Labor Day 2020

A different Labor Day today, just the dogs and chickens and me.  I bought a small rack of ribs and cooked them, made a small bowl of potato salad and baked beans....all foods that Rick loved.
I sent most of it over to my brother Ricky's house for him and Nana and Sam and Jordan to enjoy.
I ate a rib and then took the meat off one and shared the morsels with the dogs.  There is a great deal of new and different every day.  It is a process, this grief.  It comes unexpectedly and it can get ugly.

I appreciate Labor Day.  My mom and dad, brothers were all blue collar workers, union members who worked hard every day of their lives.  Rick's family was the same.  None of us are afraid of a hard day's work and I am grateful for that ethic. 

I hope you all have had a weekend that brought joy and kindness into your lives and I hope you shared that with others.  Let's be kind to each other the rest of the week.

Bee Surprise

It's still very hot and humid here.  There is much to be done but I'm having to wait a bit until the weather cools down.  Rick had plans to build a new shed for the mower and tiller and to add a roof to the chicken run.  And there is some work that needs to be done on the barn.  My nephew, a friend and a neighbor will help me in a couple of weeks with the shed and the run and then maybe in October we can tackle the barn.  One nice thing about being on the farm, I'm exhausted when I go to bed at night.
I don't sleep the whole night but I get a decent night's rest.

I walk the dogs down by orchard which is where the bee hives were.  Yesterday I spied a really tall plant with purple  flowers, when I got closer it looks like some sort of thistle . The thistle here is usually a dark purple and much smaller.  This plant is about eight feet tall.
Whatever it is, it is beautiful and I have never seen a plant like this here on our property.

I call it the bee surprise, or maybe it's a surprise from Rick and the bees.  It's beautiful and purple is my favorite color, so it's a gift.

Many days I am on auto-pilot,  I still miss him so and I know I always will.  But I'm here, so I get up every day and do the best I can.
I hope you all have a good weekend. Be kind, be safe, be well.

Bee Garden

It's a full moon tonight, my second one without Rick to walk out on the deck and watch it rise.
It is so beautiful, be sure and take a peek, it will make you smile.
The zinnias know that fall is coming, they always get brighter and more beautiful as the summer starts to fade.  Once again the bee garden was full of butterflies, finches, dragonflies and humming birds, you can feel their energy, for me it is healing.
Today is also the first day September, let's make a promise to each other to be kinder this  month.  Let's make a promise to let go of the fear and anger that seems to permeate the world around us.
Now let's make and keep those promises.

Suspended

Since Rick passed, most days I feel a bit like this leaf....hanging by a thread, suspended in time.
I saw this when I walked the dogs yesterday and I thought yep, " me and that leaf, right now we have a lot in common."

Be kind this week, live by the Golden Rule, treat others the way you wish to be treated.  Simple yet powerful way to live.  Ya'll be kind.

Another Gift

Another beautiful visitor today, she was as big as my hand and actually flew in small circles around my head.  What a gift!  I could literally feel her energy as she flew around me.

Sending kindness to you all tonight and that is my prayer for my country, for the world...that every human remembers what kindness is and that we began to practice it daily.  Is it that hard to be kind? Kindness doesn't cost anything and being kind to each other can change us and the world around us. Or we can choose to live miserable lives filled with fear and hate and spend the rest of our lives wondering why nothing good happens to us.

When I was in high school, a friend gave me a life changing book called "As a Man Thinketh" by  James Allen.  A small powerful book, only 52 pages but it made a lasting impression on a seventeen year old girl.  I have used his quotes often, one of my favorite "nothing can come from corn but corn, nothing from nettles, but nettles."  We do reap what we sow and we do become what we think. We can change ourselves by changing our thoughts, how we see the world and those around us or we can continue to think fear and hate and that is what we will reap. 

Grief and Signs

I try  not to write so much about my grief here on the blog, but I realized at some point in our lives we all grieve.  What I have come to understand about my personal grief is this, you can think you are handling things pretty well, but then a grief tsunami washes over you and you realize you are a real amateur when it comes to grieving .

This morning my tsunami hit.  In all  my years of loss, of parents, of a brother, of friends, of grandparents and beloved aunts and uncles and pets, jobs you name loss I thought I had grieved.
Even with Rick I kept having all these what I called meltdowns but the biggie hit today.
It started with a text I sent to a friend this morning.  For those who really know me, you know that music has played a major part in my life since I was a child.  Music has always brought me incredible joy, gotten me through sad times, bad times and good times.  But since Rick has died, I can't pick up the guitar, can't sing and the worst of it all I can't listen to music and I have tried.  I can listen to snippets but to listen to a whole song of any genre ( country, blues ( my favorite), folk, rock, new age, classical) I can't do it.  I sent my friend who is a singer/songwriter and lover of music the text.
About two hours later I was drowning, lying face down on the sofa, sobbing uncontrollably, pleading with Rick to come back and wishing I could go to sleep and not wake up.

Since Rick's death I had cried, I  have had many moments of anger, this morning was the deepest sadness I have ever experienced in my life.  I could taste loss, feel it, smell it.   As I lay there, Kodak came over to the couch and began to lick my face.  I had a profound understanding of the workings of the universe at that point.  In November when Kodak the puppy wondered up in our yard, we did every thing possible to find his family but no luck.  I kept telling Rick we just couldn't keep him, he was too active, too lively, a chewer.  Calliou didn't like him, Hook tolerated him and Taz was planning his demise. But Rick, he loved that wacky pup so of course we kept him.  Did I mention he chewed up over $500 in shoes, countless towels, napkins and anything else he could get his teeth into.

Today as I drowned in my grief and he licked my face and would not leave my side I understood why we kept him, why he's here.

Tropical rains moved in early, so it was bit later before I could walk the dogs.  After my episode on the sofa the rains moved out for a while and the dogs and I headed out.  As I took my daily path down the side of the yard to the barn, I saw something white  on my largest gardenia bush.  Now our blooms and buds have been gone for months, but there in the middle of all those lush green leaves was a pure white fragrant blossom.  Gardenias, I can't get enough of them, when they bloom I fill the house with vases of them.  Rick knew those were flowers that were dear to my heart.  It was as though after all the grief, there was hope and love in that single blossom.  I believe in signs, do you?

Unique Sunset

Usually our sunsets are vivid, lots of reds, golds, oranges that bleed to purple and blue and then pinks and soft yellows.  This evening the light was pure gold.  Maybe it is the activity in the gulf, the changing of the season, who knows.  But instead of the light deepening and becoming more vivid in color, this evening  it is golden and crisp, bathing everything around the farm  in a light I haven't seen in years.

It was exciting to look out the windows and see light more like a sunrise than a sunset.  Everything looked more alive bathed in the brightness.

Several things accomplished on my list today and tomorrow Jordan is coming to spend some time with me.  There are a couple of chores I need help with and he is happy to help.

I hope this week brings you great joy and that every day someone touches your life with kindness.