Notes From A Broken Heart

I knew her as the only daughter of a decades' long friendship with her father.  Katrina and James occupied opposite places on the personality scale.  As introverted as he was outgoing, both scored high on likability scales.  Katrina taught computer skills at The Road Called STRATE, a nonprofit her father had incorporated, primarily for ex-offenders. Efficient and effective, she worked with a diverse group of ex-offenders, the long-time unemployed, as well as marginally prepared men, women, and teenagers.  As a mom to two daughters and a former school teacher, I tried to draw Katrina out of what I thought to be a limiting shyness and into a comfortable stance of relaxed discourse.  That's how some teachers are, I confess.   It didn't work.  Katrina was Katrina, not a project of my design.  We settled into an easy relationship, as I learned how to accept her reticence, intentionality, and focus on tasks and outcomes. Adult learners left her classes well prepared to re-enter t

Writing blogs saved my life.    Saved me from a fate worse than death.  Became the lantern that lighted the way in blackness so black I easily could have fallen into a bottomless quagmire. And that's not hyperbole. Literally, I. Did. Not.  Want. To. Live. Because. Courtney. Had. Died.  If I could have figured out a way to die, trust me, I would have.  I saw no need to remain in the abyss---not for the sake of Tracey, my surviving daughter; my three grandchildren, three siblings, in-laws, countless nieces and nephews, cousins, or friends.  No one! Nobody!.  I just wanted to stop the interminable, piercing pain.  The unfairness  of it all! Why were deadbeats; thieves and robbers; and legal, and lawless criminals still breathing in and out? Why? Why? If Mother were still alive, I might have asked her.  Otherwise, I sought no answers, really, because there were none.   Only questions. Ironically, Sherry, my 24-carat friend, had asked two, simple-sounding questions the evening before Co

  I didn't begin writing about the spiritual nature of planting seeds, much less harvesting them. (I was born in the Delta of Mississippi, and if we hadn't moved to Chicago when I was two years, I could have claimed agricultural knowledge.  Actually, it would've been more wishful thinking, than anything.)  Truthfully, I'd discovered a cache of seeds an Urban Gardener Niece in Chicago had sent me two years ago.   Nor is the focus of this piece, the history of how long they'd languished, covered, and forgotten, in a cool, dry place.   "Seedtime and Harvest" actually began as a response to a lively discussion one of my sisters and I had.  I was waxing on about the importance of planting seeds  in another person's life.  And not being impatient when things didn't happen as quickly or how she thought they should.  I had done everything except break out into a "seed song" when she retorted, "Yeah, but you gotta eat, right? Asking I think,

  My dear Sister, I presume to call you "Sister" because we now belong to a group that we never sought to join.  When God dispatched His angels to transport His son, Frank's, spirit back to Heaven, from whence he came, He introduced us. Our Father had previously charged celestial beings with bringing Courtney, my beloved daughter, back to walk streets of gold.  And just as suddenly.   God chose you, purposefully, as the mother of Frank here on this earth, because He knows all things! He is Omniscient.  He knew your precious Frank would need the love only you had stored up for him. God sent Frank to fill the empty places in your life as only he could.  He sent Frank to you because He had filled him with a special brand of selfless love. You and Frank belonged (and still do) to a "Mutual Admiration Society." Our Father does all things for our good---as devastating and heartbreaking as it was one year ago for you. You fervently wish He hadn't done what He did w

What if who you see when you look in the mirror is not who others see when they  look at you? Not only that, what if each person who looks at you sees a different image? Do you want to think about that for a minute? Seriously.  Step forward a little more, what if you  see someone who looks different every time you look? I'd probably advise you to limit the looks to once daily.  Why? What's the accepted definition for insanity? Hmm. You probably wouldn't comply though. I don't even always follow my  erudite advice.   Not only because mirrors surround me---bedroom dresser, bathroom, rearview mirror, compact---but because they've taken permanent residence in my mind.  Just as surely as a legally binding contract, the mirror shines.   As a newly-hired public school teacher somehow, maybe intuitively, I sensed the primordial aspirations of my students.  With fervor, I set about experimenting, designing, and testing methodologies for developing, planting self-esteem seeds

During a formative period, Marvin Gaye declared "You got to give it up." in song. No hemming and hawing about it, the popular bard sang the "surrender song."  Give what up? He ended a confessed reticence that had paralyzed him--- until he stopped, looked, and recognized a replaceable loss.  Now bold, he became demanding! Groove Time!  Like others,  I might have just succumbed to the song's danceability.   It driving beat. I didn't stop long enough, though, to dissect its deeper meaning or well-intentioned advice. "You Got To Give It Up" hit the charts and rested for a while.  The song's subtle meaning came later in the form of universal truth.  Each one of us has to give something up.  Sometime. Somewhere.  Life's menu offers the opportunity to evade and avoid, but in the end, life cashes its check, to mix a metaphor. It sometimes takes the form of "If you dance to the music, you have to pay the piper."  Sometimes payment seems m

At times when distresses overwhelm, Spirit reprises hope.  "Look and live," my brother live, Look to Jesus now and live, "Tis recorded in His word, Hallelujah! It is only that you "look and live."    The lyrics well up in my head, mouth, and before I know it they bubble to overflowing from my heart.  Unannounced and unexpected.  Their genesis? Perhaps from having felt forced to sit through Congregational songs during Sunday worship when I was young and the songs reeked of age. "I've a Message from the Lord," like so many hymns and gospel songs, lay deeply implanted in a spiritual soil of which I had little recollection.  As a kid and until I became inventive enough to get out of going to church on Wednesdays and Sundays, I attended as a captive child of inflexible parents. "Go to school; get a good education, and you'll be somebody" had drilled compliance into me. Just as "Get saved so when you die, you won't go to hell and

I remember holding my breath as a young kid, either from anticipating Christmas-to-come or choosing September birthday party favors.  Not for storing up the air with which to blow out candles---more just in waiting for the event to occur.  Certainly not as a prelude to a temper tantrum.  Neither Mother nor Daddy played that!  During my teen years, holding my breath would come as I awaited the announcement of the winner in a speech contest or in waiting to see which varsity team would shoot the tie-breaker basketball shot.  And win the State championship ! (My high school, by the way, won the title three of the four years before I graduated.) College changed the focus of my breathing when  I discovered graduates of the male persuasion.  Lawdy! They spent considerable time and energy learning suave and debonair postures.  And growing sparse wisps of fuzz to transform the upper lip or not-so-strong chin.  They practiced their "lines' on impressionable never-had-a-serious-date (!)