The Things We Leave Behind

I don't have a lot of physical reminders of my grandmother, but she died 7 years ago tomorrow and I've been thinking about her and a little bit about death in general. I have a few lighthouses here and there only one of which belonged to her and a picture on my night stand but sometimes a lot of time goes by without me consciously thinking of her.

I don't mean to suggest that she wasn't important to me or that I've forgotten her. I was thinking more about the unconscious thoughts of her. While I value the few things of hers that I may have it is the parts of myself that she helped to mold that mean the most. Every time I find myself playing a game I think of her. I am fairly certain that I inherited her love for all card and word games along with her competitive drive. If you knew my grandmother you knew that she took her games seriously. Very Very seriously. God help you if you got in the way of a game of Canasta or interrupted her while she was online playing Slingo. This included a love for game shows on tv which is why to this day I can't pass an episode of "Press Your Luck" without turning it on.

The first "grown up" or non cartoon movie that I can remember loving was 16 Candles. I watched it with my grandmother on VHS cuddled up in her bed. In fact when she moved I finally found my long lost blankie "woogie" (no need to comment on the fact that I named my baby blanket) under her bed surely left there after an afternoon watching movies or all the game shows that she has recorded that week. We had our very own personal game show network years before that channel was introduced. It is these seemingly unimportant things that I look back at most fondly now.

My grandmother was a lover of words and learning. I used to write short stories as a child and I remember always being excited to show them to her. She was very encouraging and spoke to me like an adult. I not only valued her opinion but loved sharing a special time with her. I try every day to emulate her in the way that I speak to my children. I want them to feel like I did around her: important, intelligent, significant.

I feel like there is a piece of her buried somewhere in everything I write. I feel her spirit every time I win a game of canasta. She made me feel special when we spent time together and although I may not think of her now as much as when she was still around she is as much a part of my life as ever if not more as I grow older.

It is in this contemplation that I have truly discovered for myself that it is not important what things you own or what you have to leave behind when you go. It is how you affect people, how you make people feel, that will carry on long after you are gone. So I hope that I too will encourage people in their passions. I hope that I will make someone feel important, smart, and loved. And today I will remember my grandmother for being all those things and more. I will take time today to thank her, not for the possessions that she left me but for the memories, the passion for learning, and the ability to kick your butt in any word game out there.

Little Boys and Little Girls

A little boy walks with purpose
From one thing to the next.
A little boy pretends to be
A Tyrannosaurus Rex.

A little boy lives in his imagination
Where all is pure and good.
A little boy is all about doing.
There's no should or would or could.

A grown up questions everything,
Each choice a labored one.
A grown up forgets how to pretend
And skip and jump and run.

A little girl knows that she is beautiful
In her sparkly jewels and regal crown.
A little girl knows only how to lift you up
Not how to put you down.

A little girl tells a story of what a person is.
There is no fixation on what they say or what they own.
A little girl believes in love and truth
And that she can be anything when she is grown.

A grown up has forgotten
The promises of youth.
A grown up lives in fiction
While the children live in truth.

As grown ups we must try our best
To remember the important stuff.
For we once were those little boys and girls
Before life got so tough.

We should take time every day
To believe that the world is good.
We should spend our days doing
So that we know we could.

We should see people for what they are
Instead of for their possessions.
We should believe that we are beautiful
And not defined by our professions.

We should take a lesson
From those little girls and boys.
And make our lives into music
Instead of just white noise.

Children have beliefs and purpose
While some adults just drift astray.
We must hold onto childlike dreams
Before we float away.

So today I urge you- grown up,
To take a minute to pretend,
Believe that you are beautiful,
See a beginning and not an end.

It's all a matter of our perspective.
When we are small we look up toward the sun.
So all that I ask of you today is to stop,
Look up, and remember that life should be fun.

To Be A Mom

Looking in through the window glass
My life seems simple and unimportant.
And if you look into my past
You won't see much of anything.

I do not work a "9 to 5".
My bank account is far from big.
But I'm happy just to be alive
And watch two beautiful children grow.

It is in their faces that I see my worth
And in their eyes that I understand God.
My definition of importance changed at the birth
Of the two boys who now define my life.

Some may think it sad
That I define myself by them.
But it is the most important job that was ever had
Just to be a mom.

Paperless Society?

This post may not be entirely eco-friendly of me. It might not seem tech savvy. It may seem a bit hypocritical, the electronic glow of the computer screen the only light as I sit here typing this at 3 a.m. But since finishing a book tonight I have not been able to get these thoughts from my head and so I submit them to you.

I look at the new e-readers and cell phone applications designed to put thousands of books immediately at your fingertips and instead of the excitement that some feel I can't help but feel a bit sad. There is a comfort in picking up a book. The weight of the book matches the expectations for what you may find between its covers. The heft can seem a bit daunting upon beginning but after finishing it feels like a badge of accomplishment. A new book with a pristine spine is like a new acquaintance, opening to you slowly and requiring some effort. But a book that has been well loved, read and re-read over the years will show you all the familiarity of an old friend. And whether it be the quick turn of a page from a reader dying to resolve their curiosity, the languid turn of a bored student flipping through a text book, or the heavy handed thunk of a toddler turning the thick pages of a picture book there is simple joy to be found in the feel of those pages between your fingers.

While I am not often moved to tears by movies, I am a sucker for a sad book. In this there is something else that an electronic version of a book or poem will never have. There is something almost poetic about teardrops on the page of a book, concrete evidence that something written on those pages has touched you as you touched those pages.

There are also certain sounds that come with reading. The sounds of the turning pages of different books are as varied as the voices of different people. The crackling of the spine of a book is like cracking knuckles. I enjoy a lot of sounds. I love music and the sound of rain coming down on the roof. I love the contented sighs of a sleeping baby. I actually like the creaking of an old wood floor. I love laughter and the sound of cards shuffling and the early morning sounds of the beach. But I can't think of anything more personally satisfying than the soft thud of closing the back cover of the book that you have just finished. And I find that the more books I read, the more chapters I take in, the more lines I ingest, the more words I devour- the more I cherish that sound.

It seems however that we have entered a digital age. People are beginning to prefer digital photo albums and digital picture frames, electronic copies of books and magazines, and doing crossword puzzles online. But I hope to one day write a book. I don't know what it will be about. I don't know when I will write it. But I can tell you this;

I hope that one day if I ever do write a book it will touch people's imaginations, their hearts, and also their hands.

Reminders

A friend of a friend is going through something terrible right now. She is burying her husband of only ten months, the father of her two month old baby girl. The worst part is that this wife and baby girl have been sharing their Marine with us, with our entire country. He never even got to hold his daughter.

God works in mysterious ways. My heart breaks for this young woman who is dealing with more heart ache, sadness, and pain than I can even imagine but my heart also swells with love for my husband and two boys. I hope that we can all not only take time today to pray for Rachel, daughter Ariana, and all of Cpl Jonathan D. Porto's family and friends but also to take inventory of all the good we have in our lives. Let's think about how lucky we are for the time that we have with loved ones.

The title of my blog, "Live. Love. Laugh. But Mostly Love." is how I feel about this sad news. I hope that everyone who reads this takes time today to love someone and to celebrate life and love. I pray that in Florida Mrs. Porto has found the strength to do the impossible- to celebrate a life that was ended too soon.

My prayers and thoughts will be with Rachel today though I've never met her. I will take time to pray for all of the soldiers, sailors, and Marines that sacrifice everything for us. But I think even more importantly I will take time today in honor of Cpl Jonathan D. Porto to love my family, to kiss my children, to talk to my husband and to really truly and honestly do my best to live, love, and laugh.




Here is a link to Mrs. Porto's blog- http://www.alittlepinkinaworldofcamo.blogspot.com/
And if anyone is interested in making a donation there is information there on a trust fund being set up for two month old Ariana.

To Love and Be Loved

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

-From Margery Williams' The Velveteen Rabbit

The Velveteen Rabbit is another book that is as endearing to adults as it is to children. Looking at this book from the perspective of a child (when did that become so difficult?) it is a love story between a child and his play thing, his source of comfort. As an adult it takes on so much more meaning. That rabbit begins to symbolize ourselves. We understand how the rabbit feels when he is snubbed by the "fancy" mechanical toys for being plain. We know the joy he feels when the boy chooses him to love. We know the heartbreak that he feels when he can no longer be with the boy.

To me the most memorable part of this book is when the Velveteen Rabbit first sees the real rabbits. He realizes that although he loves the boy and being his toy that there is something beyond that. Although in the story the Velveteen Rabbit is parted from the boy because of an illness I look at him leaving the boy more as a metaphorical death. The rabbit has been loved, is old and tattered, is worn and tired. He is all of us in our old age and although he is no longer with the boy he becomes REAL. He becomes a rabbit who can dance and hop and leap and twirl. I would love to imagine Heaven as a place where we can leave behind all of our limitations, where we can become everything that we have always wanted to be and I think that is the reason that this book is so well loved.

The Velveteen Rabbit faces feelings of inadequacy, hopes for love and finds it, lives a long life with the boy, and then after he and the boy are parted finally gets to dance and jump as high as the sky. This book is a wonderful metaphor for life and I hope that we all have such a happy ending.

Help Me if You Can- I've Got to Get Back to the House at Pooh Corner by one...

Continuing along in my series of children's books I will focus today on "The House at Pooh Corner". I chose to highlight this book rather than "Winnie the Pooh" which preceded it because I find Pooh Corner to be a little deeper and more rewarding to an adult reader. It is a tale not only of make believe but also of growing up and having to leave those dreams behind.

If the only Winnie the Pooh that you are familiar with is the one portrayed in the Disney movies I hope that one day you will read the books. A.A.Milne writes with particular wit and poignancy about the endless imaginings that occur in the mind of the very young. The difference between the books and the cartoon movies is like the difference between a stuffed version of the "Disney Pooh" and the "Classic Pooh". Classic Pooh may be less flashy and less recognizable but he is also more believable. He could be the stuffed bear of any small boy or girl, maybe even a bear that sat on the shelf of your own childhood bedroom.

The House at Pooh Corner is a chapter book that introduces us to Tigger as well as continuing the stories of the characters that we met in Milne's "Winnie the Pooh". In this book our friends play Pooh Sticks, build Eeyore a house, and go on a great many adventures. Though the characters are simple their relationships are deep. I could go on for ages but I think this passage from the book speaks for itself.

“Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. "Pooh," he whispered.

"Yes, Piglet?"

"Nothing," said Piglet, taking Pooh's paw, "I just wanted to be sure of you."”


Again, I could turn this into a manifesto on Pooh so I will just keep to what I think is the driving force in this book, the ending of childhood.

The last chapter of "The House at Pooh Corner" is also the last chapter of all the Pooh stories. Earlier in the book when discussing the game of Pooh sticks we learn about the stream that they play the game in.

By the time it came to the edge of the Forest, the stream had grown
up, so that it was almost a river, and, being grown-up, it did not run
and jump and sparkle along as it used to do when it was younger,
but moved more slowly. For it knew now where it was going, and it
said to itself, "There is no hurry. We shall get there some day."

This is a beautiful metaphor for growing up and indicative of Milne's style. This book is full of witticisms, life lessons, relationships, and wisdom without seeming too heavy or forced. And like the stream knows that it must one day become a river Milne knows that Christopher Robin must grow up and that the stories of Pooh must come to an end. At the end of the book there is a heartwarming conversation between Christopher Robin and Pooh in an "enchanted place" and you are left with a sense of biter sweet sadness. I question whether most readers understand that they are sad not only for Pooh who must say goodbye to Christopher Robin but also for themselves and their own lost childhood. But in the last lines Milne wraps the story up very nicely leaving us with the hope that in some ways our innocence and imagination live on. It is a testament also to the written word as through this book Pooh takes on a life of his own and becomes not just a little boy's plaything but a friend to children everywhere. Incidentally the same words that end the book were read at the funeral of Christopher Robin Milne.

"So they went off together. But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest a little boy and his Bear will always be playing."