Category Archives: Faith

June 21, 2023 · 4:36 pm

Waking up…

Physically waking up is a major triumph when you know 3 of the 6 names in the obituaries every day. Just getting from breathing to dressed in the morning is a wide gap faced with reapplying makeup after sweating it off during a dozen hot flashes in the first hour.

Waking up when you are 20, 30, 40, and 50 are so very different. I really don’t remember 20 so I can’t say I miss it. I do remember at 30 jumping out of bed because my day was full with a kid, a job, a husband, a life.

Forty, the wake up was more of a slide into the needed activities of the day, followed by grumbling and self-loathing after a long day.

Fifty waking up having hurt myself during the short sleep has been usual. I feel like I have done this before I tell myself. Repeated gestures lead me to forget where I am in the process of waking up. Did I turn off the light in the bathroom? Did I remember to turn off the coffee pot? Where’s my work badge? Waking up now takes half the day and starts over at 1 pm when the energy drops and a nap is needed. Work is a state of being that holds some pride but obviously I would not do it if I was financially able to stay home in pajamas.

Waking up to aging happened when I looked in the mirror and decided make up was not needed because it wasn’t going to get better. Who was I trying to impress and did I really give a shit? No, so no more make-up or hairspray. No acrylic fingernails or long hours at the hairdressers paying for hair color. Embrace the grey. No more trips to the store for menstrual pads or cramps medicine. Menopause has a few perks.

Waking up in relationships happened before I married for the third and last time. When I basically decided I didn’t really want a man again, I found a good one. He accepted me and I him just as we were. Some days we are great, kind, thoughtful, and others we are just assholes. But that is okay.

Waking up to your sense of self is the best part of aging over 55. I know who I am and have no big career goals to meet. I am looking forward to grandkids and retirement as I get closer to my 60s. I accept myself with flaws and wrinkles. I have no illusions that I will beat death or become well known in my lifetime by anyone other than family and friends. I don’t expect to be perfectly happy everyday and that is okay. My biggest plan for tomorrow is to…wake up.

Getting Older and passing through my story.

The older I get, the more I find myself contemplating things. Life, people, the whys and whats of living and finding purpose. As years drip away, it seems easier to leave material things behind because I know I don’t need it where I am going in the future. I have been reading a few books lately about Near Death Experiences (NDE) because I find them a wunder. A miracle that such traumatically hurt people awaken and recovery quickly and bring with them such common stories from young to old NDErs.

I have always had lots of doubts because I want to understand things, how things could possibly work. The human body is a wunder as well, and we still don’t know all of the ways the brain and neurological system heals itself. Just because I don’t think there is a way to know it all and that is how it is suppose to be, does not mean I don’t want to seek those answers. God makes us seekers of truth and knowledge, his inquisitive children. We are never really satisfied in our life on earth and always looking for satisfaction in some way. Probably because we are wired to seek something in Heaven and we are looking for it on Earth. What has kept me up nights is a fear of losing myself and all I know, my family, my friends, my memories, who I was when I leave this world. Reading this book has given me a sense of peace with that annoying worry and driven it away.

I feel assured and more confident that my life force will pass into a different dimension of Heaven some day where there is no fear, no pain, no time, and all the people I love will be there enjoying the same spiritual dimension. I will not be the same in body, but my thoughts, my true self will evolve into a full meaning and full complete self when my spirit is set free from the limitations of my body.

I find solace in the fact that NDEers have come back to say that they immediately knew answers to anything they wanted in Heaven and felt fully aware of a full communication with a loving God and reunion with all loved ones who were happy and present. They were told all answers would come to them after their second return since they were being sent back. Most did not want to go from that wonderful place of peace and happiness. However, they knew they had to return to share what they found and who they met.

In this Easter Season, even as a doubter, let’s agree that it is a year of birth and death.

The cold and rot of winter is breaking to allow a rich fertile harvest to begin. Allow some seeds to be sown of new beginnings. If you are not a Christian, know you are loved and welcome to share in the grace of God at any time you accept.

For me, I am just a story waiting to be told.

Grandma Rose

Grandma looked like a spider crab moving as she grasped chairs, knobs and doorways to pull her weight in the wheelchair. I was seven and visiting her for a week during the summer months off of school. I sat across from her at the kitchen table; her head drooped over a plate of dry cake soaked in warmed coffee. Her hands were unsteady and as they shook, the crumbling cake fell onto the old china plate. After her snack, we went into the living room and she pulled out an old photo album. It was a normal routine for us to go through her life in pictures while I visited. I always had new questions for her since she enjoyed sharing. Her dry leathered hands, scarred and crooked cupped each black page with tucked black and white pictures.

She showed me a picture of her sisters Louise and Mary. Mary had become a nun and her name was changed to Sister Benigna. She had to shed all things from her life when she became a nun in 1923. She wore a black and white long dress and a similar hat covering her entire head accept her face. Her face was round and pleasant but my grandmothers nose crinkled when she talked about her.

“She was favorite because she was called by God,” she would say in her Dutch German accent. “But my sister Louise was favored because she married rich and got a pew in the front of the church.” She would drop her eyebrows as she looked at the picture of her sister and turn the page. “I sat in the back with the others who have nothing.” Grandma would look sad until she looked up.

I climbed into her lap from my stool and her soft lap comforted me as I hugged her tight. “But Grandma, I’ll sit with you!” She closed the book and put it aside and said, “Yes, and that’s special.” She smelled of menthol, and lye soap but she always made me feel loved.

Sometimes our lives are full of tragedy, sorrow, struggle, and countless other small challenges that seem to overwhelm our thoughts. When we recount our lives, it is easier to recall those things that really test our faith.

In those times that you feel unimportant or overwhelmed, remember that God has already given you the greatest gift; the gift of unconditional love through the sacrifice of his son on the cross.

Matthew 18:3 “ I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

Category Archives: Faith

Waking up…

Getting Older and passing through my story.

Grandma Rose

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