The Power of Love

“When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.”                                                 ---Jimi Hendrix   

I have been sick for the past week and ended up watching TV when I was not sleeping. With current news on all channels, I found it hard to watch anything that was not depressing.

While scrolling I found a conversation between Trevor Noah and a man named Simon Sinek. Evidently, Simon is widely known for his podcasts. I enjoy Trevor Noah and his outstanding memoir Born a Crime, so I tuned into the podcast. It was long but I was caught up in their conversation and didn't realize how long it was. 

The deep conversation between the two of them was an education for me. They talked about their fears, most embarrassing moments, what they liked, and didn't like, and what they had in common. 

They discussed that few men have these big conversations where they are vulnerable with each other. Simon said he tells his male friends he loves them although, that is something most men will not do. The conversation was about the lonely man with no one he could simply talk to when he had a problem. Simon says men should be able to call a friend and not get advice, but have him listen, simply listen, and support. 

They talked about friendship and how important it is to make lasting friends. I was impressed when Steven said he was lonely and not for people to be around him but for someone who would just be with him. 

"Sit in the mud with me and not try to fix me," he said. How often have I felt that way? When Barry died, all I wanted from friends was for them to sit with me and listen to me as I grieved and tried to find how to go on. No one could fix me.

This conversation between these two men gave me much to think about. They freely talked about their hang-ups. Steven hates small talk. He looks for a corner when he enters a room full of people. Yet he is a very successful speaker and podcast host.  

Like many I know, they find it awkward meeting new people. I was so like them in my youth. I was convinced I was being judged by others, and I knew all my flaws. I convinced myself I was not worthy before I entered the room.

I admire anyone who can walk into a room full of strangers and begin conversations. My husband, Barry, was the best at meeting people. It was not long before strangers were friends. Today, I enjoy meeting new people. 

Now that I am older and more experienced with social situations, I understand that most people have hang-ups about social gatherings. But I no longer feel I am being judged and, if I am, I really don't care. It took years of feeling unworthy before I reached this point. 

Trevor and Steven's conversation moved on to dealing with people who disagree with you. Trevor feels there is room for this divided nation to talk to each other. I hope we can do that.

I am pleased I learned about this South African native who had a difficult childhood in apartheid because he was mixed race. He is concerned that people today who have more material comforts than generations before them, are so unhappy, miserable with their lives, and even suicidal. Perhaps struggle is missing in their lives. When we struggle we are more appreciative of what we achieve.

It proves that too much effort has gone into making money, buying more things, and feeling successful in their big houses. But these things have not made them happy. What a shame that so much effort, energy, and sacrifice is spent on physical things instead of building relationships with people they love. It is only when one grows old and realizes that he is alone or is leaving those he loves, that what he appreciates most are people who care for him, those he has had little time for. 

I saw this in the lives of loved ones. They worked hard and strived to be financially successful. I am grateful they realized their goals. But were their relationships with their families as good as they would have liked? I hope so. 

It seems that the goal in our country today is to be ambitious, selfish, and often greedy if it makes us wealthy. Parents today push their children to go to the best colleges they can afford, to meet others on the same path. Two educated upwardly moving people marry and live the American dream. They never meet or know anyone who is struggling to pay the rent. 

My father never worked to be rich or famous. He never wanted to be above others. He worked to make a living for his family. He wouldn't have known what to do with great riches. His needs were simple.

Young Coy Council

My mother wanted to own a nice car one day. Once all her children were grown, married, and on their own, she saved and scrimped until she could buy that car. We were so happy to see her drive her Cadillac. 

But her purpose in life was to care for her family. She raised kids who made her proud because they were good people. Her eyes lit up and a big smile crossed her face when someone praised her children. 

Parents have the most influence on their children and how they grow up. Trevor Noah quotes his mother all the time. She influenced him by her example. She taught him so much about generosity and caring although she worked and struggled in a country where she could not live with Trevor's father because he was white. When she went out with her son she had to pretend he was not her child. If it was known he was her own, he could be taken from her by the authorities because he was mixed-race.

Governments can make life so hard for the people they govern. 

Our world is filled with refugees who are fleeing dictators, gangs of thieves and murderers, and evil people in power. I awake each day with a prayer of thanksgiving. I am grateful that my life has been filled with love and caring people. I don't know how I could live if I was not surrounded by them. 

My Mother, Lois, when I was a girl

Mother taught me to love and what love means. She loved her brothers and sisters and loved her parents deeply. Growing up with love in her life, she showed us by example. 

At this time in our country when we have such terrible disasters, fires, floods, and hurricanes, all around us, I hope we can all find in our hearts to love, to appreciate, to be generous with what we can do to help. I hope the spirit of meanness that hangs over the USA will evaporate like fog in the morning sun.

This comes from Maria Shriver's recent post concerning the aviation disasters of the past week.

May we think about all the families devastated by this, who lost people that they loved. Let us try to remember that life is fragile, and that we must always do our best to make sure our interactions with one another are kind, loving, supportive because none of us ever know what’s gonna happen in life. So may we always treat each other with grace and with love.

Celebrating Life

Celebrate your life. See it and yourself as a blessing. Don’t wait.                                                                                 --- Maria Shriver 

As we write about our lives, we learn much about ourselves. I have learned things about my family that I didn't understand before I began to write about my parents and my siblings. 

I want to celebrate each family member's life because each one was a blessing to me. I wrote about my brother, Ray, recently and as I did, I thought about how blessed I was to have him as my brother.

I plan to write about each family member on this blog as I celebrate their lives. I hope these blog posts will entertain you, my readers, and enlighten you about what life was like for them in the twentieth century. 

I will start with my mother. She was born in Decatur County, Georgia on a farm near a community called Spring Creek. Like me, she was the next to last child in her family, the daughter of William Henry and Lula.  ( I will not use last names due to privacy issues.)

My Mother, Lois, when she was a young woman

The ancestors of both William and Malula had migrated from the Carolinas and Virginia in the 1700s and 1800s. Their fathers had fought in the War Between the States (Civil War) and their great-grandfathers fought for our freedom in the Revolutionary War.

Mother's name was Georgia Lois. She had an aunt Georgia Ann and was named after her. But Mother preferred Lois and never told anyone her name was Georgia unless she had to legally give her full name. 

I believe Mother's life was a blessing to all who knew her. I never knew her to say or do anything to hurt another. She had a tender heart and a caring spirit. She told me how much she respected and loved her father. She said he often took her to the big church in Pelham where they lived. She remembered him taking her by the hand and walking across the railroad tracks to the town where they entered the large Methodist church. 

She didn't mind or feel less worthy because she didn't have fine clothes like most of the other people in the pews on Sunday mornings. 

Lois had a loving family and always knew she was loved. Because of that, I believe she had a good self-image and her confidence in herself was seldom shaken. 

Willie and Lula, Lois's parents were grateful for the textile mill that Mr. J.L. Hand built in Pelham, GA because the farm work all summer in the hot sun was horrible for Lois's sisters and her mother who worked in the fields with the men. Planting in the spring, hoeing weeds out of the corn and cotton, and harvesting in the fall took a toll on their skin and their health. In the 1880s farming was done by hand. There were no tractors, no equipment to make work easier, and certainly no slaves as most people think did all the farm work. The Civil War ended in 1865.

Mother's sisters and brothers were born in the mid to late 1800s. Lois was born in 1904 and that was about the time the family left the farm and moved to the little town of Pelham where life would be so much better for all of them.

The older children worked in the mill but Willie did not. He became the maintenance man for the mill, the mill houses, and Mr. Hand's other properties and his family lived in a house on Wilkes Avenue rent-free. 

 Willie and Lula with their daughter, Mildred in early 1900s

As I heard Mother talk about her childhood and her family, I could tell she was a happy child. The only time she remembered being spanked was when she threw the pan of dishwater on her brother Rudolph as he sat on the steps of the back porch. He had been sick and was recovering from the illness. But Lois was a child, two years younger than he, and she did it because she wanted to tease him. She would never have wanted to hurt him. She adored him.

She always felt bad about that incident. She said, "Mama told me I could have killed him because he was not well and could have gotten sick again."

I have a beautiful memory of the love between this brother and sister. Mother almost died from a ruptured aneurysm on her Carotid artery in 1975. She was in the hospital for a long, long time. She didn't know her own children because her brain was damaged from the swelling. But she recognized love. One day when I went to see her in the ICU, I stopped to watch Rudolph feeding his sister from her food tray. I knew that she knew him or knew she loved him. She smiled at him when he talked to her. She was seventy years old and he was a couple of years older at that time. 

Not too long after Mother came home and regained much of her physical ability, she and I were called with the sad news that my uncle Rudolph was extremely ill in the hospital. We went there and sat in the waiting room with family members. But we were allowed to go in to see him one time. He was not conscious and was soon to leave this world. Like so many of her family that had passed away, Mother always remembered him as he was when she and he were young. 

Lois's life as a young girl was filled with friends like Mary, who had a crush on Rudolph that was not reciprocated. Lois and Mary would sometimes sit up with the dead. As long as the two of them were together they didn't mind doing that for the older folks. It was a custom then for the dead person to lie in his coffin at home the night before he was buried. Visitation was held at the home instead of a funeral home as is done today. 

Another brother, Dewey, played a large part in Lois's life. When she and Coy Council married in Albany at the Justice of the Peace office, they had no home to go to. Dewey and Sadie, his wife, invited the newlyweds to stay with them until they could find a place to live.

My father had no money when he married my mother but they had been apart for too long and had waited too long to be together. Lois was always appreciative of Sadie who took her in and made her feel very welcome. 

I never heard my mother complain about her lot in life. She had lived in a comfortable loving home before she married my father. But once she married, she had children and also worked outside the home when she could to bring in more income. She said she sold shirts for a while and I am sure she was good at it. But the babies kept coming. Her husband was in Florida when the first child was born and she was in Pelham with her parents. He was working for his brother who had a farm and Coy planned to bring his wife down to Palmetto as soon as he could.

The three years they spent in Florida was the only time my mother was actually unhappy. They lived in a rental house in a bad neighborhood and Coy took a second job working at night. She was overjoyed when, after the second child was born her husband decided to move back to Georgia. 

The next few years were good for the family because they rented a store which my father referred to as the Filling Station because there were gas tanks out front. The family lived in the back of the store and both Coy and Lois worked there. The third and fourth children, two boys were born there. 

But the Great Depression came hard in the late 1920s and thirties. Soon there were no customers because no one had any money. The mills closed and that left many people out of work. Coy and Lois and their kids lived off the food in the store until they had to give up the filling station and move into another house that had been Coy's sister's house. 

Because my parents always found a way to have chickens and a milk cow where they lived, my family did not suffer hunger. But Mother learned ways to stretch a few eggs and a little milk to feed her children. And she seemed to know more than one way to cook chicken. 

Lois was hit hard by the death of her mother, Lula, soon after moving back to Pelham. Seventy-five years later, Lois stood by her mother's grave and said, "I miss you so much. You were the sweetest thing to me and I wish I could talk to you again." Tears ran down my mother's cheeks and I cried as well. After Mother's brain was damaged and she lost her short-term memory, the people she knew and loved when she was a child and a young person were remembered better than her own children. 

Lois Council was the glue that held our large family together. She was the calm one who did not overreact or get panicky. She almost died when her gallbladder burst, but she overcame that and was soon back in her kitchen cooking for us.

 

At one time she had a little dairy business. She sold milk and homemade butter and buttermilk to her neighbors when the family lived in Lakeside in Dougherty County. Those were some of her happiest times because she had dear neighbors who liked to visit with her. She was in her mid-thirties and enjoyed having morning coffee with the ladies in the neighborhood. Lois enjoyed people and never met a stranger. She would talk to people in the elevator when we went to the dentist. She talked to people in line at the grocery store. I find I do the same thing now.

For six years she lived on a farm in hot south Georgia with no air conditioning and no electricity. She knew coal oil lamps, and ice boxes with a place for a fifty-pound block of ice in the top section that kept the milk and butter cool and meat from spoiling. She knew a kitchen with only cold water coming from the faucet. She cooked vegetables from the garden on a wood stove and sewed on a Singer sewing machine with a treadle. She killed chickens to cook for dinner when a family of relatives showed up unannounced. She seldom used a cookbook when she was in the kitchen and as a result, she left very little of her cooking knowledge to me. The only thing she taught me was how to make biscuits. She was an expert at that. 

The Rural Electric Association ran lines out to our land in 1947. She was glad to get an electric stove and a hot water heater in the house. Electricity made a huge difference in her workload every day. 

When I think about those years when Mother had two babies and didn't have a washing machine or dryer, I sympathize with her.  Everything was washed by hand and hung outside on a clothesline. But she never complained. 

She never said, "I am so tired I need to lie down and rest." 

She woke up early and cooked a big breakfast for her large family. And as soon as the kids were off to school or everyone went to work, she started the noon meal which we called "dinner". In the summer the first thing she did was go to the garden and get peas, beans, corn or okra to cook. Sometimes she had no meat but made a delicious vegetable meal. With her hot biscuits or hoecake cornbread, no one ever complained. 

No matter how much she had to do she always had time to sit down with me and let me tell her about my day or my troubles. She made me know she cared. I feel sure she was the same with each of her children.

Next time, I will tell about my mother as she aged, the sorrows that befell her, and the joys she experienced. I was the only daughter who lived near her and we spent much time together. She was always good company and always a good listener. In spite of the hardships and sacrifices she made, Mother said she had a good life.

FLAG DAY - JUNE 14 -Special to me

This national holiday is also the day I  married Hugh Barry Beall from Rockmart, Georgia. As I have said before on this blog, we met on July 4, 1963. So these summer holidays have a special meaning for me.

Dressed in my going away  suit

Barry never forgot our anniversary and always brought me a card that he carefully hand-picked so it said what he wanted to say. In the early days of our marriage we made a big deal of  our anniversary, going out to dinner and pledging our love again. But as the years passed, our celebrations became simpler and quieter. However, he never forgot and always gave me that special card. I wish I could say I never forgot, but I had a couple of times I did. 

I used to tease him and say, "You have never written me a love letter. Why don't you write me a love letter?"

His answer was, "I don't write. You write. I don't write."

But he had little ways of showing  his love. When we were together, he never let me cross the  street without taking my hand, and he often held my hand while we walked on the street. When we were in a crowd, he always knew where I was.

Gay Council, Glenda Council Beall, Barry Beall, Richard Beall

Nobody in my  family ever publicly showed their affection for each other. That was just not done. Mother was a loving person and showed her love in various ways like cooking our favorite dessert for  our birthdays. And she was a hugger.

I never saw my brothers kiss their wives or show any special affection. But Barry was never ashamed to kiss me in front of my family. He came from an affectionate family where his mother and father were outwardly loving to their children, kissing their sons and hugging them. I was enthralled with that type of behavior. He did not shy away from the word LOVE which I never heard in our house when I was growing up. 

Of course, today I think it is bandied around so much and so often it has lost its meaning. I think it sounds fake when people use it all the time to everybody they know. Some people say "I love you" to friends as they drive away and then turn around and speak of them in a manner that says otherwise. Friends who enjoy being together and have fun together talk about loving each other, but I don't think it is the  kind of love that is deep and meaningful.

I  am not afraid to tell those close to me that I love them. And I have learned in my Third Act what love really means. I suppose that wisdom comes to us as we draw closer to the time when we might lose them or they might lose us. I am happy that I finally broke that unwritten rule in our home and I was able to tell my siblings that I loved them. 

Why is it hard to tell our siblings how much they mean to us? One of  my brothers called me and told me he had been diagnosed with cancer. His voice was shaking and I'm sure mine was, too. Before he hung up, he said I love you and I said the same to him. What a huge step in sharing his emotions. He had bottled up his feelings most of his life. 

I'll never forget one of my  brothers kneeling beside my older sister just a short time before she died. He knew he might not see her again as  he lived many miles away. He poured out his heart to her, telling her all she had  meant to him in his life and telling her he loved her.

I was in tears as I  knew that was a milestone in his life and hers. I just hope that anyone reading this  post will not procrastinate, putting off  speaking to someone they love. We never know when that person might be gone and we will not have the opportunity to see them again. 

Nothing is worth holding a grudge for life. When I hear of people who don't speak to  their sisters or brothers or parents, I know there is anger and hurt that won't be resolved until they talk. And both parties suffer. Even when I  knew one of them was in the wrong, I did not stop loving my brother. 

But I have strayed from writing about my anniversary. Today we would have been married 53 years. We didn't have that 50th big party, but on our 40th anniversary, my sweet sister and brother-in-law took us on a wonderful weekend where we stayed at the Opryland Hotel and were treated to two days of great fun with two of  our favorite people. 

Barry taught me so much about loving someone and showing that love in my everyday life. I'll always be grateful for that.

Barry's greatest act of  love for me was bringing me to the mountains in 1995. We had some wonderful years here.

Are you holding a grudge against a family member? Do you want to let it go?

The Most Important Gift for Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day

All over the country men and women exchange gifts and cards supposedly to show their love. In all of our 45 years of marriage I never expected a gift from my husband on Valentine's Day. He always took time to find me the perfect card, and I was happy he even remembered. When we first married he sometimes gave me candy in a heart shaped box and we picked through the cheap chocolates to find the ones with nuts. 

One day in the year should not be used to measure the love between two people. I am amazed when I hear of all the angst this day causes, especially for men. 

It seems men feel they can't win on Valentine's Day. Flowers and candy are no longer enough. Women expect fancy gifts, diamonds, and such. But having to give some expensive present to show love is sad to me. 

What I would give to have just a hug and a big smile this Valentine's Day from the man I loved and still love.

Material things are of little importance when you weigh what really matters in life, and what matters when a life is taken away.

Is there anything more fun than a new puppy?

I have now had a darling little baby, Lexie, for about three weeks, and she is controlling my life to a certain extent although I am determined not to spoil her.

She weighs only five pounds

How could anyone resist that little face?

Lexie is a Chi-Weenie, a mix of Chihuahua and dachshund. She has long ears that stand up like a jackrabbit's and a long body like a weenie dog. We think she is about three months old.

She is not the prettiest dog I've ever had, but she is loved. Barry and I always had dogs in our family for as long as we had a home, 45 years. A couple of years after Barry died, our sweet Rocky had to be put down. He had a terrible illness that I believe was a brain tumor.

I decided I would not get another dog. After all, they die on you. I wanted to be done with grief. I had lost my husband, three of my brothers, my parents, and a sister. I grieve over the loss of my pets just as I do a family member. Well, they are family members. At least all of our dogs were loved like a member of the family. They lived in our homes and were our constant companions. 

Brandy, the miniature poodle was our first. Barry gave him to me a week after we were married. Brandy soon owned us and we obeyed his every wish for nineteen years. Poodles are such people-dogs, that it is hard to leave them, even with someone they love. He mourned when we were away. After all, he didn't know if we were coming back. 

Our next dogs were Samoyeds, the most beautiful dogs in the world to me. Nicki died when he was only two years old from a mysterious malady the vet could not explain. Barry could hardly stand it until we found another snow white puppy and that was Kodi who lived to be fourteen. He was my shadow and I adored him. While I was grieving over having to put him down on Christmas Day, Barry found Rocky who had been put out on the road by the Chatuge Dam. And so began another love affair with a wonderful dog. He and Barry were inseparable until Barry passed away. Then Rocky realized he had only me and we were best friends going back and forth to Roswell where we visited family. I'll always remember Rocky as the most gentle, loving dog who let other dogs he liked, take his bed or eat his food. He would even let the cat have his bed.

Now after time has eased the pain of losing Rocky, little Lexie has come into my life like a bright star that had been waiting until the right time to fall into my lap. She is smart, too smart at times, and is going to be a great dog when she is house trained. She snuggles with me and sleeps nestled up beside me until I put her in her own bed. She sleeps there without making a sound until I wake up in the morning. 

There is more to Lexie's story and I'll tell it soon, but this is enough for now.

Preparing food for someone is the ultimate expression of love.

I never thought of that until I  heard Michael Pollen say it. This made me understand why I was always upset when I made a good dinner for Barry and he let it get cold or, worse, said he wasn’t hungry. I thought it was because I had labored in the kitchen and he was unappreciative of my efforts. Well, maybe that was part of it, but I also planned to eat this meal.

Maybe why I was furious with him was because I was showing him my love and he didn’t get it. I didn’t get it. I cooked dishes I knew he enjoyed. I wanted to please him and show him my love. Sadly, I could have made him a peanut butter sandwich and he would have been happy.

This idea takes me back to my mother who cooked three meals every day. We had eggs, bacon, grits and homemade biscuits every morning that I can remember. The eggs came from the nests in the barn. The bacon, in the early years, came from hogs raised on our farm. Mother stood at the counter and rolled out the biscuits by hand until she filled a large cookie sheet. I wonder how she knew how many flaky, ready-for-homemade-butter delights would come from that mound of sticky dough. Sometimes when Gay and I were little girls, she would make “baby biscuits” for us.

As soon as breakfast dishes were done, Mother began preparing dinner which was our mid-day meal. In summer my brothers were home and, with my father, worked in the fields. Mother felt such empathy for all of them and said she was grateful that she didn’t have to work outside as her mother and her older sisters had done. Daddy never wanted or expected her to do man’s work on the farm.

But she never stopped working at her job – feeding her family. She barely had time to make the beds and pickup around the house before she went to the garden to pick peas, butter-beans, or cut okra for the next meal. Once she had gathered the ingredients she had to make them ready to cook. Corn had to be shucked, peas and beans shelled and okra cut in little pieces. Tomatoes were peeled and sliced.

One of my favorite dishes my mother made was what I call South Georgia vegetable soup. The shelled peas and butterbeans went into a large pot along with okra cut into small slices. She added fresh tomatoes and corn cut off the cob. The soup came straight from the garden. She seasoned the pot with a piece of salt pork. She added black pepper and salt to taste. That was it and I salivate when I remember how good that was with her scrumptious cornbread made from basic corn meal, eggs, milk, baking soda and salt.

Of course soup alone was not enough to fill five working men. With that soup she would have ham or pork chops, mashed potatoes, and fried okra cooked and smashed into a soft mass seasoned perfectly. I have never mastered that dish. Because some of the family preferred biscuits to cornbread, she also made another batch of them. She didn’t have to put away left-overs. There were none.

She watched us eat and, I realize now, she joyed in the love she had spread on the table for us. What greater expression of her love for her family than to spend hours every day preparing that which we must have to live, to function and thrive in life?

When I was a young girl, I wondered how she could be so pleasant and happy. I thought she had a hard life. She seldom had nice things, or traveled, or met new and interesting people. She never had a day off.

Today I had an Aha moment when I heard Michael Pollen, the author, speak. She was doing what she wanted to do – cooking for her family. And that is why, at the age of seventy, after the aneurysm damaged her memory and she was not allowed to cook for Daddy and herself, she seemed sad and disappointed. Thankfully, Barbara, the housekeeper and helper, asked Mother to teach her to make biscuits, potato salad and other favorite dishes, and Mother could tell her. The memories from years ago surfaced. Soon Barbara was claiming my mother’s recipes as her own.

I didn’t learn to cook like Mother although I called her often for advice right after I married. Mother didn’t cook from recipes. She created her own and kept them in her head. Today I can do that, too. Some of my favorite dishes are my own creation.  But I don’t write it down so I seldom cook that dish again in the same way. 

Did you ever think that cooking was a  way of showing your love or is it just another chore?

Finding old poems, stories and love words in an unmarked folder

It seems we are all using these cold days of winter to go through and discard as much as we can live without. I am no exception. I worked in my studio today. I had a stack of files I had planned to look at for some time. I found the folder I made on the Gibson family and those friends of mine who had donated money to the Katrina victims after my sister and her husband set up a fund to help them save their flooded home. I felt good because the family is now doing fine and Gigi, the mother, started another restaurant but this time in Roswell, GA.

I found lots of stuff that could be tossed, but I felt my heart soar when I came across writing I had done many years before I had a computer. I have wondered for years what became of my poems, a children’s manuscript and some light verse poems poking fun at Barry’s HAM radio hobby. 

The script type took me back to the lovely little blue electric typewriter Barry gave me when he realized that I was a writer and wanted to publish my work someday. Not knowing anything about what I needed, he had no idea that I’d never submit my work in script. Even a novice like I was then knew that would not be acceptable.  Seeing those pages reminded me how he always supported me and what I wanted to do. He thought I was an excellent writer. I thought he was an excellent musician and singer as well as having many other talents. 

Barry Beall

 

Finding these kinds of things is what makes de-cluttering so difficult. Finding my story about Prissy the Pink Poodle stopped my work, and I had to read every word I wrote so many years ago. Among the faded papers was one on which I had written what I loved and appreciated about Barry. It was almost a love letter, but it was not written to him. 

Did I ever tell him all the things I wrote on that paper that day? Did he hear those words come from my mouth or did I just let them flow out of my fingers and embed themselves where no one but I would see them again?

 I titled the piece, Thank you, God, for Barry. It was stream of consciousness writing and no editing.

This is a little bit of what I wrote back then:

“Thank you, God, for giving him blue eyes that sometimes change and almost always twinkle with a little boy type of mischief.  I am grateful for his manly concern for my welfare, for the confidence I can place in him when I need him, which is all the time…

I want to thank you, God, for his tenderness and caring for animals, for his gentle nature and warm love for people.” 

After long years of marriage, we often take for granted that our partner knows how we feel. I hope I told him that I was thankful for all his goodness to me. I hope I said those things, especially at those times when he could use a kind word to boost his spirits and when he just needed, as we all do, to be reassured that he was loved.

Where is the Love?

I am not a fan of television evangelists usually  but tonight while I was working on something Joel Osteen came on  my screen. I have heard some church-going Christians scoff and call him "the feel-good preacher." The times I've listened to him, I enjoyed his inspirational sermons that left me feeling uplifted instead of down on myself, accusing myself of being a bad, sinful person as the preachers of my youth often made me feel.

Tonight his subject was love for those who are different from us. He asks that we not judge people by their appearances or the mistakes they have made. He says we should love everybody. He said that Jesus made it simple. "Don't judge and you won't be judged."

I perked up when I heard his talk tonight. He was speaking my mind, my thoughts, about how our culture today has become so judgmental. If you are on Facebook and read the comments there, you know how mean-spirited people are. If you don 't believe as they do, they post hate-filled comments. Some people I know have had death threats against them because they voiced their political beliefs.

It is easy to judge people but it is not so easy to love those who are different, the poor, the unfortunate and often sick people who are homeless, those who are not like us, have different ways to worship or who do not worship our God. I found it amazing that this preacher tonight said that his God loves every person no matter whether they are Christian or Muslim. 

It seems to me that the very people who should love the poor, help the poor, and want to do what is right, are often the ones who want Medicaid cut, are against the idea of equal insurance for all, don't want their tax money to go toward helping people who are down on their luck or who have lost jobs and can't keep a roof over the heads of their children. In our  local newspaper there is a  page devoted to churches. We probably have more different churches in our little county than any other in North Carolina. The  opinion of most who write on that page each week speak more of hatred and judgement than they do of love. 

I come from a family that worked hard on a farm in south Georgia. Empathy for those who struggled in this life was instilled in us by our parents. Mother gave food to hobos who got off the freight trains near the house my family lived in during the depression, yet my father had no job and their little store and filling station went broke. That was before I was born, but I grew up hearing those stories and I have never forgotten the lessons they taught me. No matter how little we have, we can always find something to share with others. 

I  like the quote, "Let your life be a lesson to others." That was how my mother lived. When my father had more vegetables in his garden than we could eat, she took them to her relatives and friends. When someone helped at our house, she went home with a couple of  bags of something she could use for her family as well as her cash payment. I have no idea of how much my mother sent to charities through the mail even though she never had money to spend on herself. My father was always fair with his workers, paying the most he could for their work. 

It was only after my family became more financially secure that I saw some members change their attitude. Isn't that strange? The poor want to help the poor, but the wealthy who have security and have enough money become stingy and hoard their wealth. I hear these affluent people expound on the laziness of those who are poor and declare they think the government should stop all aid to indigent people. "I don't want my tax money going to those deadbeats."

Sadly we have what  is called " the working poor" and many of them just can't get ahead no matter how hard they try. I know good  people who work hard and still barely get by. Some become ill and need assistance. One woman has fought cancer for a number of years with  surgery after surgery but she still works as much as she can. Her husband is disabled and she is the sole bread winner in that family. Without some government assistance they would be homeless. But there are people who would say, "just let them die." My friend told me today that a member of  her church said those words when they were out for dinner one day. Those are the Christians that Joel Osteen was speaking to tonight on his program; those who go to church every time the doors are open,  but have no love in their heart for anyone but themselves. 

Recently I was touched when  a single mother who makes minimum wage at best told me she tries to help some of the charities that send her requests. "I tell them I can't send but a couple of dollars, and I hope it helps." 

My other concern is that churches are constantly taking in donations to send overseas - mission work - but often their members don't want to help people in their own state or community. Maybe it is easier to send money than to look around and see those who are right in front of you.

"There but for the grace of God go I." Could it be that we don't want to think about  that? Is that why we write a check to a faceless entity to ease our conscious?

After hurricane Katrina decimated an entire city and thousands of  people, I heard condemnation of those who lost their homes and everything they had. How on earth could those people be blamed for what happened? 

I have never been more proud than I was of my sister, Gay, who took one family under her wing and helped turn around their lives. The family of five took refuge in Atlanta and ended up at Gay's church which gave them some assistance. My loving, non-judgmental sister, spent weeks helping this family find an apartment, get furniture for it and did what she could to counsel the distraught mother of three children who were now homeless. 

My sister didn't think, "Oh well, I'm just one person.  I can't do much."
Read my interview with that Katrina survivor here.

What Makes You Happy?

Recently as cold weather settled in on us in the mountains of North Carolina I was toasty and warm with the heat going full blast, wrapped in a soft throw and being so grateful that I don't have to live in a drafty house with only a fireplace to warm me.

My mother and father lived in that kind of a house when I was a small child. I doubt that it got down to six degrees in south Georgia, but it did get cold and the winter wind found its way through the walls, around windows, and under doors. Fortunately our new house built the next year was tight and adequately heated.

I appreciate my parents who struggled to make sure their children had a better life. They managed to survive the Great Depression, World War II, and still enjoy life. When I hear people today whine and cry about how bad this world is, I have to smile. Everything is relative, isn't it?

It seems to me that no one has enough. The wealthiest want more and more material things. They don't enjoy what they have because they live in fear that they will lose it. The poorest don't have enough to eat or a place to sleep. They want more, and would love having what the wealthy man owns. What he has would be enough, the poor man thinks. But if he had what the wealthy man has, would that be enough? Do we ever have enough? Can we be satisfied with what we have? Can we enjoy today and not be scared of what tomorrow will bring?

I am satisfied with what I have, and I am grateful for all I have. When the icy wind is blowing outside, and I am warm and comfortable with hot chocolate on the stove, gratitude for what I have sweeps over me like a soft breeze. I know there are homeless people who have no shelter from the cold. I know some live in cars or sleep in boxes on the street. I know children who ate from dumpsters because the family had no money to buy food.

I don't need more than compassionate and caring family, good friends, and my health to realize what is really important in life. In the past few days concerned friends called to make sure I have all I need to be safe and warm. My sister called to check on me. I could tell she was worried about me being alone after she saw frightening weather alerts on TV.

Soon I will go on vacation in Florida where some wonderful friends give me the use of a condo. But that is not all. One of them will fly north at her expense to meet me and drive me down to the condo. She will likely drive me back as she did last year. 

That kind of friendship is what is really important. Having people in my life who care about me -- people I love -- that is what matters. 

Recently I asked on my Facebook page: Do we learn more from joy or from pain? As for myself, I think I have learned in the past five years, through all the pain of loss, what I really need in life and what I must have to live a happy life. I don't believe we have to have the biggest house, the finest of furnishings, the nicest car, the most fashionable clothes or find celebrity and fame. I think what we must have to be happy is love, people who sincerely care about us, a safe place to call home, respect for ourselves and anticipation for our future endeavors. Doing for others also rates extremely high on the happiness chart. 

As a writer, I have one more thing that makes me happy -- the ability to express my thoughts, the opportunity to communicate with others. It is a need that must be met every day, in some way, large or small. So I post on my blogs, scribble in my journals, and fill long pages of yellow legal pads with various and sundry words that eventually are transcribed to files in my computer. At times those words find their way to a publication that reaches more people. That also makes me happy. 

What makes you happy?

Love Myself Week

In recent weeks, I’ve become a fan of Louise Hay of Hay House Publications. I listen to one of her CDs in my car every day, the one on how to use affirmations. I like affirmations because when I see one on my mirror or hear one or just remember to say one of them, it immediately changes my attitude from negative to positive. Because of some health issues lately, I have had some old nasty negativity slipping into my thoughts. 

One of the things Louise says is that we often look in the mirror but when we do we usually find something we don’t like. We criticize our looks or say mean things to our reflections. I know I do that. 

“Gosh, I need to do something with my hair.”

“If I could only lose weight, I’d look good and feel good again.”

“Boy, old age is creeping up on me.”

Louise says we should say nice things to our reflections in the mirror. We should look at ourselves and give ourselves love. We don’t love ourselves enough. That is why we sometimes feel unloved. If we don’t love ourselves, who will?

I am taking this week to love myself. 

I am telling myself how much I love me. I love my hair, my body, my spirit, my personality and my determination. Instead of berating myself for my failings, I am finding the good in me and showering myself with love. During this week of loving myself, I am not going to take on any difficult projects, do any work that is not fulfilling or interesting. With a world out there full of people who seem to enjoy the pain of others, we must take care to fill our lives with as much compassion for ourselves as we can, pamper ourselves when we can, and appreciate who we are. 

I like something else she says – stress is simply fear of something. When we face our fear and ask ourselves why we are afraid and what we are afraid of, we can usually eliminate the stress. I am working on that one. 

How about you? Do you love yourself? Do you look for your good traits or do you find fault with your efforts? Repeat this several times.  “I am grateful for my body, my health, and for those who love me, including myself.”