Category Archives: living and growing

death, hope, life, living and growing, Love

Listening to Life

Sitting in the pew at the funeral of my aunt, an unexpected and dismal thought came into my mind.

We strive our whole lives, and when our lives are over, all that is left is our body in a small pine box.

Then I realized that was death talking. Death, known for being fatalistic, talks that way.

And I realized death was right, at least in a small way. When life leaves, a body can be contained in a pine box.

But as I continued to look around, Life spoke. (Life sees more than death ever could.) Life said to me, ‘I am everywhere. I am filling this place.’

As my eyes gazed across the aisle to my cousins, I realized Life was right. Life knew about such things because Life was the cousin of Love, and Love is the best part of Life.

Love doesn’t die.

Love continues to live through the lives left behind.

My cousins might not know it yet. The ways that their mother is and will always be with them. Death throws a shadow on that. But as their new Life emerges, Love makes itself known.

Their mother’s body, the thing that represented her in this life on earth, is no more. But her love! No box, no matter how large, could contain it. Her love is infused into each of them. At a cellular level, she can never be taken from them. She will never leave them. And on a really good day, they may even glimpse her in each other.

I thanked Life for speaking up. For not letting death have the last word. For reminding me that the sadness that comes with death can temporarily blur our ability to see how Love could still be present when the life we loved has ended. I thanked Life for tenaciously ensuring that the Love that remains continues to be seen, felt, heard, and discovered in new ways.

Love is immune to death. But Life is not immune to Love. Once a life is given Love, that gift can never be taken away. It is ours forever.

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appreciation, living and growing, new life

A Promise Kept

As each winter ends, we are given a promise. This promise comes in the bright yellow hues of daffodils and forsythia bushes. The promise is heard like a whisper as the daffodils push out of the ground and the first yellow flowers appear on a forsythia bush. You close your eyes and go to bed one night, and when you awaken the next day, the world is bathed in yellow! A bright, cheery, sun-filled yellow that seems to light the way. While the rest of the natural world remains a dull brownish grey, these flowers herald in yet another spring. As the trees start to bud and other bushes and flowers rush to catch up, the color of the sun-imitating heralds seems to quiet a bit. Their job is done.

Each spring, I drink in those brilliant shades of yellow. They warm my heart and re-awaken my soul. Spring is here! The daffodils and forsythia seem so abundant that for a while, it feels as if that was the only color we ever saw again; it would be enough. But the promise is more extraordinary than even the most brilliant shades of yellow can express! Spring and its rainbow of colors have now truly arrived. The promise of spring is kept.

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change, childhood, comfort, family, happy place, home, letting go, living and growing, looking back, remembering

The Home at the end of the Rainbow

My therapist suggested it.  A way of holding on while letting go.  

It was a strange exercise, but easy to do. Dispelling the myth that you can’t go home again.

My parents lived in the same house for 53 years. We moved there when I was just three years old. It was a place of safety, warmth, and comfort. It was the place where I deeply felt all the angst of my teen years. Where I hate you! was thrown at my father each time I felt misunderstood, and music would be turned up loud to express whatever was on my heart at that particular moment. It was the place where my future husband would kiss me after a long-awaited first date. It was a place of learning and growing, of misunderstandings and coming together.

That place was being sold. I had no control over who was buying it. I desperately wanted it to be someone with a family, to ensure its legacy of love continued. 

Instead, it was bought by a contractor who built an additional house on the property. What was once a comfortably sized home with a beautiful yard now contained two attached houses, a multi-car garage, and very little green space. It was impossible to drive by my parents’ old house and feel any nostalgia. Their home was gone, rendered unrecognizable.

I barely glance at it now when I drive by. The home I grew up in no longer exists in the physical world. It now only exists in my heart and mind. 

In the same year the house was sold, I lost 4 family members including my mother. I sought out therapy to process my grief.

The therapist suggested that I could go back and visit the house, in my mind, anytime I wanted. She suggested I picture each room and hold those memories anytime I needed to go home. 

It is not an exercise I do often, but it is a comfort when I do.

Because I grew up there and then visited there for most of my adult life, details of the house are etched into my memory. Over the years, countless changes and updates were made, and I remember all the before and afters.

Whenever my siblings and I would refer to our childhood home we simply called it, “171”, its street number became it’s lasting and endearing name.

When I pull the house back into existence, I can pick and choose which aspects I remember.  The more recent brick walkway is erased; instead, the walkway made of beautiful slate stepping stones reappears.  I climb the stairs and pause to touch the dark green front door coated with thick layers of paint. Thanks to my Dad, there was always a well-maintained American Flag proudly flying, except once a year when the Irish flag would appear. The red geraniums hanging from a basket on the overhang were my Mother’s touch. I ring the doorbell just to hear the old familiar chime. I didn’t need to ring the bell since we all had a key. We were welcome anytime, so I know I’m welcomed each time I imagine myself walking through the front door and into the home again. 

I remember what it looked like to a seven-year-old, a twenty-year-old, and a fifty-year-old. I remember the furniture, the light fixtures, the knick-knacks, wallpaper, flooring, and ceilings. The white flowers with orange centers on the pink wallpapered walls of my bedroom when I was nine. Following that the bigger bedroom with the cool purple walls that later were painted a warm yellow. I remember the view out the kitchen window of the beautiful backyard. The birch tree that became sickly and was cut down long ago is back. In my mind, it is strong and healthy—blowing in the breeze.

I can remember the voices of my parents talking to each other. Sometimes, I hear the TV as the nightly news fills the house followed by the Jeopardy theme song. Music might be playing on the record player in the dining room, filling the first floor with Irish music if it was my Dad’s pick, or country music if Mom had her way.

I can sit in the kitchen and talk with my mother. I can hurry out the front door and get into my father‘s gold 1970-something Pontiac as he drives me to high school.

I can relive any moment. I can remember trying to catch some sleep on the living room floor on the days leading up to my father’s death as we stayed with him until his last breath. I can picture every Christmas Eve spent there in that same living room. I can see my five-year-old self sitting on the shiny, diamond-patterned blue couch, with song sheets in hand as I sang along to ‘Christmas with Mitch Miller’, eagerly awaiting everyone’s arrival.

Outside I might be twirling around and playing as a three-year-old in the front yard, watching the cars go by. Other days I might be playing in the large, playground size sandbox my father built for me. I can see myself swinging on the swing, pumping my legs to try and swing high enough to reach the clothesline that ran from the house to the oak tree.

My memories of that place are vast.  I remember arguments and misunderstandings, frustrations, and sadness. I remember the hard times as well as the good.  The walls of that house held it all.  For over 50 years, that house contained two of the most significant people in my life, along with siblings, extended family, and friends. It was the kind of place where visitors were always welcomed.

The physical house is gone. Some of the people are gone. But the memories are all there, allowing me to visit whenever I choose. The key is an exercise of the imagination. It unlocks the door to a place where I am welcome anytime. I simply close my eyes, and I am home.

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differences, living and growing

A 3 year old’s “why?”

I remember my Dad telling me a story of something I did when I was three. My dad, a recently retired Major in the Air Force, had invited a Lieutenant Colonel over for dinner.

I was sitting next to this man when I noticed something. I pointed to his arm and asked him why his skin was a different color than mine. When my Dad later told me this story, the impression I got was that he had been embarrassed by my question.

Reflecting on it now, I’ve come to understand that my Dad wasn’t so much embarrassed that I asked the question as he was by not having an answer. My dad had respect for humankind and had a diverse friend group. But my question caught him off guard.

That story popped into my head today, and I realized I have an answer for my three-year-old self.

I’ve recently started doing some online watercolor classes. I am learning about colors and the role using different colors plays in creating something beautiful. And the question I asked so many years ago came back to me. But this time, it was not overshadowed by embarrassment but instead filled with understanding.

Why would someone have a different color skin than me?

People have all different color skin because God is an artist. He has a whole palette of colors available to him, and he will not be limited to one color. When you ask a small child their favorite color, they often respond, “All of them!” God answers, “All of them,” too.

I can imagine my three-year-old self asking why he didn’t make purple, pink, blue, or green people? And I would tell myself it is because God saved some of the colors for sunsets and flowers and trees.

God is an artist who not only created color but knows how to use it in the most beautiful ways. Imagine how the world would be if we looked at each person, whatever color their skin may be, as a masterpiece created by Him!

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living and growing, puppies

Puppy Love

“Is it a boy or a girl?” “What’s his name?” “Can I say hello?”

We hear this each time we take our new puppy out for a walk.

As for what we see….we see smiles and then more smiles. Some offer a sheepish grin, some boldly walk up to us saying, “I need to see the puppy…he’s SO cute!!!”

When my grandson was born, I wrote about the baby phenomenon. How babies make people smile. People who would typically NEVER speak to you in passing on the street suddenly stop. They just need a glimpse.

Although I’ve owned puppies before, I don’t think I’ve ever been as aware of the power they hold. People turn to mush. While out for our walk, we’ve had at least three people slow down while driving past us, they put down their window and comment on the puppy. Grown men have been compelled to slow down and engage with a perfect stranger over a puppy.

Last week, I was walking the puppy, and a woman pulled her car over, got out, and asked if she could say hello. Yesterday, a teenager doing pop-a-wheelies on his bike slowed to tell me, “Nice dog!”

Our puppy is growing in leaps and bounds, and this wonderful and welcome interaction with strangers will soon end. He will become a dog and may even appear menacing. People who are crossing the street to see the puppy now may later be crossing the road to get away from the dog. That makes me a bit sad.

For now, I’m enjoying these puppy-promoted interactions. I love seeing the joy on people’s faces and watching social barriers dissolve in the blink of a smile.

It’s a beautiful season when the whole world seems smitten with puppy love.

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blog, dogs, living and growing, Love

Our Romeo part two

Romeo was a little fireplug of a dog. He was a scruffy Lhasa Apso who looked like an Ewok from Star Wars when his fur was growing out.

He failed puppy socialization class, and his distaste for other dogs continued for the rest of his life. But Romeo was a man of contradictions. If he ran into a dog on the street, he would snarl, snap, and appear ferocious. But if a dog entered our home….as they often did when we fostered…he welcomed them freely. Once inside, they were a member of our pack, and he offered no resistance.

Romeo was one of the best dogs I’ve ever seen around children. I trusted him completely, and he never once betrayed that trust. He loved to play with children and was gentle with babies. Kids responded to him immediately. They found a kindred spirit in him due to his small size and insatiable desire to play.

He enjoyed sitting with us when we would watch tv. In the winter, he was the softest, warmest blanket you could hope for.

We initially kept Romeo for my daughter, but he won us all over. Three years ago, our daughter got her 1st apartment. She wanted to take Romeo…it had always been the plan…but Romeo was older now. He couldn’t tolerate being alone, and his health was a concern. She reluctantly let go of the dream of taking him with her and did what was best for him.

Romeo developed separation anxiety when we all returned to work after things opened up following the Covid shutdown. He would often wake us up in the middle of the night. He needed a check-in….an assurance that we were still there and that all was right with the world.

He and I became fast friends. He was my constant companion. Not underfoot but always present. Keeping an eye on me.

When I was a kid, my dad always tried to get me to eat bananas. He often asked, ‘Would you like to share a banana?” As a kid, I couldn’t really be bothered to eat any fruit, but sometimes I would say yes, mainly because it pleased my father so much when I agreed.

Romeo loved bananas. Every day I would share my banana with him, and in that simple moment, my heart would be reminded of my dad. Romeo connected me to my past.

It wasn’t until he was gone that I realized how much he had shaped our world. When Romeo was around three years old, he began peeing on carpet. We couldn’t break him of it. So we put vinyl flooring down on our entire first floor for him.

In November of 2021, my mother went into hospice. That same week Romeo was diagnosed with a very serious heart condition. I was devastated. The vet said he could die at any moment. But….if they could get the right meds into him, he could possibly live up to two years. I begged God not to take my mother and Romeo at the same time. I was distraught. I very nearly lost it. The thought was so overwhelming that I needed therapy to get through it.

I knew I was losing my mother. I couldn’t lose Romeo too.

But we did find the right meds, and he kept plugging along for another year. In November of 2022, he went into heart failure. But in classic Romeo fashion, he didn’t let it faze him. He trotted into the exam room, and after the doctor performed an ultrasound, she looked at me and was astonished. “There’s no way,” she said, “that this dog should have been able to walk in here on his own steam! He is very sick. What a tough cookie he is!”

They added more meds and stabilized him again. The clock was ticking faster now, though. The first episode of heart failure indicates that it will happen again. And it did. 8 months later, while we were vacationing in NH, my friend called me. She was checking in each day with him, and he had been fine. Until he wasn’t.

“Romeo’s not doing well,” she said. Within a few hours of that call, I was back home along with my daughter and husband. Our insatiably playful dog was barely able to stand. Lifting his head was even too much. We took Romeo to the ER and got the news that I had been bracing for over a year and a half. They told us, “There’s no coming back from this.”

Romeo’s health had consumed the last 20 months of my life. His impending death colored all of my days. He had countless doctor visits, tons of meds along with diet and exercise changes, but he had kept on. Never losing his playfulness, joyful spirit, or appreciation for the people in his life.

Now though, it was time to let him go. Time to repay all the love he gave us with a love that puts his needs above our own.

Throughout the last 20 months, each time I would share the latest vet update with my daughter, she would declare, “Romeo is never going to die!” And it seemed that way. He beat the odds again and again. So even though I had been grieving his impending death for so long, there was still the thought that maybe he could rally again.

But it was evident in the ER. There would be no more rallying. He had managed to live for 20 months after his initial diagnosis, despite continued worsening….it was miraculous, really. But he had become a shadow of his former self.

I am realizing something now that he is gone. It was not in the way we were hoping for, but my daughter was right. Romeo will never die. He lives in our memories. It was not lost on us that Romeo had an enlarged heart. It seemed a physical representation of the love he embodied.

Romeo wasn’t the only one with an enlarged heart. His love caused our hearts to grow as well. He loved us, and we loved him. And love never dies.

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blogger, death, dogs, living and growing, Love, mourning

Our Romeo part one

Twelve and a half years ago, the holidays found us in challenging times. Our youngest daughter was struggling. In that season, our world revolved around her. We were desperate to find something that would help her.

Three days before Christmas, we received an email from the Animal Rescue League of Boston, whom we had been fostering for off and on. They had a dog in the shelter named Violet. Violet was pregnant and due any day. The shelter would be on a skeleton crew over the holidays, and they wondered….would we foster her?

We had a full life. Five kids between the ages of 19 and 11. It was Christmas. The house was bursting with activity, decorations, and busyness. Who in their right mind would say yes to this?!

We couldn’t help but wonder, though….could this pregnant dog, bursting with life inside her, help our daughter? Could this experience provide her with a distraction, a focus, or a purpose?

We said yes.

On December 26th, just past midnight, Violet gave birth. We watched five beautiful puppies be born. The second one out was so big we thought it was twins. It was not. But it was the dog that would become our Romeo.

For 8 weeks, those puppies stayed with us. We really liked two of them, but my husband and I were determined to not keep any of them. We had recently put one of our dogs down and still had another dog at home. We brought them back when they were finally ready for their forever homes. All of them.

Our daughter had been working on us, though. There was one in particular who had stolen her heart. We called the shelter. “Wait…” we said. “We want that one back.”

And so Romeo came back home, only leaving us long enough to be neutered. Romeo and our daughter grew up together. She overcame her struggles, and Romeo was a big part of that journey. We will always be grateful for the gift we were given that Christmas. A perfect little puppy who made all of our lives better. Our Romeo.

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#blog, clarity and direction, enlightenment, living and growing, revelations

You think too much!

“You think too much!” When this was said, I thought it was the stupidest thing I had ever heard! I considered it a ridiculous statement made by someone who had no clue what they were talking about.

It’s taken me over 40 years to begin to understand. She was actually right.

I was a teenager when my mother said those words to me. At the time, filled with the passion of youth, I was convinced that my mother had no idea what she was talking about. I thought she was telling me that I was crazy for thinking deeply about things.

Thankfully I did not say my thoughts out loud to her, but in my head, I was thinking….“Maybe you don’t think enough!”

I felt like I was surrounded by people that didn’t think. Didn’t want to think. Were too shallow to think.

Ah, misguided youth! I continued to feel she was wrong to have said that to me until the past few months. Until then, I’ve told the story many times, always presenting myself as the one who was misunderstood.

But recently, it has occurred to me that it was actually my mother who was misunderstood. She was right. I did think too much. I DO think too much. I worry about everything. I plan for everything. I consider everything. And all that thinking makes me anxious.

I have no doubt now that she saw that anxiety and was trying to steer me away from the very thing that was causing it. But her words were not able to compete with my vast teenage wisdom. I then allowed the teenager in me to be ‘right’ for a very long time.

It has started to dawn on me that there was wisdom in her comment. A few weeks ago, I began listening to a book entitled Living Untethered by Michael A. Singer. It’s an excellent, life-changing book, and I highly recommend it. He spends much of the book unpacking the trouble our thoughts get us into and how to find freedom from unhelpful thinking.

Hearing his words reminded me of my mom’s statement all those years ago. And suddenly, I understood. I saw my response for what it was, the self-righteous delusion of youth. That misguided youthful response has followed me into middle age.

I’m going forward now with a new appreciation for what she was trying to say.

Thinking isn’t wrong. But overthinking can cause trouble. And it is indeed possible to overthink. She knew this. And now I know it too. Thanks for trying, Mom. It took a while, but I hear you now.

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blog, blogger, death, letting go, living and growing

Looking back at the Landslide

Ten years have passed since my father died. Ten years! Shortly after he died I wrote my first blog post. It was called, “A Landslide”.

In that post, I commented about how my Dad’s death felt like a landslide and I was suffocating under the debris.

I ended that post by considering what happens, over time, when a landslide occurs. In time, flowers push through the new earth and life returns.

It feels surprising to me that my father has been gone ten years. I don’t know how it’s possible.

I miss his physical presence. His ability to take over and take up a room. I miss his self-confidence. I miss his absolute complete amazement and appreciation of me, my husband and my kids. I miss knowing that if I ever got in a pinch all I had to do was call my Dad. He was a force to be reckoned with and that force was always on my side!

When my dad died, I poured my energy and time into my mother. It seemed like the best way to honor him and it helped ease the grief. Now they are both gone and I find this anniversary has things to reveal to me.

Ten years reveals that the loss can still make me cry. When I stop to think about it, it breaks my heart that they aren’t here.

But ten years reveals something else as well. I don’t constantly feel the physical separation their deaths caused like I used to. They have somehow become a part of me. It is as if they move and walk with me. I take them wherever I go.

Ten years ago I had hoped that life would return after the landslide. And it has. It’s a different life than before, but life is indeed present. Like the layer of the new earth that a landslide brings, both of my parent’s deaths brought new challenges into my life. A new way of living was required.

Initially, this new way of living felt heavy and unnatural. The vacuum created by the physical loss of them threatened to pull me under. Their deaths, their final act of helping me to grow, meant I had to stand on my own two feet fully and completely for the first time. I needed to learn to push through the grief each landslide brought and discover how to live without their physical presence.

A time of laying fallow was needed. Time was spent recovering from the seismic shift the landslide created.

Now, as I had hoped, new flowers are blooming. I’ve learned to stand, then walk and even dance again.

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dying, letting go, living and growing

The Vigil

Ten years ago this week, the vigil began.

My father, barely coherent, drifted between this world and the next.

In a hospital bed on the first floor, my dad had already finished entertaining the last outside visitors he would ever have.

My siblings and I had started staying overnight at my parent’s house, sleeping on the first floor so my mother could go upstairs to bed and get some real sleep. Months before this, we began to circle the wagons around him and my mom. They were both worn out.

All of his life, he had been the one out in front, leading the way. He led the way even in death, but we were determined he would not be alone. He might have to go first, but we would travel alongside him for as long as possible. His path would be paved with love.

My dad had always loved music. He was known for only singing the first few words of a song and then loudly humming along to the rest of it. While his tether to this world was loosening, I played him two of his favorites. “A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody” and “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling”. When the songs ended, he smiled and said, ‘That was nice.’ He had instructed us that he wanted the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” played at his funeral. I played that as well. These songs, long associated with him, would now be the music that paved his path to heaven.

Several days before he died, my mother, sister and I offered to do the rosary with him. Although I was raised Catholic, I never really understood how to pray the rosary, but I knew it held meaning for him. Google came to our aid and we prayed through it with him. Although he wasn’t speaking much at that point, he appreciated the gesture and his lips sometimes moved as we prayed. His path to heaven was paved with prayer.

With only a few days left on this earth, his body continued to prepare to let go. This man, who even in his 80s had more energy than most…this man who commanded people’s attention wherever he went….stopped all activity. He stopped speaking and went to sleep.

At first, it truly was sleep. But the deep sleep one enters as they transition from here to there had begun. We watched and waited.

Until early one morning when rest gave way to death and all was quiet.

The vigil was over.

There’s an emptiness when a vigil is over. You came together for a purpose. You remembered. You prayed. You kept watch. But when that stops, when the reason for the vigil has been taken away….what does one do next?

It’s been 10 years since the vigil for my dad took place. Here’s what I’ve discovered. After a vigil, figuring out how best to remember the one who is no longer here can take some time. But remembering alone isn’t enough.

You must let go of the vigil and live.

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