We walk this road

by Sharon O | Jun 16, 2014 | Uncategorized

September 20, 2013 my dad passed away.
In the early morning hour of June 16, 2014
my mother passed away.
I believe they are together.
The passing of time shows us how fragile life really is.
We grieve. We remember.
We walk this road of sadness one more time.
For us it has been a lot of loss in a little over a year.
The journey is over.

Still waiting

by Sharon O | Jun 16, 2014 | Uncategorized

We are still waiting.
Our mother is still here.
Still fighting for breath… still holding on for some reason.
Today is father’s day.
We lost our dad in September of last year.
Soon the past will be just that.
A memory shared from pictures in a box.
A card found from long ago mail.
Letters written in hand writing never to be seen again.
Treasures mixed with emotion and mixed with memory.
It is not easy to sit in a room when someone is dying.
It is a sacred time.
A time for quiet and peace.
It is also a time for emotion and patience.
The waiting…
Where the soul is waiting for that moment when it should leave.
I do believe the soul goes and the shell is left behind.
Once that loved one is gone
the story is not over
it then becomes a choice of how we remember.
Max Lucado once said:
You change your life by changing your heart.
Saying good-bye is a matter of the heart.
Each day we sit and watch the ending of a life
we wait and we pray and we do a lot of thinking.
Thinking isn’t bad if it leads us to a better ‘mind set’
and or heart condition.
We have sat in this waiting room now four times.
As I have said before it is labor intensive.
It is the hardest part of this life we live.

I am tired

by Sharon O | Jun 9, 2014 | Uncategorized

My mother is dying.
It is a strange thing to think that soon I will be like many others in this ‘stage’ of life.
As my husband calls it, an orphan.
No parent.
Nothing.
Mothers day and Father’s day have been empty for me for a long time because of certain circumstances.
But now it will truly be an empty day.
No hallmark memories to fill the hallow space of heart.
Death is such a strange thing.
She is in a coma and not really responding.
It is a matter of time.
Perhaps a few days or even a few hours.
Eventually minutes when the breathing stops.
The heart gets a message to stop the beating.
Then the shell of the one who once lived will lay empty.
The angels come and escort the ‘one home’ to a heavenly home.
If they are a believer.
Those left behind will pick up the reminders of
when times were different.
When both of them were alive.
She has been leaving for quite some time.
Dementia and parkinson’s are the reason.
Dad passed away in September of last year.
Loss has been the story lately for my husband and I.
Starting with my husbands mom four years ago.
Then his dad, last March.
My dad, then a good friend within a week from each other.
My old special cat, the same week.
Two weeks ago another very special family friend and last week another family friend.
I am tired of saying good bye.

Our thirteenth word

by Sharon O | Jun 3, 2014 | Uncategorized

As we continue to learn the basket of words and how they represent themselves in our lives
I hope you have seen a progression.
Starting out with courage which is incredibly hard, then willingness, trust, tenderness, power, balance, change, rest, healing, compassion, and then play.
The next word from the basket will be beauty.

Dictionary.com describes it as:
loveliness, beautiful quality, grace, charm.
Something beautiful in nature or as in a person, 
outstanding example of it’s kind.
When I talk about beauty I am not referring to the type our media brings to us which is centered around vanity issues.
That is not beauty or in the very least fabricated beauty.
I am talking about beauty as in discovering and exploring 
perhaps for the first time,
the beauty that is within you. 
It is a character quality. 
Matters of the heart kind of beauty.
Maya Angelou once said: 
“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but we rarely admit 
the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”
The same is said for recovery.
We go through many changes, many ups and downs and moments that bring clarity to us.
The road is hard. 
We often think we will not make it.
We feel we cannot go further or gain any progress.
Then after a season of unbelief… 
the beauty of what is held inside us begins to pour up and out 
and we begin to feel capable, confident and with feeling.
At that point we realize the darkness that had engulfed us and clouded our vision 
also removed our hope and truth. 
Recovery often begins with depression and gray thoughts.
Healing helps us to see the beauty in a rose, a sunset, or a loved ones smile.
As the fog and heaviness lifts our minds clear and the beauty of the world around us rises to the surface bringing to us a new sense of being alive.
To appoint unto them that mourn in zion, 
to give unto them beauty for ashes,
the oil of joy for mourning, 
the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. Isaiah 61:3
Our thirteenth word is beauty because it brings freshness, 
truth and hope.