I Sent You a Dog

It's  been a crazy, nail-gnawing summer. I've barely had time to sit down and write on my Works In Progress let alone on my blogs. But today seems to be a good time to take stock of the situation.

There have been a few peaks (my son coming home from Russia; getting my medallion with my youngest daughter; seeing my babies and my eldest and her husband; going to the Temple; a family reunion) and several plunges (dealing with someone who reminds me of Godzilla in the way she stomps around crushing people; wedding insanity; and running a funeral). Challenges have included helping several friends work through hills of trash of both the physical kind and mental, as well as dealing with my own detritus mountain.

I wish I could say that I handled each challenge with grace and wit. Nope. I mentally kicked and screamed and threw myself on the floor and then crawled into my mental cave to lick wounds almost every time. I wish I could say I'd evolved into this amazing, brilliant butterfly of a person. But I think I went backwards and became a worm again. I let myself be pushed out of my place; knocked off my perch; rolled out to the trash and left there behind the barrel.

In fact, I felt about two inches high at a time when I should have been deliriously happy. It was supposed to be one of those fabulous mom paydays. Instead, she told me, "Sorry. No paycheck for you. In fact, you're fired. Don't let the door hit you in the rear. Oh, and by the way, you're unimportant and crazy." (Not in so many words, but actions yell.)

What have I learned?
1. Ask for inspiration about these things and then listen to and believe those words.
2. There are things you're reading incorrectly, but mostly not.
3. Trust your intuition.
4. Just let it run off.
5. Breathe.
6. Pick your battles.
7. Contrary to popular belief, you have a place and a value much > zero.
8. I sent you a dog. Now use him for good (not food).
9. Don't lose sight of what's really important while bemoaning the garbage.
10. This too will pass. And someday you'll have regrets.

Okay. Now it's time to go make dinner (not dog).

Final Poem of April

The chain is broken
Last link gone
The days are slipping
On and on

Picture by: thepioneerwoman.com

Soon the summer
Will be here
The trees once green
Turn brown and sere

I'll say good-bye
To life once sweet
And make amends
With regret replete.

Light the lantern
Guiding me home
For I have tasks
And far to roam.

If I have harmed you
I am sorry
I do not wish to
Cause you worry.

Let me right
My many wrongs,
Do my duties
Sing my songs

Help me be the one
I was meant to be
Before the last leaf
Leaves the tree.

This poem was inspired by a dream I had Friday. I dreamed that I was dying of lung cancer and had only twelve weeks to live. I must say it really shook me. Part of me wants to live my life like it's true--abandon everything which isn't something I'd do in twelve short weeks. The other part jeers and says it's only a dream.

Maybe there's a middle road in which I don't abandon everything, but live as perfectly as possible. To that end, I made my piece with an acquaintance today. Previously I've let her annoy me. Today I tried to look at her through Christ's eyes. She's trying.

Let's see if I can do this.

Deathday Party

Day 22--Diamond Poem

I wrote this for a friend whose brother is dying. I wanted her to know how I see his journey back--only sad for those left behind, and only if the bereaved haven't done all they could to ease his journey and celebrate his life. Otherwise, it's just a brief moment in time--a spark and then you'll see him again, whole and happy.

Deathday party

Sweet one

Be happy for me

Don't weep for me now

I merely carry the banner on

Returning to the One who made me

Help me go; loose the bands which keep me

Gird me in my robes of pristine white

I go forward to the next place

Smile for me, little one.

I'll always love you.

My heart

This one is how I would feel at the end of my life, if it came now, when I feel unprepared:

Regret

At the end 

Of my time here

The days and hours,

Like coins,

Falling through

My fingers.

For what

Have I spent

Such precious currency?

Have I done

Enough?

No.

Never.

There'll always be

Another act of 

Random kindness

Another bid for salvation

On which to spend 

This precious hoard.

I must give coin 

With love

Knowing it will 

Come back to me

In incredible

Abundance

From the One

From whom all

Such coin

Proceeds.

Parachutes and Tiger Lilies

As the final hours of my son's senior year ebb away, I find myself waxing a little misty-eyed.

I can see the regret roiling in him and it brings my own regrets to the fore. He regrets stuffing all of his extra character-building, rounding-out efforts into his final year of high school. I know that he feels badly that he never got faster than a 29 second 100 fly on the swim team. He feels badly that he didn't even know he had any potential as a tenor until they begged him to join choir this year. He regrets just missing going to State by a hair's breadth. He wishes he'd done more in musical theater. Perhaps he even regrets not having run track in high school.

I feel the yearning in my son as he watches the last events of his childhood unfold, inexorably dragging him closer to that precipice of the unknown. He sees his friends taking that leap into the wild and terrifying abyss and wonders if his chute was packed well and will open.

H's regrets trigger my own, both for him, and for myself. I wish I had somehow done more; more for him, and more with him. As he tests his chute in preparation to take to the wind, I find myself already missing him. Why didn't I ever go and meet his Russian teacher? Why didn't I take him along to church choir with me when he was a freshman? Why didn't I ride him more to get better grades? Why didn't I talk to his English teacher and see if he could really write? He never showed me his papers after he hit high school. I can't imagine why I didn't go ASK except at conferences.

I remember my own failings in high school--my own wastes of time and energy. I spent too many hours anguishing over the fact that I was a weed, not a lily. Too many thoughts were centered on why I never seemed to measure up. There was always some much cuter girl hogging all the hunky boys. There was always someone less clumsy, or better at German (my dad was the teacher), or less clumsy, or more intelligent or less clumsy. I struggled in math and struggled in P.E. (I couldn't keep the stupid tennis ball in the stupid court. I don't know how many times I set off car alarms hitting cars.)

I forget the fact that I was on toe as a dancer, making stellar grades, beginning to sweep the art world in our school, touring Europe at 16, punching cards for the one computer in school, learning to climb and rappel, and cementing life-long friendships. I look back, now, and wish that I had danced more and worried less. I suppose that I was simply doing what every teen does at some point--dealing with the angst of finding out exactly who I am and what I am worth.

Now I am still evaluating the worth question. I am at the middle of my life, now. Somehow it feels like the end. Why does it feel like the previous half means more than the next? Why am I constantly feeling like my potential wanes with the seconds? Where is my capacity to break out of the dark, cramping earth and burst into bloom?

My boy may perceive that he is just one of those lilies which was caught slumbering still in the Spring loam, his potential still latent. He thinks that all of his friends have bloomed and he is doomed to fall bloom-less. I, on the other hand, have seen him blaze forth in all his tiger lily splendor. His talents, though somewhat un-honed, are there in abundance. He fills the air with riotous, flamboyant color. The infectiousness of his grin, his bright wit, the intensity of his dedication, and the will to do the right thing have all bloomed in him, auguring a fine career as a human being.

What of me? There is no going back, whatever regrets I have for not having seen or done everything. I stand, now, at the same kind of precipice as does Hunter. Ahead, only empty air. Have I checked my chute? Or will there be a very messy squashing sound as I hit the ground?

Will I be a weed or a lily? Will I rise above the earth, tuck my head into the sky, and see the face of the Son? Will it matter all of my life that I'm a dandelion or a tiger lily to other people? Or will I shuck off all of that angst and nonsense and just blaze?
I guess it's up to me. And It's up to me to show H. that same truth.

He is my bright, beautiful tiger lily.