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.

Momma It Can’t Be True

Momma, It Can’t be true that you’re gone
I love you so much
That night when I saw you, it looked like you were sleeping
You often slept like that
You couldn’t be gone

That  would mean the end of all security
The end of unconditional knowledge of love
The end of everything that I knew of home
It couldn’t be true
You couldn’t be gone

How can you be gone?
I feel a constant urge to call you
And to visit you with gifts
I always wanted to give you presents
Anything to give you joy
How could you be gone?

But I know you are
You’re gone into an invisible realm
And now I’m looking for new sources of security
New perceptions of unconditional love
And a new way of looking at home
There’s truth in that

The answers to my searches haven’t come yet
The hope that I hold to find them is still there
And what I keep is the knowledge that you were so present
For my entire life
What’s left is gratefulness for having been your child
And love for you

By Chrissy Bell

Grief is a place




Grief is a place

Full of memories and tears

Walled in by unspeakable vines

That connect us to our loss


To leave that place

Is to still be corded to

The past

But the pain becomes more bearable

And the walls become windows

To our connection


I’m still waiting to leave this place

And time will lead me out

But nothing will uncord me

From those windows

And the love that connected me to that place



By Chrissy Bell

“‘All sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story
about them.’”
Isak Dineson qtd. in Phelps and Emig 411

We Look For Signs

We Look For Signs



We look for signs

Because we love her

Any sign of her



We sniff  to smell her perfume

Wafting through the air

redolent of Chanel Number Five or Red Door

or just her brand of soap



We listen with radar intensity to hear her voice

Calling our name

Yearning For a message

Because we love her



We place intention and meaning on every object and blade

Of grass she may have trod upon in the past

We read of her memories and strive to make connections

With objects, possessions that she had

That we now own and treasure



We see her face on the walls, the ceiling, on book's pages,

On cameo rings



We dream and sometimes imagine that we visit with her

In the ether of a heavenly place



The phone rings and we hope with the intensity of

A thousand suns that it's her



We are her children

We love her

And we look for signs



By Chrissy Bell

My Wonderful, Sparkling and Beautiful Mother

She Is Who You Seek

She Is Who You Seek

Dedicated to Terry W. Stroh who I seek



What is the value of a mother's  smile?

It's only the most important thing in the universe

When beaming down on a child.

Adult and grown, it's the most vital part

Of a person's breath .



When that special smile is full of tenderness

And sparkles for each child with every ounce of the joy of life

There is no gauge to contain it.



What is the size of a mother's hug?

It can't be measured by inches or feet.

It can only be told in the results

Of children's sweet

Hugs back when they say "I love you".



When her  hug is given freely and without guile,

Wholeheartedly and with "All My Love",

There is no vessel to store it.



What is the breadth of irrepressible laughter

That bubbles up instantaneously and at no moment's notice

And with contagion becomes the sound we all hearken to?



When her laughter  evolves to dancing and singing,

and all of her children follow

There is nothing  that can capture that effervescent feeling...



What is the distance of limitless encouragement

That includes soaring expectations for each of her brood...

Which every child follows, though no order is given?



When every child strives to be "the best person that he can be"

And all have seen pride in her eyes which

Means the world to each...

There is nothing in this world that will breach.



How can you measure these things?

You can't.

You can only treasure them and keep them,

Especially when life looks bleak

And she is who you seek.



By Chrissy Bell

Leaving a Dear One

Leaving a dear one

The family is not destroyed,
but transformed.
A part of it enters the invisible.

We believe that dying leads to absence,
when it really is a hidden presence.
We believe that it creates infinite distance,
when it does away with all distance
it returns to the spirit
what was for a time found in the flesh.

Every time someone leaves home and passes away
those left behind gain a link in heaven.

Heaven
is no longer home to angels,
unknown saints and a mysterious God,
but it becomes familiar.
It is the family house,
the house up above, so to speak.
From up there to down here,
memory, helping hands, calls
carry on.

F. Sertillanges

There are things that we don't want to happen but have to accept, things we don't want to know but have to learn, and people we can't live without but have to let go.  ~Author Unknown

St. Francis - Mom had a small statue of St. Francis - She was definitely a testament to these words

a prayer of St. Francis

For it is in giving that we receive …….it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. –

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace; 
where there is hatred, let me sow love; 
where there is injury, pardon; 
where there is doubt, faith; 
where there is despair, hope; 
where there is darkness, light; 
and where there is sadness, joy. 
O Divine Master, 
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand; 
to be loved, as to love; 
for it is in giving that we receive, 
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, 
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life. 
Amen.

Journey's End - this one speaks to me

Journey's End

REST AWHILE MY WEARY TRAVELLER
YOUR EARTHLY JOURNEY IS AT END
SAY GOODBYE TO THOSE WHO’LL MOURN YOU
AQUAINTENCE, FAMILY, FRIEND

STEADFAST WIFE AND NOBLE MOTHER
ALL YOUR DUTIES ARE COMPLETE
YOUR REWARD A NEW ADVENTURE
TAKE THIS GIFT AND BE AT PEACE

LEAVE BEHIND THE TEARS OF LOVED ONES
LAY YOUR HEAVY BURDEN DOWN
CAST ASIDE YOUR WORN OUT BODY
PAIN AND SUFFERING NOW BEGONE

JUST AHEAD SOMEONE IS WAITING
WHO HAS PASSED THROUGH HEAVEN’S DOOR
ANTICIPATING YOUR ARRIVAL
A CELEBRATION IS IN STORE

PREPARE TO STEP BEYOND THE CURTAIN
SEPARATING LIFE FROM DEATH
ANSWERS TO ALL OF LIFE’S MYSTERIES
THIS AND MORE YOU SHALL POSESS

THOUGHTS OF YOU WILL BRING US COMFORT
YOU’RE IN OUR HEARTS, YOU ARE NOT GONE
AND IN OUR TIME WE’LL COME TO JOIN YOU

ONE LAST FAREWELL AND JOURNEY ON

Sharon Catley

High Flight - I imagine that this is what it's rather like for Mom right now

High Flight Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings. Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth Of sun split clouds - and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of; wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence. Hovering there I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung My eager craft through footless halls of air; Up, up the long delirious burning blue I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace, Where never lark nor even eagle flew; And while, with silent lifting mind I've trod The high, untrespassed sanctity of space Put out my hand and touched the face of God. Fl. Officer John Gillespie McGee 1922-1941

Poems that have helped

Somehow the following poems speak to me.  Not sure why, but here they are:


HOW WE SURVIVE

If we are fortunate,
we are given a warning.

If not,
there is only the sudden horror,
the wrench of being torn apart;
of being reminded
that nothing is permanent,
not even the ones we love,
the ones our lives revolve around.

Life is a fragile affair.
We are all dancing
on the edge of a precipice,
a dizzying cliff so high
we can't see the bottom.

One by one,
we lose those we love most
into the dark ravine.

So we must cherish them
without reservation.
Now.
Today.
This minute.
We will lose them
or they will lose us
someday.
This is certain.
There is no time for bickering.
And their loss
will leave a great pit in our hearts;
a pit we struggle to avoid
during the day
and fall into at night.

Some,
unable to accept this loss,
unable to determine
the worth of life without them,
jump into that black pit
spiritually or physically,
hoping to find them there.

And some survive
the shock,
the denial,
the horror,
the bargaining,
the barren, empty aching,
the unanswered prayers,
the sleepless nights
when their breath is crushed
under the weight of silence
and all that it means.

Somehow, some survive all that and,
like a flower opening after a storm,
they slowly begin to remember
the one they lost
in a different way...

The laughter,
the irrepressible spirit,
the generous heart,
the way their smile made them feel,
the encouragement they gave
even as their own dreams were dying.

And in time, they fill the pit
with other memories
the only memories that really matter.

We will still cry.
We will always cry.
But with loving reflection
more than hopeless longing.

And that is how we survive.
That is how the story should end.
That is how they would want it to be.

Mark Rickerby






Faith 


Author Unknown 



<http://www.inspirationpeak.com/share-a-poem.html>

   
    Doubt sees the obstacles
Faith sees the way
Doubt sees the darkest night
Faith sees the day
Doubt dreads to take a step
Faith soars on high.
Doubt questions 'who believes?'
Faith answers, 'I.'

       
       

That was Mom.  She lived her faith.  She always said "Be not afraid."  Her vision for her children wasn't limited by mountains or any barriers.  She was a true believer.  She didn't look at the darkness, she looked toward the rising sun, constantly encouraging us to "be the best that you can be."

Mom's Memorial Posters