Category: Angels

Cardinals

by Karen, posted in Adult children, Angels, family, good grief, Life in the cube, restaurants

cardinalI recently spent a few minutes (okay, hours) trolling the Facebook news feed and something caught my eye. Someone (sorry, I have no idea who or what or when exactly) posted that every time you see a red cardinal, that is a sign that a loved one that has died is saying hello to you, or something to that effect.

That’s nice, I thought.

Then a funny thing happened. I started noticing red cardinals.

  1. My friend Christine at work has a tapestry hung up in  her cube that depicts multiple red cardinals.
  2. I went to the movies to see The Nut Job (skip this one-see The Secret Life of Walter Mitty instead) and the bad guy’s side kick was a red cardinal. A squat, mean, nasty caricature of a cardinal, but still a cardinal.
  3. Today, I went to brunch at The Good Table in Cape Elizabeth and there in the foyer was a fake tree with cardinals all over the branches.

So, maybe this is just that phenomenon that happens to you when you are pregnant and you suddenly start seeing pregnant women everywhere you go.

On the other hand, this is the time of year that my mother and father died (mom 2/29/96 and dad 3/15/98) and so I am already thinking about them.

Maybe they are thinking about me, too.

Still becoming

by Karen, posted in Adult children, Angels, family, good grief, Midlife Crisis, movies, no fear, relationships

The_Secret_Life_of_Walter_Mitty_1274874When my mother was 51, she was busy getting ready to die, but she didn’t know this yet. Well, maybe she did know it on some level, but she never talked about it with me pre-diagnosis so I really can’t be sure. Certainly none of us, her children, her husband, knew it yet.

I’m 51. At 51, I feel like I am still becoming who I am. At 51, her life was drawing to a close.

Seeing  The Secret Life of Walter Mitty has me thinking about things like this today. Walter Mitty is about  many things. It’s about living your life, but also it’s about how you live it. You can spend it offsides, thinking about what you wish you were doing or imagining all that you’d like to (someday) do. Or, you can, at any time, decide to actually do the thing(s) that you thought you could not ever do.

“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

― Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life

In the movie, it was a fine line. Walter Mitty crossed it. I don’t think that my mother ever crossed it. I am wondering if I have crossed it.

Interwoven throughout Mitty are images of his past that are meaningful to him. They are there to let him know that a) he is on the right track and that b) both of his parents, his dad who had died when he was 17, and his mother who was still alive and baking clementine cakes for him, were there supporting him every step of the way.

For me, the real message of this movie is this: No matter what, we are always our parents’ child.

The right words at the right time

by Karen, posted in Angels, family, friends, good grief, Midlife Crisis, no fear, relationships

Today, someone told me something that I really needed to hear.

We have been dealing with an ongoing issue for years and things rarely go our way. This year there are some new people involved, one of whom we know from another area of our lives.

These were the words: “I’m on your side.”

After she said them, I felt a subtle shift, and my thoughts about the situation in which we are both involved changed.  I started having new, different, more positive thoughts. I felt less anxious. Suddenly, I started tearing up.  I breathed through it. Everything might actually turn out okay, I thought.

Later on this afternoon, I was in other circumstances that became emotional and I started tearing up again. I went to sit in my car. I called my husband at work, which I rarely do at that time of day because I know it will be difficult for him to come to the phone. I was lucky enough to reach him and then, for the second time today, someone told me something that I really needed to hear.

This is what he said: “Everything is going to be alright.”

Everything is going to be alright.

Go ahead: make my day

by Karen, posted in Angels, health, relationships

It’s time for our family’s annual physicals. This morning I was there bright and early at 8am with my daughter for hers…so bright and early, in fact, that the office door was still locked (hey, here’s a tip: if you schedule appointments for 8am at your office and you tell people to arrive 10 minutes early to update paperwork, UNLOCK THE DOOR BY 7:50AM! Just a thought).

So, I was already annoyed when we finally gained admittance at 7:58AM. When we sat down in the cubicle to check in, the woman serving us made no eye contact and not even a glimmer of a smile graced her lips. I noticed then that all of the staff behind the bulletproof shield were tense, not smiling, and not looking directly at each other, never mind at us lowly patients.

I had another thought as I sat there: the necklace that the receptionist was wearing was really pretty. Recalling advice a mentor had shared with me over 25 years ago for job interviewing (pick out something about the person to compliment), I decided to tell  her.

“Your necklace is really pretty,” I said.

“Oh, thank you,” she said, touching it. She turned back to her computer, still not looking at us…and then she did.

Her entire demeanor changed. She was smiling at us both, joking with my daughter, making small talk (“It’s August already?”).

I’m not sure if I made her day or she made mine!

Just sayin’.

Midlife Monkey Mind

by Karen, posted in Angels, education, Midlife Crisis, Turning 50, yoga

I’ve been on overload these past few weeks, with my mind overly full of stress-inducing thoughts. Sleeping has been a challenge. Lying awake from 1:30-4:30am two nights ago, I trotted out all my tricks for putting myself back to sleep: saying my ABC’s, counting backward from 100, tensing and relaxing muscle groups, saying the So Hum meditation.

Today at yoga, the instructor coincidentally included the So Hum mediation in our class. My mind had been racing a mile a minute right up until I heard Kristen say those two words, when it screeched to a halt…for a second. I started saying the words: so hum…so hum…so hum…

Then I became aware of something interesting: although my mental voice was indeed repeating the so hums dutifully as requested, another channel in my mind was still gyrating with the monkey mindedness of my midlife brain. It never stopped. Even as my ‘good girl’ brain was desperately trying to fulfill the teacher’s request to meditate on the fact that “I am”, the ‘bad girl’ brain carried on obsessing with wild abandon.

Note to self: shut of the monkey mind when you meditate. It’s so much more effective.

Speaking your truth

by Karen, posted in Angels, family, friends, good grief, local fun, Midlife Crisis, no fear, Turning 50

Over the past several months, I’ve had quite a lot to say about turning 50 this year to quite a lot of people.

That was then. Several months ago, heck, even several weeks ago, it seemed so far off in the future.

This is now. Now, it’s looming large, and for some reason, I’m finding that I have very little to say. That’s so unlike me! Usually, I’m “talking and I can’t shut up”–just ask my husband.

As part of my turning 50 and vowing to follow any and all whims that present themselves, I bought a half off Maine Deal coupon for a psychic reading by Melissa Boyd of Deep Blue Truth.

One of the things she told me (apart from that my Mom, Dad, and grandmothers were all there and said, ‘Hi!’ 🙂 ) was that my throat chakra was so backed up it was like a bottle neck. The throat chakra is #5, counting up from the bottom root chakra. This is (surprise!) the center of communication and expression.

Apparently, I am not speaking my truth. Who knew? After doing a little online research, I learned that wearing a particular bracelet–one made of Sodalite–can help. (Really? Really? If only it turns out to be that easy).

I’m willing to give it a try.

Angels dropping a dime

by Karen, posted in Angels, family, friends, good grief

I dreamed about my mother last night. We were in the house she grew up in and ultimately died in. We were standing together on the back porch, looking out at the snow-covered street. It was very sunny and bright, and we were watching a plow making its way through the snow drifts, clearing a path in the street. We didn’t talk, but I felt happy.

I woke up from this dream Christmas morning, and had a clear thought: thanks for letting me know that you’re with me today, Ma.

I was at my brother’s house for dinner later in the day for dinner. At one point, I stood up from the table to get a drink and we could hear something hit the floor. My sister-in-law picked it up and said, “Did you drop a dime?” so I said yes, and put it back in my pocket, not giving it much thought.

A little while later, after I had just finished telling my brother about the dream, another coin hit the floor. It was another dime. My sister-in-law said, “What’s with the dimes today?!”  I said, “It must be the angels letting us know they’re here.”  Another guest (who did not know about the dream) said, “It’s your mother!”

And so it was.

Angels and the creative process

by Karen, posted in Angels, family, tweens, writing

Instead of writing my blog post and examiner.com article and more NaNoWriMo words yesterday afternoon (and well into the evening…), I helped my tween daughter with her project for school.

The assignment was to make a collage that showcased the following:

  1. Your career aspirations
  2. Your interests
  3. Your talents
  4. Something else that I can’t remember (*midlife disclaimer)

She had already made a good start on it. We spread out the construction paper on the extra kitchen table that we brought up from the cellar and put in the living room for Thanksgiving (yep; it’s still there taking up every bit of extra space there is in that room. Don’t care. It’s very useful for… collage projects and such).

As we went through the stack of pristine magazines (that I had been too busy to read in November) looking for images to fill up the page, we talked about what her likes, talents, aspirations are. Want to get to know your tween better? Spend three hours making a collage with them.

As an aside, maybe it will help you get to know yourself better too. I started cutting out images to make my own collage as a result of this process!

Anyway, as I staring at a page, some words caught my eye: Joy, Peace, and Noel. I started cutting them out and then remembered the angel picture I’d seen on the previous page, which reminded me of an angel message I received from Stacey (Mainely You Massage) a few weeks ago.  She said that a Christmas angel had come through for me and my daughter, and was showing her the words “Joy” and “Noel” for us. There we were, sitting at that table, looking at those words in the presence of a (print) Christmas angel.  Oh my gosh!!! 

I suddenly felt that I was exactly where I was supposed to be, doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing.

As an added bonus, all that cutting and pasting fired me up to write. I have notes all over the place containing story ideas that came to my during and after our project.

**In the collage, the Christmas Angel is toward the bottom left corner, and the words “Joy, Peace, and Noel” are toward the top right corner, just above the raccoon..