My Peggy...

This past Easter weekend, I recalled a scene from, The Velveteen Rabbit, I hope the lessons from this book moved my children as it had with me many years ago…The scene I am referring to is which two stuffed animals discuss authenticity… “ ‘You BECOME,’ the horse said to the rabbit. ‘It doesn’t happen all at once. It takes a very long time. Generally by the time you are REAL most of your hair has been loved off and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But those things don’t matter, because once you are real, you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.’”

Recent events and conversations with loved ones this past weekend, filled my thoughts of a remarkable woman who I knew in Arizona, she taught me how to find compassion when I felt no hope and considered myself a complete failure as a mother, in my marriage, and in my life's choices.

I owe much of who I am today to this remarkable woman, and I thank God often, that she was the fork in my road to better understanding life’s situations. I met Peggy on the first day we moved into our new home and knew there was something special about her. Perceptive as she was, she must have sensed something about me and told me she was determined to crack my hardened shell with daily doses of hugs and verbal encouragement. A day didn’t go by for two and a half years that my mornings didn’t start with a knock at the door and her open arms, sometimes more, but nothing less. She taught me to find forgiveness and bring love back into my heart.

Peggy was a retired schoolteacher from Missouri with gusto for life. She was also a piano teacher and a part-time librarian; she had a passion for every living thing and was dedicated to her Alzheimer’s inflicted husband of sixty-seven years. She asked me once if I ever did any playacting as a child, and if it was easy to be someone I was not. When I asked her why, she explained to me something that I have not forgotten; something she observed in her many years of teaching was that “most compassionate people in real life are those who did a lot of playacting as children.” She said, "that you’re required to understand the motivation behind another’s actions, and to have sympathy for their plight, then along the way an enormous compassion for others develops.”

I hope one day I am fortunate enough to make a difference in one unsuspecting person’s life like Peggy did for me; it would be extraordinary to pay her gift forward.
I believe all of us have crossed paths with our Peggy’s, some of us were lucky enough to have acknowledged them while others ignored that knock on the door…

Today's Quote...

Reach for the fullness of human life...If you but touch it, it will fascinate. We live it all, but few live it knowingly. ~Goethe, Faust

A Tipsy Confession...

I never thought once to celebrate myself not even once—not after the birth of my children, not after nursing them through their young lives, not after the hundreds of times my arms extended to console others through loss or hard times. When my father passed away and a short six months later my father-in-law passed, I suppressed my grief to take care of two women, who like myself, never stood on their own two feet. More than thirty years later, I am learning to grieve, now that I am the only woman that I need to take care of.

I rushed forward in a straight line, pushing onward never veering off the path of rules set by other people, against whom I have measured myself. I never took the time to decipher where I was going—I just went. It’s only been recently I know what is missing in my life and what I crave to have back. I want a sense of balance that begins in my core; an integration of life experiences and it’s what’s driving me to my future.

It occurred to me that I was always eager to applaud my children’s accomplishments—walking, climbing, swimming, running, reading and writing—and yet I hardly noticed my own. Every decade I live offers new challenges and as I walk through the portal to the other side, I still strive to be me.

In the words of William Sloane Coffin, “The leap of faith is not so much a leap of thought as action. One must…dare to act wholeheartedly without absolute certainty.”
I’ve taken that leap into uncertainty one too many times, the first monumental leap was when I said, “I do.” I was scared to death. Will this relationship really last till death do us part or will we tire of each other and move on separately in different directions…
Other times I leaped and fell flat on my face…starting one business then losing another. One will never know until they tried. I knew I didn’t want to reach old age and say, “what if.” Risks are attached to everything, even if you were afraid or never took that initial leap, they are they hiding around the corner.

I strive not to feel weak and inferior, and no longer want to keep up with the Jones’s who are keeping up with the Smith’s. I am grateful for the one person in my life that has stood by my side and I thank God he did not veer off the path of loving me and keeping me safe. I am selfish that I want more independence, to make my way and not call for help. Having been taught compliance and dependence, I strive for autonomy and the resurgence of will.

I celebrate my women friends, each successful in their own ways. I no longer feel isolated in my own selfish thoughts, because these very dear women friends of mine have let me know that I am not swimming alone. A song comes to mind for those of you familiar with the Woodstock era, Joe Cocker’s A Little Help From My Friends—from an era of make love not war, to an era where women burned their bras, and finally to the time in our lives when we need to find our true selves. I raise my glass to each and every one of you…Cheers! You know the tune…

What would you think if I sang out of tune,
Would you stand up and walk out on me?
Lend me your ears and I'll sing you a song
And I'll try not to sing out of key.

Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends
Mm, I get high with a little help from my friends
Mm, gonna try with a little help from my friends

What do I do when my love is away
(Does it worry you to be alone?)
How do I feel by the end of the day,
(Are you sad because you're on your own?)

No, I get by with a little help from my friends
Mm, I get high with a little help from my friends
Mm, gonna try with a little help from my friends

Do you need anybody
I need somebody to love
Could it be anybody
I want somebody to love.

Would you believe in a love at first sight
Yes, I'm certain that it happens all the time
What do you see when you turn out the light
I can't tell you but I know it's mine,

Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends
Mm, I get high with a little help from my friends
Mm, gonna try with a little help from my friends

Do you need anybody
I just need someone to love
Could it be anybody
I want somebody to love.

Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends
With a little help from my friends.