To change the things I can....

It's all about courage.

That's something the lion in the Wizard of Oz and I have in common.  I probably have more than he had but there are some areas where I have very little.

Like the dance floor.

I like to dance.  I wish I were a better dancer.  I have a little rhythm - I think.  But what's the deal?

It's the memories.

It was against our religion to dance when I was growing up.  The sixth grade graduation party, a pretty dress, and me standing against the wall.  The time someone I had a crush on asked me to dance and I didn't know where my arms were supposed to be.  The fact that I was always clumsy.  Or that I never learned.

My friend, Deborah absolutely loves to dance.  In fact to quote her: "It's as if you opened my head and poured a bucket of happiness into my being".  So it's fun to go with her and watch her be happy - as I sit and sip and listen as the music beckons - sort of like those old  Calgon commercials.  Sometimes people appear to be taken away.

And so it was on a recent Sunday afternoon when I went with Deb to a dance - her on the dance floor and me watching all the dancers...

The band was playing a Polka...

And it all began to come back - I remembered my cousin, Rick's wedding to Cheryl now more than 30 years ago.  The reception was in a huge hall - and everyone was dancing -- their dance of choice - the Polka. Someone asked me to dance - so I did.

My question to my brothers - did I look silly? was answered only as brothers can - "Well....yeah".

The issue was crystal clear.  It's all those memories.

Earlier that day a friend recalled the angst she still feels because her parents did not have a good relationship.  That afternoon I remembered her words - "But you know I am 63 years old and it's time for me to let that go".

Let that go - - -change what I can - - - HUM.

So the next time a gentleman asked - I said sure - and was swept onto the dance floor.  And then there was another...and as we left the party I said to Deborah - When's the next time we are going to do this?

I just need to have the courage to change.

Things we cannot change

You know the words well - God grant me the serenity to accept the things we cannot change...

Sometimes we make a decision and then have the option to change our minds.  That's a good thing. Sometimes we make a change in our lives - that we don't like - or that seems to have been a bad decision.

I was chatting with a couple of mothers whose children are under 6.  One of them showed me a photo of a darling little girl whose long curls, the ones I had admired just a few days before, were missing.

It reminded me of the day that Becca, aged 6, brought me a handful of her hair and said "Mommy, can you glue this back?"

I'm sure that at that time I needed serenity.

"No, but it will grow back" and if you have seen my first born you know that it did.

But then there are some things that we just cannot change.  One of those things would be our words - spoken in anger, disgust, sometimes in fear.

At the Florida versus East Carolina University football game this past Saturday, no doubt there was anger, disgust and maybe even a little fear.

This was supposed to be a cake walk for the Gators - and it was not.   There was disgust, anger and maybe a little fear.  Former Gator "great" Fred Taylor said his son, Kelvin, the one who was the object of Florida coach, Jim McElwain's wrath following an unsportsmanlike penalty, was angry that he wasn't getting enough playing time.  That didn't make it right.  McElwain is sorry that he was so disgusted and all of Florida nation at that time was surely fearful that the game was about to go the other way..and God forbid, we would lose.

Words - we can't take them back.

And in this case, a media frenzy ensued.

Fortunately no one really cares about some words I wish I hadn't spoken.

As I was going through the grief process after my daddy died in 2009, I thought back to many of the words we shared.  Once he told me that he didn't like my hair - and I thought - do I wear my hair for you, daddy?  And I was irritated that he thought I did.  As I was missing him, I thought why in the world did I let that bother me?

Another time when I didn't like the fact that my house smelled like bacon when I came home and showed my distaste he got after me for having what he "loved to call " a short fuse.  And I shook my finger in his face and said something like "Daddy, you have got to stop saying that to me".

Six years down the pike, I think back to those words and feel pretty yukky.

I suspect Jim McElwain felt pretty yukky after the game when his mother chided him for his actions at the football game.

There are some things we just cannot change - but if we practice thinking before we speak - at least we have a chance.  Oh yes - that's where the courage comes in.

Not pretty when you cry

"Don't call too often - just every day" - her words to me.

"Whatever you do, don't cry on the campus - you are not pretty when you cry" - my words to her.

And so it was as my parents took me to college - 50 years ago this week.

Who would have ever imagined that I would choose to go to college 50 miles north of Chattanooga, Tennessee?  If you knew me then - the girl my pastor described as quiet and reserved and a bit of a homebody -  you know that was a huge step.

However, it was the right step.  For before we even made it to the campus that Friday in September, 1965, there was this really cute guy in a cafeteria ...

And a friendship ensued and a marriage and three children and a divorce - but the friendship has remained and as I often unashamedly say "have you met my children?"

Interesting turn of events . . .

September, 2015

My mother (the her who I didn't want to cry on the campus) has moved to assisted living. 

At one point I thought - this was like sending one of my children to college - and then I thought no it's like when they went to kindergarten.  I wondered - would she remember to take her meds, would she like the food enough to eat it and would she make any friends?

Guess what - she's got that meds thing down, she eats and every time I visit there's a story about a new best friend.

It's as if her whole life led her to this experience.

I don't call her every day (I do usually send her an email or a Facebook message) and although she has shed a few tears at some point I have come to realize nothing keeps her from being pretty.
 
Going to college in Dayton, Tennessee was definitely the right thing for me.  In addition to meeting and marrying Ray Parker, there was a teacher whose words I credit with beginning another journey for me...

"Paula," Mr. Alan Winkler said "You are a gifted writer".

Hum. . .

The path is leading where???

One of my all-time favorite movies is Out of Africa, starring Robert Redford and Meryl Streep.  Ask my children how tired they got of hearing me say "I had a farm in Africa".

I saw the movie about the time I was deciding it was not the end of the world to be a single mother and that somehow we were going to succeed.  If you have met my children, you know that I was most right to believe that.

I recently  bought a new lap top.  The name of the default screen saver is Footpaths.  There are ten shots of paths.  There's one in a meadow, one that is beside a large body of water one through a dessert, one through a forest. . . etc.

Each of these scenes share a commonality. No path has an end.

Who knows where that footpath is leading?

Back to Out of Africa, do you remember when Karen went to see Bror at the end of the first part of the movie?  Her last words “Perhaps he knew, as I did not, that the Earth was made round so that we would not see too far down the road.”

If Karen had known - would she have still made the trip to see her unfaithful husband?

Which brings to mind a question - "If you knew then what you know now would you take a different path?"

When I am asked that question my answer is no - I would have done it all again.

Yet still. . .I like to know where my path is leading.

We all know this about me - I am the queen of planners.   I start planning the next event before the ink is dry on the invitations.

And yet I know that I must learn. . .

In one of my daily readings this morning I found these words that seem to magnify what I keep hearing, feeling, experiencing:

", , ,we're not supposed to see too far ahead.  We're not supposed to know.  Don't forget that the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden was from the Tree of Knowledge"(Sarah Ban Breathnach in A Daybook of Comfort and Joy.

I don't know where the path is leading.

I guess that's where FAITH comes in!

An Angel came . . .

It has happened to me more than once. 

I've been struggling with an issue, disappointment, disillusionment or just down right hurt feelings and taken that pain to bed only to be awakened with the realization that someone was talking to me.

Okay - not verbally - just a feeling..

August, 1977 - 38 years ago.

My third child was about to be born.  The first two (both little girls) had come into this world very easily.  Becca at 9 lbs 2 oz was born about 3 hours after we got to the hospital and it took Renee (10.4 and 22 inches long) an hour longer. 

Surely this one would be as easy.

Wrong.  After a day of labor, when the doctor realized that baby was just not going to be born otherwise, a Caesarian Section brought Raymond Lee Parker, III into this world.  Somehow he had managed to turn enough times to get the cord wrapped around his neck. 

As I began to wake up  - I learned that I had a little boy and that he had been taken to Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.  The cord, his head seemed a little large, I am a border line diabetic and he weighed 10.2.  To the doctors - reason enough.

I was very ill for a couple of days and couldn't go to see him.  It was the strangest experience imaginable. I missed my little girls; I was still in much pain and taking lots of antibiotics.  It might be the worst three or four days of my life.

And then the time came.  My husband wheeled me through the corridors and into an elevator.  We arrived at the unit and the nurses brought my baby to the glass (I still had a fever; I couldn't go in).  I  felt nothing.  When I write that I feel so strange.  How can a mother "feel nothing"?

Back in my room I lay awake and prayed.  It seemed that my prayers were bouncing off the ceiling.  I prayed myself to sleep.

At some point, it was as if an angel came and sat on the edge of my bed.  And this is what I heard - maybe not audibly - but what I experienced was "it's okay to love him.  If I take him I'll give you strength to bear it".

HUM

The next time I went to see him all I could do was cry.  He had a little undershirt on and I thought he looked like a future linebacker.

There would be months of uncertainty.  But I kept loving him - and the months became years - and he grew -- and I loved him through baseball rather than football; golf, girls, college.  Oh me, let's not go there.

But he did grow up.  And his sisters and I think we prepared him well for his life with a lovely wife and two daughters.

At this time in my life, there is some uncertainty once again.  I'd kind of like an angel to come and sit on my bed.  However, God speaks in many ways - like through other writers.  I have been feeling emotionally exhausted and I read a devotional by Jennifer Rothschild with these words: 

He is the One who makes it well with your soul even when it is not well with your circumstances.

HUM!

Do I really believe it?

   When I started writing this blog, more than three years ago now, I "named" it Sunshine and Shadows".
   That is because in my mind I've had my fair share of shadows.  BUT I wouldn't have the shadows without the sunshine.
   And where that really all came from was that when I was a senior in high school, the annual staff put these words by my picture - "She meets her trials with a smile and the shadows turn to light".
   That was half a century ago and when I have looked back on those years I can tell you - yep there were shadows.....
   Broken  promises, shattered dreams, issues that gave me major "cause for pause".
   But, as I have often said "the faith that had been instilled in me as a child" kept me ticking.

   Last Thursday I read a blog written by Paula Rhinehart, a speaker and author I enjoy.  As I read "The gentle art of reframing" I thought I do that.  I take lemons and make lemonade. The hook Rhinehart used was that  she wanted to share a bouquet of peonies with a friend and the friend refused them.
   Apparently  peonies draw ants and the beauty of the peonies wasn't worth the trouble.
   I continued to read and was smugly agreeing with her words.
   And then I reached for my recently filled coffee cup.
   The desk, the floor and yes the lap top - suddenly soaked
   Maybe it survived.
   Not a chance.
   Well, the lap top had served me well for more than 6 years.

   The last few days I 've spent much time acquainting myself with a new keyboard and some newer Office Suite programs.  There's still one little glitch with Quicken but eventually I'll get that one straightened out.  And there are really some neat things to appreciate.
   Although I don't really appreciate the fact that I had to spend money that I really didn't believe I had to spend
   So today I re-read that blog.
   Here's a sentence that I liked : "When you are reeling from disappointment and the thing you didn't want to happen has happened, remember that you know (because of all the other times something like this has happened to you) that God is in it." (italics are mine)

Is this a shadow? Well yeah - but the sun is still shining.

I think you might enjoy some of  another Paula's writings:
http://paularinehart.com/category/blog/

It's really about them. . .

Today is my 68th birthday.
Not a real significant birthday except for the fact that any birthday is significant.
But significant to WHOM?
I think significant to the persons who gave one life.
In my case, a boy who was born in St. Nicholas to Ted and Lonnie Huffingham early on a December morning in 1921 - and a girl who was born in Andrews, South Carolina to Ellie and Pauline Nesmith in the Spring of 1923.  This boy (Earl Ray Huffingham) and girl (Iva Louise Nesmith) would meet when he was 8 and she was 6 at the Spring Glen Methodist Church, grow up to become high school sweethearts, marry and have four children - me being their first.
I have often said I wish everyone could have them for parents but I wasn't willing to share them.
That does not mean that I think they were faultless as parents.  I'm a person who understands that none of us are perfect and would be a person who believes what it says in Romans "There is none righteous, no not one".
I do think they did what was right.  When I was growing up there was a little song we knew - "Don't send your kids to Sunday School, get out of bed and take em".  We had heard the Palermo brothers sing that song when we were in Minneapolis, Minnesota at a Gideon convention in 1957.  Even if we never had heard that song, my parents did that anyway.
When my first marriage failed in the early eighties and I was devastated, my parents helped me as I began to realign my life.
As each of my children went to college and married, my parents were supportive as I adjusted to empty nest.
They rejoiced with me when I fell in love with Rich Suhey and wept with me when he died.
And in 2005 when it was time for them to go to "Assisted Living", they accepted my invitation to come and fill my nest.  That gave me the opportunity to share many more memories with them before daddy died in 2009.
And now my mother is 92 plus and last night before I went to bed, I told her thanks for spending so many hours before noon on July 11, 1947 - laboring to birth a 9 lb, 15 oz baby - and more than that for helping me live the life I love!
It may be my birthday - but it's really about them!