Final Thought

Baa Baa Black Sheep Have You Any Wool?

Yes Ma'am, Yes Ma'am, Three Bags Full.


Is that what is over my eyes?

Heart

Come on and take a, take another little piece of my heart now baby
You know you got it,
Shit,
Cause it makes you feel good

Janis Joplin

Do you think that when a little part of you dies, your heart gets harder or softer?

Night Falls Fast

Night Falls Fast, yes it does Mrs. Jamison.

But dawn sometimes falls faster.

My stomach rumbles. My heart rattles. You all said you would be here with me, yet I am eerily alone.

Crickets twirp in the red sky that is supossed to be a black blanket to keep us cozy.

I sigh. There is no one awake to hear me. Shhhh. Don't wake them.

Everything is changing. Moving so fast. My mind spins. You call me crazy. You don't remember me crazy. None of you even know me anymore.

False accusations and cruel words. Are your intentions such or is life just that fucked up right now? The sickness. The pain. Yet we go on.

I come from a line of strong women and I too, am a strong woman. But sometimes, I cry. I cry until I shake. I used to turn down the lights as if that would make it less real and the next day I would say "I feel better after my good laugh" because I DID NOT CRY. But now I admit it, I cry. And you know what? I don't really feel any better.

Who is the final judge and why does everyone think they have the "in" on him? Who is to say what is right or wrong? What happened to support? Those closest to me have failed me in that way. Betrayed me with their put downs. Have I put you all down in some way without knowing? Have I disappointed you with my family and my dreams? Supporting your dreams was always a priority but I feel stepped on lately. Locked out of my own life.

My three year old screams in Terror. MOMMY. She shakes and cries and I hold her until she is calm. She can even feel my agnst tonight. I have failed her.

I want this dream, this store, this new life. I long for my old one where I had more time for boo boos and kisses and I cry again just thinking about it. We cannot have it all. I have always known that.

So many changes. So many mistakes and ambitions and failures. What is right and what is wrong and what happened to just being at someone's side through it all?

I have raised three kids alone and started a business in the last seven months all while my heart was breaking with so many, so many things. Am I that bad of a person? Do you guys really feel that way or are you just treating me that way because you don't want to look at your own life and disappointments?

One more question, Mr. God

So, I thank you. You answered my prayers and it is not the big C. That stupid doctor should have kept his mouth shut. He had no right to diagnose something like that from just an MRI when he is a back doctor. Not an oncologist.

And I thank all of you that have prayed.

But, God? One more question?

He is not doing well. When the Patriarch of such a large extended family is down, everyone kind of collapses beneath. Sure we work harder to compensate but our spirits are broken because his is.

What can I do God? That's my question. What can I, little me, do?

Dear God

Dear God,

We do not always agree you and I but I think we have a decent repertoire. Okay, so sometimes I yell at you and get angry. But I'm only human. And I don't ask for much. At least not material things. I pray for health and comfort and survival tactics. I have been poor and barely able to feed my kids for over a year and a half and I have not asked for things. Just survival.

I have not used a credit card in over two years. I almost lost my house, my husband, and more. But I did not ask you for any special favors.

I am asking you now.

You need to inform the doctors that they have made a GRAVE error. It is not CANCER. The mass is just due to the childhood tuberculosis and it can be taken care of and everything is okay.

My daddy will watch my children grow up. He will be at their college graduations and their weddings. This will bring joy to all of our lives.

You do not need him. Cancer does not need him. We do however and this is my request and prayer to you. Please fix this and make it okay. I will not give up. I take whatever you throw my way and live with the assumption it will make me stronger. But I will not lose my dad. Not now. No, not now.

My positive thinking will radiate around him tomorrow when he returns to the doctor and everything is going to be okay. Right God? You can do this favor for me, can't you? Whatever you need from me, whatever I can do to be a better person you can have.

You gave me three wonderful, beautiful (inside and out) children but this is not a barter. You cannot take my dad in return. Tell the doctors it was just an error and there is no cancer and I'll owe you big time.

Please God. I just want happiness and health for all those around me. I don't need meaningless shit, I need my family. He is my world and sunshine even at his most difficult. I am the closest to him and him to me and after all he has done for others in his lifetime please give him the chance to do more.

Give us all the chance.

Dear God, I pray to you. Please hear my prayers. Amen.

Top Ten Reasons Life is like a load of laundry

Life and Laundry have a lot in common.

1. It's never ending
2. Some stains come out and some leave their marks forever as reminders
3. No matter how often we work on it, there is always more to do
4. Washing it is easier than putting it away
5. It doesn't always fit right on a hanger and so it gets shoved in a drawer. In the back.
6. Again, there is always more to do even when you think you are finished.
7. It is impossible to put it all away all the time
8. It can be heavy at times and light at others
9. Everyone uses a different method, detergent, etc. yet the goal is the same.
10. It can be both euphoric and depressing simultaneously

My Mama Said

Mama said there would be days like this, there would be days like this my Mama said.

Shirelles

The uncertainty of each day is both what keeps us going and what keeps us from wanting to go. Swirling confusion can get in the way if we let it. People try and knock us down with their negativity and disrespect.

GOOD BYE

While others are Angels in our lives, guiding us and cheering us on. Believing in what we believe whether or not we are wearing our masks.

Each new day brings on new complications and new things to be proud of. It is so true that we learn something new every day. Sometimes it is good and sometimes it is not, but we do learn it if we open our eyes.

We cannot let the things that are bad get in the way of our dreams and our family. Washing the blood off someone elses hands (literally) brings us up to another level of being. In the next moment we can get brought down by ugly words. Don't let it get to you. Don't let it be a fallen tree in your path you cannot cross.

If something is in the way,

walk around it

jump over it

swim through it

plunge ahead

but never, never stop.

It is life's uncertainties of circumstance that makes us who we are. Every day we live a life only we can control. Even the things we cannot control, we control how we react even when we feel out of control.

Every night, the kids and I say the Serenity Prayer.

Dear God,

Please Grant Us the Serenity to Accept the Things we Cannot Change

The Courage to Change the Things we Can

And the Wisdom to Know the Difference

and we add in our blessings, thanks, or other prayers followed by our AMEN.

There is something out there that is bigger than all of us. Let's embrace it and hold our heads high even when our hearts are heavy for our hearts will not be heavy every day and we should give our thanks for each and every lesson and hardship so we become stronger, better human beings.

And we will succeed.

Call me crazy, but I never doubted for one minute that I would not succeed and look what is happening in spite of all the hardships I have endured- especially those in the past two years exactly.

There is days like this but there are also days like that.

Like I said, if God wanted us - he would have taken us by now. We must have some other purpose because damn it he won't let us go with him. Let's grab the here and now. Its hard sometimes, its easy others but its always there for the grabbing.

Sometimes I do want to go where everybody knows my name and sometimes I don't. I loved more than anything being a wife and a mother and staying home with my kids. I have to move to something new that also works. I can still be a wife and a mother and be good at all three if I want to.

It is all about me and that's alright.

Death Be Not Proud

Death Be Not Proud: John Donne

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so:

For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow

Die not, poor Death; not yet canst thou kill me.

From Rest and Sleep, which but thy picture be,

Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow;

And soonest our best men with thee do go-

Rest of their bones and souls' delivery!

Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,

And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;

And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well

And better than thy stroke. Why swell'st thou then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally,

And Death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die!

V: Elegy: Edna St. Vincent Millay

Let them bury your big eyes

In the secret earth securly,

Your thin fingers, and your fair,

Soft, indefinite-couloured hair,-

All of these in some way, surely,

From the secret earth shall rise;

Not for these I sit and stare,

Broken and bereft completely:

Your young flesh that sat so neatly

On your little bones will sweetly

Blossom in the air.

But your voice . . . never the rushing

Of a river underground,

Not the rising of the wind

In the tress before the rain,

Not the woodcock's watery call,

Not the note the white-throat utters,

Not the feet of children pushing

Yellow leaves along the gutters

In the blue and bitter fall,

Shall content my musing mind

For the beauty of that sound

That in no new way at all

Never will be heard again.

Sweetly through the sappy stalk

Of the vigourous weed,

Holding all it held before,

Cherished by the faithful sun,

On and on eternally

Shall your altered fluid run,

Bud and bloom and go to seed:

But your singing days are done;

But the music of your talk;

Never shall the chemistry

Of the secret earth restore.

All your lovely words are spoken.

Once the ivory box is broken,

Beats the golden bird no more.

XVI: Edna St. Vincent Millay

The doctor asked her what she wanted done

With him, that could not lie there many days.

And she was shocked to see how life goes on

Even after death, in irritating ways;

And mused how if he had not died at all

'Twould have been easier-then there need not be

The stiff disorder of a funeral

Everywhere, and the hideous industry,

And crowds of people calling her by name

And questioning her, she'd never seen before,

But only watching by his bed once more

And sitting silent if a knocking came . . .

She said at length, feeling the doctor's eyes,

"I don't know what you do exactly when a person dies."

Because I Could Not Stop for Death: Emily Dickinson

Because I could not stop for Death,

He kindly stopped for me;

The carriage held but just ourselves

And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,

And I had put away

My labor, and my leisure too,

For his civility.

We passed the school where the children played,

Their lessons scarcely done;

We passed the fields of gazing grain,

We passed the setting sun.

We paused before a house that seemed

A swelling of the ground;

The roof was scarcely visible,

The cornice but a mound.

Since then 't is centuries; but each

Feels shorter than the day

I first surmised the horses' heads

Were toward eternity.

O Captain! My Captain!: Walt Whitman

1

O captain! my captain! our fearful trip is done;

The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won;

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting

While follow eyes the steady kneel, the vessel grim and daring:

But O Heart! heart! heart!

Leave you not the little spot,

Where on the deck my captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

2

O captain! my captain! rise up and hear the bells:

Rise up- for you the flag is flung- for you the bugle trills;

For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths- for you the shores a crowding:

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

O captain! dear father!

This arm I push beneath you;

It is some dream that on the deck,

You've fallen cold and dead.

3
My captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;

My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will:

But the ship, the ship is anchor'd safe, its voyage closed and done;

From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won:

Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!

But I, with silent tread,

Walk the spot my captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

It is What We Make of It, Right?

So, writing tonight in my other journal I couldn't stop the following from running through my mind.

Featuring...... Robert Frost!

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

That was the first poem I memorized, you know? The first real adult one anyway. I guess I was probably 9 or 10 or some weird age where I should not be so into Robert Frost, but I was and I memorized it and I remember reading it out loud to the class, by memory for some reason. And being proud. The second was a much sadder one that I had memorized. I must have been a little older- closer to 11 or so when the first darkness began. I think of this to tonight. She was of course manic depressive and therefore impressive...

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Dirge Without Music

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.

So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:

Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned

With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.

Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.

A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,

A formula, a phrase remains,- but the best is lost.

The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,-

They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled

Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.

More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave

Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;

Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.

I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

And so that's all for tonight. Later.