Drifting...

Heavy Heart

We attended the funeral of our childhood friend's oldest daughter.  Mel is a beautiful 43 year old who was fighting bone cancer.  She died unexpectedly during surgery from a rare condition.

It brought to the surface so many memories....but mostly the overwhelming sadness of knowing that Mike and Barbara's life's will never be the same.

Gathering

A gathering…a beautiful morning, sun rising, …my last thoughts, my last goodbyes… preparing to leap and praise!  I close my eyes in anticipation

My soul awakes and I watch as you gather round me, sharing stories of your love saying your tearful goodbyes...my heart gathers each and every word

Fair is sunshine, fairer the moonlight and all the stars in heav’n above

Jesus shines fairer, purer.  I feel his love.  

My legs gather beneath me and my spirit is leaping in praise

He gathers me in his arms

I watch you gathering on earth, reverently lying my body to rest

But know that like him I am not there

My joy is full, and I am with you with every breath you take.

I will gather at all the important comings and goings

You will feel me close when you most need me

Gather often so that I may come.  

Speak my name, remember me, laugh of our times together, know of my love

Give Praise and glory evermore

With 1000 gathered cranes I am healed

For Mel April 2, 1976-July 19, 2019

Love Notes

I was just starting to send you a love letter and bingo your beautiful email landed in my mailbox.  The words sounded like words we spoke this morning while we cooed and moon ed each other.  You are such a wonderful lover responding so freely and eagerly.  Thank you my love for being my best friend and loving eternal companion.  We taste forever everyday.  Thankyou

Trust

Find Your Passion

Buried Treasure

 

This made me cry.  I have many buried treasures deep within my heart.  One will surface unexpectedly and my cup runneth over with tears of joy or tears of sorrow....I'll stop and hold it close; miss it, treasure it,  then bury it once more.

 

Letter to my Children

December 8, 2014

 

 

Dear Collette, Trevor and Justin:

I’ve done little else but think of my beautiful children the last 24 hours.  I am so sorry that you have had to experience the heartache that has become part of your life. 

As a parent I had hoped to keep the devastation of divorce from your life and I had always prayed that your father’s addictions would never affect the relationship that you have had with him.  Yet here we are.

I am so very proud of each of you.  Proud that you were able to speak to your father of your sadness and disappointment with his choices; Proud that you were able to speak to him of gospel principles;  Proud that you are able to separate his addiction as a human experiencing life from whom he really is, a spiritual being.  This isn’t something children should have to do.

This morning I’ve been contemplating ‘what now’.  What would you have me do now, Lord and the prominent, overwhelming thought is ‘facilitate your children’s healing’.

When I attended the temple in 1992 the Lord clearly spoke to my mind through the life of Peter.  The message was that Peter had not betrayed the Lord but himself.  Because of that experience, I have for the most part been able to separate your father’s actions from me.  It was the one deciding factor that allowed us to stay together as long as we did.  This morning I believe additional information was revealed to me that may be helpful to each of you.

My patriarchal blessing tells me that my main mission in life is to be a mother.  It mentions gifts of faith, knowledge and healing, for me and others.  With that in mind I am better able to see why I chose to marry your dad and why I would need the gifts the Lord was blessing me with.

As a mother my primary goal was to raise well adjusted, spiritual, kind children who would be blessed with strong testimonies to support and sustain them through their earthly journey.   I could not have chosen a better man to help me with that task than your father.

It was he who arranged for scripture study, family home evenings and regular church attendance.  He provided a strong example of service to others and to his church.  He helped you with your homework.  He attended your every activity and helped with coaching when he could.   He guided you through scouting and worked hard to provide for your every need.  He was fun, and played with you.  He was musical, and used his talents to entertain you.  He read to you and blessed you when you were ill.  He was strict when he needed to be.  He was soft spoken and gentle.

He wasn’t perfect, but he was darn close.  I would look at other men and how they interacted with their children and there wasn’t one I would have traded him for.

He loves each of you with all of his heart.  I truly think he is doing the best he can do.  Hopefully, when he can do better he will.

I want you to know that I trust in your love.  I want you to know that loving your father is not a betrayal to me.  Yes it’s difficult that someone who can cause so much pain is the same someone whom we love…but such is the character of love; to love unconditionally.

I pray that you will be guided and inspired regarding your relationship with your father.   I want you to know that I will support you and find a way to be at peace with whatever that relationship is including his marriage to Joan.   Nothing is more important to me than your happiness, and now my grandchildren’s happiness.

So it goes like it goes, like the river flows and time it rolls right on.  And maybe what’s good gets a little bit better and maybe what’s bad gets gone. (Dusty Springfield)

You are my life and I thank each of you for the unspeakable joy you give me.

To the moon and back,

Mom  xxoo

 

Church

Today was a much needed day for me. Last week I stayed home from church because I was so tired of going and going all week long. The problem with missing church is that I go into the next week on empty.

Suffering from a cold today I thought long and hard about missing again. But I knew that I would feel worse if I didn't go.

To be with people who think and feel about the esssential things in life exactly as you do is a remarkable experience.

Hard Times

Your Soul

“I do not want to frighten you by telling you about the temptations life will bring. Anyone who is healthy in spirit will overcome them. But there is something I want you to realize.
It does not matter so much what you do. What matters is whether your soul is harmed by what you do. If your soul is harmed, something irreparable happens, the extent of which you won’t realize until it will be too late.” —Albert Schweitzer, Reverence for Life,1969

But I've ALWAYS been thin!

Today I had a wedding shower to attend.

I took time getting ready, trying to decide what to wear. I was prepared with a gift, wrapped(huge for me). What I wasn't prepared for was how uncomfortable I am in my own skin these days. More than ever I seem to be aware of the awkwardness of my body. So bloated and out of shape. I use to complain about being overweight, but deep inside I knew I wasn't 'that' bad. Now I am that bad. and more.

The other day I went in for a mammogram I was talking to the clinician about my weight gain. She asked how it had affected me. I told her that I still see myself as thin, that it's only when my butt hits a wall as I'm passing behind a chair and I think...did someone move the wall? Surely my butts not sticking out that much! Or I go to get out of a chair and need a fork lift. My balance is all off too. I'm use to moving gracefully through a room, now I seem to verge on waddling.

I'm not really sure how it all happened. I was watching an interview with America's biggest loser( for the 1st time a woman).

She had always been thin and active. She said she put it on 5lbs at a time and had never really NOTICED that see had changed. Even now she doesn't recognize the woman in the before pictures. She lost over a hundred pounds! Enough to make a whole other person, yet I knew exactly what she was saying. Inside I'm still a thin person.

I wish that I could go away for a year, without any other responsibilities. Live on the beach, swim and run every day, eat fresh fruit and vegetables, no worries, just me becoming me once again. I miss the old Myra. But I'm not sure how to get her back. The thought of doing what I need to do to make that much of a significant change is overwhelming.

Smile Train

http://www.smiletrain.org/site/PageServer

Reflections

This can't be my life.  I've tried to always make the tough decisions, the right decisions and yet here I find myself filing for divorce after 39 years of marriage at the age of 59.

As a young woman during the summer of my senior year, I met and fell madly in love with a beautiful catholic boy.  We were inseparable for that summer of 1971 and when he left to go back to college I thought I would die.  I met him that fall for homecoming.  I told him that we could never marry because of religion...he said then what are we doing and we ended the relationship.  Broken hearted I left for BYU.  Do do what all good mormon girls do.  Find a good mormon boy, marry, and live happily ever after. 

I met Dale in February of 1972.  The day after Valentine's Day.  I felt an immediate connection to him and we became a couple.  18 months latter we married in the Salt Lake Temple.  He was a student with an academic full ride scholarship, a return missionary, athletic, musical, very handsome, gentle and soft spoken.  Very sexy.   I was in love.




Sliding Doors is a 1998 British-American romantic comedy-drama film Starring Gwyneth Paltrow. The film alternates between two parallel universes, based on the two paths the central character's life could take depending on whether or not she catches a train and causing different outcomes in her life.

I was completely engaged with this concept.  What if.....

Each of us is connected to the next and the next and the next choice that each of us make.  We never stand alone.  We are all interconnected, inseparable in some awesome cosmic way that keeps us choosing and those very choices impact us in ways we will never truly know.

If I had just left 1 second sooner, If I hadn't taken that class, If I hadn't said no....