Knock On Wood

I was listening to another podcast I recently discovered.  It is called "Enduring it Well" and each episode is an interview with someone who has faced tremendous challenges and yet has moved on to the rest of their life.

I listened to Mr. and Mrs. Smart, who spoke of the nine months their daughter Elizabeth was gone after being abducted from her bedroom at knife point by a crazed, religious zealot.  Another was of a mother whose daughter died at 5 years old of spinal meningitis after some really big goofs by the hospital staff where she was being treated.  And the first in the series was the program's host who spoke of  his four children, each with muscular dystrophy, and of loosing two of them to the disease so far.  These are heart breaking situations.

"Why," you may ask "does she listen to this stuff by choice? Perhaps she is a little sadistic."

Actually, the best part of these stories is the increase in faith and hope that each individual has shared.  They have felt the love of God in their lives and have seen miracles happen--not just the obvious miracles, like Elizabeth being returned to her family, but the little miracles of being able to continue after the loss of a child, or the hope that comes from with faith in God for better things to come.

This morning I sat listening to the first half of a story of a young dancer who became a C7 paraplegic after a misstep sent her tumbling 35 feet off an embankment.  She acknowledge how much she missed dancing, jumping, walking, but that her injuries have also brought her increased awareness of others' pain and suffering.  Her empathy has grown to something she never would have imagined had she not faced similar challenges herself.

I live a pretty charmed life.  My health, generally, is really good.  Could I loose some 20 pounds or so and feel even better?  Sure.  But is the weight issue a life or death situation though?  No way.  My family is fairly secure and happy.  Are there troubles and bumps in the road together?  Absolutely.  Could we do better in our communication and help each other more?  Of course.  My work as a PTA volunteer, of course, pays nothing--in fact, it costs me--but I enjoy what I do (most of the time) and see the benefits to my own kids and all the students I get to work with.  Will I ever get rich, or famous, or even promoted doing this?  Not a chance.

After hearing these folks share their challenges and the lessons they have learned from them, I wondered to myself if I have had enough experiences to really understand what it is to be charitable.  Or sympathetic. Or innately kind.  Ultimately I would like to be considered each of this things when my life comes to a close on earth.  Will those I care most about really know how loved they are by my regular daily actions or choices?  Will others see what I truly value based on my actions and choices?  Will I leave a legacy of love and service for those that come after me from what I have done and taught and modeled in my choices, actions, and attitudes?  I hope so.

I also hope that I can be wise enough to learn these characteristics without having to endure the lessons that teach those things directly.  I hope I can learn them by watching others who I know are going through them and that I can follow the examples of the good people I see every day, without having to have all their personal trials myself.  My own bucket of issues feel like they are enough for me at this point.  My own lessons, learned by my own mistakes, trials and discouragements are enough to fill my plate.  But I hope I can observe and see the lessons they learn and, in turn, vicariously apply the lessons from their actions and choices.

Knock on wood, I don't have to go through what everyone else must go through to learn what they are learning.  I hope I am wise enough to watch and learn from a safe distance.  But I am afraid I am a slow learner sometimes and the quickest way to figure it out is by my own lessons.  But I hope not.

I Dare You Not To Feel Something Here

Thanks to Dear Friend Karen for forwarding this story to me.  If we understood the concept that the way we treat people--every person, in every situation--means something, we might be the change we want to see in the world.

"Their kids were our kids, and our kids were their kids..."

If only this were the norm, instead of the excpetion.  Happy Friday, friends.


And HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Genius Golfer today.  I love you, and wish you the best birthday ever!

P.C. or Not P.C.: That is the Question

I read this little article this morning, and while I am not surprised, I am still irritated at those in government.  Special interest groups seem to be the only ones who see success.  This was part of an e-magazine called Meridian.

Moral Disapproval – So Politically Incorrect

By Gary C. Lawrence


Attorney General Eric Holder announced today that the Obama administration would no longer defend DOMA - the federal Defense of Marriage Act.


Never mind that the law passed by 85-14 in the Senate and gathered a similar 84% of the vote in the House. A real squeaker, that. And signed into law by President Clinton, hardly a right-wing conservative.


Holder said President Obama decided against the ongoing defense of DOMA because the debate in Congress in 1996 included statements that reflected (wait for it) "moral disapproval of gays and lesbians and their intimate and family relationships..."


Imagine, Congress considering morality when deciding our laws. What will come next -- dieters considering calories, car-buyers considering engines, manufacturers considering materials?


If one argues that the moral landscape has changed (Holder says the legal landscape has changed), then let the originators of the law -- Congress -- decide whether or not to repeal it. But to refuse to defend a properly passed law constitutes a de facto executive veto over a law passed by veto-proof margins and the President who signed it 15 years ago.


There is a proper way to take a law off the books. This isn't it.


Mr. President: If you want to destroy DOMA, then have your allies in Congress start the legislative process and let our representatives decide.


Be a mensch and do it the right way.


If this nation isn't ripening in iniquity, with its attending consequences, then I don't know the definition of the term.

On the Road Again

This afternoon, The Girl begins a new chapter in her swimming life.  She has decided to join a club team so that she can continue to practice between the HS season and the summer season.  So I begin the road trip driving her back and forth too.

She is anxious to refine her stroke and increase her speed.  This club team will help her with that.  Even as she went to speak with the coach yesterday, there were maybe a dozen swimmers in the pool.  Just that smaller coach to swimmer ratio will help her.  She'll have someone to work with HER, not just the group.

I am glad she wants to continue improving.  She has a talent for this, and she enjoys doing this.  Event he monotonous practices.  And this may even help her learn some techniques that will help her as a coach of the youngest swimmers on the summer team--she was asked to be a coach at the end of the HS season this year.  So this will help her on that front too.

She has set a goal for herself to make it to the HS state swim finals next year.  And to make the podium by the time she is a senior.  How can I not assist her with ambitious goals like that?!  I can't.  So I am driving her each day to the neighboring town's indoor pool.  Everyday, including Saturday.

If nothing else, she will develop her own talents, initiate new friendships, and fine tune her self-discipline with this project.  I just hope her swim goals will also be met.

Nightmare

Last night, or early this morning, I woke up from a terrifying and very real nightmare.  I guess what makes a nightmare all the more terrifying is that while you are asleep your brain believes what it is seeing.  However, I was still terrified when I woke up because my daytime brain has actually wondered if something like my nightmare could happen.  The possibility of it makes it even worse.

**This disclaimer is to let you know that I do not claim to have prophetic dreams, where things I dream about then become reality...so continue reading at your own discretion and understand that I am not foretelling something terrible, just relating a what caused a horrible night's sleep.***

In my dream I saw my family having some sort of family celebration at my home.  It was warmer weather since some people were out on the back patio, and the french doors off the dining room were open.  I was out on the front lawn with Nephew #2 and we were chatting about something I couldn't understand.  Suddenly nephew's dad drove up and parked his truck in front of my house.  His new wife and young son were in the passenger side.  They stayed there while nephew's dad got out and angrily walked to the front door with a gun in his hand.  Nephew and I ran in after him, yelling for people to watch out.  Our warnings were never heard as nephew's dad opened fire on the group in the back of the house and on the patio.  Nephew and I were screaming together and suddenly the sound stopped and the next moment I was awake and panting for breath.

It was horrible.

Now, I don't have any idea what all this would mean to someone who buys into dream analysis, other than I am afraid of my ex-brother-in-law.  And I probably, if I was honest with myself, wouldn't put it past him to do harm to those in my family.  He is a pretty angry guy, and since their divorce he seems to believe he has cause to be that level of "angry".  But I have not really considered this playing out like my nightmare showed me.  I woke up panicked and terrified and distressed.

I quickly recognized that it was just a dream, and therefore I didn't have any reason to get upset by it in reality.  But the thought was still there, deep set in my subconscious.  That can't be good.

I go to court with my sister in early March again.  Each time I do I worry about the outcome of the day, of the ineffective words of the judge or commissioner, of the legal costs of the day and the preceding preparation by my sister's attorney and the emotional costs of the day that will have to be paid over the next weeks and months as we deal with the fall out of another's choices and the lack of accountability with which he is held. 

That is probably the worst part of it.  I simply don't think the system works.  I don't believe the judge when he "lays down the law" because for nearly four years is hasn't mattered.  The threats are empty and hollow.  And she still has to cope every day with angry boys who are being told opposite things from their parents.  She deals with the financial deprivation that comes with fighting a good fight. And we all deal with the emotional investment of years given to attempted understanding and support for something we can't see the end of.

I woke up with chills, a headache, and a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.  I know it was only a nightmare, and I only have to deal with these feelings each time a court date draws closer, but she lives this every day.  She copes with decisions made by others every day.  She lives with her boys and must endure the repercussions of their feelings when they are being lied to and fed a steady stream of anger, mistrust and blame pointed at their mother each time they visit their dad.

Is she blameless in this scenario?  No, not completely, but I know how hard she is trying to do right by her boys since this whole thing started.  And I also realize that I have not heard his side of the story, but I do know he lied to me too many times to count, so I am leery to want to know his side in general, and certainly not the particulars.  I am already too close to the situation to be objective.  Which is why I feel physically ill every time I go to these legal things.

Now even my sleep is disturbed by the terrible "what if" scenarios.  I just pray for peace for all the parties involved.  And with that, I hope that means me as well.

President's Day Report

Well, it is a holiday for Genius Golfer and the kids.  Funny how laundry still needs my attention, and dinner will still need to be made and all that.  Oh well.

I had a dear friend call this morning to tell me something and in salutation had asked me "Doing anything fun today?"

The "fun" is relative, I suppose.  I did get to sleep in until 9 AM with out anyone waking me up--as was the case on Saturday.  So that was fun.

GG and I took the kids to Krispy Kreme donuts with their semester report cards where they got free donuts for each "A" they received, and where I bought two dozen un-needed and otherwise useless but delicious  glazed donuts.  So that is fun, at least until I have to get on a scale again.

The Boy and GG just got back form an previously undisclosed outing to Kohl's with a new suit for The Boy.  He was looking like hand-me-down-Harry at church yesterday with his wrists sticking out beyond his suit jacket sleeve and the floods must be rising based on the hem of his pants.  So a new suit will be much more satisfactory, and well, fun for me. Not sure if he cares that much.  And I didn't have to buy it.  That is fun.

And we did make plans to go to dinner on Friday for GG's birthday.  Which means I don't have to make dinner that night.  That will be fun.

Without a plan, I guess we still did have some fun today.  Not bad for a sunny day with deceptively cold temperatures, all in all.  It could always be worse.  And that wouldn't be fun.

Video Sunday