Why does it have to be this way?

"Three may keep a secret," wrote Ben Frannklin, "if two of them are dead."

I wish I were one of the few lucky people in the world who sees everything through rose-colored glasses. I am not. I wish I were one of those who think they were blessed with no character flaws. Once again, I am not. I am a practical person with realistic and down to earth values. Occasionally, I do lean in the direction of being a misanthropist when I get on my soapbox, and today is one of those times. I am deeply saddened. I feel I should have done something to alleviate a situation many years ago, but I did not. I didn’t know how. I am angry. I am angry with myself. Period.

I read the words on a social network post, that someone, a family member, is in the care of hospice. She didn’t want anyone to worry or fuss over her and kept the burden about having the ‘Big C’ to herself after being diagnosed terminal a few months ago. I know that is the kind of person she is, and I have accepted that. The truth about her life is the anger within me that has no limits. I don’t know where or how to begin to write about her tragic life, when my thoughts are reeling of guilt.

This is a story about a family with a few dirty secrets and turned a blind eye to help a child in need. Secrets that became an exercise in avoiding the situation, driving a cleft between those in the family who know the secret and those who don't, and members on the two sides are driven apart by the knowledge. We all knew who was harmed, and who was being protected. We were all noble enough to perpetuate this secret, clearly knowing how damaging it was. It’s a tragic story of abuse on all levels. I asked myself, “Where was God in all this?” Who knows…maybe this is the answer.

The first time I saw her she was nine months old. She was a preemie that wasn’t much bigger than one of my dolls. In fact, she was a blonde haired cherub, with big trusting eyes and pink cheeks. She joined our family fifty years ago with the union of marriage. She was a sweet child who always wore a big smile and as she got older, she became the scapegoat for everything that seemed to go wrong in everyone else’s life. I’m not going to write about her demons and how she coped with them. We all have our ways, some self-destructive, some not. But what I can tell the world is that she is truly a good person. She’s a loving mother and grandmother. She’s a trusting, sensitive, and caring person for as long as I have known her and I love her very much.

This story is not finished...it has yet to be written...  

...Remembering Dad on June 17, 2012...

Here it is…almost Father’s Day. Every time this special holiday rolls around for the past thirty-four years, I find myself in a bit of a funk missing my dad terribly. I am not going to write a story about my father today; nor am I writing a story about myself. This will not really even be a story; there is no beginning and no end, unless you say that I was born and later on he died. The middle is only a collection of incidents that mean something special only to me.

I wanted his company after he died. I wanted his voice in my head. I wrote because I didn’t want the conversation to end when we were finally getting to know one another on a different level. I needed to continue to think and write about him, so I could have the last word. I wanted him alive. I wanted to introduce him to people who mattered to me. I wanted him to be there to hold my children and see me graduate from college.  I wanted him to see in the face of adversity, I did succeed.

My dad was a gentle soul, mild and introspective, artistic in disposition even though he never finished the eighth grade. He was admired for his kindness and generosity. When I look back at my childhood, my dad was the quietest of mythic heroes, the kind that followed his own dreams and encouraged me, not by preaching, but by his inner sense of what was right.

He was the first man I ever saw with tears in his eyes. He wept as he mourned for the loss of his brother. His eyes welled with tears when I came home after running away, on my wedding day and the day he first saw my newborn daughter. I saw and felt his anger and disappointment when I rebelled, stayed out past my curfew, and got caught doing a few illegal things. He forgave me and loved me in spite of my own flaws.

Those well meaning but flawed human beings who love their children and yet, like my own father, have a hard time putting their feelings into words. They have a hard time inserting themselves into the private bond of mothers and daughters, and they have a hard time knowing how to deal with their daughter’s fledging sexuality. To most daughters, fathers are perhaps the most personal topic of all, you can’t escape them and yet feel you can’t quite pin them down.

This anthology is not complete, as no anthology on this powerful and universal relationship between a father and his child could be. This is not so much about who my father was, or what my father did, as about what he could make me feel.

For those of you who have fathers still here on this planet, give them a hug and tell them “Thanks.” They did their best, even when it may not have always produced the best outcome. They loved you in their own ways, even though sometimes that way was difficult to understand. They are proud of you, even if they never say or said it.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad!     

I love you and miss you…

"Doodle Bug"

...Blow me to the wind...

Not long ago my son told me of a cemetery that is on one of the most haunted cemeteries list in South Carolina and so naturally, I wanted to check it out myself. The first thing I asked him was, “Did you sense anything while you were there?” He said, “No, but I want to go back at night.” My reply was, “Take me with you.” We haven’t done it yet.  

The cemetery was abandoned many years ago after the adjacent church burned to its foundation.  With a little investigating, property records show it is presently owned by a private enterprise, namely one of the real estate moguls in the area. Which makes me wonder what will eventually happen to the property, and the remains of those buried there. I didn’t sense anything while I climbed over briars and decaying trees, except for an overpowering sadness that the gravestones held the names of many prominent families of the late 1800’s and were forgotten. Two of the graves were ravaged of the contents, headstones smashed and were crumbled, sunken in dirt under years of decay foliage. Many of the graves were children under ten years old, and my thoughts drifted to a time when a high percentage of children died from communicable diseases with a speed and virulence that amazes us today. There were no transcriptions left on most headstones except a small indentation here and there of a partial name or year. A weathered stone to indicate a resting place only marked many more graves. 

You’re probably thinking where is this leading, is this blog about haunted places and abandoned cemeteries?  Well, it’s neither. A question arose in a conversation with a friend a while back, and more recently, the same discussion was the topic of the evening. The question being, “Do you want to be cremated or buried when you pass away?” My answer was to be cremated. This upset my friend who came back with this, “My family buries the dead, and we also take burial pictures in the coffin which to some may seem disrespectful, but for us it is historical documentation. To just destroy Gods work in the burial process seems so wrong…”

I disagreed with my friend. I pointed out that I believe it depends on cultures where burying is normal, people bury their dead. In other cultures, they cremate them. Being buried or cremated is a personal decision. The Bible shows that Joseph had his father embalmed. (Gen. 50:2, 3) Jesus was bound with bandages with spices, as was Jewish custom. (John 19:40) The important thing to me is that the custom does not go against any of the Bible's teachings. After all, no matter what method one uses to dispose of the dead, we can all hope to see them again in the resurrection. (1 Thessalonians 4:13) “Moreover, brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant concerning those who are sleeping in death; that you may not sorrow just as the rest also do who have no hope.”

As a Christian, I know that when someone dies, they cease to exist. "His spirit goes out, he goes back to his ground; in that day his thoughts do perish." Ps. 146:4; "The dead ...are conscious of nothing at all." (Eccl. 9:5) Many people believed that the destruction of the body by fire was the thought that it made the resurrection of the body impossible. Resurrection is the accountability to God... "Every one of us shall give account of himself to God" (Rom. 14:12). "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap" (Gal. 6:7). "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment" (Heb. 9:27). Our bodies are just vessels given to us in hopes of spreading God's word and help humanity, but as for the dead "they are conscious of nothing at all . . . Their love and their hate and their jealousy have already perished . . . There is no work nor devising nor knowledge nor wisdom in Sheol [mankind’s common grave], the place to which you are going." (Eccl. 9:5,6,10)

I showed my friend a picture I took of a tree that grows on the grounds of the Santa Barbara Mission in California. It completely unnerved me the first time I saw it. It's massive trunk and branches are ashen in color and smooth as skin. There were no birds that landed or nested within its branches. It grows in the middle of the courtyard behind the church taking nourishment from the thousands of remains buried underneath, all missionaries, priests, nuns, and Cardinals of the Catholic religion. I asked my friend, “Is this the biological life you feel goes on being part of the earth?” To which I answered my own question, “My ashes, whether they are buried (per my wishes) on Mackinaw Island or thrown to the wind, will move on because they are still part of the world we live in. Who knows, maybe I will provide nourishment for one of God’s creatures…thus, my life will go on as well.” I ended my sermon.

During the last days of my mother's life before cancer completely ravaged her mind and body, we talked about this subject often. I told mom I was afraid to die. I abhorred the idea that worms and insects would ravage my body. After telling her my fears, I listened to her and her views on death and everlasting life. She was content to leave her cancer-ridden body to know she would share in the resurrection of the righteous. And because of that faith and teachings from the Bible, she was freed from the trepidation of dying. I am not afraid of dying because of what she taught me. It was the last gift she had given me and today that "spirit" lives within me. It’s helped me move on to be the example of the human being God wanted us to be. We should not continue to grieve, we should rejoice in the lessons our parents taught us, that we might teach and love others.

Peace…