HER GRANDSON'S WORDS

I remember the day of her funeral…I noticed him…right from the start…and his is the memory that stands above all the others…that, to this day, remains etched in my heart.

The first pew in the church sat empty…except for her youngest grandson (his parents said he wanted it that way)…he said when it came time to talk about Grandma…he had something he wanted to say.

When the pastor nodded to him…he walked to the podium without an escort…he looked out over the crowd in attendance…then with a quick glance to his parents for support

he closed his eyes…touched his hand to his heart…and finding strength from somewhere within it…he said, “This world was a much better place when my grandma was living in it.”

As he walked back to his family…his footfalls were the only sounds in that church you could hear…and, if you could muster the energy to look up, you’d have seen a church that was filling with tears.

The pastor closed his bible…he ended the service knowing no more scriptures needed to be read…knowing, after the words her grandson spoke, nothing more needed to be said.

Yes, of all the wonderful stories told at her funeral…all the compliments…all the praises…all the boasts…it’s those brief words spoken by her grandson…that I shall remember most.

 

IT'S INDIGENOUS

 

No matter how much I read and study I will never understand the way we treated the indigenous people…the first ones to live upon this land.

I wish I could go back and change the past…amend our history…but, alas, time only moves forward…and that is not to be.

I believe understanding other cultures…other religions…what they do…the things they know…help us understand one another better…help us all to grow…

They believe in the spiritual nature of the land…they believe the land has worth…they believe the Earth is the mind of the people and that we are the mind of the Earth.

And though it is too late to change the past…the people and places we come from…it’s not too late to change the people we are today…and the people we will become.

So, for me, I begin every day with a sun salute…then I stand up…fold my hands and pray…and I try to feel what they must have felt…as they began their day.

I look to the East and pray for Respect…then to the North to be as Brave as I can be…to the West I pray for Wisdom…to the South for Kindness and Honesty.

Next I turn my eyes to the Great Spirit and pray for Love in everything I do…with everyone I see…then down to the Earth…a quick glance…and I pray for Humility.

Knowing that’s a lot to ask to whatever Great Spirit I’m praying to…I remind her I will still feel blessed if just one of my prayers comes true.

And then I add my own prayer:

That no one ever be made to feel small…

and that all these things I pray for…

will be indigenous to us all.

CHILDREN'S BOOKS

 While cleaning house ahead of our family’s summer birthday party

dusting every cranny…all the nooks…

I paused as I began to dust a shelf that housed old children’s books.

Children’s books we haven’t read in years…as so much time’s elapsed…since we read them to our children…and grandchildren…when they still fit upon our laps.

Some books we read only once…some had messages to impart

some we read so many times…we knew them all by heart.

Some books still looked as good as new…while others showed their age

as I opened each one gingerly…as I reminisced through every page

From Dr. Seuss to Little Golden books…to Peter Pan who flew among the stars…From Goodnight Moon and the Velveteen rabbit…to Where the Wild Things Are.

Each book not only contains a story…but is a memory by itself…

which is why, together, they have found a treasured place upon our shelf.

Although these books were essential to our children’s and grandchildren’s growing wings…we haven’t read to them in years…as they’ve flown on to other things..

I can’t help but think, however, these books remember when our children and grandchildren were a little smaller…and when they come to visit…

each book stands up a little taller.

Thinking about another day…another time…way back when…

hoping to be noticed…opened up…and read again.

Waiting fo the day these now grown-ups and their lives again shall overlap…

Perhaps when they read them to their children 

and their grandchildren…

while they’re still young enough to fit upon their laps.

PEACE BY PEACE

 I was never a great speller…in school…when my teacher called on me

I was never really sure if the ‘I’ came before…or after the ‘e’

When it came to certain words…I always found it telling…

how two words could sound exactly the same but both have different spellings?

In every spelling bee I ever entered…I never won first prize…and I never dreamed my lack of spelling skills would be a blessing in disguise.

But in some cases it has been…(in many others that remains to be seen)

Let me offer one example of exactly what I mean.

With hatred, bigotry and war in this world all on the increase…

one way, we’re told, to solve this problem is to attack it piece by piece.

But due to my lack of spelling prowess…when I dream of a way for hatred and bigotry to cease…I write: the best way to solve the problem…is to attack it peace…by peace.

If we attacked it peace by peace…despite our disagreements…if we showed one another we care…we might look less at the things that make us different…and find more of the things we share.

Peace by peace we might discover we’re all quite similar when we look into each other’s hearts…perhaps we’d find what brings us all together…and stop tearing ourselves apart.

Perhaps it starts quite simply…just by writing piece another way…

Instead of putting the ‘I’ before the ‘e’…we put the ‘e’ before an ‘a’.

Of course I’m not sure my teacher back in grade school would agree…

But I like to dream the world wold be more peaceful…

If everyone spelled…a little more like me.

IT LOOKS LIKE LOVE

 

They noticed from the time when they were young…from before they all could speak…their father’s way of looking at the world was different…some would say…unique.

Every morning he’d open the front door…look out over the land and to the sky above…then he’d turn around and say… “Today…children…it looks a lot like love.”

Rain and shine, good and bad he believed this is the world as God designed it…

"But she also filled it up with love." He’d say, "And it’s up to us to find it!”

Which is why every day he was on the lookout for the love he constantly spoke of…

and every day, wherever he went, he would call attention to that love.

He’d point out a smile exchanged by strangers…watching anybody share…his children were amazed…how he’d find love anywhere.

He’d show them a mother comforting a crying baby…a family holding hands…and slowly the more love that he’d show them…they more they came to understand.

Once they learned this lesson…once they knew what they were looking for…they began to find love in places where they hadn’t noticed it before.

It showed up at family dinners, good night kisses in their rooms…it showed up in the rain that helped the flowers bloom.

It showed up in people helping other people…in a wave to someone they didn't know.

It showed up anywhere they happened to be…and anywhere they’d go

The more they began to see love in their life and in the world around them

the more they began to understand how love envelopes and surrounds them.

Thanks to their father’s teachings…and those seeds of love he’d sown..

they learned how love makes every little thing in life…glow…with a beauty all its own

Which is why their own children…from before they all could speak…

saw their parent’s way of looking at the world as different…some would say…unique. 

When every morning they open their front door…

look out over the land and to the sky above…

then then turn around and say… 

“Today…children…it looks a lot like love.”

LOVE AND THE WIND

 

Love is one of those beautiful mysteries of life…we can’t control it…we can’t obtain it…and so…like most of life’s other beautiful mysteries…we look to nature to explain it.

Love is like the wind…it appears suddenly…out of the blue…

you don’t go looking for it…it finds its way to you.

There are times when the winds of love are gentle…you close your eyes and sway…other times they are strong enough to carry you away.

Like a cool breeze on a summer day that you’re happy to befriend…

once you’ve felt the winds of love…you don’t want them to end.

Alas, we do not control our love…anymore than we control a windy day…

for just as we know not when love will arrive…we know not when it will pass away.

It is only when love is taken from us…when the wind becomes a thief…

we realize its preciousness…and the price we pay…is grief.

But since so much joy rides on the winds of love…every moment of every day…

our eventual sorrow…our inevitable grief…is a price we are willing to pay.

For where would this poem be without the very wind it is speaking of…

and where would our lives be without the joy and happiness of love?

IN THE MIDDLE

 I like to start each day feeling safe and happy…

usually this leads to a grin 

and the hope that my family and friends are also safe and happy 

as their day is about to begin.

And I like to think them at least once every evening…

before another day slips away…

hoping they’re still safe and happy…

hoping they all had a good day.

I believe life is a series of beginnings and endings…

looming in the shadows like silhouettes…

every birth has its death, 

every first note its last…

every sunrise has its sunset.

But as we experience beginnings and endings

I know this also is true…

most of our life is spent in the middle…

living between the two.

There is no doubt beginnings are important…

as are also those times we must bid adieu…

but I also believe it’s in those middles…

where all of our dreams come true.

So, for me, there is no better time than the beginning or the end of each day

to sit back

to reflect….

close my eyes…

and think of those times in between…

in the middle…

where happiness lies.