Tag Archives: family

08.29.21
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The surprise visit

I had a blessed visit this morning with my dad…..it manifested with steepled fingers. Elbows on the arms of the chair with all 5 hand digits touching each other only connecting at the finger pads. It’s one of those memories of seeing my dad sitting in his recliner with his head back with his hands touching in the steepled finger position. The very last time I saw my dad was from the door of his hospital room shortly before his transition, laying in bed with fingers in the steepled position occasionally moving his hands as if having a conversation with someone I could not see.

This morning during the Daily Word and meditation portion of our Unity Service with my eyes closed I felt tears beginning to trickle from the outer corners of my closed eyes and my attention was drawn to the fact that my elbows were resting on the arms of the chair and my 5 finger pads on each hand were touching in a steeple position and I knew that my dad was close by. I wondered why the visit!

The energy of my dad visits often when I am open to his guidance or I am in a moment when I recognize I’m feeling lost or lonely and need some love. It’s not that I actually reach out or seek his connection, it’s that he just appears in my vulnerable heart. I am learning to allow the embrace, allow the connection, recognizing that his presence is here with me always and most importantly understanding that his presence is as real as if he were looking at me across the room from his recliner in his physical form.

Namaste

06.19.21
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Dear Dad

I was just telling the girls about what a hard worker you were! I told the story about you wanting to firm up the back yard in our first home in the late 50’s by hauling broken up concrete from a parking lot being torn up near our house…all of it in the trunk of your ‘49 Ford. Back and forth…then built up the wall so the back yard would quit flowing down the hill when it rained.

You worked a job you didn’t love for 33 years because you needed to take care of your family.

You were so very artistic and talented and I’m so honored to have your creations to remember you by.

You loved me and were always my silent protector. You loved your granddaughters with the same fervor.

Many times I know you forced yourself out of your introverted personality to be present in social situations.

And my biggest regret is that I feel I did not give you the love and honor you deserved because I could not bring myself to visit you next door because of your wife, my mother. My biggest regret in life is that I didn’t make more of an effort to find a way to just “be” with you and ignore her. But our last moments together in the hospital room when you were still alive and I massaged lotion on your forehead and the top of your head and you closed your eyes. I knew you felt it. My love!

Your energy is with me every day, Daddy! Our energy. Our love!

04.24.21
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So many thoughts 9 more hours

There is absolutely nothing going on today. It’s breezy, barely over 60 so I decided to use this day as a ?mental?health day which turned into I really need to find something constructive to do….I’m bored!

My last thought as I was cleaning up lunch dishes and putting silverware in the dish washer was a silly comment made yesterday by my 7 (going on 8) year old grandson. Phil and I adopted several sets of silverware when our relatives passed on from old age. This is in addition to the silverware that we had used daily and another set I kept in the drawer for when we had people over and I wanted to have a set that completely matched. Yesterday “J” noticed he and his brother were eating with different patterned forks. “J” got up, opened the silverware drawer and said…. “just like snowflakes, not a fork in the drawer is the same”.

Where does a 7 year old learn these turn of phrases? And more to the point… I only notice different silverware in my drawer because I hate eating with the lightweight, narrower silverware from HIS family and much prefer the heavier, bulkier from MY family.

Not that long ago, I was actually using silverware I bought at a thrift store. Heavy because the untined (not a real word BTW) end of the fork was covered with plastic. They lasted a long time but too many washes in the dishwasher finally weakened the glue that held the plastic on. I was very protective of this silverware…and decided once it was gone, I would just stop eating.

Ya. Didn’t happen. I assume you don’t want a story about the other thoughts that have shot through my mind this morning. I took a picture of a pound of butter for later.

Extensive discussion about our silverware is also available at the following link:

https://ninasusan.com/2018/05/23/the-silverware-of-our-lives/

Until next time….

03.21.21
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I AM WHAT I AM

I have been thinking it was retirement that has taken the pressure off. The pressure of no longer entertaining the belief that I’m not as smart or as worthy as everyone else…mentally living in my head believing that because I didn’t pursue a college educated career I wasn’t as good as or as worthy as others. That’s not it! I jumped out of bed this morning searching for pen and paper in order to get this most recent download recorded.

I’ve always known that I was raised by common parents…common being dad graduated from high school, enjoyed being with himself fishing or hunting, worked a “job” to make a living. Because of his job choice, he was able to take his art to work with him and create who he was on the job while hourly walking around pushing buttons and checking gages. I have no doubt I’m over simplifying his job. My mother didn’t graduate from high school but spent many of my growing up years taking sewing classes and living the life of a secretary for a lawyer. She always called herself a legal secretary and while I knew that “legal secretaries” were probably credentialed…she was theoretically a legal secretary.

I married into a cerebral family which didn’t help my self esteem at the time …. I just knew I was different than they were and did not fit into this family who I assumed looked down on me because I didn’t know “stuff”….I knew street smart stuff, I knew life stuff but I didn’t know the right stuff. The comparison that I always made was an illusion of my own making….if I had only known then what I know now.

I have always been exactly what I was meant to be…it was the ancestoral or familial blocks that had to be excavated, discarded so that I could understand I was a vital part of the whole of humanity. I contributed but I did not understand my part in the big picture was as important as the next person. So when I woke this morning with this knowing. There is nothing I need to do physically, mentally or spiritually to be who I thought I could be…These are just soul blocks that I’m in this lifetime to work through and remove. Being me is not something I need to aspire to …. it is what I AM.

Namaste

03.11.21
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Naked ladies look better than ever

So happy when we uncovered the Naked Ladies (aka Belladonna Lily) today. I had been out looking for them swiping at the mulch cover but obviously had dug around in the wrong spot.

This is probably the 4th year for them to actually pop out of the ground and this year looks to be a strong start! They fall into that favorite flower category albeit a short flowering season.

These flowers have very special meaning to me as they were promised to me as I sat beside the hospice bed of my “other” mom, Neva in April of 2016. She reminded her daughter/my dear friend, Sue….. be sure you dig those up for Nina. Special memories bring special blessings.

He worked in the yard today, I went out and helped pick up sticks and arranged my collection of nighttime lights in the sun so I can determine which ones have survived the winter.

Spring is here. We had our first thunderstorm last night. I’m feeling optimistic, blessed and hopeful. Summer of 2021 is on the horizon,

Namaste

12.25.20
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When the kids leave home

When my youngest daughter left for college, I was so excited for her adventure and her success. The next day I wondered what I was going to do with myself for the next 40 years. Most little girls born in the 50’s or 60’s usually know what they are to do. Get married, have kids and then the narrative ends. No one prepares us for the kids leaving home. I started collecting cats…..

Often girls also receive no instruction about the important things to expect after marriage…..like how do you merge the holidays. The options seem to be to give up on your family traditions and find peace with the husbands mother’s traditions, keep your family traditions and force the husband to disappoint his mother or wait until kids arrive and stand firm that you are making your own traditions and let the chips fall where they may.

Then your kids grow up, get married have children and there could be more grandparents than there are dining room chairs. NOW what. It’s possible to buy a day planner and schedule Christmas…everyone is kind of in the mood from Thanksgiving to New Years. That can work, I’ve heard.

But what I have found is you must release attachments about how Christmas is supposed to be. Learning to set aside “but they”…. I’ve always believed there was something special in the air about Christmas but I’ve learned that “we” have made Christmas what it is to us.

…….and I didn’t even want to touch on the religion aspect. Believe it or not, not everyone celebrates the same story about Baby Jesus.

Happy Holidays….

12.17.20
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A day in the life of 2020

I’ve joined a zoom Strength Builders class that meets on Monday and Thursday mornings. For the last two weeks, I’ve been walking with a slight bend at the waste. I believe this 1) is not natural for most women my age; and 2) this evidence that I accepted the invitation in the nick of time!

After class I opened the door and

He’s getting his exercise too and actually has also been walking with a slight bend. He’s been putting a ceiling in our downstairs family room.

It’s nearly completed….just a few pieces left on my end of the basement then he can begin the reorganization of his art studio. He thinks he can make it cat free….He’s such a dreamer!

While everyone else will be in their warm cars tonight driving through the many Christmas light venues around us, we are meeting the Missouri family at Powell Gardens and losing ourselves in the beauty and mystery of the decorated Christmas wonderland!

It’s really hard to believe the 2020 version of Christmas is a week away.

Sadly I think the geese are getting ready to leave the pond. They’ve all been sitting around on a thin layer of ice today…..I’ve been sending them messages to stay awhile longer…the rest of the week will be warmer

This reads more like a Dear Diary entry but that is where I am in my head…holding myself close, appreciating the friendships and the love and the beauty all around me.

namaste

11.26.20
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No place for anything but gratitude on Thanksgiving…

Thanksgiving this year was just one of those events in my life where I said, Yep…can’t do anything about it…just get through it. Poof…seems as soon as I released my attachment to what it should be, what it’s always been, and stopped ruminating…I began to find some peace, joy and gratitude!

Except for the young hen turkey instead of a Tom….and too much sage in the dressing and not really understanding how much less milk is needed for Yukon yellow mashed potatoes rather than russets, the food was excellent and the 5 ingredient corn casserole was the best one ever and I did not miss the green bean casserole AT ALL (possibly the first holiday in 64 years without it).

I went with a tongue in cheek comment from our youngest daughter that we could just zoom while we all ate our meals in our 3 little units….so we set the IPAD up on the table and everyone zoomed in for our meal…our family time clocks are all different but this way we get to enjoy each other 3 times in the day. he and I have saved dessert for the next daughter’s meal and then we will get dessert the second time for the second daughter’s meal. We did this recipe except put it in a graham cracker crust.

Easy peasy. And our two year old Rhoads rolls in the freezer didn’t rise appropriately for the occasion, I did find that the drawer under the oven was a great place for them to do their best. It gave me the idea that in the future this will be a perfect place to keep food warm as I prepare a meal.

So with gratitude, my friends, we hold you all in love and light as we hold each other up!

Namaste

10.23.20
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Passing on the stairway

If you know me or have read my blogs before, you know that I was left with boxes and totes full of “stuff” when my parents passed. I’ve experienced many moments of angst wondering why they would hold onto this junk. But I’ve also had many moments of thanksgiving that they held into all of these treasures.

Last month, I spent a week entertaining my quarantined self going through totes and boxes looking at each picture and reading letter after letter from parents and aunts and uncles and grandparents of my parents. It was an incredible journey as I was able to glimpse my parents as young adults and better understand their lives and the lives of all of those relatives who went before me paving the path for me.

I found these two small bottles in one of the totes and placed them on a shelf in my office. I kept them out, mainly because they were old/cute/tiny. Although I have no frame of reference and I cannot read the small print other than Spice…I was thrilled that one of them still holds perfume from the past. This morning I took the cap off of the empty bottle and the scent IS STILL THERE! I realized (with a weird sense of connection) that I was savoring the scent of a feminine ancestors passing me on a stairway in a different place and time.

I am grateful for the blessings in my life!

09.26.20
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Healing the mind in conversation

Our Spirit Group facilitator, Mary, helped me through an emotionally challenging, teary discussion by having me switch to referring to myself in the 3rd person rather than as I. Using this process (while cumbersome at first) really works in taking the sting out of words. Later on, during a counseling session, a therapist used the same method with He and I which made honest conversation easier to acknowledge.

Here’s an excerpt from an article I found from Psychology Today:

“When using third person or “non-first-person” pronouns during self-talk, you do not use pronouns such as I, me, or my. Instead, you speak to yourself (either in a hushed tone or silently inside your own head) using pronouns such as you, he, she, it, or your own first or last name. In recent years, a wide range of studies has found that third-person self-talk can improve emotion regulation and self-control by facilitating self-distancing and reducing egocentric bias”

Years ago while learning to cope with and live with my relationship with my mother, I began to refer to her in conversations by her given name. While I absolutely did not have the gonads to call her Helen to her face, I recall the feelings of less lethal emotions when I gave myself permission to not refer to her with the beloved name of Mom. Of course, mom wasn’t actually the name she preferred…it was Mother. It’s highly likely that Mother is a loving name spoken from children to their beloved. But in my case it was a “formal” expectation which was another knife wound that separated mother and daughter.

In a FB conversation with a friend this morning, I referred to mom as Helen….and that’s what brought this whole train of thought coursing through my brain like a slow meandering stream. Use it if it feels good. We all have uncomfortably charged conversations

Until next time….