Love at Second Sight

I drove by the cute storybook house on my way to run with the dog, just to look again. Am I crazy, maybe I'll come to my senses. I saw a person walking from the house to the garage. I got out of the car....hello?! I called out two times and the owner came back out. I asked a question or two. He said the realtor was there and would show it to me. Ok. I'm happy. I want to see this how the studio is set up even if I don't ever live here. Ideas, ideas for building a studio onto my house, if nothing else. A train load of ideas.

The realtor remembers my name from when I called her as good realtors do. She shakes my hand firmly and we go to look at the house. Definitely charming and all artistic looking. The owner's mom paints and the owner (female) writes. The workshop has dog doors through which the dogs come in and out at will and the floor is heated. It is not as big as I envisioned it. But it's only me. How much space do I need?

The owners collect antiques and it reminds me of my own house; there is even a table downstairs - (have you noticed realtors do not use the word basement?) - a table just like the one Rick and I bought together in the last months before he died.

That reminds me of how it was when we looked at the house we live in now. She had baked bread on purpose right before we walked in and her house was done in my colors in oak antiques, our style. It already looked like my house.

And I had to ask these nice people where they were moving to. The realtor had only said cross country. Why I had this sense that they might be headed for the great Northwest, I do not know. In fact they are moving to Bend, Oregon. To a house with a horse included. Stables. She showed me pictures. For them, it was a surprise too. They went out thinking they would take 5 years and eventually build a place out there. But the first place they looked at they bought. And there is no great rush to get out there, they can do the same business they do here out there.

The woman said more than once, seeing the excitement in my face. (I know you are not supposed to let them know how much you like it, but I wasn't house shopping, and so not really playing the cool game yet) she kept saying: I am only the 2nd owner and it breaks my heart to leave this place, it is important to me to see it go to someone who will love it the way I do. I'm thinking to myself: HOW important to you? Enough to lower the price a ton so that I don't have to take a huge risk moving in here? I was also telling myself: don't get attached, don't make a big deal of these details.

The zoning issue which seemed impossible to my realtor is just a matter of paperwork to the owner. And the possibility of selling a sector of land is almost a ready option. Red tape involved but it's worth 1/5 the price of the home.

wow, i'm tired. I am going to sleep on it.

Love at first sight

After jogging with "bad dog", (see post "Untrained Animal") I took a different route home and saw an adorable little storybook house in my colors. Right after I fell in love, I noticed it is for sale. So I stopped and wrote down the realtor's number, studied it for a few minutes, and turned the corner so that I could drive back home. Oh! A detatched 3 car garage, and a studio/office built over it with lots of windows. Swoon, swoon. How much does this cost? I'm sure it's a lot, probably more than I could sell my house for, but I could live in the detatchment and rent out the little house (all 3 levels) to lots of folk and get lots of rent out of it and have space and privacy, an office to write AND paint in.....my mind is racing. If I could get paid for manufacturing ideas, I'd be rich. Mind you, they might not be good ideas.

OH! There is a 6 foot fence behind the garage! It's dog ready! I want it. I don't need a 3 car garage, I can put a little kitchen and bathroom in and have room left over to store stuff. How soon can I move in?

I had just decided to rent out space in my own house on Monday and this cute little place is so much more suitable and rentable and I would not have to give up my privacy -- one of the things holding me back from renting out part of my house.

I'm calculating where I am going to take the money from to accomplish this. I get out my cell and call the realtor. Yes, it costs more than my house, but I wonder if the money I would lose in moving could be made up in rent and she tells me there is land that might be subdivided and sold on the lot.

Driving home I try to calm myself: hold it loosely. If the Lord thinks this is a good idea, it may work out, don't force it. I call my own realtor and leave a message. I want to go see it.

Hmm, was I distracted from my painting? Yes, I came home and looked it up on line and saw a few pictures of the inside. I loved the sun coming in the windows and doors.

The realtor told me there is also a huge workroom behind the garage with a heated floor, as the owner does carpentry there.

OK, I have been telling my friends that I don't plan to retire and settle down in this state, but this place is so perfect for what I am trying to do NOW, write and paint (and coach?). It seems ideal for what I want right now, a separated place to rent out to others and a space of my own with provisions for dog...a studio, an office, plus room to store things for my mountain retreat house which I will fall in love with next.

As I feared my realtor called me back later and said I cannot have it. It would cost too much to get in there and I'd not be able to get the money back by renting to numerous renters. Worse than that, the garage is not zoned to live in. Sigh.

I did a lot of bla bla to my daughters about the place. One said, just take the money you'd use to move into that place and build your studio here. Yes, but....but....but....
(Irrational love trying to take the reigns) My realtor doesn't understand....whine, whine. It's ready now and there is land that could be subdivided and sold, and I can be physically separated from the renters. I don't know why that seems so attractive to me, but it does.

untrained animal

She tripped me and I went down but I held on tight to the leash since there was a woman and her boxer right there (the dog being reason my dog went nuts and landed me on the grass).

Another day jogging at the lake and feeling so happy...no one deserves to be as happy as I ...cold air, leftover autumn colors, 200 geese taking off en masse and landing over by the shore when they heard us coming, deer, surveyors and 2 lone joggers.

As I looked up the woman and her dog were standing still and her dog was seated quietly by her side. I suppose she wanted to make sure I was alright. Or just wanted to take the opportunity to put another nail in the coffin of HER dog's instinctive bad behavior by giving him the opportunity to sit and wait, while all of his inner being wanted to come over and greet this other dog, play wrestle, or maybe even fight.

Honestly! So I'm stretched out with my hands on the leash and my dog is pulling toward the other dog and might have dragged me right over there if I had been a little lighter. Without saying anything, they walked on and I got up and continued my run saying things I should not say to my little "pet". I made the dog heal the whole time.

I was angry at her but before I even got off the ground I had decided to order a gentle leader on line as soon as I got home (for non dog people -- a gentle leader is a different type of collar than the traditional choke collar and puts pressure in a different place and everyone says it's much more effective in controlling the dog. While I was still on the grass, I was thinking about how I knew this did not happen because my dog is bad. She doesn't behave because I am not diligent enough in disciplining her. So let's go forward from here.

At the same time I thought this is why my girls are somewhat spoiled and my older kids think they are getting away with murder. I don't discipline decisively, consistently or effectively. I feel sorry for them which leads me to not discipline them well, and that is often fatal to raising up a child in the way he should go.

Untrained animal. This implies that the animal could be trained. I've done quite a bit of training with her, but not to the point at which I am comfortable with her in public.

My dog is untrained because I have been sloppy with her training. When you see the results in worst case scenarios like yesterday when she laid me out on the grass, it comes home. I ordered a gentle leader, a collar which I know is better than what I am using. I made her heel all the way home and I committed to returning to The Culture Clash, by Jean Donaldson, a brilliant book about dogs to help you understand how they operate. It includes lots of training instructions.

bird by bird

It was my coach's idea to get a blog. I only knew it was vaguely about the internet. The word blog was in the news and I would have deduced it was about politics. But my coach said it's a free way to try putting words out there where people can see them, I went and got one.

Why "Annie"? There are on line predators... I'd just rather not openly invite cyber-prowlers over: If I give lots of specific details about who I am, especially since my posts have a lot of personal stuff in them, I may as well say: bring your perverted self over and attack me and my girls. Thus, "Annie" and vague geographical info.

My published author friend suggested I read Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamont. I am enjoying it immensely, mostly because she is a very funny little smart alec! Her ideas are much more useful to me in the area of painting right now than writing.

I have added up the number of hours it will take to complete 25 illustrations for a book of poetry. I have looked at the hours I have in the week which are available to work on it between now and Christmas. If I give in to the temptation to go at it every waking moment, I will set myself up for a 'crash and burn' experience (one of flylady's terms to describe what perfectionists do to themselves. You get all psyched up about a project and go great guns until you burn out and then you don't have any energy to come back to it for a long long time. This not to say one should not work long and hard on something.

Anne tells a story of her little brother sitting at the kitchen table with a report on birds due next day. He had had 3 months to work on the report. Piled on the table were paper, pencils and unopened books on birds. "Immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead" Anne writes. "Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, 'Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.'"

The perfectionist in me is easily overwhelmed and therefore frozen with fear and discouragement. The growing me says bird by bird. Painting by painting. Drawing by drawing. smile.

I don't think I have the problem Anne Lamont is talking about in her book so far. Anne Lamont is coaxing her readers to just start, just pick a topic and write something down about it. I have been writing since I started with my coach and he said "freewrite". I am not lacking for ideas or energy to write. I am pretty sure I need to learn editing and reducing the pieces so that people won't be put off by all the words on the page.

Anyway, I was up late putting another layer on my lightning painting and the last layer helped it a lot. I was feeling discouraged in that it had started to look too overworked like the first sketch, and it had taken so much time and I didn't want to start over a third time. Now decide whether to paint the ground on the bottom of the page or just let the whole painting be sky. The perfectionist in me is not satisfied, but I am deciding it's done and going on to the next piece.

So much rust in my fingers! Not to mention the injured thumb caused by my untrained dog at the lake yesterday. (see post called "Untrained Animal".)

Anne Lamont also mentioned Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones. Now then my art teacher had mentioned that book. [I had also asked him to talk to me about writing since he too had published a book.] He is not a writer like that. He is a painter. He needed a kick-start because he paints and writing a book was new to him.

Which am I? Both? Neither? I am not sure but I am having a blast finding out.

Yesterday was very unusual. I tried to paint all day. I spent time cutting pieces of paper and trying to stretch them so they won't rumple when I paint on them. Standard procedure. I stuck them to various surfaces with tape and/or staples and set them out to dry. Some rumpled when they were supposed to stretch. I got out the Watercolor Book and read "how to stretch paper". It was not clear how long to soak the paper, but I tried various lengths of time.

More time was spent looking for images on line to work from. Now you know how easy it is to be distracted that way! Google will find you way more photos of rainbows than you will need! I chose the simplest photograph, knowing that a rainbow was going to be difficult enough to paint without other things in the composition.

What else yesterday? It snowed! The trees aren't even bereft of their leaves yet; that was weird.

Oh yes, the other odd thing: I fell in love on the way home from my jog. See post called "Love at First Sight".

I made myself paint and work. I printed the poems in about the size I will need to hand print them once I've done the pictures. I taped them onto the paper to see how much room they'd take up so as to paint the picture in the remaining space. That takes time, too. I am learning what is involved in doing a commissioned piece of art and that is very valuable. I have NEVER done this before.

My brother in law said today something about painting being relaxing. No, this is not about relaxation. It's about making a living and it's about sharing something good with others and it gets me excited to work on it, but no, it does not relax me.

Drinking the Colors

It was only about 3.30 when the dog and I went out to jog today but it felt like it was about to get dark, which it actually was. Sundown was 5pm. Perhaps the colors have peaked here, at least the yellows and oranges, though I know that after that there are a lot of Bradford Pears and others that give lots of brilliant reds. Yesterday when I got up and looked out it was snowing leaves. Today my grass turned mauve with oak leaves. Mauve is the color on the underside of the leaves. Not my favorite color. You look down and think, that's a lot of leaves. But if you look up -- 80% are still up there. I found my rake from last year and it has about 5 tines left on it. I hope that I get a strong wind from the West once all the leaves are on the ground. One year that happened and blew all the leaves out of my yard and down the street. I figured they may have ended up in the Atlantic. Saved me a lot of raking. I love raking though, I shouldn't worry. And I have 2 able bodied helpers with me.

The sky was thin blue and the colors were not as brilliant as yesterday. Some trees simply make me gasp. I felt energetic and we ran the route around the lake. My camera was in my trunk. Last week when I ran with my camera while stopping to take photos at the same time, I lost my lens cap.

The dog is comic relief. When we finish running, I make her go down the slide with me. She does NOT like this. So I'm trying to build her confidence with the easy ones and give her treats afterwards. Once we go down, if I try to lead her anywhere near the steps to go up again, no way, Mommy, I am not doing that again!

Should I get my camera and walk the lake a 2nd time and use up my film? Instead I decided to go home. I drove through my neighborhood and finished the roll on every bright tree and bush I saw, plus the street that is like a tunnel made of overhanging trees. They are not in color, but it looks great all year long because of the trees. I hoped people were not uneasy with me taking pictures of their houses.

The other night, there was a very dark blue sky with a spotlight from a baseball field illuminating a yellow tree. Now the mind knows that it is yellow, but I studied it and thought about how to paint it. Lots of red to darken the sky and tree. The value of the tree on the shadow's side was the same as the sky. And though I knew that the leaves were yellow, I would try brown madder or yellow ochre for the lighted side of the tree. I carried this mental observation with me and three days later I opened my paints and tried to capture the colors I had seen. I used a red background and painted over it with the blue, green and tan and .... it worked! Those are the colors. I was amazed.

I cannot count how many times I have walked at dusk or at night with the dog in the past few years and thought "It is impossible to paint that. Those colors don't exist in paints. But that was before I had a good teacher. Exciting.

Olivia's flower arrangement for church was fall foliage. What she does with flowers is a combination of painting and sculpture. She is so good at it. I remember when she did the flowers for my husband's memorial service. I just stared at the pink roses thinking: those can't be real, they have to be fake.



I am so happy to be connecting with the artist in me again.

A Well-Loved Child

The timer says 5 minutes. What's on your mind? Sun is shining in the east window but the old roller shade won't go up all the way so I cheat myself out of 75% of the sunbeam. Didn't sleep that well, a tickling cough. The remedies are available to zap colds these days...if not preventing them altogether, at least shortening them from 2 weeks to 3 days, and keeping them from turning into full-blown head colds. I blast my symptoms from the earliest moment with Vitamin C, garlic, ecanacea, Coldeeze, gargle, extra fluids and rest. Since I have used this method, I either get a short, mild cold, or the symptoms dissappear completely by day two.

The tall lovely young woman came to me last night in Smaland and asked my opinion about why African American women are so attitudinal with each other. She says many times people have said to her, "Are you from North Carolina?" because she and her mom are nice and friendly and smile a lot. She says women who grow up in our area are looking at each other in a judgmental way and are quick to fight.

I gave her my theories, the first being that with the history of oppression, and not only being oppressed and enslaved because they were black, but because they were women. OK, so they are at the bottom of the totem pole. Now then historic events have given them the opportunity to be free and have 'success'. I wonder if in their present freedom, they have adopted the attitude: By golly, nobody is EVER going to put me down again. (Can't you hear the feminist song: I am woman hear me roar....no one's ever gonna take me down again!) I wonder if African-American women have built their fence up thick and strong and you can see them peering over the top with their shotgun aimed saying to anyone on the other side of the protective fence, you take one step towards me and I'll blow your head off. I told her when we clocked out that some other time I'll tell her why I came up with that theory. It is from my own experience of coming to a place of learning about boundaries and putting up my own protective fence. It is normal to over-react when you are learning to keep your boundaries firm. Instead of just erecting your fence and going inside and enjoying your house in peace, trusting your fence, you peer over the edge and yell at people who even look towards your property: You had better not be thinking about trying to cross this line!

But there's a major flaw in this theory. It might explain attitude towards white people, or towards men, but not attitude BETWEEN African-American women, which is what she was wondering about.

The second part of my theory follows:
She described how some younger girls were looking her up and down at school and how she had to walk by them and could feel them looking critically at her. And she described how quickly a customer lashed out at her when she asked an innocent question. She thinks of the words The Angry Woman often.

I was thinking out loud and not putting a lot of stock in my own theories, just sharing them, since she asked me to: There is the breakdown of faith and family.

But here's my 2nd theory. OK, once you get out of oppression and you have freedom to work your way up towards power and "success", maybe there is a strong competitive drive: I'm going to establish myself (above you if necessary) for me and for my family. I am NOT going to be on the bottom any more. Do these women see each other as threats to their own success? If there is any validity in this theory, then being in a highly populated metro area like ours would ratchet up the competition all the more. More people, less resources, less opportunities...."if I'm gonna get mine, I had better grab on tight and not let go."

I love to analyze people and make guesses as to what makes them do things, but a much better source of information would be the young woman herself, and her African-American friends and family. I think I'll practice my listening skills on her and see what comes out of her mouth.

Oh yes, why did I title this the A Well-Loved Child?
Because after I started to get to know this young woman and observed her confidence and the appearance of being "comfortable inside her own skin", I remember thinking, "She must have been raised by parents who really loved her with lots of healthy love." Not doting on her, not disciplining her harshly, but healthy love, giving her affection, no doubt, but also freedom and encouragement to take responsibility and work hard and grow as a person. What a gift she has been given. She is such a contrast to some with whom we work, those who whine about every single thing that happens in the store, drawing attention to themselves. They may as well hang a sign on their shirts that say "Please feel sorry for me; my problems are significant, (but yours aren't).

Yes, I think she is well-loved by someone for sure.

Coaching

My profile says my blog is about coaching and I have yet to write anything about it. I wrote "That (coaching) will be an interesting post. Check in later."

It's time to do a post on coaching:

Having a personal coach is a great new thing that God has brought into my life. Why struggle alone? I like having someone encourage me. I have lived with a lot of DIScouragement over my whole life, criticism, judgment without help, shame, rejection. To have someone who is on my side and whose purpose is to watch me succeed and be happy about it, not competing with me, but supporting me, feels really good. I am thriving in this atmosphere.

In the days after I had left my former occupation, I spent a lot of time thinking about what I am good at and what I could do for my next career. Thankfully I had savings to live on while I looked for a career. That is huge and I do not take it for granted! Get as much life insurance as you can for your loved ones. Don't think you won't need it. You don't know.

One day I got an email from my former tennis coach that said "You'd be a good life coach." I had only heard of a life coach once before in a conversation with some intelligent ladies. I was whining about not knowing what to do in life, and one of them said "Sounds like you need a life coach."

OK, so one person says I need one, the other says I should be one. Hmmmm, what's a life coach?

My tennis coach had sent 2 links to coaching websites. The woman's site gave me the impression it was for corporate executive types; I could not identify. The second was www.purposefilledlife.com. The title did not really appeal to me, because it sounded like the title to Rick Warren's book. I was rebelling a just a little at the popularity of his book, Purpose Driven Life, which I had been reading with a friend. I was distrustful of book simply because it was TOO popular, which made me suspicious. Oh, brother. Lots of good stuff in there, but all I remember from it is the first sentence: "IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU!" that is profound. If you get that, you probably don't need to read the book.

At any rate, Ron Marsh offers a free trial. I'm thinking one could really get ripped off by some stranger out there is cyberspace, who could take your money and give you a bunch of hooey. But, I thought, during the trial appointment I can discern whether he is for real. If I get ANY negative vibes, I won't do it.

So we had our trial call. I was favorably impressed and decided to try it. Again after one month, if it's not helpful, I'll quit. Ron makes a point that the coaching he does is subject to God's guidance. I did not fully understand what he was saying until I got into the process. Jesus said My sheep hear my voice and they follow me. I recognize God's voice in this coaching relationship. I do not mean that Ron says: Do something and I obey. That is exactly what coaching is NOT. But his skill in asking questions causes me to discern what God is leading me to do.

Life coaching is not mentoring, not consulting, not counseling, not psychotherapy. It has some elements from these things. But it is encouragement and accountability. Now I have nice friends who love me and say sweet things to me to make me feel better when life is hard. A coach doesn't do that. He is not a soothsayer.

And I've had a Christian psychologist who listened to me and asked me hard questions to help me understand my unhappiness and how to get out of it.

And I've had a pastoral counselor who listened for long hours and gave me books to read and gave me tools to communicate with people I loved. All those stood by me and all were valuable and sent by God at the right time. All of those I am very grateful for.

At this time, it is a coach I need and a coach I have. He is more skilled as a listener even than the counselor and the head-shrinker. His listening has a different purpose than therapy. He asks hard questions too. He cheers for me when I do things I say I'm going to do. He prays with me and for me. He is God's chosen person for me at this time of transition. The hesitancy is gone. Coaching works.

I'm excited about coaching and want to go into all the details but I won't. Ron would say: not everyone feels the need for a coach, but everyone can benefit from having a coach. I know what he means now.

When I had a tennis coach, I needed specific tennis expertise. Though I could say: 'I want to work on my backhand!' it was up to my tennis coach to tell me what I needed to change and how to do it. But my Christian life coach lets me decide pretty much everything I want to change and how to change it. The Lord and I.

Bottom line, it works. I am sure of this: before I hired a life coach, I was growing. Since I hired Ron, my growth (and the joy that comes with growth) has multiplied a hundred fold.

More about this later.

Mama (about grief, partly)

I wrote this title several weeks ago because I want to write about my dear Mom. She has been dead one year plus. Daddy was here last week and he is still missing her terribly. I found a picture I had taken of her that was so typical, and a good picture it was, too. In the picture she is sitting at their kitchen table in those comfy padded chairs with wheels on them and you can see her African violets in the windowsill behind her. She is wearing her pink tinted glasses. I did not like them, but she did. She had caterac surgery and after that she could read without glasses but she still preferred to wear them. My guess right now tonight is that they diminished her wrinkles. She didn't like looking old. I gave the photograph to Daddy.

Now then, Mom. Mom. My dear Mom. We would sit at that table and have long talks with many cups of coffee and their itty bitty county newspaper in the mornings.

She stayed active. She was a PEO. She worked out at Curves. She danced in a line dancing group that performed in public. She went out to eat with her lunch bunch. She sewed clothes and was in a club in which they modeled their own creations. She did ceramics. She took an oil-painting class. She read. She stitched many many quilts, some for beds, others for wall hangings. She made me a plastic bag holder out of quilting -- a thingie you stuff grocery bags into the top of and pull them out of the bottom. She made me a quilted yardstick holder. She learned a Swedish embroidery stitch when they visited Sweden and stitched a rust colored Afghan out of it. When I admired it she made me one in blue. It took her 45 minutes to go across one row and there must have been several hundred rows of stitching.

She always had a project in her hands while she and Daddy sat in the living room after dinner with the TV on. I don't know how much they watched; Daddy would be reading his financial magazines and the Wall Street Journal.

She was a very good golfer in her day. She was beautiful. She had dark curly hair that didn't gray till very late. She never got fat. She slowed down, but always walked around the circle every night when I was there. In their neighborhood there are lots of circles at the ends of the streets, like cul-de-sacs, except they are big and have a large wild green area in the center and about 10 or 15 houses around them. A fox lived in the wild part in their circle. The Florida stars are very bright, not dulled by city light.

Mom, she always wished she had gone to college, but I think she had a lot of wisdom that "educated" people missed out on. She was practical. She and Rick used to talk about current affairs, politics. She had an opinion and let you know if she thought something was wrong.

After Mom's death, I found myself saying "Mama". I never called her that, but that is what comes to mind now. Mama.

It was so hard to watch her die. That strong beautiful woman, though old and wrinkly and slowing down, always hospitable, always compassionate. She lost hope and the doctors said "this is it, we cannot fix your problems any more." She did not hesitate. "I want to go home. I want you to get Hospice and I want lots of morphine and I want to go fast." I said, "Mom, I don't think that's legal," but that is pretty much what we did.

Hospice was absolutely wonderful. We made her as comfortable as possible. She wanted her special oatmeal with milk. She asked for peanutbutter on graham crackers. I slept in the twin bed next to hers. I heard her with my mothers' ears at night, the ears that hear the baby's slightest whimper. I gave her sips of water and bathed her face with cold water and a tissue. She had strep along with her other ailments, and we had strict instructions to keep ourselves from catching it. Hurricane Charley was barreling towards us but turned and hit farther South.

One day Mom said I think this is the day. When I woke up this morning, she said, I felt something prodding me in my back and I think it's time. She was wrong. She was a tough old bird and did not die for four more days. The hospice nurse said "She is actively dying".

I miss her. Your Mom and Dad are just always there, and that's how it is. How can she just quit like that? If I had not lost my husband, this would have been much more of a mystery. Yet at the same time, each death is unique. It is hard. I want to see her walking into her beloved kitchen....now that brings me to her claim to fame, her cooking. She was known for it.

When we returned from Africa after 11 years, I said to my husband, "what do you want to eat?" and he said, "Whatever your mom cooks." She grew up with 2 sisters and her parents owned a restaurant in their tiny town and they did all the cooking. She used to show us an old menu. T-bone steak for 75 cents! Mom.

I miss her. She would come out in the morning in her silky flowered robe and at breakfast she would already be planning dinner. I love fish, but my kids don't, so I don't cook it at home. Mom would cook fish for me. I am infamous for overcooking it, but she had the touch.

And that ugly coffee mug that had "Grog" written on it and had newsprint stains on it and she loved to drink out of it.

I wished I could take her weak, wasting body in my arms and hold her, cradle her against my chest and stroke her hair and cuddle her, comfort her. Let her sleep in my arms. But because of the strep I couldn't even kiss her. Mama.

She gave me life. She taught me to sew. She took care of me when I was sick and comforted me. She is MY Mom.

She is in heaven now being comforted by the Lord Himself. No worries about strep. No contageous diseases in heaven. She and Rick have the full picture now and don't need to worry about politics any more. Her suffering is over. She talked of her own selfishness while on her deathbed. We talked of Jesus and how he had prepared the way to heaven for us because of His death in our place. She believed in Him.

She asked me about praying out loud: How can you do it? I said it's not a performance; it's just talking to God. He doesn't care if it is polished or sounds like a speech. After that conversation she prayed out loud with me. I told her I loved her so many times and she told me the same.

Those days of turmoil and mercy. In the afternoon the clouds would roll by and sometimes drop rain. Usually they would rumble softly. Thunder without a storm. God lining up his bowling balls in the rack. The skies are so dramatic down there in the tropics. Big cumulous clouds that get drenched with color as the sun goes down. Anyway, each day I was barely aware of that rumbling thunder, though it did register in my subconcious, because I remembered it later.

I had been trying to get in touch with my coach to set up our next phone appointment. I had left him several messages asking him to call at my parents' home. Then it dawned on me: we are on the phone all day long. He has probably tried to call. So I left him a message to call my cell phone.

My sister and I and Daddy were sitting by Mom's bed. She had been asleep a long time. The hopsice people said death was imminent. I was exhausted and went to take a break and fell asleep on my parents' bed. My cell phone woke me up. I thought it was my coach and it was. Yes, he had been trying to call the house and yes, the line had been busy.

I took the phone outside and sat on the little bench by the front door. That thunder was gently rumbling. My coach asked about how it was going and I told him. Then we scheduled our appointment and he prayed for me. He asked that God would end Mom's suffering and that He would take her. When I went inside the nurse said, they have been looking for you; I think your Mom is gone. I cried to see my Dad sitting by her bed looking at her. I told him I loved him.

The thunder. When I thought about it later, I remembered that song: Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, comin' for to carry me home.... the image in my mind was of an angel coming down in a chariot on that afternoon in Florida, stopping to pick up my mom, and giving her a ride to Heaven. The sound of that soft thunder was the chariot wheels.