Time passes slowly when I visit my mom. It’s impossible to rush. What takes 5 minutes, becomes 20 or 30. Sometimes I think she’s a bit like the Ents in Lord of The Rings. She’s been around long enough that an hour passes in a blink. Time isn’t currency to her; It’s meaningless. Nothing has higher value, than lingering over a cup of tea.

When I’m with her, I realize how different we view time. I feel impatient. Always rushed. Time is my most valuable commodity. I’m stingy calculating every minute. 30 minutes to get ready 10 for breakfast, 15 by the fire with the cat and my book, 20 to walk the dog, 12 to the office, 10 to open, 3 hours for emails. 2 hour appointment, 10 for lunch, 2 minutes for a bathroom, every minute accounted for. Treasured. Never enough minutes.

So I’m inwardly groaning when she offers me a cup of tea after helping her with errands and I make myself say yes. I know how much it means to her. 30 minutes I tell myself; Just 30 minutes.

I’m squirming on her couch cup in hand and she notices. She peers at me over the top of her glasses, evaluating. I make myself sip slower and look out the window at the rain coming down on her flowers. She always had the most beautiful flowers. I take a breath. Slow down Ursula, You can do this, I tell myself. Just sit.

My mother gets up to nuke another cup of tea and I decide to buy her and electric teapot, relieved to have a task, but in a couple clicks it’s done. I’m back to staring at the rain. It’s hard this sitting, so I pick up a book and leaf through pages while she piddles in the kitchen, taking her time. Breathe I remind myself again. You can do this, you can sit.

Happy Easter folks. I hope we all learn better to just sit. I’m thankful to my mom for the reminder.

Where do we go he asked looking at the black and white photo of a little girl long dead whose name no one recalls. And I paused because I almost didn’t have the answer until I remembered. She is in the rain she taught her daughter or friend to love, who taught her daughter and so on and even though her name isn’t remembered, she is in the rain. 

She is in the air and the smell of cornbread stuffing on a thanksgiving recipe long passed down from… who was that again?  But she’s in the air. 

Maybe she is in the smile on the round toothless face of a child who will never know her name, but there she is, in her smile.

I hyperventilate on ferris wheels. My children made fun of me endlessly after a trip to Disney world. “Mommy cried on the ferris wheel,” they told everyone. I was embarrassed. My husband is the opposite. He can balance on the edge of a sky scraper (and has) with no fear.

I’ve tried to overcome this. I’ve gone rock climbing, and cliff diving. I’ve sat on the edge of sky scrapers and forced myself to look down. The shaking is uncontrollable, But I won’t let fear win, so I went skydiving and that’s when I learned something interesting. I’m not afraid of jumping out of a plane. It made no sense. After the parachute opened and I was floating peacefully down, I said to the instructor strapped to my back, “Fun fact; I’m terrified of heights.”

“Are you afraid now?” He asked, and I said no. He went on to tell me he’s also been afraid of heights his whole life, but observed people like us, frequently aren’t afraid of planes, or skydiving. He theorized perhaps our brains are unable comprehend that great a depth. Since then I’ve thought about this long and hard.

Once on vacation, I looked over the edge of a boat down into the endless deep sea and realized it went on forever. I felt fear just for a second, like a flicker, but then it was gone. The depth was too much for me to take in.

So maybe it’s to be expected I’m too scared to speak when someone’s dying. Yet I laugh at funerals and cry at weddings. Theres a fine line between overwhelmed and incomprehensible.

Recently I rode a ferris wheel all the way to the top and said goodbye to a dear friend in hospice. I was terrified to see him and googled what to talk about when someone’s dying. I settled on reading a list of jokes, or trivia so I couldn’t say anything dumb. But when I arrived I just stuttered and mumbled awkward apologies for not knowing what to say. He looked at me with complete understanding and told me there were no words and that was fine. For the first time, I felt like we were sitting on the edge of a cliff together looking down, but instead of fear, all I felt was love. I don’t know what’s down there. I don’t know how far it is. I wish no one had to jump alone. But we will all be together in the end and I will never let that fear win again.

She said loss was just love with no place to go and I sat there stunned. I was so surprised. She was one of the happiest people I knew. She was always going, always giving, always ON and she was always extra on holidays. She decorated every inch of her office with thoughtful details and enthusiasm she shouldn’t have felt. I had watched her passion for life, friends and her job, enviously and wondered how she had the energy.

That particular day, I had decided I needed a break and walked over to her office for a visit. Valentines was coming up and she had cookies. I was enjoying our chat and admiring the vintage pink and red floral details, when I finally asked her how she always had the energy. I wasn’t expecting her answer to involve such tremendous loss.

She told me she lost her only child when he was 23 to a tragic accident. After he was gone she learned loss was just love with no place to go, so whenever she felt sad and missed him, she took that love she had for him and gave it to someone else in his honor. She didn’t have a family anymore, so this was how it came out. I’ve considered her words frequently since then. They breathed new life into the meaning of love, for me. This Monday I’m having a few guests and as an ode to her and the season, I put a little extra love on the table.

I’m thinking about goblin glass this morning. That part in the Snow Queen (the original version) where the goblin mirror shattered and bits of glass scattered in the wind, landing in the heart of one and the eye of another. When it got stuck in someone’s eye they saw the world ugly forever after. I’m pondering the glass in my own eye today.

So many of my friends here are caregivers. The ones who will wake before the sun comes up and still be on their feet long after the sun goes down cooking and cleaning, arranging flowers, setting the table “just so” making everything perfect for our families and friends. In the midst of chaos, labor and aching backs, it’s easy to lose sight of just how lucky we are to have loved ones to serve. So here’s to all of you, the ones who serve. Today especially, let us see the opportunity, not the responsibility. Let us savor our blessings like our food, one bite at a time, chewing slowly and enjoying each morsel. Happy Thanksgiving all.

Today I almost laughed out loud as I searched my dresser for matching undies and bra. Who on earth cares? That’s not MY life, just a habit. I imagine I would be a great candidate for one of those makeover shows. One of my glamorous daughters would volunteer me. I can just hear her sympathetic voiceover script perhaps against the backdrop of trees blowing in the wind, fading to an up close of weathered hands drying dishes. They might need a stunt double for this. I never dry dishes. My daughter would say, “Mom works so hard she just hasn’t had time for herself, I would love to see her get a makeover”. Then they would proceed to do something horrible to my hair and everyone would act impressed. Maybe someone would cry happy tears at the big reveal. Probably not me, but who knows. It’s a high pressure situation after all.

I’m late getting the Christmas decor out this year. It’s been a crazy month with my daughters wedding at the house last Saturday. I didn’t even have time to buy a dress for that event. Instead I pulled something out of the closet a few hours before and decided it would do.

I’m embracing the bare tree today. Maybe I’ll decorate it, maybe I won’t. Mr. Butters has the right idea.

This isn’t what it looks like. It looks like I’m taking pictures of my grandsons enjoying the fort I made them. What it really is, is me documenting proof the Lord really does restore the years the locust have eaten.

What can I tell you to make you understand the magnitude of Gods grace represented here?  Would you even believe me? Or would you think it simply good fortune and hard work that brought me to this place?

I’m sitting on the floor, quietly watching them play in wonder (it never gets old) while my daughter rests up. They’re best friends as you can see.

Palmer, two front teeth missing, looked at me over the dinner table tonight and said, “you’re pretty Morai” then giggled with his mouth full and spaghetti on his face. He’s always the cheeky one, and my husband put him up to it, but even those words are a miracle. 

It’s such a long story, and if you know me, you already know it. I’ve never been one to keep secrets. If you don’t then let me tell you this, When you come by my page and get a window into my life, if it looks orderly and peaceful, filled with blessings and love, there was a day 31 years ago where I was a scared teenager alone in a dark room in the middle of the night, listening to thunder and watching lightening flash on the wall while trying to breath through the pain of bringing a daughter into the world I didn’t know if I would ever see again.

It would be 19 years of praying and writing letters until I did. That daughter is mom to these boys before me now, who I get to spoil and snuggle and tuck in every night for the next 4 days.

The road from that dark stormy night until this place was long, but peppered with miracles of grace too numerous to count. So if you happen by my home, or family, here, or in person, just remember, it wasn’t always this way

We were 18 when we met. I was looking for a 6’4 Dr. He was 5’ 9 musician. It took some convincing. But what can I say? He could play Journey. Later he confessed he only learned Faithfully because chicks dug it. Whatever. It worked. I still make him play it sometimes.
In those early years, there were times we didn’t have enough money to pay the electric bill; but when the lights were out, piano and candlelight were free. He would play to cheer me up until the lights came back on. 28 years, 3 kids and two grandkids later, this place in our home represents so much more than you can see in this photo; so much more than I can describe to you in this short post. Music has been the center of our lives. There’s been a song for every celebration and tragedy, holiday and birthday. This is where he practiced for weddings and funerals. Sometimes he laughed while playing and sometimes he cried. There’s the everyday music, the music that pays bills, then there’s the music he plays just because he loves me. But there is also music when he’s too mad to speak, or just plain bored waiting for me to finish getting ready. He’s even documented silly and embarrassing moments in song, memorializing them forever, often to my mortification.
After all these years, I can tell how he’s feeling just by how his fingers hit the keys. This photo is for him, to say thank you for hearing the song in my heart and playing it back to me

I found it beneath the roses and let out a small gasp. How dare a dandelion try to grow in my garden. I plucked the stem carefully imagining botanical anarchy should any seeds fall to the ground. I was on my way to the trash when I stopped and I held it up to my face. It really is beautiful I thought, and if I was more open minded, I would cultivate them for nutrition and learn to make dandelion tea and salad; Maybe serve fried dandelion flowers and dandelion donuts for exotic appetizers.

I changed direction and headed for the garage, then placed the dandelion on the shelf with the other odds and ends I didn’t know what to do with. If only it was a little more delicate and hard to grow, a little less resilient, it would no doubt be cultivated and treasured like its prized cousins the zinnia, or dahlia. But it’s human nature to disregard anything too easy, so here’s my advice for the dandelion:

Dear Dandelion,

Your love isn’t something to be tossed out into the garbage, make yourself a little less available. Make sure the gardener has to work to earn you. You aren’t something to be handed out cheaply and easily. Nothing good in life comes easy, reserve yourself for only the most ideal conditions. Make the gardener hustle a bit to see your blooms. The harder they have to work to earn you, the more they will treasure you once obtained. Any flower too readily available is easily expendable, don’t you see? There is folly in just THROWING yourself into any gardening situation. Be wise. Value your self-worth, be a little more choosey where you land.

Kindest Regards,

Housemouse