Time In A Pocket

By Judy T. Lloyd


"I wish that I could put time in a pocket, with a long gold chain. Then I would pull it out and love you once again."

When we feel that time is short and may end sooner than what is our liking, we reminisce over the times that we shared with others. It does seem like so long ago when I was a child. I had reasoned then as a child. I thought about what death was and like others the thought of death scared me. My oldest brother was killed in an automobile accident when I was six. In my simple child like thinking I reasoned that he would rise from the dead on the third day. My aunt Dorothy caught me with a shovel and she asked me what I was doing.
"I go to the grave and wait for Kenneth to rise. But in case he need help, I brought the shovel.
She sighed because she knew that I attended the church where the officials came to tell my mother that my brother Kenneth was dead. She also knew that in my child like faith I believed in the Easter story. She explained to me how Christ rose from the dead but Kenneth could not because he was mortal.

I could only image what dead was like. Thinking then as a child, I wondered if I would have a blanket to keep warm. And what was it about all those long house coat dresses on older women? I am still wondering over that one even to this day. I clearly remember going to funerals and it seemed older women were dressed in satin house coats. It did not fit my grandmother and for did not fit other older women that had been buried. Oh well my memories of my grandmother centered around all the family reunions,ball games we played with the enumorous cousins. When there are eleven siblings including my father, there are also eleven spouses. The size of families when I grew up were large. I am the youngest of seven. My mother's family including her was of equal size. She had two brothers and eight sisters. For daddy it was two sisters and eight brothers.

I loved them all and they were all characters just like me. Along the way we would meet those that were included in our family reunions. If they were childhood friends,they became adult friends for life. Especially if we had gone to elementary school together as well as highschool. Among those friends was a lady named Eva Hawthorne. She taught me the love of books, and most importantly she taught me how to interpet what I had read. I believe that I wrote my first poem in the seventh grade class that she taught. Her memory stays in the time pocket. We delighted in the fact that she would sleigh ride with us. I suppose if we knew how dangerous that could be we might have stayed home during the deep snow that covered the countryside.

Mrs. Hawthorne broke her arm sliding down the hill. We did not know then but she had cancer and was living her life to the hilt. She wanted all of us to reach our potention in life. There was one thing she detested and that was a misspelled word. To this day I can not help myself when I see words grossly misspelled. Even though I often do it myself. We had a cousin named Carol who was slow. I only know that one day in a place called Viet Nam Carol was killed. The jeep he was riding in hit a land mine and Carol died instantly. I thought how sad it was that a person that was deemed as having too many termites in his saw dust would end up dead in a foreign country.

I would have liked to go back in time on the watch in my pocket and tell him that he was one of God's children too. I believe that my mother felt the same way. Some of the people frowned upon his mother as she had several children without marrying. However in families these things are also keep in a pocket. We just did not discuss these matters. Neither did we discuss the facts of life. The attitude was that we would find out about that soon enough. Still I would have liked to have known certain things. Otherwise Mrs. Hawthorne would not have had to help me with the sanitary pads when I started menustrating. She had a time with me but gently explained that I was not dying but I was having my time of the month.
My curiosity about what kind of time that was never was satisfied exactly. Until my mother found out and all she said was to not let any boy do anything to me. I did not know what it was a boy was not supposed to do. However a few of them offered to show me, they were discouraged by my four living brothers.

The alarm clock rings at six o'clock and I awake from the dream. In my dream I was back home at my grandmother's. She had a deep well that once you drew water from it, you almost had to heat it up. That water was so cold it would make your teeth chatter. My cousin Terry said that could smell the breakfast Granny Dee cooked as far as Saxe,Virginia which was a town about ten miles away. Granny often used homegrown vegetables and meats sent to her by her sons. Slabs of bacon,eggs cooked to your desire,plate sized biscuits that you washed down with coffee. The biscuits were a favorite memory of my cousins, as they often stayed over with her because she was widowed. Granny however was also a force to be reckoned with when you did wrong. The cousins remembered her turning them upside down and she would switch them. My cousin Sam told me of the time Granny Dee caught her putting chicken shit in her sister's hair. However in our own way we all loved Granny Dee. I loved to sit on the porch and watch cars go by. I would walk the fields surrounding the farm looking for arrowheads. We would play sand lot baseball in the front yard. It did not matter who won, in fact I never recalled who won but we had clean fun.

Granny Dee hated a thunder storm, it is said that she was knocked out of a rocking chair when an errant bolt struck the chimney. Once day I was at her house when a storm came up, my mother and I went and let the windows down. We missed Granny Dee and started to look for her. We spotted the tip of her shawl peeking out from under the door. There she was in her wheel chair sitting in the coat closet. It was also a pantry. She did not say anything and neither did we. The storms could get pretty scary because of all the rock formations that contained iron. To this day when a thunder storm comes up I remember Granny Dee hiding in the pantry. When she died in her ninties the church was full. Of course then more of her children were alive. We did not know that we would return to the church a month later to bury our Uncle Tom.

Losing Uncle Tom devastated us, he had a rare cancer of the heart. He died without ever regaining consciousness on the operating table. I lived in Farmville,Virginia then and recall very vividly his funeral. It was tough to deal with. Sometimes we would like to put time on a hold. Especially the times we so enjoyed together. Summer time was the time for baseball, my cousins played on the teams. Thomas Carol was Uncle Tom's only child but he was my best friend growing up. He and my brother Tom had a birthday party together on July 10th one year. Of course TC as we called him received baseball equipment. I rode with his parents to every game he played. We would go to bigger cities when the county team played
in the Dixie Youth league. Uncle Tom never once left out a cousin that wanted to go to a game,movie or to the lake. We all adored him just as his siblings did. Of course his mother did because he survived Omaha Beach. Hidden by French peasants with a serious wound he came home a man. It was with pure joy that the family who had thought him dead received him back into the fold. Ironically Uncle Tom died one month after his mother did.

When I Hear

By Judy T Lloyd

When I hear a whip-o-whill call,
I think of you and your baseball.
I think of how you stayed,
and watched as he played.

When I hear the lonesome whistle from the train.
I wish that you were here with us again.
Somethings I guess are not meant to be.
You are up there where you should be.

When I hear the birds that sing.
I see you planting in the spring.
When I think of all the treasures.
To count you among them is my pleasure.

The next month we were back at the funeral home and this time we buried our Aunt Eleanor.
She had diabetes complicated by a heart condition. The rescue squad personel did their best to save her but she died on the way to the hospital. Aunt Eleanor I think knew that she was going to die soon. When I was crying so hard that I could not see she comforted me.
"We all have to die someday Judy, even me, we can't put time in a pocket."

I began to wonder about what more is there to life? I still had reservations about the after life. I dreamed about that many times. I listened to every sermon about the after life and wondered if somehow that was the way to put time in a pocket. It was later that I found out heaven was my time, especially after I found out that I had cancer. Yet there were many more to come that I had not met yet. These would be the ones to help to put all the photos in my life's album.


The summer of all those deaths were followed by the strange circumstances of my brother-in-law's death. I had adored him, my sister was so much older than me and essentially I grew up being like a kid sister to him. David was brilliant, one of the smartest people to graduate from Medical College Of Virginia. He was found shot to death not far from his home in Charlotte County. He had pancreatic cancer and was suffereing severely from that. Because of his cancer most people felt that he had killed himself. To this day that remains a huge question in my mind and other relatives. David was the golden boy in his family and I came to cherish his mother Julia. She was very cool and had seen a lot in her day. She bought the first double wide mobile home that we had seen in the county. She lived across the road from my aunt and uncle.

Uncle Creston had a turkey named Suitcase and that turkey created a few problems. Especially for Uncle Creston. The darn turkey would perch itself in a suitcase, hence the name. I have a fondness for turkey even to this day. My father had several strokes and during one of his hospitalization, my brothers and I stayed at Uncle Creston's house. Suitcase would strut around and check out everyone who dared come into the yard. My cousin Sue and I slept in the same room. Suitcase would gobble and I think that he was pointing that cousin Pete and Carol Lee were wrestling. My brothers did not join because I am not sure which of the cousins slipped and put his head through the sheetrock. The other one was hanging onto his head so naturally his feet went through the sheetrock. My brothers,Sue and even my aunt and uncle had to laugh at that.

We had a two hundred year old house when we moved in. Eventually the kitchen needed replacing as did the porch. Uncle Creston was a carpenter and so he came over to build our porch. He had brought along Suitcase because he was afraid that the hunters in the area would shoot Suitcase. Somehow Suitcase got startled and spurred Uncle Creston upside his head. Poor Uncle Creston wore that scar until he died. I am not sure what happened to Suitcase, we think he was left to plunder the woods. On purpose we believe.

We love our family a lot but we all had our Uncle Luther stories. Especially my brother Joe and cousin Charles. One day our uncle decided to play a trick on the boys. He went to great lengths to dress himself up as the Bogey-Man. From what I understand he was quite the sight. The boys were returning home that day after playing hooky from school. Since Uncle Luther wanted to teach them a lesson, he waited where the well worn path carried them past the old barn. He was hiding inside until the sound of footsteps alerted him that it was time to pounce.
"Boo,boooh, I'm going get you." Then he jumped out and reached over to grab them. However they had grabbed something too, the tobacco sticks were handy. Where upon they commenced to beat the figure of the Bogey-Man soundly. Oh what a terrible thing it was,our aunt was yelling for them to stop since it was Uncle Luther. Uncle Luther was screaming in pain and the boys still scared continued hitting him with the sticks. Somehow in all the ruckus our uncle got away and managed to get in the house.
Thereafter he never pulled that trick again.

December 30,2009.

Once again the clock reminds me that it is time to get up. Time seems to slip away, more so now that I am sixty. In another few hours it will be New Year's Day. There are a few memorable New Year's Day in my pocket. There were the dances,parties and celebrations that we all enjoyed. The new year in 1977 is very clear. I was still single and sad because it was the year that the Baptist minister left to preach at another church. The congregation were invited the "watch" at his house.

We had gathered at the house and when it came time for us to leave we were shocked when the local pharmacist's car had seemed to disappear. There had been a lot of road work on the rural road. Eddie had parked his Lincoln Continental on the outside median strip. Rain had fallen hard that winter making the ground soft. Someone discoved that the car had sunk down in the mire. There was nothing to do but call a wrecker. Eddie was none too pleased with that event because he was the typical male that lauded his car. It took a lot of cleaning to get the car clean. It was a lesson though for us to obey traffic signs.

I had a similiar experience with a car a few years before Eddie. I went to another party on New Years day alone. An ex boyfriend was at the party. His new wife to be was there also. It was a miserable party and then when I left I found my car mired in the mud. Fortunately for me, the other men at the party had felt sorry for me. They got the host's wrecker out which was hooked to my car which resulted in our being able to get out. I did not see the ex-boy friend again until his wife was in the hospital. When I saw how drunk he was I was glad that we were no longer together. I met and married my husband in 1979. Some would say the two favored each other, perhaps so but the difference was my husband is a faithful,non smoker,teetotaling dear man. This year will be our thirty-first holiday together. We will stay at home and watch 2010 come in.

Your Time Is My Time

By Judy T. Lloyd

Amid the noise and haste of the season,
we must make time for others with good reason.
In everything the Lord of all has made time for us.
Do we not know that our time while limited is given in trust?
So it is that when we have a sick friend,
that we must go and visit them as time is but a commodity to lend.
His time was made for us and he took the time to listen to our prayers.
Every difficult step that we made as we climbed lite's stairs.
So is it too much to ask when we say to the Lord?
"My time is your time." Do we know that he does not get bored?
Friends sahring a sorrow, or joy?
Just to marvel as a baby plays with its first toy.
Walking a dog for an elderly neighbor cannot be beat.
Especially when you reach in your pocket for its favorite treat.
Perhaps taking the time to give away a smile.
These things done on your time will carry you for many a mile.
So it has been written that what you do for others you do for him
Simply saying Your time is my time is no mere whim.
Take the time the Lord has given you and show what you can do with it.
Then use that time in the manner he see fit.

We are now but a few hours away from saying good bye to this decade. We pray that the new year and decade coming in will be better than the last. I think of all those who have walked in my time be they friend or relative. There are lessons too to be learned from those that we could not be friends with. Somehow in the measure of time in my pocket they too had their story. They too had their lesson to be learned. Just as Joseph said to his brothers in Eygpt,"you meant it for evil, God meant it for good." He meant that everything was according to a master plan. Right or wrong, good or evil, for better or for worse nothing is wasted in the game of life.

Relationships take time to develop. Some of the toughest relationships are between family members. The week before the century came to an end, I had the occasion to understand more about my own mother. The year 2000 was supposed to be the most dangerous year, because of superstitions about the millenium. I watched 1999 go out and 2000 come in with an elderly patient. She had severe kidney disease and was in a retirement center. The retirement center was nothing more than a glorified motel.

I have always maintained that no matter what we are put where God wants us to be. The patient was not that difficult but she had sneaky relatives. They wanted total control of her and when someone got close to her they would sabotage the relationship. It also happened that the patient was friends with my cousin Terry and my grandmother's sister-in-law. At that time I was in a great deal of pain as I was still recovering from an attack that happened at the nursing home where I had worked. That and the stress of having to file a workman's compensation claim did not help matters. The family decided to move their relative to the nursing home where I had worked. But not before I had hurt myself once again from lifting the very heavy woman. I actually re-injured my back. I ended up going back to the hospital for xrays. Naturally the xrays they took did not show what was going on with my kidney. However I was relieved of my duties and it was then that I decided to find out what was really going on with me.

I hired my friend who is an attorney to file a claim for me. I could hardly walk and MRI's were ordered. They discovered what they thought was an AA or abdominal anuerysm. I did not have the disorder but I did have a lemon sized tumor on my kidney. The blood tests revealed that the tumor was malignant. When I talked to my mother she was devastated. My brother also had cancer and would have to have surgery. My mother and I really began to communicate that year. She was by now confined to a bed and rarely got out. She had an excellent home health aide who negotiated us to start really talking. I think if I had really known how short time would be with my mother I could have avoided a lot of pain. You can not turn back time as the song by Dolly Parton tells you. Her Silver and Gold became one of my favorite songs. Yet I am glad for the time we did have and it was on that relationship that we built.

From time to time late at night I find myself thinking about both of our mothers. They come back to me in dreams. That is the reason why I wrote the following poem.

For A Moment In Time

Judy T. Lloyd

The midnight sky looms above my head.
I awake and see you standing at my bed.
For a moment in time you are there.
I can see the breeze on your hair.

I feel so safe when you are near.
It is as if you are still here.
For a moment in time I can only stare.
Watching as you began to rock in the chair.

Shadows come and they go.
You wave goodbye and fade ever so slow.
For a moment in time you are there.
In that moment I know you still care.

The feelings come and they go just as the hands on the clock move and time slips away.
Yes we are to treasure the things that money can not buy. Just as silver and gold can buy you a home, the things of this world soon grow old. Cherish love while you can because that is the only way you can keep time in a pocket.

Last night I had another dream about my mother. In that dream there were snippets of the present. My mother had died this time. Of course I think that I went back to the day that she did die. I felt alone,betrayed,isolated by my own cancer. Because of that I believe that is why I dreamed that I was left alone on a road. I had told the lawyer that I wanted to have a say in the funeral arrangements. My daughter had with a friend of mama's taken the arrangements over. Needless to say my siblings were left out of the arrangements. Or rather it was my sister and I. I do not know why that is but then you would have to know how my mother could be at times.

There were times that she seemed to be very loving,kind,patient as well as intelligent. There were other times when she was lost in her own world of retribution,punishment,anger not to mention cold heartedness. I write this because this is a factor many others denied. The truth is mama could be very mean. Little did I know the reasons why until much later. Yes I guess that I have anger issues of my own. I wish that the doctors had not been so constipated in their giving out information to her children. I resent that to this day, because if we had known in time that mama had two malignant brain tumors we could have dealt with that. Instead they let us feed on the doubt and fear that we perhaps were not as loved as other siblings.

So it became obvious that it was time to excise the ghosts. It was time to start dealing with certain truths. I would have liked more time to allow my mother to excise her own ghosts. However when the end came, I did what I had to and that was to love her. I guess for that reason it was enough time, only I wish there had been more. My mother did not have a childhood so to speak. Her mother died when she was very young. Yet she spoke of her growing up days affectionately. Sometimes we just have to go with what we got and be glad that time is what we chose to remember.

So am I done with the ghosts? Probably not because there are other memories that need to come forth. They are the memories that helps us to understand the nature of disease that could consume us. Cancer is just one of those diseases. It was during the period of having cancer cells running amouk through my body that I encountered those that enabled me. When I say enabled me, I mean that I could gain control again over what path I would take. I chose to start writing because it would set me free finally to be who I was meant to be.

Writing open doors and lines of communication that were not possible before. It also put roadblocks up too. Mama,my siblings as well as close associates apparently disaproved. One reason is because of the ghosts. Ghosts that they felt surely would come out. The secrets in a family that no one wanted to admit too. What they never understood is that it was the only way they could be free. When you grow up in a family that feels the adults are the only ones that can take part in a conversation, you are stifled. You become that girl left out in the rain on a long road back to a place you did not want to visit. Yet you have to in order to make sense of everything. You have to in order to let the dead remain where they are. You have to let the living find a measure of peace. You can not just keep that time in a pocket.

The truth is always going to be there. Whether the truth is running behind you or running before you. The truth is inescapable. What you can escape is all the guilt and fault finding that you dug a hole for. So the dreams become that truth that you dared not speak to anyone. So I wonder too if the others had the same dreams or were able to finally deal with them. I sure hope so. We all have our demons and our angels. Somewhere along the way we can find the time to be what we were meant to be.
I believe that in an effort to keep the truth out of the picture,both my mother and myself clung to our emotions as a crutch. That crutch built by both of us kept us at odds with each other. I wish that it had not been so. Nevertheless it was because now I know I could have put that time to better use.


Water Under The Bridge


Every drop of water that flows beneath a bridge can not flow that way again.
While fish remain almost in the same spot.
People are like the water and the fish.
Sand and pebbles flow with the water.

Currents come and they go,
yet the water flows the same.
Time erodes away the rocks of our guilt.
Settling down as sand.

We can reach in and take the sand,
putting it in an hourglass.
Twisting the hourglass upside down.
The sand flows the same way.

If we flood the sand out.
Washing it with our tears.
Does the sand return to the stream?
Only to flow completely away?

I think that if I had to turn back the pages on those days that were so hard to deal with.
I would have taken more time to understand who my mother was so that she could understand who I was. Still all in all that time which can not be turned back, made me all the stronger. I suppose that is how it is with the hourglass, that no matter how you shake it you come back to the same conclusion. So I must contend myself to be satisfied that I did the time to figure it all out myself. Neither my mother or I did too badly. For I am the reflection in the mirror of my mother. That is what I have to be happy with at last.


The story does not end here,rather it continues. I origionally wrote Your Time is My Time for Vandal Holman. A true friend,counselor,mentor as well as cancer survivor. Vandal is a unique person in that she was a school teacher,became a pastor,was ordained a minister. She became a Bishop after getting her doctorate in religion. Vandal also joined the Red Cross where she has traveled across the United States performing her duties. I believe that I learned more from her than any other single person in my adult life.
I had a jewelry business in which I would either make jewelry or buy it online. My husband and I bought fifty pounds of jewelry from a vendor in Florida.

We sorted through the jewelry where I found a jewel encrusted watch. On the watch was printed the words. Your time is my time. I thought that was neat since both Vandal and I spent a lot of time working with cancer survivors. Vandal was always willing to share her precious time with us. Of course when it comes to Vandal I do not hesitate to offer my time to her. It is a friendship built from love. We have a relationship that is more like a mother and daughter. I am quick to point out that if you bash Vandal,you would be the subject of my wrath. The same is true with Vandal since she is my Rose in the books that I have written.

What else can be said about a person who holds you when you are vomiting your insides out. The person who comes in and gives the doctors a piece of her mind about your care. The person that lets you make the decisions of what treatment you need be yours. In the same sense she is the person that I can write a permission slip for. That permission slip read like this.
"I hereby give you permission to crawl in the bed and tell everyone else to go to hell." You have to know that there are times when the emotional overload of cancer gets to you.

We both understood the pain,fear,depression,frustration at the doctors,plus endless medical tests that tear at your emotional well being. I was the first person that she told that the biopsy showed cancer. I was the one that called her to try to make sense of how I felt. I understood what the Bible said about sending a comforter. She is that comfort,is it no wonder that my time is her time?

Today is January 14th,2010,we have returned from the Federal Courts in Richmond. Filing bankruptcy is not easy to do nor is it easy on our emotional status. However it had to be done,now maybe the dreams of flood waters covering everything will cease. I doubt it though. This is the residual of many battles with failing health on both of our parts. True we wasted time on the things that did not pan out. Yet I have to say that the doughnut hole that we have been in seems more like a sink hole. Only we are the ones sinking. Such is the fate of many others,however it does not help to know that. Approximately one year ago I lost a job mainly because I had a hernia. I got that hernia working with a woman who did not appreciate the help she got. No matter what I did for help while working for the agency that I did, she wanted more. She was unsatisfied with my work complaining to my boss. My boss kept me in a hostile environment that lead up to my injuring myself enough to cause a hernia.

Sometimes I just can not figure out some people,what do they want? I will say that mama got a lot of help from her caregiver who we all appreciated. It was because of her that I became a nursing assistant. Still I wonder if she felt unappreciated. My family would not like that if she did feel that way. So when I made this year's resolution, I vowed to help whoever I could wherever I could. It is my resolution not to hurt someone no matter what, but to try and help. I look at the television that is showing the victims of the earthquake in Haiti. Knowing that I can not go there does not mean that I cannot pray for them.

I will say that my friends,the good ones do worry about the stress on me. I find it difficult but being able to write is helpful.

I found out over the weekend that one of my cousins attempted suicide. She is in the hospital's ICU unit. You know to be sad is very hard on a person. It is equally hard on the family. Many people do not see that one can die of sadness. You may not see it that way, but let me explain.

When you get to the point that life holds no meaning for you it becomes more of a burden to live. There was a point when I was in so much pain and heartbreak that I attempted suicide. I truly believe that was the toxins from my cancer that took over my body. Taking oxycodone also did not help. This is when I decided that there had to be more for me. I can remember praying to God. I did not want to die lying face down on a dirty mattress in my living. I truly wish that I could reach my cousin and understand her pain. I knew that it was an inner voice speaking to me. It was then that I gave up on self appointed guidance to a greater power. That power lifted me up,sent me to the cabinet where my medicines were. I know enough about medicines to know that I had to take my Paxil. I increased the doseage of the depression medicine.

On Monday when I went back to the doctors that were treating me for my cancer, they discovered my tumor was shrinking. They put you on a simulater to measure the size of the tumor. My radiation treatments were reduced, from then on I could sleep at night. That to me was a big relief. There are still things about my treatment that bother me today. However when lying in bed the other night, I thought about the cousin who had tried suicide.

I have alsways had a sense about things especially when it came to family. So I thought about the sadness that made her want to take her life. I understood it, because I had that same sadness growing up. I will not say here what it is, because I can only say this. Betty and I shared a secret even though it was from two different people. Some secrets are better left where they are. Some should be told in order for the truth to heal. However we must see that not all truths heal. In fact certain truths only bring the person down.

Sad

I wonder why the sun always hides from me.
Can not the sun see?
There are colors they say to a rainbow.
But I only see where the shadows go.

I wish that I could touch the wings of birds.
Does the cardinal sing of red in its words?
Are there really bluebirds over,
the fields of Dover.

I only know that I can only feel the rain.
Why must I be in this kind of pain?
Is there really light at the end of the tunnel?
Or is it just the sun behind the black funnel?

This is what it is like being sad.
I just wish anyone would show me how to be glad.
Perhaps someday when my life is over.
I will fly with those bluebirds in Dover.

This is what sadness is, you do not see color or feel warmth. I only pray that if you read this and you are sad that you will find your way. It is my will that in my moments of time in a pocket that it be so.

I can only pray that whatever caused this deep depression that she will know in her heart that she is loved. Many times changing medication is the key to resolving this deep depression. A friend of mine explained it this way.
"You feel as if you are frozen in time, that someone has put a net over you. It is hard to explain because you can not go forward nor can you go backwards." I know that having cancer among other things caused a deep depression in me. I was fortunate in this way that I had a doctor who recognized this and prescribed medications for me. My husband whom I love very much has suffered for years from depression. Much of his depression is caused by a chemical inbalance in his brain. The right medications have helped him. Still he has to remain on those medications in order to feel somewhat whole. To be lost within yourself is unimaginable pain. This pain is just as great as any phyiscal pain. So when someone says that you can not die of heartbreak, that is wrong. You can die of heartbreak when you are frozen in time. To be a functioning adult you must have a functioning mind as well as body. Sure they cut out a lot of what makes me a woman. I feel scarred from the types of radiation imposed upon me following radical surgery. However I am still a woman mentally.

So I choose to write what my feelings are because for me it is a coping mechanism. Having family though helps with that coping mechanism. I do not know if I could ever say to them all how much they meant to me. For the good far outweighed the bad. It is so difficult for me to understand why a man would kill his entire family and friends in Appomattox. There is nothing worse than being so lost within the deep recesses of the soul than that. I listened to a song that was favored by Hank Williams. The song was entitled House of Gold. These lines stand out for me.
"I would rather be buried in a deep dark hole and know my poor soul was saved.
Than to live in a house of gold denying my God and lose my soul."
Think on those words greed destroys many things. I know that being poor is not the worse thing that can happen to me. I have lost everything and have had it returned to me just like Job. I have also known much love in my life. Having cancer brought all those deep down dark hole of a grave to life. Now I know that to be trapped within your own mind is far worse than any cancer diagnosis. Choosing to claim God as my savior is a better treasure.

When my cousin told me that our mutual cousin Betty had tried suicide I thought about all of the relationships in the family. So many of the memories stirred up old feelings. Yet the unmistakable fact was that we all loved each other. I believe now that our families survived some of the most horrible situations because they were together. Even if we did suffer from depressions and thoughts that would threaten to destroy us, we had love. I will never write that everything was perfect. It was not, this book isn't just about me, it is about who I really am. It took me a long time to figure out where I really belonged.

I would say that a lot of that was my fault. If our brains really are living computers with stored information we must conclude the above facts are true. Some facts are painful and that makes us no different from the generations that came after us. I have lived now for six plus decades. In my memory banks though I can see that while we were not the Waltons, we were not the Barkers either. We had if you will some sort of sane existance. Our parents did the best that they could do under the circumstances. We became survivors because of that. Looking back on those memories I would have to say that love remained. The body can be destroyed,even our brains become blank. However through it all if you really think about it love never left us.

It was once written that God did not move, we did. Yet I am of the firm belief that all things fit into the plan. Right now it is snowing again here in Virginia. We have a fairly good sized amount of snow on the ground. This reminds me of the sixties when we had deep snows.

Chapter Three

We had deep snows this year, many of us were stuck in our homes with only the television to entertain us. Of course when you have pets they can be a source of entertainment and joy. During the years before my bouts with cancer I miscarried two babies. So my pets are my psuedo children. Depression creeps in when you get to thinking about a lot of the failures of your past. This week in 2010 my depression kicked in really bad. I developed an infection in my system that made me very ill for days. As much as I hate going to the doctor for anything now, I had to break down and go. I finally got the medicine but realized too that something else was missing from life.

I suppose that there will be those that scoff at the notion of talking to God. I do that especially at night when I can not sleep. I have my little dog beside me for my comfort. God did promise us a comforter and I think he uses our pets as a comforter. I have dreams sometimes that seem so real that when I wake up I find that I have to adjust to coming back to reality. One dream had to do with going into an church where the congregation were all happy. I had to go to the bathroom really bad, so I was searching for the bathroom. It had water flowing down and was washing out the commode. I wondered about that. Why was this in my dream?

So in thinking about it late at night I discovered that maybe it was because of all the crap in my life. I had allowed anger and resentment to interfere with my joy. Oh to have the joy once again expressed in song. Especially if it is an old song sung by someone who sings the piece with meaning. Lynda Randall is one of those singers. Patience is not a virtue of mine and so I pray each night that the Lord will take the anger and resentment from me. Because all of that crap that I allowed to build up only harms me physically. My little dog is a great blood pressure medicine for me. He reminds me that God loves me even when I don't love myself. It reminds me of just being a child once again, growing up with some really good memories.

Time in a pocket is about memories and what you learned from those you love.

Impressum

Texte: Implied Copyright.
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 27.01.2010

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To All Of My Family Adopted,extended and natural