Daddy was really good at needling.
If you are not sure what that means - he could take something that started as a bit of a joke or tease and when he saw that it was irritating, he could make it worse.
Now - I'm just stating a fact. I promise I am not throwing the man so loved and appreciated by so many under the bus.
The words I've chosen as the topic for what I am writing are among those that always drove me crazy. Especially when it came to my money or my being asked to make a financial contribution to some cause. It seems he just loved to say
"Don't they know that you are a poor little widow woman?
Somehow I took them as criticism. I heard them as me somehow being a failure.
And yet -
I am a woman. My husband died. I am not tall. And poor - well I don't have lots of money that's for sure.
However, as of late, I have found some ways to appreciate that statement
I facilitate Wonder Women's Bible study - it's a delightful time for study with some dear women.
I help with a Widows and Widowers social time each month.
Sometimes I get hand me downs from other small women
And I can always find a way to keep from being "poor".
As a part of my work for the Mandarin Museum & Historical Society, I was interviewing the President of the Board of the Mandarin Cemetery.
I was blown away by the way he told a story.
"You should write a book,"
"I've been told that before," he said, "But I wouldn't know where to start"
My answer was pretty quick.
you find a little widow woman who knows how to write. . .
I haven't talked him into that yet, but a great friendship was born that day.
And the way I see it, that's one time I took daddy's needling and used it for my good.
I can just hear him - "I love it"
