey of recovery and healing did I even start to get an inkling of the secret of living life.

Source of this photo:
http://tammycloserwalk.blogspot.com/2009/11/
i-cant-even-walk-without-you-holding-my.html

I can't.  God can.

There's a line of a song that says, "I can't even walk without You holdin' my hand."  The longer I am on this journey, the more convinced I am that this is true.  In my own strength I have nothing ... but when I rely on God for His strength and direction - lo and behold - things work out.  

I can't count the number of times I have been in close touch with Him and things have fallen right into place, miracles (mini-miracles) have happened.  Being in the right place at the right time, especially if there have been delays just prior to that.  Humming a song to myself that someone else needs to hear who's within earshot, and not knowing it's what he or she needs or even whether the person is even there.  Not reacting in a situation where reacting would worsen a situation.  Instinctively knowing when refraining from speaking, or just giving someone a hug, would say more than words ever could.  It's uncanny.  But I've seen it happen, time and time again.  In my own wisdom and strength, I would have screwed it up, and royally at that.

I know because I've relied on my own wisdom and strength.  It's how I lived most of my life, including the majority of my Christian life.  And although it might work for a short while and in short bursts, it ends up with me feeling burnt out, used up, angry, frustrated, and exhausted.  Not to mention with a lot of egg on my face.  Pushing myself and allowing myself to be tricked into that whole "don't just stand there, do something!" mentality has been my downfall again and again, and in the midst of my delusion (before I hit bottom) it's led me to believe that I should be doing more, that I have to do, do, do.  I forget to be, be, be.  And every single time, it ends in failure.  I've proven time and time again that I just... can't.

When I rely on God, when I concentrate on my relationship with Him and live in the moment, life is an adventure with unexpected twists, unforeseen blessings. 

Even when the circumstances aren't the best. 

Still there

So after so horribly many days of rain and blech, (that last word said with a lot of phlegm - haha) the sun came out from behind the clouds and we enjoyed a few hours of unfiltered sunlight yesterday and today.

I'm told it will happen again tomorrow and all weekend. :D

Source:  http://www.photosfromfinland.com/

It's so nice to see the sun peek through the clouds or around a corner - or through the trees.

It lifts the spirits.  

Funny how such a small thing as the weather can affect how we feel.  The sun has such therapeutic properties and many of my friends - and I suspect I as well - suffer from a mild form of Seasonal Affective Disorder.  One of them says he's "solar-powered."  A warm sunny day can truly be a gift.  

It's hard to remember on those dreary, rainy, misty or foggy days that behind the clouds, the sun is still shining.  Even if we can't see the sun, the fact that there is daylight whispers the secret that the sun is shining on our side of the Earth.  (I'm reminded of Rowan and Martin Laugh-in's 'Hippie Dippie Weather Man' who stated, "The forecast for tonight is Dark - followed by scattered Light rays in the morning.")  

And it seems that with all the draining, erosive things that happen in our lives that suck the hope and the life out of us: sickness, boredom, situations that require a lot of our emotional energy, and so forth, it's so hard to remember that God is still there - shining His light into our lives and pouring out His love.  Yet the clouds of our lack of understanding, or of sheer circumstance that seems designed to siphon off our joy and hope, get in the way and we forget.  So when the sun breaks through the clouds - for me it's a reminder that things will be all right in the end, ... and if it's not all right, then it's not the end.

All I need to focus on for this 24-hour period is staying real, staying close to God, and doing the next right thing. 

One Story of Forgiveness - and More

The phrase "Like mother like daughter" made me cringe when I was growing up. My voice sounded like my mother's voice when I answered the phone and often even her close friends would launch into a conversation with me, thinking I was her. It was embarrassing.

Even more embarrassing because she was the last person I WANTED to be like.

I grew up terrified of her. Her temper was ... red-hot and dangerous. At 8 years old and less than half her height, I ran away when she lost her temper; that only made her more angry. After she caught up with me, well, it wasn't pretty. Though I would have denied it at the time because I protected myself from the truth in order to cope, deep down, I believed she was a monster.

That was my unconscious perception of my mother for over forty years. Everyone thought she was a saint; I even deluded myself into thinking that she was, that I was being brought up in a "Christian" home, that I was lucky she was bringing me up right. But she wasn't. When she got mad, I'd better not be the one in her cross-hairs or I would be in for it. Aside from the times she lost her temper and lashed out physically, the constant criticism became second nature to her. She didn't even know she was doing it. In fact, she thought she was raising me right.

I hid from the bare facts of my childhood until I was 42 years old. And when I finally faced them, I nearly went insane with rage. How dare she! How dare they!! Everyone in the family was complicit. We weren't allowed to talk about what went on inside those walls. Only after I couldn't run from it anymore - not that long ago - did I realize how very angry, hurt, and resentful I was against her for robbing me of the right to be a child. For over five years I was unable to forgive her. For the first two of them, I couldn't even stand the sight of her. I cut her completely out of my life. I did come to some modicum of tolerance for her. I thought I had forgiven her, but I had only made excuses for her behavior and never really faced my own feelings.

So as I got into a spiritual process of recovery and began to systematically look at these hurts, I realized that I had to forgive her, but I was a very long way from that. And it was suggested to me that as a child, I was never allowed to feel my feelings but had to stuff them deep inside. Feelings, I was told by my counselor, were healthy to express in safe ways. Feelings are for feeling. That's what they are designed to do. They are a pressure relief valve, a signal that something is wrong and needs to be righted, or that something is right and needs to be enjoyed in the moment.

I journaled my forgiveness journey. I wrote down all the big - and little - things she did and said that hurt me and how that affected me at the time, the messages her behavior gave me, how terrifying it all was, the repercussions throughout my lfe, and how limiting it still was for me as an adult. In putting this all on paper, I gave myself an avenue, and permission, to express all those feelings that should have come out when I was a child, but I didn't have the self-awareness or the emotional maturity - or a safe enough forum - to do it at the time. I was too busy surviving.

I cried and cried and cried. For weeks. All that hurt poured out of me, in tears, and in ink on paper... I poured out to God all the bitterness and the anguish that a small child of eight years old could feel after 40 years of holding it in. Occasionally - and these times were precious - I spoke to my inner child and told her the things she should have heard, true things that countered the lies that she was no good, that she was evil, stupid, crazy. Truthful things like she was special, that she could be herself and people could like her just the way she was, that she didn't have to change for anyone, that what happened to her wasn't her fault. Day after day - all that garbage poured out of my spirit. It needed to come out into the open; it was killing me inside.

As all of this emotion came to the surface, it became clear to me that what she did to me was wrong. It might have been for the right reasons sometimes - but the way she went about it was wrong. She didn't know how to praise or encourage. She thought it shouldn't be necessary because she didn't need it growing up. She felt sorry for her mom, who was herself a victim of spousal abuse, and so my mom did everything in her power to make her own mother's life better. It was different for me; I was terrified of my mom and did my best to avoid her attention, because the attention was doled out in criticism, fault-finding, and abuse.

As the built-up pressure came out of me, as the tears washed away the hurt and the rage, the storms subsided and more and more often there was a calm. The knowledge that what she did to me was wrong ... was a revelation to me. I had taken the first step in forgiveness. "What you did was wrong." And the second followed it: "What you did hurt me - in ways you can't even begin to imagine." And the third, "I have a perfect right to be angry!"

Expressing that anger - to God, whose shoulders are so broad and who loves me so unconditionally, was the only safe outlet for that amount of rage. He was so patient, so kind. He held me and let me rant, let me weep, let me do whatever the child in me had to do to get that poison out.

Slowly, a new realization dawned on me. I began to understand that I wanted her to pay for what she had done - not just pay, but pay ME back. And then I remembered something that Joyce Meyer said. Something about what happens when someone hurts you - it's like they stole something from you. Something irreplaceable. Like self-respect. Or self-esteem. "But they don't have it anymore," she said. "The moment they took that thing from you, it flew from their hands and they couldn't give it back to you even if they wanted to!!"

It was like being owed a bad debt. They owed; they couldn't pay. It could stay on the books for a long time, or ... I could write it off.

All that was left was for me to make a choice. Was I going to keep that debt on the books or was I going to write it off - the way a bankruptcy trustee writes off the debt of someone who's unable to pay his or her creditors?

I struggled with this for quite a while. The words of a speaker I heard once at an AA meeting came to me. She talked about having to forgive her mother over and over and over, and that it came slowly after a long time of consistently doing that. But she kept at it and it eventually reached her heart. That made such a big impact on me!

Finally I prayed, "Lord, I'm willing for You to make me willing to forgive her in my heart. By the power of the sacrifice of Jesus, and definitely not my own strength, I choose to forgive her, as often and as many times as it takes to be real to me."

Honestly, I'm not exactly sure when it happened. It was gradual, as I kept turning that over to Him again and again, being honest with Him about it, asking Him to take it one more time, yet again, and ... thanking Him for His patience. But as I did, I started to see my mother in a new light...as someone who herself was emotionally stunted at the age of two years old by her abusive stepfather, and who was deeply bound up in her own fear. One day as I was thinking about her, I found myself - well, misting over. I looked within and found that God had given me compassion for this woman. I found myself wanting to help her, not retaliate.

That's when I knew that I had forgiven her in my heart. What an amazing feeling!

That's when I started noticing other things too. I believe that something spiritual happened in the heavenlies when forgiveness finally won. I remember sitting across the table from her during a visit, blown away as she opened up in detail for the first time to me about her growing-up years. She, who just a few short years previous had been unable to understand how I could be upset about things that happened 40 years ago, admitted to me that she grew up in fear, and that she was still afraid. "I guess things that happen to you when you're little really do follow you into your adult years," she mused. I nearly fell off my chair. Finally she understood... something I thought would never happen.

Since that time, our relationship has deepened. I call her and we talk for an hour or an hour and a half at a time, when before, I'd avoid doing that and she'd call and send me on a guilt trip, and then I'd call her or write her out of a sense of duty, and even then the conversation was superficial. Now, it's so different. We talk about "real" things - spiritual things, important things, things of the heart. Often.

And the best part is I've noticed a softening in her, a desire to be free of the fear that has been such a part of her life for over 70 years. She has asked me some very pointed questions. Me, of all people - the one before whom she did not dare be wrong. How ironic is that! She's nearly ready to admit that she is powerless over other people, the very first step in healing.

I couldn't be more pleased for her. She's about to start an amazing journey.

Utter Dependence

Yes, I admit it.

My love affair with rats began when I was in grade six. It was the last day of school and "Al" was about to be sent to the vet to be euthanized. He was a white rat whose home had been in one of the school classrooms.

"Oh don't do that!" I cried, and offered to take him, cage and all, home with me. Thus I discovered the intelligence, quirkiness, and absolute cuteness of the humble rat. Albino Al would do little tricks I taught him... and as long as he lived in the house, the wild mice avoided our house like the plague. (Oh, that was a bad rat pun.) My mother liked that the mice stayed away, even if she didn't like the smell of his cage.

So when my oldest daughter decided over a year ago that she wanted to get a couple of female rats (they are social creatures so if you get two, make sure they're both female - males will fight and one of each will start a rat farm) I agreed and we set up the habitat for them.

It's amazing how quickly one can become attached to them, how they chatter their teeth when they're content, how they wash their little faces and groom each other.

But the night before last, one of them had a fairly serious stroke and can no longer get around by herself. She can't eat seeds (can't coordinate her chewing), and can't climb the bars of the cage or even walk in a straight line. She mostly shoves herself around on one side. So my daughter took it upon herself, since all this little critter needed was to be taken care of, to take care of her. She spoon-feeds home-made soft food to her. It's a mixture of ground-up rodent pellets, banana, tapioca pudding, and raspberries or strawberries. Little Tsuri (pronounced Surrey) loves it. She shoves her face in it and licks until it's all gone. She takes water out of a medicine syringe because she can't reach her water bottle.

This is a picture of utter dependence. She doesn't understand why she can't make her body do what it's supposed to do. But she is grateful for her caretaker and she accepts without question the food and water, the washing, the physiotherapy, and the stroking that we give to her. Without this care, given to her with no expectation that she will be able to play or participate in the relationship, she would starve to death.

That's us. Whether we want to admit it or not, we are absolutely powerless to effect any change in our lives, and we are completely dependent on God. It is from His mercy that we are not left to our own devices - to die. He loves us that much. Nothing we can do will make Him love us any more ... or less. He is patient enough to let us make a mess of ourselves when we try to do the right things and fail miserably, and longsuffering enough to clean us up and help us do things we have no way of doing on our own. Like everything.

What a wonderful Saviour!!