The Whisper Space

After Keith and I had spent a rare, relaxing weekend in the mountains celebrating our anniversary, a Monday morning wake-up is not easy!

Skye had asked last night if I’d go with her to Wake Tech to be her ‘support’ (and ‘supporter’, as in money:)) as she picked up her ID, parking permit, and books for the fall semester. I had the time and figured it’d be a good time to do some bonding and put in a “Mama” word or two:)

Well, it became a day of class 101, “How To Be Patient”!:)
We waited in line for an hour to have her ID photo taken and receive her parking sticker. It felt like two hours! I finally let the comment fall out of my mouth that I wouldn’t recommend that she become friends with the girls waiting in front of us–and I won’t go into that here! Let me leave it that I believe one girl knew she had a captive audience.

Next stop, the Bookstore. Amazingly it didn’t have a line, so that was our present for the day! Hip, hip, hurray! But there Skye discovered she had signed up for a class she had taken two semesters ago, so we set out for the College Transfer office.

After walking across campus and realizing the office had, over the summer, moved to the building where we had spent most of the morning, we marched back the way we came. When we found the right office, Skye signed in and we began our wait there— we waited, and waited, and waited. Waiting has a cumlative effect, don’t you think?!! I’m pretty sure it does!! It became half an hour. Now the time crunch began, making us more edgy. Skye needed to be at the Y at 2:45 and we were thirty and hungry! It became 45 minutes. I had an appointment with Cameron and Edna to look at townhomes and apartments at 3pm….ugh:( Finally, after an hour, Skye’s name was called, the solution was provided quickly, thank goodness, and we escaped to the car!!

All during this experience we mentioned how we should be patient, that everybody needed to learn patience, the it is important to be patient–and there we were, working out how to “do” that word for hours!!!
Were we learning how to do it?
I’m not sure waiting makes me better at it–I get better at being frustrated:( I tend to grit my teeth and tell myself to calm down. I think planning ahead helps. If we’d had a deck of cards, or each of us had brought a book…..that seems to give me a sense of not wasting time. But, as I said to Skye, “We should never wish away our lives away either”, and maybe being impatient comes close to that.

Being patient is a hard thing to do well.

This afternoon Skye and I had an appointment with Dee, our longtime beautician friend, to have our hair cut. On the way over Skye decided, spur of the moment, that this was the day to give up her strawberry blonde curls for Locks Of Love, a non-profit organization that asks for donations of hair to make wigs for people, primarily cancer patients, that have lost their hair. Skye had been growing her hair out for many months and had checked online for donation information. So when we arrived at Upper Cuts, she told Dee ‘LOL’ required at least a length of 10 inches of hair. After brushing Skye’s hair till it was smooth and silky and free of any tangles, Dee, with a good 3 or 4 whacks of a sharp pair of scissors, did the deed 🙂 Skye must have felt 5 pounds lighter–she has such thick hair!!
Hopefully, when we have packaged and shipped her severed ponytail to “LOL”, in time it will help someone feel much better:)

As this was going on, in the chair across from Skye and Dee, sat a pretty young woman in the process of getting her hair colored and styled. As her hairstylist, a friendly young man, combed and snipped and brushed and blew, she talked…and talked ….and talked!
Now I’m a Stephen Minister and am trained in listening (which doesn’t mean I’m always good at it), but this fella had the patience of Job, I’m thinking! She went on and on, and on—she told him her financial situation, her woes, her dating dramas, her family problems, etc., etc.:( I finally willed myself to tune out and tried hard to focus on Dee shaping and drying Skye’s hair.
After the young girl left I told the hairstylist I thought he deserved a nap after all that listening he had done! He agreed!! Listening to someone talk nonstop for at least an hour is emotionally and physically draining!! I do hope the young girl felt better when she left—she left us exhausted in her wake!:( It’s like she shifted all her burdens off herself, and onto all of us in that room….then walked away.

I was afraid to say much by the time I sat down in Dee’s chair:(

Shhh:) I need some peace and quiet (a quote by Seth)

There’s a monster that lives in our midst. It is so scary most of my family doesn’t talk about it, we try hard not to think about it, and it has been looming and lurking around for for 10 to 15 years or more.
It steals, robs, and slowly kills.
Nothing can stop it, and it makes everyone shudder to think it might appear at their door.
Children and grandchildren cringe to think where it will strike.
If I think about it, I could ‘take to my bed’ and weep for days—and tremble in fear.
It has ravaged the lives of three uncles I have loved and, especially, my mama’s life.

What is it?

Alzheimer’s.

It has taken my mama’s personality away, her dignity, her sense of belonging. She doesn’t know her grandchildren anymore, and will soon forget my brothers’ names and sister’s name and mine, as well. My children will never know her as she was most of her life; a smart women who yearned to go to college and study art but couldn’t afford it, a beautician because it was within her means, a gardener, a delicious baker of biscuits, fried chicken, potato salad, and pies, a farmer’s wife, a postal worker, a writer, a Sunday School teacher, a lover of books, and creator of countless pretty quilts:) She loved family next to God, and the Blue & Stewart families were as real to us children as our own. Scotland was our homeland, where we “came from” and never we were never to forget it!
Now she searches for home, yearns for home and her mama, and it’s not to be found on this Earth.

So, this fear of the monster—
Do we let that fear overwhelm us, paralzye us, or do we laugh over funny “Mama stories” and live in the knowledge that fear is not from the Good Shepherd?
God will not let us forget Him, or will He? Then again, if we do, I firmly believe He will never forget us— and that’s all that matters in the long run, in Eternity, right?
Because Heaven is where we are restored and renewed, and the monster is no more!!!

Yesterday, Saturday, I co-hosted a wedding shower for a dear friend’s daughter. What a sweet time. Mary, a friend of my dear friend, offered her home for the event. She is someone I’d met only a few times previously but, during the course of planning the event, have found her to be a delightful and humble person:)
Her home is brand new and is a ways from the Cary, Apex area. Located beyond the Raleigh city limits, up Creedmore Road, Mary’s subdivision is set among horse farms, pastures, and many trees, making the last leg of the trek over so peaceful and calm after driving through city traffic:) Actually, I must add I love the pastures on Edward’s Mill Road too:)

Wedding showers are usually a time of fun and joy, and this was no exception:) The chicken salad, rolls, and fruit were delicious, as well as the cake from Cary’s Blue Moon Bakery (let me recommend them here and now–yum:)). The bride opened many beautiful and practical gifts (I LOVE to watch gifts being opened!) and all the ladies chit-chatted freely.
Friends and family rejoice to see the couple tie the knot:) Both moms like one another and have grown to be friends:) What a blessing!
My dear friend’s husband, and the father of the bride, died a year ago—far too young:( He is sorely missed, but the happiness of a wedding is like a precious balm of Gilead. Don’t you know he must be smiling:)

Keith & I are facing our 37th wedding anniversary this week. Our wedding day was one of the hottest, stickiest, most humid days you can imagine! And there was no air conditioning in that tiny country church–ugh! We all sweltered!!
I rode to Roseland church in Keith’s mom and dad’s camper. Now, not everybody gets to do that! And there was no reception afterwards–that’s one regret I have. It just wasn’t done back then in rural NC.
We had the cake cutting after the rehearsal the night before, which my aunt & uncle graciously hosted:) Now that was a fun night:) All my college friends and childhood friends were there. All that comes to mind today about that evening is laughing myself silly:) I’ll have to ask Keith what he can recall.

I remember when we celebrated my mama and daddy’s 40th, and thought that 40 years were SO MANY YEARS! We took them to the Raleigh Dinner Theater at RTP, had a delicous buffet dinner, and watched a play about a radio program. Sadly, my daddy didn’t live to celebrate their 50th:( That was one of the comments I remember my mama saying on the day Daddy died, that “We didn’t make it to our 50th”:(

Keith & I plan to go to a neat cabin near West Jefferson the second weekend in August. Sweet friends own this heavenly spot overlooking the river:)
The mountains are where we honeymooned 37 years ago. That much Keith & I got right–the mountains are the place to be in hot, hazy August!

A neat surprise at Chili’s tonight–ran into Cameron & Holly:) Great fun to run into my kids out and about anytime:)
Us girls had a grand time chilling at Chili’s:) We stayed a while after sharing Molten Chocolate Cake and Cheesecake to watch some of Angela’s many Guatemula photos:)

Tonight the Bevettes, my dear Bible study friends, are meeting for dinner at Chili’s. What a treat, one of my favorite places to eat since I love Mexican food:) The atmosphere is relaxing (unless you’re in the bar) and the food is great. We are celebrating Angela’s return from Guatemula:) Nothing like having a meal with good friends! It’s a cool way to end a long hot month–a night out at Chili’s:)

I have a dear friend who is traveling the road of divorce. Right now she is side-lined ‘in the pit of despair’. Nothing has gone right for her during her courtdates or mediations over this long drawn out ugly affair (over a year) in spite of hours and weeks and months of preparation on her part. After hiring two seemingly inept lawyers (she was at their mercy), she is paralyzed with fear and is in a panic of losing everything:(
She is exhausted and has run out of steam. She’s completely depleted:( A strong, bright woman who has a good career and is a beauty inside and out—a woman of faith who is wrestling with this nightmare and at the moment is flattened; cannot move, cannot eat, cannot think!

The father of her child is abusive with words from his lawyer and she must be civil to him since he is the father of her precious daughter (as our friend Lou said), and she is a Christian who shouldn’t be vindictive….right?

What comes through is we have a war with injustice in this fallen world. I HATE injustice, but it isn’t promised to us here on this earth, is it? God says He is Justice—but that’s hard to wrap our minds around when you want to beat up someone for righteousness’ sake! It’s righteous anger, isn’t it…??

O Lord, give my friend the sweet comfort of friends & family enfolding her to let her know she is never alone, that You hold her in Your Hand & care for her as no other does, that You know injustice!
Help me remember that too!!!
Because no matter how old we get, the world can make us feel like abandoned little kids:(

Saturday, July 29th, 2006:
I wonder if blogging will help me journal, something I’ve started and stopped a number of times over my 50+ years:( My mama, Catherene, was a good writer and, after coming down with Alzheimer’s in the last 10 years, has left some of her recollections and thoughts behind. A precious gift for me & for my sister & brothers. We even read them to her time and again, and she laughs.

Keith & I spent the day taking my mama to a peach orchard where she and my daddy used to go numerous times every summer to get peaches. Peaches to make peach cobbler, peach pie, peach ice cream–yum:) Today was a typical hot, Sandhills July day & I couldn’t get the idea of mouth-watering peaches out of my mind! We left Apex, traveled to Pinehurst, picked up Mama and headed to Derby with the help of a map. We found the familiar ‘stand’ pretty easily:) A pleasant surprise; they have added a small ice cream shop inside the old orchard packhouse. So we lingered for ‘peach’ ice cream around a plastic table and visited a spell (a Mama word). Mama was concerned that Bill (my daddy, long gone to Glory) needed to come get some peaches too!!
I bought a peck of the delicious smelling fruit on our way out, along with a smaller bag to leave at Carolina House of Pinehurst (where Mama now lives), plus a couple of deep red tomatoes. A nice day, all in all:) Good smells, good memories, good peaches!!