Help, I’m binge watching Pretty Little Liars. Is there a twelve step program? In case you’ve been wondering why I am not posting more blogs, and yes, some of you sweet people have actually missed them, I have been busy watching 103 episodes of this tween trash. Save me from myself.
Epilogue. I am now all caught up. Going through withdrawals.
Americans are philanthropic. We’re blessed to live in the best country in the world and we give back. Houstonians even more so. I make a lot of negative comments about Houston. Sure, it’s ugly and hot, but it is a kick ass place to earn a living. The American Dream is alive and well here and we know it. So, Houstonians give back, and boy do we. We throw charity events, we hold auctions, we sit on boards, we give til it hurts. We do remarkable things.
But sometimes it’s just not enough. We can’t fix all the world’s woes. But God, how we try. I just found out our latest little HeartGift patient did not survive. HeartGift was founded in Austin. It has operations in six cities. We have done over 190 successful life saving open heart surgeries. We have a lot to be proud of. These little human beings are our legacies. They will go back to their communities and live until adulthood and hopefully they will share their stories. Stories of how complete strangers paid for them to travel thousands of miles to this new world. How caring communities took them in. Gave them food when they were hungry, clothed them when they were naked. How these strangers arranged and paid for surgeries that are not even pipe dreams in their native countries.
Despite all of our best efforts and the finest medical care in the world, we lost Dave this week. HeartGift is not a Christian based organization, but I can guarantee that we are down on our knees praying to God for comfort. I can also tell you something else. Dave’s mother, Mary Grace, is a hero. So are all the mothers. She took a chance. She gave her little boy’s life over to strangers in an effort to save him. She did all she could.
The last of them just left. The house is suddenly quiet except for the hum of the dryer, full of six sets of towels and sheets. Rick’s and my home has never had the energy, the hustle bustle, the chaos that comes from having a large family. Once upon a time we had a dog and two cats. That was about as crazy as we get. So, having a house full of women was different. But it was different in a good way.
We met in 1980 in Austin, Texas. We each showed up to the UT Graduate School of Business with our own personal trail to blaze. Now, 34 years later, we live to tell about it.
We trade stories of school. Laugh about the boys we kissed. Reminisce about professors, cost accounting, float trips down the Guadalupe, friends who flunked out, margaritas at Jorge’s, cuba libres at the Chili Parlor.
We’re older now. Our hair has grayed. Our faces show the years. We all have a few extra pounds, well all of us except for Gina. We hate her. We also did what we set out to do. We became commercial bankers, we sold real estate, we appraised real estate, we’ve been fund raisers and managers and developers and entrepreneurs. Liz went back to medical school. We hate her too.
It’s bitter sweet sitting here at my kitchen table. I miss them already, yet I welcome the quiet. I ache with nostalgia. I feel empty. I think back over the lives we’ve lived with pride. We did the career thing. We made our mark on the world. We juggled work and family. Now, on this side of it all, we have a different perspective. Most of us have lost our parents. Our children are grown, or nearly grown. We are retiring or thinking about it. We realize that life ebbs and flows. That people drift in and out. That sometimes our marriages are hard. Sometimes jobs are just that – jobs. We no longer take our health for granted.
I don’t want to be the kind of person who lives in the past. I want to savor every moment of the here and now. But those two years in Austin were transformational. They were fun and challenging and crazy and wonderful. I want to hold on to those memories. Hold on to the people I made those memories with. But how? We get on planes and we go back to reality. Life goes on. But friends are forever.
Sometimes I’m reminded that Rick and I are not in fact one person. Our backgrounds are so freakishly similar that it is easy to get lulled into the belief that we share our collective memories and experiences.
Two things to keep in mind. As you know, when I listen to a song, I listen to the component parts as well as the whole. You can read, “Life Deconstructed” to know more about this. Second thing, I just had a ten hour video marathon on our flight back from London.
I highly recommend the movie, “Twenty Steps from Stardom”. I don’t like the way it was edited and the sound quality of my experience with cheap ear buds, an ipad and airplane noise was detracting. But, it struck a chord with me. I can identify with the people who make the front man look good. The people who sing in the dark while the star struts his stuff. The people who get paid minimum wage to sing the background vocals that live on in history,who produce riffs that are sometimes more famous than the melodies they enhance.
There was one particular episode in the movie that gave me chills. Merry Clayton reminisced about the night she was awoken to come to the studio where this young British group was cutting a record. They were at an impasse and needed a female vocal. And the rest, as they say, is history. She described arriving by limo in her hair curlers and bathrobe and laying down one of the most famous vocals in rock and roll. The screen panned between shots of her and of Mick Jagger, the years chiseled on both their faces, listening to her isolated vocal track that was recorded so long ago.
I shivered and couldn’t help but share the moment with Rick. I re winded the movie and plugged in his ear buds. As he listened with a blank face, I thought maybe I had gotten to the wrong spot in the movie. He nonchalantly handed me back the ipad and said, “I’ve never heard that song before.”
We’ve been married twenty nine years and I thought I knew the man.
(If you are viewing this on a mobile device, you won’t be able to see the youtube video. It is worth going to a PC to have a look)
One of the consequences of having congestive heart failure has been going up three dress sizes. Or maybe it’s the stress eating. Whatever.
Anyway, I have had to go through my closet with each size change and clean out what doesn’t fit. A virtual field day for my tiny housekeeper who is usually the recipient of my hand me downs.
But I had a beautiful red dress that I bought for a wedding. I don’t think I ever wore it. I wanted to find it a good home and I thought of Kristy from the gym. I always joke that she has my “after” body.
I took it to the gym and left it hanging in the bathroom for her. Michelle, another petite patron, saw it first and tried it on. Cherrise, our trainer, took a picture of Michelle in my red dress and sent it to Kristy, telling her she better get her little behind to the gym to take possession. Before she got there, a couple of other size fours got in on the action. They then started texting selfies to Cherrise of themselves in red dresses. Thus began the red dress wars at the Toning Zone.
All of this happened without my knowledge. When I got to the gym this morning (yes, I’m still dragging my sorry ass to the gym), Karen said, oh, you’re the one who started the red dress thing. I didn’t realize I had started a thing. All I did was bring a dress to the gym that was three sizes too small. And then those skinny bitches started fighting over it. Maybe they need to eat something. 😉
I’ve thought about renaming my blog. I chose “When Does the Healing Begin?” when I thought I had a reversible type of Cardiomyopathy. If the cells in my heart are morphing into unproductive cells, when do they actually stop that process and start remodeling into muscle tissue that actually works. It was that tipping point that so fascinated me.
But, my heart is not going to heal. So, I thought about changing the name of the blog. I still might, but I’m pondering and will continue to ponder the concept of healing. What it means and what it doesn’t mean.
Diane Wells, who has taught Community Bible Study in Houston for years , once said that God cares a lot more about our holiness than he does our health. Sounds harsh? Not really. We are eternal creatures and this time on earth is but a blink of an eye. I believe that with every fiber of my being. If I didn’t, then I would not get out of bed in the mornings.
What I have always struggled with is how to fill the time God has given me here on earth until I get to see Him face to face. When June Carter Cash was asked how she was doing, she always answered in the same way, “I’m just trying to matter.” I think that just about sums up what everyone is trying to do. Everyone whose basic needs for safety and comfort are being met, that is.
So, I better get a move on. I have a legacy to build.
Yesterday on our way to Wimberley we made a surprise visit to our friend Laura. She had posted some photos of her vegetable garden on her blog and I wanted to see it. She and her seven year old son were out in the yard playing so she hadn’t heard our phone call announcing our visit. I’m so glad she didn’t because what we saw wasn’t the company’s coming version of her house. It was the real version of her house. A house of love. Every where you looked love spilled out. Love of extended family, love of tradition, love of architecture and authenticity, love of the earth and most of all love of this precious little boy.
It’s Lent and everybody’s slightly pissed off. They are counting the days until Easter, not to celebrate the glorious resurrection of our Lord and Saviour. No, they are counting down the days until they can have a drink, a cigarette or a piece of chocolate.
Welcome to my world. I prayed for years, no for decades, that God would take away my craving for alcohol. When I started Weight Watchers and my alcohol points outnumbered my food intake, I had to face the music. I pulled the band aid off all at once and boy did it hurt. It still does. So, I’m a little bit pissed off all the time. That is, until I listen to a beautiful song, eat anything chocolate, feel the warm sun on my face, wake up without a headache, sip my morning coffee, and wait for pot to be legal in Texas ;).
Don’t you just love icebreakers, table topics. I was at a Lenten Bible Study last week and the pastor asked our table to introduce ourselves by saying which leading character from a movie we would like to be. Most of the people said heroic, Christian type characters like Corrie Ten Boon or that runner from Chariots of Fire. Exemplary figures whose self sacrificing courage made the world a better place. Rick said Hawkeye from Last of the Mohicans. I could have told you that. He has seen that movie dozens of times.
Just Passing Through 