Notes From A Broken Heart

Suddenly Unbidden.  Unexpected.  Unannounced.  Suddenly. In the midst of weekly Saturday cleaning (ugh! but somebody's got to do it), the words came. "When peace like a river attendeth my way, When sorrows, like sea billows, roll; Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, It is well, it is well with my soul."  What? Never in a Millenium would I have thought I'd be humming those lyrics in my head, audible, lacking only music. How had they penetrated the steel bars and double padlocks I had erected after the sudden death of Courtney, my younger daughter? While I had not consciously built barriers, I had done nothing to stop them, either.  Too tiring.  Too useless. Meaningless.  Long ago, I had given up. On everything. Oh, sometimes I'd go through the motions of leaving my self-imposed prison on furlough. I knew, though, I'd return to a cocoon made of impenetrable, tensile materials, all the more impregnable because feelings are just ...

IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME COMING... Well, actually it was only two weeks, but they felt like the longest days in recent memory.  Here's the deal. I had to check on my sister who lives on the West Coast, after she had experienced a health-related hiccup. Not to worry, she had survived a short hospital stay (worry if they keep you longer), so this would be more like a mini-reunion.  She lives near a public library so I'd be able to publish Blogs three times a week. Easy as 1-2-3. Since I'm a "vintage" English major (if you can't write a bestseller, then teach future novelists!), I packed legal pads containing numerous notes, lead pencils, sticky notes, and purse-size notebooks, and on my way I flew. My sister and I spent the first day catching up.  A condo dweller, she has the most spacious, one-bedroom, centrally located unit that welcomed me into a cozy beautifully decorated, and safe abode.  The bonus: located in a real neighborhood ! Her follow-up...

Here come unabashed kudos for A Broken Candle Still Gives Light, a memoir that captures Pastor Chuck Lewis' lifework as Pastor, Counselor, and "Man of God."  The book presents vignettes of heart-wrenching yet hope-filled challenges that actually began at birth  A gut-wrenching "slice of life," it serves as a "cookbook" that resolves dilemmas and offers insights.  Most prominent are ways to invite the Holy One, the Supreme Being into your life. Significantly, also,   A Broken Candle Still Gives Light includes  a grief manual that guides you on the journey from mourning to joy as well as all the detours that pockmark the way. (And yes, joy can prevail even on the "rollercoaster of grief.") Pastor Chuck and I met when the senior Pastor where I worship gently suggested Pastor Chuck as a source who might help me through the throes of loss following the unexpected death of my daughter, Courtney. (Aren't all deaths unexpected, even when th...

You know you've met a precious friend when she tells you the lipstick intended for lips ended up on your front teeth.  Likewise, I appreciate anyone who responds to an invitation with honesty.  Specifically, I started a while back inviting your responses after you had read a Blog(s).  Now, I don't want to use "friend" casually or incorrectly.  Nor am I presumptuous enough to assume that I know each Reader, and even if I did,  I respect how you choose to react.  However, whether we've met person-to-person through these musings or not,  the invitation stands. Recently, I received fantastic feedback!  A friend I met two or three years ago shared two thoughts about the Blogs:  The font could be enlarged, and some of them were too lengthy.  Good to know! You cared enough to share.  Thank you.  I told him I could easily handle the latter, but needed expert help in dealing with font sizes.  While I can manipulate font s...

One of the most critical lessons I'm trying to master is that of asking for help.  For years I've smiled almost smugly, when the commercial comes on that depicts the older woman who has fallen and cries,  "Help! I've fallen and I can't get up!" Rarely did I give it serious attention. hat was before I realized many people no matter the age, live alone, and not always by choice.  I   won't point a finger at the Internet because this phenomenon, this isolation, occurred long before the first computers (ones that filled a room), entered our lives.  However, I do believe computer technology and social media merged (melded?) to initiate cataclysmic changes in our lives.  Either we just didn't realize what was happening, or we skidded down a slippery slope into some kind of terminal denial. If you're not living alone the first time you hear the commercial, or you think you just love being alone, you haven't lived long enough.  That's what...

It's impossible to recapture or recount the forever impact my father, Jimmie, bequeathed me.  Ours reflected a special love, perhaps because I'm the youngest of seven children. In truth,  I sincerely believe he cherished me as "the Special One"!  How ironic that after his funeral service (called "a Home Going Celebration" in our culture), each of us claimed to have been his favorite! "No, I was his favorite because..." "That's not true, because he ALWAYS told me I was his favorite..." "Oh, you're so mistaken! I know I was his favorite because we spent so much time together..." The argument swirled on, and reached its crescendo only when we all agreed not to agree. Of course, I was his favorite; I couldn't  number the times I sat on his lap as a preschooler, scrunching up so he could draw pictures for me in his "Indian Chief" notepad.  He took such painstaking care creating images ...

                    Compare: What happens to tears which pour forth hot and desperate? They crystallize into Stilletos of sadness                     To: Joy savored Graces And grows Getting from the first question to the second certainly takes a giant leap. It's not as simple as asking, "Mother, may I."  It involves neither games nor gamesmanship, for the journey begins in an immensity of grief and indescribable loss.  From befuddlement to belief . Courtney, the younger of two daughters, died suddenly early on a Sunday morning.  We could not say "Goodbye." No chance.  It happened so quickly.  To describe myself as bereft, forlorn, or in any of the language of grief clearly understates my anguish.  Although I wish I  could have been stricken with permanent amnesia, graphic moments still haunt me with crystal transparency...