Chapel of Hope Stories

Dear Reader:

For Christmas Doodle gave me a copy of Hoda Kotb’s book called: I Really Needed This Today. Doodle said some of the quotes and thoughts reminded her of Chapelofhopestories….and she hoped I would enjoy receiving words of encouragement and motivation too.

…and oh how I do!

I am always in search of the perfect phrase, or quote, or thought to address an issue I am going through. After I write about it in the daily post… it always brings me such happiness when another reader says this was exactly the same dilemma he/she was struggling with….

In the preface of the book Hoda mentioned that she had started sharing thoughts and ideas from other people or books years ago…on air and on her website…and like me, found it so comforting to know our struggles are not that unique….and everyone is searching for the answer to some conflict in their lives.

I randomly opened the book and it fell to a message written for January…it touched home with me…called “Be Here Now.” ( Ram Dass)

Hoda writes:

“In the twelve years since I’ve known my friend Jennifer Miller, she’s probably said these very words to me a few dozen times. It’s a phrase she learned from her mother, Bev, whom I never had the honor of meeting. “Be here now.”

Her mother’s words serve as a memory for Jen and a mantra for us all-a suggestion, reminder, a verbal tap on our shoulder. Whenever Jen says it to me it’s because she wants to honor our little sliver of now, whatever, and wherever this may be. 

“Wow-look around, Hoda. We get to be here now.”

…………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Isn’t it easy to forget this mantra…in a time of unrest and uncertainty? Instead we find ourselves wanting everything to be “normal” again…but the reality is…that is not going to happen.

We will return to some phases of life that we remember and yearn for…in our daily routines…but some things will definitely have changed for good…simply disappeared from our culture.

Andy Andrews understands this concept and has passed this piece of advice along to others….

“Every good thing that has happened in your life happened because something changed.”

Take a moment and ponder this thought.

Remember yesterday when I told you about the amazing and wonderful chain of events that happened to and for me… as a direct result of my cancer prognosis. Why? Because I changed…I finally understood what Hoda’s friend, Jen, was saying…and my life has never been the same.

It’s been better!

So until tomorrow….

Together, sharing life experiences and healing procedures, we can live in the moment…and stop ruminating about “bad yesterdays“…just bid them farewell and forge ahead.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Dear Reader:

When it comes to trying to find the answers to why bad things happen to good people…the metaphor of a tapestry perhaps best addresses it…at least for me…a visual learner.

Having had  amazing opportunities to visit some European castles in my lifetime…I have always been fascinated by wall tapestries…many of which the king or queen commissioned many seam tresses to do over a very long period of time in history.

Some depict famous battles or garden scenes or royal artifacts…and they are breath-taking! Yet if we had Superman vision and could look behind the beautiful tapestry we see in front of us…it would look quite different from behind. (* see title photo)

Brian Pusateri-founder of Broken Door Ministries offers this interesting analogy that I found eye-opening and also, humanly understandable… in respect to different perspectives of man from our Creator’s tapestries made uniquely for each of us.

“I want to offer an analogy. It will not answer the question of why, but it may cause us to look at life from a different point of view. Rarely does someone ever see the back side of a tapestry hanging in a museum. If you could see it, you would see a mess. The artistic masterpiece with its fine details so clearly visible on the front, bears no resemblance to the knots, hanging threads, tangled stitches and random colors on the back. Clearly, a tapestry is only meant to be viewed from one side.

If your first view of a tapestry was from the back side, you might be inclined to criticize the artist. Maybe you would want to try to fix it somehow. Maybe you would want to snip off the dangling threads. Doing so would be a mistake. All those loose ends and hanging threads work together to give shape, meaning and structure to the front side.

Sadly, in life, we usually only see the backside of our life’s tapestry. When we experience hard times in life, we rarely recognize their value. We might even beg God to pull some of our loose threads. God knows that doing so might unravel the masterpiece He has planned on the other side. We must trust in God! We need to stop to recognize that our knots and loose threads, yes even the bad ones, form us into who we are.”……………………………………………………………………………………………….

This message is true in all our daily lives…especially the tough ones when no explanation seems to satisfy our confusion over bad things happening in it…we are limited in our vision whereas God sees the whole picture and how beautiful it is and how overjoyed we will feel when we finally get to see our own completed tapestry one day.

So until tomorrow….

LIFE IS BUT A WEAVING

My life is but a weaving

Between my God and me.

I cannot choose the colors

He weaveth steadily.

Oft’ times He weaveth sorrow;

And I in foolish pride

Forget He sees the upper

And I the underside.

Not ‘til the loom is silent

And the shuttles cease to fly

Will God unroll the canvas

And reveal the reason why.

The dark threads are as needful

In the weaver’s skillful hand

As the threads of gold and silver

In the pattern He has planned

He knows, He loves, He cares;

Nothing this truth can dim.

He gives the very best to those

Who leave the choice to Him.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

Poet: Grant Colfax Tullar

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

I never thought I would be using two words…Inauguration and vaccination on the same day…but these are challenging times we live in…and for me…both brought hope for healing.

Dear Reader:

Yesterday was a “freeze-frame“day. One we wish we could “groundhog day” over and over.

After all my Goldilock “whining” about how one day was too chilly, the next too windy, and the next too rainy…my outlook changed completely yesterday…sunny, low sixties, no wind…yesterday was the perfect day.

As seen in the title photo shot…Hope was alive and well…reminding us that it is winter time after all…but mother nature decides occasionally to break the seasons with un-seasonal days…some to our liking and some not. But I think anyone living in the low country yesterday would have been hard pressed  not to have loved the blue skies and sunny sixties temperatures!

Though I have to admit that some, unexpected news early yesterday morning had already put a sunny smile on my face. The phone rang a little after six…it was from Mandy…immediately I jumped up…afraid something had happened…for her to be calling that early.

She called out excitedly…”Give me your primary doctor’s name mom“…(not what I was expecting) but I shook the cobwebs out of my head and gave the name to her…and she gave a quick response “We’re on to something…keep your fingers crossed…will call back soon.”

Immediately I was wide awake…perhaps ten minutes later…Mandy was yelling happily “We did it…John got in the link…you have an appointment to get your vaccination tomorrow afternoon at your Publix pharmacy.. where you shop! “

I burst into tears…this was too good to be true! I am one of the luckiest people in the world…having adult children and my nephew, Lee,  searching every vaccination avenue that has popped up…but like most  people…the timing has always seemed to be off or the link crashed.

I felt like the Velveteen Rabbit…“This was REAL…it was going to happen and so much faster than I ever dared dream.” 

So this afternoon…I will get my first vaccination followed by my second…around the middle of February. I am still pinching myself.

When I saw this message in a magazine I was reading the other day I snapped a photo of it…because I realized just how true this message is.

When I left my first breast cancer surgeon’s appointment back in 2008…Brooke had gone with me.

When I emerged Brooke said I looked like a ghost…the surgeon said he had to clear his schedule because he needed to perform the surgery in two days after I had received several blood transfusions prior to the exploratory/ mastectomy (he had no doubt it was cancer) since I was severely anemic.

I heard the doctor talking to Brooke but it sounded like a foreign language…my head was spinning….later she told me he just frankly said things didn’t look good…and he hoped he could give me two or three years at best.

I am now entering my thirteenth year…still living with metastatic breast cancer. And from out of that “bad thing” my life has been put “directly on the path to the best things that could have ever happened to me”

John and Mandy’s wedding, followed by the birth of Eva Cate, followed by the discovery of St. Jude’s Chapel of Hope in Trust, North Carolina, followed by the blog post-Chapelofhopestories– followed by Walsh and Mollie’s wedding, followed by Rutledge’s birth, then Jake’s, then Lachlan’s…followed by Tommy and Kaitlyn’s wedding…followed by Eloise’s birth. Whew!

Seriously…how could life have gotten any better?

Sure…there have been some scary times during these thirteen years when the cancer has come galloping back…but each time my amazing doctors, under God’s guidance, have beaten it back into submission again.

In the meantime…I just keep loving life…and even with the up’s and down’s I wouldn’t trade one second of it…if I had only lived three years…look at what I would have missed….never meeting my children’s spouses and/or grandchildren…and adorable grand-dogs! 🙂

We mortals sometimes just have to grumble a little bit about the weather or certain taxing circumstances that befall us…but there is not a single day that I don’t know I am a walking “miracle.” (Just in case you don’t believe in them) 🙂

So until tomorrow…(National Day of Prayer… Inauguration)

Opening Prayer
The Very Reverend Randolph Marshall Hollerith, Dean, Washington National Cathedral

Leader O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus your Son: Look with
compassion on the whole human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which infect our
hearts; break down the walls that separate us; unite us in bonds of love; and work through our
struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in your good time, all nations
and races may serve you in harmony around your heavenly throne through Jesus Christ our Lord.

People:  Amen.

*—“Prayer for the Human Family” from The Book of Common Prayer ©1979 Church Publishing, Inc.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

You know what I want today…Inauguration Day…for our country to be happy again…did you know we have been dropping in happiness over the past several years? Finland and Switzerland are at the top of the happiest countries in the world …while we are barely making the top 20 anymore…19th?

Come on now everyone…we can do better than this! Let’s work together to put smiles back on Lady Liberty and our children living here. We can do it! Get out your crayons! 🙂

Dear Reader:

Yesterday I had an email from Susan…concerning a strange coincidence that happened to her… in regard to the very recent death of her younger sister, Wanda, from Covid complications this past weekend. She wrote:

“This may seem silly, but the night before Mom died…she asked me to take her to buy a new coffee pot to replace the one that wasn’t working anymore. 

We did that , and she set it up to use the next morning. Of course by then she was gone. 

Yesterday morning, my coffee maker died. 

I’m hoping that’s Mom and Wanda’s attempt to let me know they are together and okay.”

……………………………………………………………………………………………………..

I didn’t think it sounded “silly” at all…instead it brought back memories of loved ones I have lost and “coincidences” that befell me too…soon after their departure.

In fact I would bet that a majority of you reading the post today are nodding your heads and perhaps have experienced a similar incident… that happened to you soon after the loss of a loved one.

(* Please feel free to share any of these incidents with our post readers…I would love to hear them too!)

Maybe, like Susan and I discussed, it is simply us wanting so badly to get a sign that our loved one is in a better place and surrounded by others he/she loved on this side of life. Still…since it happens to so many people…I can’t help but believe it is a true sign from their permanent new home to our old transient one…asking us not to be sad because… they aren’t sad any longer.

I told Susan that my favorite story …my sign from mother…came years after her departure. It had to do with her prosthesis…her artificial “hand” that was attached to her for almost forty years.

The “hand” I remember was actually a World War II model that was given thousands of American soldiers who lost their hands or arms fighting overseas. We discovered this after mother had to have her gallbladder removed. Her assigned surgeon was so excited to see her prosthesis…he hadn’t seen one except in museums in a long time.

When mother died…the first decision I made was that the prosthesis would NOT be buried with her….Mom had worn that heavy extra appendage long enough…she was free now of it and all the heartaches of life she had endured…she no longer needed it…she was flying light and was perfect in every way.

But I didn’t know what to do with it…I put it in an old suitcase and forgot about it for over a decade. Then one day I started throwing out “stuff” and glanced in the old suitcase before tossing it.

There was the prosthesis. What to do ….people with missing limbs today have computerized artificial appendages made of much lighter fiber materials with even computerized movable fingers…not heavy metal and rubber like mother’s hand that was stationary and worn only for appearance.

I finally found a store that sold prostheses and took the hand with me. Once again…I was met with a gasp…the owner had not seen the rubber/metal “model” with leather strap in decades. I told him I didn’t know if he wanted it or not but I didn’t know what to do with it…he wanted it.

A couple of months passed…apparently he had cleaned up the rubber and repaired the leather strap…he had it in a cabinet in the front office.

An older man came in, one day, and started asking him about the story behind it…the customer was told how he came to own it…and the gentleman wanted to know how much for it…his father had been a decorated war hero and had one similar to it…they had buried it with him…but he wanted to have it as keepsake in his father’s memory…ironically he ,too, had lost part of his hand in a mechanical accident and had one of the newest types of prostheses but wanted mother’s for his family’s history.

The dealer called me to let me know that mother’s “hand” had found a happy home with someone who appreciated history and the sacrifices made for home and country. It made me happy to know that mother’s situation was also one of selflessness while raising three young children without a hand too…a sacrifice for “home” and country. A perfect ending for the “hand”…mom really didn’t need it any way…that woman could do more with one hand than I have ever been able to do with two! 🙂

So until tomorrow…“True faith, a simple life, a helping hand- the three things prized most in heaven.”

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

A shout-out to my nephew Lee….Happy Birthday TODAY-JANUARY 19, 2021! (Born on Robert E. Lee’s birthday….)

I am very proud of Lee’s musical career…along with his and Vikki’s endeavors to give back to the community and Charleston at-large through their musical talents and free radio endeavors. They are always involved in a new project  helping different organizations with new ideas.

This year for his birthday…Lee is participating in raising money for the Wounded Warrior Project. So proud of you Lee! I know Ben is. Lee’s’s on Facebook if interested in participating. (Lee Barbour)

Playing the Covid “Blues” …but with a jazzy twist…and masks! 🙂

Dear Reader:

I had to smile to myself yesterday afternoon leaving John and Mandy’s house with this creative neighborhood exit sign…the sign I always look forward to reading on my way out…for its quick wit.

And it is true…It has been really chilly for the past few days in the low country…none of them frigid or below freezing during the day (like many unfortunate locations around our country)…but many of the recent days have been in the  “damp chilly” category..the kind of chilly that seems to settle right down in the marrow of our bones.

The northerly winds have made the temps feel cooler… even with some sun peeking out…but then every time it starts to get back in the low sixties (about average for this season here) it starts to rain again…so we can either choose blustery, chilly, slightly sunny days or  warmer, more seasonal temperatures with rain and more rain.

As we grow older…we come to realize that all of life really is a trade-off (not just the weather)…and the better we get at making the right choices at the right times…the more balanced our lives become. Trade-offs follow us through life at every stage of it.

We hear the quite familiar adage…”Youth is wasted on the young”  since wisdom relies on experiences and experiences take time…actually a lifetime. A trade-off  between near-sighted youth or far-sighted elderly.

Most of us work hard all our lives to enjoy retirement…travel, live a life of spontaneity, perhaps a new home, car, or move…something we have saved up for …only for trade-off limitations to kick in based on health issues that banish or at least curb-tail our lifelong dreams.

Don’t we agonize, sometimes, even over job promotions...more money but less time and we are at the point in our lives where time has become  important…Yet the extra money would certainly help pay for future goals and dreams?  What to do? A trade-off.

Trade-off decisions can be about a move…with the family torn in half over whether they want to go or stay…Colleges… a young person has received more scholarship opportunities from one but it is the other college that his/her heart truly longs to attend?

Do we risk taking out a loan now to start the business of our dreams or continue waiting, keep working and saving…is the time right now or later? A trade-off.

Life really feels like walking through a “no man’s land” of hidden land mines doesn’t it sometimes?…Are we extra cautious… spending more time looking for clues…or trust in the leader in front of us…charging ahead? A trade-off.

Today so many of us are facing difficult decisions even trying to get Covid vaccinations…do we wait on the late spring date we finally got on-line or wait in a long lines to see if we can get a vaccination from a community medical center or pray supplies will start meeting the demands of the people faster…in the upcoming weeks…while scary Covid numbers continue rising?

Like one of millions of other Americans ….waiting on the vaccination…I feel torn and stressed over the continuous changes and mixed information popping up daily…What to do …wait or jump back in all the crazy Covid-Vaccination Cyberspace hoops and loops?

I, personally, have to rely on turning this decision back to my Creator…because it is just a lot to decipher…God…just show me the way, particularly which path…and I will follow.

So until tomorrow…

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Amen.

Saturday evening I spent some time at John and Mandy’s house…watching the children while John and Mandy took a break from cabin fever with Winnie…getting up with baby puppy Winnie…at all hours of the night and morning. Like a friend told Mandy….puppies are worse than babies because they don’t have diapers and must be taken out at the most inopportune times….

Still…look at that little face!

The Tooth-Fairy is going broke with Jake! 🙂

***Some sad news…

Wanda, Susan Cadwell’s sister, who has been fighting Covid complications for several weeks…passed away Saturday evening. It caught us off-guard  because her hospital attendants had just told the family they were making plans for getting her re-settled in a rehab facility with living accommodations close by.

This virus seems to make its own  personalized plan of attack for each individual…Wanda’s progress was up one day and down the next…very elusive in establishing long-term stability…especially in oxygen levels.

We are devastated…all her family and friends…but want to take time to thank all of you blog post readers for your continued prayers throughout her stay at the hospital…I know her family will continue to need prayers now as they tell their mother, sibling, aunt…good-bye for the last time. Thank you.

*Wanda… Our hope is that you are filled with happiness being reunited with your loved ones now departed. You will be missed and remembered through countless loving memories.

(Title Painting: Anne Peterson)

Dear Reader:

I picked up Simple Abundance (one of my all-time favorite books to re-read occasionally) ..and turned to its ideas for any and every new year promise of improvement.

God Wink… the one for today…really hit home with me….the name of the message was “A Sense of Order: Cultivating Contentment.”

For the first part of my life…I could honestly be content in a quagmire of “stuff.” Brooke’s and my dorm room was a prime example…year after year after year. We were both too busy experiencing all life had to offer to worry about ‘mundane’ things like tidiness and order…or as mother always told me…“There’s a place for everything.”

I took her words to heart at college…Brooke and I stuffed “everything” under our beds, pillows, closets…we could pass inspection if no one opened anything… like a closet or drawer…then we were busted as clothes, shoes, and all other kinds of apparel would come flying out to hit the assigned “inspector” for that week.

We should have put a warning poster up outside our dorm room….saying “Watch Our for Avalanches!”

Then as a single parent with three children I raised the “white flag” of surrender…while trying to work, feed a family, get them dressed and out in the mornings…I just got too exhausted yelling at the kids to pick up after themselves. (I consoled myself watching soap operas with their “museum well-kept homes” that these rooms were purely stage props maintained by an enormous crew of people…and absolutely…no children or pets allowed.)

It wasn’t until the last of the “chickadees” was off at school that it dawned on me  I could clean, pick up, and actually keep it that way… with just me. (On the occasional day that doesn’t happen any more…I really feel the guilt…because now there is no one to blame but me!) 🙂

But I have changed…these days I honestly can’t “operate” in a messy room. This includes my “office” where I type my posts each day. If I have allowed too many books to accumulate  or too many scattered research notes to flutter…I can’t think well. I need cleanliness and orderliness in my life now to be clear-thinking, more concise, and  content.

Even if I am looking out my “office” (once bedroom) window at Sammy or the birds feeding…and notice some flower is dying in a pot or the bird feeder is low or off-center…I have to stop and go fix these outside surroundings before I can concentrate on the post…just crazy stuff now!

The majority of us humans can’t think clearly when constantly surrounded by clutter, chaos, and confusion. There is also a certain security, especially these days, that come with having some kind of “control” over our daily lives.

“We might not be able to control what’s happening externally in our lives but we can learn to look to our own inner resources for a sense of comfort that nurtures and sustains.”

Dorothy Parker once observed…

“It’s not the tragedies that kill us…it’s the messes.”

Sarah Breathnach (Simple Abundance) concludes with this January 17 message:

“There is a Divine Order- a Sublime Order- inherent in the Universe. We can tap into it when we are gradually willing to cultivate a sense of order as to how we conduct our daily affairs. Invite Divine Order into your life today and a more serene tomorrow will unfold.”

So until tomorrow…

“Order is the shape upon which beauty depends.” Pearl Buck

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

The nice thing about having a B&B on the other side is that once it is cleaned up periodically…nothing changes…(well maybe a little dust) but nothing major changes…and its serenity always calms me.

Dear Reader:

“What a day, what a day, what a day”…yesterday was.

Remember I mentioned how happy I was Thursday because the sun had finally come out…and it just made me plain happy? The older I get the more I realize how my feelings are driven by the sun and light…I crave both.

Murphy’s Law…we had a short dip of early morning sunshine yesterday morning (Friday)…which quickly turned cloudy and by lunchtime…rainy from then on out…

Bummer…in the big picture nothing traumatic, of course… but some days (if we are completely truthful) we just don’t feel like being magnanimous about relatively inconsequential things like the weather that we can’t control…We would just rather…well, pout.

But…a pouting day… it was not deemed to be! Sunshine came knocking on my door, beeping in my driveway, calling me on the telephone, texting, emailing …forcing me to put on a genuine happy, sunshiny face. Why? Because everyone brought sunshine in every arena of communication!!!!!

I had already started my own light improvement in the den…by lighting my Holy City (Charleston) candle Susan Swicegood, Kaitlyn’s mom, gave me for Christmas (smells divine!) coupled with lamps and recessed ceiling lights. The darkness was dispelling…and warm scents “cozied” up the den.

But… then the real sunshine slowly began to filter in-people...followed by more light and then more light…and the sunshine was….friends, friends, and more friends.

Mysterious calls started…like Anne asking if it suited to drop by and drop something off for me in the afternoon…(well, YES!) then  Susan Overstreet texted and said she was dropping off some soup for her mom, Jane, my longtime friend and neighbor…and would I like some soup too….ham and beans…(SO YUMMY!)…well, YES!)

Then I ended up talking by phone with every one of the Ya’s about the Ya Ya memory post the day before…and it felt SO GOOD… like the sun had landed in the den…especially talking with Jackson, now living in New Jersey, with her family while recuperating from surgery… being able to really talk…girl talk…trash talk, laughter talk and tear talk…deepest friendship talk. The room just kept getting brighter and brighter.

So by the time the doorbell rang…I should have known sunbeams were about to be scattered around my “Happy Room.”

When I first opened the door…I saw a large red truck in the driveway…now where had I seen that truck before?

Hummmmm?….!t was Anne and Sherry (our third amigo on the Maine trip)…She and Anne (Sherry calls her husband Bob, “Boo” 1) had come bringing food and gifts for “Boo 2” (you know who? ME!) 🙂

Half and half tea (been craving tea)… and my favorite “dish” at the Cuban Gypsy…Papas Verde (green potatoes- spicy french fries)….the best thing you have ever put in your mouth!!!!

***If all these wonderful “rays of sunshine” continue bringing food..I might be as round as the sun before the pandemic is over. 🙂

Anne and Sherry stopped at the Public Work Art Center and sweet Sherry bought me this beautiful SC pendant necklace (favorite color)…so that the next time (we are aiming for 2222) we are in New England…I will take a little of SC with me!!! Thank you Sherry!!!! I love it and you and Anne for letting the sunshine in.

So until tomorrow….If we really want to let the sunshine in…let friends surround us with their own unique rays…guaranteed to bring a smile brighter than the sun… to one and all. Then we pass the torch of light and do it to someone else…spread sunshine!

*And the best part is…friendship sunshine filters through iPhones, smart phones, texts, emails, masks and social distancing…nothing can keep friendship rays from making our lives brighter.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Dear Reader:

Two God Winks appeared yesterday.

First…In one of my “Kindness” sites (that pop up weekly with stories of random acts of kindness)…the message, this week, talked about how important it is for humans to take time to be with each other and help each other through all the obstacles of life on earth… since we are all on the same time-line…alive on this planet during our one and only visit to it.

In other words…” We are all just walking each other home.” 

I love that phrase and immediately my thoughts wandered back to Erskine College. Upon reflection…the most romantic dates I think I had  never consisted of gallivanting around in cars to travel off campus…like to  Starnes to dance the night away (though it was fun!)…or trips anywhere else for entertainment…My most romantic memories were being with a date walking around campus…maybe to the drug store for ice cream or even a study session in the library and then having the date ask if he could walk me back to my dorm.

It was (and still is) just something so sweet about holding hands and walking together, talking together…really getting to know another person on a beautiful campus, especially in the spring or fall.

Today, however, as life pushes us forward along our personal time lines…I really connected to the “Editor’s Thoughts” on this theme today. (Spotlight on Kindness)

“The very nature of life is riddled with ups and downs. Sometimes we lose our way or our sense of self. Sometimes our circumstances or the world around us devours us like a tidal wave. With the ground beneath our feet no longer supporting us, the path forward feels uncertain. It is in those moments that someone shows up and points us in the right direction. It rarely matters if its’ a friend, loved one, or complete stranger. Those moments when the haziness clears…when we no longer feel lost…is a sacred time. We find ourselves again. We are home.”

…And my second God Wink?

The sun was out yesterday…you have no idea how happy that statement makes me. It was the first day in quite awhile we actually had a sunny day. It is amazing how the sun and light affects our happiness levels.

I left to get some gas in my car and upon re-entering the porch there was an Amazon package…it felt like there was a book inside…but I was puzzled…I hadn’t ordered any books since before Christmas.

I should have known…Jo Dufford! Jo…you have “walked me home so many times” with your thoughtfulness, kindness, and generosity…  this was just another example.

The name of the book inside was “Daily Splashes of Joy”…one happy message for each day of the new year! Perfect!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I immediately turned in the book to today’s date…January 15…and I began to suspect that the book had already read yesterday’s post on the Ya’s and friendship… because this was the first line in today’s thoughts.

“Friends help us by their willingness to laugh at the goofiness that unexpectedly pops into our lives to bright the dark places.”

Libby and Jackson….do you happen to see an unique connection in this  anecdote that follows?

One woman was being taken back to the her room from surgery where her friend waited for her. The patient was now wearing a wig from chemotherapy but it had been removed during the surgery and placed on her lap.

Her friend in the room ran up to help her get it placed back on her head. The patient was aware enough  to understand what her friend was trying to do.

“She put my wig on me and when I reached up to see if it was okay…I said, “Marge, you’ve got it on backwards.”

“She replied, “Are you sure?”

I said,  “Yes…my bangs don’t curl upward?'”

“Well thirty years ago they did…and you were so proud of your “wings!”

So until tomorrow….As my new book says…

“Ulcers can’t grow while you’re laughing.”

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

The garden never lets me down…winter resting time or not…some plants just need to show off….especially “red” colored plants…they aren’t a primary color for no reason. They love the attention!

Dear Reader:

After re-living the adventures of the Spring Break Bahamas cruise yesterday…and feeling so much lightness and laughter…I decided I wanted to keep the feeling going.

What got me thinking along the lines of thanking my Ya friends, from the bottom of my heart, in the post today… for being there for me through thick and thin…was something Ruth (Isaiah46 Ministries) wrote in response to the Bahama adventure yesterday)

I find your adventures wonderful and I envy them, especially you and the Ya-Ya’s. Oh to be a part of a group who have loved and helped each other through the years!

That last sentence made me stop in my tracks and question myself “When have I last sat down and thanked the Ya’s collectively and individually for their presence in my life?”

We were all inseparable in college, especially our junior and senior years…Libby and Jackson were roommates and Brooke and I had been roommates since our freshman year…when fate stepped in …  we were assigned to the same dorm room.

Now all four of us shared connecting rooms in the newly built senior “suites.” This is when we became so tight..closer than our relationships even with family siblings.

After graduation Brooke and I both got teaching  jobs in Summerville and shared an apartment in West Ashley in Charleston. It was the 1971-72 school year, in Summerville only a year or perhaps two, after integration had taken place.

The loveliest thing about new teachers is that they share no prior history of “the way it used to be” so those early integration years were simply the ‘norm’ for us…and we charged right in…a clean slate.

Brooke and I were both single…while Libby and Jackson were both engaged and would marry later that first year…Brooke and I played the role of bridesmaids for many a wedding.

Yet it was our little small Charleston Georgetown Apartment sitting on the swamps of the Ashley River (that sometimes overflowed into our apartment during rainy weather) that became the “mecca” of all the post-college entertainment (for our friends) the first few years we were out…

These years spent during this special “interval” period of life…before being forced to act “grown up”…look for houses, pay mortgages, get married, and follow the social mores of the times…I like to call the “The Time of Brobdingnan.”

During one of the adventures in Jonathan Swift’s satirical novel, Gulliver’s Travels, Gulliver arrives in the land of Brobdingnan…the land of giants. There everyone and everything is “larger-than-life.”

Normally we associate Gulliver with being the giant….tied up on the ground by the little people…the Lilliputians.

The author (Swift)  is reminding us that on any given day…we can feel –larger-than-life (brobdingnagian) or timid and small (lilliputian).

Upon reflection of those adventuresome years…caught between young crazy adults who were slowly morphing into responsible adults… so memorable… to the point of being “Brobdingnagian”…larger than life moments. 

All the innocence and fun of that time period quickly passed from me when my younger brother David suddenly died in 1973 from cardiac arrest brought on by side effects of Marfan’s Syndrome disease. My beloved “little” brother who towered over everyone at 6’5 weighing in at 135 pounds on a good day. The epitome of love, kindness, and gentleness.

The strange thing about us future Ya’s… is when we most needed each other…..we were the most estranged. By now everyone was married…children had arrived…all of us were working, raising children…dog-paddling to keep our heads above water from broken relationships…too tired to even call out for help. We were all, at some point, simply in survival mode.

By the time we “survivors” finally reunited again around 2003… our “children” were either in college or out on their own. We met at Brooke’s new Edisto Beach House…”Rest in Peace” and that is what we have done every since…giving us a new lease on life…time to support each other again.

These days we are all united in trying to protect ourselves from Covid while maintaining and protecting our love of family… praying for the day soon when we, the Ya’s, can reunite after the longest period to date going without our normal gatherings.

(The Title “Blue Jacket” photo is the last time we were all together…almost a year ago last February at Pawleys…our other favorite get-away!)

It is starting to feel like we are just shadows of our former selves…without the tactile hugs and laughter we have been able to share with each other all these years.

Jackson, by far, has experienced the most difficult 2020 year of all…with serious health issues…involving long-term treatments, procedures, surgery, and post-rehab. These days you can find Jackson slowly but surely recuperating… in New Jersey with her family and her new best friend…Shotzi…the dog!

***Jackson’s birthday four years ago in Columbia with the Ya’s and Libby’s sister Linda and daughter Betsy. Looking back at this photo…once again I am thankful we can’t see into the future…with the life-altering obstacles ahead for several of the party members!

Jackson and I might have been the two history majors in the Ya Ya circle… with Libby and Brooke being elementary education majors… but it has been Libby who has saved all the archives and so lovingly sent these memoirs from our first gathering last evening…including our first invitation gathering…pretending our meeting place was a broken down beach shack…but Surprise…it was the newly constructed “Rest in Peace”  Ted and Brooke’s new beach house at Edisto!

Here are some “blasts from the past” …past gatherings including the famous first invitation Brooke and I worked on with a “Dingle Jingle” and pictures of our years together at Erskine. Followed by playing dress-up in historical attire with another college buddy, Scotty, who joined in the fun for a couple of the early gatherings.

Libby wrote this moving tribute about the Ya’s and I thought it was time we paused to remember from where our strength comes…God and then each other…for each other.

So until tomorrow

“Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; staying together is amazing!”

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Dear Reader:

Yesterday I spent about an hour on the phone with Brookie…reminiscing about a spring break trip we took our senior year at college…our last “hurrah.” We were both laughing so hard we could hardly hear the other speak.

Brooke found an unbelievable “Bahama Cruise” deal that we just couldn’t turn down….she still has the receipt…$90 per person for a three day stay on a cruise ship over our last spring break week before graduation.

Even for the seventies…this was quite a deal…it was, actually, one of those “If it’s too good to be true…it probably is” deals. 🙂

I remember begging and pleading with mother…consider it an early graduation present…I never let up until poor mother caved…she wasn’t alone.

Brooke was having problems with the Dean of Women since she had missed too many chapels that semester…but stretching the situation somewhat…she told the dean an aging aunt had already paid for the trip as part of her graduation gift. Luckily the dean “caved” too.

When Mollie’s question this week for me (StoryWorth) was “Describe your first big trip” this hilarious adventure immediately popped up.

It was a miracle we even made it to the cruise ship…we stopped in Coco, Florida to stay with college friends on the way down…but still had a long way to go. Brooke’s old “Falcon” had already seen better days…but somehow, some way…we made it.

It was a chilly raining morning when we left Laurens in the “Falcon” heading to sunny Florida and then on to the Bahamas. We were not deterred…the sun would come out…and it did.

Thank goodness for that “break” in the trip…we were exhausted but Florida was all sunshine and we got to relax with college buddies…who lifted our “spirits” a lot…actually too much! 🙂

…And what did we get for a $90 dollar three day cruise package…an “engine” room (where most of our neighbors spoke Spanish and literally worked on the engines) The room was 6 feet by 8 feet with one bunk bed…that we had to take turns jumping off or out of…when anyone had to use the “john” which was also the shower…with the shower head right over it.

Yet…on a positive note…when we looked out our portholes we got to see fish swimming by! 🙂 And after we dressed “to the t’s” while climbing more steps than deemed humanly possible…for meals…no one, but us, and some of the engine crew knew where our “stateroom” was located…the secret of our accomodations. We just sash-shayed around like we owned the place.

It was spring break for other colleges…especially Wofford College and a couple of fraternities were on the same cruise. How convenient! Brooke and I found ourselves on the back of mopeds going to the beaches and even crossing the bridge one night to Paradise Island…the international (James Bond) hotel and casino with our Wofford dates.

Brooke remembers winning $15 dollars at the casino and giving it to her date to help pay for supper. I can only imagine that today $15 wouldn’t pay for a glass of water. My date preferred gambling…but that was fine with me…since as long as he gambled… free food and drinks were continuously delivered to the ‘tables.’

Brooke didn’t have a car radio…just a portable one…but we remember listening to “Jeremiah was a Bull Frog” (while singing at the top of our lungs) all the way back to Erskine College…before finding ourselves (literally sliding) into the parking area…an ice storm had hit the night before and first day-back classes, as well as, chapel had been cancelled.

God is so good to the “young and restless.” 🙂

This first adventure did teach me a wonderful lesson on taking risks…meeting new people from diverse backgrounds and cultures…and never allowing myself to get too old to not be a risk-taker and an adventurer…no matter the age.

So until tomorrow…

“Do not stop thinking of life as an adventure. You have no security unless you can live bravely, excitingly, imaginatively; unless you can choose a challenge instead of competence.” Eleanor Roosevelt

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

I loved working on this post yesterday… because for the first time in days…my mind was completely off concerns for our country and leaders. Instead I was re-living a happier time when life seemed a lot simpler and the world was filled with endless possibilities.

Now my wish for my grandchildren!

‘Tis a gift to be simple

‘Tis a gift to be free

‘Tis a gift to come down

Where we ought to be

And when we find ourselves

In the place that’s right

“Twill be in the valley

Of love and delight.”

Please keep Wanda and Suzy in your prayers…they are both so grateful for them and wanted me to please pass along their deep gratitude for continued prayer support for each of their individual health challenges…Wanda-Covid and Suzy-pancreatic cancer. I thank you too …the power of prayer…never to be underestimated!