Monthly Archives: July 2013

just had to share

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The Secret Garden
by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
 
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When I was 10 years old, my mother remarried and she was able to reunite our family for
 
the first time since I was a baby. My slightly older brother Dave and I had lived in foster
 
homes together all those years. There we were at last, all under the same roof again, my
 
wonderful mother, my not-so-wonderful alcoholic stepfather, my oldest brother, Jim,
 
whom I barely knew, Dave and me. We lived in a tiny duplex that year that I entered the
 
4th grade at Chester Arthur School. My teacher Mrs. Engel had a rule that if the class
 
was quiet and well-behaved, she would read aloud to us from 2:45 until 3:10 when it was
 
time to go home. I took it upon myself to be the classroom enforcer and keep the other
 
kids in line because I really wanted to hear that story. (Here’s where I first learned that I
 
could influence people when coming from a positive place.)
 

Mrs. Engel was reading to us from The Secret Garden. Does anyone remember that classic children’s book? It was written by British author Frances Hodgson Burnett and first published in 1911. I loved being read to and I really loved this story about a little orphan girl named Mary. Mary goes to live with her uncle in the English countryside and, with two new friends, she discovers a lost rose garden that magically heals their lives. The Secret Garden is really about a secret place in each one of us—a place that we can escape to, a place where we can do anything, create anything we want for ourselves. We can make the world come alive, we can create miracles. I, too, had a secret garden that enabled me to deal with the instability of my life, all the places and people I had had to adjust to. I had some crazy experiences as a little boy, some of it abusive and nasty—some of it wonderful and great. I just kept getting new experiences all the time, but somehow I always knew that I could go within and get quiet and be and do anything. I think that knowing had something to do with the way my life has gone—writing 41 books, all about the power of the mind to enable us to be and do, to create anything we want for ourselves.

Whatever the divine power is that is moving the checkers of life around, it all fits together. That divine power saw someone who wanted to teach self-reliance and gave him a life as an orphan. I was also given a brother, older but smaller and weaker, who needed to be taken care of. This is how I’ve come to look at my life—the way all the pieces seem to fit together. I’m asking you to look at your life like this, too. Instead of looking with regret, instead of looking with fear, anger, pain, and sadness, try looking at your life from a perspective that the whole thing is divinely orchestrated. It’s the most amazing shift.

it comes and goes

childhood, children, mother

8470_10150340493549959_1292572160_n written on June 9, 2013 🙂

It’s over now; it’s the fabled “day after” and I am left with surges of melancholia and stretches of sadness – the “company” is gone and the occasions are over. It was all very anticipated  – Elizabeth’s graduation from high school { following 28 consecutive years of having one to  five children in school}, a first time visit from Julie, Matt and Drew coming home after being gone 17 months, the end of yet another school year for me , Skip reaching the last year of his fifth decade and me, soon after – it was a lot of stuff, at least for me, me who likes the day to day of life plain and simple and the meaning of life deep and apparent.

 I am creating this entry for me – I suppose this is where I think to go when I am a bit taken over by soppiness, here at the keyboard pecking at the still unknown order of the keys as I reel into a journey of sentimental thoughts and nostalgia. I don’t feel comfortable bothering anyone with my overzealous sentimentality but, then again, there may one of you that gets it, that gets this somewhat disturbing part of motherhood that allows you to remember all of those heart tug moments that take you to these places of tears and longing as you torture yourself with memories of holding tiny hands and rocking them to sleep, so I will write and post; here it is in all of its gooey glory. The bonus for me is that by the time I toil over finding the right keys, I never learned to type, and have thought a million mushy thoughts, I will be “okay” {until next time}.

The drive home from Louis Armstrong Airport yesterday was the beginning of this emotional binge I am currently on. I was very tired, however, and this exhaustion kept those sentimental thoughts at bay all of last night – there was no room for any contemplation of that sort. This morning however, I made the trek upstairs and went into the twin’s empty room and the first thing I saw was a pair of black socks on the floor…years before I would have possibly, but probably not, gone downstairs and said something like, “ You need to pick up your dirty socks  guys”, this morning they were a shrine – a memorial of their brief but wonderful visit, a visit that put them back in their beds, their clothes on the floor, the sounds of the TV seeping through the looseness of the door, and a “Good morning mom” the next day. Funny how those socks, a one-time source of minor irritation, became the catalyst that began this plunge of my heart.

I went outside and went with it – I picked a magnolia and I let its fragrance remind me of the summers we spent here and of the seemingly endless days of their childhood, the muddy boots, the skinned knees, stepping in red ant piles and water hose rescues, the rainbows over the field, and the afternoons that seemed to go on and on. There were a few berries left of the bramble of thorns and dried canes and they reminded me of the cobbler I made for all of them, my visitors, and the many others I made throughout the years. I walked around and I thought of it all and appreciated the gift I had just received, their company. IMG_0198

It seems that while these “things”, these events, are happening you are so overcome with the physical that the emotional trails behind and goes unrealized.  When the last one is gone, when the plane disappears into the clouds or the tail lights turn the bend, the emotional part quickly appears…and there you are feeling like I do now. There is much joy in my heart and I would be ashamed of myself to ever complain – it is not those feelings of sorrow or loss – it is just those feelings you develop with time, with age – this understanding that time is so fleeting and these moments, moments like I have just been granted, are indefinable and precious.

Anyway, I will end my sentimental journey here, at least for now. I have more socks to wash and flowers to pick and most importantly because I, like you, have been gifted with the most wonderful children in the world, I will spend the rest of my day in gratitude and ponder a funny but, sadly, true thought written by Holbrook Jackson: “A mother never realizes that her children are no longer children.”

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