She Can't Read Cursive

(I have found the back way into my blog again after not being able to access for years.  So I found this unpublished blog post.  And it feels relevant today as I parent a tween. Do other mothers of preteen girls feel like they are failing too? Feeling as if we can't quite do/say/don't say the correct thing in this 'era'? Anyone else hoping to be rescued from the confusion of 6th graders?) I have Gianna’s little friend Dena (grateful that all these years later they are still connected) to thank for coming to my rescue. The girls were in their very first ballet dance recital. They had just turned 3. All of them were dressed in their tutus and buns with absolutely no regard for the practiced choreography, but happily smiling and waving from the stage none the less. I thought my heart might explode from the cuteness. Two minutes later when the dance was over, I realized in horror that all the parents except us had brought the customary bouquet of flowers. Ugh! What?...

I just made a cup of chamomile tea to sit down and write some words about my dad.  When I meet his friends they all talk about how entertaining he was and how outgoing and friendly.  I suppose I can see that in him, but that is certainly not how I would have described him.  I would have used words like quiet, serious, and caring. My earliest memories of my dad are of him being a caretaker.  He would take my brother and I over to check in on my grandmother and make sure she had everything she needed and was doing okay.  She lived in a group home of sorts on Home Road.  I just remember the garage had a pony painted over the door.  I was five when she passed.   I remember him taking us over to his sister’s place—to Aunt Betty’s apartment.  Seems like he was bringing her food and making repairs around the home.  I remember Aunt Betty laughed a lot, had white hair, wore lots of red and was in a wheelchair.  I have even fewe...

Spanish Class In 1995 I spent a semester abroad in the Dominican Republic with about 18 other college students. I was 19 years old. The first part of the semester I lived with a family in the capital city of Santo Domingo and the second half of the semester I lived with another family in the small village of Sabana Grande de Boya. While in the capital, one of our assignments included a village study. Our leaders quite literally threw darts at a map of the country and teams of us were sent out to wherever the dart landed. We were given travel money and the name of the village. That was it. It was up to us to figure out how to get there, where to stay and how to get home. We were to report back all that we learned about the history, government and economics of the village. Here's my journal entry from that weekend: Jill, Frank, Aaron and I met up at UNPHU (the University) and rode on to the park to meet up with Rita. We managed to pick up a luxurious travel bus to Asua. It was ba...

Goshen College is a small, Mennonite, Liberal Arts College located in Northern Indiana.  I ended up there after a last minute change.  I had planned to attend community college on a full scholarship and study courtroom stenography.  It was around March of my senior year that I suddenly switched gears and decided I'd rather go away to college so I could have what I thought to be a 'real' college experience. They didn't offer stenography of course, but I figured I'd find something else of career interest once I got there.   My older brother was already attending Goshen so it was the one school I was familiar with and I figured they would accept me late in the game.   However, one of the graduation requirements at Goshen is a Study Service Term (SST).  Most students opt to fulfill this by doing a semester abroad. This quite frankly terrified me and kept me from pursing a Goshen College education in the first place.   Since my language of ...

I can’t stand to see someone cry. Partly because I always end up crying myself and partly because I don’t want to be ‘dragged down’; to take on that grief and sorrow.  It wasn't until I was in my thirties that I realized that’s what we call empathy. The act of feeling what someone is feeling.  Doesn't seem like we talked much about empathy back in the day.  But today it feels more prominent.  Maybe it's because we are exposed so much more to the perils of others. I guess it doesn't really matter. What matters really is that we NEED a degree of empathy. It guides our morals and values and it’s empathy that helps us with the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have done to you.  I see an intuitive reflexologist, Terri, quarterly. She is essential to my wellness team. She said I was an empath. When I looked up the definition it said, “(chiefly in science fiction) a person with the paranormal ability to apprehend the mental or emotional state of another ...

In just a few weeks I will 'celebrate' being three years out from chemo.  I had about a 4 week break before starting radiation.  Radiation for cancer treatment is daily. I would drive to the center every weekday first thing in the morning for six weeks. I remember one morning having to pull over in a neighborhood because I thought I was going to wretch. I don’t know what came over me, but I got out of the car and ran over to a tree, but nothing happened. I climbed back into the car and drove on to the Radiation Center.  Since it doesn’t take long to become a ‘regular’, I would just walk in and greet everyone and head back to the changing room to undress and put on a hospital gown. I’d then greet the techs in the radiation room and try to hop onto the table gracefully. I usually never succeeded in the graceful part of it. The first thing they do before you even begin radiation is do a mapping appointment. This is where they get all the coordinates necessary to ...