When I was (close to) four-years-old, I started taking piano lessons.

I remember the wife of one of our farm hands coming over to give me lessons.

"Curve your hands, don't let them lay flat like a pancake!"

I still have all my old piano books. They are stored in a box, along with my dolls and stuffed animals that I couldn't give up.

I kept playing as I grew up, but I didn't really have a choice in the matter. My mom never played, and always wished she'd learned. My father had been given lessons early on (by his mother), and he finally took up stick ball and didn't keep up with the practice. He also said his hands got 'too big'. I believe this. At 49, he was 6'5" and 240 lb.

Me? I hated theory. I hated practicing. I hated giving up afternoons to drive to a nearby towns to practice. yet. again. And oh, how I hated the recitals. Getting up to play "Fur Elise" in front of a crowd full of bored parents and crying siblings? Ugh.

And then church! Living in a small town, if you could play, you'd get stuck playing anything from "specials on Sunday" to "ooops, can you play for the Choir?". I would give up my Wednesday nights to sit in the Church Fellowship Hall, playing another round of "How Great Thou Art". By playing those 'specials', though, you earned a sweet little note from Pearl or Mabel. They would tell you what a wonderful job you did, and how you absolutely made the Lord very happy. I still have those notes saved. Pearl passed away recently. She was my 3-4 year old Sunday School teacher, as well.

I loved the piano, but I hated it, still. I wanted to do other things. I wasn't necessarily GOOD at those other things, but anything other than sitting down, back straight, hands curved. And I'm not even sure I was good at that. In fact, I wasn't. I liked playing the piano with a leg up on the piano bench ...

In High School, my dad saw a poster on the school wall advertising for a piano player for a local family museum. Not just any museum, of course. This museum required you to dress up like a Can-Can Dancer and play Ragtime tunes. Had I even in my life played Joplin? No. But I'm great at bullshitting. During my audtion, I sight read "12th Street Rag" and got the job.

And for the new few summers, I dressed like this and played the piano in the summers for the Can-Can shows:



My Junior and Senior Year in High School, I drove an hour and half north to a small town to meet with a woman who would later become my maid of honor in my wedding. She taught my voice and piano lessons. And yet again, I hated Theory and chose to sight read my way through all of my music. Much easier that way, I deducted.

And with that thought process, I won a lot of competitions and knocked out some pretty big piano pieces. I went to college. I got a nice piano, vocal and (okay) theater scholarship. I got to college, and thought, "You know, I don't want to do this". And I think had I been bold enough to tell my parents this, they would have shot me dead.

I was tired of playing the piano.

There was a classmate of mine who played Billy Joel. And she blew me away every time. I remember listening to her play during a school Talent Show, and I cried. I'd never seen such passion in piano playing. (Sidenote: Dinah died two years ago in a horrible car accident, but when I wrote her parents to express my sympathies, I talked about that night she played). My dorm roommate played like an angel, too. Still does. Leads the music worship team for the church she attends in Kansas

I didn't have that. To them, it just came naturally. To me, I wanted to have fun, play what felt right, not be told what to play and how to play it. In a way, I felt like Tori Amos. And why? She went to school, she didn't dig the vibe, she got kicked out. She was my hero. And around this time, she had just released "Little Earthquakes". So, of course, every song spoke to my 'tortured soul'.

"You see, I'm not music theory smart. To me, it's an internal, instinctive thing. It's like, I don't care if this is making mathematical sense, I am not creaming. If I'm really honest, looking back, I wanted my father to be proud of me. But I couldn't do it in that way, because it has to be in your soul to be a great concert pianist." ~ Tori Amos

I decided to give up on piano, but stick with vocal. I got a part in the musical "Into the Woods" during Iterim Break, and I had a blast. I also met a very cute college boy with a sweet Oklahoma draaaawl who told me "you got nice eyes". My knees buckled, the Earth moved, and I fell a tiny bit in love then with a guy named Matt from Oklahoma.

Fast forward a few years - I am out of college. I still played for weddings.

But, only one funeral was for a very dear, old friend of mine named Melvin. He drove the CO-OP truck, would come to our home and refill the propane, etc. We'd see him coming and say, "Sweet Melvin!". He'd bring suckers to myself and my brother. Sweet, of course, because he was sweet, but that was his last name, as well. He was a deacon in my church. And the last time I saw him before he died, he said, "Please sing and play for my funeral". I told him I would. Was one of the hardest things I've done, but I did it for Melvin.

I started writing music. I started expressing myself through lyrics and song. I spent hours at the piano, making music I thought someday would turn me into the next Tori, the next someone.

And one day ... I just quit. I put together my song books and I put them away. I had a beautiful piano to play, but I didn't. I burned out again. I got busy with a new baby and keeping up with life. Sitting down at the piano didn't feel right. I felt forced again to make right with something I'd let go.




But lately ...

I've been feeling the need to sit, and introduce myself to my piano. Quietly. Sometimes in the middle of the day, when the house is silent, I sit down on the bench and think. I don't play; I just think.

I think about the time I was playing "Sea of Love" and my dad stood in the doorway of the room in my old house, against the door jam, just listening. He'd gotten up from his office chair, walked down the hall, to my room to listen. And I'm reminded that even through all the wrong notes and "apologies" for the obvious technical mistakes I was making, he didn't care. He loved listening to me play.

And I'm reminded that at one time - a long time ago - it was therapeutic to play. That it was a conversation between myself and an instrument, that my hands would play the notes and my mind would think of other things, and make sense of those things.

And that words moved the heart to move the pen and write songs that made me feel better, to put said emotions into perspective. And that now - maybe again - those feelings are stirred and need to be recorded once more...

Labels: dad, love thursday, piano, tori amos

I was digging through a stack of photos today (while I should be packing for our trip tomorrow, but whatever) and came across this photo:



The picture has three of my very favorite things:

1. My dad
2. My doll
3. My (new) cowboy boots

You'll notice the HOT outfit I have on. And by "hot", I mean, "My mom made my clothes". It was most certainly a rarity to find Little HDW in anything other than that ensemble. I would trudge around in the muck and mud on the farm, behind my dad. He was dirty, so I should be dirty, too.

I also found this picture, taken the night before my high school graduation:



The father of a daughter is nothing but a high-class hostage. A father turns a stony face to his sons, berates them, shakes his antlers, paws the ground, snorts, runs them off into the underbrush, but when his daughter puts her arm over his shoulder and says, "Daddy, I need to ask you something," he is a pat of butter in a hot frying pan. ~Garrison Keillor

Labels: daddy, love thursday

I have absolutely no memory growing up of feeling like I could just go up and hug my grandpa (my dad's dad). It's not that he didn't love us, but he just wasn't the overly emotional 'touchy feely' kinda guy. And that was fine. He said Prayer at our family dinners, discussed farming, then fell asleep in his chair in the living room after dinner.

After my dad died, my grandpa became a lot more emotional. He had just retired (like DAYS before) and was putting the suitcases into the car to take a trip to visit family in Idaho when my mom called to tell him my dad had a heart attack. By the time they reached the hospital, my dad was gone.

My grandpa came out of that retirement to help continue running the farm and ranch he had helped my dad build. He'd talk about my dad and get choked up. He still didn't really offer much in the way of "I love you's" or what not, but still, we knew.

This past weekend at the reunion, I marveled at my son. He didn't know any of these unspoken rules we have on that side of the family. He walked right up to my grandpa, squeezed his legs and said, "I LOVE YOU!!" and walked off.



And he didn't stop there. He hugged every relative he could his hands on. He was full of love and had plenty to give.

I have another photo of my son hugging my grandpa, right after he'd finished hugging my grandmother. Because faces are involved, I'm not posting it ... but the absolute JOY on my grandparents face just makes me so very happy. They were beaming.

I love that unsolicited love so very much. It was a good reminder to me. And lately, my son's been a pretty good teacher.


"Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom."

Marcel Proust

Labels: family reunion, love thursday, the bug

While we try to teach our children all about life,
Our children teach us what life is all about.
~Angela Schwindt

The Bug and I went to the Butterfly Pavilions earlier this week.

We happened to go when a summer camp full of First Grade kids were there. My son held my hand when I asked (and when I didn't), waited his turn, said 'excuse me' (or 'scmoo me!') if he wanted a turn, and appropriately told a woman who tried to open the butterfly's wings (pictured above) that, "NO! DON'T TOUCH!" - after I'd reminded him not to as well.

I have marveled this week at my child. He's been absolutely a stitch to be around. He's obedient and funny and sweet and kind. He really has such a great personality, and in the last few weeks, it's coming through. I am really quite proud of who he is becoming.

I was sick with a headache on Monday night. I was lying on the couch, with my head propped up by a towel. Bug came by and yanked out the towel. I started to get really upset with him, and he patted my head, put HIS treasured blankie down over my head, gave my arm a kiss, and said, "There, Mommy. You ALL better now!". (He also reminded me to 'go see the doctor' and 'drink water'!)

I would have cried if I could have.

I am so geuinely proud of him and who he is becoming. I know he'll grow up faster than I'd like. I am his best buddy right now. When he had lunch together at the Diner, he wanted to sit next to me. We shared a coke, had french fries, and colored. It was a perfect date.

And I'm sure I'll be left wondering how it went so fast, and remembering what it was like 'back then' - and I hope when I do think back, I remember these moments. And my god, how I hope he stays sweet.

Every day is asks me, "Mommy, do you love The Bug?" and I say, "Of course! I love you and will forever and forever".

And then I hug him, and kiss him, and hope my love carries him forever.

"Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see." ~John W. Whitehead, The Stealing of America, 1983

Labels: love thursday, the bug and mommy

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear."

Ambrose Redmoon

I've posted before about my best friend, ElJefe. I've posted a lot of times about him, but I am too lazy to look for anymore posts.

We've been friends since roughly 1996. I had moved to a town where I knew no one. He was one of the first people I met. I determined he was someone I didn't want to lose touch with, and so I made it my personal mission to stay in touch with him.

And more than a decade later, we talk almost daily. We've both gotten married. We've supported each other. We've kicked each other's asses. We've been good friends to each other.


Yesterday morning, he called to tell me a story. And he usually calls around 8:30 in the morning, weekends included, to tell me 'stories'. I wasn't prepared for this one:

He and his friend went to the river on Sunday. They got into some trouble on the river. They got tossed out of their boat at a place where there's a headgate - swirling water, big hole, that pretty much sucks you and everything into it. They were fighting against getting pulled in.

ElJefe said he looked over and saw his friend with "real tears" in his eyes. And he said, "I thought, 'Man, he thinks he's gonna drown! And then it occurred to me that no, he thinks I'M gonna drown! I looked back and saw I was five feet from the point of dying, and realized he was right'".

They got out, but watched everything get sucked into this hole: the boat, the oars, the cooler, everything. They said it took two hours to get the boat back out. It would suck the boat into the headgate for thirty minutes, and spit it out, and suck it back in. They said they recovered one oar and the boat, but everything else was gone and NEVER SEEN AGAIN.

Later, they found out a mutual friend's high school buddy had died there. Body never recovered.

That almost was ElJefe. His buddy told him later that they were going down together; he wasn't going to let him go. And I believe it truly. They have been friends since elementary school. They love each other like brothers. ElJefe has always said he has that friend and me - and we are the two best friends he has.

And I'm thankful on all accounts for the way Sunday turned out. I'm thankful they had enough upper body strength to get out. I'm thankful they had angels on their side. I am completely and totally thankful my best friend is still alive.

I told him I couldn't imagine a world without him in it, and I meant that sincerely. So thank you to the friend with him, thank you to whomever or whatever else reached out and kept my friend alive. He was meant for more than this.


ElJefe and My Bug, 2004

"Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art.... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival." ~C.S. Lewis

Labels: eljefe, friendship, love thursday

Young Hillary: Be sure to keep in touch C.C. ok?
Young C.C.: Well sure we're friends aren't we?



Dear ETK,

Remember, in the Fifth Grade, when you showed up for the class the first day at our school and my classmates were making fun of your outfit? I went and stood by you because I didn't want you to be alone (and TJ made fun of MY outfit, too, called me Elvis). We were best friends after that. There hasn't been a day in my life I don't count you as one of my best friends, and it doesn't matter how much time passes, how many days between phone calls or letters.

You are stronger than you ever give yourself credit for. Look at much you've had to handle in the last few years! It hasn't been easy, I know, and you've made it look effortless. You need to take the time to take care of yourself now. There's no harm in realizing you can't do it all alone, that your arms are tired of holding up the ceiling.

You'll get back on track. You'll figure out what you need to. We all fall down. And when you're down, that's when you call on your friends. I'm glad you called me. And I will always be your friend. I can't imagine a world without you in it, you know. I will always champion you and I'll never not be by your side.

"A faithful friend is a strong defense: and he that hath found such an one hath found a treasure." ~Ecclesiasticus 6:14

I love you like a sister, you know,
Me

Labels: friendship, love thursday

It's Love Thursday!

And what better way to celebrate Mother's Day than a Love Thursday post ...

I love this picture of myself and The Bug. We were in Telluride, CO on our first family trip since having him. We were headed up the gondola, heading to dinner at a nice place. I felt human for the first time in months. I remember thinking it was possible I wouldn't be tired forever, that I would wear makeup and maybe, just maybe, complete full sentences again.

It's been three years since he was born. I can't remember really what life was like before The Bug. When he was born, I was born. I wasn't a mother until he arrived. I guess we started out on this journey together - both were pretty new at this.

I've messed things up. He's been pretty good about forgiving such things. We've fumbled through all of this together - late night feedings, diaper blow-outs, crying jags (uh ... his AND mine), scraped knees, the like.

The Bug is three now. He tells me all sorts of stories. Lately, he'd decided that staying in bed is for the weak; he'll get up and check out the party we're having once that door shuts to his room. He's sauntered down the hall to tell us he has holes in his jammies, that the dinosaur he's sleeping with is cool, that he made a robot out of blocks once. Last night, he got out of bed to tell me he'd tooted. You know, keeping mommy in the loop and all.

It's entirely rewarding to have been a mother, and of course, especially because I'm a mom to this little guy. When he throws his arms around my neck and professes his love for me, I melt. Even when he's wandering through the entire house screaming, "MOMMYMOMMYMOMMY!" only to find me and 'give' me a booger he'd saved, I couldn't be happier. (not to have the booger, necessarily, but ...)

Being a mother is a harder job than ANY I've had before. You are on duty 24/7. You don't get breaks. You think for yourself, your child. You are on alert at all times; you do not rest. You don't sleep peacefully; one ear is always open to listen for the pitter patter of feet coming to alert you about bodily functions.

So ... Happy Mother's Day to all of you who have children, have lost children, have gained children. Happy Mother's Day to my biological mom, to the mothers I have found a long the way that continue still to help me on this journey.

You are appreciated, you are needed, and you are most certainly loved.

"One of the very few reasons I had any respect for my mother when I was thirteen was because she would reach into the sink with her bare hands - bare hands - and pick up that lethal gunk and drop it into the garbage. To top that, I saw her reach into the wet garbage bag and fish around in there looking for a lost teaspoon. Bare hands - a kind of mad courage."

~Robert Fulghum

Labels: a kind of mad courage, love thursday, mother's day

I had a Love Thursday planned today, had it all written out in my head, and then I got a phone call yesterday morning that changed my path for the post today.

When I was in the Fourth Grade, a new family moved to town. They had come from Nebraska. I remember they had a dog named Husker. They had a daughter that would be in our class. She was really shy, but an incredible athlete and an even better than incredible artist. We became fast friends.

Yesterday, her sister-in-law called to tell me Julie's mom had died this week. She had to leave it on my voice mail. I checked the messages as we were getting ready to board the airplane from Vegas yesterday.

Apparently, her mom had gone in to the ER three weeks ago with a nasty sideache. Turned out the ache was cancer, and the tumor had affected her colon, ovaries, liver. Within a week, the tumor spread to her lungs and brain. She was only 56.

My love today is being sent to Nebraska, to a little town I haven't heard of, where at this exact moment, my childhood friend is burying her mother.

I hate that I cannot be there with her now. When my dad died, she hitched a ride with a guy from our class that she hated more than life itself to get to the funeral. When I sit down to write her a card later today, I hope she'll know how hard it was for me that I couldn't be there with her. It's killing me.

I have no pictures to post; I can't find one suitable. I have a friend right now crying, and it breaks my heart I can't be there to hold her up.

This will be the passage I include her card today. It was read at my father's funeral, and I think it's incredibly prolific:

"I am standing by the seashore.
A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze
and starts for the blue ocean.
She is an object of beauty and strength,
and I stand and watch
until at last she hangs like a peck of white cloud
just where the sun and sky come down to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says, 'There she goes!
Gone where? Gone from my sight - that is all.

She is just as large in mast and hull and spar
as she was when she left my side
and just as able to bear her load of living freight
to the places of destination.
Her diminished size is in me, not in her.

And just at the moment when someone at my side says,
'There she goes!
there are other eyes watching her coming,
and other voices ready to take up the glad shout :
'Here she comes!' "

~ Henry Van Dyke
1852-1933

I love you, Jules.

Labels: love thursday, passage of immortality

"We've been in and out of love and in between
And now we've played the final showdown scene
As the credits roll the sad song starts to play
this is where the cowboy rides away
And my heart is sinking like the setting sun
setting on the things I wish I'd done
Oh the last goodbye's the hardest one to say
this is where the cowboy rides away ..."

~ George Strait

Labels: grandy don, love thursday, they don't make cowboys like that anymore

"Why are there so many songs about rainbows
and what's on the other side?
Rainbows are visions, but only illusions,
and rainbows have nothing to hide.
So we've been told and some choose to believe it.
I know they're wrong, wait and see.
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection.
The lovers, the dreamers and me ..."

Labels: home, love thursday, rainbows

This is my front porch ...

Labels: love thursday, porch

I love stumbling across old photos.

This photo is of me and my first college roommate in 1994, in a small town in middle of Kansas. We had a lot in common. We were both music majors, both adopted. We had a great quirky sense-of-humor together. I adored her.





And then, in typical 18-year-old catty female behavior, we had a falling out. I moved into another room down the hall, and she stayed in our old room. A few weeks later, my dad died. And she found out she was pregnant. I moved away from school. She stayed to finish out the year, I believe, then moved away.



Ending a friendship was painful, but the way THAT friendship ended really bothered me for a lot of years, but we were both going through our own trials, we didn't fix what was broken, we didn't know how yet to reach out to the other during those times. We both hurt, but for entirely different reasons. I will always regret not being there for her more during that time in her life. I can respect, though, that I didn't have the insight or maturity to help like I would or could now.



Almost five years later, I sat down to write her an apology letter. I told her how badly I felt for what I'd done to her. It was silly, I said, and completely childish. I told her I didn't expect a letter in return, but wanted her to know that I hadn't meant what I'd said, and truly was hoping she, her husband and son were doing alright.



Some time passed, and I had a letter from her in my mailbox with a photo of their son on Santa's lap. In her letter, she accepted my apology and gave her own. She said, "We were young and immature. Please don't worry about it anymore!". I remember feeling a weight lift off my shoulders and my heart. We've stayed in touch since, sending our respective families Christmas cards and an occasional email during the year.


Life throws curves, and although it might steady out for a bit, the hits don't stop. I've learned to deal with them better. I take better care of my friendships. I have learned humility and the act of forgiveness. I learned, too, that in each curve, there's almost a new hand reaching out to help you up. Had it not been for that falling out, sadly, I wouldn't have met my second roommate - one who has been a champion in my life and someone I love dearly. She was the friend I needed to lean on when my dad died a few weeks later. She could hold me up, offer a hand, and good words.


I see this picture, and I see many things (other than those god awful ugly pants - my lord!). Most importantly, though, I've learned a lot, but I know I have a lot more to learn as I go ...


"I gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which I must stop and look fear in the face .... I say to myself, 'I've lived through this and can take the next thing that comes along' ....We must do the thing we think we cannot do." - Eleanor Roosevelt, former First Lady

Labels: friendship, love thursday, memories

My family moved about seven miles straight down a country road when I was four. We built a house up on a hill. And about a half of a mile down, the little dirt road happened to go right by my cousin's house. I couldn't have asked for a better path to friendship.

My cousin and I are four months apart in age. She was really my first playmate. Our mom's would get together and make sweet iced tea, take lunches to their husband's in the field, and we'd tag along. We rode our bikes down that country road and met halfway at the irrigation pump. We'd make castles in the old lumber and brick piles, and take turns pounding on our respective siblings .

We went to Elementary School together. We shared the same piano teacher and endured endless piano recitals. We suffered through Junior High, too. Somewhere in there, her mom and dad (my dad's brother) got a divorce. I remember my uncle taking off and my dad being the one to drive down that dirt road to their house to fix broken pipes, and once, to take a fried mouse out of my aunt's dryer.

Not long after, my aunt (who at the time had a teaching degree) decided to become an Elementary School Principal. She studied, got her degree, and they moved a few hours south of where we'd grown up together. It broke my heart. To think of someone new living in their house? Awfully hard.

We stayed in touch some through High School. I thought it was awesome that she lived in a bigger town, had (gasp!) fast food joints and a whole new selection of cute boys. She suddenly had all these new friends and I felt a little left in the dust.

After my dad died (the winter after we graduated High School), I didn't have anywhere to go. I didn't want to live anymore with my mom; she was taking her grief out on me with her fists. My cousin called one day and asked if I'd be willing to move in with her at the apartment she had in a city a few hours away.

I think I started packing before I finished the phone call.

I'll always be indebted to her for that chance, too. I was stuck in a pair of concrete shoes and didn't want where to go or what to do at that time in my life. She opened a door for me, and I never looked back.

She lives in Texas now. We're both married with a child. When we talk on the phone (like yesterday afternoon), it turns into a two hour laugh-fest. I always hang up knowing we had tons more to say.




"We've been friends forever. I suppose that can't be true. There must have been a time before we became friends but I can't remember it. You are in my first memory and all my best memories ever since." ~ Linda MacFarlane

Labels: love thursday

I have one nephew, otherwise known as Little P. He is not little anymore, of course. We celebrated his seventh birthday in December, and I found myself pretty misty-eyed. I have no idea how time flew by so fast.

When he was born, my brother and his girlfriend were warring. While they fought and screamed at each other in the other room, I held this little tiny itty bitty bundle of love and sang him my standard lullaby for a baby: Baby Mine from Dumbo.

"Baby mine, don't you cry ... baby mine, dry your eyes ... rest your head close to my heart, never to part, baby of mine ....".

Through a series of unfortunate events, my brother came to have P full-time and has court appointed full custody of him. He is the parent responsible for everything in P's life. His mom has bailed and at last check, has a new baby and moved to North Dakota without telling anyone here, specifically P. At one point, she was living with a strange man, and he had shaved P's head and made him sleep on a mattress with no blankets, and had taken away the one thing my brother had given him: his bear-bear. About then, I flew into a rage. Not long after, Little P came to live with my brother.

I also heard this song by Liz Phair about then:

"Dig little digger, don't be shy
You saw your mother with another guy
You think you'll tell her that she's one of a kind, you say
My Mother is mine
You put your trucks up on the bed next to him
So he can get a better look at them, you say
This ones my favorite one, this one you can't have
I got it from my Dad, you say
I got it from my Dad .."

Because my brother had Little P full-time, they started spending a lot of time at our house. My mom and I pitched in and essentially became the full-time mother figures for him. When I came home from the hospital with my son, Little P was upset and told me to "please put him back". It was the hardest thing in the world for me to hear, but I didn't want him to EVER feel I would leave him, too. Instead, I gave my son to my husband, and P and I went downstairs to watch "Toy Story" together.

My brother, for all of his quirks and crazy behavior, is a fantastic father. Little P isn't little anymore. He's incredibly smart. He's funny. He's kind. He's respectful. He has manners. He's my little buddy.

I hope he understands as time goes on that he is loved by so many people. It will never replace a mother's love, but she wasn't and isn't capable of being a good mother or loving anyone, including herself. I hope he knows that his Aunt HDW would move a mountain to make sure he was okay. He already owns a big part of my heart and that will never, ever change.

Labels: Little P, love thursday

"The loneliest woman in the world is a woman without a close woman friend." ...

but how lucky I am not to be lonely!



My trip to visit the beautiful and funny Fyrchk in DC this weekend has been postponed. Fyrchk lost her uncle today to cancer, and as we all know, cancer is a dirty bitch. She will be spending the weekend instead with family and attending the funeral of a wonderful man.

My Love Thursday today is in honor of my wunnerful friend, Fyrchk (and if you want to see a bit of Fyrchk, that's her hot sex foot in the middle).

Mama, I want to reach through the wires and hug you something silly! I feel so very bad for you. Your uncle was an incredible man and put up an valiant fight against an unforgiving disease.

I am so lucky to have collided with you in the most unusual way and to have been lucky enough to have forged down this road of Friendship with you. You make my heart happy and crack up my soul! I'm looking forward to many more years of this friendship we share (skipping over maybe Wee Jimmy and the "I'm So Pretty" crap).

Lots of love to you, Mama!!

~ HDW

"When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares. - Henri Nouwen"

Labels: friendship, fyrchk, love thursday

If you have it [Love], you don't need to have anything else, and if you don't have it, it doesn't matter much what else you have.
Sir James M. Barrie


Dear Bug,

Do you know you are truly the owner of my heart? I wouldn't have believed in love at first unless they'd laid you in my arms, wiggling and crying, almost three years ago. You are absolutely a riot to be around. When you held up the cup and said, "Daddy, what color this?" and when he answered correctly, you said, "Good boy, Daddy! Give five!!" - and I nearly fell off the bed laughing.

You amaze me every day with your interest in making sure everyone is okay - you are a true champion of the underdog. You melt my heart into a thousand pieces when you see me cry and say, "You 'kay, mommy?? You 'kay?". You then take my face into your hands and wait intently to know for sure if I am or not. And after I cut my finger YET AGAIN the other night, and I said that I just wasn't okay, you went to get your blankie and offered me the only other thing that brings you comfort. I'd like to think I'm still the first, you know.

Bug, you light up my world and I can't imagine my life before you. I'm not sure I lived until you came into my world, really.

Happy Valentine's Day, my little man. Don't grow up too fast, too soon.

Love,
Mommy





here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)”

e.e. cummings, 1894-1962

Labels: love thursday, Valentines Day

Eek!

It was twelve years ago yesterday that my dad died. I didn't know what to post today. I've done a lot of posts about him.

And then it occurred to me - I found a stack of letters sent to us after he died, from friends and family, and this one in particular was something I felt compelled to share.

It's written by his cousin Bruce, a month or so after Dad died:

"Dear Family,

I'm sorry I'm such a lousy letter writer. Please know my prayers are a lot more consistent, and those will be much more frequent in the future.

It was a shock to me. HDW'sDad was so solid, so strong, so natural as force for good. He has always been one of my heroes.

Growing up, I watch him combine with Cousin Dan to do impossible feats on the playing field. I knew I was a witness to one of the greats - because he lived the whole life; body, mind and spirit.

Once in Geometry class, he actually told Mr. Berry that he hadn't a clue how Mr. Berry got that answer. As it turned out, neither did Mr. Berry, but the lesson for me was: never be afraid to admit your honest ignorance AND never accept blame for being ignorant when you are giving it your best shot.

I think his legendary status came from his will-power. No matter what the task, he focused on it and gave it his best effort: practice, planning, preparing and a ton of determination. Nobody bats 1.000 for the season, but I don't remember HD'sDad ever striking out - perhaps because he was my hero; but I believe it's because he always came back. He was determined to meet the ball with every fiber of his being. He could not be beaten. The perfect game? I saw a dozen. More. He always came back because he believed in making every move he could, standing on his beliefs, stating when he knew and what he didn't, and running the path he knew to be fair and honest and straightforward.

In this, fate seems to be trying to win by calling the game, a shocking tactic, but HD'sDad wins again, because he leaves us all a much better world for having seen and felt his living of life. I want more, and someday, Thank Jesus, I'll have it in heaven. Meanwhile, I know HD'sDad is hollering at me to step up to the plate.

Your cousin, Bruce"

Cousin Bruce pictured at left with my dad (my dad being the taller of the two). They had gone fishing, and you can somewhat make out their 'catches' in the middle of the stick they're holding.








"And when we're gone long gone
The only thing that will have mattered
Is the love that we shared
And the way that we cared
When we're gone, long gone ..."

"When We're Gone, Long Gone" - Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt

Labels: daddy, love thursday, old letter