An old-fashioned love song

Musings, ,

After George retired in 2007,  we moved to an apartment complex.   I’d often see a fragile elderly man walk down the sidewalk and head to the nursing home across the street–every day at the same time.  Then I’d see him walk back to his apartment a few hours later.   Sometimes when our paths crossed, we’d chat.  Speaking with a fairly strong Italian accent–a first generation American–he told me he visited his wife of sixty years every day.  Then he’d open his wallet and show me their wedding picture, a photo of a very young couple wearing formal but very dated clothing and looking extremely solemn.  

“She was the best wife I ever had,” he said every time he showed me that picture.  

The first time he said that I asked, “How many wives have you had?”

“Just one,” he said.  “And she was the best wife I ever had.”

A few years ago, he told me she’d died.  He still walked over to the nursing home to talk with friends, but his wife was gone.  He still showed me that wedding photo.  Every time he told me she was the best wife he ever had.

I think that is one of the best love stories ever.  How amazing for elderly couple who are sick and in nursing homes, who’ve been together for seventy or eighty years still love each other so much.  We believe love is for the young.  Wrong!  Love that lasts for years is the best kind. 

Yesterday I was told that he died ten days ago.  I never knew his name.   We called him the Italian gentleman and admired him for his care for his wife.  I can’t help but believing he’s now in the presence of not only his Savior but will be  with the very best wife he ever had.  And they will be together  throughout eternity.

Have you ever met a couple like this?  Did they inspire you?

 

A message from our cats: Don’t worry about what you look like

Musings, Pets, , ,

One thing I’ve learned from my cats:  they don’t care what they look like.   They don’t stand in front of a mirror and pat down a stray hair or cover their faces with makeup to blot out features they don’t like.  No, what they look like is, well, what they look like.

Scooter has a face that makes people laugh.  He makes me smile every time I see him.  He has a Groucho-like moustache.  Scooter believes he’s is the greatest, most wonderful, most handsome creature in the world and the fact that people laugh at his face doesn’t bother him at all.  He is THE cat and rules this 1200-square-foot apartment, his world.

On the other hand, Maggie has a round little tummy and a fairly large backside.  She’s not fat.  She just carries her weight a little low.   George always said that she looked like a cookie jar when she sat.  She does, a cookie jar with lots of room for goodies on the bottom.   And she doesn’t care at all.  Does not care.  She believes me and purrs loudly when I tell her she’s the most beautiful female feline ever.

I got a haircut three weeks ago.  A bad haircut.  It looks great in the front but it’s very short in the back.   I have hair that’s both fine and straight as well as wirey.  The back of my head looks like a roof with very badly laid shingles or, perhaps, a thatched roof with all the straw escaping.  My hair sticks out all over and it’s too short for me to fix.  I’ve tried gels and mousse but, once they dry, the gelled hair doesn’t hold and sticks up and out even more.

For that reason, I’ve adopted the cat’s point of view.  I don’t care.  I can’t see the back of my head so I’m going to ignore the mess and  believe that I look really terrific.

Besides, hair will grow.   In a month or two, it will be long enough I can get a hot roller in there to tame it.

For the time being, I’m avoiding mirrors.   

You put cheese in the brownies?

A question, Church, Musings, , ,

George and I spent many years sponsoring church youth groups.  At the church in Big Spring, TX, the kids–from fourth to seventh grade–loved my brownies, homemade and fudgy.  One Sunday, I didn’t have time to whip up a batch from scratch so I pulled out a mix.  To make it special, I cut up cream cheese into little chunks and stirred them in.  After I pulled them out of the oven, I took a deep breath.  They looked and smelled wonderful.  No one could figure out they were from a mix.

When I set the plate before the group, each took a brownie and studied it.  In unison they said, “What are those white things?”  I said, “Cream cheese.”  Again, as one, they looked at me in horror and asked, “You put cheese in brownies?”

They didn’t find this addition in the least bit special.  When I cleaned up the plates, each had a pile of tiny chunks of cream cheese.

Do you have a favorite story about young people and/or favorite recipes?  I’d love to hear them.

What do you do in the shower?

A question, Confession, humor, , , , ,

I grew up taking baths.  My mother said that was what “we” did.  I don’t know what that means except it conveyed the idea that soaking in gallons of water was the only way to become truly clean and that those who showered were covered with scum and unclean.   Oh, I took showers at camp.  In my college dorm, I took showers because I don’t remember there being tubs.  I went to college shortly after the movie Psycho was released so taking a shower was an act of courage.  In the sorority house, we had two tubs, located in the same small room–a literal “bath room”.  Cozy and a little creepy so most of us took showers.

I didn’t really become a shower fan until I had to get up at five-fifteen to get to work on time.   I’d always taken a bath at night and washed my hair in the sink in the morning, a great waste of time when one has to leave the house at six-thirty. 

It wasn’t until many years late after watching an episode of Friends that I discovered I really didn’t know exactly how one took a shower.  I mean, there are no classes in it, no pamplets or information booklets.  Yesterday, I googled how to take a shower and found pages of information with instructional sketches and pictures and explanations of how one takes a shower.  Amazing. 

I asked the question in the title of this blog NOT to elicite stories of unbounded lust.  No, I asked that because as I read those blog pages, I discovered that it’s a good idea to brush your teeth in the shower.  This cuts down on having toothpaste down the front of your nightie.    My question:  Do you brush your teeth in the shower?  If so, how did you know learn about this?  I’m feeling a little ignorant on this point.

I’ve just started reading the Jack Reacher books.  In the first book, this man travels for a day, walks fourteen miles, is arrested and spends the weekend in jail.  Four days without a shower or change of clothing and women still fall all over him.  He did, however, take showers in the third book and describes his three shower techniques in detail.   The shortest takes eleven minutes, a basic shower plus hair wash.   I can’t image spending eleven minutes in the shower.  What does one do?  Wait, I don’t want to know.  The second type of shower adds a shave and takes twenty minutes.  The third is an eleven-minute shower.  Then, he gets out of the shower with moisterized skin and shaves, then finishes the shower and washes his hair again.  A total of over thirty minutes.  With Reacher, it’s all or nothing.  For me, a waste of the morning.

Anything you’d like to share?

 

What day is it?

A question, Confession,

One of the problems with being retired is never knowing exactly what day this is.  My sister-in-law–who is retired but seems to do better with this than I–brought this to mind this morning when she asked, “Where’s your Friday blog?”

I hadn’t realized I’d missed Friday.  Completely.

So a quick apology.  I promise a blog for Tuesday.

If I remember what day that it.

Goofiness: a stage of mourning

A question, Confession, George, Musings, , , , ,

In the 1970’s, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’ Five Stages of Grief was vastly popular and much preached.   We had the idea that one worked through these stages–denial, anger, bargaining, and  depression–in that order until finally arriving at acceptance, the final stage.   However, Dr. Kubler-Ross hadn’t meant that these five stages made up the entire task of grief, that one could wrap up  mourning in a neat little package and would recover if one followed her teaching exactly.   No, she stated that these were five of the stages of grieving but not all of them.  She also stated some people didn’t go through all of these and, if they do,  probably not in a set order.  

After George’s death, I was drowning in denial but don’t remember bargaining.   If I did experience anger, it was transient and certainly not against George for leaving me.   And I also experienced stages she didn’t include, the first of those being goofiness.  

My favorite color is yellow, the color of sunshine and flowers and, for me, healing and joy.    When my friend Ellen sends me a gift or flowers, she always chooses yellow.  I adored my yellow car.  I felt positive  driving it and could always find it in a parking lot which cut down on stress.   Although it’s not a good color on me, yellow tops and shirts fill the closet because they cheer me up.  Yes, I love yellow.  Always have.

George’s choices of colors were, well, boring to me.  He liked dark green, gray-blue, beige and other earth tones.  When I wanted to buy a light-colored sofa, he reminded me what three cocker spaniels would do to that.  He was right.  Nonetheless, after he died, I needed yellow.  Yes, needed yellow!  Yearned for it, craved the warmth of my favorite color.  I bought two yellow throws on-line, picked up two floral pillows to replace the matching dark green pillows of the love seat, pulled out the yellow towels to replace the blue.   Then I bought bright art.   I replaced a small picture in the guest bathroom with a map of the United States in yellow and orange and bright primary colors.  I bought a 3 x 3 hanging with a yellow background.  

Then, after a  week,  I didn’t need it anymore.  I feel slightly embarrassed about that map now.  It would look great in the room of a five-year-old.  I don’t know what the saying  on that wall hanging is because I never put it.  It now lives in a closet. 

But I needed to do this.  For a few days, I needed to be weird and goofy and crazy.   The yellow throws got me through those days of intense pain, lifted my spirits in the way dark green didn’t. 

For me, goofiness was definitely a stage in healing.  I haven’t arrived at complete acceptance but am moving in that direction.  I’ve gone through gone-ness, curiosity, and shame as well and plan to share them with you.  The point of this blog is that we all grieve in different ways.

Would you share how you’ve handled grief?  Have you felt goofy at any time during the process?

A friend remembers George

Celebrating, Church, Guest blogger, , , , ,

Carol Sue Barnett is the sister of George’s long-time friend Wayne.  Here she shares her thoughts about George, Wayne, and their friendship.  That’s a young Wayne Barnett to the left.

Jane is correct that my older brother Wayne Barnett is a fine man, but I’d like to add that his friendship with George immeasurably contributed to Wayne’s accomplishments, as a student and as a minister.

Our parents raised us in the church, as they had been raised. On both sides, church had been an integral part of family life for generations. They were Disciples, Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians, but few lacked any church affiliation. Our Grandfather Barnett’s maternal grandfather had been an itinerant Baptist preacher. Upon Granddaddy Barnett’s parents’ marriage in 1859, his mother adopted his father’s church and became a Disciple (Christian Church, Disciples of Christ), the church in which we were raised.

To my knowledge, Wayne is the family’s first formally trained and ordained minister. (Our younger sister Sally Barnett McClain is the second.) I remember well Wayne’s teenaged announcement that when he grew up he wanted to be either a test pilot or a minister. This didn’t make much sense then, but now it does: both professions are all consuming and life threatening. Wayne’s myopia precluded his first choice. But his vision was sufficiently far-sighted for the ministry.

And that’s where George comes in. Wayne, not an exceptional student in high school—he was popular and busy with social activities, and he put in long hours on the family farm—has always credited George with teaching him to study. Once Wayne started spending hours each day with George, away from the farm’s demands, his analytical processes matured, and his grades improved.

But, even more important to his chosen profession, Wayne, through caring for George, learned attentiveness and compassion, essential qualifications for a minister’s calling, and they both approached Wayne’s job of getting George around and through his day with two other essential qualifications—good humor and determination. This was poignantly evident in LaDonna and Wayne’s marriage ceremony, at which George officiated. Upon being asked, George demurred, saying he had never before performed a marriage ceremony and that they should choose a minister who wasn’t disabled. LaDonna and Wayne countered that they hadn’t been married before, and that George should be their minister for that milestone. Faced with this challenge, George met it, courageously and eloquently, as he met all that came his way after his accident.

Accompanying our mother, I attended Wayne’s retirement service and celebration in September 2007 at the First Christian Church of Maysville, Kentucky. George and Jane, living in Texas, couldn’t attend, but they were present.  By his constant example, both in school and throughout their careers, George had helped teach Wayne to minister and to enjoy a loving relationship with his congregation and the community he served. On behalf of our family, I offer our gratitude.

Blessings

Celebrating, Church, Family, George, Musings, Pets, ,

This hasn’t been a good year.  The hardest part was the death of my husband.  I still mourn that.   Then, when I was nomnated for a top honor for THE WELCOME COMMITTEE OF BUTTERNUT CREEK and planned to go to the conference in Atlanta to attend the conference and award ceremony, I had a detached retina which meant I couldn’t fly until three days after that ceremony.  A disappointment.

But, in the midst of these months, there were many, many blessings.  Let me count them for you.

1)  I got to spend forty-seven years with the finest, sexiest, most intelligent and delightful man in the world.  Not every second was marvelous but the whole experience changed me and made me a better, happier, more self-confident person.

2)  My friends have been so wonderful.  Church friends, writing friends, long-time friends have written me and supported me, come by when I was hysterical, held my hand, called and sent me flowers.  I have been so very blessed by all of them.

3)  George’s family and best friend dropped everything and came to Texas.  They took care of me, stayed with George, and I will always remember their love and concern and how much their presence meant to George.

4)  I was nominated for a RITA, something I thought would never, never happen.   My career has not be a long series of successes.  In twelve years, ten of my books have been published.  My friend Tracy Wolff writes that many in a week–every one of them great.   Exactly three weeks after George’s funeral, I received the call my book was nominated.   I didn’t even realize that was the day RITA calls were being made.  I didn’t answer the first call because I screen calls and didn’t recognize the number.   I only answered the second call to ask this person not to bother me again.   But the fact remains:  I was nominated for a RITA.  That overwhelmed me and continues to.

5)  I have enough to eat, a nice apartment, a car that runs, and two darling cats that keep my company.   Those facts put me in a small percentage of the world’s population.  Although this feels like a blessing, I’m haunted by those who go to bed hungry, who live in a box or hovel, who have no health care or or future.

6)   For a person my age, I’m fairly healthy.  I try to swim four or five times a week in a pool only steps from my apartment.   I know lots of specialists who watch over my health and keep me running.

7)  And my CARDS won the NCAA basketball championship!

And I know there are more but these are at the top of my list.  Many thanks to all of you who’ve been parts of those blessings.

Sorry I haven’t posted recently

Musings, Stuff, , ,

But I have a really good excuse.

On July 3rd, I had eye surgery to repair a detached retina.    The retina specialist inserted a gas bubble into the eye which helps the retina reattach.   To keep the bubble in place,  I have to lie on my left side, my rights side, or my stomach.  I can also look straight at the floor when I’m sitting up.   Needless to say, this has cut down a great deal on my writing, blogging and posting.

With this air bubble, I cannot fly or be placed in a hyperbolic chamber.  I wasn’t planning on doing anything hyperbolic but I had planned to fly to the RWA conference in Atlanta on Tuesday.  However, I also do not want to lose my vision which could happen if I fly while the gas bubble is still present.

I visited the retina specialist this morning.  He says I cannot fly on Tuesday.  I see him again Wednesday and he may allow me to fly Thursday or Friday.

Hope to begin blogging soon but, first, I have to go stare at the floor.

Happy Fourth of July–in two days

A question, Holidays, , , , ,

This greeting is early, I know, but since I  blog on Tuesday and Friday, I thought a mention was due BEFORE the actual Fourth.

What is your favorite part of the Fourth?  I’m sure you have many.  Mine are sort of a mix of all the past Fourths:  lots of fireworks when I was very young.  My favorites as a child were snakes.  You young people may not have ever heard of them.  They weren’t exciting.   Before being lit, a snake looked like a piece of black licorice the size of an aspirin.  When I lit the top, the snake would grow in a long, black tube of ash, coiling like a snake.  When they reached a length of about six inches, it stopped.  A light breeze would break the ashes up and blow them away.

However, snakes–boring as they were–were very safe.   When I was six, I took a sparkler and lit it.  Unfortunately, I was holding the wrong end.  I’d pick up the soft, thick end of the sparkler, believing–and, yes, I do remember this–that was the comfortable handle.  When I put a match on the other end, the heat moved down the wire section and the part I held–the “sparkler” part–burst into, well, sparkles.  I got terrible burns on my palm.   A great deal of what I remember about celebrating the Fourth has to do with pain.

Every year back then, in late June, there were explosions in stores that carried fireworks as well as the factories and transportation centers.   That’s why you see fireworks sold at stands yards away from and building and why sparklers are now so hard to light.   When I was a kid, fireworks killed people.   I feel it is my duty, as an old person, to mention history.

However, I do have good memories of the Fourth which include family and watermelon and long drives to Wichita, Kansas, and back to Kansas City in the same day.  Historical note:  this was before car air conditioning.  

What’s your favorite memory of Independence Day?