First time I've decorated for Christmas since Bob's death....
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| Why does my mom do this to me? |
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| I believe someone is following me... how humiliating |
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| And the neighborhood goes bonkers as usual... View from the front porch |
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| Across the Street |
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| Luminaries lining the sidewalks |
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| Guard Dog on Duty |
MERRY CHRISTMAS
FROM DIANE, KONA & RIPLEY
I was looking for Christmas wrapping paper as our church is taking up a collection of toys to distribute to homeless families and wanted gifts wrapped... I bought a couple of toys and for the life of me could not find any wrapping paper -- knew I had some! But after exhausting every closet, box, drawer and coming up empty handed, I thought, maybe there's some in that old steamer trunk.
I have an 1880's steamer trunk in the hallway which has the name of my great-great grandfather stenciled on the side which was brought over from Germany. It's a big trunk and full of stuff, so I open it up and start digging through it looking for wrapping paper.
There I am, sitting on the floor in the hallway, surrounded by piles of doilies and embroidered pillow cases, antique paisley shawls (from the 1860's) and other assorted sundry stuff and I keep digging through until I come near the bottom and there is a stack of folded papers...
Love letters. From Bob.
They are not dated, but I can tell were written in 1994 before we were married... and I had totally forgotten about them.
So there I am, sitting cross-legged on the floor, reading old love letters for nearly an hour. My foot falls asleep and my legs are getting cramped, but I can't move. Crying and laughing, feeling like the luckiest and unluckiest woman in the world... reading things like:
I feel so much love for you that it's so hard to put into words. I've never felt this way before and have nothing to compare it to...
We're so lucky that we found each other. It's taken a lifetime of pain for the both of us to get to this point in life and we have to make sure that we stay together. I can't wait for the day when we are married...
After you left for work today, I sat and looked at your photograph for half an hour. You are so beautiful. In my eyes I have never seen someone as beautiful as you. Everyday I feel so fortunate to be with you and hope that you will always love me as much as I love you...
When you asked me to marry you I was very surprised. I Accept! Yes, You Bet! Uh-huh, Oh Boy! Golly Whiz Gee, Yah Sure You Betcha, Forever Love! I feel you will be the most beautiful bride and I can't wait to see the look in our eyes when we say we do and commit forever...
And this:
I do promise you this:
1. Saturday's are sacred.
2. I will always love only you.
3. I will always be totally faithful.
4. I will never hurt you.
5. I will never leave you.
6. I'll be just crazy enough to hold your interest.
7. I'll take a bath at least once a year whether I need it or not.
8. I won't become a religious, conservative republican, animal hater, anti-choice chauvinist male pig, abusive jerk, modern furniture lover, anti-feminist Bambi killer that likes to tear down historic buildings to put up parking lots.
He can still make me laugh even after all these years and from beyond the grave. Best Christmas gift ever.
I love you too, forever my darling, Bob.
Still not sure if I'm the luckiest or unluckiest...
Never did find that damn wrapping paper!
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| My Big Sis, Karen & Me 1961 |
In the Victorian times and well before, Christmas was a time for sharing ghost stories and also for remembering the dead by setting "the empty chair" at the holiday table.
So it shouldn't surprise me that my sister paid a visit to my spiritualist church... but it did.
The service had gone as usual, I only got one "reading" from a medium who told me he couldn't see anything around me except "a huge white cloud of love" and it was coming from "your sidekick" (Kona) who loves me so unconditionally that the energy of that love was blocking any other energy around me. Either that, or it was because I had treats in purse, ha!
But at the end of the service, Reverend Bev, the church leader, who rarely gives readings at Sunday service, stepped up to the podium and announced that she was being "bothered by impressions" and needed to share them. First, she asked, if anyone had a loved one on the other side who had a second name of "Blue" and she thought this was someone's pet. I immediately thought of Jonah Blue, the dog I had when I was 19 years old, my first dog, but before I could raise my hand, someone else did -- claiming they had a niece with "Blue" as a middle name but she was not deceased and Reverend Bev seemed a bit confused by this. So she quickly changed subjects and told us that she had been hearing the name "Karen". And was anyone here named Karen? Or had a loved one on the other side named Karen? As she couldn't tell if there was a spirit wanting to speak to Karen or a spirit telling her their name was Karen. No one raised their hand. So I raised mine.
Reverend Bev said, "Oh! Is your name Karen?"
Which I answered that my sister's name was Karen and she was indeed on the other side.
Reverend Bev concentrated a moment and began to deliver a message from Karen, it went like this:
"Your sister was fair-haired? And not long passed?" (correct)
"She says you had a rocky relationship," Reverend Bev makes a wavy motion in the air, "There were times when you were quite close but others when you were very distant." (correct again) "And she wants to apologize for those 'voids' when you weren't close..."
"Now, she's showing me white little... things that look like...flowers? They look like fluffy white flowers. Little fluffy white flowers falling from the sky. Did your sister like white flowers?" (I had no clue.) "Were there white flowers at her funeral?" (Again, no clue.) "Well she's showing me these white fluffy little things that look like flowers and they are falling from the sky and she's reaching out to catch them, these white fluffy sort of sparkling flowers. And she says she wants to give them to you to fill those voids when you were apart as these flowers represent happiness to her. And she wishes you happiness."
Oh-kay. None of this makes sense, except the fact that we did have an extremely rocky relationship... and there were certainly those times when we didn't even talk to each other... sometimes for years.
Reverend Bev goes on, "Now she's constricting my throat and my chest, I can hardly breathe. Usually this is a sign that the person died suddenly of a heart attack or not being able to breathe. And died quite unexpectedly. Is that correct?" (Correct.)
"And I will leave you with that, except she wants you to know she loves you. And she's okay with the way she passed."
So I go home confused about these white fluffy flower things and what they meant. Later that day, I spoke with my parents on the phone (both of them total skeptics) and told them Karen showed up in church.
My mom said, "Who?"
"Karen, your daughter. My sister."
"What do you mean showed up?"
"Well..." And I told them what I just told you and when I was done my mother gasped.
She said, "My goodness, I have a photo of your sister just like what you described. But it's milkweed pods. Do you know the picture I'm talking about? The white fluffy milkweed pods falling from the sky?"
I had no clue what picture my mother was talking about. My mom said she had taken the picture home with her after my sister's funeral, it was one that my nephew had brought to set at the altar. My mother liked the photo because to her it represented "freedom", feeling free and happy. Also, there were white daisies on the altar which were my sister's favorite flower. All this was news to me (I wasn't there, I broken my hand and was stuck at home, and honestly, didn't know my sister liked daisies...). My mom couldn't believe that Reverend Bev had been so right about everything and then she had my niece e-mail me a copy of the photo. Here it is:
Lately we've been engulfed with sea fog. It creeps silently in at eventide, slinking through the streets, slithering down the sidewalks, smothering the houses and clinging to tree branches in a thick smoky mist. It hangs like a cloud until mid-morning. One cannot see a half a block ahead. The mist is damp and the air is dreary... One feels like one has dropped into the English moors or a scene from a 1950's horror movie where phantoms lurk and women in white disappear around the corner...
On such one foggy night, I headed to my front porch to turn the Christmas lights off. (Yes, believe it or not, I put up lights--pink of course--for the first time since Bob passed. But I digress.) So I opened the front door and in the misty night a dark shadowy creature stood, not two feet away, facing my door. It was 3 feet tall with a large head, slim body and some kind of tall collar obscuring its neck. My mouth dropped open, my heart skipped a beat, I slammed the door shut.
Standing in the foyer, heart pounding, I wondered what the dark shadowy figure could be and why it was at my door. My mind immediately flew to "the grays", you know those short, thin extraterrestrials who purportedly abduct humans, transporting them onto strange crafts and performing horrific medical experiments: Betty and Barney Hill. Whitely Strieber. Travis Walton. But why me?
Then I thought, perhaps, it was a figment of my imagination. Or a shadow cast by the mist. Not a creature at all. Especially not a "gray" alien. So I slid the chain lock on the door and slowly, silently, cautiously turned the crystal knob, opened the door a crack so I could peer outside with one eye.
It was still there. Hadn't moved. Standing erect at attention. Facing my door.
I shut the door. Quickly. Heart still pounding.
I wondered why Kona didn't bark. Then remembered I had just let her out the back and she was probably waiting for me on the back porch.
I had an idea. Whatever the thing was, I'll scare it away. I flipped on the bright porch lights. Waited a few minutes and figuring it would work, I opened the door, slowly. The door creaked like a door in a haunted house...
And I saw it:
Yup, that's a flamingo umbrella! There was a card taped to its head which made the head larger in the dark. But for the life of me, I couldn't figure out who it was from. The names inside the card are unfamiliar. I believe it's a neighbor... a new neighbor, whose names I don't know, but whom I've spoken to on several occasions. So last night, in the dark mist, I crept across the street and left a gift on their doorstep with a flamingo christmas card attached to it.... I do hope I figured right!
