Lest We Forget

 

Mom and Pop Goetz

So many I have loved, gone now but never forgotten.  I have lost all but one Aunt, my Mom, several cousins, my ex-husband — the father of my children.  I’m posting the photos of the ones who are in my library, but they are only a few.  Soon I’ll have photos of more of them here and the list grows daily.

Memorial Day was created to remember our loved ones who died in a war but in our infinite need to remember everyone who left before we have, we now go to the graves and decorate them all.  A day set aside to remember.  And I remember each of them in special ways.  Aunt Trudy, an army nurse, stationed in the Pacific theater during WWII, my dad’s youngest sister, an Aunt who visited but never stayed long when I knew her.  Gone now but not forgotten.  My three Uncles who also served in WWII, Vird, John R., and Leo.  They all came home from the war, each with his own version of hell written on their faces from the things they had seen, each obstacle overcome during their civilian lifetimes, all gone but not forgotten.  My lovely cousin, Carol, petite, blond and such a sweet loving person.  Gone now, always remembered.  My grandson, Logan, he of the sparkling eyes and mischievous grin, a light that went out too soon.  Gone but never forgotten, because how can you forget what the light looks like?  My Mom — I still dial her number when I have a question, forgetting that she won’t be answering again in this lifetime, always loved, never forgotten, never mine.  Grandmother and Papa, the grandparents I knew best, just a pasture between us when I was growing up, hard working salt of the earth people.  Papa left us first, Grandmother later, but as it happens always, gone now but forever in our hearts.  Mom and Pop, my paternal grandparents, I learned so much from Mom as well as from Grandmother.  Pop went first, when I was still so young, Mom years later after passing on her love of making quilts and cobblers!  Her love for us all remembered by everyone.  Gone, always loved, never forgotten.

And to all the rest, those I have no photo available for, you are loved by us all, and we will never forget you — the lessons you taught us, the love you gave so freely, the old days when we shared our love, food, wisdom, understanding — the Good Old Days, never forgotten, always loved.

Advertisement

Dreamer

DREAMER

I’m just a dreamer.

Is there room in this world today for people like me?I think not!

We are judged by our accomplishments.

I have no degrees and nothing I have done will ever change the course of history.

I’m just a dreamer.

I write my dreams on paper, a series of jumbled thoughts.

Only words, meaningless to all but me, because

I’m just a dreamer.

I don’t make great plans that affect the future of the planet.

My words don’t fill books that influence lives because

I’m just a dreamer.,

My poems and songs are not repeated by others.Only by me in dark of night, because

I’m just a dreamer.

My dreams could be real, but only if others dreamed also.

Peace, Love, Understanding, Harmony —

A world of greens and blues unpolluted by man’s waste,

but I’m just a dreamer.

We would help each other, no one would be hungry, children would be welcomed and loved–I have no real solution because

I’m just a dreamer.

If those who know how to do would connect with those who dream–

I don’t know because I’m just a dreamer!

Maybe those who plan would talk with those who dream–But who knows?

I’m just a dreamer!

The discipline of… — Sacred Touches

Ut

The long shadows had been descending upon a glorious but very warmish day in the garden. However, before the darkness fell everywhere around me, there was one last hurrah of light that shone behind this already darkening clematis. It was a reminder that light always precedes and follows darkness. May you rest well then knowing […]

via The discipline of… — Sacred Touches

I Quit

Last night I opened a letter from Anthem informing me that I no longer need the therapy that has been helping me keep up enough strength and balance to go on.  Yeah, I can appeal this decision but the truth is I’m just too damned tired to care any longer when it is so obvious to me that no one else around me cares.  So, I quit!

I have spent every holiday, including Mother’s Days and Christmas, alone for so many years that I no longer even hope that they will visit, so I quit!

I gave birth 5 times, meaning 5 trips to the hospital to have them.  Neighbors took me because their dad didn’t have time — his brother and his farm were more important to him, so now I no longer care.  I quit.

The kids, 3 of whom lived, were told from the time they were old enough to understand that they didn’t have to do anything I told them to do, only what he told them, so I quit.

I have lived 75 years now, 64 of them with MS working away at my system.  I’ve been called lazy, no account, no good, and no kind of a woman.  I can’t count the many times my own mother told me she never wanted me, that my older brother was a perfect child until I came along and taught him to walk and talk, and even the worst thing — that it took her 3 years to beat the spirit out of me.  Until today enough of that spirit remained that I have been fighting to lead as normal a life as possible, but now, that’s it!  I’m through so I quit!

My daughter at least writes and visits as often as she can, but probably never again after this is posted.  I made it a point to always let my kids know they were wanted and they are loved.  But I’m too tired now to run a one-way battle so I quit.

No child should ever have to wonder or doubt that they are loved and how much they are, were, and always will be wanted, but if mine don’t care enough to visit me while I’m living, to be honest, I don’t want them to hang out in a funeral parlor pretending they cared when I’m gone.   I quit.

My arrangements will be changed tomorrow so that there will be immediate interment on my death.  No services, no visitation and no write-up in the paper.  I quit.

If you don’t care enough to visit while I am alive, you don’t deserve to hang out at a funeral pretending it all meant something after I’m gone.  Now no one will ever have to make the effort to pretend anything.  I quit!

Yes, I’m very depressed at the moment but as usual I’ll fight my way back, and I’ll do it on my own.  I’ve discovered in my lifetime that I’m the only person I can count on, so some day I’ll fight back out of this, but for now, I quit.

I’m too tired to clean up the mess around me, so it can pile to the ceiling for all I care at the moment.  I’m too tired to keep up the act, and I’m a very good actress!   But for now, I quit.

The blog will remain open but for the time being I won’t be posting at all.  One more thing I’m going to quit.  Seems funny, but I tried to never be a quitter before.  Now I’m going to give it a try just to see if I can be successful at just sitting here like the lump I’ve been accused of so many times.  All I want to do right now is sleep.  I won’t be back online for a while.  I might even decide not to attend the family reunion because I can’t chew the food anyway.  I quit caring now.

Maybe some day I’ll be back but I doubt that anyone will care.  I enjoyed it for a long time but now I don’t really enjoy much of anything.  I quit caring.

Visitors

My little friend from next door is visiting tonight!  In case you forgot, this is Angel 👼 here with me!  Seems only fitting that we are friends, since we are both angels and both in Kentucky.  She’s a handful when her person is not with her, but that’s the price she pays for running down here when he opens his door the same time I open mine! 😇

The Devil Made Me Do This!

Originally posted on Buffalo Tom Peabody’s blog 2: For Mother’s Day we thought you might like to see some photos of our “little church on the corner…” Happy Mother’s Day! Your best friends, Buffalo Tom, Gunther, Iggy & Larry

via The Trump Tower Caper (29): Mother’s Day — It Is What It Is  

After laughing myself senseless, I simply had to re-blog this one.  Hope everyone enjoys it even half as much as I have.  And still I laugh.  Too much, Doc.

Happy Mother’s Day

Mom and Pop Goetz

To all the Mothers in the world, I hope today you have a beautiful, happy Mother’s Day.  Sure, it’s a day just for all the mothers in the world, and in this category I must include this group of ladies, the Mother of Jesus first of all, Maggie, the newest mother in my family, Mama Ree who has always been my second mom,  Jayna, the granddaughter who is faced with the realities of Leukemia in her oldest son,  my daughter, Gina, who learned only the best and ignored the rest, Tricia, mom of my first two grandkids,  my grandmothers from both sides of the family, Mom G. and Grandmother B., and although her photo is one of the smallest, Janette!  What a year she has lived thru, and she still has that lovely smile on her face in spite of everything.  If I could bestow sainthood on anyone, it would be on Janette.

To my own Mom, for the third Mother’s Day now, I love you, and most of all.  I understand now!  You did your best for us all, and sometimes I wonder how you managed with the seven of us.  We all survived in spite of the lack of material things, and we are all better for that lack.  You lived thru more than anyone else I know, yet you survived it all and raised the seven of us with no life threatening injuries out on Highway 81, making sure we all had plenty of food to eat, clothes on our backs, more than enough fun to make us all better people for the rest of our own lives.  Things were said between us but I loved you then and will continue until I join you in heaven.

I often marvel at the fact that my Mom was our nurse, doctor, seamstress, designer, laundress, chef, baker, cleaning lady — well, she did it all.  And she did it on practically no money at all.  Since we never missed what we never had it worked out so well for us all.  She kept us fed with the produce grown in the garden, picked and canned or frozen at its peak, and always enough to last until the next harvest.  When we were hurt she always knew what to do, how to fix it, how to make it all better.  Her medicine cabinet held strips from torn sheets for bandages, a roll of tape, iodine, Mercurochrome,  a bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide for cleaning wounds, a bottle of rubbing alcohol, a few items to relieve the mosquito bite itching, the itching from chiggers, the itching from allergies, and most important of all — a large bottle of Black Diamond Liniment!  It cured all wounds and probably prevented most airborne diseases by limiting the number of people who wanted to be around anyone who smelled like that!  

So today, to all of the mothers in the world, Happy Mothers Day.  May you be as happy with our lives today as you chose to be with yours.

The Way It Used To Be

This was our fish pond a few years ago.  Haven’t been down to look at it lately, but the last time I was there these fish were gone.  Someone told me a bottle of bleach was poured in the pond, killing all the fish.  We now have plain old overgrown goldfish, otherwise known as coy!  Makes me wonder all over again what is going on in the world today.

These are photos of downtown Owensboro from a few years ago.  Top left is Frederica Street, once the main artery for going everywhere in Owensboro, top right I think is also Frederica, but a later picture, while the bottom is Main, or Second Street, one block south of the Ohio River.  Now, for the enlightenment of all who don’t speak our particular dialect — and that includes everyone who is NOT from Owensboro, Fred’rica is the way that street is pronounced .  Just forget all about the “e” before the “rica” part.  Of course, we can always tell who grew up here and who is a newcomer to our town by the way they pronounce our street names.  At one time, around the time these photos, courtesy of the Owensboro Visitors Bureau, were the main parts of town, back before South Frederica malls were opened.  Just after one of the strip malls opened we had some rain.  It rained and rained for weeks, as usual in this time of year, and someone kinda forgot to tell the folks who opened their stores there that they were sitting smack dab in the middle of one of our many flood planes.  We’re surrounded by flood planes, probably in part because Owensboro is built on quicksand and sitting pretty close to the New Madrid fault, but hey, that’s part of what makes living here exciting.  Seems like this year we’ve been under one flood warning after another, part of the added excitement of being in the midst of several rivers and creeks.

In case anyone is wondering, I’m kinda bored tonight.  I began the day with lots of good intentions — like getting all the clutter put back in place in the living room.  I got as far as opening the space to put the stuff.  Then I realized I had started making a necklace a few days ago, mainly because it was setting there on the work table looking at me.  Inspiration struck as I looked at the components, I sat for a minute that stretched into a couple of hours, putting that necklace together.  It took that long to pick it all up off the floor several times when I dropped  it all, one tiny thing after another, culminating in my tipping the table over and watching an open container of beads scatter across the floor.  So, the new first item on the list was to get the beads up because I hang out in my socks rather than wear shoes around the place and stepping on then hurts!  Now that I think back, I actually did finish one thing today.  I’m wearing that necklace right now.  Looks good with my sweats and tee shirts.  Just checked my wrist:  sometimes I pick a watch up that has fallen on the floor, or in this case, one that just got a new battery stuck in it and I put them on my wrist so I can still find them when I begin putting stuff away.  Only one watch on, but half a dozen bracelets.  /which reminds me again that it’s time for me to drag out the jewelry boxes so I’ll be able to take the stuff off and put it away in it’s own little home!

Have you ever wondered what would have happened if—-well, not at this time.  I still have the kitchen to straighten up and the dishwasher to load before the night is over.  I actually manage to get more accomplished at night, strangely enough.  Part of the joy of insomnia I guess.  Also have a few more pages to write about a few of my memories.  Trying to get them all written down and put together in coherent form just in case one of my kids should ever want to read them.  So for now I’ll leave you with another photo from the past.  Provided I can find it.  Have a good rest of the weekend!

                  

Darning Socks

I mentioned that I darn socks in a comment yesterday! Roger seems to have loved it

rogermoorepoet

Darning Socks
(for Angela Wink)

My grandfather taught me how to darn socks.
I sat beside him by the fire and placed
a grey, wooden mushroom inside the sock,
stretching the sock wool to expose the hole.
He chose his colors with care, bright yellows,
oranges, reds, sky blues, anything that
stood out against the sock’s dark drabness. If
the socks were thin, he split new wool, pulling
it into individual strands that
he would draw through tongue and lips, wetting them
so they would thread with ease through the needle.
Curled wool threaded, I would cross-hatch the sock’s
hole, slowly forming a life raft that I’d
fill with colored wool. All my life, I have
darned socks, sewn buttons, mended my sweaters.
I always use bright colors, to my wife’s
dismay. Then, I know who did the darning,
and when. I still have my grandad’s First World
War sewing…

View original post 70 more words

Today is: National Respect Chickens Day (maybe that means don’t EAT them)

Mainly because of my daughter! Just HAD to pass this one on!

Rethinking Life

View original post