Author: AMRT

I'm ironic, on a good day. Sarcastic on a bad day. But I always try to be honest about life, the families we love and the way it all fits together. And oh yes, sometimes I'm funny.

Putting the Pieces Together

Putting the Pieces Together

Winter doldrums, spring cleaning, summer vacation, the words roll off our tongue and into our lexicon of cliches. But what about fall? Some of us love it (me,me, me) others find it a dreary forerunner to the dreaded winter. If leaves are falling, then snow, ice and dark mornings are not far behind.

This past October weekend I visited an annual quilt show in a nearby community. It’s not my first calico and cotton rodeo. I’ve been to one almost every year for the past ten years. As always the beauty, creativity and precision astound me. I typically say to whatever friend has accompanied me, that viewing all this artistry fills me with equal parts awe and inadequacy.

Quilting, today is the direct descendant of the homespun craft of yesterday’s necessity. To a time when left over scraps of fabric or sometimes old clothes past wearability, were fashioned into warm blankets. Somewhere along the way a woman, ( I’m just guessing, but I bet it was a woman) decided to experiment with creating patterns from the scrap cloth. Basic geometric pieces sewn together to create more geometric shapes. And so beauty entered the story.

Two things come to my mind when I view quilts. First that at the first show I attended, the antique quilts displayed in an actual art museum, were often labeled with this notation “Artist Unknown.” An inadvertent example of how women’s art was so overlooked and unrecognized as art that the artist remained anonymous. But my first understanding of the world of quilt came from my own mother. After her mother’s passing, we found among her possessions a stack of quilt pieces. The discovery led my mother to tell of her memories of accompanying her mother to quilting bees. There, as a small child, she would sit under the quilt frame. Here she would listen to the women talking and helpfully push their sewing needles back up through the fabric as they sewed.

Recently on one of my walks I stopped to look at the sidewalk. It was a bright, clear, beautiful, fall morning. I stopped to take in the beauty underfoot. It had rained before sunrise so the sidewalk was still damp. The small golden leaves that had fallen from the trees had created their own art work. It was as if the square of sidewalk concrete had become a canvas. The wind had become the artist and the leaves the paint that morning. And under my feet I saw not a splattering of falling leaves, a symbol of summers end as well as that of another year. But rather nature’s hand in a mosaic of color, texture and beauty.

Scraps, leftovers, and the falling fragments of summer shade. Surely both create art in the eyes of this beholder. Maybe that’s the connection I’m meant to see between the colorful dress of this crunching underfoot season and the handwork of those who create beauty from disparate pieces of cloth. Maybe the desire to create beauty in fabric or on canvass is just our attempt to follow the example of nature’s creator. And maybe in doing so it becomes a quiet, but oh so beautiful a prayer.

I’m just say’n.

All that Glitters

“Autumn, the years last,loveliest smile”—William Cullen Bryant

After my mother died (what a dire way to begin a post) my father did what many fathers do. He gave me my mother‘s jewelry. It wasn’t a lot of jewelry and much of it was costume jewelry. But there were a few pieces that were real gold, real gems. And one of them was her wedding ring. I had always loved my mother’s wedding ring. It was a gold band, but deeply engraved all the way around. I loved it so much that when I chose my engagement ring, it was because it reminded me of my mother‘s wedding band. So when my father gave it to me, I slipped it on almost immediately onto my finger right above my wedding band and engagement ring. I wore it there for 30 years until the man who gave me my engagement ring upped the ante. And on our 40th anniversary he gave me an entire new wedding set. I then put the ring into my jewelry box where it remained just a few years. And then one day, my daughter, by now, engaged and ready to be married herself, asked if she could have my mother‘s wedding band as her wedding band. I of course said yes, immediately so happy that this beloved daughter would be wearing the wedding band that first my mother had worn for over 50 years, and then then I had worn for 30 years. A talisman of the grandmother she had never met.

A few days ago, while out on an early morning walk, I saw a familiar site on the damp sidewalk in front of my home. Gold. When we moved into this house almost 40 years ago, there was a new tree planted in front. It was just a sapling. I couldn’t tell you what kind of tree it was, it was just new. Now all these years later, it is taller than the roof of my house, And every year it drops its leaves ,of course, in fall. Small always, yellow golden leaves scattered there on the sidewalk creating a golden path in front of my home. I’ve taken a lot of photos of this tree, usually through an upstairs window that peeks out at the top of the tree that fills with gold on sun lit mornings. For a tree that was ignored in its infancy, I’ve become obsessed with it in its middle age. And more recently I started taking pictures of our golden retriever on the same golden path.

Murphy, was the fourth golden retriever that has belonged in my house,in our family, and in my heart. He arrived here somewhere around five years old, a rescue after the hurricane that hit Puerto Rico. He followed, Bella, Yankee, and Kalahan into our lives. He died in February this year. And as fall begins its colorful entrance I realize that this the longest period of time that we have not had a golden in our home since 1985. And I don’t like it.

Now I know there are people who are not that interested in jewelry, costume jewelry, or fine jewelry. They’re just not that interested. They may even think it’s silly or foolish or too expensive no matter what the cost. They don’t/won’t wear it they may say. Well, that’s a whole other discussion which will also involve “good” china. But I digress.

So my perspective is a little different. You see, I believe that wedding ring connects the women who have worn it, to each other in a meaningful way. It tells the story of weddings and marriages. It connected me to my mother every time someone said to me, “ What a beautiful ring.” because I could say “Thank you, it was my mother’s.” And in that moment I could think of her. And yes of course, she often told me her favorite season was fall. And yes, fall is my favorite season too.

So when I ventured out on a sunny not quite fall morning and I saw that golden pathway, I thought of my beautiful golden escorts who are no longer with me. And the sun and the leaves reminded me of those fluffy lovable creatures. And that’s a good memory and a good thing too.

And when I wear my mother’s gold locket (in which she had placed a two photos one each of my husband and me) I think of her, and that’s a good memory and a good thing too.

Both of these two formulas prove, to me at least, the rule.

It seems that all that glitters is truly gold.

I’m just say’n.

Murphy on a fall morning

Decoration Day

My mother was old school. Every year when Memorial Day came around she would say that that it was formerly called Decoration Day. The day when Americans would decorate the graves of the country’s fallen soldiers. At some point it was renamed Memorial Day and has slowly morphed into the unofficial beginning of summer, a three day weekend for many, the day when wearing white shoes and pants is fashionably correct.

Here where I live, nestled along the shore of Lake Michigan in our urban city park, there was an annual kite festival during the Memorial Day weekend. The park was full of families, friend groups and others flying colorful kites. There was music and laughter under a beautiful blue sky.

A short walk to another part of the park someone had remembered it was also Decoration Day.

There at the foot of the Vietnam War Memorial, volunteers had placed American flags. One flag for each of the Wisconsin war dead in every conflict beginning with the Civil War, fluttered in the breeze.

I passed the flags of those lost in the Vietnam war. It had colored so much of my childhood and teenage years. I immediately thought of the young solder who died, the family member of one of my best friends. Tears unexpectedly came for a young man I never met.

I continued around the display. Flags for the fallen from two world wars, the Gulf War, the Civil War (the most costly in our history) and even a marker for those lives lost in peace time (623) decorating the expanse of green.

I stopped at the marker for the Korean War. I had been three years old when we took my father to the airport. I had no idea why. But I remember his mother quietly crying into her handkerchief and my own mother holding back tears as we watched him walk toward the aircraft. My dad was career military, and he was bound for Korea. But I also remember a Christmas Day some months later. My father came home. Here a marker in the Milwaukee sun informed me that 801 sons, husbands and fathers did not return to their loved ones.

So on this Memorial Day I’ll be thinking of those two sights. Laughing happy people flying kites and picnicking on a beautiful May day. And nearby the flags decorating the same park in memory of those who died making the laughter and fun possible.

Decoration Day indeed.

I’m just say’n

It’s the comments

My preferred form of communication is letter writing. But I realize that I’m swimming upstream on this point. These days, the most common form of written communication I share with friends and family, is through social media. And with the ending of one year and the bare beginning of a new year, I’ve been thinking about the messages and notes I’ve received through this cyber post. Especially those messages that appear in my social media feed under the heading “memories” from the past it’s in these sometimes silly rarely serious past posts that I review the messages and comments made made by those folks who had something funny to add, or agreed with an idea, shared in the post or even sometimes passed on a lovely compliment. (I must add here that most compliments were about the handsome face of my golden retriever.)

I have been on Facebook for over 20 years that’s four golden retrievers ago and even more hairstyles. And over that time I reconnected with hometown high school friends, members of my church community, members of Civic organizations, and even my own family as well as neighbors.

I joined the platform about the same time that young people started to flee when baby boomers like me started to activate pages. We were filling our posts with pictures of our kid’s, youth soccer games, little league, new grandchildren, and pet pictures. The younger generation fled in horror and migrated to other platforms.

So I’ve seen my share of change in the sometimes aging profile photos of people I’ve known since I was nine years old. I’ve learned about their children’s weddings, the birth of their grandchildren, the loss of their own parents, many of whom I grew up, knowing.

But interestingly, as in all social media, the gold is in the comments. And these days I’ve been nostalgic and reminiscing and a little sad when the comments of these old friends come over the Internet from the grave.

I’m sure I never thought when I made that first post that the people who would read it and send me good wishes, congratulations, or thumbs up, would someday be only a memory, a social media memory, that bring me back to a day when a college friend or childhood chum reached out. I never contemplated that someday that friend would no longer be able to wish me a cyber happy birthday.

I know there is much negativity in social media, that it can be a black hole that chews up too much time and yes, disinformation has also found a home here.

But I will keep on checking my notifications for comments and birthday wishes, and giggles because for me, they are just as valuable as a stack of letters, tied up with a ribbon and kept in a drawer. They are there to reread and remember the college roommate, the fellow RA, the neighbor who became so much more than a neighbor, and those others who took time to write something in the comment bubble to me.

I’m just say’n.

Crying time (revisited)

I think I need a new toaster. All good things come to an end, or more specifically all appliances big and small are only temporary possessions for us all. And I have already written that I get a little nostalgic when it happens. Sometimes, even little misty.

I’ve been married for 45 years, so the breakdown for toaster life in my household seems to be somewhere between 20 and 20+ years. A pretty good investment I would say.

My first toaster was a wedding gift. I grew up in a small town, returned there from college to have a small town wedding. I registered at the wonderful and beautiful Marshall Fields, in the Big City on State Street in Chicago, and at my local hardware store. I told you—I was from a small town.

The toaster came from the hardware store. I’ve since forgotten who the lovely gift giver was, but the toaster as swell as it was, was just a two slicer. You could only toast two slices of toast at a time. And at the ripe age of 22. I believed that any toaster worth having, must have four slice capability. So before my husband and I set off for his graduate school and my new big life in another midwest state, we stopped at the hardware store and swapped out our two slice toaster for a fabulous four slice toaster. It lasted in our household at least 20 years. At which time I bought another slightly more upscale, from a gourmet kitchen shop, four slice toaster. And as I look at it this morning, I think it’s time has come and gone.

So I’m not complaining about the longevity of toasters. Although I will add a footnote that for as long as my mother had a toaster, she had the same one.
But this is a blog about crying and I am definitely not crying about a toaster.


This past summer, our daughter was married. (By some quirk of genetics, she prefers a toaster oven. I don’t know how this aberration happened.)
And since we’re talking about crying, it’s important to know that, I have always been a big cryer at weddings. I can almost always feel tears well up in my eyes at specific points of weddings. When the bride walks down the aisle, especially if I’m good friends with the bride side of the family. I better have tissues handy. But I also got a little misty eyed when our own godson danced with his mother at his wedding. A beautiful solo at a church wedding can also call tears to my eyes. But then again, a favorite hymn at a Sunday service can also bring the tears. So in my family I am famously a crier.


As we were prepping for the wedding, no one I knew asked me if I would cry at the wedding. They probably just assumed I would at some point. There were many comments made about the fact that my husband, the bride’s father, would be sure to cry. The question was would he cry when he took advantage of the new tradition, of the First Look look for dad? Or would we see tears fall from his Irish eyes as he brought his daughter down the aisle?
Well, we’re talking about crying. I’ll add this, I love it when other people cry at weddings. I love it when a maid of honor becomes verklempt as her best friend takes her marriage vows. I love it when the bride gets misty, and has trouble saying her vows, and the maid of honor, hands her a tissue or handkerchief. I think it’s one of the things that make weddings so special. It’s just great all that crying. All that emotion. All that love revealed for everybody to see. So yes, crying at weddings I’m totally for it.
So I guess you’re wondering when I did my crying at the wedding?
Well, nothing is sure in life, except that nothing is sure in life.

This summer, when my husband entered the special room to see his one and only daughter in her beautiful bridal finery, he shed not a tear. A fact I still can’t get over. And we have the photographic proof to prove this as well. There is a picture of my daughter, looking at her dad with her hand on her hip. In my mind I think she’s saying “well, what’s up Dad?” because she didn’t see any tears.
As the wedding party lined up in the vestibule behind, closed doors, waiting for our entrance, I had no idea whether or not I would cry.
The string quartet was in the choir loft of the beautiful old downtown church. And when they began playin “Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring” the officiants walked down the aisle. And after a dramatic pause, the mother of the bride, (that would be me!) walked down the aisle.
The wedding was beautiful as I believe all weddings are. And my handkerchief stayed clean and dry in my special mother of the bride purse.

It’s been more than six months since the big shindig. And recently I was in my kitchen doing something quite kitchen-y I’m sure. I was listening while I worked, to the playlist I had created of the music that my daughter and I selected for the string quartet to play for the wedding ceremony. It was a combination repertoire of a millennial’s , favorite tunes (Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Coldplay) interspersed with classics suggested by the mother of the bride. Bach, Beethoven and a touch of the Beatles filled the air with music in the one hundred year old church on that lovely wedding day.
And as I made soup or spaghetti or wiped down the counters in my sunny kitchen, the bridal processional tune my daughter had selected played on the kitchen Alexa; Only Fools Rush In.

And I cried.

Photo credit, Heather Cook Elliot Photography

What We Keep, Chapter Two

High above my kitchen sink, on a decorative shelf is an old metal toy train car. It was a gift. It’s not very pretty. It was found abandoned in an old sand box. But the little girl who gave it to me was so proud to present it to me so I put it up on the shelf. Years passed and whenever she would enter my kitchen she would always point it out. Almost always saying “I can’t believe you still have it.”

This past summer we hosted a Fourth of July brunch in our back yard. As I have at numerous other summer gatherings, I used three old table cloths on the picnic tables. I guess you would call them vintage. They were the simple cotton cloths that my mother used. White squares with colorful designs printed on them. Blue, banners and red flowers, and one with a sunny map of Arizona. They are of course showing their age. But I think they look so cheerful that I always bring them to our outside parties.

And now it is winter time and I have been thinking of my mother’s tablecloths and that little toy train. My mother died 30 years ago, in December a few days before her Christmastime birthday.

The little girl with the train, all grown up and married, did not see this past Christmas either. She died in the fall several weeks before her fortieth birthday.

So I am thinking again about those things we keep. The things that inextricably find themselves connected to memories sometimes good, sometimes sad, but our memories non the less.

Recently, I asked some friends if they had any keepsakes without obvious financial value, and if so, what were they? I found that their treasures had much in common with my tablecloths.

I was interested to find that there were overlaps in some of the keepsakes. I’m not the only one who has kept the final drivers license of a late parent. And there were birth certificates, love letters, and even the hunting license of a 15 year old boy who would grow up to be the father of six daughters.

As we make our way through life there are those things we cannot avoid. The old adage about death and taxes as inevitable misses the mark on what truly matters. Memories, and the things inexplicably tied to them, those are the truly unavoidable things in life. And if we are very lucky, the old tablecloths, toys, and licenses will become talismans to sweet memories. Perhaps these things will prompt a smile albeit with a tear or a tightening in our throat.

I’ll continue to use the old cotton tablecloths on summer tables. The old metal train car will remain on display in my kitchen. They connect me to those I have loved who are lost to me now…..but not forgotten.

I’m just say’n.

Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright

Each year for over 40 years, my suburban church has held a joint Thanksgiving service with a nearby Jewish congregation. The tradition was upended in 2020 by Covid. A joint Zoom service was held instead. But in 2021 we gathered together again. In masks and socially distancing, the joint service was held again.

A few days before the service was scheduled, another member and I came to the church to decorate the communion table. We came prepared with gourds and pumpkins. A cornucopia, fall leaves, and bittersweet garlands were used to signal the harvest and God’s bounty. And when the evening service began I was in my pew ready to give thanks with our two faith communities.

The service proceeded as it always had. The pastor welcomed all who attended. The combined choirs sang. The rabbi gave us her sermon. It was all very wonderful I’m sure. I think. Because, well, I was somewhat distracted. You see as I looked at the Thanksgiving decorations on the communion table I thought I saw something strange.

For there between the fall leaves, alongside the brimming cornucopia was something, I couldn’t quite make out. I squinted in an attempt to see just what was the thing that was nestled in the decorations. Had one of those little jack-o’-lantern flowers somehow turned upside down, and from my somewhat distant pew, make me think it was more than just a flower?

It looked like, a small orange, tiny, toy tiger.

I was sure I was mistaken. Sure, that what I was looking at was just a play of light and color and the need to have my eyeglass prescription checked. Certainly no tiger lurked in the flora and fauna.

The service ended and I waited until the coast was clear before approaching the table for a closer look. Once I was close enough to tuck the bitter sweet garland a little more securely to the table for the next days service, I could see exactly what caused my eyes to play such a trick on me. Up close I could see that, it was, a tiger. A tiny, orange, toy, tiger. There on the be decked communion table this tiger had stood proudly if not too tall, all during the worship service. And it would seem I was the only one who saw him.

The minister was clueless, the rabbi seemed unaware, just me, I was the only one who knew or saw him there. The minister laughed when I told her. We talked about how he probably got up there on the table with the fruit and the vegetables. She thanked me for the decorations. I suggested she retire the tiger before the memorial service scheduled for the next morning.

Thanksgiving is weeks in the rearview mirror now. Christmas is straightahead. But that tiger. I can’t get him out of my mind. Here at my church, we’ve deck the halls with boughs of holly. There are candles and wreaths in our windows. The crèche is on display. But what about the tiger?

Yes my church is decorated, my home is a wash with Christmas sparkle. Maybe your home and house of worship are also dressed in holiday finery. But what about the tiger?

As we worship in face coverings to protect each other, as we scale back or cancel holiday activities we’ve continued to decorate our surroundings. We’re trying to establish that our traditions matter, our holidays are important and they will continue. But what about the tiger?

Sometimes we have to sit in our pew and look really hard, stare if you will, to see the things we must see and recognize. To me that little piece plastic and whimsy is also a reminder. A reminder to look past the decorations and just try to see beyond them. A reminder that the meaning of any holiday can be lost. Thanksgiving itself is often lost in the rush to Christmas. The true gifts of Christmas are easily overlooked in the shopping, the hustle and the bustle that happens even in a worldwide pandemic. Sometimes we have to sit in our pew and look really hard, stare if you will, to see the things we must see and recognize to truly discern Christmas.

A few weeks later the children of the congregation presented their Christmas pageant. Unable to sing due to the Covid protocols, they wore their holiday best and offered their Christmas truth.

Wearing masks they performed as a bell choir. They presented readings about Christmas. And the clever choir Director even had them play percussion instruments in a wonderful rendition of Joy to the World . But to me the true gift of Christmas was this. With only the piano quietly playing and the voices of three adults in the background, the children presented the classic Christmas carol Silent Night in American Sign Language.

Just perfection. A tiger burning bright indeed. I’m just Say’n.

The Empty Bough

Have you decorated for the holidays yet? Do you have favorite ornaments? One of my favorite looked to be spun of pure threads of glass. It was heart shaped, its only embellishment a narrow pink ribbon. It was quite beautiful in its simplicity. But more important to me was its provenance. The ornament wasn’t mine. Rather, it was a gift to my then, eight month old daughter on the occasion of her christening. A dear friend and neighbor so special she served as another grandparent to my older son was the gift giver. It was perfectly beautiful as we hung it on the tree each year over the next 20 years.
And then I broke it.
The ornament simply slipped out of my fingers onto the unforgiving newly refinished floor. The carpet was gone and now the ornament was shattered. I was reminded of that broken ornament again recently when another close friend called to comment on my recent Facebook post. One where I shared the surprise gift of a trip to Chicago to take in the holiday decorations and the Nutcracker ballet all provided by our adult children.
My friend wanted to say how wonderful she thought the gift and the day looked. She did. And then she began to cry. Our day of holiday fun reminded my friend of similar trips she and her late mother had made over the years to celebrate her own December birthday. And it made her sad, Missing her mom, the times they shared before Alzheimer’s took her mother away, years before death parted them. She apologized for her tears not wanting to sadden me too. I told her those tears were well earned and valuable. Just as important as anything else the holidays have to offer.
You see, to my way of thinking (and this is after all my blog) Christmas is complicated. It’s a beautiful time of sparkle and fun. But it also is full of poignant moments. They catch us unaware and can stop us in our tracks.
I was buzzing about busily at my own Christmas party this year. Filling the punch bowl, passing the appetizers when one of my guests caught me off guard with a hug and these words. “I’m so happy to be at your wonderful party again this year. But I’m also thinking of the people who’ve been here in the past who are no longer here for you, and it makes me a little sad.”
Zing. Wow. How did she channel that huge bold truth? It was there in the house with me amid the tree and the decorations and the candles shining brightly. Yes, there were spaces left where beloved folks had been. An older neighbor who always entered with a booming laugh and a giant hug for me. My mother in law sitting quietly, shyly near the tree, my son’s godfather early to arrive and always one of the last to leave.Usually he would be one of several friends at evening’s end sitting, talking eating the last remaining Christmas cookies. Sweet memories.
My friend’s tears for the holidays with her mother, my absent party guests, they are part of Christmas too. Remembering the people who we have loved and who have loved us gives Christmas its depth of color beneath the shiny sparkle. The empty spaces between the boughs are filled with no small amount of longing for what we can no longer see; a parent, a friend, a sibling, a child, a spouse.
They give our tree, our life a dimension, a counter point to the busy rush of the holidays.

In my mind my beautiful Christmas tree will always be missing one special ornament. The space it filled within the branches will always be empty. Not because it was such a lovely ornament but because the love it came with was so dear.
I will miss it forever.
But, I will continue decorating my tree and home each Christmas. Knowing that sometimes the most beautiful decorations shine only in my memory. But shine they do.
And they warm the winter night.
I’m just say’n.

The Window Over the Sink

The day was gray as I stood at the sink, spring was tying to make a real appearance but the clouds were working against it.  And then in the still bare shrubbery lining the back yard, the flutter of wings, the flash of scarlet, a cardinal. I paused to watch, wondering if I could catch a picture, but the bird soon dipped and hopped branch to branch before finally taking flight and making an exit.

The window over the kitchen sink, is there a more valued window in the  entire house?  Perhaps you enjoy the view from a large bay in your living room, or the shady opening into an old oak tree from a bedroom window. Or maybe your home boasts an actual sunroom. Windows all around with a wide view of your yard, a ravine, a lake, the world. But for me the views that have entranced me are the ones I’ve seen through the glass over my kitchen sink. While getting a glass of water or washing dishes, or once upon a time bathing a baby, the things I’ve seen from the kitchen window are an album of memories to me.

What sort of pictures were displayed there?  Well, I’ve watched  four different golden retrievers saunter in the sun, chase bunnies, and warn away birds high upon the telephone  wire. And Kalahan, our first golden, well he viewed the yard as his kingdom and those kids in the wading pool his charges. So he would keep a watchful eye, giving a short bark if things got too rowdy. And then at nap time when the kids were inside for the afternoon, he’d step carefully into the pool for a relaxing cooling soak.

Once upon  a time the view from the window had a wooden play set. For a while it had one of those baby holding bucket swings where the youngest  were pushed and swung until graduating to a regular swing. The sandbox was covered by a platform called “the fort.”  It was up high enough to feel almost like a tree house, and   I watched summertime lunches enjoyed there.

Back yard parties, Fourth of July gatherings, children’ s birthday parties, water balloon fights, piñatas raining candy on laughing kids, snowmen and snowball fights all  part of the movie of our family’s life as seen through the kitchen window.

And now the pool is gone, replaced by a patio that I fill with potted  flowers  in the summer and a glider bench for reading. The swing set has migrated to two different  back yards now, and this year’s golden has the yard to himself.  But I still watch the yard for stories.

Not long after the death of one of our dearest  friends, I looked up from the dishes and thought I saw him tending my flowers in the fancy planter he had given me. Pinching the spent blossoms as he so often did when ever he stopped by. It was his habit, rather than knocking at the door, to just walk into the backyard and begin tweaking the garden when he arrived for a visit or dinner. This has happened several times to me. Seeing my old friend there among my flowers though the kitchen window is a pleasant sight.

Now a days it is a commonly held Facebook trope that a cardinal sighting is a message of comfort from someone we’ve lost. It’s not one I have given much thought.  But that day with  Easter and spring both pushing  us further into the surreal calendar that is  2020, I remember the trope and wonder.  Is the cardinal my friend, one of my parents, or even one of those other three goldens, waving to me on the wings of the bird?  A feathered mesenger letting me know that all will be well  that this time of quarantine and virus will pass . It’s a puzzle for me as I stand by the sink on a gray day in April.

I’m just say’n.

 

 

 

All the Broken Pieces

B0A667A3-3427-47C2-9CCB-69261C81498C     This Christmas post began as last Christmas passed by, it’s pieces stiching themselves together during Easter. And now as  this  Christmas receeds it is a story, I hope, to finally do justice to.

Last year my friend died. It was unexpected and very sad, as losing a friend always is. She slipped away shortly after Christmas while sleeping. The new year found her family and friends full of sadness over the loss, and the knowledge that her final years had been difficult and often sad. And though many of her last conversations and texts to me were optimistically looking forward to the new year, I  knew she would have to work to right the ship of her life. Unfortunately,  her time would run out before she could.

     After her passing her husband and son, graciously offered her beautiful dining room set to my son and son-in-law. It was one of her pride and joys, exemplifying her sense of style and design.  My son accepted the gift, and I was touched to think that when I would sit at my son’s holiday meals it would be at my dear friend’s table. I found the idea comforting.

     But when we went to pick up the table and chairs we soon discovered a major problem. Under neath  where the legs  attached to the table top, it was broken. Snapped off and unusable. It was probably broken  by the furniture movers during  her final move.  I was so sad by this turn of events, mostly because this last link to my friend was now gone.

 “Could it be fixed?” her husband asked me when I reported what we had found. “Probably, but we do  not have the skill set or the tools,”  I told him.  My son, knowing intuitively that it wasn’t about the table, held my hand while tears leaked from my eyes as I explained the problem.  We locked the apartment and left.

Later I spoke by phone to her very best friend about the table. The table, I said, was the perfect sad metaphor for our friend’s  last few years of  life.  Balanced and looking steady ready for a holiday meal. But really, underneath, broken and unable to be used. We both pondered the table and the loss of our friend.

A few days later,however, our friend’s husband again contacted me. He had a friend, a cabinet maker who had offered to repair the table. My son would indeed have holiday meals at the table of our friend.

You would  think that this would end the story for me. But it didn’t. And although the table was in fact repaired and delivered to my son, I couldn’t get it out of my mind. The broken table, my friend’s illness and sickness–  brokenness.

Which bring me to Easter. It was Ash Wednesday and I was at church helping to serve communion. As I stood on the steps of in front of the communion table holding the chalice of wine I  looked at the members as they took communion.  One man grieving the loss of his brother, a woman, her head covered in a scarf after her recent cancer treatment, and the others, whose stories I didn’t know, all approached me to receive communion. And then it came to me, or perhaps I heard it.  Clearly, in a voice not my own but in my own head.  “We are all broken.”

It’s not the first time, that something had dawned on me with the surety of the word epiphany. But it was surprising none the less. I left church that night with much to think about.

And now It is Christmas once again. The post that has rolled around in my head since last Easter is finally ready to be released.

We are all broken.  My  friend’s passing last Christmas would not be the only loss for me this year, as Fall saw another friend pass away. You may have had to say farewell to loved ones too this year.

We are all broken.

Several months into Spring, my friend’s husband brought me a few  more momentos of his wife.  Some favorite cookbooks, and a small Christmas teapot.

He enclosed a note to explain the condition of the teapot. You see, it had been broken and repaired. A small chip on the top under the cover had been glued together “by the big clumsy oaf who broke it” , as described by his wife, he wrote.

We are all broken.

Perhaps we are all broken, by loss, by life, by illness, physical or emotional. But this year has also shown me how sometimes we can be mended. Perhaps it is another friend or a child who holds our hand, maybe it is taking part in a worship service, or reading the cookbook of an old friend that can help us move on.  Or maybe it is someone with tools and the skill set we do not have who can help.

This year many of us have experienced brokeness. Maybe many of us have been the hand that helps as well.

I’m just say’n.

 

“Come and gather around the table
In  the spirit of family and friends
And we’ll all join hands and remember this moment.
“Til the season comes ’round again.
May the new year be blessed
With good tidings
Til the next time I see you again
If we must say goodbye
Let the spirit go with you
And we’ll love and and we’ll laugh
In the time that we had
Til the season comes ’round again.”

 

‘Til the Season Comes Round Again

songwriters, John Jarvis, Randy Goodrum