What a day! A first! A first day of spring in the year of our Lord 2011! That is something to behold! Juat shy of a few minutes, hours, days, weeks, months even, many did not receive this blessing. We should never take another spring for granted again. Earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes, floodings, scary acts of nature can chnge lives, lands, and dreams.
I spy many a featheered friend before today got here. A red robin here, a blue jaybird there. I spy so many beautiful cherry blossom trees annoucing the joy of spring and was in awe at the color and beauy. Each warm sunbeam and gentle breeze is welcome.
What a day!
Helen's Daughter
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Praying Lesson: Sister
I was adopted as by the time I was two. I had been in foster care and Friends Assoiciation handled my case then. I am fifty-seven now so you can see that been many moons ago. The Smiths, a childless couple, had another child in the home, one of my mother's niece's sons, whom she was raising, who is eleven years older than me. They brought me to their home and thus began a troublesome journey for me.
The praying lesson today is about sisters. I always wanted one and longed for someone older to talk to and learn from and imitate, and truth be told, idolize and for protection. I was a lonely child, a timid child, an abused child. I prayed for a sister and I even begged my adopted mother to get me one.
I made friends with twins, and wondered what it would have been like to have a lookalike, act-alike, talk-alike copy of myself. I still marvel at twins and am fascinated by them. In the small community in Fulton where I grew up in Richmond, Virginia there was quite a few of them. They were everywhere and I had no trouble telling them apart and never understood why no one else could.
I made friends with girls who had big sisters and little sisters and half sisters, and foster sisters, and adopted sisters and play sisters. But I had none. I would listen to squabbles and see fights over clothes and shoes and other things. I noticed how they watched over each other and protected each other and shared laughs.
I started to look for that in my friends. I mentally, emotionally appointed them as my 'sister'. But none wanted the role. They did not want it or need it. I got left out and left behind in many things.
When I finally went searching for my biological mother, and got my record, I was surprise to find I indeed had an older sister, a big sister. I was stunned. I was in my twenties, a long ways from that lost little lonely kid in the sixties. It was the seventies, when everyone was doing what they wanted to do and thumbing their noses and other parts at society's rules. I remember reading her name. Aurelia Frances. What a name. What would her nickname have been? What was she like, a tomboy, a prissy prima donna? A nerdy, goody two-shoes? Was she tall? Was she short? Was she moody or perky? Was she serious or boring? Was she caring? I wonder.
I read her birthdate, her father's name. I knew more about her than me. I still do not know my father's name.
I even found out she was in Petersburg, Virginia. I set out to get the goods on her. And I came away with a record and a childhood picture of her. Even her adopted parents name and the fact that they dropped Aurelia and let Frances stand on the record as her given name now. Later I would come to know she was given our grandmother's name. To me it was another blessing and honor I wished was mine.
My initial curiosity waned. My joy at having found out I had a sister all this time was stunted by time. The years gone, the childhood wonder gone, the time for growth and bonding all seemed to be gone now. I put it all away and continue my search for my mother, Helen.
When we finally came together, I found she was married and had four more children. Two girls and two boys. I had two more sisters. I now had two little sisters. I had been begging, wishing, praying for sisters and now I have three I know about. I have no idea what my father been up to since me and since I don't know who he is, another praying lesson. I prayed I never slept with a brother. A real brother as in sibling.
But now I had two little sisters, we all grown women now, but you always have the status of birth order. Robin and Beverly. I thought, wow. It would have been something to have them tagging behind me or begging to go with me places. I would have been overprotective no doubt trying to keep all of life's ugly residue off them. Maybe that would not been good or helpful and they would not have learn what they needed to learn. I might have done more harm than good doing that, so in that a lesson emerges.
Even sisters need space to be themselves and to be the sister they want or need to be, not who I fantasized them to be. Not in the perfect world or in my world, but in God's.
Maybe Frances and I waa called to this. Maybe it was God's plan we be put up for adoption. Good or bad, the life we had, the life we have, started from birth. The longings for a sister was a lesson. Learning the need for family long before I had daughters of my own. I am glad my girls had each other.
The praying lesson today is about sisters. I always wanted one and longed for someone older to talk to and learn from and imitate, and truth be told, idolize and for protection. I was a lonely child, a timid child, an abused child. I prayed for a sister and I even begged my adopted mother to get me one.
I made friends with twins, and wondered what it would have been like to have a lookalike, act-alike, talk-alike copy of myself. I still marvel at twins and am fascinated by them. In the small community in Fulton where I grew up in Richmond, Virginia there was quite a few of them. They were everywhere and I had no trouble telling them apart and never understood why no one else could.
I made friends with girls who had big sisters and little sisters and half sisters, and foster sisters, and adopted sisters and play sisters. But I had none. I would listen to squabbles and see fights over clothes and shoes and other things. I noticed how they watched over each other and protected each other and shared laughs.
I started to look for that in my friends. I mentally, emotionally appointed them as my 'sister'. But none wanted the role. They did not want it or need it. I got left out and left behind in many things.
When I finally went searching for my biological mother, and got my record, I was surprise to find I indeed had an older sister, a big sister. I was stunned. I was in my twenties, a long ways from that lost little lonely kid in the sixties. It was the seventies, when everyone was doing what they wanted to do and thumbing their noses and other parts at society's rules. I remember reading her name. Aurelia Frances. What a name. What would her nickname have been? What was she like, a tomboy, a prissy prima donna? A nerdy, goody two-shoes? Was she tall? Was she short? Was she moody or perky? Was she serious or boring? Was she caring? I wonder.
I read her birthdate, her father's name. I knew more about her than me. I still do not know my father's name.
I even found out she was in Petersburg, Virginia. I set out to get the goods on her. And I came away with a record and a childhood picture of her. Even her adopted parents name and the fact that they dropped Aurelia and let Frances stand on the record as her given name now. Later I would come to know she was given our grandmother's name. To me it was another blessing and honor I wished was mine.
My initial curiosity waned. My joy at having found out I had a sister all this time was stunted by time. The years gone, the childhood wonder gone, the time for growth and bonding all seemed to be gone now. I put it all away and continue my search for my mother, Helen.
When we finally came together, I found she was married and had four more children. Two girls and two boys. I had two more sisters. I now had two little sisters. I had been begging, wishing, praying for sisters and now I have three I know about. I have no idea what my father been up to since me and since I don't know who he is, another praying lesson. I prayed I never slept with a brother. A real brother as in sibling.
But now I had two little sisters, we all grown women now, but you always have the status of birth order. Robin and Beverly. I thought, wow. It would have been something to have them tagging behind me or begging to go with me places. I would have been overprotective no doubt trying to keep all of life's ugly residue off them. Maybe that would not been good or helpful and they would not have learn what they needed to learn. I might have done more harm than good doing that, so in that a lesson emerges.
Even sisters need space to be themselves and to be the sister they want or need to be, not who I fantasized them to be. Not in the perfect world or in my world, but in God's.
Maybe Frances and I waa called to this. Maybe it was God's plan we be put up for adoption. Good or bad, the life we had, the life we have, started from birth. The longings for a sister was a lesson. Learning the need for family long before I had daughters of my own. I am glad my girls had each other.
Praying Lesson: Grandmother
I am a grandmother of five. Two grandsons and three granddaughters. I am blessed to be and have and know this reality. So many grandmothers do not even know of their grandchildren, and when I say that, I am speaking of the many unknown abortions, adoptions, and those daddies that skip, never acknowledging nor claiming who they sired thereby denying grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and themselves from ever knowing their kin. Many grandmothers are in nursing homes and never get to see their families, I used to work in a nursing home and I witness the sadness and loneliness and the longing for family there. And a lot of them was suffering from Alzheimer's disease or senility their minds held no memory or it teased and taunted them with bits and pieces like some kind of guessing game.
I am a grandmother. I see our future walking and talking and growing. I see hope and possibilities taking shape and unfolding. I see soon outstanding men and women coming of age and making an impact on America. I see God's wonder being performed, carrying on, going on.
I know as a grandmother I am blessed. I know a woman who was a part of the state sterilization process decades ago when she was a very young girl and others whose daughters are very ill and some have had to have hysterectomies before they bore even their first child and whose daughters cannot conceive.
They praying lesson is there. Helen's daughter would have loved to have met the matriarch of the family, the first teacher, shaper, waterbearer, planter of the seeds of Helen's mind.
The blessing is the lesson.
I am a grandmother. I see our future walking and talking and growing. I see hope and possibilities taking shape and unfolding. I see soon outstanding men and women coming of age and making an impact on America. I see God's wonder being performed, carrying on, going on.
I know as a grandmother I am blessed. I know a woman who was a part of the state sterilization process decades ago when she was a very young girl and others whose daughters are very ill and some have had to have hysterectomies before they bore even their first child and whose daughters cannot conceive.
They praying lesson is there. Helen's daughter would have loved to have met the matriarch of the family, the first teacher, shaper, waterbearer, planter of the seeds of Helen's mind.
The blessing is the lesson.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Did you know a doctor visit is a praying lesson?
From the moment we sign in, we begin the biggest lesson of all, waiting. We wait to hear our names called and we wait to be weighed, and have our vital signs taken. We wait for the instructions, we wait for the doctor to come in, we wait for the exam, we wait for the results of the tests. We wait to hear if we are better or we are going to have to have more tests or we wait to be sent to the lab or for the x-rays. While we wait we pray. We pray for the time to go a little faster so we can get leave. Would we pray for that if we knew we had only a few more months, years to live? We pray for the test to be negative or the chlolesterol or blood pressure numbers to be right. We pray for a quick diagnosis and a quick fix. Surely they got a cure for this by now! Look how far medical science has come! But we know we better pray about it just in case. And we wait for word. We wait for medicine. We wait for recovery. We wait for answers. How can we not? That is the lesson. We have to wait. We will wait. We are going to wait.
So we learn what waiting is. We learn it is occupying. We learn it is standing. It is being still. It is pacing. It is looking for that letter from home. It is hoping that ringing phone is a call from that prodigal son or daughter. It is watching kids grow and learn. It is sitting at the bedside of an old mother who calls the child by the wrong name. It is waiting. It is a real lesson. Next time you in the doctor's office, signing in, know that another class of life is about to begin the minute you pray "Please, God..."
Helen's daughter knows you are going to learn something..
So we learn what waiting is. We learn it is occupying. We learn it is standing. It is being still. It is pacing. It is looking for that letter from home. It is hoping that ringing phone is a call from that prodigal son or daughter. It is watching kids grow and learn. It is sitting at the bedside of an old mother who calls the child by the wrong name. It is waiting. It is a real lesson. Next time you in the doctor's office, signing in, know that another class of life is about to begin the minute you pray "Please, God..."
Helen's daughter knows you are going to learn something..
Life is a whole lot of praying lessons
We are told to be careful what we wish for and what we pray for because we just might get it and we may not be too happy with what we ask for. When we pray, we ask, bargain, promise, plead, bring thngs to remembrance, or just tell God all about it from our perspective. There are so many experiences in life. .I like to call them praying lessons. I know you have them, too. Share them. They will bless somebody, including me.
Each time we said a prayer, there was an experience. There was a concern, a desire, a test, a problem, a want, a need, a bill, a promotion, a dismissal, a broken heart or a broken deal, a disappointment, a dream, a chance, a miss or a near miss. Always there was something going on in your life that got you to pray. That place you were in was your lesson. That place you are in is your lesson. Don't miss it. You can learn so much from it and it will teach somebody else, too.
We are not alone.
Helen's daughter knows this.
Each time we said a prayer, there was an experience. There was a concern, a desire, a test, a problem, a want, a need, a bill, a promotion, a dismissal, a broken heart or a broken deal, a disappointment, a dream, a chance, a miss or a near miss. Always there was something going on in your life that got you to pray. That place you were in was your lesson. That place you are in is your lesson. Don't miss it. You can learn so much from it and it will teach somebody else, too.
We are not alone.
Helen's daughter knows this.
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