choosing

Gratitude

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I am so very grateful for the blessings of this past holiday.  Thanksgiving Day, my daughter and her fiancé came for dinner.  We had a lovely visit and some fun on the target range.

I am grateful for technology that allows us to video chat with our children half a world away.  We plugged the computer into the big screen TV so we could see them larger than life!  My son! A TV star!

When he was a baby and we were living in California, we could only call home once a week and write letters that required an envelope, stamp, and a few days to get to the recipient.  In his young life, how things have changed!

I am grateful for the extended visit we were blessed with by my niece and her lovely family.  The girls are wonderful!  A four year old and a 9 month old.  He was especially touched by the extraordinary affection the baby had for him.  I was able to work on some of my preschool age entertaining skills.  I am still not at full speed.  Though, I did manage to improvise a princess breakfast table for the four year old.  Served in the living room to enjoy morning cartoons, naturally.

I have plans and dreams and ideas for little girls’ play.  I do have some of the toys set up in the guest room.  I want to work on that area some more.  I sense some more furniture moving may be in order.  I keep saying I need to stop that.  My body doesn’t recover from the strain as easily as it once did.

I am grateful to be included in their lives.  Each of my children and their mates, my niece and her husband and their girls.  Grateful to be able to love and enjoy them.

A friend and I had a conversation recently about bitterness.  Most folks go through difficult times, tragic times, even.  We get to choose whether we will be bitter or not.  I could be very bitter about the things that have happened to my loved ones and the losses I have suffered.  But, I want to be happy.  I want to love and be loved.  I want laughter and fun and tenderness and joy.  I want to be part of the lives of children and old folks.   I want to pass along the resilience and good humor given me by those who taught me to not be bitter.

Life is the stuff that happens in between the troubles.  Life is not the troubles.  Get out there and live and there are bound to be troubles.  Heartache, stress, fatigue, questionable situations.  But, in between, there is magic.  Love, joy, connectedness, tender sentimental moments, lazy moments of companionship, a beautiful spot in an ordinary day.

A friend once told me she was in a doctor’s office and rushing out to her next scheduled thing.  She noticed a rose in a vase on the table.  She paused and thought about me.  She reflected that I would stop and notice the rose and comment on how lovely it was.  I hold that as one of the best compliments I have ever received.  I do try to stop and appreciate beauty.  I took one of those aptitude and interests type tests in home economics in high school. I still recall the highest value I have as indicated by the test. Beauty.  My highest value.

Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  What the world counts as beauty may not catch my eye.  But, when the beholder sees beauty, whether in the face of a four year old when her mermaid hair is pulled away from her face for a moment or in the toothless grin of a happy baby, or in the twinkle of brown eyes so familiar and yet so treasured…………..oh how this old gal’s heart pitter patters!

Grateful for making my life simple and choosing to see the beauty. Raining Orchids.  The beauty of my simple life.  Yes, that is me.

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Christmas Cards

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Let me preface the following with a few statements.  First, I love Christmas cards.  I love getting them in the mail.  Second, I love the cards themselves.  They are mini works of art.  I love that someone took a moment to include me in their ritual of sending cards.

I used to send Christmas cards to every person in my address book.  You know.  The address book in which folks used to keep “snail mail” addresses.  Every year, a couple of boxes of cards, signed, stuffed in envelopes, addressed, stamped, dumped at the post office.

When we first married, I enjoyed the process.  Picking out the right cards, addressing the envelopes, making the trip to the post office.

After a few years, it became just another item to do on the Christmas list.

Then, it became a chore.   I felt obligated to send cards.

Next, it became a burden.  After all, I still received many cards in the mail each year.

Finally, I stopped doing them.  And the feelings of guilt set in. We were still receiving cards by the bucket full.

After a few years, I got over that.  I realized I have a choice.  I can choose to participate in whatever I want.  I owe no one for anything.  I am grateful for the love and support I have received from friends and loved ones.  I still receive love and support from many, including him and the children and Him.

But, I have given my love and support over and above.  At times, nearly losing my health, sanity and economic stability to do so.  I still have love and support to give.  Resilience.  My friend and I spoke of this today.  Mother instilled resilience in me.  He reinforces it.  Life continues.  Through illness, death, dismemberment, divorce, parting of the ways, life continues.  Meals need to be cooked.  Washing has to be done.  The light bill has to be paid.  The garden needs planting and the grass needs cutting.  People pass into and out of our lives.  Some are here for many long years.  Some for a few short months.  Life continues.

No one owes me anything.  I have given whatever I can of service, time and money from the feeling of love and a bone deep desire to serve.  Parents, children, other family, friends, church, co-workers, neighbors.  Whoever He put in my path to touch, I have tried.  I have failed many times.  But, I have succeeded some, too.  I am choosier now about what I will agree to do.  I want to be able to commit completely and in depth to things I do these days.

Someday I may resume sending Christmas cards.  When I do, the list will be select.  I will send out of love and a desire to express it.  If someone is sending cards to me or anyone else, I just hope they are sending them out of genuine positive feelings and not out of guilt or obligation.  If it doesn’t make one happy, don’t do it.  There are enough chores that must be done in this life without this being one.  Of course, this sentiment could translate to a million other things our society members do as well.

“I just want you to be happy.”  Ten thousand times he has told me that over the last nearly 32 years.

So, I say to my reader, if sending Christmas cards makes you happy, please continue.  Please don’t be offended at mine missing from your mail box.  Should I receive one from you, I will send good thoughts your way and prayers upward on your behalf.  If I find out you have a need, I will try to help.  That will have to be my Christmas greeting to you for now.

In a musty trunk, my Grandmother’s and Father’s sentiments to me are stored.  “Dear Molly Darling” begins one from my Granny Arie……………..

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