And now it is tomorrow.

 Life has a way of going on whether we like it or not.  It has been almost a week since my life was thrown into a bottomless pit, and yet the sun comes up every morning.  One day it snowed; the next the air conditioner kicked on to cool the  house.  I cooked a turkey and I burned the roaster beyond ever being useful again.  I swept the porch, but not the sidewalk.  I bought goose food.  I made coffee every morning.  Funny how the mundane works to keep us sane.

Covid 19 is still the number one story on the news, both here and abroad.  I mask up and go to the grocery only when I need something.  I wove a couple rows on my runner, washed the sheets on Jiraiya's bed and stared blankly at the television for several hours.  Life goes on.  Someday I am sure, life will again have meaning, but not right now.

If the church was open I could go set in the corner and talk this all over with God, but it is not, so I do the next best things.  I stand in my front yard early in the morning and watch the sun spread across the eastern sky.  I watch the birds shake themselves out of their stupor and rise against the sky in search of a fellow bird much as my soul rises in hope that this new day will be better.

And at night I search for the moon.  Sometimes it is full, which fills me with wonder.  Sometimes it is a crescent and sometimes it is dark, but always it is there.  As I watch it rise on the horizon, I know that some where, some how, I am not alone. I have a little trouble remembering when life was fun and I can not hear the laughter that used to live inside of me, but some how I know it is still there.

My hand reaches for the phone and then stops in mid air.  The number is dying in my head even as my hand retracts.  That part of my life is over.  It is over, but it is not forgotten.  It will live every day in my heart and someday, there will be a big harvest moon.  It will be a beautiful orange and it will make me smile.  And then, as now, the moon will enter a new phase and I will only see the outline of a cresent against a black sky.  

And maybe someday, I will smile again.

Today is Thanksgiving Day.

 Oxymoron is defined in the dictionary as a figure of speech that seemingly contradicts, such as  "cruel kindness."  Today is Thanksgiving Day.  The day we give thanks for all the wonderful bounty that our creator has bestowed on us.  I am sorry.  While the turkey is in the oven as it has been for the last 79 years of my life, the bounty is not reflected in my heart.

We are in the middle of the worst pandemic of our lives.  The government leaders are begging us to isolate and stay in our homes, but the airlines are busy.  There is a festivity in the air that is completely asinine to the darkest sorrow in my heart.  Life is going on as usual in so many areas, but not here on South Road.

I have not seen my kids in over a year.  It has been longer than that since I seen my sister.  I only have one sister left. I have a few nieces and nephews that I never see and rarely hear from. A couple friends that I talk with several times a year and that is about it. The Aunts and Uncles have all faded from the horizon and I am left in the abyss that is called my life.  My life is in Colorado now.  I have friends here and I had a special friend named Anthony.

Anthony has been gone 5 days.  We had plans.  He was such a caring man.  I wish the whole world could have known the simple little soul that was Anthony.  If I have to say something I am grateful for today, it can only be that he was in my life for the time he was in my life and he touched me to the very depth of my soul. My world is a better place for him having shared a part of it.

He loved the moon.  I loved the moon.  We looked at it together, he on his side of town and me on the mesa.  We talked every day.  Sometimes it was just a touch base thing and sometimes we talked for hours.  We had different opinions about many things, but we respected each other and that made it good. I had coffee with him every Sunday after church.  It was the high point of my week.  And then he got sick.

Thanksgiving?  I think not.  I will cook the turkey, because that is what I do.  I will feed the geese, because that is what I do.  I will sleep through Jeopardy!  because that is what I do.  I will remember that Anthony would call me when the opening theme song of Jeopardy! started and tell me good night.  He knew.  He understood me and he loved his family.  He missed his family.  He told me that many times.  And now his family will miss him.  

The gentle giant is with us no more, but as sure as there is a God above and the deep blue sea below this man will live in the hearts of everyone who knew him. 

For now, Rest In Peace, knowing you are missed by so many and loved by all who knew you.

Until we meet again........

Farewell to my friends as I close another chapter.

 Sometimes God reaches down and for no reason whatsoever, picks the most beautiful flower in the garden to hold as his very own.  He holds it close to his heart and whispers, "You are mine!"  And so it was last Saturday, when he took my friend.

In life we meet many people.  Some are random and pass through leaving very little trace behind.  Some linger for a while and leave without a trace left behind.  There are also those who have spent a lifetime with us without leaving a trace behind  and then there are those who become entwined in our souls and the very fabric of our being.  Anthony was such a friend.

I do not remember how many years ago it was that I met Anthony and Annie, but they forever altered the fabric of my being.  Annie was an invalid and Anthony was her caregiver.  He had been for many years and as such had enlisted Hospice to help with respite care.  I worked for Hospice as a relief.  The first time I met Annie she was drawn to my blue eyes and if Annie was happy, Anthony was happy.  So began a friendship forged of a common need. 

This friendship continued after the passing of Annie, and continued until last Saturday when God seen my Anthony standing all alone in the garden of life.  He reached down and cradled him in his arms and with only a brief glance at me standing in the breach he put his arms around my beautiful Anthony and took him home.  And they were gone. 

We are all given our reasons for being on this earth and we sometimes know what they are and sometimes we do not.  My first obligation was to Annie.  My second to her son.  They are both with God now and I can only thank my dear savior for having had the privilege of knowing these two beautiful souls.  I am  a better person for having them touch my life.

Nobody's Cat.

 The same sun came up this morning, just like it has every day for so many years, but this time it is different.  It is an empty sun shining on an empty world.  I do not know how many people there are on this little ball we call earth, but I am sure it numbers in the billions or trillions.  That does not matter to me.  What matters is the one person who is not here.  The one person who made my world turn.  The one person who could brighten my day and give meaning to my life.  The one person who understood when I was sad and laughed when I was happy.  The one person whose hand was warm and whose eyes were bright.  The man who wrote "wash me" on my back car window.  The man who fixed my coffee with just the right amount of froth to the creamer.

When I met this man many years ago he was taking care of his invalid mother.  He was so kind to her and so solicitous of her every need that I thought he must surely have wings under his shirt.  Our first serious conversation concerned an old cat that lived on his patio.  I asked whose it was and he said "no ones" it just lived there.  

I asked him about the small crate the cat slept in. "Well, I put it there so it could get out of the weather."

How did it come to be on his porch?  Well, it followed him home from the store.  It was a kitten then and he had to pick it up several times because it was tired and lagged behind.  He did not want it to get lost.  Did it ever come in the house?  Well, sometimes because it was cold he let it sleep with him.  I thought it pretty much qualified as being his cat and when he had to have it put to sleep he cried just like it was his pet.  But he still said no.

Over the years we became friends.  We learned to understand each others idiosyncrasy's.  It was tit for tat and yang for yang.  He was an  independent man and I was an independent woman.  We were friends in a way that many people strive for and few people achieve.  I shall never stop reaching for his hand and never stop waiting for the phone to ring.

Fly free, my little friend.  God has gained a priceless treasure in his store house of love.

Covid and isolation.

 At this point in time I just want to remind everyone that the covid isolation is a very real thing.  You may think it is just a phenomenon, but it is very real.  As a society we are heat seeking missles, but now that our nation is forced into isolation we find ourselves left to our own devises and they are not always healthy or correct.  Imagine, if you will having covid, and being alone day after day in your home.  Someone may very well drop off groceries, or medicine or call for a brief visit, but you are virtually alone.  All day.  Every day.

At what point do the days start to run together and you question what day it actually is and how many days have you been alone?  I am asking everyone who reads this to pick up your phone.  Call a friend that you know is alone and let them hear the sound of another human voice.  It does not need to be a long conversation.  Just touch base.  Let them know they are not alone.  You never know when you may be the one brief glimpse across the abyss of a very lonely person.  Just to know that there is another person out there is sometimes all it takes.

Do not make the mistake of thinking that anyone wants to be totally alone for days on end. If they want to be alone they can ignore the ringing phone, but do not make that choice for them.  Give them the chance.  I am sure you all know someone who could use a short hello how are you.  

Covid will be with us for a very long time and we all need to take care of each other even if it is just a short hello.  Do it for yourself.  Do it for your neighbor.  Do it for the hell of it!  The life you save may be your own.

And now it is over.

 

All the bluster and hype and worry and wonder is behind us.  For all the cries of sabotage and cheating still echoing in the wind,  all the votes are now now counted and entered in the book.   There is a winner and there is a loser.  It always happens that way, doesn't it?  The red people worked hard and the blue people worked hard, and Kanye West had his moment of fame.  Now in 3 short months we will have a new president.  We have a shot at doing it right this time.  This happens every 4 years, with one difference.

I can not say that I will miss the Donald, because I never liked him in the first place.  I always thought he was a charlatan who padded the payrolls of his kids with "stay busy work" in the white house.  But this is not about that either because if I were in his position, I would help my kids in the same way. His wife just pretty much stayed out of the way unless he needed her to decorate his arm.  This is about the Democratic Party and the part they play in the government.

(I must interject here that I think my cat is a democrat.  Right now she is laying half on the keyboard and half on my lap.  This makes it very hard to type, but it is where she chooses to be and will bite me if I try to move her.  That's how Democrats are; they do not like change.)

See, Democrats are pretty laid back and do not really want to make waves.  As a whole we are peace loving souls and have the live and let live attitude. If we have a President who just leaves us alone, lets us be at peace, we are good to go.  We believe in equal rights for everyone. We do not want anyone to go hungry and everyone should have a bed at night where they are safe.  An honest days pay for an honest days work. Peace and love and seeing a doctor when the body malfunctions is good.  If my husband is woman, that is my business.  Climate change is real.  The earth is a global community and we are all responsible to care for mother earth.  Sadly, Donald Trump did not understand that!

He began to slowly whittle away at our world.  Other countries  leaders began to pull away.  Environmental laws were lifted.  Russia was our friend.  There is an old saying, "No man is an island unto himself."  That is very true and as the man lost his grip on reality he pushed us further into a corner.  We woke up to the fact that we would soon be right back where we started. And thus began the forming of the Big Blue Wave!

It has long been known that Democrats are lackadaisical in voting and tend to support whoever is popular at the time.  But when push comes to shove and we are threatened with our rights and privileges being lost, we come out of our caves and suburbs and bond together in a way that makes a difference and when we come together with Republicans who know that their leader is not interested in the well being of America, we are unstoppable.  The days of Jim Crow are over.  The days of flying the confederate flag are over.  The days of our sons and daughters being shamed for who the love are over.  And Donald Trump can sue and count votes the rest of his life, but America has spoken!

I do not think Joe Biden really wanted to be President, but we needed a leader and he was experienced under the Great Barak Obama!  So he was it.  His choice of Kamala Harris further solidified the deal.  That woman is perfect in that she covers all the race and gender cards and more than that is a caring compassionate human being.  The fact that she is drop dead gorgeous is an added bonus.

So peace to all.  In a few short months Joe and Kamala will smile and wave to us from the front door of the white house and if there is a God, soon the Rose Garden will be restored.  In the mean time, I will sleep better at night knowing compassion will soon be restored to our land.

Opinions are just like a--holes; everyone has one.

 and most of them stink!  I just turned off the news.  I have turned everything off and it will stay that way the rest of the day.  Today is election day.  Normally I am all a twitter and anxious to see who will rule over me for the next four years, but this year is different.  For most of my life I was a registered Independent and mostly voted Republican.  That all changed way back when Amendment 2 was up for adoption in the state of Colorado.

Normally when I see the words "Shall there be an amendment to the constitution...." it incites something in me to say yes.  Not so with this one.  A yes vote basically removed any protections that my gay friends were allowed to enjoy.  It cleared the way for open discrimination against them for job security, rental of a place to live, marriage and any protection in anything and everything that you and I take for granted.  In order for my fiends to have any basic protection for anything, I had to vote "no."  Sadly there were a lot of people who voted yes and some of them knew what they were voting at the time.  To make a long story short, it passed with a very strong yes vote.  To make it even shorter, we went to the supreme court and it was declared unconstitutional and we all lived happily ever after. (Well, not really, but at least that part was removed.)

But so began my journey into the arena of politics and the need to have my vote mean something.  Today when some one brings up politics, my first question is "Are you registered and do you vote?" If the answer is "No, because my one vote will not make a difference", then we have the talk about one drop of rain in a bucket is nothing, but 6 million drops will flood your ass!"  You register your car.  You register (hopefully ) your gun.  You need to register your wants and desires with the state and federal government.

Voting, to me, is a sacred right.  With my vote I sent the first man of color to be my president.  With my vote, I overturned gay discrimination.  And with my vote I can raise or lower my taxes.   I can require that you have insurance on your car and that your dog has a license.  I can change the county, state, and federal laws.  I can put the man in the White House to rule over my country.  But if I don't vote, I am screwed!

If I don't vote I have no right to bitch about how the rest of the country voted.  So I do.  It may not be much and it may not be the man (or woman) that I wanted, but it is the one the majority of the people chose and I can live with that.  Or at least I think I can.  We will see.

I may not agree with the choices you make, but I will defend to the death your right to make them.

Peace to all.