Birth Days

My birthday was last week. For years my friends made light of the day because so many bad things happened on the day or very close to it. They would joke that they couldn't have lunch with me for fear of dying! This was in reference to my grandmother's death on my thirteenth birthday. Let's just say that that event got the ball rolling. Other birthday happenings have been wrecks, more deaths, funerals and kid troubles.

One friend moved my birthday to the next week just to avoid the real day. A little insurance never hurts. For a few years that actually worked or maybe the moon was in the seventh house, if you believe that sort of crap. I don't but I'll take it anyway I can get it.

This year the bad luck was with me again. Oh well, there is always next year. I'll add that week to it. As I said, a little insurance doesn't hurt.

Loosing things and Moving on

How swiftly life can change! You are rolling along, the sun is out and life is sweet. Then a phone rings and Bam, change happens. A child is hurt and angry. It doesn't matter that he is a grown man. He needs his mom to make it right again and tell him that he will recover. He is alright, but I am not. The anger and pain for him hurts me too. I want to strike out at the person who caused him to lose faith in people. I need to tell him that he can trust again, but I cannot find the words because my trust is shattered along with his. Instead he is the one who moves on and trusts again. Me, I am still struggling;my wheels spinning in place.

Another phone call, another change, Bam! The sun has gone again. Summer will never be the same. Paradise is lost and so is our anchor. That place we hold dear to us is reduced to just another piece of real estate to haggled over like an item at a flea market. More lost trust and faith slammed and the hurt lingers on.

Dogs wrap around our hearts. We love them and care for them. Then one day they leave and there is a vast empty place in our hearts. Our minds know that they have left us, but our hearts cry out for them.

My heart hurts. I want to trust my friends. I want a place to gather my loved ones around me and watch the little ones build sandcastles in the same sand that their fathers and mothers did many years ago. I want to see Ginger run again and then curl-up next to me and sleep the sweet sleep of a happy dog. Sometimes change is good and then sometimes it really makes my heart hurt.

Lost

Ginger has not come home. I know in my heart that she is dead. Why? Because she was old, almost blind and deaf and lately, like me, she was having trouble with her legs. Animals will go away to die. People don't usually have that option. Dogs have it right, I think. They just go and slip quietly into the other world.

Lately she had been running a lot. I like to think it was a late rally. Maybe, when she slept she dreamed of being a puppy again and when she awoke, for a time, everything was working the way it did once upon a time. Last week she kept me awake with her running laps in our bedroom. I got out of bed and let her outside where she ran some more and then came inside. It was a sweet moment ; just she and I sharing a little dark time. Looking back, I wish I had cuddled her more. I hope she knew how much I loved her. She was never more than two feet away from me, even when I showered. Always waiting for me, always there. I know that she missed the hustle and bustle of the kids, but then so do I.

The highlight of her day was dinnertime. When Lars and Belle left her alone, she would lap at her dish and then rest for a bit. In her advanced age, eating required a lot of energy. Gene souped up her food so that she could sip most of it. Loosing some of her teeth was another sign of her age.

Last Sunday she wandered outside for her nightly business trip and didn't come back. We don't know how she left, but left she did. She wandered out of our lives as quietly as she wandered into it. We love and miss her and will always.

Politically correct?

Buzz words make me want to scream while pulling my hair out! My personal favorite buzz word or phrase is, drum roll please, "politically correct". What nut cup coined that one? Did personal responsibility, using good manners and being respectful just vanish from our collective culture? Oh, goodness there goes another one; culture. Instead of the melting pot of our parents generation, we are expected to respect other cultures in our midst. Huh? Did I miss something? Was someone disrespectful? Culture was what my grandmother wanted me to acquire by reading and studying while broadening my horizons. If I had been disrespectful or sassy, my mouth would have gotten washed out with soap. My grandmother is long dead and buried, but her teachings live on. Would that we all had southern mothers and grandmothers! Their rules are really very simple;

1. No sass, especially to one's elders.

2. No use of swearwords (This is the one usually broken first, I know firsthand )

3. Use no racial slurs (We all put our pants on the same way; one leg at a time.)

4. Appreciate others' religion ( you don't have to buy into it, but don't pass judgement either)

5. Discussion of politics and the afore mentioned religion are off limits in polite company. At the very least, if you bend this one a little, don't let the discussion become an argument.

6. Don't chew gum in public

7. Don't sing, hum or read a book at the dinner table. I think that this is important, not for the obvious reason, but because dinner/supper times should be family time.

8. Never reply to an elder by saying, "yeah" or "naw". Yes sir, no Ma'am, you get the visual.

9.A firm handshake is always appropriate, but let the lady extend her hand first.

10. Be on time

11. Make every attempt to remember people's names.

This list is just a starting point for anyone questioning what came before "politically correct".

Etiquette is whole different list for another time.

Hormones can sometimes cause one to be foggy. Mornings are especially trying because you can't quite kick start the day with all those cobwebs spinning in your head. A hot cup of coffee and the feel of the morning newspaper on my fingers is my touchstone with the real world just past the fogginess at the edge of my brain.

That is why yesterday's netherland (somewhere between the fogginess and awareness) is so perplexing! The first sip of coffee was barely past my lips when I heard my mother speak to me. Now, before anyone calls the white-coated strangers to take me to the quiet place, allow a small explanation. You see, the women on my mother's side of the family are somewhat clairvoiant. Our family history is fairly peppered with tales of the gift and times when it was exhibited. So, hearing Mom's voice was not shocking in a scary way. Since her death over three years ago, I've longed to hear her voice. What I think she said was, "That just isn't done" . Later, I tried to recall exactly what I heard, because the sound of her voice, I will admit, was so welcomed that I might have missed the actual message.

It would stand to reason that it would be that phrase, because for all of my life Mom said things like that. "That just isn't done" carried different meanings at different stages. She never followed the saying with a "because....", instead that phrase became a stand -alone statement and was never questioned. For instance,when I was a little girl it might have meant; Don't whack your baby sister with your doll. Later, when I was of dating age it might have meant: Don't sit in the driveway with that boy in his dark car or don't have sex before marriage. I think that I always knew that to defy the rule of what wasn't done meant dire consequences. The only time that I ever remember her saying it and my laughter was the time my daughter was reading a passage form a book. The book was, _The Southern Belle Primer_. The tongue-in-cheek passage dealt with admission to a Junior League. It stated that a sad young woman wasn't excepted by "the League" because she had put dark meat in her chicken salad! My mother replied, "Well, that just isn't done!" My daughter and I roared with laughter. We absolutely, without question, knew that Mom understood completely why the woman was not a "leaguer". What confused Mom was why we thought that it was such a hoot! By the way, my mom was not a league member , my daughter was as was I and none of us _ever_ put dark meat in our chicken salad. That just isn't done!

Okay, now flash back to yesterday's fogginess/clarvoiant message. Had I crossed the line? What was the "that" she was refering to? I know for a fact that I had not chewed gum in public, a real no-no in her book. What is it?

She didn't speak to me today. I've spent a restlass 24 wondering if she was saying that to let me know that she knows and understands that the events of this last week are not _my_ doing something "that just isn't done", but of those around me.

The betrayals of those people and the heartache it has caused my family, just isn't done. I don't need to finish the statement. Like mom, I can "see" the dire consequences. I told you so; we are clairvoiant.

Struggles

Whoopsie doodle. We've stumbled again. Just when you think that you've wrestled with a problem and at least dealt with it internally, it comes back to bite your fanny. Sometimes, thoughts about how to solve a problem run through my head like a dog chasing a cat. There was once a time when I could mentally balance my checkbook and prepare dinner at the same time. Now, not so much, as they say.

Back then, during the two brain days, I was so focused on getting it done and keeping our collective heads above water, that the effort became almost second nature. Again, now, not so much. Today, that is the here and now, there is less to worry about, so each issue or problem seems to take on a life of its own. Funny how that works. I am not laughing.

This week has been one of those stumbling weeks. Life and living bring surprises; not all good ones. If that were not so, we'd be pushing up poppies, as my mother was fond of saying. A life without surprises is boring, however, this week I'd have welcomed boring with open arms. Boring can be comfortable.

I read something a long time ago that I've never forgotten. It was an African quote by someone I'd never heard of, but it has stayed with me. In times of trouble and struggle I call it up from the graveyard of my brain. Paraphrasing here it is; Facing God on your judgement day. God sees you as un-blemished and asks if you have no wounds. If the answer is none, he asks 'Why? Was there nothing worth fighting for?"

I plan to face God as battered and beat-up as possible.

Parents

There they were, right there on the ends of my legs! My father's feet! Oh my God, my mother's skin is hanging off my chin. I look at my hands and see daddy's wide fingers and large knuckles. There smack dab on my face are my grandmother's eyes. Everyday we say and hear others say that this or that looks just like so and so. I am guilty of doing that, especially when I see some feature on a grandchild that so resembles one of his or her parents, my own children.

What we don't see quite as often is what is in their heart. Will that heart be the sweet, forgiving one of my mother? Does one inherit such things? Do we teach our kids to be loving, forgiving people? Are they born with it? Do they just pick it up from us? Do they only learn from example? I'd like to think that loving and forgiving are a combination of all of those things.

Just recently, I peeked behind the curtain of one of my sons' heart. What I saw was that what he had learned made him a better person than I am. His heart and soul are exactly what I'd hoped they would be. He is a grown man with a child of his own. One day I hope he will peek under the curtain that surrounds her heart and see the same thing. Inherited or learned; both form the person and make a mother proud.

The Friendship Cafe

The Friendship Cafe does not off an Al a carte menu. If it did, this is what it might look like:

The Menu and Daily Specials

Choose a main dish and add two sides:

Friendship

Compassion

Sympathy

Love

Understanding

Professionalism

Personal

Sides:

Deceitfulness

Stab in the back

Bitchiness

Vindictiveness

I 'll have a plate full of understanding, add a little bit of bitchiness and serve it up with a stab in the back.

Thank-you