The First Mothers Day...

There are good firsts and bad firsts. Today is both. Today is the first Mothers Day that my daughter is a mom and it is the first Mothers Day that my mom is gone. Both firsts have made a huge impact on me.

My daughter becoming a mom has been a joy to me. To watch her and all she has gone through in the first 9 months of my granddaughters life has been exciting, funny, memorable, and poignant on many occasions.

She, who has asked for virtually no advice from me since she was about 3, suddenly... sometimes ...does. Which is nice...different..but nice.

Now don't get me wrong this is by and large her show all the way and my advice is not likely to mean squat a good deal of the time ...okay especially the advice that I may offer unbidden..but those moments that I see her actually heeding it..those are great!

Moms like to help.

We like to help when asked.

We like to help when not asked.

Actually, we especially like to help when not asked because that's when we see you are heading down the wrong way and truth to be told it is usually a path we mistakenly went down ourselves so we are just trying to save you the trip.

That's what moms do...try to save you from any unnecessary wrong trips.

FYI... We do that our whole lives not just when you are young and in our care.

Being a mom is tough work and It never ever ends. Never. Ever Ever....Ever.

You might think that it will get easier and yes in many ways it does get easier...and in many it gets harder...especially when you start having kids of your own because then WE start having grandkids and that just starts it all over for us.

I made my mom a grandma at a rather young age. She was in her early 40's.

It was not, for one moment what she expected from me or probably wanted for me and she knew how very unprepared I was for the job. She never let on that she was worried about it. She just jumped in and helped me.

She had a wonderful knack of helping me figure things out and then letting me think I figured it on my own. Considering how little I actually knew she probably had to spend many a sleepless night trying to figure out the easiest way to get me to know what I needed to know.

I didn't know much about kids because I was not one of those girls that did a lot of babysitting, I had a younger sister who I tried really hard to ignore, and I had declared at the age of about 7 that I was never going to have kids. Never. Ever Ever...Ever.

I was going to be a reporter and I was heading out in the world. No kid to tie me down.

So the mechanics of babies and kids I had ignored.

Diapers were cloth and involved pins and rubber pants and washing machines.

Bottles involved lots of measuring and boiling.

The little walkers that they sat in were death traps and my poor Stacey probably started walking at 9 months for fear of getting stuck permanently in her little yellow walker.

Motherhood in the 70's was not easy.

Probably less easy in the 50's.

So my mom helped me with all the basics.

A left handed diapering wizard, she taught me how to hold down a squirming baby with one hand and diaper..with pins no less... with the other and all the various songs and distractions that went with accompanied that.

She helped directly and indirectly. She jumped in feet first and she rocked my babies and read to my babies and took pictures of my babies and of course she loved my babies.

She adored each and everyone of her grandchildren with every bit of her being.

An incredibly easy going person, I remember her getting as angry as I ever saw her with one of the teachers at Herman Ave school because she felt that one of them had said a disparaging remark about her grandchild. That was it for that teacher. She was livid.

It was shortly after that she decided she should not be the librarian where her grandchildren were attending school if possible.

Probably a good idea.

My mom and I became friends by the time I was about 25. She called me one morning and she asked me to go to lunch and hear a speaker with her.

There was a slight pause and she said " they said I could bring a friend and right away I wrote your name down on the sheet...I hadn't realized that I thought of you that way until I did that"

I spoke to or saw my mom probably a minimum of 4 or 5 days out of every week...more often that not it was every single day..for over 55 years. Even when she no longer had a clue who I was and thought I was "selling something" we talked.

The last few months have been tough.

I sleepwalked through the first Thanksgiving and Christmas without her. It had been a matter of weeks since she died at that point.

Easter was a little tougher but mostly Easter was tough because May was fast approaching.

May is the month that I always considered my Moms own personal month.

May holds not only Mothers day but also her anniversary and her Birthday. It was her favorite month. She loved the green of springtime, planting of her flowers, opening up her windows and getting some"nice fresh air".

She would love today.

The sun is shining. the birds are chirping happily, the grass is a brilliant green, flowers are blooming and its Mothers Day.

She loved beautiful cards and good chocolate. She was most easy to please on Mothers day.

She was most easy to please every day.

My mom taught me many things in life...cooking? check! Sewing...not a chance...housekeeping...she tried.

The important stuff, of course, is none of that.

She taught me about unconditional love.

She taught me that loving and caring for a child is a full time, whole life experience. It does not end at 18 or 21 or when they get married or even when they have kids of their own. It doesn't end if they do things you don't like or don't agree with. It doesn't end if they make bad choices. It doesn't end if they move away.

It doesn't end...period.

My mom is gone and I talk to her everyday. I wonder what she would do in any given situation. When I recently made a fairly bad decision based on anger and fatigue, my first thought was how great it would be to call her and tell her what I did.

I knew she would have laughed( it was funny...awful...but funny non the less) and then she would have told me to own up to what I did and try to make it right.

Which I did.

Right now i know she would tell me get off that computer and "get outdoors Diane, It is a beautiful day!" She would then break into a chorus of "Oh what a beautiful Morning".

So..

"Oh what a beautiful morning. Oh what a beautiful day. I've got a beautiful feeling every things going my way!"

Happy 1st Mothers day to my Amanda.

Happy Mothers Day to Sheena and Laura.

Happy Mothers Day to my mother-in-law Ruth

Happy Mothers Day to all my friends...

But most of all...

Happy Mothers Day to my mom.. I miss you.. love you...and I am going outside now.

Marriage should be illegal...

"Marriage should be illegal" those words were said to me recently by one of my newly wedded children.

Then my dear one said " I have never wanted to choke someone til their eyeballs popped out of their head up so much in my whole life."

Yep..that's married life.

Those first couple years when you are with someone are filled with passion..and passion takes lots of forms... for example... wanting to choke someone til their eyeballs pop out is one form.

Not that I would not know anything about that sort of thing...Kim and I have always been level headed and rational.

Which is why the kids and their friends used to rate our fights in terms of most interesting..most exciting..most entertaining.

The one that comes up most often is the one where I was so angry that I picked up my daughters Big Wheel ,threw it and hit the hood of his van as he drove off. Which is made all the more impressive by the fact that I was a pretty good distance from the vehicle.

I also tried to run him over with my car.

He threw a cup so hard against the kitchen wall it left a hole...

Passion.

Eventually though you get to the point where you start to understand your partner..the things they will say..their reactions to life events..what torks the heck out of them.

Now most of the time those are the lessons that we can use to make life calmer, easier and productive...

Except for when we don't.

Except for those days when we just really want to make a point.

In the "old days" I would decide to make my always salient point by getting up earlier than the husband and playing music that he hated ...loudly.

The Indigo girls and Melissa Ethridge being the two best battle cries I could mount.

It was the equivalent of poking a hornets nest...or waving a red flag at a bull...or bombing a neighboring country.

It got things going.

Which we need to do sometimes in a marriage.

However, I have found these past many months that living apart from your love has its advantages when you are so sick of that person that you stare at them wondering" WTF was I thinking when I married you?? Why did I even date you?? For the love of God why did I date you a second time?"

Yes, If you want to have a "time out" two houses can be advantageous.

Most of us can't afford that...trust me it is not an economically good option.

Its a good option if one of you is a hobo...no offense to the Hobos of the world.

I can make my case about my husbands"hobo" ways with this story.

I have been doing lots and I mean lots of cleaning to make the move back into the house.

Last Saturday i decide I am going to clean the kitchen sink. I scrub and scrub for about 45 minutes(really) and finally decide enough for now..it is pretty good.

The husband comes home awhile later and he walks in the kitchen..looks at the sink..turns away..does a couple things comes back to the kitchen looks at the sink again and says nothing..third time he is back again this time he peers into the sink and has this funny look on his face..he turns and looks at me and says" Di, did you paint the sink white?"

'I just sigh and shake my head and say " no Kim..that's what it is supposed to look like."

I rest my case.

I married one of the few men in the world who could make me appear neat.

See kids ...marriage is like that.

It changes you. You both grow..learn give and take..embrace new facets of your personality.

So what to do...if you are going to make it as a couple.., and you can't afford separate homes?

I would suggest the following...First, have a strong throwing arm... Second,figure out what really makes them mad and use that information wisely...And third, but most importantly,develop a killer sense of humor so you can tell the story without actually choking their eyeballs out of their head...

and of course it is all about the story.

The road from the heart to the head...

"Its a long and lonely highway from the heart to the head." That is a line from one of Kims' new songs. I find it very moving and very accurate.

When we fall in love our brain isn't really involved.

Well, think about it... we "FALL" in love. We do not step gingerly..we do not walk....we do not even run..its a freaking FALL.

If, by some chance our brain is involved at all then chances are it is not that gut twisting, moon eyed, can't get enough of you, kind of feeling.

Falling in Love is rarely rational.

People do some seriously crazy stuff for love.

Seriously. Think Romeo and Juliet...Maria and Tony( okay I know that's the same)...Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton...twice...

See its not always easy to maintain that level of crazy.

It often ends badly.

It often...well... ends.

The trick is maintaining it.

Which judging by the 51% divorce rate is not easy.

Yet, some people do just that.

I am sure you know some couple that have been together for 50+ years and still do lovey things..still look happy and goofy when they catch sight of their love.

They make it look easy.

There was a couple at church that were together for over 50 years. He was 3 years younger than her and he told me that the first time he saw her he was 14, they were at a church dance and he fell in love instantly. She said she saw him and thought well now I have to wait for that boy to grow up a little.

Bruce and Mary.

Mary also told me that in all their years together they had never had a fight, not one. Ever.

Which seems really hard to believe. Over 50 years with the same person and no fighting?

I asked Bruce how that could be and he said" well she rarely does anything I don't agree with."

So I asked and if she does?

He said..."I take a walk. I take a walk until I am no longer mad...sometimes its a long walk."

That's what all marriages need at times... a long walk.

I just got back from my walk. It was 17 months long.

So what did I learn during my walk?...I learned several things...I am pretty good with being on my own...the husband is not.

He did unspeakable things to the house in a relatively short period of time. Who doesn't know about dusting?? Or that you really need to clean the top of the stove once in awhile...or at least once.

Actually, I learned more important things than the fact that the man is kind of a Hobo...I already knew that.

I learned I can hold a grudge...a long long time.

I learned that forgiveness is a whole lot easier to preach about than to actually practice.

I used to preach really well about forgiveness and redemption...but as my friend Lynn's grandma used to say" its easy to be an angel when nobody ruffles your feathers."

My feathers were seriously ruffled and I wanted to make sure that NOBODY forgot it...evidently most of all me.

So, I replayed all that went wrong and did some wallowing and fretting and I decided how it should have gone down and I absolved myself from any wrong doing.

I became the innocent victim in my very own tale of woe.

So what did that accomplish? Well, it made me very self righteous. Yes indeed, righteous indignation that's a good substitute for love.

It also solves virtually nothing.

I learned that having an angry and a vindictive spirit is like being mired in the mud. The longer you are in it the harder it is to get out.

I learned...being "right" isn't actually as important as being happy.

My therapist told me that a very long time ago...like the first time I saw her...but some things can't be heard... they need to be felt.

I learned that connecting...really connecting on all levels with someone...is something that few people are lucky enough to have.

It is rare and it should be held in high regard.

I learned that we all have our own unique dysfunctions that we bring to a relationship. It is both the challenge and the interest in a good relationship.

As the song goes " there is a secret passage and a toll that is due...there are parts of me that are missing and parts of you."

But the most important thing that I learned was that I love my husband enough to put up with

( as my mother-in-law would so delicately put it) "the shit and the string beans" and that makes my very long walk worth every step.

I

And the circle goes round and round...

My baby just turned 21. A child born several years after her first set of siblings and 7 years behind her closest siblings so not just my baby... their baby too. Baby sister but baby none the less.

Many of their friends had some of their first experiences with babies and toddlers with her. She was carried around a lot. They all liked to hold her.

Her oldest sister hardly put her down her first year. There was no "let her cry it out" in our house.

Her next oldest sister had a fondness for taking her out with the girls once she started to drive. Two or more teenage girls and a 4 year old bombing around town with the radio blaring.

Her brother and his friends liked to torment her a bit... but It was always good natured.

She was taught completely inappropriate songs like "Gin and Juice"..( was that the name?) and " Baby Got Back"..and "Enter Sandman".

She..who spoke little...did learn some serious swear words early on. Evidently, "the sistas" as she called them... thought that was VERY funny. I am reasonably sure one of the sistas..now a grade school teacher..and new mom...might have a different idea about how funny that is now ...but that is how life goes. Things change.

Change.

Lots of that in the last couple of years.

For example..I am now officially the parent of adults. All of them... card carrying adults.

Not sure how the heck that happened.

Nor am I 100% sure where I fit in here.

It is especially difficult with the married ones...feeling your way around that potential land mind is very tricky. Suddenly every motherly instinct regarding advice..or ignoring their wishes because you think ..well they are just kids and what the heck do they know...suddenly that is not Okay!

If they have children of their own that just ups the ante with the precarious position you may find yourself in.

No longer are you in charge.

Even if you think they need help...even if you think they are wrong...it is now their show.

Theirs to decide what is right ..theirs to do as they see fit. Theirs to make their own mistakes.

Difficult place for any mother to find herself in.

Some of us have more trouble than others.

Some moms... and I have seen them... ignore the fact that their kids are adults and they just do what they want! Can you believe it??

Okay, maybe once or twice I might have done it but by and large I have not been the butinsky type of mama.

Which is not at all the same as not wanting to be the butinsky type of mom.

There is no retirement party for moms...because there is not really an actual retirement for most moms.

I think it is kind of like being the former President. You are used to being in charge..used to people wanting and needing your help and advice..and all of a sudden your opinion no longer really matters. You still see the situations and you think "I know how to handle that" and nobody even asks what you think. The very people that you once had to tell why " you may not stick the scissors in the outlet" or why " you cannot wear your boots and bathing suit to preschool"...

these are the folks in charge now!

Once in awhile..when situations are delicate..you MIGHT be asked for your advice...but usually you are just brought out for show...but nobody plays "Hail to The Chief" for moms.

It is a little hard to get used to.

Don't get me wrong...There are several perks..free time...not having to cook..listening to whatever you want on the car radio...laundry once a week.

I also realize it is way better than having children that cannot function as adults. I thank God every day for the fact that my children grew up. No small thing at all.

So my baby is 21..and 28...and 33...and 35. The circle goes round and round...and so much sooner than they can possibly know their babies will be 21 too.

I pray I am here to see it and...

I will even hum Hail To The Chief for them.

The Valentines Trap...or Love Stinks,,,,

Valentines day is a day which is fraught with unmet, unrealistic expectations.

Right from the get go it is a trap designed to make you feel inferior and unloved.

As a child in grade school I would make the valentine "mailboxes" tape them to my desk and worry.

First, I worried because my mailbox was always messy...there were glue spots and nothing ever stayed where it was supposed to stay..the stupid hearts would slide off onto the floor and some kid would step on it and hand it back to me with a foot print on it.

Yes... ever since I was 6... I was sporting footprints on my heart.

Mostly i worried that nobody was going to give me a valentine or that if they did give me one it would obviously be one of the leftovers that their mom made them give out to "be nice".

Even back then kids were told to give one to everyone in the classroom but that didn't always happen.

There were ways around that whole thing and everyone knew it. For example you get one that was meant for a boy and had something like a stupid cowboy on it or an astronaut. If another girl gives you an astronaut you know that means" you are nothing to me and my mom made me give one to everyone." Sigh... I got a lot of cowboys and astronauts.

Which was better than not getting one at all. There was one girl in my class who would always say in her little sing songy voice " oh I ran out of cards and your a V so I didn't have one for you" Liar. I happen to have had the exact same box and I know there was 36 in a box and there are only 30 in our classroom.

However, it wasn't just getting the valentines that was a problem it was the giving of them that was an issue. I would agonize over who got what card. Would they know that the card means I like you but not I LIKE you LIKE you... I was very worried that I would end up with a bunch of boys thinking I LIKED them when indeed I merely tolerated them and I most certainly did not want them thinking I wanted to be their girlfriend. In addition, I also always had one boy that I did actually LIKE LIKE and I wanted him to sort of know but not really know and all of this makes the card selection from a box of 36 cartoon characters a very difficult task.

Can't give out stupid valentines...can't give out babyish valentines...can't give out old lady valentines and you sure as shit better not hand make them! My poor mom suggested we do that one year and I threw a fit to end all fits. It screamed poor kid and besides as previously mentioned I was not exactly "crafty".

I figure that the whole grade school valentine debacle was merely designed to get you in training for the more profound disappointments in the years to come.

It was during my teen year that I really got familiar with the Valentine trap.

It was the 70's... during which I spent much of my time in jeans and talked a lot about what we called back in the day "women's lib".

I was for it and Valentines day was meant to keep women subservient to a man. Giving a woman flowers and a mushy card or a box of candy or the stuffed animal with a big old red heart was a trap..a ploy..a way of clouding our mind and eyes to the realities of inequality.

Oh I really talked the talk.

During that time I had an on and off boyfriend. This guy was not a mushy kind of guy and we talked (well I talked, he listened ) about how it was a plot by ""the establishment to keep women down.

Brother, Talk about screwing yourself!

So while I was in my room writing tortured poetry, plotting government overthrow, and listening to Bob Dylan ,my boyfriend was free to totally ignore the day. He also managed to ignore my Birthday, Christmas and any other event that meant he might have to spend some cash but that's another story.

The year I was 16... he did stick a card in the paper box in front of our house. I found it the next day.It was kind of frozen in the envelope and kind of ripped when I opened it.

It had a cupid on the front of it that and inside it said " valentine..my heart gets jumbly , my words get mumbly..when you are near. "

I was surprised...I was flattered..I was confused...most of all I was...HAPPY!

I did like all this valentine mushy stuff..sound the freakin alarms..I want candy ...I want flowers..heck I will even break out a red dress and shoes...just give me more of THAT.

I still have the card today...39 years later.

You would have thought that I had learned a lesson from this revelation/

Well you would be wrong.

For years and years as soon as all the pink and red candy heart boxes show up in the stores and the advertisements for flowers..jewelry.. and candy engulf us..I would say over and over to husband number 1 +2 how it is a manufactures event. It is designed to make companies rich and that I do not need a holiday for some man to tell me they love me.

Which it is.

Which I don't.

Which is something that many women say once they are settled with a man.

What we don't say is...that knowing all that...WE STILL WANT IT!!

Listen carefully all my new son-in-laws and my son...if you have never paid attention to a single word I have ever said listen...

To all men in general...

It is good advice so you might want to write it down..." if your wife/partner says they do not want anything for Valentines day..that they do not need it...that it is stupid...

DO NOT BELIEVE THEM.

IT IS A LIE.

IT IS A TRAP.

We all want stuff.

We want the flowers at the work...because the office is just another 3rd grade classroom on that day. Whoever has the biggest..best..most stuff on their desk...WINS.

If we are not at work we want them at home.

It means somebody...who is not a thoughtless lug...loves us.

It means their is still a little bit of romance out there.

We want the grand gesture

If you take them to dinner on "the day" its even better. Sure it will be less crowded a day or two before..or a day or two after..and probably cheaper..but it Won't be Valentines Day and by God that is the day we really want to be taken out.

Now if you are a good cook and can make a great romantic ( no kids) dinner that is our favorite

( not yours ) and clean up the mess( very important) and can make the table look pretty

( no paper plates ) then you can also cook for us at home. It is acceptable especially on a work night.

We want romance and we want pampering and ( here is the kicker) those of us who protest the most..want it the most!

Those are the women who sadly expect a man to "just know"

I am here to tell you ladies that is an extremely dangerous and self defeating game..they don't know unless we tell them..and they sure don't know if we tell them its Okay to ignore it...they believe us. Silly Silly men..they believe us.

The advertisements do us all great harm..it is a set up..I was right as a teen..but it is what it is.

Nobody ever said being in Love is easy. It takes work. It takes learning the rules..even the unspoken ones.. Actually, especially the unspoken ones.

Now, my plans for this year is to play " Love Stinks" over and over while eating the box of chocolate I bought myself and drinking my favorite wine. The rest of you get busy. Men there is still time to do it right and women there is still time to make your needs known!

Good Luck and Happy Valentines Day!

Community~

Community. When you hear that word what images come to mind? For me, I tend to think of a group of like minded people. I usually connect that with church. A while back someone pointed out to me that our community really does not have to be in any way church related... that it is a group that you have common interests and goals with.
Perhaps.. Like a book group could be a community or a writers group..they would fall into that definition.

Still...I tend to think it is more than that... which brings me back to church.

I have been involved with a couple church communities and a community of people who were following a call. There were deep and powerful bonds for me with each group.

My formation group was such a community. We were together for about 4 years. We explored our calls together..we learned together.. we worshiped together... we experienced upheaval and loss together as a group... as a community.

We had dissimilar backgrounds but we had a common goal.

My first experience with all of them was one that was memorable for me in so far as I felt so totally out of place and unconnected to the lot of them. Only one did I feel any kind of connection to and I was not sure if it was the fact that she " came to my rescue" or that I admired her no nonsense strength ..and her sense of style..loved that too. No matter, whatever it was a bond was forming and so began my entrance into this community of would be clergy.

It was a most interesting and cherished journey.

While going through that, I also was part of two really lovely church communities.

One was my home parish..Trinity Seneca Falls. They were my first true community. A group of wonderful people who literally nursed me back to health both physical and spiritual. I weighed a whopping 85 lbs when I started going there. I went because i felt called..I went because I figured i was dying and it would be nice to have a place to have a funeral..I went because I thought then and still think now It is one of the most beautiful churches you can see in this part of the world.

I went and they embraced me and they prayed for me and they watched as I got stronger and they supported my growth and they supported my call. They were my sponsoring parish and I was deeply and profoundly sad to leave them as my time came to enter into internships.

But leave them I did, never expecting that I would find another church that I would fit into as well as completely as totally... but I did.

St. Johns Marcellus was my home for a year and a half. It was there I learned that I loved to preach..I learned about all the duties of a Deacon..I learned that being "clergy" requires more than a love and faith in God. They were and are wonderful people with good hearts who despite occasional individual differences..love and work together. I was sincerely heartbroken when it was time for me to leave. To this day I profoundly miss them.

I have defined myself for the last year or better as a Homeless Episcopalian.

I have said that I am Deacon of the Church of Messy Lives. I believe both to be true.

I was not ordained because life got in the way.

It has not for one second quieted the call I hear.

The fact that I have found it impossible to be a part of any church, and especially the Episcopal Church is.. I believe.. something that i am to work through. It has brought me to my knees more times than I care to admit and yet faith and call remain stronger than ever.

I now believe that my call is to the community of Jesus and to the community of those who do not fit the prescribed molds. It is what I do everyday at work and it is my very distinct and personal call.

Eventually I will find a church community again. I have gone a couple times to St. James Skaneteles lately and I find some measure of comfort there but...

In the meantime...I pray...I read.. I write...I make food baskets.. I listen to stories... and I search for where I feel God is calling me.

Today, in the bulletin at St James, there was this quote by Alexander Graham Bell

" When one door closes another one opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully at the closed door we do not see the one that has opened for us."

Message received Lord..message received.

Amen

arggggggh!!!!

Well, 2011 is off to the races and here is the deal...in case you have not realized it there are times in our lives when we get to just sit back and look around and proclaim..life ain't fair.

What you say?? Not fair? No way??

What, pray tell, makes you say that on this lovely winter day?...well here's the thing...

I have Gout.

Okay..now I hear ya.."That's it?"

"Well Diane...That's too bad but ..really so what??"

I have weathered serious heart failure and intestinal problems that removed part of my intestines and Optic neuritis that resulted in some worsening vision and a droopy eye and spinal stenosis and arthritis and food allergies and...

So what??

Well let me tell you what...

Gout is an old persons disease.

Gout is for fat old Kings in England

Gout is for beer drinking young men

Gout is for people who eat lots of bad for you food..beef and pork and fatty stuff and fast foods.

That is not me.

And... Adding insult to injury...

the Doctor called me....a woman of " a certain age"...

and then he said.."elderly"

Are you kidding me??? I mean WTF???

I think I hate him. I might have said that to him.

I am pretty sure I told him to shut the F++k up.

Twice.

I am trying to date. Dating women are not ELDERLY.

Those broads don't date..they sit..they knit..I can't even sew a button...ask my daughter-in-law...Not even a button.

Brother.

I mean how does one present themselves to potential suitors..."Oh I would love to go out with you as long as my gout is not acting up!! "

I would not date me.

I sound OLD.

And I do not wish to date old folks so... pretty sure they do not want to date..me

Wait, lets get back to not fair...

How is it that someone who has had children that tried to smuggle hot dogs in their Jacket out of Wegman's and had children that got sweet cereal only for a special Christmas present..and was a vegetarian for 12 years and still has a really impeccable diet and truly does work out...How the heck does that person get gout??

Cause life ain't fair.

Sometimes, we do everything we are told to do and said thing still does not have the desired result.

For example...Both my parents... avid readers..crossword puzzle devotees ... didn't really drink or smoke,they ate well and got lots of exercise and yet both ended up with dementia.

Not fair.

But...

That is the way it goes...life is funny... life is precious..life is hard..life is too short..too long..life is all that and more but it really...often ...just boils down to that its just the way it is and sometimes...

It just is not fair.

Nor have we been promised fairness.

Certainly not by God..and hopefully not by parents or anyone else in influential in our lives.

We strive to do"the right thing" for the right reasons.

It is not an assurance of desired results.

The only assurance is that you get to look your self in the mirror and say.."I did the best i could"

Which is something anyway.

Right? Right??

And a deep and abiding belief in God does not preclude a feeling of injustice or just flat out crankiness...

He grants us Grace..Forgiveness and hopefully... peace of mind...even when

Marriages fail..Parents die...Bank accounts tank... Call get derailed...and Egos get bruised

But he never says it will be fair.

At least not yet...Justice will reign...but the promise is more universal than individual and that maybe is what is what helps us most...the reminder that it is not about"me"

And I do remind myself of that...

But

just for a few...I allow myself righteous indignation...

and I am pretty sure that is Okay too.