Family, is there anything more important?

This weekend my sister, Gay, and I worked together on our family and friends reunion set for May 11-12. This Gathering is for the descendants of Coy Lee and Lois Robison Council, both born in the early 1900s. We have invited relatives and friends who are not direct descendants, but who have touched our lives. 

I am happy that my husband's brother's children are coming and will bring their children. Family members are bringing friends to spend the weekend at the lovely resort where we will gather. We have a new baby in the family and I look forward to meeting him for the first time. 

Jon Beall on Silver, the greatest little pony ever

We have a cousin from New Port Richy,  FL who is making the drive. She is special to me. We don't see each other often, but when we do we love to talk and laugh together. Her mother and her grandmother were close to our family. Some of my fondest recollections from my youth was when Aunt Annie and Vivian visited  They brought music and laughter with them. In those days when there was no TV gobbling up everyone's time, the family sat around the supper table and talked. Afterward, Aunt Annie would play guitar and sing. Vivian, her daughter harmonized beautifully. I was very young at that time, but I remember the haunting ballads and the funny, clever songs they sang.

Gay and I have gone through boxes and albums of old photos, and I must have scanned and posted over one hundred for a slide show presentation. Seeing those pictures brought back so many wonderful memories and also brought back the sadness of losing my brothers and my sister, June. Once we were seven.

Glenda and Gay, sisters, who can accomplish almost anything together

Now only three of us remain and my last brother is in very serious condition. I tell him he must be there for The Gathering to tell us one of his wonderful stories. He wants to be there and I pray he will be able to come.

Family of storytellers

My family has always been full of stories and we have always had good story tellers to share them. As I get older I understand even more how precious family is to us. No matter how much we might have disagreed or argued over things we thought were important, the love we have for each other is all that really matters. I talked with my brother today and missed that happy, pleasant man I've always known, I heard the weakness in his voice, the concern for his health, and the appreciation he has for those who help him. A thoughtful relative brought food. His sons are trying to make his life as easy as possible by setting up a hospital bed downstairs for him. Everyone is worried.

I was there a few days ago and wish I could be there to care for him, but we live miles apart. He said my visit made him feel better. I hope so. It made me feel better to see him, to go with him to his doctor, to talk with his sons and try to help them as best I could. 

Life is short

I hope if you are estranged from a loved one, a brother or sister, a parent, you will reach out to them and forgive them if they have hurt you, because, in the big scheme of things, is that what really matters? Even if they don't forgive and forget, you will feel better knowing you have. 

Creativity, a Healing process

My father and mother when they were young and happy, never knowing what would happen in their senior years.

Today while exercising all alone in my "private pool" at Brasstown Resort, I thought about the lowest points in my life and how certain people appeared and showed me the way out of my despair. Both these people were creative women.

In 1975 my mother collapsed with a ruptured aneuryism that bled into her brain. Our family was decimated by this sudden event. After months in the hospital she recovered enough to come home. She knew none of us at first and thought my father was her Papa.
My family pulled together and worked out ways of sharing responsibility for the first six months. By then she had recovered but was left with no short term memory. My sisters had to go back to their families, my brothers had a business to run.
Over the next ten years I took care of her with the help of a good woman who came in half a day every day of the week. I deeply grieved for the mother who was gone, but loved the mother who was more like a daughter to me. That decade was exquisitely torturous. I adored the times I had with Mother telling me about her childhood, my father's young years, but I became depressed with all the responsibility and being on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. I felt I'd had to give up my own life.
I was fortunate to find a wonderful art teacher who reached down and lifted me up from my despair. That was when I learned the healing power of creativity. In class I became absorbed in her teaching and my painting. Happiness settled over me like a warm and comforting blanket, and I left the studio every week smiling. Verna became a dear friend and shared her story of creativity healing.
When Verna's husband died, she was lost for a time, not knowing what she should do with her life. Trained as an artist, she decided to open an art studio for beginners, and through creating lesson plans and teaching others to paint, she became renewed. She healed herself. Her students adored her humor, her warmth and her caring way of teaching. I could never repay her for what she did for me.

My mother died in 1985 and once again I spiraled into despair. Verna had remarried and given up her studio. I seldom mustered the motivation to paint. I couldn't find anything I wanted to do that helped me with my grief. My husband saw my suffering and eventually he and my brother Hal made it possible for us to move to Clay County NC where Barry could continue with the company.
Once again a special person came into my life. Nancy Simpson, poet and teacher, called me one evening. Through her classes, I began writing on a regular basis and publishing my work. Because of her and Linda Smith, a fellow writer, I attended the Netwest critique groups, I signed up for writing classes at JCCFS and found that I loved learning in this non-threatening environment. Every chance I had I took a class, poetry, essay writing with Steve Harvey, memoir with Ruth Zefuss, classes with Carol Crawford, many poetry classes with Nancy Simpson and others. My creative juices poured out on the page and endorphins rushed to my brain and chased away the darkness.

Today I am happy although we have been fighting "The Beast" for months now. After a few months of losing the ability to focus on anything but my husband's illness, I am once again excited about creating poetry, essays, articles and now I'm learning photography.

I would advise anyone who is down in the dumps and can't seem to get back up, to take a class, learn something new, engage your passion in whatever you can do that is creative and will make the brain concentrate on building or making something new, something that is unique. Our self worth increases when we create anything that is of our on invention. People live longer who have hobbies or work that absorbs them in the process of doing. The hours fly by so fast you hardly know it when you get involved in a task or a project. Nothing makes me feel as good as a finished story or poem. Whether I mail it or put it away in a file, I am fulfilled.
Indulge your creativity and find a new life, a happy life and if you can share this with others, the joy grows more and more.