Dad & Me – 1972 – when I graduated from Marine Corps Basis Training – Parris Island, SC

Taking a closer look I can see an enlightenment. I’m thinking it was born from (my finally) realizing that a truly beneficial outcome can and has emerged from a strongly uninvited life happening .

Last week I came to an acceptance within myself.  OK… people fall out of love. Personally, I’ve always ‘humph-ed’ at hearing or reading that phrase! I mean, if you fall out of love, well think about it, had you really loved that person in the first place? To me, Love, is a core thing. A core feeling. Like God is to me, you believe in it. And if you make a commitment to Love, like in marriage, you do whatever is needed to protect it.  Love is THAT powerfully worth it! The energy within Love can create your heaven-on-earth,  or send you straight to hell. It’s just that simple, but definitely NOT just that simple. And I think the true tests of a committed Love are its… “for better or for worse…” parts. Committing to something or someone is a big ‘team’ deal. The other person (or thing) puts their trust in you. Besides giving your heart away, what else could be as big as giving your trusting heart away? I was taught that a commitment requires great protective courage and a root-secure belief.  I was raised to believe it. I still believe it. I’ll always believe it. It’s who I am. It’s how I’m knitted together.

On the other-hand, especially living in today’s world, I also get the ‘people fall out of love‘ thing. At a Christmas party (and yes, with probably a few too many drinks under her belt) a close friend, who is no longer (even) a friend, told me that “… you marry your favorite boyfriend and after kids… divorce… and then marry someone who is closer to who you’ve become…”.  After processing that I almost threw-up! (WHOA!!) Well, the truth is, I’ve seen commitments crumble and now a broken commitment has me picking up my own pieces. It happened to me and THAT makes it a horse of a different color, for sure!

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Can you see Him?

As I write this, three immediate family members are facing ‘big deals’ regarding their life. Three health situations that have  become life events and whose outcome rests  ‘out of their hands’… sort-of-speaking. Three ‘focus-pulling’ narratives that have, will, and are growing consequences to their individual way of how they’ve always lived their life, and how that will change (like it or not) going forward.

I wonder this: Our journey with God. Does our odyssey in faith stay or fade as our own physical brain functions age and fade? I mean… when (for whatever reason) you lose control over yourself to a point that you realize you have no control over losing your… control; When our intricate brain functioning breaks down and we are so focused on losing our carefully engineered control… balance; When a moment’s reality takes over and we have no say in it and we are so emerged in panic that some ‘memory’ is scorched and never quite the same in it’s thinking or remembrance… so question… does our brain remember our relationship with God? Does THAT fade too?

I think i’m thinking this enlightened thought… because at (almost) 94 years old I believe i’m being given a God answer. For me. Through my mom. Like, right now!

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Terra & Joyce – 1990

I had a friend named Joyce.
She was one of those women who was always up. Always smiling. Almost on a daily basis anyone could walk past the back of her townhouse and smell baking heaven drifting out of her kitchen windows. Joyce bounced when she walked. Was dedicated to giving you a Hello hug. Was crazy about her husband and doated over her (ok, yes they were) super cute tow headed boys. Joyce made marriage look like a romantic Hollywood movie. Best of all, we were friends, neighbors who lived two doors from each other in a small but elite Pittsburgh townhouse community seated on a hill. For three years we talked through what being a wife meant. New mom issues, how-to’s and crises. Woman excuses for those ‘I’ve got a headache’ husband moments. Another best, Joyce and I could count on each other. We didn’t gossip, criticize or judge each other. We just were. Friends.

Meanwhile, in the very early hours on Halloween, 1984, my water broke. That also happened with my son but his entrance was more like, “Excuse me mom but it’s time! I’m ready to come out and meet you and dad  and my relatives and the world. This is it! My time begins NOW. See, our water just broke! No, don’t freak-out! Remember, I’m expected. Time to get Dad. No worries, i’m sure he’ll clean up the water. No no – stop looking down and wondering what the hell is going on… CONCENTRATE… it’s me mom! We’re doing this…!” Looking back those moments make me smile. But this second pregnancy was different. For eight and 1/2 months it had been difficult different, and although my pediatrician was always calming down my gut feeling about delivering early, “You’re going to have a pre-thanksgiving baby, he’d say…“ (a pre-thanksgiving baby!!)… despite putting such a stupidly worded visual in my head, there I stood standing with my gut feeling dripping down my legs and all over the floor.

On Halloween! Alone. Not a happy camper.

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a night note to J…

Me. We’re talking about how I saw us take the real first fall. It hadn’t been good between us for a while. A long while. But speaking for myself, this is how I saw that last straw break. In half.

What he said that September afternoon was: “I haven’t loved you for the last 15 years.” It wasn’t a thoughtless thing he decided to inform me. I mean, who, during lunch that I made for him, say’s that out of the clear blue sky? After 35 years of marriage?  Without any talking about ‘us’ as a prelude.

Actually, those weren’t his exact words. His exact words were, “I told her I hadn’t loved you for the last 35 years.”

‘Her’ was a marriage counselor assigned to us as a “are you sure you want to divorce” measure. Did we really want to save our marriage? Up to that point, I don’t think so. But what I did think was that with help we could try to save years of surviving “better and worse, richer and poorer, sickness and health …” work. It would take an effort. It would require teamwork. At the very least we could carefully move our marriage off the steep cliff it was hanging on if we both committed ourselves. But that was the problem! Commitment. He had never REALLY wanted to be married. On a warm night in California, after an exciting conversation about getting married, after a great night in bed… he had second thoughts and said, “I don’t think I’m the marrying kind.”   (Red flag!)

On a pretty, blue sky early afternoon it was an extraordinary moment. for me and ever since it was a moment that froze itself into my mind. into my heart. into my life.

i don’t remember reacting. i don’t remember moving out of my chair. honestly, i don’t even remember if i started to cry. what i do remember is how sharp the edges of those words were. how he just sat there like what he had said took little to no effort to say. and how after a few minutes of silence between us, he got up and walked away. i didn’t. i stayed right where i was.

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Chapter 1: Who IS This Person?

Me. The answer to this question is Me. With a capital ‘M’. I’m THIS person. And saying that, I’m THIS person, has taken me a long, long, long, long… long time to say out loud. I amaze myself when I think about how I grew-up seemly paying zero attention to such a major question. Taking zero action on such a major search! I still can’t explain ‘why’ to myself other than to compare one possible answer to the movie, The Way We Were, when Robert Redford’s character, Hubbell Gardiner, wrote his book’s opening lines, “In a way, he was like the country he lived in. Everything came too easily to him, but at least he knew it.”

Looking back, that book passage is also true of me. I was just a normal kid with (what I think was a ) privileged life, and never thought about who I was as a person. It never entered my mind. There was just too much fun to be done! It was easy to take everything for granted. And I did. But unbeknown to me, while I was racing  through my life as a skinny girl sporting a home perm and wearing blue flippy-edged glasses… my ‘Me’ seeds were growing. I know that sounds silly but it’s true. And no matter how old you get I believe everyone’s ‘Me’ seeds are constantly being born.

I have proof!

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