Tag Archives: God’s Plans

2024, family, grief, Life, Memories, mother, Uncategorized, Writing

Her nightgown…

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My mom’s nightgown is still hanging over the end of my bed. I brought it home in June because it popped a seam.. and I promised to fix it because it is her favorite nightgown.

I still have an open shopping list on my phone… things I was going to pick up for her.. including some photos she asked for..

The magazine clipping she cut out for me.. because she thought I would like it.. hangs on my refrigerator…

The blue flower shirt in my closet that she always asked to borrow…

In the garage sits the couch attachment I bought so that my mom could stand up from my couch ..

And then there is the voice mail she left.. that I can’t delete…

Every where I look … there are reminders of her.

It always seems like she is just in the other room… like she will call in another moment.

When I visit my dad.. her tea cups still sit on the counter..

… and it hits me … never again in my Earthly days will I make my mom another cup of chai.

Never again will I joke with her .. asking her if she would like some coffee…

… never again will she stick her tongue out at me and call me a brat…

That is.. not until I see her again in heaven.

But…

… I will also never again see her in pain.. or watch her struggle to walk with a walker.. or see her frustrated because she wants out of her wheelchair.

I will never again see her suffer.

But what I will see?

I will see my mom’s smile when I look into her grandkids’ faces.

I will remember my mom’s happiness whenever I find photos of her on my phone. (And believe me.. I have a “few”..)

I will see my mom in the gatherings we have.. in the circle of chairs around the campfire…

I’ll see her in the sewing lessons I give… in the way I teach family recipes …

I’ll see my mom in every blue car I pass… every bird I see… every butterfly that flits by…

… in every chai I drink..

Today as I carefully stitch my mom’s nightgown…

… because I promised her I would…

… a tear falls for every blessed memory I have that has her in it…

… and I have too many blessings to count.

I am reminded of A.A. Milne’s piece of wisdom.

“How lucky am I to have something that makes saying Good-bye so hard…”

How lucky am I to have so many blessed memories with the woman I called “Mom”.

Even if those memories each bring a tear today… I wouldn’t trade a single memory.

This nightgown may be pretty wet by the time I finish mending it…

… but what a blessed girl I am.

2024, Life, Memories, Parenting, Uncategorized, Writing

Trading places…

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Years and years ago, in a small town in Michigan… not much further north than where I live now… sat a man… in his car… in a school parking lot.

… waiting for his daughter to get out of practice… (one practice or another)…

… just one of his seven kids… but definitely one of his more distractible children..

That daughter would hurry off toward the parking lot after practice.. but she was terrible at telling people she couldn’t help them or stop to talk…

As a result??

That daughter was often late getting to her Dad’s car.

Now that Dad… after working a long day of work… after waiting in his car for practice to get over…

… and after waiting for his daughter to make it to the car.. (and often waiting for more than just one of his kids)…?

That Dad would always greet his daughter with a smile.

A tired smile, at times, but always a smile.

That absent-minded daughter was me…

… and those rides home?

They were some of my best memories. My dad would ask me about my day.. ha… and then listen the rest of the way home as I told him in great detail.

I do not remember a single time of him reprimanding me for being late… I don’t remember a single instance of him asking me to be quiet… and I don’t remember a single time of him saying he was too tired to take me to or from practice.

(Now.. not to say that he never told me he was unable to take me. He was very busy.. and after all, he had six other children and a wife..

No.. there were plenty of times he COULD not give me a ride. But I never remember a time he WOULD not take the time to help us kids.)

At some point in our lives, we start trading places with our parents… Little by little…

Recently, I have started the process of trading places with my dad.

Instead of him waiting patiently for me to be done with practice…?

…it’s me in the waiting room, patiently waiting for word from his minor surgery to be done. …it’s me planning on bringing something to keep me busy while he is in an appointment.

It’s me… doing the patient waiting… and driving.

It isn’t very often right now… just every once in awhile.

But as parents, we are used to doing more for our kids… than we are used to asking for help..

A couple weeks ago, my dad apologized for “needing” rides… for disrupting my schedule, and “inconveniencing” me.

But not one part of me feels inconvenienced by being able to give my dad rides when he needs them.

But… When I explained that it is just a small repayment for all the rides and waiting he did for me and my siblings… ?

… he laughed. He laughed and told me that stage in his life was one of his favorite. He said he simply enjoyed every moment of each ride.

Part of me is so thankful to be able to repay all the rides he gave me… willing to change my schedule the way he always did for me.

But part of me…

… a really big part of me….

.. that part of me is really happy to just be able to ride in the car with my dad for a short period of time.. and once again tell him about my day..

So in this stage of trading places with my dad…?

… During this stage in my life, I plan on taking after my dad and enjoying every moment I have with him.

2021, Autism, covid diaries, creative life, Life, Memories, Parenting, photography, self love, Special Needs, Writing

Collecting leaves…

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This time of year has always been a reflective time for me.

With all the leaves falling and changing colors? I stop to think about the year so far.

Some of the leaves falling are bright colored and fascinating. Others fall already dark and dull.

Some of leaves fall right next to the roots of the tree .. and some travel quite a ways.

Sometimes those leaves can be pretty messy.. and not fun to clean up. But I cannot help but be thankful for the trees anyway.

The bright colored leaves are fun to collect. I’ve often thought about making a collection of them. But then I always toss them back into the wind.

In many way, the memories from this year are like those leaves. Some of them shine with bright colors and bring a smile to my face.

Some of them?

Some are darker moments.. and take a lot more time to process .. They are still part of my year but not the memories I want to dwell on.

But today?

Today, as I watched a brightly shining leaf fall on a dried up dull one…?

I wondered… would that leaf look so bright…?

… if it hadn’t just fallen after the darker one?

As I picked up the bright red leaf…

I remembered the moment I put my feet in the grass for the first time… after I had been too sick and too weak to do so for weeks.

That grass.. that ordinary grass… looked like the most amazing of God’s creations to me .. in that moment.

But would it have looked as amazing to me? If I hadn’t struggled to get down the stairs? If I hadn’t needed to carry an oxygen tank to get that far?

No. The grass would have looked ordinary to me.. without the dull colored leaf to compare it to.

This November, I am going to post my thankful posts. But they may look a little different. I’m going to be thankful 2021 style.

I am going to collect those brightest colored leaves before they blow away… and maybe a few dull colored ones while I am at it.

covid diaries, Life, Memories

Losing that covid feeling..

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… that covid moment…

My dad used to tell me, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.. but you’ll be surprised what you can live through.”

I held onto that thought when I was lying in a hospital .. 5 weeks ago… concentrating on each controlled deep breath…

Controlled… because the instinct to panic and gasp for more air was strong.. but wouldn’t help …

Deep breaths … because keeping my lungs as open as possible would be the difference between a ventilator.. or keep the oxygen “nose leash”…

I will remember that moment for a long time…

… that moment …

… not scared… but respecting the gravity of the illness that I had…

… not panicking… but focusing on each breath in its entirety… like there was nothing else in the world…

… not wanting to leave my kids without a mom yet… but knowing that it was a possibility…

… and trusting… knowing that God had my situation in His hands… in His plans …

… so I thought about that saying my dad would say … I’d be surprised what I could live through… as I felt the ability to breath on my own get smaller and smaller…

And smiled…

That moment was my covid moment.. filled with that Covid feeling … Being so weak in body.. and fading.. but so filled with faith in God’s plan.. and filled with love from my Earthly family… that I took one more deep breath … and then another…

…. and I was able to keep breathing with JUST the help of that oxygen “nose leash”….

Now.. I know you all see me joke about the oxygen “nose leash” as my son affectionately named it.. that’s because laughter is the best medicine…

oxygen “nose leash” mess…

… I won’t lie.. sometimes that “nose leash” is the source of so much frustration.. The puppies get tangled up in it… it gets caught under something … and it pulls my face back.. or at the very least makes me stop in my tracks and fix the “trap”…

… not to mention that I’m limited to 50 feet from my machine… unless I hook up a tank that I have to pull or carry…

… but I’m still so thankful for the “nose leash” .. because the alternative? A ventilator… in the hospital wasn’t as appealing…

… or worse yet .. now that I’m home… if I didn’t have the oxygen.. I wouldn’t be able to walk to the kitchen to get my own coffee … or do any simple activity without getting short of breath.

This Covid thing isn’t limited to breathing though…

It was obvious things.. like coughing up red “junk”… the swollen neck… abdominal swelling .. leg swelling… the horrible headaches… the heart pounding… the massive bloody noses.. the face swelling….

… but I learned later.. there are the “not so obvious” Covid things too… the short term memory issues… the loss of being able to sign my name… learning to walk without a walker again… keeping my blood sugar above 70 … learning how to be less active … how to ask others to do things for me…

… you’d be surprised what you can live through…

Slowly, my family is losing that Covid feeling…

… the worry that mom will go back to the hospital… my son worried to let me out of his sight… my daughter exhausted from being “the mom” to us all… everyone too exhausted to do much beyond eating and surviving…

But I never want to lose all of the Covid feeling… I hope I keep the joy in the little things…

… the love I feel when I remember the things my parents taught me…

… baby steps

… the happiness I get from little notes tucked into much needed food delivered to the hospital…

… the way my cup overflows with the generosity of friends and their front porch drop offs…

… the joy of being able to go home… even with “oxygen nose leashes”…

… being content surrounded by my little family…

… the feel of grass beneath my feet

… the accomplishment of walking to the chicken coop with a portable oxygen leash

… wearing jeans for the first time in a month…

Being able to see the baby steps of healing as blessings during the storm… means the storm didn’t win…

… so for me?

I don’t want to lose all of that Covid feeling…

.. and I will no longer be surprised what I can live through.

Joy is fun Snapchats with my family…
covid diaries, Life, Writing

Covid diaries day 6

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All year I heard people say Covid is just a cold…

I’ve have Covid now for 6 days…


I’ve had 3 episodes of 105 temperature… where the shivering is so violent that I thought my bones would break.
I cough up so much solid red junk from my lungs that I can’t move afterwards.

On day 3, I went to the ER for X-rays and CT scans… where I was diagnosed with Covid pneumonia.. I was scheduled immediately for antibody infusions….

…and on day 4… when I couldn’t keep my oxygen above 88… my husband took me to the ER again and dropped me off at the door.

After countless labs and scans… The ER had to call 5 hospitals before they found a hospital an hour away that had ROOM to admit me…

I usually walk 2-4 miles a day in my life…


Today?

Today… I still can’t walk to the bathroom to pee withOUT shaking violently and having to have extra oxygen for the movement.
I almost hyperventilate when I change positions of any type. And then it takes me 20-30 mins to recover.

They found blood clotting factors in my blood work so I’m on blood thinners… and my glucose numbers are abnormally high. I don’t have problems with diabetes…

The headaches and fevers have subsided with the addition treatments… finally

…but my lungs will have a long road to recovery… and that depends on how tomorrow goes.. they say day 6 is pivotal for if you get better .. or worse.

But for me… I think about my kids at home… going through the same illness… doing breathing treatments and monitoring oxygen levels and heart rates… knowing that God has us all in His hands… in His plans…

I’m trusting in Him as I have always done.

But I am so glad that I spent the last year of my life protecting them and the people around me.. from this COVID… This “definitely NOT a cold” virus…

Stay safe out there. And God Bless

Life, Uncategorized, Writing

The foot of the cross..

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Yesterday was Good Friday…

But…?

… but on Facebook it was a strong complaint day.

As I read through the negative reactions to the Governor’s choices and the strong opinions of my fellow man…

… I began to wonder if I was the strange one?

You see?

Good Friday is a “grounding” day for me.

When we are born again in His love? We are urged to go forward and “sin no more”.

But then.. we are reminded that “all HAVE sinned”..

… and that all will sin again…

But yet on a day 1987 (ish) years ago? We are told that God sent His Son to die for those sins.

He died for my sins… from the free choice He gave me…

Every day of the year, I try to go forth and shower God’s love to those around me. Every day I try to do God’s work.

Every day.. I try to connect with God and listen for the sound of His voice.

But on Good Friday?

I sit at the foot of the cross…

An empty cross.. because Jesus isn’t still hanging there. He is alive and risen…

But when I sit at the foot of that cross?

I can check in with myself. I can stare at the shell of my forgiven sins and ask myself if I am doing the best I can…

Am I listening to God’s voice? Am I going where He asks me to? … and not where I want to be sent?

Am I turning away from all temptations? Even the little innocent ones? Am I being strong when I want to relax my guard?

Am I turning to God when I need help? Am I asking Him for His strength instead of powering through on my own weak self?

Or am I telling myself that I need not trouble Him with prayer.. when it is just for me?

Am I kidding myself that I don’t need forgiveness for prideful thoughts.. because they don’t really hurt anyone?

.. no one except me…

Am I making sure that my relationship with God comes first? Then my work in the name of God comes second?

As I sat at the foot of the cross yesterday… I ignored the specks of the world… and I saw the planks in my own eyes…

… but then?

Then I hear Jesus’s words echo through the ages … “Forgive them. For they know not what they do.”

… He forgives me for every sin I added to His cross.

So as I rise from the foot of the cross.. I am ready to celebrate the new life He has given me..

…ready to celebrate the joy and hope from finding the tomb empty…

Life, Memories, Parenting, Writing

Empty chairs…

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This theatre season, my cast worked through enormous obstacles to perform Les Miserables.

And then .. on opening night?

Covid-19 starting shutting down all assembling of groups.

So 10 weeks of hard work.. and the kids were only allowed to perform for their families. The cast was heartbroken… but they wiped their tears… and performed an awe-inspiring opening night.

I could NOT have been more proud.

For me?

This experience is a little surreal…

Surreal in the sense that everything was so different from where we were 2 weeks ago. 2 weeks ago, I was reminding the kids to hang up their costumes and to clean up their own messes.. and to turn in tee shirt money.

And today… I am JUST praying that each of my cast members stays safe and healthy..

And alive…

But it is also surreal for me in the sense… that ALL of my life I have been studying Plagues and epidemics .. and pandemics. The Black Death.. the Spanish flu (that started in The US)… siege sicknesses, the viruses that wiped out the Natives, etc..

Not so much for the illnesses or the deaths… because death and suffering saddens me…

…but how those illnesses.. and the fear… and the chaos affected the people. And how those effects changed the course of history.

How poor people could suddenly own land…

…How our children still sing “Ring around the rosies”.. to ward off evil spirits…

And here we are… smack in the middle of what WILL BECOME history. Someday, kids will be studying about the Covid-19 pandemic of 2019.. and wonder how the “population coped with the terror” and the isolation..

I wonder if the history books will tell how we had a shortage of toilet paper… and no shortage of the conspiracy theories?

Or will the future history books say that the “population” learned from the history books of the past? Will the history books state how we all chose to obey isolation and quarantined ourselves at home?

Will the history books say how we banded together to give each other hope for a future?

Because we WILL have a future.

Even the worst plagues… the survivors dusted off their hats.. picked up the pieces of their lives.. and made a future for themselves.

And little by little?

We learned from them. From the survivors. We learned to wash our hands. We learned to quarantine ourselves if we have been exposed. We learned not to panic.. and not to take the virus to the next town in our panic.

We HAVE so much knowledge at our fingertips THANKS to the records and observations kept of those pandemics in history.

Because we have learned from our history? We find ourselves in quarantine BEFORE it gets too bad. We find ourselves bored and creating funny memes about isolation “cabin fever”.. while we wait for the virus to run it’s course.

But … we will ALSO find ourselves with a better future.

A future that MAY hold graduations later in the summer. A future with delayed vacations.. delayed celebrations ..

A future with strange new school routines.

A future that has changed us all in small ways…

For me? I’m praying that my future has our cast performing Les Miserables when the crisis is over.

And I’m praying that when we hear Marius sing about empty chairs and empty tables… that there are no empty chairs in our community..

I’m praying there are no empty chairs in our cast…

And I’m definitely praying that we did our part enough.. that I won’t have ANY empty chairs in my family.

But even if we never hear our cast sing a song rejoicing in “one day more”… ?

I’m happy that our nation and our schools gave them their best chance at being able to sing another day.

Stay safe everyone! And God be with you!

Life, Memories, Parenting, Writing

.. finished plans

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“.. and it is finished!”

20 years after I started.. I put the last photo in a frame and closed every painful prong..

Flipping it over, I let the memories flood over me as I studied each picture in my daughter’s collage..

Ok ..

It wasn’t really finished. I opened up those painful prongs one more time and straightened a couple pictures .. and… changed places of two..

.. but then it was finished..

When we started this project 20 years ago.. the plan was simple!

Choose 1 picture to represent every year of her life..

Add in her newborn picture and her graduation photo..

Waa Laa… Easy peasy plan… and Go!

At the time I made that plan? I’d only been a parent for a year.. with my second on the way.

BWAHAHAHA…

I had no idea what life had in store for me… how big my adventures with my kids would be.. NO idea how big my kids’ personalities would be..

I had NO idea how many pictures we would take each year..

After 5 years? … after only 5 years, the task of only picking 1 picture was too daunting.. and I did not chose that year.

The rule of no one else in the photos was quickly set aside.. and the rule against school photos.. gone..

The plan was to display this collage at my daughter’s graduation.. but it wasn’t finished ..

So the new plan was to finish it before the open house. I pulled 200 pictures to fill 20 slots..

Sooooo….?

So.. the new plan was to fill board after board with pictures that represented my daughter’s life… for the open house… then I’d finish the collage later…

..That was 2 years ago…

This morning I was supposed to be cleaning.. because we have a houseful of guests coming to celebrate the New Year with us!

..so naturally ..

I pulled that collage down and started pulling pictures to put in each year’s slot.

I started pulling one picture for each missing year.. but they didn’t fit the sized pictures I needed… they weren’t following the rules.. and it still wasn’t working the way I planned..

The more I sorted?

.. the more I realized…

Life doesn’t follow rules.. and it doesn’t take plans into consideration…

So instead.. ?

I started pulling the pictures that showed the light in her eyes .. the ones that emphasized her beautiful soul… and sense of humor..

.. and before I knew it… ?

It was finished..

Parenting is like that…

Parenting doesn’t follow rules.. and it doesn’t take plans into consideration…

We started out with ideas.. a road map.. an “easy peasy” plan for success..

.. and then we went off-roading.. so far off road that our parenting job could not be more different from what we thought..

But .. you know what??

I think it’s better than what we planned..

This life? …it is so beautiful…

I have a collage full of pictures to prove it..

Life

That still small voice…

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reflectionsI have always believed that the “still small whisper” in your mind is God trying to guide you along the path he has chosen for you. I try to listen for it, I do… When I hear more than 1 reference to a topic, I research it.. When I get a strong feeling to call someone I do.. When I meet with obstacle after obstacle on a self-chosen path in my life, I start to wonder if God means for me to go in a different direction. My whole life could be described as “Looking for the Signs”… But I like to say I listen for God all around me.

Sometimes, my head is so full of thinking or worrying.. even while praying.. that I forget to empty my thoughts and listen. “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalms 46:10)… I am really good at knowing who my God is.. the Being Still part I get rusty on. So God sends Megaphones into my life.

For example.. I’ve had 3 separate people this week tell me to get out of my warm house and warm car, to GET a library card. NOW, my family LOVES the library. But both times we went to get a card, there were obstacles.. so it got shuffled to the end of my to-do list.. But after 3 distinct messages? I call that a Megaphone. So Simon and I went to the Library yesterday. He was so happy. I didn’t realize how much he missed it.

I have a few friends that are regularly used for Megaphones in my life. God uses one particular friend the most often.. why this one in particular you ask? Because God KNOWS that I love to hit the snooze button. What is a snooze button in life you ask? You know, “I am busy right now, I will think about that later.” SNOOZE “That is going to take some time to accomplish, I will schedule time next week.” SNOOZE… or my favorite, “I think you have the wrong number.” SNOOZE

My favorite Megaphone? Well let’s just say God let her in on my “snooze” life style.. so she is very persistent. “I think you should blog,” she says. “Here is a blog on why you should blog,” she says. “Here is a blog on HOW to get started with blogging,” she says. So I FINALLY get it. I hear God’s voice through the Megaphone of my sweet friend’s persistent voice. But still I say.. I don’t have time today.. maybe next week.. So what does GOD say?? “Have a snow day! Will that give you enough time?” (SILENCE) Should be plenty God, thanks..

So I need to make “Being still” more of a priority in my life. I need to spend a portion of my time, not just reading my daily devotional, that is zapped to my phone for my convenience.. but being still. Letting my body be still. Letting my tongue be still. Letting my thoughts be still.

I think I will start tomorrow. Because today God used a Megaphone, and I will be setting up my blog..