Second Blessing

I hand wrote a blog entry about Abbie back in the spring of 2008 about 8 months after Alafair died.  I found it the other day and decided today seemed the perfect day.  :)

~*~

I've been wanting to post this story on my blog for awhile and today seems the perfect day.  Both B and I feel a lot of sadness over missing our Alafair.  Although we think of her daily, the tears are not as frequent.  For whatever reason we miss her very much today.

Earlier this year over New Year's weekend two of our nieces and my in-laws came for visit.  During a conversation with the 16 year old, she asked why we named our newest addition "Abbie".  

Our Abbie -
taken Jan 1, 2012

Abbie came to us named "Maggie", but one day shortly after we adopted her from Second Chance, I was hugging on her and talking to her.  I accidentally called her "Abbie" without even thinking.  After the words passed my lips tears unexpectedly welled up in my eyes.  The name seemed a perfect fit. 

I told my niece this story and she said the sweetest thing.  She had wondered if we named her Abbie because the name means "Blessing" and she saw Abbie as being a "second" blessing to us.

The thing is Abbie has been so good for us since the first day we adopted her just a few weeks before Alafair died.  When Alafair was so sick Abbie would do something to make us smile.  And after we said our goodbyes once again Abbie helped us get through those initial heart breaking days.

She loves us and we love her.  Abbie truly is a "second" blessing.

 ~*~

As I complete the finishing touches on the blog entry, my Abbie is sleeping right next to me on the couch with her head touching my thigh.  Yes, she is an Abbie.

The Sound of Music

Of late I've found myself listening to George Winston's December in the early pre-dawn hours.  Waking about 3am racing thoughts of incomplete projects and open issues swirl around my brain.  Listening to these piano compositions slow my heart rate and calm my thoughts.  Usually I fall back to sleep during the opening track entitled, "Thanksgiving."

I first heard the album in 1982 while studying in the Music Lounge during my freshman year of college.  Several years later we bought cassette tape and eventually the CD.  Fast forward to 2006 and the music found its way onto my first iPod, but remained unplayed for many years.

I'm not sure what prompted me to call up the album recently.  Of late I've discovered that music infused with piano leaves tracks of something good in me.  My husband and I recently heard Jimmy Webb play his original compositions on a huge grand piano in a 100 seat venue.  At times tears welled in my eyes from an unknown place.

As I've been musing about this, I remembered that most afternoons while growing up my mom played our piano for an hour or so before starting dinner.  I expect this was something she did even before she and Dad married.  I can't help but wonder if since my conception piano instrumentals have been part of me.  Who knows and in some ways it doesn't matter.  I just know that this sound of music is delicate and tender in my soul.

Our Loyal Streak

I've been needing and wanting to write this blog entry since we said our last goodbyes to our faithful and devoted Streak.  It still hurts very much when I reflect on his last 7 months after we discovered he had lymphoma.  At the time he was still strong and had much life for a 13 year old.  He still wanted to be with us and none of us were ready to say goodbye.  But by the time of his last treatment 8 months later we knew it was time and Streak let us know as well.

A good friend of mine shared something that comforted me during Streak's last year.  She said Streak had a God appointed job to be with us.  His job was to be fearlessly loyal from the first day he came to us to his last and Streak did just that especially with Brad.  He was appointed to be Brad's guardian.  To bring Brad life and to bring him healing.  To be his companion and to demonstrate loyalty and devotion.

One of my favorite memories is seeing Streak and Brad as they walked up the stone path we laid in memory of our Alafair.  Streak would be right next to Brad as they walked to the house.  Another special memory is of Streak wanting to be with Brad after he finished breakfast.  After his last bite he would trot back to the bedroom and wait for me to open the bedroom door.  Up on the bed, he would jump and most times snuggle in next to Brad; always close and always there.

We called Streak "our sentry".  When we let him outside he took several laps around the yard, not playful but very deliberate and dutiful.  Once secured then it seemed he relaxed.  Streak is the first dog I ever saw smile (or that I realized smiled) ~ His eyes bright, ears high on his head, tongue visible with his cheeks pulled back to his ears.

Our last day with Streak was April 7.  It was a Thursday.  A week earlier we realized that an additional treatment would be too much for our little buddy.  Reconciling to that reality was hard, but we knew the time was coming.  His breathing seemed labored and his panting more frequent.  We could tell the pain in his eyes had intensified.  On Wednesday night we decided it was time and we would take him to the vet in the morning.  That night I slept at the foot of the bed with him.  I wanted to be close and to comfort him, pet him, and talk to him.

Without a doubt Streak completed his appointed purpose on this earth and in his death he gave us two gifts.  He gave us back our memories of Alafair and delivered us our sweet Grace.

July 2007 - Alafair, me, and Streak

In retrospect neither Brad nor I really worked through losing Alafair.  Her last days were so unexpected and so, so painful.  When we needed to put her down it was too painful and neither of us could be there.  Deep down I always felt I'd let her down.  I decided with Streak that no matter how painful that I would be with him through the end.  Brad and I both stayed with him and as it turns out it was peaceful, sacred, not scary.  I stayed a few moments alone with Streak.  I bent down, kissed his muzzle and then whispered in his ear to tell Alafair that I was so very, very sorry and that I loved her and missed her.  Tears rolled down my checks and I said goodbye.  The next morning for the first time since Alafair died in 2007, I looked at pictures of her and watched several videos.  Hearing her bark and watching her play with Streak was so tenderly sweet.

A week or so after Streak died Brad's Mom called and said her friend's daughter wanted to give us a Border Collie.  She heard about our Streak, never met him but knew how much he meant to us.  During the conversation my mother-in-law mentioned that if we didn't want the puppy that she might take it.  She'd been thinking about adding a dog to their family, too.  Brad and I talked about it but decided it was too soon.  So Brad called to say we would pass.  Turns out they were offering two puppies: one for Brad's Mom and Dad, and one for us.  At this point we knew it was meant to be.  Three weeks later we drove to Colorado to meet our new puppy.  We named her Grace.

So Streak knew better than we did.  He knew we needed Grace.  He knew the grief would be too much.  He knew we need not hang onto regrets and we needed to receive forgiveness.  He hung on through the treatments to the most perfect day when we all could say our earthly goodbyes and then soon would be able to welcome another bundle of puppy joy into our home.

Streak, thank you for loving us.

Thank you for your loyalty and devotion.

Thank you for being Brad's friend and companion.  

Thank you for getting us out to meet our neighbors

and teaching us to appreciate and enjoy the little things

especially puppy smiles.

We miss you dearly.

Storms

Many storms have come and gone, but weathered still.  Some brought high winds, lots of rain.  Others brought parched conditions, lack of rain.  Stressed, yes, but not defeated.  Broken limbs, some quite large and yet the trunk remains rooted and strong.

But this most recent storm feels more than I can bear.  My limbs are burdened by inches and inches of thick ice.  Their weight so heavy;  I hear and feel it.  Tears fall and cries speak, "It is too much; too much to bear and too much to endure." The wind howls; the sun nowhere to be seen.  The days are cold.  Hope seems so far away and a thing of the distant past.  I wonder if I will survive this time in tact.  In the middle of the storm it's hard to remember or to hope this is only a season.

Though as I write these words I remember I am still standing, still firmly grounded and deeply rooted. This is my truth, my reality, but difficult to remember for also in my present reality my own branches creak and crack.  Some break and fall to the ground.

My consolation today is our beautiful maple tree.  It has lost many branches, yet continues to endure the many, many Oklahoma storms and remains grounded and rooted.  Its colors beautiful again this year.

Blessed are those who delight in the law of the LORD 

and meditate on His law day and night.  

They are like a tree planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in season 

and whose leaf does not wither.

Psalm 1:2-3  

Our Maple - 2011

A Cup of Tea

One evening recently I wrote the words, "I choose you!" at the top of my journal. Earlier that day I'd been writing about a difficult experience during an otherwise great visit with my two sisters this summer. A question came from a tender place.

"Would my sister choose me?"

Some history is needed to put this in context. Sometimes I struggle to believe and to trust my sisters' love for me. Most of the time I know it, but invariably when all three of us get together an old familiar pattern gets triggered and I lose hold. Old feelings of being on the outside and never in the "inner circle" drift in and stay.

As I let the question linger for awhile, a memory came back when I was a little girl. One of my sisters had a secret club with a close friend of hers. They had a special box, a special language, and even a special password. Their creativity was quite impressive and they had a blast playing together. One day I asked if I could be in the club. Sadly, the answer back was "No". I'm sure my little heart was completely broken. As an adult I understand the dynamic and impulse between siblings, but that little girl in me still hurt very much.

A bit later that day while pondering this memory, I saw a picture of myself as a little girl and with no one to share her tea. I hurt for her broken heart and for the seeds of rejection that often get planted at a young vulnerable age. I felt much compassion for her. I imagined going up to her and saying, "Hello there. What'cha doing?" She looked up shyly and I asked if I could share a cup of tea. She smiled and immediately poured the invisible tea into our tea cups.

"This is a very pretty tea set." She smiled again and showed me the beautiful flowers on the cups and saucers. I find her completely delightful as I sit in the tiny chair holding the tiny cup from the tiny tea set. "This tea is fabulous. May I have more?" and she asks, "Would you like some cookies, too?" We talk a bit and I ask more questions and then she begins to chat on and on as little kids do carrying on a one-way conversation that I don't completely follow. It was delightful. She was delightful.

*~*

In the course of working through our difficulty, my sisters asked me something that in some ways startled me. They asked me to trust that they love me. Years ago a dear friend told me something I've never forgotten. We were walking through a rough patch and I wanted to pull back and retreat into a protective shell. At some point she said, "I trust the God in you". Her words conveyed to me that she trusted the God I knew and she trusted His working in my life. It meant so much to me that she was not going to leave our friendship.

Parts of me wanted to pull away and question my sisters' commitment and love. My pattern is to choose this path, but for some reason I didn't take it this time. I rehearsed over and over again during the sleepless night that my sisters both love me and are committed to me. I could see each of their faces saying these words and I clung to this during the struggle.

Maybe I won a battle that night as I chose to resist the temptation to disbelieve their commitment. Perhaps maybe in this sleepless night I believed I too am worth choosing.

*~*

Never will I leave you;

never will I forsake you.

Hebrews 13:5

UPDATE: Yesterday, I shared my blog post with a dear friend and she later posted the tea set photo on her Facebook with the words, "Tea anyone? Lisa?". Brought joy to my heart, so I had to attach to the blog post. She took this photo at a tea party with her granddaughter who supplied the bunny crackers and gummy bunnies.

Tornado Dream

Lately, I've been thinking about a poignant dream I had back in the spring of 1997. I still remember it quite clearly and it comes back to memory frequently. Not all my dreams are significant, but this one seemed different. At the time I'd just started journaling again and I recorded the dream in my new journal. It is the 2nd entry, the first written several days earlier while on a plane for a week long business trip with two colleagues. It was on my mind when I wrote my last post and also on my mind recently when I saw the word "surround" in Psalm 17.

My God...hide me in the shadow of your wings...from my mortal enemies who surround me. (Ps. 17:8-9)

The dream was about a fierce tornado that swirled angrily overhead in an attempt to consume a building where I took cover. When it failed, it then shriveled into a "drunk man". I've always called it the tornado man. Here is how I described it that day in my journal.

*~*~*

I was with hundreds of people and a tornado was coming. We had plenty of warning. P.C. [My manager at the time of the dream] was in charge and delivered the message to take cover under the cover of this big building. In my thoughts I said, "this is crazy because the worst place to be in a tornado is in a big open room". But somehow I was told that the building would stay strong and would not collapse, bend or break with this tornado.

I watched as the tornado approached the building. [At this point I was watching the tornado from outside the building much like a changed viewpoint in a movie.] It came close, then backed away. Then suddenly it enveloped the building trying to suck us all out. I kept hearing the words to stay put. We would be okay as long as we stayed under the cover. Just then several people fled from the building. As soon as they left they were totally thrown about.

Then the tornado turned into a man and started walking on the ground with a knife as if to kill someone. The tornado man looked drunk. Someone tackled him from behind, brought him down and was going to kill him with a gun. But the tornado man turned and spoke the words "it is not for you to kill me" and then looked directly at me indicating that I must slay him. Indicating that next time it was important for me to do this.

*~*~*

As I reflected on this dream the other day, I wrote these words in my journal, "Tornados are unpredictable. They are fierce and yet majestically scary. Seeing the size of this F4 in pictures this morning scared me [especially this one]. They are not to be taken lightly...at all. Tornados are a destructive force. They swirl. They churn. They consume. They burst apart. They destroy."

Thinking about my dream took me back to some painful memories during my senior year in high school. The big building in my dream was actually the band room at my high school. Much like I did with the "Pretty Blue Dress" in the Talbot's window, I'm going to see where this connection takes me. We shall see. Perhaps I'll get to recover a precious story. :)

Finding My Stories

In my attempts to "Reach Out" more in 2010, I want to share some of my stories. Maybe it's actually getting back my stories. Last week at lunch with my Wednesday lunch friend, I shared about an "untangling" that's happening in my life. A painful, but good untangling.

This is an old, old pain and one with lots of layers and a long cyclical history. Some of the tentacles are from being a "causality of war" in a family confronting its own issues and the resulting family dysfunctions and coping mechanisms that inevitably result.

As we talked something in what I shared evoked a memory in my friend of an NPR story from several years ago. Out of pure giving, a man sat on the Washington DC mall with his typewriter and listened to people's stories. He then typed up a short paragraph on what he heard, in essense giving back their story. Tears welled up in her eyes. I asked why. Her answer was, "I would be so honored to give people back their stories."

I don't know exactly what this means, but it touched a broken place in my heart. Perhaps because in some ways I feel like my family after at least 35 or 40 years of sobriety have never dealt openly with the wreckage of addiction and codependency. In the hidden turmoil, I think I lost my stories or lost those things most precious to me. Maybe this "reaching out" is a way for me to reclaim what's most meaningful to me.

Recently my city was hit by several damaging tornados. Dear friends of our neighbor lost their house. They've returned to the property several times recovering what they can and hoping to find their most precious things. (We recently heard they found a very dear 1929 banjo; a treasured possession of the wife who is an artist and musician.). We all know it's a long painful process for this family. They are grateful to be alive and now they face the destruction; sifting, sorting, remembering ... keeping, tossing ... weeping, expressing gratitude.

They can't just walk away from their house and possessions and yet it feels like my family "walked" away from the wreckage once sobriety came. Few acknowledgements of the dysfunctions that contributed to the addiction or that grew from coping with the confusion.

At lunch my friend also shared a story from the Big Book that so aptly applies. Here is the full text:

The alcoholic is like a tornado roaring his way through the lives of others. Hearts are broken. Sweet relationships are dead. Affections have been uprooted. Selfish and inconsiderate habits have kept the home in turmoil. We feel a man [*or a family member] is unthinking when he says that sobriety is enough. He is like the farmer who came up out of his cyclone cellar to find his home ruined. To his wife, he remarked, "Don't see anything the matter here, Ma. Ain't it grand the wind stopped blowin'?" (pg. 52)

[* comment added by my friend.)

So I take courage from those facing the turmoil and loss from the tornados and I begin sifting through my stories. I hope to find those most precious to me even if they might show water damage, broken glass, or only a partial picture.

I am believing there is beauty even in these.

NOTE: Tornado photo courtesy KOCO.

Pretty Blue Dress

There is a pretty blue dress in the Talbots window that I've been seeing these past few weeks on our way to Starbucks. It keeps catching my eye, but I didn't realize until today that it evokes sadness. I decided to find out the message in the little blue dress and here's what came to me.

It reminds me of a similarly hued hand-me down from my sister. I loved this dress especially because it was, what one of my nieces' calls, a "twirly dress". I also loved how the dress looked on my sister. It complimented her sweet personality and she looked beautiful and happy.

I'm the youngest of three girls and envied everything about my middle sister. Through these last several years I've come to terms with the reasons and worked through most of it (I hope). I've come to appreciate our differences and very much cherish our friendship and growing trust.

This is a little bit strange, but I think what hit me deeply about the Talbots' dress is this: this is a dress I think I'm supposed to want to wear, but it wouldn't look good on me. For one thing, powder blue not a good color on me, but more than that the style doesn't fit my personality.

I think I tried to live in this view of myself for a long, long time. But this isn't me. I'm not sure what dress is me, but today I'm realizing I don't have to choose, nor wear this pretty blue dress.

I may just go out to the Talbots web site and find a pretty dress that screams "that's me!"

Resetting Expectations

I've been thinking a lot about level setting expectations these last few months. I'm currently working with a team to develop a new software product. As it turns out it is a fairly visible project within our organization. I hate this. I much prefer to work under the radar. Since it's more visible it needs more "care and feeding" so to speak. We have a standard process for managing projects which includes something called Risk Management. The idea is to spend time up front identifying risks, defining a mitigation plan either to eliminate the risk or a plan to reduce its impact should the risk manifest. The idea is to think through potential issues first before they blow-up and impact the cost, schedule or scope. Important, but not easy.

Earlier this year I hit a wall (not literally) of frustration. Normally, the project manager is responsible for identifying and managing the project risks. Although on past projects, I've been the project manager but on this project I have a different role. Unfortunately, the project manager hasn't focused on this. We've stumbled our way to completing the first phase and will release the product on Monday, but it hasn't been easy and it hasn't been pretty.

During my fit of frustration my husband gave me a new metaphor to approach this project. My expectations were that we deliver the product successfully, but also by following all the processes. The problem is we have too much to do in the time alloted. He helped me to see that maybe this is more like a first-run marathon. That we finish is the success, not that we finish first. Not an easy thing for a recovering workaholic and perfectionist.

One, two, Three...the answer is Three.

A funny memory came back to me today. My co-worker has a candy dish on his desk full of Hershey kisses, starbursts, jolly ranchers, and tootsie roll pops. I haven't seen a Tootsie Roll pop in ages. My defenses were down (stress up) and I grabbed one of the suckers. I instantly remembered when I was about 9. My middle sister (11 at the time) decided she would answer the question posed at the end of the famous commercial. She licked and licked and licked and licked...each time keeping track on a pad of paper.

Me on the other hand. One, two, three...crunch.

P.S. Guess what my sister does for a living. She's an accountant. Me...not an accountant. :)