Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Dragons

Dragons

Seems I have sailed a thousand seas
with dragons cresting with each tide;
Yet now my dreams are revealed
as he slumbers at my side.

His hands are calloused from his toil
to build a life for himself;
Yet never seeing in his path
four daughters and a wife.

His calloused hands gently soothe
our scars that fight to heal;
and all we ever hoped and prayed for
is becoming real.

Restless in his slumber
because I toss and turn;
seems I can't slow long enough
to grasp what he has learned.

So much for each to teach the other
and yet I can't slow my pace,
trying to catch up with him
and earn my rightful place.

He promises all the things
I once believe I deserved,
but somewhere along the way
I seemed to have lost my nerve.

Fear abounds where joy should be
and I stand weeping in my hands,
praying God gives him the wisdom
to somehow understand.

Bludgeoned by life, we five,
have somehow stood strong
and yet we weep far beneath
and wonder what we did wrong.

Such an undertaking, surely God
has shown,
yet I still fear for you;
the only love I've ever known.

Lord lift this heavy burden
and set me free so that we become
the family he dreamed about
all those years alone.

AMEN

THE OTHER SIDE OF CREATION

How far is the other side of creation? Oh, but a stones throw away through the eyes of a child. Children view God's creation through the windows of their soul, appreciate His power in the blooming of a daisy, see the wildflowers as His easel and the sea His greatest venture. Through the eyes of a child you see God's miracles performed as the potholes of life are transformed into wading pools and the skinned knees of it all just practicing for the great balancing act of life. Through the eyes of a child you dare to examine the pain a worm may suffer when you put it on hook to fish and then use dough-balls for bait forever after. You are ask to ponder the distance of God's stride as he walks from mountain top to mountain top and what it really means to be reborn. Take a child by the hand and get down on your knees, look through the windows of their soul and capture just a glimpse of the other side of creation!

Monday, November 3, 2008

Being

Being
Mama went to the little country doctor, in a small town in Northwest Georgia with a heaviness in her soul. She was 5 weeks early and it was far too soon. As the doctor examined her he ask, "When do you want to have this baby" and she answered simply "When it's time." She felt a small prick and a gush of water as the doctor said, "I'm sorry but if we don't go now you and the baby both will die." She was rushed into the city to deliver her second born. I was born in the wee hours of August 16, 1961 to a little family already of 3 to a mother who yearned for a daughter when everyone else condemned her for getting pregnant. She mourned for the little girl child the doctors said would probably be a still birth that how survived it through the first humid night of Indian summer.The doctors gave my mother cautious hope as she took me home from the hospital with a prayer of "Just give me one more day with her" hanging heavy in her heart.When I made it through the first week and then the first month the doctors were surprised to learn that my grandfather had bought a milk-goat to milk every day for me. My grandmother added corn syrup to every bottle as my grandfather carried me on a pillow because I cried to be touched. My mother told me that she would find Papa in his rocking chair, with my tiny body resting on a pillow on his lap as tears rolled down his face. He quietly whispered to my grandmother, 'It's gonna die" even refusing to call me by my name so as not to hold my spirit on earth too long after the inevitable happened. How could he know that his attention helped me thrive? How could he know that even at such a young age I had begun to trust him, Nannie and Mama to protect me?As I developed though the I searched for Mamma and Nannie's faces in every crowded room as relatives began to come to see the baby that wasn't supposed to be. All of these stimuli simply helped me and Mama betray the doctor's words as I began to thrive.As I began to development I was a storm of busy hands that could have every radio, heater and windshield wiper turn on and back in my carrier before Mama could get into the car. I tasted everything including dirt then denied the little taste. I searched Mama's purse knowing for sure that she had an endless supply of Wrigley Juicy-fruit Gum.I spent hours into the night searching the creek beds for craw fish and water moccasins that I would proudly take home with no understanding of fear. That is until the day I brought a copper head home hanging gently between my fingers as a gift for Mama. She explained that I was only seven and just because I had seen Jim Fowler on Mutual of Omaha's Wild kingdom pick up poisonous snakes did not mean I could do it. So after that I just moved them from the path of cars or hungry, searching hawks.My earliest concrete memory is when Mama brought my baby sister Beth home from the hospital. She was my first baby as Mama was so sick and Daddy worked away from home through. I adored her as if I were her real mama. To this day I still call her "Baby".Unfortunately this innocence was soon betrayed by a trusted neighbor who had a small rabbit hutch. I was only five when he lured me in the first time. Holding a baby rabbit in his fingers as it wriggled and squealed to be free he took out his red handkerchief and unzipped his pants. He only had to squeeze the baby a little to make it scream and as he did he put himself into my mouth. He quietly whispered that my sister Beth was as sweet as that BABY as he relieved his perversion and stripped me of my hope. After it was over he would clean me up with his red handkerchief and hand me the damp, trembling baby. I ran through the woods clutching the baby to my chest so it would stop shaking and hoping that maybe my heart would stop trembling as well. Thank God I was 12 when he stopped only because I figured out how to come up with excuses not to go. However, my way to not go was simply to go somewhere else and still very innocent in my soul. Because I didn't have a car I rode with anyone that would let me ride just so I didn't have to be at home. Unfortunately that didn't keep me safe and I was raped when I was 14. After that I sort of lost my way as well as my mind. I married the first older man that would marry me at the age of 15.I moved as far away as I could and began trying to be an adult with the scars of an injured baby rabbit. I divorced him at 18 when I should have been graduating high school.I moved to Florida at the age of 21 with my 3 year old daughter and a great deal of confusion and hopelessness in my heart. I quickly married and had 3 more daughters before I was 25 and they became my world. I lived for them encouraged and protected them. I was determined to not let anything happen to their childhood as it had to mine. I spent my young adulthood making cookies, being a Girl Scout Mom and PTA president. At 32 I was divorced and on my own yet again. At the same time I had the full responsibility of 4 little girls to During that same year I was officially diagnosed with an immune disorder called Behcet's Disease which is found in only 15,000 people in the United States. The doctors assured me it was not hereditary or contagious. However, they had not found it soon enough and I only had a 35% chance of living out the year. That was in 1992 and they were wrong. Now that the years are upon me I am forever searching for ways to give back to a world that allowed me to live despite all obstacles. I volunteer with teens in crisis. I mentor students on campus. I pursue a degree in social work in hopes of giving back a bit of understanding and encouragement that I seem to be blessed with.
My hands are getting Old
My hands are getting Old
I paint my store bought nails a flower pink to make my fingers appear longer and stronger....younger perhaps....
If they had been stronger could I have protected and held the little 5 year old that gave up her innocence to quiet the screams of baby white bunnies....could I have held off the rapists of a 14 year old or the punch of my lover...

Probably not I think... because I was someone else back then who didn't know how strong she was or that she was pretty or smart......

Everything is camouflaged to protect myself and I laugh aloud at myself as I try to write this because I sit here thinking of a million things I could do that are legitimate chores needing done so as not to have to face these shadows.


Ah the shadows in the periphery of my vision ....perhaps only an image of innocence taken by someone else's older hands....... My stomach churns and I hold back that forever present fearing cry lump in my throat and think of a few who will be proud of me for doing this but who I despise at this moment for making me bring the shadows into focus but who I know will forgive me for my displaced spite....

I just got up to get more coffee and laugh at myself through the tears pooling in my eyes......I suddenly remember the five loads of dirty clothes at the foot of my bed that have laid there for a week and not concerned me until now......I get up and put the white clothes in the washer and put in too much bleach wondering what articles will survive the harshness of the wash....like myself I think.....stained wrinkled and smelling bad and worn.......but made from sturdy fabric.....and I know the articles will come from the wash cycle clean again and ready to wear as will I ......Damn You Barbara........Damn me for trying to blame you .....I know why I'm blaming you because you will forgive.......

All I can do now is focus on that damned load of white laundry tumbling in the dryer.......tumbling like I have all my life tossed by the heat and bruised by the journey....

I have an appointment in thirty minutes and I'm pissed off now because I don't want to loose these thoughts and get ready but as I write I know I can't loose them because they have been with me always tucked away in that laundry basket of unwashed things in my heart.......with my tiny five year old hands afraid to touch them .......I'll be back to write again ......I have an apt....I think I'm crazy now as I just let my thoughts pour out through my pink flower tipped fingers on hands that are getting old..
Flagged to protect myself and I laugh aloud at myself as I try to write this through clouded eyes