For My Children

Dear Jessica, Brendan, Ashton and Christian,

Two years after I first had this wild notion, I finally did it. I took the plunge and registered for my first marathon. Yikes!!!

My goal since I finished the Couch to 5k program has been to do a full by the time I'm 55.  In  running Disney this January, I'll eke under that by just two days.

I want you to be there with me. Dad, all four of you, with your spouses, kids -- the whole happy, tumbling, chaotic mob of you. I want to share this milestone in my life with the people I love most. I want you to see me cross that finish line.

After all, you've been with me through so many events and occurrences in my life -- the good, the bad and, yes, the ugly. The most amazing  and happiest: the days you were born, although of course none of you remember that. You've been there through the years that I was learning to be a mom...how to hold you, bathe you, feed you, protect you, teach you, love you. 

You were my world. 

You have seen me at my lowest -- the times I was tired, short with you, yelled at you, tuned you out when I should have been listening. The times we argued. Wounded each other. But through that, loved. Now I would like for you to be there to witness something powerful.

All the good that I have tried to do in my life, I have done for you. I've tried to show you what love, faith, honesty, responsibility, empathy and dedication mean. Now I'd like to show you one more thing.

By the time I run this marathon, I will have put in well over 4 months of training. I will have run hundreds of miles. I'll have sweated buckets, thrown up, cried, fallen, gotten back up and run some more. It's going to be grueling, I already know that. I am not fast, athletic or confident.

But here is what I want you to know. 

I want you to know it's never too late to chase your dreams. No matter what life hands you, you always have a choice. You can follow any path you want, write your own chapter, make your own movie, sing your own song. Age doesn't crush your dreams and desires. Age doesn't mean you have to surrender, let go of what you want to do in life. It's all there for the taking. Reach out and work hard for your dreams.

You can do whatever you set your mind to do. Fear is a liar and whispers relentlessly in your head. Refuse to listen to it, and boot it right out of there. Yes, I am terrified about undertaking this race. But I am going to spit in fear's face, look deep into its eyes, and see for myself that it is a fraud. Do I know I can run a marathon? No. Most days I am petrified I will fail. But I know I am going to give it everything I've got to finish, no matter what. Even if I have to crawl.

I want you to know what you're made of. You come from a long line of strong men and women, and I don't mean physical prowess. We have guts. We do what has to be done. We endure; we prevail. And that's in your very marrow.

I want you to see the value of commitment. That by working hard, sticking to something even when you don't feel like it, doing the same tough things day in and day out, you will succeed. Whether it's in a race, a job, your marriage, or life, perseverance and passion will see you through. 

I want you to understand the significance of faith. Having faith in something bigger than yourself gives life meaning. It forces you to think outside your own self, nurtures compassion, expands love. Have faith in yourself, your family, and God. Not necessarily in that order.

I want you, most of all,  to know and remember my love for you. You are all grown now, with your own lives, and the busyness that all our separateness entails. We don't get to talk to each other every day. Some of us don't see each other as often as we'd like. I want you to know that I carry each of you in my heart, every single day, and I will be taking you along with me during every step of this race.

While I run, I'll be praying for the special people in my life. I will be dedicating a mile to each of you. You all have meant everything to me, and your lives have made me who I am. I will thank God for the gift of your life, for the privilege of being your mother, and for the joy of seeing who you have become.

You are my world.

I wish I could give it to you. But instead, I'll try to give you the best of me. I love you.

Always,  Mom

TRUTH

I'm participating in this year's A-Z challenge, and so will be posting daily about a subject focusing on a letter of the alphabet.

I was totally blown away the other day when I read the following passage from Eckhart Tolle:

“What a liberation to realize that the “voice in my head” is not who I am. Who am I then? The one who sees that.” 

All my life, I've listened to that voice tell me bad things about myself. That I'm not pretty, that I'm stupid,  that I'm not loving, that I'm not kind, that I'm not as good as anyone else. I believed this voice inside my head. After all, it was the "real me" being honest, right? I knew the hidden, dark side to my soul, right? I knew the reality of who I am, right? That voice was right, right?

Even though....
People had never run screaming from me in revulsion when I walked into a room.

Even though....
I graduated from one of the top 10 journalism schools in the nation.

Even though....
It gave me great joy to help others, and I'd been involved with numerous charitable activities over the years.

Even though....
I helped the homeless, volunteered at schools and church, stood up for the voiceless, and was there for  friends and those I don't know.

Even though....
I had been successful in so many endeavors.

That voice was right, right?? Right???

So I felt absolutely thunderstruck when I read that quote. What if that voice -- WHAT IF -- it really wasn't who I was?? What if I really wasn't the "bad" person I was always telling myself was the real me? What if.....????

My world shifted. Something cracked open. Light broke through.

TRUTH.

I am a good and decent person. 

I love.

I am.

Truth.

I will no longer hide it.

I will live it.

HAVEN

I'm participating in this year's A-Z challenge, and so will be posting daily about a subject focusing on a letter of the alphabet.

A shelter from the storm...a soft, safe place to land at the end of the day...my haven is within my husband's arms.

Vic and I met in the 8th grade, when I transferred from public school to St. Ann's, the neighborhood K-8 Catholic school. There couldn't possibly have been a more difficult time to assimilate into a group of kids who had been together since kindergarten. If you don't remember, middle school is a viper pit. Yes, even a  Catholic one. It was a very, very rough year for me. I was ridiculed mercilessly by most of the kids. I was tall, straight as a rail, had a bad haircut and blushed at every insult. No wonder I became painfully shy. Vic was nice to me, although honestly, we probably barely knew that the other existed.

Then we went to high school, and things changed. In the 11th grade, I asked him out to the Sadie Hawkins dance. Do they even have those anymore?

 Wikipedia states:  "The Sadie Hawkins dance is named after the Li'l Abner comic strip character Sadie Hawkins, created by cartoonist Al Capp. In the strip, Sadie Hawkins Day fell on a given day in November (Capp never specified an exact date). The unmarried women of Dogpatch got to chase the bachelors and "marry up" with the ones they caught. The event was introduced in a daily strip which ran on November 15, 1937.

In the U.S. and Canada, this concept was popularized by establishing dance events to which the woman invited a man of her choosing, instead of demurely waiting for a man to ask her. The first known such event was held on November 9, 1938. Within a year hundreds of similar events followed suit. By 1952, the event was reportedly celebrated at 40,000 known venues. It became a woman-empowering rite at high schools and college campuses, and the tradition continues in some regional American cultures."

I remember trying to work up the nerve to ask him out. I don't know how guys throughout the ages have managed this!! It was excruciating. Our lockers were very close by and I waited before 6th period for him, hanging around totally conspicuously until he was alone. I finally blurted out the question, and he replied, "Sure." He claims I then asked, "Really?' in an amazed tone, but I believe I played it much more sophisticated than that. We'll go with my story.

His mother remembers him coming home from school, hopping up to sit suavely on the kitchen counter, and announcing that he had a date for the dance. She says he acted super-cool, so she knew he was pretty excited about going out with me.

That was our first date with each other, and the last with anyone else. 

We've been married for 32 years now, after dating for almost 6, and while every single second hasn't been perfect, we are good together. We've had some spectacularly great times, some truly awful tragedies, and with four kids, pretty much everything in between that you can think of. I can't imagine a different life, or a different husband.

As we're aging, I think I'm more aware than ever of how blessed we are. So many years ago, back in that Catholic high school when we were first dating, we would laugh and say our match was "made in heaven!" I believe that to this day. He is still my one true love, my heart, my haven.

BANDIT

I'm participating in this year's A-Z challenge, and so will be posting daily about a subject focusing on a letter of the alphabet.

BANDIT. Thieves are terrifying threats, but doesn't "bandit" sound comedic, like a little raccoon that sneaks onto your porch at midnight and dives headfirst into your container of birdseed? I had that happen once, actually. I was in the mountains, staying by myself out in the middle of nowhere, and in the middle of the night was awakened by fearsome thumping and scraping on the front porch. Heart in throat, I crept into the living room and peered out the huge bay windows into the darkness, and saw, illuminated by moonlight, the masked bandit's rump above the opening of my covered can of birdseed. He had a feast, and I'd almost had a heart attack.

There are many things that steal from our lives, perhaps not as cute or funny as my masked marauder, but marauders just as well. The stranger who laughs as you try something new in the gym. The driver who gesticulates furiously at you on the highway. The friend who says unkind things behind your back. The mother who can no longer remember your name. The child who brings you to tears by abandoning his faith. The husband who cheats.

So many incidences that pick you up, turn you over and over in their tiny paws, and take small, precise bites of your heart. When the thief of joy hits, life can sometimes feel like everything, every contact you have with others, goes wrong, ends badly, is hopeless.

                                                                       

                                                                              Here
Just like the raccoon on my porch, these bandits of our happiness come when we least expect it and seize their chance. Our tendency is to be on guard, to protect our valuables. But we can't lock up our love like a safe. Each small moment that we are unhappy, or angry, or frustrated, or despairing,  the bandits make off with something that can never be replaced. 

Instead, throw open the coffers of your heart. What is given freely can't be stolen. When you love in the face of hurts, in SPITE of the hurts, you affirm that life is a wide-open, generous force that cannot be conquered by the thieves of this world. Unmask the bandits. Recognize them for what they are, and no longer give them power over you. Love. Love again. And then love some more.

There Are No Answers

                                                                          Source


I've been thinking all day about what to say about the horrific mass murder of children and faculty at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. How do we wrap our minds around the fact that some madmad -- practically a kid himself -- became the monster, the boogeyman, of childhood nightmares, then forced his way into their safe haven and shot them systematically? Twenty little children, babies really, have been slaughtered before their lives began.... How do we comprehend the incomprehensible?                                                                

I have no words of wisdom to share. There are no answers to insanity. I wish I had the power to ensure that this will never happen again, but I feel powerless. The sad fact is, this will happen again...and again...and again....We live in such a fallen world,  and evil resides here among us. Evil is real and vicious, unpredictable and everywhere. It roams throughout our world looking for innocence to devour. We cannot lock it out of our lives, we cannot protect the ones we love. Evil knows exactly which weapons to wield to wound us to our very core.

And yet....

I have been witness to the immense outpouring of a bottomless pool of love from very good and caring people. Strangers to those who grieve in Connecticut have grieved along with them. Wherever we were, we wept together, we prayed together, and we continue to pray. We have poured out our love as a balm on those who are in pain. We feel helpless, and do not know what to do to relieve this enormous weight of suffering, and so we offer the only thing that we have -- our love. Those children were our children, and those faculty were our family, and we shed tears and mourn them as our own. We are all one in crying out to our God in pain and grief.

Today I watched in awestruck wonder as the father of one of the victims spoke to the world about his daughter. Before he described Emilie, the joy of his life, Robby Parker talked of how he and his family sent their love to the other families -- and most amazing of all,  to the family of the shooter. He said he was not angry. I believe he is telling the truth. He holds no hate in his heart.

I realized when I saw him, struggling in his own terrible grief but reaching out to others, that I was watching a truly courageous and beautiful thing -- a faith in action. Not just lip service, but a living, active faith, a faith that has held steadfast in the darkest moment of despair. I was seeing someone walk the walk. I was seeing, simply,  the face of Christ.

                                                                         

Evil has dealt us a devastating blow, but evil did not win. Evil will not win. No matter how it tries to deliver  the death blow to conquer us all, no matter how many times we stagger, falling to our knees, we will not be vanquished. Evil cannot triumph over the goodness and love and heart of humanity. We will continue to love, we will continue to forgive, we will continue to reach for one another and clasp hands and pray. No matter what we suffer together, our love for one another will always prevail. It is all we have, but it is everything we need for victory.

                                                                           Source


"Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." -- Matthew 5:4

"He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever." -- Revelation 21:4

"Three things will last forever -- faith, hope, and love -- and the greatest of these is love." -- 1 Corinthians 13:13


 You can help the victims of Sandy Hook here.

The Dreams That You Dare To Dream

I dare to dream that 

SOMEDAY:

Human beings who are

gay

straight

labeled

heavy

thin

cursed

black

white

harassed

red

yellow

excluded

rich

poor

persecuted

impaired

enabled

mocked

liberal 

conservative

bullied

depressed

happy

ostracized

homeless

fortunate

hated

will all recognize  

WE   ARE   ONE.

We are all lovable.

We are all valuable.

We are all important.

WE    ALL   MATTER.

Each and every one of us is 

LOVED

by the same God who created us.

He makes no distinctions.

He loves you just as much as He loves me;

He loves "them" as much as He loves "us."

And we all have the same 

hopes 

sorrows 

pain

  wishes 

prayers 

dreams.

We all live on this one tiny planet, 

hurtling along in the immeasurable darkness of the universe,

sharing our journey together.

We all want love and peace and happiness and respect,

 a little spare change to jingle in our pockets.

We all hurt, cry, bleed, suffer.

We all want our lives to have meaning.

We all cry out to our God to save us.

But...we all could  bear one  another's burdens 

with

ARMS  WIDE  OPEN

and make each other's lives easier.

I'm not better than you; 

You're not better than me.

We are each unique, dancing flames of light

and 

Together we could set this world on fire.

Why, oh why, can't I?

Why can't we?

That's my dream.

I know that

somewhere over the rainbow, 

far above the prejudice, hate, and discrimination,

skies are blue,

and the dreams that we dare to dream 

really can come true.

Let's start today

to make that a reality.

Let's do something small     --

Can we just smile at each other?

If everyone in the world 

smiled

at the same time,

who could dare to

hate

again?

Simplistic, I know. But it could just work.

A smile could  melt a hardened heart.

It's a start.

One small thing...

Like a frail paper boat, 

setting sail onto the vast and endless ocean,

almost invisible to spy, 

yet the ripples it causes are 

unimaginable.

Then think 

of what we could do

TOGETHER.

A tsunami of change.

ALL ONE.

Spread the love.