On My Heart

My current desktop is a sunrise picture I took just this morning.

Today, before I get into the main theme of this letter blog, I’d like to cross a couple of items off of my note list — even though they’ve been living comfortably there for two weeks now.
Our shopping trips are pretty much all day events. When we go to Lowe’s and Aldi’s and Walmart it’s a minimum of six hours that we are gone. We normally pick a place and have lunch. On this particular day we chose McDonald's. We’d gotten our food and were sitting there eating when Mike asks, “Is that what we’re going to look like?”
I looked up at him, “What?”
He subtlety jerked his head sideways. Across the aisle was a gray-haired, bespectacled, older couple. They sat across from each other, on the inside two seats; the seats closest to the wall. She reached across the table and lovingly wiped a bit of ketchup from his chin with her napkin. “I hope so,” I said.
“I wonder how old they are,” Mike mused.
I looked at them again. “I don’t know.” As we ate, sitting on the outside of our booth seat, I noticed another older couple, sitting a few tables away. They were sitting on the inside two chairs too. I wondered why.
I know, right! I wonder about the weirdest things!
Is it manners? Did someone teach them to do that? My thoughts chased each other around in my head. Well, it certainly makes it convenient for someone else to join them. 
“I’m going to the restroom,” I heard the old man say. I watched as he wiped his mouth and dropped his napkin on the table. He turned sideways in his chair and with one hand on the back and one on the table, he pushed himself up. He used the back of the other chair to hold onto as he turned, hooked his foot in the chair leg and pulled it close. He took hold of the back and straightened his chair in place under the table. He smoothed his jacket down, picked up his cane and tottered his way past us.
She sat there a little longer then got up, pushed her chair in and started to clear their table. She wadded up sandwich wrappers and tucked them into a french fry box. The napkins followed, then she gathered their drink cups and carried everything past me — to the trash can, I assumed.
Mike and I were about done too. “I’m gonna pee before we leave,” Mike said.
“Me too.” When you hit a certain age, you don’t pass up a chance to use the restroom, you know what I mean?
“You go first,” Mike said. “I’m gonna finish my water.”
“Okay,” I said, wadding up my own sandwich wrapper and dropping it onto our tray.
“Ask her how old she is,” Mike said.
I looked at him. He did that thing with his head again and I looked in the direction he indicated. The old lady was leaning against the trash can, waiting for her husband. “No,” I said bluntly and got up. Then something came over me. In the few steps between the time I said no and reaching where she was waiting, something came over me and said, Why not?
You have to understand something about me though. You have to understand that I believe you can ask anybody anything. It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.
I reached out and gently touched the back of her arm as I came up behind her. “Hello pretty lady,” I said in my cheery, sing-song voice.
She smiled at me, a sparkle in her eye. “Hello.”
“My husband and I were sitting there and saw you and your husband. He asked me if that’s what we were going to look like and I said, ‘I hope so because that is a mighty handsome looking couple.’” I know, I embellished my story a little there. Don’t rat me out, okay?
She tittered. “Thank you!”
“May I ask how old you two are? My husband was wondering.” I wasn’t taking the blame for that one.
“How old do I look?” she asked and smiled.
I considered for a second. What would be a safe answer? “Seventy?” I queried.
“Eighty-three,” she proudly stated. “And eighty-four.”
We chit-chatted for a minute or two longer and I bid her good-day. As I turned to go I see her husband coming back. I smiled and nodded hello to him.
Asking someone their age can be a tricky business.

>>>>><<<<<

Our quill pig came back.

I was outside with Itsy and Ginger. The kittens came out of the garage to see us like they normally do when the weather isn’t nasty. I walked the girls across the yard to do their business when Ginger alerted on the weeds at the edge of the yard. She heard something. Then I heard it too. Something was there, but I didn’t know what. I kept a tight rein on the girls and went to investigate. There he was! In the weeds munching away at some tidbit he’d found. Not bothered by us at all. Ginger strained at the leash, her nose in the air. All of a sudden she took off for the house. She must have picked up his scent and she didn’t want anything to do with him. The kittens heard it too and came to investigate. I watched as they crept close.
When Ginger couldn’t get into the house, when she couldn’t go any farther than the end of her leash, she came back to me and cowered at my feet.
The older three kittens surrounded the quill pig. Little Miss Cleo hung back.
Ginger ran for the house again.
I was afraid for the kittens and had visions of plucking quills out of them, but they stopped a good three feet away. The porcupine wasn’t bothered by any of us. He just took a few more steps, plucked another green shoot, held it between his paws and sat there nibbling away at it.
Ginger came back to me and jumped up on my leg. I looked down at her then turned my attention back to the action. Ginger wasn’t having any of that and started scratching my leg. “Poor baby,” I cooed and reached down and picked her up. She shivered in my arms. Maybe if I go in the kittens will follow, I thought and headed for the house. Before I got to the door the kittens raced past me. I breathed a sigh of relief.

<<<<<>>>>>

You know something?
It has been in my mind and on my heart to tell you something. Something that, although it isn’t really bad, it isn’t good either.
I like to drink a little wine now and again, that’s no secret.
And Mike is a staunch advocate for teetotaling, and that’s no secret either.
We have seemed to work it out over the past two years or so. Even though Mike doesn’t really like it, he doesn’t object if I have a glass or two during the week as long as I don’t get too silly - or too lovey, if you know what I mean.
Well, once in a while it gets away from me. Not very often — mind you, but in Mike’s eyes, even once is too often. Be that as it may, here a month or two ago, it got away from me.
I got drunk.
Really drunk.
We were playing cards at the neighbors and after the first economy size bottle of wine was gone, we cracked open and finished a second bottle—between three people.
We were playing cards, laughing and having a good time and I didn’t stop after my second glass, like I know I should have.
Like I said, once in a while it gets away from me. But to be fair, it’s a personality trait of mine. I have the same issue with certain foods, and yeah, none of them is a vegetable.
At the end of the evening, I stumbled out of the neighbors' house…
“You almost fell down my steps,” Steph told me a few days later.
…climbed in the golf cart and rode the short distance home to the clamoring noise of my husband’s stony silence.
I managed to get myself into the house and then to my humiliation, great shame, and utter disgrace, I fell down.
—Alcohol continues to be absorbed into your system long after you stop drinking it, did you know that?—
By this time I was in such bad shape I had to crawl to the bathroom where I retched my guts out.
I was sick.
Really sick.
After a while, I was feeling a little better but as I headed for bed, a new wave of nausea hits me. I turn around and crawl back to the toilet.
When the sickness passed, I decided I’d be better off, right there, within easy reach of the porcelain throne, and I laid down on the cold bathroom floor.
I heard Mike coming down the hallway. I heard him step into the bathroom. “Peg,” he demands.
I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to answer. No way was there anything good going to come after the way he said my name.
“Peg,” he demands again.
I didn’t stir.
He stood there a minute longer, then left.
Between bouts of retching, I’d lay back down on the bathmat, resting my head on the linoleum; the coolness felt good against my hot face.
Yeah, not a pretty sight, I know.
As I lay there, feeling utterly miserable and disgusted with myself, I thought of Sandra Bullock laying on the bathroom floor after drinking too much in the movie Hope Floats. In my mind’s eye, I see her mother coming in and finding her; lovingly putting a towel under her head and sitting with her, stroking her hair. And I resented that no one would do that for me. I guess I get what I deserve, I thought.
Eventually, I kicked my shoes off.
 Eventually, I stipped down to my skivvies.
Eventually, I climbed my way up the wall and turned the light off.
Eventually, I slept.
I don’t know what time it was when I woke up and made my way to the bed but the house was quiet.
The next time I woke up, it was morning and light outside. I checked the time. Eight o’clock. I’d better get up, I thought. I didn’t feel too bad. I pushed the covers back — where was my underwear? — oh, yeah, now I remember. I heaved so hard, I leaked. I sat up. Swinging my feet to the floor they landed on something wet. I looked down. There they are.
Yeah.
I didn’t feel too bad when I was laying down, now that I was sitting up I didn’t feel so well. I stood and stretched, I can do this.
I found a tee shirt and some pajama bottoms and fumbled my way into them. Head full of nails, eyes full of glass shards, stomach full of knots, I made my way to the kitchen. Mike was rinsing a bowl at the sink; his back to me.
“Good morning babe,” I sing-song happier than I felt. You know what they say — fake it until you can make it.
“This isn’t going to work for me,” Mike said.
I turned on my heel and went back to bed.
I stayed there until the next day, sleeping mostly, interspersed with trips to the bathroom — I’ll spare you the grittier details—but thinking too.
I was so sick!
Being that sick was no fun at all and to think that I did it to myself too! Sure, it doesn’t happen very often, but I don’t want it to ever happen again! And since it gets away from me once every two or three years or so, the only way to be sure it won’t ever get away from me again is to not drink anymore.
Then and there I decided that I’m not going to drink again.
But even more than that, a bigger motivator than that, even more of a motivator than being really sick was what it does to our Lord God. All sin displeases our Father — separates us from Him. Being drunk is a sin.
The apostle Paul tells us in Galatians 5:19-21 “Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”
And — there’s even more.
We are told to be ready —always— for the coming of our Lord. Matthew and Luke both tell us that we know neither the day nor the hour that Jesus will come and He will come like a thief in the night when you least expect it.
Being drunk and being hung-over, I certainly wasn’t ready. And I was thankful that Jesus hadn’t come back that night.
When you become a Christian, a follower of Jesus Christ, you don’t want to sin anymore. You do whatever it takes to not commit that sin again. For me, that means no more alcohol.
Sunday morning I was much better. I got up and made my way to the kitchen. Mike was sitting on the couch, sullen. I made a cup of coffee and sat at the table. “I’m not going to drink anymore,” I declared.
“How can I be sure?” he asked.
“I guess you’ll have to hang around and find out.” I had no way to give him a guarantee, no way to prove it, except one day at a time.
“That’s all well and good,” you say. “That’s fine. But why are you telling us this now?” you wonder.
I had an epiphany the other day and I want to tell you about it.
I’m happy.
Really, truly, deeply happy.
I spend less and less time visiting the past; the twin worlds of guilt and regret. It’s easier even, to not go there when I’m sober. To turn my mind away and focus on the promises of God. And this is one thing I know for sure: when we are genuinely, sincerely repentant and ask God to forgive us, God forgives us. Completely. Our sins are “blotted out”. Erased. Permanently. He doesn’t bring up our sins to accuse or punish us again and again. He remembers them no more. He removes our sins from us as far as the east is from the west. He tosses them into a bottomless lake and NO FISHING ALLOWED!
Remembering our past sins, the sins we have been forgiven for, dwelling on past hurts and sorrows, knocking on the doors of Should’ve, Would’ve, and Could’ve is Satin’s way of separating us from God.
Chip Ingram, founder and teaching pastor of Living on the Edge, an international discipleship ministry, and the senior pastor of Venture Christian Church in Los Gatos, California, puts it this way: “‘I know God has forgiven me, but I just can’t forgive myself!’ Have you ever said that?” Chip asks in a recent sermon I heard. He goes on to recount a conversation he had with a friend many years ago.
‘You can’t forgive yourself? How arrogant of you! God took the guilt of your sin, taken it off of you, allowed Jesus to hang on the cross, who was perfect —fully God, fully man— and He placed it all on Him for the purchase price and the payment, and God has declared you innocent and declared that Christ’s payment of His pure blood pays for it, and you’re going to say to God, ‘That’s not quite good enough?’
‘I never thought of it that way before.’” Chip paused for dramatic effect. “Accept God’s forgiveness and cleansing,” he concludes.
Good advice for all of us, don’t you think?
I think that sometimes we use alcohol and drugs to self-medicate. To make us feel better. Forget the past. But does it really work?
“I’m not going to drink whiskey anymore,” a beautiful lady once told me as we sat sipping on whiskey and coke. “Whiskey makes me cry.”
And she was right. It did make her cry as she started re-living the past and things that can’t be changed; rattling chains and skeletons and knocking on the doors of Should’ve, Would’ve, and Could’ve; stepping in and picking at every scab until it ran bloody tears.
I don’t know if she stopped drinking whiskey or not, but I do know she continues to drink. Heavily.
Although I haven’t drank a lot of alcohol in the past twenty-one years and only been as drunk as I was that night a very few times, I’m here to tell you that life is better without it.
Do you remember Miss Helen? She was one of the people I took care of when I worked in the home health care field. Even when I quit the job, I continued to help her when she needed it and to this day we are friends.
I call her often.
Miss Helen has been a spiritual mentor to me, helping me with questions about God and searching the Holy Scriptures whenever I posed a question that stumped her. Miss Helen and I have a connection that baffles, considering there are almost four decades separating us. She could always read me like a book. Even when I thought I was doing a good job of ‘acting like myself’, she always knew when something was wrong. She never pried too much though and was always there when I was ready to talk. Her friendship is invaluable to me.
“I got your letter today,” Miss Helen said on Friday when I called her. “I really enjoyed it. Your letters are so good.”
“Oh yeah? In what way?”
“You sound happier in your letters. You’ve been happier for the past few months or so.”
She is so perceptive and I was amazed. Astounded even. When I pressed her (just a little) she couldn’t pinpoint it; she could read between the lines or she just knew. I started running last week’s letter through my mind trying to figure out what I’d written to tip my hand, but gave up after a nanosecond. Instead, I laughed a little. “I thought you were going to say that my writing’s getting better,” and our conversation went on from there.
Miss Helen could have brought this up before, but she didn’t. She didn’t know that my happiness is what I’m writing about this week. I didn’t even know until Wednesday — even though it had been rattling around in my head for a week or so now!
This little bit of a woman is Miss Helen. The picture of her was taken at her daughter Marsha’s house just this past Christmas time. Don’t ya just love her elf sweater?

Miss Helen will be 96 in a couple of months (I don’t think she will mind me telling you that) and she is still sharp as a tack.
Speaking of last weeks letter, I have an update for you.
I asked Rosie and Lamar Kipp about the mural wall in Towanda when they stopped on their walk last Monday.
“Well, Peg! That’s a fine time to ask about it!” you say.
Yeah, I know. I probably should’ve asked them before I wrote about it, in fact, I almost did. I almost called them. Almost.
“What’s the deal with the mural wall in Towanda?” I asked knowing they hadn’t yet read my letter blog.
“It was painted by a local mural artist,” Rosie told me. “It’s theme is Steven Foster songs.”
“How long has it been there?”
“About five years, I think,” Rosie said and looked to Lamar for confirmation. He just shrugged.
“What was it before that?” I asked.
“I don’t remember.”
Then I got an email. My cute little redheaded sister took a keen interest in the murals and tried to figure out what they were to represent.
“I saw Hugo, the movie, last night. It may be my imagination, but the way the woman reclines looks like Phoebe, (a character, the director’s wife) in the movie. I’m not sure if this was a scene in the real movie, Trip To The Moon directed by the great Georges Melies (based on a novel). Thumbelina was first published in 1835 and written by Hans Christian Anderson…and if the other is Daniel Boone (renowned through early literature), I would venture to guess the others are also literary greats. I suspect there is enough in each painting to identify them — if you know the subject. Very cool.”

By this time I knew it was themed Steven Foster songs, but I didn’t tell her because I didn’t want to ruin this week’s letter blog for her. Then an hour or so later I got another email from her.
“Ok. So I just watched, Trip To The Moon, (a silent movie, I suggest the color version). There is a woman on a crescent moon, but not the right pose. I doubt that this is the intended literature.”
At this point, I decided to dispel her theory. “I asked the Kipp’s about it and they said the mural is supposed to be all Stephen Foster songs. The girl might be Jeanie With The Light Brown Hair. I love that this has caused you to think.”
I must have caught Diane right at her computer because she emailed me right back.
“That explains O Susanna!”
It had been a long time since I’d even thought about the song, let alone the lyrics. “What’s that?” I asked.
“♪Oh Susanna, don’t you cry for me ♫ I come from Alabama ♪ With my banjo on my knee ♫. We should name them all,” Diane wrote to me.

I sent her a link to the lyrics of Stephen Foster songs. “Knock yourself out,” I told her. He wrote 286 songs. I scrolled through them for a while and now I don’t know if it’s Jeanie With The Light Brown Hair, or Beautiful Dreamer or maybe it’s Sweetly She Sleeps, My Alice Fair. 
And the fairy? There are at least two songs with the word fairy in the title.

And I gave up.
Let’s call this one done.
And don’t forget, you are all in my heart.