Tag Archives: sisters

Spending the Day

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There are days, no matter how hard you try to avoid them will remind you that life is short.  Those days are usually wrapped up in anniversaries that are so incredibly painful that you drag yourself from bed kicking and screaming only to return to it two or three times.  It takes a few tries to see through the veil of tears to get your face washed and your teeth brushed, make up is not an option.

There are rituals involved and as comforting as they may be sometimes only the ordinary can ease you through.

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Turkey and Swiss on a toasted bagel and a tiny bag of chips.  The smell of toast is nostalgic but comforting in a school-day-breakfast sort of way.

Not running out of gas, animated conversation, good parking karma and an excursion to the hardware store to gather paint chips.

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Buying mums and pumpkins and gourds oh my.  The kids at the petting zoo, you at the petting zoo. The beauty of the day and the time of year.  The crisp air and the warm sun. It’s the “change” time of year with nature giving you permission to let go as it is letting go too.

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spending-the-day003The wave of kids, dozens and dozens of them piling out of school.  The laughing, the yelling, the kinetics, the colors and the music.  All vaguely familiar from long ago.

A fresh cider doughnut and more conversation.

A glass of red and dinner in the merriment of the local pub.  You’re still reminded but the ordinary life around you becomes a salve. An exhale, the day is over and the ordinary has done its job getting you from beginning to end. That and the love of friends, and family and dogs and life.

This is Grace

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In life, as in the dance, grace glides on blistered feet…Alice Abrams

I believe him, she said.  He is speaking like someone with an experience. Like he is missing family and simply wants to come home.  This is grace.  From a mother who let her son go and live with his father all the while wrestling with the decision.  This is grace. To let a son make mistakes while standing on the sidelines watching and holding back from preventing those mistakes knowing they would prove beneficial.  This is grace.  While praying for assurance that you’ve done the right thing, never really knowing but trusting.  This is grace.  Welcoming him home to a family that loves him, having never let go of him and will now hold him responsible for the knowledge he’s gained and the man he’s become. Step by step.

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She saved my life, she answered when they asked how you know her.  This is grace.  From a wife who had been left too soon by a husband that loved her dearly.  This is grace.  From a neighbor who called, and sat, and brought two tiny angels with her to play around the sadness they never even noticed. This is grace.   Two women who were each struggling with their own inner distractions or pain that found each other at either end of a flight of stairs.  This is grace.  That two small children could enter and open up the hearts of these two women to move them forward toward each other and away from their pain. Step by step.

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I can’t.  She said of a woman she called friend for many years.  This is grace. To recognize that it is not your fault that she has no friends.  This is grace.  To further recognize that you cannot be the only person in her life if all she does is show you her malice.  This is grace.  To know when to leave a friendship for your own sake because your peace of mind is important and that it might prove the only way for a friend to learn.  Step by step.

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These are people who have walked beside you, never showing you their anguish.  Step by step most people are gathering grace in everything they do, everything they accomplish, everything they suffer, everything they celebrate and everything that they have and will become.  I am in awe of people of grace because they have no clue that they have anything more than blistered feet as Alice Abrams so eloquently put it.

If any one thing could impact a person’s legacy as strongly it would be grace.  One’s movement through the world, albeit at times on blistered feet, touching and impacting along the way.  Being ever cognizant of the world around you, no matter how tiny that world might be, is valuable to countless others.  I have been touched by the stories of these women this week and can’t help thinking they can’t begin to fathom how far they’ve come.  Nor can they fathom how many they’ve touched in their grace. Brava my dears put your feet up for a while.  We know, we’ve seen, your struggle hasn’t gone unnoticed by those around you…or do what you always do. Carry on through your life in that way only you can to the ever increasing benefit of us all.

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