Thoughts for a Good Life - 8/19/2013

This was the thought on 8/17 in Thoughts for a Good Life:

That which is bitter to endure may be sweet to remember.

I like this thought. It makes me consider that silver lining in the hard things, the crappy things. Of course there are still bitter times I’m sure will never be sweet to remember, but this quote has me thinking.  Here are a couple of bitter times I’ve now reconsidered:

Thought 1:  My senior year of high school our new coach loaded us on a bus, took us to a field and made us run. We had no conditioning, no warning…get off the bus and run. Run a mile he said, and do it in X number of minutes or you are off the team. WTF? This guy was crazy! It was August, nearly 100 degrees and I hated running & at that moment I hated him. The sweet part isn’t that the coach turned into mentor (18yrs later, still don’t like the guy). The sweet part is that I did it. I actually did it. I came in 2^nd to last, it hurt, it made no sense to me (still doesn’t) but I did it. So the sweet in it is that I finished and I look back and know I can do it, if I had to, I could run a solid mile.  

Thought 2:  My grandparents have a 120 acre farm. They grow & sell vegetables, going on 30+ years now the local farmer’s market. It’s a family business and we are all expected to help. We are paid in fresh veggies & now awesome stories to share. At the age of 8 however; these are not acceptable forms of payment! If you’ve never picked black-eyed peas, well, you aren’t missing much. They are harvested in July/August, the hottest part of the year and it gets damn hot here. We have a low-tech farm, you sit on an upside down bucket and pick, move the bucket down the row and keep on picking. On one miserable, humid day, I stood up in the middle of picking and declared, “I’m not picking another pea!”. My Memaw said, that’s fine Amber, go sit in the pick-up, but you won’t eat another pea all summer, not only that, you won’t eat another veggie off this farm all summer. Fine by me I said. I can still see her in the field, pointing her dirt-stained finger at me. Just daring me to keep walking. Unfortunately for me, I did.

I didn’t realize how much I really loved those veggies. That day was miserable, but my stance led to a miserable summer. We had a home-cooked supper nearly every night of my childhood. It was torture to sit and watch those bowls of fresh, buttered veggies passing by my plate. It also hurt me to know that I’d let my family down… disappointed them. My picking strike only happened once. It was bitter to endure, but pretty sweet to remember.  My pea picking strike has been retold many times in our family; I’ve served as a warning & lesson to others. I’m so thankful for that lesson though, it taught me to really appreciate the efforts of hard work and now I know exactly what to do when one of my kids decides to strike!

 

 

Scrapbook page  w/ pic of my mom at the Farmer's Market. I scrapped this page in 2002. I look at this page and think my life & my pages have gotten a lot more beautifully complicated.

 

Thoughts for a Good Life - 8/15/13

The thought for today in Thoughts for a Good Life:

Men may work and think, but women feel. 

Well the modern version would probably say... Men may work and think, but women do it all with feeling. 

This book is outdated, but still an interesting little read each night.

Thoughts for a Good Life

 

While visiting my Memaw, on her 78th birthday this weekend, the cover of this book grabbed my attention. I love the colors and that title! Who wouldn't want to peek at those Thoughts for a Good Life? I thought to myself, this looks like something Mom would have had tucked away on one of her many bookshelves. I wanted that book. I felt like I needed that book. I picked it up and Memaw said, "Oh! I found that in a box of your mother's stuff the other day!" She asked me if I would like to have it. Yes. Yes, please. That's all I could say.

My mother has been gone 6 years now, she lost her battle with cancer and I lost the most amazing person I will ever know. This is as much as I will say on the loss of my mother. It is still too painful to accurately share a description of the void she left in my life. I do love talking about my mother though, I have many wonderful memories & stories. She was such a thoughtful, caring person. She was a great friend to many. This little book serves as a testament to that. When I opened the cover here's what I found inside:

"To Debs, In gratitude for your guidance, understanding & constant friendship.

 Love & Friendship, Zuria 4-18-75

It gave me a bit of a thrill to read that because for months now, this lady, Zuria (Mom called her Zuree) has been in my thoughts. Not daily or even weekly, but every so often lately I've been recalling memories of Zuree. I was around 8 or 9 when Zuree passed away. I remember, as a child, thinking she had the most exotic name. At the time, I was puzzled by my mother's friendship with her. I couldn't figure out how she fit in our world. Mom was a school teacher. As a family, our social circles were school, church and the Jay-cees (a civic group my parents were members of in the 80's) Zuree was in none of those circles. Also she lived alone, in a lime green house. My mother's visits became more and more frequent just before Zuree passed away. Of course, now I assume she was terminally ill and my mother was being a good friend and doing the things friend's do during that time. At 8 though, I didn't make that connection; I just knew mom had me stay in the car while she brought food to exotic Zuree in the lime green house.

 I have always been curious about Zuree. She's been on my mind lately and now she shows up in this book! I'll probably never understand how Mom & Zuree came to be friends. As curious as I am about their connection, I'm glad that there is sort of a mystery about it. I like wondering about the little pieces of her life like this. It keeps her story going for me. If I know a thing about my mother, well, then I know it. But with this, the Zuree story, I don't know it and it can have many beginnings & endings to think about.

I'm grateful for this new little piece to their friendship puzzle though, and thankful to Memaw for finding it and allowing me to have it. Inside there is a thought for each day for 1 year. I'm going to post each day's thought, in the hopes it will get me blogging daily!

 

August 12th - Every man's life is a fairy-tale written by God's finger.