I was seven years old when I fell in love with Tommy Allen. The fact that he was my first cousin meant nothing to me. The fact that he was home from the Navy wearing his sailor whites meant EVERYTHING. swoon He was dreamy.
I remember that day like it was yesterday. I was playing on the floor with my brother. We had a bunch of little plastic barnyard animals and some Lincoln Logs, creating the wilderness cabin of Daniel Boone. It was a sweltering hot summer day and I wore a violet colored cotton dress. They say it matched my eyes. My bare arms were brown from the sun. My bare feet were brown from the WV dirt.
My son-in-law’s Grandma is one of the sweetest and feistiest women I know. Grandma Lois is 90 and now lives in a nursing home. But up to just a few years ago, she drove herself around in her little Ford and assisted in a grade school classroom several days a week.
Grandma Lois and Grandpa Bud had an upholstery business. She was always a hardworking woman. She didn’t stop working when her husband passed suddenly. She’s the matriarch of a wonderful, salt-of-the-earth family. I tell people when Daughter #1 got married, she won the lottery with these wonderful people.
Twice a year, Spring and Fall, I go camping with the girls at Beaver Creek State Park near Liverpool, Ohio. It’s a Mister/Sister trip so we can bring our beaus if we’ve got ‘em. I usually go for a couple days alone so I can gab with the girls and drink coffee all day in my jammies. Then Mr. FixIt comes up and joins us. Much of the time, it’s him and about 15-20 women. He is in his element, let me tell you! He can gab with the best of them.
“Ron Rudolph and his grandson building bluebird houses in memory of his late wife.”
I have told you many times that Mr. Virgo sends me bluebirds. It first began when I stood by his grave…heart broken…sobbing, when I heard a birdsong nearby. I looked to my right and just a few feet away, a bluebird sat on a pole and was singing. It lifted something in my heart. I could feel my husband’s presence and it was comforting. Since then, countless bluebirds show up at odd times. Mr. FixIt and I have taken to saying hello to him out loud when we see them.
My good friend, Janine Pettit, has gone camping since she was a little girl. When her kids were heading off to college, Janine decided to be an ambassador and help women learn everything they needed to know to get out and “Go Places and Do Things!”
I met Janine in the Spring of 2015 in Nashville. She had been a blogger for goRVing.com for quite some time, and asked if she could interview me. We had an instant rapport and I have subsequently appeared at least three times on her podcast talking about my journey.
I heard a mother comforting her child once. The little one was crying about something that had happened earlier. The mother said, “Oh…are you remembering how you were sad earlier?” I loved that. She wasn’t dismissing the child’s feelings and at the same time, she was teaching her “It’s not happening to you now. It’s just a memory.”
As we were decorating the tree yesterday, I was hanging the special ornaments Mr. Virgo and I purchased together. I felt a melancholy come over me. And, as this is what I do, I examined the feelings and let myself feel them. Then I remembered the mother comforting her child and I smiled. The melancholy I felt wasn’t sadness in the moment. It was holding the items we cherished and remembering how sad that first Christmas was after he died.
“Depression keeps you isolated from those who might help you.”
In between cooking and visiting with my family at our Thanksgiving dinner Saturday, I checked my Twitter account. Someone was asking a question about assisted suicide. I have a contact on Twitter whose husband elected assisted death when his Stage 4 colon cancer became untreatable. In order to connect the two, i had to pop out of his tweet to find her profile. But when I tried to find the original tweet with the question, I couldn’t find it. Rather than take the time to scroll through, I typed “assisted suicide” in the search bar.
A Collaborative Effort…Original Art by Lauren O’Neill with Augmentation by Ginny McKinney”
I came late to the Twitter party. I started a Twitter account ages ago but never used it. I never really “got” it. It seemed like it was just people spouting off on politics or sharing vacation pictures or advertising whatever work-at-home business they were promoting. Then, about two years ago, I started a Twitter account for Marshmallow Ranch.
The first change in holiday plans came when my cousin’s mother-in-law was admitted to the hospital and we decided to stay home Wednesday night and leave yesterday morning. Then, when we got there, we found out my elderly aunt fell this week and was too banged up for her brother to bring her for dinner. So, Mr. FixIt and I packed up some food and headed for a visit with them.
“My sweet cousin, Tom.”
“Homemade chocolate cake…Grandma Lois’ recipe.”
“Buckwheat Flapjacks & Bacon”
“Ron Rudolph and his grandson building bluebird houses in memory of his late wife.”
“The Little Max by Liberty Outdoors”
“My favorite ornament from childhood.”
“Depression keeps you isolated from those who might help you.”
“Thanksgiving Turkey”
A Collaborative Effort…Original Art by Lauren O’Neill with Augmentation by Ginny McKinney”
“Thanksgiving Sunset on North Mountain”