Approaching Thanksgiving

As we approach a date in time - Thanksgiving - that most people share with family and friends, I think about people and things about which I am extremely grateful. 
1.  I'm more grateful than I can say about my beautiful daughter.  She is growing up so incredibly quickly.  This year she became a teenager.  She makes me proud every time I look at her and think about her. 
2.  My siblings continue to be some of my best friends and I'm more grateful about their support and just existence than I could ever say.
3.  I'm grateful for my many blessings that, I have to admit, I don't think about enough.
 I was blessed to have had two wonderful parents who loved each other immensely and were each other's best friends.
I was blessed to have had enough to eat, enough shelter, enough love - in fact the love was overflowing - as I was growing up.
I was blessed to have been able to get a quality education, and to grow up with a love for learning which continues to be a passion. 
I was blessed to have been given the foundation of a religion against which I could rebel, but then return to with a security which came from many years of experience and investigation. 
I was blessed with good health and the ability to get health help when needed.
I was blessed to have gained a passion for reading which must have come from my parents' collection of eclectic and wonderful books.
My list of blessings could go on and on, and probably the list should continue, but ...suffice it to say  I was truly blessed,... and I am truly grateful.  Happy Thanksgiving!

What I Would Have Done

What I Would Have Done



What I would have done

If I had been there that evening

Before you answered God's call



What I would have said

To somehow transmit to you

How unbearably important

You are to me

And to all of us



How I would have held your hand

And tried my best to help calm your fears

Though you had no reason to fear

I remember you always said "Be not afraid"

and

Paradise was certainly waiting for you

while your dearest love was beckoning



And I know that my words of Goodbye

Would not have added to your comfort,

But to mine



How I would have whispered my love

And gratitude for being your child

And my promise to unfailingly remember you

In all of my actions and prayers in the future



But I wasn't there

And I didn't get the chance to decide what to do

Or whisper or touch

And I need to come to terms with that



I know it wouldn't have made any difference

It wouldn't have lessened your pain

But mine

And my loss wouldn't necessarily be assuaged or in any way lessened

If I had been there at that time that evening

When God called you home









Chrissy Bell

The Monster

 Having a tough time with my depression recently.  It truly feels like below. 


The Monster

It attacks when I am most vulnerable

It has no actual appearance but is huge and dreadful

It winds it's hooked claws around

My neck, my arms, my legs, feet, toes

It sinks those talons into my exposed tissues

And presses deeper and deeper

Needling into my arteries and muscles



I lose my breath, my ability to logically think

I pain all over in every vessicle and fissure of my body

My very cells scream out for release

And with anxiety I follow

Sinking into a fathomless abyss

Whose walls, like a well, circle around me

cutting off all view of hope and happiness



Sometimes a fellow victim crawls near me and I can call out for help

Though no help is forthcoming

But most often I'm all alone and I struggle to regain the surface

While the behemoth pulls stronger and stronger down and down

Until I begin to wish never to be in the open air ever again

Never to have to suffer like this

While others continue to blithely work and live and love and play



The colossus never lets go

Even when I begin to feel a fragment of hope,

The fiend returns to press inwardly and shadow my being

How to rid myself of this unspeakability

How to press out of the claws and hooks and well without fathom

How to return to the sunshine and knowledge of the possibility of happiness

How to lose my vulnerability and become stronger

Such that I no longer succumb to it's grasp

And hurdle out of that well of hopelessness



Time and the mercy of stronger beings

Understanding and the sharing of unspeakability

Compassion and the knowledge of better things

Compassion from others but also compassion for myself

Which has always been so hard for me to obtain

Since self-loathing is the foundation of the ogre

And knowledge as well as love of self may be the beginning of strength

And unconquerability





By Chrissy Bell

Driving

Driving



Driving driving

Panicked and heartsick

Having gotten the call

And knowing time was short



How long till I get there

Can't leave house to get on the road until I make plans

Have to make plans

Daughter has to be ok

And taken care of

Lesson plans have to be sent



Gotta get there on time

To say goodbye and try to tell her

In inadequate words how much I love her

To kiss her and touch her for the last time



Driving driving

Have to make it

It only takes two hours

He said it could be from two to forty eight hours

Hoping with all my heart it's the latter

Driving driving



Remembering other times when I got previous calls

Come, time is short

To tell those I love how much I love them

To kiss them for the last time

To hold their hands while their lives slipped away

To be there in that sacred space while the angels lovingly and graciously

Led them away to a new existence

Always made it in time



Driving driving

Other cars passing me

Have to go faster

No police stopping me

Almost there

At the parking garage and leaving car

Going straight to the hospital

Have to go through emergency room because it's late

Have to get a pass to her room

Surely I got here in time

I always did before



Another phone call

She's passed away

Time stops

Heart slips

Breath catches and throat constricts

I didn't make it

I always did before



Raw numbness

Enter her room

Into the unbearable sanctity

Of a vast cathedral

Dense with silence

And all that that means



Hugged by siblings who were such blessings to her

And she to them

...and she to me

See her lying there

just like she used to when she was sleeping

Impossible to believe

Shaking shaking

Can't stop shaking

Sitting sitting

And knowing that time has stopped forever




By Chrissy Bell

I love you Mom

The lyrics of this song say so much.  I love you so much Mom....God bless you.