WordSisters

Category: Uncategorized

  • August Travel

    During the drive from home to being away, my mind travels extra time merging memories of past trips with plans for the next weeks. The years that pacifier inventory and gentle shampoo were critical has slowly morphed into double checking the packing of face creams, medications and comfortable shoes. Very slowly, but with determined forward motion, until time starts happening instead of moving. 

    Corn grows as far as the eye can see along the highway. Rivers and ponds look high for a second or third year. Construction has moved about twenty miles further south than the prior trip, but large trucks are still annoying in the cone-formed single lane. Too early for lunch, breakfast’s beverage wanting out, the discussion changes from the morning news and towards where to stop for a comfort break or whether to push on for an early burger. 

    August has always been vacation month for our family. What started out of necessity because of participation in post-season youth ball tournaments grew into tradition. Kids would get new sneakers and fresh summer clothes to avoid back-to-school shopping after returning home. Vacation in September is sweeter once untangled from kid schedules, but some places close Labor Day weekend making it hard to rent a kayak or find a soft-serve cone after time on the beach.

    Weighted down by sun screen and sun prevention clothing, watching birds swoop into the water for food and parents with preschoolers playing in the shallow spots, I remember a skinny teenager in a two piece subconsciously flirting with a boy, an older teen stranded with a car breakdown near a forbidden quarry, a honeymooning young woman and all the years leading to this person in this moment. Feet resting in shoreline water, a comfy chair, an umbrella and a book. Storing up another year.

  • The Clock is Ticking for All of Us

    Monday, November 10, 2036.

    That’s the day I’m expected to die according to DeathClock, billed as “the Internet’s friendly reminder that life is slipping away.”

    While I don’t believe my death will occur on that particular day and do hope I’ll live quite a bit longer than age 79, I find myself thinking both about the quantity and quality of the years I have left, no doubt prompted by the fact that I will turn 65 in a month.  

    On the short end of my projected lifeline, I think of my parents, both of whom died at age 70, my dad after a year-long battle with lung cancer (no surprise as he smoked for 50+ years) and my mom in an instant from a heart attack linked to Vioxx, the drug she was taking to help manage her arthritis (a drug reported to triple the risk of heart attack). If I die at their age, I have five years left.

    On the other hand, if I live as long as my maternal grandmother and my paternal grandfather, I have 25 years left.

    Either way, I hope to stay mentally, physically and emotionally healthy so that I can spend my time doing things I enjoy and making a difference in the lives of others.

    The desire to do so has got me thinking back to one of the best books I read in 2020: Die with Zero: Getting All You Can From Your Money and Your Life by Bill Perkins. Thanks in large part to it and to a financial coach I recently hired to help me shift from saving for the future to enjoying my money—and my life!—now, I am finally beginning to do so.

    So whether my death comes next year, in 2036 as predicted by DeathClock or, as I hope, years after becoming a healthy centenarian, I am determined to hear the ticking clock as a call to action rather than a countdown to my final days. I hope you are as well as I’d love to have you and all Word Sisters along for the journey.  

  • National Day of Mourning

    Is it time for America to create a National Day of Mourning for gun violence victims?

    Think about that.

    Memorial Day I wrote a piece about how children’s funerals create memories that cannot be forgotten and my difficulty in finding peace in my relationship with God. Sitting in a neighborhood church the evening of September 11, 2001, feels like the last time the ritual of praying and singing in community brought calm. The day the world changed, and innocent people became the hunted of those with evil in their plans.

     My final paragraph of the original work was my main message: If there is a way to create calm or comfort for those mourning in Uvalde, please let that happen. For the near future, lets put guns in the safes and do gun related political theater in backrooms. These are days to stand with the grieving and honor the children and their teachers. 

    Tuesday stats about gun violence across the country over Memorial Weekend were published. Wednesday a lone gunman took lives in Tulsa. And local schools cancelled their last days of school because of shooter threats. Babies being buried in one state and grieving beginning in others. The circle doesn’t close. Violent gun carriers, particularly those with assault guns, don’t give us a day off.

    Perhaps it is time for America to create a National Day of Mourning for gun victims. Place the day somewhere in a quiet month like March where it won’t morph into a cookout festival. And make it a Wednesday so the travel industry won’t advertise three-day weekends in happy places. Mark the day as special by pairing it with a mandatory national service initiative. Support those who grieve and remember the potential our nation lost in each of those unnatural deaths. If there is no way to control the killing, let us at least honor our dead and remember their names.