Real Love

My grandpa came in for Thanksgiving. It's almost a five-hour drive from Texas. He and my grandmother have been divorced most of my mother's 46-year-old life. He said they were married when she was 17 and he was 19. He saw her for the first time since her illness. She was lying in bed staring blankly at him, no recognition in her eyes. He won't have much longer to live...the cancer has reached his bones. He couldn't even stay for Thanksgiving dinner...the pain was too unbearable and he left in tears. Before he left my grandmother's side, he said these words, "Dotty, I love you. I've always loved you. I'll see you soon on the other side." I barely know either of them. I lived most of my life without them being a part of it, but I am alive because they exist. I love them both and it will be so strange when they are gone. My grandpa said it is so much sooner than any of us think.

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

When You Are Old
When you are old and gray and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.
And bending down beside the glowing bars
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

Rant

I feel like an orphan without a family. I think I will move to Colorado. I'm sick of this place and these people. I hate being lied to. I hate how someone says one thing and then does something different. I'm sick of being unappreciated and disrespected. All in all people can only help themselves. Life is what you make it. I can't be the anchor for this broken-down family. I can't do everything. Once again...I have to say my prayer:

The Serenity Prayer
by Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971)Complete, Unabridged, Original Version.
God, give us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.

Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.

Amen.

This is me right now...

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

When you are fearful, everything turns into something to
fear. When you are hopeful, everything becomes a reason to
hope.

When you are angry, anything that comes along can feed that
anger. When you are peaceful, the world around you begins to
mirror your peace.

What comes from the depths of your being, grows more intense
and more concrete as it works its way outward. What you hold
in your heart, you will see in your world.

Though you may try to hide things inside, they surely come
out in ways you cannot even imagine. If you wish to change
what you appear to be, then change what you truly are.

Hold in your heart a pure and authentic vision of all that
you value most dearly. Choose carefully what has priority in
your innermost being, for that is what shapes the world you
experience.

Build a solid, positive and fulfilling life within. And all
that you know, will faithfully resonate with the person you
choose to be.


~ Ralph Marston

The Lost

This constricted chest,

These bloodshot eyes;

I struggle to understand these forlorn, lost souls.

What is wrong with them?

Don't they love themselves?

WELCOME TO HOLLAND

by
Emily Perl Kingsley.

c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

The weekend summary

Friday: Rear-ended sportscar...he let me go.

Saturday: Dressed up and went to Bourbon w/ Sharon, Travis & and my honey. Hung out on balcony of Tropical Isle watching the costumes and drama below...got overly intoxicated. Couldn't ride the bull at the Bourbon Cowboy because of my flowing costume dress...

Sunday: Spent recovering from a hangover from too many Hand Grenades!