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It seems that whenever there are major changes in my life, everything called my life starts feeling like it’s being squeezed…imagine a tube of toothpaste.
This time around the changes are planned, but that does not diminish the squeeze.
With my mother in a nursing home I cannot afford this big house we shared. Getting it ready for sale is a big job in itself with all the picky, picky cleaning I have been forced to do. You are probably saying to yourself that I should have been doing that regularly anyway. You are right, but that is not within the nature of my beingness. I will put off such things in favor of so many other more pleasurable activities.
Frustration comes in bunches
I find myself trying to go through the process of readying the house for sale with very little money. So in the spirit of being squeezed through a small opening, things start costing me money I don’t have.
A couple weeks ago the hot water hose on the washing machine blew at 10 p.m. To make a long story short, it cost me a night’s sleep and close to $350 for a plumber in the middle of the night (which turned out to be 7:45 the next morning!). ☹
(You can read the whole sad story at my main blog, “Look What I’m Up To Now”. See Plumbing Problem, Monday, August 10th.)
Then I get a notice from the bank that holds the mortgage on this house my mortgage payment is going UP almost $260 a month. What happened? We used to get senior citizen assistance on town taxes based on my mother’s income…since she had life use of the house. With her in the nursing home the assistance was based on my income, which was higher than hers. Ergo, my assistance amount was nowhere near as lucrative.
And coming up, will be the cost of having the carpets professionally cleaned.
Spirituality
So what’s so spiritual about all this frustration and chaos? I see it as another test of Faith. I know from experience that I have always had what I needed. Always! Why should this be any different? Being mortal, I have a hard time staying out of the category of “Oh ye of little faith.” I keep reminding myself that I have always had what I needed and I will get through this. Everything will turn out OK.
So what do I need?
I need to sell this house. I really don’t want to do fishes and loaves for too many months. BUT, I can if I have to as long as I continue to acknowledge “someone else” is directing this operation.
It has been so long since I last posted. It’s not that I haven’t had anything spiritual going on in my life…it’s more like I have too much of everything going on.
Since I returned from my Erie Canal bike ride, my mother has been in and out of the hospital and nursing home. Since October 10th, 2008, she has been home three weeks and two days. She’s 96 years old and has had two major abdominal surgeries. She has an indomitable spirit.
She and I have had conversations about we humans having signed contracts with God. The idea being we stay here on earth to the end of the contract. I believe it can be renewed, I’m sure it is in some cases, but there comes a time when God says, “That’s it. Fini.” And in a pre-planned event we make our exit.
I don’t know how many renewals she has had, but in the last year and a half she has come up with more things that should have ended her life here on earth. First she started falling and it turns out she also had bladder infections. What we thought for years was over active bladder turned out to be a bladder that had forgotten how to empty itself completely.
Once we had that under control she started with small intestine blockages. The first four were treated without surgery, but the 5th was different. She had just turned 96 and underwent abdominal surgery. Came through it with flying colors. A miracle! She finally came home from this one in December. She was home for 3 weeks and had another blockage.
Another surgery on January 6th of 2009. We all thought she was going to die. She pulled through. However, when she was transferred back to the nursing home on January 26th she was unable to walk. We thought she would never walk again. After one week of physical therapy she started walking.
The end of March she came out of the nursing home and we all expected this time she would not be going back to the hospital or nursing home ever again. Two days home and she twisted her right knee. Back to the ER and back to the nursing home.
She was back there about a week when she was transported back to the hospital with a high fever and she was diagnosed with a staph infection AND clots in her legs even though she had been on Coumadin. Another week in the hospital treating the infection and the clots and she’s now back in the nursing home.
We will probably never know what’s going on between her and her God, but the meetings must be interesting!
I guess one of the lessons is Never doubt the strength of the human spirit. And another is Never question why God keeps renewing the contract.
In my prayers I have offered everything up to God. I have told Him I can’t do this any more and I acknowledge He is in complete control. What a relief…for both of us. ☺
Have you ever seen your Guardian Angel? If you said "no", I bet you have, but didn’t know it.
Here’s my Guardian Angel story.
It was in the early ‘90s and I was scheduled to fly into the Ontario, CA airport to visit Pam and Steuart Bell who lived in Chino Hills. My flight was for mid-afternoon on a Friday. Then the line of severe weather (from Maine to Florida) came through and delayed all east coast air travel five hours.
By the time we finally took off, the flight plan took us north into Canada, over Lake Ontario, then south along Lake Michigan to O’Hare Airport in Chicago. We flew between storm clouds being lit internally by lightening. Our plane was so small by comparison…imagine a walnut sailing between two aircraft carriers. We actually saw Niagara Falls all lit up. What a sight! So far, this is the good news.
Once we deplaned, all connecting flights were long gone. United Airlines was offering vouchers for restaurants (which were all closed) and for hotel accommodations (but would not help obtaining those accommodations). I heard others screaming into phones that such and such hotel had to give them a room; after all they were stranded! I decided to bed down at O’Hare. After changing my flight plans to land in Los Angelis instead of Ontario (Pam and I were going to a Whole Health Expo right there in LA), I grabbed a couple of blankets from the United podium and stretched out on the waiting room seats to spend the night.
I could not have been safer. There was no one around except the cleaning people and they weren’t there for long. And it was cold. I found out that Chicago O’Hare is kept at 45 degrees and the rest of the warmth is made up from running equipment, lights and warm bodies. At night none of that exists except lights.
I woke up at one point and a man in his 30s was sitting at the end of the row of seats where I was sleeping. He had on sneakers, blue jeans, a plaid shirt, suede jacket, had a briefcase on his lap and was working on a legal size yellow pad (all night). He never looked my way. He never said a word. He was there all night and I had a sense of being watched over and protected.
In the morning, around 6 a.m., O’Hare came alive. The coffee vendors were the first to arrive and soon the whole place smelled delicious. I got up, folded my blankets, and gathered my backpack and one piece of carry-on luggage. As I turned toward where the man had been sitting, the seat was empty. I never saw him get up and leave.
I knew then he was my Guardian Angel. I’m not talking “metaphor”; I mean the Real Deal. How do I know? There are some things you just know.
Oh, yeah. Just so you know what happened to my luggage. It traveled on to Ontario Airport and arrived in Chino Hills 8 hours after I landed at LAX. At least it arrived! ☺
This past Sunday my sons, Paul and Andy, came over to help clean out my garage. Andy could not believe how much junk we loaded into his truck to be hauled away. The garage looks so nice I frequently look in just to marvel! ☺ It felt good to see all that “stuff” go.
Then, as frequently happens, the Universe steps in and gives me confirmation of what just happened. I received the following today by email from Neale Donald Walsch (author of Conversations With God):
On this day of your life, Beverly, I believe God wants you to know...
....that earthly possessions are not what you came here to gather.
Do not worry about your earthly possessions. Place your attention on your heavenly goal--the evolution of your soul--and you will find peace even while on earth.
You will not have to think but a second to know exactly why you received this message today.
I didn’t have to think about why I received the message. I knew. I have a storage closet and three bookcases that have to be sorted through next. The last time I started divesting myself of “stuff” my kids thought I had some terminal illness and wasn’t telling them. That’s how much of a pack rat I am. In that instance I kept getting the message that I had to get ready to travel light. I wasn’t sure if light meant “weight” or “spiritual awakening.” As it turned out, it meant both.
Can you hear me now?
I am posting this on both my on-line journals because it points out how we should all be listening to those warnings (whispers) from the Universe when things aren’t quite right. Ignore them at your own peril, as you will see from the following.
I have been following the blog (Shut Up and Pedal!) of a family of four who are pedaling from Walla Walla, WA to Bar Harbor, ME. The dad and daughter are on one tandem, recumbent bike, and mom and son are on the other. Their post for today, Friday, July 18, 2008, It’s Funny How Things Happen is an excellent example of synchronicity and listening to the whispers.
To summarize: the daughter got her heel caught in the rear wheel causing the bike to skid and created a major blowout of the tire. There just happened to be someone who was able to supply another tire to get them the one more mile to their destination. The only bike shop within 50 miles did, after all, have the right sized tire. On the way to get the new tire, a noise on the mother’s bike caught their attention and they decided to have it checked out while they were at it. In the process of checking it out, a cracked rim was discovered. Had that not been found, the rim would surely have failed and the result could have resulted in serious injury or death. They were able to have a new rim shipped to their next destination town.
The good news: the daughter and father were not injured in their incident; the blown tire was replaced; the cracked rim was discovered in time; they were able to get a new rim.
I highly recommend reading this particular on-line journal. The pictures and story are wonderful.
By the way, for all of you who think I’m nuts, what they are doing makes my plan to ride the Erie Canal pathway pale by comparison. ☺☺
In the early 1980s I hit another of Life’s Potholes. To say things were tough is a gross understatement. I needed to replace my car and I didn’t have any money.
One day while sitting on the edge of my bed in utter despair—out of options—out of nowhere and everywhere all at once I heard a voice say: God didn’t bring you this far to abandon you now. I said, “Huh?” And the voice from nowhere and everywhere repeated the phrase.
I was stunned and elated. I knew right then and there everything would be OK.
The next day I went to a car dealer in East Hartford, CT to see a car they had advertised and hoping I could talk them into selling it to me even though I didn’t have a dime! It had just been sold. But, they had a nice little car that just came in I might like. There she was—a yellow 1980 Pinto. She had four brand new Michelin tires, only 8,000 miles on her, and a little over a year old. I was shocked by the YELLOW color, but agreed to sit in the drivers seat. It felt like she wrapped her arms around me and gave me a hug. I knew I had found my car. I don't remember how I came up with the down-payment, but I was able to afford the financing. I named her Buttercup and in her dowager years she became The Lady Buttercup. The kids in the neighborhood would call her Butterball just to tease me.
I had to totally give up in order to let go of the problem and let the Universe do its work. I never have to worry, ever again. I know everything will be OK because God would not have brought me this far to abandon me now under any circumstances!
Take heart and know it is true for everyone.
When I was in college I hung out with a group that I thought were pretty Bohemian. Looking back we were all pretenders. We never liked being shackled by the laws of any authority. After graduation, we were all going to hop in a car and head west, working our way across the country, to see what we could see. The rest of the world and all it’s expectations be damned!
None of us ever did it. The universe had other ideas and one by one we were nudged, pushed, thrust, sent careening, or in my case, catapulted in another direction.
Speaking only for myself, in retrospect, thank God!
The Universe, in all It’s Wisdom, knew where I would wind up—living in squalor, drugged up, and ultimately dead at an early age. This was the height of the Beat Culture. Poets and writers like Snyder, Kerouac, Ferlinghetti, Creeley, Whalen and Burroughs emerged. As did Jones, Kaufman, Waldman. Beatles, Dylan and Baez were late comers, but all influenced by the Beats. I would have found that crowd—fallen in with them.
It is only now, at age 72, that the Universe has brought that culture-era back for my enjoyment through the CT Beat Poetry Festival that has been happening in the central Connecticut area from June 1st through June 8th at various venues. I have been going to some of the events, not because I know anything about these poets, but to support poet friends who are either moderating or reading. In the process I have started researching the poets to see just who they were and what is so special about what they wrote.
In reading their biographies I get that same old thrill thinking of being part of that Bohemian lifestyle. Being free. Having no man-made (or God-made for that matter) rules or laws to live by. Truth was god, but that truth was extruded from a mind made “crystal clear” by LSD and other drugs and put into words. Their Truths became poems, haikus, novels and screen-plays. This generation was more than Beat. They were Mad. They were Drugged. In reading their works I can understand a little bit of what they were trying to impart, but it’s the lifestyle that still excites me. I will forever be a voyeur into the culture that is called Beat. I will think about, dream about, go through all the what-ifs and savor my romanticized version of what was.
It all boils down to Freedom. The theme that has resonated throughout my entire life has been Freedom. I need to be Free. I’m happiest when I am on the move with no encumbrances.
Back to God in It’s infinite Wisdom. I had, and still have, more important things to do.
