Christmas 2012

Barbara had her Christmas pictures made yesterday...she surprised me with this very special one...

"cast me into morning, for the night has been unkind

Love Someone

We had known one another for only eleven days and then he was gone...yet at age 21 he would write "the authenticity of our love I'll never doubt".

When You Love Someone

Boos to ya!

Homesick

Your in a better place I've heard  a thousand times
and at least a thousand times I've rejoiced for you
But the reason why I'm broken
the reason why I cry
Is how long must I wait to be with you.

I close my eyes and I see your face
If home is where your heart is
then I'm out of place
Lord won't you give me strength to make it through somehow
I've never been more homesick than now.

 

 

Who Will Be Holding Your Hand

Watching your beloved struggle to hold on to life and finally take their last breath is something that impacts you for the rest of your life.. and re-enforces  this truth:
 " at the end of your life, it really doesn't matter what car you drive, what you're wearing, or how much money you have in the bank - what will matter is who is holding your hand & the impact you made on their life & others'."

blessed is the influence of one true, loving human soul on another.

 Alice Lee Erwin Thurmond Sasser. 1917-2005. Covington, TN

" ....Mrs. Sasser also was a pioneer... a former tax assessor of Tipton County...  first women to be elected to that office in the state... long-term member First United Methodist Church of Covington. .. first woman to serve on the Board of Stewards ..Sunday School teacher many years... . also involved in numerous book clubs and other civic associations.
The joys of Alice Lee's life were her family, her church, her friends, Tipton county and all the children of the world. She never met a young person, of any age, whom she did not love and for whom she did not have time. She touched many lives."

   one of those lives was mine...

 It was the summer of 1945...I was 10 years old...  my father was not the kind of man who could or "would" accept the responsibility of caring for his family...he had someone drive us..mother and  her five small children..from Houston to her  home town, Covington,Tennessee.. my grandmother took us in..520 West Liberty. It was the large, two-story house that my mother had grownup in...but at that time it had been turned into three apartments...2 on the lower level and one upstairs.  The 7 of us  (grandmother, mother and the five children) occupied two rooms and a small kitchen on the upper level)..I think the kitchen had, at one time, been a large closet..the ceiling sloping down on one side. There was a table, of sorts, a bench on the side of the table that had the low, sloping ceiling..(standing was not an option on that side of the room)...and wooden crates (boxes) turned upside down to use to sit on.... one cabinet on a wall and another closed-in area with shelves...Storage space was really not needed for we had nothing...There was an old gas stove for cooking but no running water...we would draw a bucket of water from the bathroom across the large hallway, carry it  to the kitchen to wash dishes in a tin dishpan.. I don't remember how our clothes were washed...maybe in the bathtub..The upstairs bathroom was shared with  tenants who also rented a bedroom and kitchen on the upper floor....an elderly couple....well, not sure how elderly they were...at the time, to me,  anyone over 50 was elderly :).
One of our two bedrooms was "Minnie's room"..She had a bed and dresser, a rocking chair and a card table ...I remember her working puzzles on that table...her only pleasure other than her church. She grew a garden in the back yard and raised chickens for us to eat.She was 70 years old when we moved in with her...what a hardship that must have been...
She was a tiny, frail looking lady but she was anything but frail!!! she lived another 22 years.
The second bedroom that was part of Minnie's apt. was occupied by mother and us five children (ages newborn to 12 yr.) ..there was one bed that the 3 oldest of us slept in..a "roll-away" bed that mother and Nickey (the baby) used for sleeping: a  walk-in type closet that had a cot in it where brother Ed slept.

Picture: the child was my mother..her mother and her grandmother... this is the home mother grew up in and where she and her five children lived for 10 years..

I write about this to show the comparison  between our home and life...and the home and life that was across the street...

Ms Alice Lee lived across the street....

hers was a small modest home...but one filled with "living" ...normal "family" activities.. meals being prepared, laundry being folded, clothes being ironed, her 3 children running in and out, laughter, someone playing on the piano...just the regular routine of "home"...but for me it was a God send.

I spent many hours just sitting watching her do her chores...she talked to me, encouraged me, and comforted me when Bob left for Germany, and she was always...always there for me sharing her life and family.

 a picture taken on one of our trips back to Tn...

Mother did the best that she could under the circumstances and I  certainly admire her as well...but her life at that time and many years to follow was bleak, cheerless, dismal and needy...it's very hard to give any kind of joy to others, even your children, when there is NO joy in our own life.

 Mother   1914 - 1993

 

  

A Grief Observed

“God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He
 knew it already. It was I who didn't. In this trial He makes us occupy the dock,the witness box

 and the bench all at once. He always knew that ”my temple was a house of cards. His only way of 
making me realize the fact was to knock it down.

― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

from letter #23 dated Aug.5th. 1951

"All my dreams seem so futile when I think of the time and distance that separates us. But, again, that's life.  Sometimes I think it's all just a plot to keep me from reaching the unattainable, "perfect happiness.".   I realize now that those hours were the happiest of my life"
http://lettersfromnurnberg.blogspot.com/

Memories

“There are moments when I wish I could roll back the clock and take all the sadness away, but I have the feeling that if I did, the joy would be gone as well.”
― Nicholas Sparks, A Walk to Remember

 

On Grief

Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer.
I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief.
CS Lewis

first love - last love

Anna and Jeremy

On March 24 of this year Anna, the daughter of Sherry Harding Veal (a long-time friend of Barb's) married her beloved, Jeremy.. A few short weeks later Jeremy took a new job and went to Memphis for training as a Sub-Contractor for CVRS Telecommunications, installing cable TV, Internet, and phone lines for Mediacom in Northern Alabama. During a training exercise he fell and sustained serious head injuries... This video is for them


 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMG6f6H3-u0&feature=g-upl

I Will Wait For You

It was so easy for me to fall in love with you. You were what I had been waiting and longing for. I am 77 years old and I've loved your since I was 16... The hardest most painful thing I've ever experienced is being away from you... I miss holding your hand, sitting side by side in church or in the theater... shoulders touching...I miss having you in bed beside me, hearing you snore..I miss looking across the room and seeing you there, even thou we could go for hours without talking we were together...we were there with each other...I miss your encouragement...I miss hearing your voice... When evening comes and I'm so alone, I close my eyes and I can feel your strong arms wrap around me, your sweet kisses and whispers of "I love you". My heart breaks from loneliness. My soul prays that we will be together again. I'm longing for that moment. God knows how much I miss you. We may be apart, but my love for you is even stronger. My Love, all I want is to share each moment with you... for now I will wait for that moment.

Gone From My Sight

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.


Then someone at my side says: "There, she is gone!"

"Gone where?"

Gone from my sight...that is... all.

She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear the load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says: "There, she is gone!" There are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout:" Here she comes!"

And that is dying.

Henry van Dyke

Vintage Photo Friday...a few hours late as it is now 4am Sat.

Bob's mother, Emma Marie Randolph Peete died in 1939 at the approximent age of 30 years...Bob was 10 years old. We know very little about her. I never realized how much they favored in looks until I put these two pictures together. 

I wonder what she was like.........

Something New...Vintage Photo Friday

This photo is of my fathers' mother,  Martha Evangeline Bagwell Stallings; the baby in her arms was my father, Edward Verious Stallings  1914-1965, and the little boy is his brother Walter Bryant Stallings... Later there were two additional children born to Martha: Earl Stallings and  Margaret  Stallings Beam.
they resided in North Carolina.

Re: my Uncle Earl:
The Reverend Earl Stallings was an American Baptist minister and activist in the U.S. civil rights movement. Earl Stallings was born March 20, 1916 in Durham, North Carolina. He died when he was 89 in his retirement home in Lakeland, Florida on February 23. 2005.
 The Rev. Earl Stallings was a  prominent Baptist pastor in Birmingham, Ala., who in 1963 risked the rejection of his own white congregation, and worse, by seating African-American worshipers among them at his Easter service and urging reconciliation amid the city's erupting racial antagonism.
Reverend  Stallings was one of eight signers of the open letter "A Call For Unity," which precipitated a critical response from Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. in his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." Despite this, Stallings was the only clergy whom King praised by name in his letter, given that Stallings had opened the doors of his church to black worshipers. This same action angered members of his white congregation. One of the blacks allowed in was the civil rights leader Andrew Young. As a result of his moderate stance, Stallings became a target of both conservative segregationists and liberal integrationists. Tension over the issue so divided the church that it eventually split over the issue, following Stallings' departure.



Rev. Earl Stallings                                                                              Edward Verious Stalling 1944

 

 

In the Arms of an angel

In the arms of an Angel, far away from here

From this dark, lonely room, and the endlessness that you fear

You are pulled from the wreckage of your silent reverie

In the arms of an Angel; may you find some comfort here

2006

There's no such thing as too many flowers..

There's no such thing as too many flowers..

Family Tree Picture Wall

My latest (indoor) project...saw this lovely creation on Pinterest...
and I have to try it...

l

my current "picture wall"

work in progress: pictures down...

projection of my drawing...'think I need to enlarge the trunk some....and I don't know how I will get the shading in the branches as seen on Pinterest...sponge paint??? any suggestions??? anyone???

A Message To My Children

a message for my children on this mothers-day eve:

I'm getting older...thank you for having patience with me as I age...

When I repeat myself...thank you for listening anyway..when you were young and wanted something you would sometimes ask over and over
I remember and treasure those memories.

As my body weakens...thank you for not minding that I walk slow,lag behind and slow down your progress... sometimes needing  help from my wheelchair or cane... I remember and treasure the memories of when each of you earned to walk!

Thank you for your assistance in doing all the  "routine" things that I find hard to do for myself..
I can smile as I remember helping you open a bottle or tie your shoes..

I realize that you  understand  I'm alone and lonely most of the time and I'm grateful for how much of your precious-little spare time that you give to me.
For those four of you who live far away...thank you for using your time and resources to see me..it's a long way from Hazel Green, Al. to Dallas and Chicago..

Thank you for my precious grand-and great-grand children..they bring me joy..

As I continually grieve over the loss of your father...thank you for understanding ...each of you suffer the loss of him also.

and when the time comes for me to leave you please don't be too sad...I will be reuniting with the love of my life and I will be with our creator..and I will ask Him to watch over and bless each of you..

because I love you very much.
 



little girls and make up

LIPSTICK

It began with Eve's pucker
Her lips stained with berries
Today we glide on Raisin, Corvette red
... And glossy Hawaiian Punch Cherry

O, what is life without its glamour?
Or survival without its glimmer?
Make it work all day, make it last all night
We are naught without its shimmer

Loretta Murphy-Birster
 
 
 

Cara and Molly

Cara was having a difficult time keeping Molly away from her sandwich...

                                                 Cara lowered her right hand...dangerous...

Uh Oh

daughters... two out of three...

Nicki is here from Chicago for 10 days...putting her to work...

I moved the swing from the back yard - where no one ever used it - to the front at the end of the driveway...decided I needed something nicer than the gravel around it so Barb got me some small stones...prettier and smoother...

 they were almost finished unloading it before I remembered to take some pictures..

the finished work...

Texas...miss it

Love me some Longhorns... Jordan Shipley sings to Colt McCoy

Laura Beth

This little girl is graduating from college;;;

The video is from her high school graduation luncheon that her church honored the graduates with...

Weekend trip to Dallas 4/15/2012 - 4/17/2012

Create your own free picture slideshow

Anniversary

April 24, 1953 my dreams came true..I married the man I would spend my life with. He would not want me to make more of him in death than he was in life...and I do not.

 At 23 years of age (when we married) he was every girls dream...handsome, polite, gentle, fun and honest.

 At age 33 he was handsome, polite, gentle, hard working, dependable, giving and attentive to his family's needs.

 At 53-63-73 and on thru the end he was still all those things and more. He is gone and I am lost without him..I do not pity myself...he was mine for 58 years...and he is still mine.

 
 

2008

  

Our last anniversary together...we lost him 11 days before our 58th.year together.

Two Years Ago tomorrow

Please don't ask me if I'm over it yet...I'll never be over it...bereavement isn't a condition that clears up.

In The Arms of the Angel...

feeling the lose of him so acutely this month...


http://youtu.be/jVbkz_3lO3c

Mother Nature

Yesterday...Hazel Green...Barb took this picture with her phone..behind her shop..

These little girls got their hair fixed as well as new hats today..

What a differene a day makes...

The sinus surgery went well yesterday...in spite of a couple of unexpected twists, a procedure that took two hours instead of 45 min., an anesthesiologists who was forboding,
and because of a good doctor who shared that "we really made him earn his money" !..I feel great! Thank you Dr. McCary. Thank you Barbara...Thank you Ron and Becky for being there with her.

'Really looking forward to feeling "normal" again...

The temp was 71 degress yesterday....maybe by the end of the week I will be working in the yard...

lets talk

Wow...no posting for a month..whats been going on ?...not much...'just been crotching hats and ?? crotching hats..

...could talk about the weather...b-o-r-e-i-n-g-...nice weather followed by very cold ...in Jan. the bulbs began to pop up through the ground...

lots of rain....

my new friend...London...
London is the daughter of Christina, the young woman who works at Barbs shop as the massage therapist..she works by appt. only and is just getting back on the job after taking her "baby" leave...I've been keeping the little one some...'bout once a week..a couple of hours...Good therapy for my soul...

Molly...
 she is now 8 months old!!! weighs about 7 lbs...and is just about at her maximum size ..I think... As feisty and loving as ever !!!...very sweet - loves to be outside when the kids are here after school on Barbs days-off..
I let her go outside early am...at dawn and at dusk...when there is little activity around...we're on about 3 acres at the end of the developement so I feel it's pretty safe for her...except for maybe, snakes and other critters.  She usually stays on the property and is ready to come back inside after 20 min or so..I hate for her to have to stay inside and she does not like being leashed...there are two small dogs that find their way back here every day...Molly is getting "fixed" this week...

my health...bah-humbug...COPD-????. Chronic, acute wheezing, coughing, weakness...I've seen pulmonary dr...heart dr... been to ER for emergency breathing treatment...steroids...I've had many tests the last couple of months.....

chemical stress test, sonograms, xrays, CTScans, breathing tests, Upper GI...all seems to be in order except for the sinus that were operated on about 20 years ago...It's no longer a cavatity but is full of benign polyps???  which causes chronic infection, etc....will find out Tuesday when I'm scheduled for sinus surgery ...again...

2012

'Half way through January already...my youngest child has reached 50 !...Barbara will be 55 tomorrow...!!!  and we celebrated my 77th. birthday on the 10th...Laura was here for 3 days!!! What a blessing my children are to me!


The three of us went to a Spirited Art class.  Impressionest art is not my favorite thing but it was very nice being able to do something together.

Laura bought me a new computer desk and file cart..and she even got to assemble it herself .. :)

The file cart had to be shipped from the factory ...it arrived after she went back home so I have the pleasure of putting it together...

work in progress as we speak...

The pieces are very heavy and I have to sit in the floor to do it...so progress has been slow...today for sure, tho..