rambling on about storms

When you are living through a storm
It's better, or easier, if you focus on others who
have lived through worse.

I used to believe that when you are in a mess, you don't really know it until its over.
And maybe that was true then.
At some point, that changed, and I feel the pain when it happens.

Now, when I see a  storm approaching, I try to build a solid wall, to protect myself,
and those I love, from the crashing consequences.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
I had a thought last night,
That maybe the storm crashing, is supposed to happen.
Like the floods, to bring up fertile soil.
Not for me, but for someone else.

We learn how to be strong from exercising our muscles, our faith.
And I'm trying to console myself, to ease my own pain.
Because when I am standing with a warm blanket, ready to wrap it around
a shivering soul,
and the wind blows so hard, the soul ends up in Texas,
and my arms don't reach that far.
I'm left holding the blanket.

And I have to watch the soul tumble and spin and get smaller and smaller
and smaller.

I know the soul will be back someday.
And I will still be holding the blanket.
Because that's what mother's do.

To Tim 2015

July 7, 2015

To Tim

From Kathy

God got me ready for you.

He let me choose a stormy sea.

So I would relax in the calming shelter of your arms.

He let me choose a rough and rugged ground.

So I would prop my blistered soles and tired toes on your knees.

He let me choose a broken shack,

So I would feel secure beneath the roof of your love.

He let me choose a bitter drink

So I would enjoy the sweet nectar of your tree-ripened fruit.

He let me walk through the dense, dark forest

So I would bathe in the radiant light of your smile.

He let me climb mountain after mountain,

So my legs would hold your head in my lap.

He let my fingers scrub never-ending grime from my life

So I could trace the soft, feather hairs of your head and appreciate the softness on my finger-tips.

He let me choose bondage, and bitterness

So I would understand freedom and forgiveness.

Memories with Martha

I drove through the acres of pinetree forests, to the well-manicured blueberry farm.
Martha, my dear aunt, ready with an embrace.
She holds the key to so much of my family history, the door is locked tightly.
But she freely opens it to share.
My great grandfather, genius, but emotionally unstable.
Took apart a car, with his daughter Blanche, they left it on the front porch while he took a trip
to the State hospital for treatment.
Came home and put it back together.
What kind of treatment? Medication? Electric shock therapy?
Was electricity even brought to that area at that time?

Information about my grandfather, one I never knew.
He could be mean. A mean drunk.
And beat his boys.
That didn't surprise me.
But what I did learn was that my grandmother basically died inside, the day he died.
She pretty much ceased to function.
Got addicted to pain killers.
She loved that man, through his alcoholism, his meanness, he was her love.
Funny how people will continue to see what 'was' instead of what 'is'...
and love the memory, as if that will bring the 'was' back to life.

Martha said she learned more family history the day of her husband's funeral than she'd known her whole married life.
Aunt Melba told about how she took a knife from her daddy, he was chasing her mamma with it in his hand.
That's why Aunt Melba married and never looked back.

Aunt Faye. She married a mean one too. Had two boys with him. Then divorced him and moved to California with his sisters. Just piled in a car with two young boys, her ex-husbands sisters, and drove west.
They say the best way to get over a trauma is to leave the site.
She left alright. Miles and miles between her and the mean ex-husband.
Brave woman she was.

Sorting

Dumping the contents
of a large, black, plastic leaf bag
onto the bed.

"This is everyting I have."
Alrighty, so let's make two piles.
Keep and give away.
"No, lets make it Keep and Trash."
Here are your winter things, lets just put those away for the summer.
"Sounds good."
Do you still wear this T-shirt?
"Yea, keep it."
Here are some pants, do they fit?
He holds them up.
"Yea, they do."
Here are your shorts. I can see you've worked in these. So they should remain your work shorts.
Don't work in your new shorts. Keep them separate.
"Okay. I will."
Here's your jacket.
"Now this coat here, it screams one word."
Long pause
" Poor."
Uh huh, I see what you mean.
"Look at it."
I look at it closely. No identifying marks like Nike or Adidas. Some stains on the gray fleece.
Yea, I see what you mean.
"Trash."
Yea, trash.

The new clothes lay in nice neat stacks on the bed.
I look up at my son, now taller than me,
with a deep voice, who shaves, and eats everything I put in front of him,
and says a genuine, "Thanks for cooking" even when its just a piece of toast,
and I want to cry.
Tears of joy, but some grief too.
Where did the little boy with round cheeks go?
His square jaw, set firm, and strong, like I imagined.
But I'm just not ready for this.
Not ready to say good-bye to the little boy