appreciation, change, clarity and direction, comfort, death, dying, enlightenment, eternal life, families, honesty, hope, letting go, living and growing, Love, mourning, new life, peace, perspective, spiritual growth, struggles

Living in the Valley

I moved to the valley, eleven years ago when my father first got sick. Six years ago, he died. I thought at some point after his death I would move out of the valley. Instead, my mother, after years of caring for my Dad, got sick and my life in the valley continued.

You probably know this valley. It’s the same one mentioned in Psalm 23….”Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” Yeah, that valley.

I chose to move here years before I understood where I was moving to. Back when I was young and had no idea of what it would cost me. I knew I wanted to stay in the same city as my parents. My plan always was to care for them, when the time came.

The funny thing about moving to the valley is that you don’t necessarily realize you’ve moved until you’ve lived there for a while. The move is both gradual and sudden. Your loved one ages and you start to help in little ways. A sudden illness or injury and you help out a bit as they recover. What you don’t know at the time, is that sudden injury or illness is starting a chain of events that would have overwhelmed you had you ever realized your address had just changed and there was no moving back any time soon.

We all know what valleys look like. They are low places, with shadows that hang over on all sides.. And these low places are filled with things most of us try to avoid. Like fear and death. In the valley, fear takes on a life of it’s own…it has a form and a shape and it looks like death. The threat of death, is always lurking in the shadows. And then there’s the bone wearying tiredness and overwhelming and sometimes debilitating sense of loss, along with a need to always be on guard for the next problem.

In the valley you learn to fight. Against ignorance…your own and others. You fight against your nightmares, which threaten to become reality. You fight to do what’s right. You fight against yourself when you want to quit and with others when they want you to quit. The valley can be an exhausting place.

With all the lows of the valley, one might think it is a place to avoid. Certainly anyone who chooses to live there can’t be right in the head!

But here’s the thing….there is beauty in the valley. Beauty you can’t see anywhere else. There’s a beauty in the valley that transcends even what a mountain top view can offer. And the company in the valley is the reason for the view. Psalm 23….The psalm that talks about walking through the valley of the shadow of death, also gives a promise. And it’s the promise that provides the beauty.

“Yea,though I walk though the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for YOU are with me…..”.

Early on in the valley, I feared evil. I was terrified by it. Death was evil. It was the enemy that you knew would win in the end, but that you would fight against with all your might. The exhaustion that comes with fighting an enemy that is guaranteed to win is not only exhausting, it’s foolish.

I was controlled by my fears until I met Submission. Submitting to the reality of our inability to control when someone dies moves you from a very dark valley, to a new valley where there is beauty and potential….right in front of you, that you are now freed up to see. Submission is not giving up. It’s not laying down the fight. But it is recognizing what you can and can’t control. Its choosing when and where to fight. It allows you to see who the real enemy is.

Sometimes the enemy is ourselves…Fear is everywhere in the valley. Left to our own devices, fear can overtake us. But when I remember that the Psalm promises….”YOU are with me”...the fear is tamed and in the best moments, it is vanquished.

That YOU it mentions, is the Creator of Heaven and Earth. I don’t just have a good friend or family member with me…..(though praise God when I do)……I have the God of the Universe with me! He reminds me that even though I live in the valley, the valley isn’t all there is. I’m choosing to live here for a time, so that the people I love don’t have to walk through this place alone. Walking alongside someone who is in the valley, has eternal significance.

God knows how we look at death. He knows how death and the fear of death motivates our choices. He knows we need him beside us to walk though this valley. When we freely and willingly go through the valley so someone else won’t be there alone, we are doing exactly what He has done for us.

And that is what love does. It comes alongside. It sits with us in the mess that the end of life can bring. It is a place filled with loss and sadness. They grieve and you grieve with them. You grieve for the pain they feel. For who they were and what has been lost. Their address has changed since coming to the valley and it makes them disoriented. You remind them, no matter where they live, whether it’s in a place they’ve always known, or a dark valley or in heaven…they are loved. You are the physical hands and feet of Jesus as they journey to what’s waiting for them, at the other side. It’s an opportunity to bring light to the shadows and love to dark places. And that love, makes it all worthwhile.

So these days, if you’re looking for me, you’ll find me in the valley. I’m not sure how long I’ll be staying, but I won’t regret a moment spent here. For although the walk is shadowed by death, the path is filled with life and love.

appreciation, families, Love, mothers

Mom

I don’t know how to talk about her. I never have. My love for her grows up from such a deep place within me that words have always seemed elusive. Few others matter as much as her. Still, the words to describe how I feel about her, seem to slip away before I can pin them down. Perhaps others might feel this as well? There’s just something about mothers that make them so significant that they evade definition by the sheer magnitude of their importance.

I used to write about my Dad all the time. Especially when he was alive. Birthdays, Father’s Day and any other holiday that might require a gift of words. It was easy to gift him this. I could write pages about him. The words flowed easily and often. He was larger than life. And he loved the words. Loved to hear how he was seen. How he was loved.

My mother asked me once, why I didn’t often write things about her? She misunderstood it, I think, to mean that she meant less. But the opposite was true. She meant so much more, that my heart wouldn’t allow me the words to describe it. She isn’t larger than life, she is life.

But she’s turning 86 this week. And I know I can’t avoid it forever. I don’t want the first words I write about her to be a eulogy. I want her to KNOW. So here is what feels like a feeble attempt at describing what she means to me.

I think, perhaps I can explain some of it through who I have become by being loved by her. If you are my husband, or child and you are sick. I am there for you. I will climb mountains, sacrifice both my own health and my sleep, pray deeply and spare no expense…to do all within my power to restore you to health. I will not think twice about this. I consider it my greatest honor and my duty to be able to love you. For when you are hurt I am hurt. This I learned watching my mother.

Thinking back to the times when I was sick during my childhood, I can still hear my father in the middle of the night, waking up my mother….”Beverly, she’s calling you….” I never called for him. Always her. She knew how to soothe. How to comfort. Her hands were always cool and refreshing to a fevered brow. It seemed she could make me better just by willing it to be so.

When I grew and left home, it took me years of dealing with late night illnesses, before I stopped longing for her presence when I was sick. It was one of the hardest things to give up when I moved away.

And my mother KNOWS things. She always has. Still to this day even. “Are you alright?” she’ll ask. I have revealed nothing, yet she knows. I love that. It’s an instinct she has. Cultivated over years of having to read between the lines with her children. And no matter her age, this instinct is as sharp as ever.

My mother is a part of everything I have become. When I am like my dad, I am noticed. But when I am like my mother, I am loved. People just love her. She’s the person you bump into in the grocery store and end up telling your life story to. You don’t know why you did it, she didn’t ask, but something about her openness compels you. She is a safe place to reveal yourself. This is part of what always made her a great secret keeper! I could tell her anything.

The funny thing about my mother is that she doesn’t even grasp how much she is loved. She struggles with feelings of unworthiness. Her life long focus has always been so much on others that her world is off kilter when the emphasis is on her. She often thinks people are catering to her out of the goodness of their hearts. When the truth is they are responding to her in love and with love – a love that is just for her.

I can’t change this about her, but I have tried. I’ve tried to impress upon her the significance she plays in her children’s lives…but she can’t hold on to it. She struggles to understand her own great worthiness. Recently she said to me, “Won’t you be so glad when I’m gone? You’ll have some free time!” These words hurt, but she doesn’t mean them to. She hates to impose. Hates to take. And she so values me and my time that taking up some of it feels like a tremendous burden to her.

Will I be happier when she’s gone? Not a chance. There is not one moment of time that I have spent with her that I would exchange for something else. And I know, no matter how many more moments I have, there will never be enough time with her. I will always want more.

I grew up being told by her (repeatedly!!), “You should never hate anyone.” I was the dramatic child who hated everyone and everything when frustrated. Her words drove me crazy. Didn’t she understand, some things deserved to be hated? But I regularly hear her saying that in my head these days and the older, less drama driven version of myself, recognizes the beauty in what she tried to impress upon me. She was right. Little did I know, she was shaping how I see others.

But she has also shaped how I see myself. I showed her something I wrote the other day. She read it, smiled and responded with , “You are really something!!” And when she says it, I believe it. I feel like something. Who else on this planet thinks of me and thinks, “She is really something!!” in the way my mother does? All blinders to my faults, seeing only the good…..when she says it, you know it’s only a part of who you are but she sees the best part. And it makes you want to be even better.

My mother has always been a kind, gentle soul. A fierce protector of those she loves. There have been moments though, where she has had to rise to tough challenges. Like the time when I was hit by a car at 16. My leg was shattered. One bone in a million little pieces and the other coming right out of my leg. My foot torn up so much that the bones could be seen. My mother entered the emergency room and the doctor put her to work. I don’t know where the rest of the staff were that day, but while I lie awake on a table, the doctor and my mother proceed to clean my leg. It was a slow, painstaking process. I know I was in agonizing pain but I don’t remember the pain. What I remember from that moment was my mother. She was a rock! She assisted the surgeon, did everything he asked and did it well. How on earth, did she do it? I still don’t know. But the image of the strength she portrayed that day has stayed with me ever since.

Yes, she’s a kind, gentle soul who did whatever she needed to do for those she loved. I’ve been the beneficiary of that love and devotion my entire life. So when I’m spending time with her, I’m not thinking about where I might rather be or what else I could be doing. Instead, I’m thinking….I love this woman. Every moment with her is a gift. And it’s a gift I can never get enough of

Happy Birthday Mom. I love you.

families, living and growing

Transforming Love

“It’s been a slow but steady change. Something that bordered on indifference had transformed into investment and caring. An awakening awareness. 6 years ago my Uncle Ed died. His death, which came a year after my Aunt Mary’s death, shattered my father. He was the oldest of 4 siblings. He had lost his youngest brother years ago. But it was the recent death of his brother and sister, that broke him. The man who had always played the role of the big brother had no siblings left to care for and protect. He struggled with the injustice of them going before him. The consummate big brother had lost his purpose.

My Uncle Ed and my Dad had for many years, lived within a 40 mile radius of each other. They got together often, talked on the phone regularly and were deeply invested in each other’s lives. Each had children of their own and tried to get these cousins together on a regular basis.

Some of my siblings developed, early on, deep and lasting relationships with these “Framingham Convery’s” as we called them. My relationship with them was different. There were six Framingham cousins in all. Three of them were quite a bit older than me, closer to my own siblings ages. But I had one cousin a year older than me, one a year younger and one two years younger. And for most of our childhood we had the type of relationship children have when they feel forced to play with one another. I liked them more than I disliked them and as we all got older we came to like each other even more and let our own insecurities go.

But the overall indifference I felt, remained. Until their father died. Having their dads brother as my dad, I knew what they had lost. I understood the impact. Both men were larger than life. Both left a huge vacuum that time and space could not fill. My dad died just over a year after his brother. And my understanding of exactly what their loss felt like, grew.

And as that understanding grew, my indifference began to be transformed into something new. The indifference had not been born out of dislike but rather stemmed from the busyness of life. For our entire lives, our fathers updated us all on each other’s lives. No real investment was necessary. I could listen as my father would recite to me all he had learned about each of my cousins from his latest phone call. I could smile or be sad for them, whichever was appropriate and then go on with my life.

Until there were no more updates to rely on. And these people, this small band of Convery Framingham’s began to grow in importance to me. Why? Because THEY KNEW. They understood the depth of my loss. We had a shared history that I could no longer allow to languish on the sidelines of indifference. Slowly and surely I began to care. Indifference gave way to curiosity. Not a gawking kind of curiosity but the kind that develops as one starts to see the value another holds.

Each year since their dad died, my Framingham cousins have held a fund raiser around St Patrick’s day to raise money for a scholarship in my uncles name. And each year I have gone. Our dads both loved their Irish heritage and the day that allowed them to celebrate it. It’s a warm time and as the years go by, it feels less and less sad and more and more of a tribute to exactly what those two men would have wanted. The tribute goes well beyond the Irish celebrations because the real tribute is the growing relationships. It would have delighted both of them.

This year I noted a change when I went. I always enjoy it and have looked forward to it from its beginning. But this year, I felt something new. I felt at home. Completely relaxed. No pretense. No walls built up from years of indifference. I felt a deep abiding appreciation and a deepening curiosity. These people MATTER! I need to know more about them. I WANT to know about their lives. I feel that I have been given a gift……a gift stemming from the love two brothers had for each other. Finally I was open to it being passed down in a way that transformed my heart. My cousins have experienced this too…I can see it and feel it when I am with them.

I know my dad and my uncle are smiling down at us….glad we finally understand what they knew, all along. These growing relationships reconnect us with a part of ourselves that was lost when our dad’s left this earth. But connecting with each other isn’t just about holding onto to something we have all lost. Its bigger than that. This connecting transforms us. It takes us off the path of indifference and puts us on a path of deep, abiding love. That’s a transformation worth celebrating and a tribute to the special love that began long ago. A love that transforms.

addictions, blackouts, comfort, electricity, enlightenment, home, honesty, inertia, letting go, living and growing, peace, perspective, power, struggles, Uncategorized

Enlightened in the Dark

12 hours. That’s all it was. Short and sweet, really. Friends in neighboring towns still don’t have it. Power that is. The completely underappreciated gift of walking over to a light switch, flipping it on and getting light in return.

12 hours, that’s all it took for me to appreciate that I am hooked. Completely dependent on electricity. The night time wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t cold out and if it weren’t for my dog barking, I could have slept through the first 6 hours….blissfully unaware.

But my dog did bark, and I got up to check on him. Flipped the switch to walk downstairs and…nothing happened. Flipped it again, surely this was just a fluke? Nope. Nothing. At that point, my son, who doesn’t believe in sleeping when it’s dark out, popped his head out of his bedroom and told me, “We’ve lost power.” Oh. Hmmm.

Now the nagging questions start. Has anyone else lost power, why have we lost power, is everything alright? It’s a little tough to tell at night if your neighbors have power. But I spent a good hour, spying out different windows looking for a clue.

Then sleep….well, I would have slept except that’s when it dawned on me that my youngest wasn’t home from his shift that ended a t 11:30 pm and it was now 1:30am. Thankfully after I sent a frantic text he responded quickly and assured me he would be home soon. And he was.

So sleep finally came and quickly on it’s heels came morning.

Granted I was groggy that morning but still…..I found myself sitting – for two hours, in my recliner, doing pretty much nothing. Don’t want to use the phone and drain my battery…but what is going on? I need updates!!! Meanwhile I continue to sit because somewhere in my head, without realizing it, I had determined I couldn’t do ANYTHING without power. And it was at that moment I realized how truly dependent I had become.

Really, I could do nothing? That’s ridiculous. It was daylight after all. Open the shades and get something done! So I finally hauled myself out of my one recliner that is manually operated….did I mention how I also discovered in the middle of the night that when you don’t have power your electric recliners won’t work? Who knew?!

While my kids wanted their devices, I wanted my FRIDGE! Two weeks prior, someone left the door to my fridge open and in the morning I had the depressing job of throwing everything I had just bought the night before…out. And here I was again. Two weeks later and again, I had JUST gone food shopping. But whatever! I was use to this. But the freezer too? Man! And no hot water, no oven, no curling iron (this was getting serious!) no washing machines, no, no, no, no……goodness, does everything plug in these days?? When you don’t have power it seems like it.

Even my land line disappointed me! Like a dinosaur from times past, I have doggedly held onto my land line. Because everyone knows when you lose power, only the land line works. Except in this case, where we had lost our phone service too.

And then the magic happened. A few beeps throughout the house….and voila! Microwave clocks again tell time, TV’s work, phones can be charged. Ahh, all is right with the world.

And I realize, I need to break this addiction I have to electricity. Toughen up! Kick it old school and go off grid! I don’t want to feel this way again! But as my refrigerator happily hums away, in my warm and well lit room, I find myself thinking maybe I’ll just get a generator…..

addictions, decluttering, diet, healing, hope, inertia, letting go, living and growing, mourning, moving on, new life, peace, perspective, struggles, Uncategorized, will power

De-cluttering – Letting Go of the Inertia

Why does inertia have so much influence over our lives? What is it that can make us want to do something for a long, long time and yet we just don’t? I blame inertia but I can’t seem to put my finger on what causes the inertia. Sometimes it’s as simple as a bad night’s sleep. The next day is spent just trying to stay awake. But other times, when lack of sleep isn’t to blame, why don’t I do the things I say and think that I want to do?

Some of the things are simple….pick up that piece of trash on the floor….umm, no, thanks…I will instead choose to walk by it 5, 10 or perhaps 25 times before I finally decide to take the half of second it needs for me to deal with it. But as soon as I take care of it, I feel better. Funny that such a simple thing can bring relief yet I don’t choose to simply pick it up, the first time I see it. What gives??

Then there’s the bigger things….projects, jobs, dreams….I get where some of that inertia comes from. These things require time and effort. They may require skills I don’t yet have, connections with people I don’t yet know. Maybe I don’t want to start one more thing that I might not finish. Maybe I’m afraid I’ll fail. Maybe deep down I don’t really want to do it or maybe I think it’s not worthy of my time.

I’m trying to de-clutter my life these days. Honestly, I started the process 16 years ago but with five small kids at the time, my attention was often diverted elsewhere. And as kids grow, de-cluttering means getting rid of the past. That’s hard. For a long time I found it impossible to let stuff go.

So over the last year I started looking at de-cluttering in a different way. It wasn’t just about getting rid of stuff….although I have doggedly been doing that. I started in January with de-cluttering addictions. First to sugar, and most recently caffeine. Controlling the will and ultimately changing what the will wants is a long slow process. It takes a lifetime. But I’ve learned it is possible.

Then I challenged my lifelong distaste (bordering on hatred actually) of exercise. I started exercising most days, last summer. But then the cool weather kicked in and I quit making the effort. I started again this past summer and learned the difference between doing something because you should and doing something because you want to. The longer I did it the more benefit I started to see and slowly, very slowly, I began to want to do it because it makes me feel better.

With each victory over my old stubborn will of downright refusal, I felt lighter….slightly less cluttered. But inertia is still the enemy. It whispers how busy i am – there can’t be time to exercise….how deprived I am…so many foods you can’t eat! It tells me other things matter more. Some days I listen to those whispers. Most days now, I listen a lot less.

All this makes me wonder….has inertia ever been a problem for you? Do certain circumstances provoke it in you? How do you move beyond it? I’d love to know.

childhood, comfort, death, dying, healing, home, hope, living and growing, moving on, peace, school, Uncategorized

Stepping Back to Move Forward

About a year ago, I received an invite to an Elementary school class reunion. Seems harmless enough, right? But for me it churned up a whole host of feelings I had thought I had buried. Here was my problem. I had HATED elementary school. With the exception of Kindergarten and 6th grade, the years in between had felt like hell to me. I had very few positive memories related to school and none of the good memories included my classmates. Saying no to that invite would be easy.

But it nagged at me. The fact that the emotions from 40 years ago were as strong as ever was a shock and a disappointment. I thought I had moved on. Middle school was ok and high school was excellent. Since then, I had created a very happy life with many good friends, a great marriage and wonderful children. How could something that was long over, still matter so much?

Elementary school didn’t start off horribly. Kindergarten was a blast. First grade was ok. But a series of events happened in the summer after first grade that set in motion, changes I couldn’t control as a seven year old.

In the summer before 2nd grade my paternal grandparents both died. Within 8 weeks of each other. This had a devastating effect on me. At the age when most kids are grappling with death and what it means, I was given a double whammy. I became convinced that both my parents were also going to die. For some reason, I firmly believed that I was the only one who could stop them from dying. I believed a monster would come to the house and that if I wasn’t home, the monster would take my parents. I couldn’t convey any of these fears to the adults in my life. I could only take action. Often I would start to walk to school and then run back home in a panic. The crossing guard would come to my house and march me back onto the path towards school. I became more resistant. Soon, my mother had to walk me to school. I had been walking myself since I was 5 years old so this was quite a set back – for her and for me. And with my peers, it was the beginning of social suicide.

Eventually it got to the point where my mother had to not only walk me to school but stay in the class with me. If she tried to leave, I would start to sob and cling to her. Eventually the 2nd grade teacher took a stand and told my mother that she must leave and that she would take care of things. Her sternness worked. I gave in and stayed and my mother left. But those bouts of crying in front of my classmates had done permanent damage. I was labeled a cry baby. I was ostracized and the regular brunt of jokes and teasing – for the next five years. Not by everyone. A few were kind. Many were neutral – in that they didn’t participate in the teasing but they didn’t speak up either. I don’t blame them. Social hierarchy is a formidable thing to overcome when you are young.

In third grade, one popular girl who was still playing with me, told me something devastating. One day she just said, “I’m sorry, but I can’t be seen playing with you anymore.” Wow. Sadly, even as a child, I understood. I was seen as the weak link. A handful of loud, but popular kids had made it clear, it was not cool to be my friend. The elementary school years became a lonely, unhappy time.

It wasn’t until I was in my late teens that I was able to express to my mother, why I hadn’t wanted to go to school in 2nd grade. By then, I was in a much bigger school, with a wide variety of kids and the opportunity to be fully myself. I was no longer lonely, no longer a cry baby and I certainly didn’t need or want the friendships that I was so desperate for in elementary school. Life moved on and I was grateful for it doing so.

And then that reunion invite appeared.

And although I initially denied what I must do, eventually I knew I needed to go. I needed to forgive them. To release both myself and them from our old roles. It was a dual invite. The past was inviting me to remember and God was inviting me to walk back into those memories with Him at my side. He knew the hurt I had carried, even if I denied it. He knew that for me to move forward in this area, that I would need to step back. God reminded me that if I had changed, that it was very likely, that they had too. I knew if I had met any of them, today -without knowing them from the past, that I would probably like them. And they would probably like me.

I did go. Granted I needed a glass of wine, as soon as I stepped in the door, to help me not appear as tense as I felt. It was awkward. I knew I could ask my husband to go with me. That he would bridge things for me and make me feel stronger. But I went alone. Because I needed to put my past to rest. The much older me had the strength and the words the seven year old me didn’t have.

Here it is almost a year later. And as I now have some of these early classmates as friends on Facebook, I am reminded. They too, aren’t who they were when they were little. I wish my elementary school experience had been different. But I am no longer angry or hurt about it. It taught me that it is very important to be able to express yourself. I have learned that the underdog needs a friend. And I acknowledge that many of us are unkind to others at some point in our lives. Perhaps the greatest lesson learned is that building yourself up, at someone else’s expense comes at a great cost to both parties.

And now, I want to be connected to them. We are the same age and of the same time period. We remember things that others haven’t experienced. This matters. I’m actually looking forward to the next reunion; to discovering more of who these people from my past have grown into. The next reunion won’t have the same cloud over it for me, I now welcome the chance to step back and move forward. 🙂

Uncategorized

All of Me

The first time I heard John Legends song, “All of Me”, something stirred inside of me. The stirring became an obsession as I began playing the song over and over again. The words were getting at something I was feeling but hadn’t yet been able to express. (If you aren’t familiar with the song, both a link to hear it and the lyrics are listed at the end of this blog)

I’ve been married 26 years. Happily. But this song exposed something that I hadn’t realized. I had been holding back in my relationship with my husband. And it was the “all of me” line in the lyrics that showed me this. I started to realize that I wasn’t really giving my all. I was giving my ‘most’.

I started to look more closely at my thinking and here is what I discovered…..

What I determined was unlovable about me, became something I had long ago decided my husband must also see as unlovable. It occurred to me that maybe I would lose that assumption and see what happened.

I was also struck by the line, ‘love your curves and all your edges.”. I know my husband very well. And he has some edges. I think up to this point, I had viewed marriage as making allowances for each other’s edges. But what if I actually started to love his edges? What if I saw his edges as a vital part of who he was?

And as I consider my marriage, I realize that with him, even when I lose, I win. Maybe things in my life don’t always go as I plan, disappointments come, frustrations pop up….but at the end of the day I am married to this amazing man. Even when I lose, I win.

Offering someone all of yourself requires great risk. Even having been married for a long time, there continues to be a part of me that wants to avoid risk. But sometimes not taking a risk is the biggest risk of all.

Now and then, I marvel that 32 years after we first met, I am as intrigued and attracted to my husband as I was on our first date. He is my worst distraction. Nobody’s opinion matters more than his. He is crazy and I am out of my mind. We know this. We embrace it. It’s what makes us laugh.

So what happened when I stopped deciding for him what was unlovable about me? He’s more relaxed. I don’t know that he ever hated those things. But my determination that he must, stood between us. When I took a risk and offered them to him (by letting go of my preconceived ideas) I gave him a gift in the form of trust. Without knowing what my motives were, he accepted the gift and my risk was rewarded.

What happened when I moved beyond just accepting his edges and began to love them? The change is in me. My ‘edgy’ responses towards his edges have softened. I want to love all of him. Not just the easily lovable parts. What good is it if all I can offer him is just a slightly stronger version of what the rest of the world offers him? In trying to see this differently, I have discovered that his ‘perfect imperfections’ are precisely what makes him HIM. And I love him. I don’t love a perfect idealized version of who he is or who he could be. I love him. His imperfections are perfect imperfections. They have always been what makes him uniquely him. My perspective has changed.

He is my end and my beginning. I love that the lyrics are written in that order. He isn’t my beginning and my end. He is my end and my beginning. The best part of my story starts with him and it will end with him. Every day together, is a new beginning.

Someday, one of us will be gone before the other. And if I am the one that goes last, I don’t want to live with any regret. I don’t want to think then of things I could have done differently. And if I were to go first, I want the assurance that I gave him everything I could, while I could. So every now and then I play this song. It’s a reminder to give it my all.

http://youtu.be/Mk7-GRWq7wA

“All of Me” by John Legend

What would I do without your smart mouth?
Drawing me in, and you kicking me out
You’ve got my head spinning, no kidding, I can’t pin you down
What’s going on in that beautiful mind
I’m on your magical mystery ride
And I’m so dizzy, don’t know what hit me, but I’ll be alright

My head’s under water
But I’m breathing fine
You’re crazy and I’m out of my mind

‘Cause all of me
Loves all of you
Love your curves and all your edges
All your perfect imperfections
Give your all to me
I’ll give my all to you
You’re my end and my beginning
Even when I lose I’m winning
‘Cause I give you all of me
And you give me all of you, ohoh

How many times do I have to tell you
Even when you’re crying you’re beautiful too
The world is beating you down, I’m around through every mood
You’re my downfall, you’re my muse
My worst distraction, my rhythm and blues
I can’t stop singing, it’s ringing, in my head for you

My head’s under water
But I’m breathing fine
You’re crazy and I’m out of my mind

Give me all of you
Cards on the table, we’re both showing hearts
Risking it all, though it’s hard

I give you all of me
And you give me all of you, ohoh

Uncategorized

Dad and Me

I had a revelation of sorts last week.

It happened while I was driving in my car. My brother made some cd’s right after my dad died. A collection of songs that my dad loved and ones that reminded us of him. Over a year later I’m still listening to them. But then I also have other songs I listen to. Songs that reflect my processing of his aging, dying and death.

So, there I was driving, my music was playing and I was thinking of my dad and I realized something had shifted in my thinking.

Before he died, I worried about how I would survive without him.

After he died, I discovered survival is not only possible, it’s the only viable option.

But I missed him. The loss of his physical presence was overwhelming. Some days it would be crushing and on other days it was and is, merely a dull ache.

Until last week. When I realized that through his death, I gained something I didn’t anticipate. When he was alive he was often on my mind. His influence was steady in my life. But there were moments, and stretches of time where I went about my life not thinking, consciously, too much about him.

Until he died.

As I passed the one year mark, I realized he is with me now in a way he wasn’t when he was alive. I feel him with me. Not in some sort of ghostly way. But somehow I feel like he has become a part of me, a part of my skin and my bones, my heart and my mind.

And I realize, that’s a gain.

Don’t misunderstand me. I’d take him back, in his old physical form in a flash. Without hesitation, I’d give up this new feeling for a more tangible one I can wrap my arms around.

But that’s not an option. The realization of what I’ve gained, despite the loss, is a gift. It’s one I think I don’t fully appreciate yet because it’s new. I was use to my old relationship with my dad. It was comfortable and safe and known.

This new relationship is more really, a relationship with myself. All that he has instilled in me, now seeks to be given life. He is not here to protect me, to save the day, to provide for me. I must do it without him. But he didn’t leave me empty handed. He left both my hands and my heart full.

I feel compelled to act where he once would have. I am still completely me, but now, I am also more.
And since the only choice I have in this matter, is how I respond to this gift, I choose to embrace it.

Even if the return of the embrace is only felt in my heart.

	kalizasheart on Happy Places
	Kathy Kelly on Happy Places
	Kathy on The Problem with Rest
	kalizasheart on Love expressed…
	Kathy on Love expressed…

kalizasheart

discovering together, who we are

Tag Archives: relationships