March 16, 2013

• I Want To Give You Something

  When I get call after unsolicited call offering something free, even money, to our family, then, If I can think quickly, I give my husband’s favorite answer to solicitation calls, “She died,” or, “We’re dead, and no one lives here any more,” but so often now they are Robo calls, so I just hang up, for it is a very sad truth that few people will ever want to give us anything.”  Either because we feel work is character building, which it is, or we feel as if the world is after our material wealth, which on those horrible calls — That is what they want, to get some forlorn or elder human being who does not understand the rule of life, “No one wants to give you anything;” and take them to the cleaners.  It shows our sadness that someday, we may be that elderly person from whom the children have to take our check books, because the Nigerians in Canada who are not the good people of Nigeria — These are mean and ruthless people who would take all that you own for self boasting if for no other reason. 

  If I did not know a 90 year old man to whom this happened, a gentleman who had assets here in San Francisco, then I would have thought myself that no one falls for that, but he had sent twenty thousand dollars before his son caught on and took him before a judge to get power of attorney, a subject which my husband and I chose to broach well before we are disabled, but people almost fear that it is a jinx to life if they prepare for their disability.  I understand exactly where they are coming from.

  I have been noting a lot of anger on Xanga as of late. I have been a victim of someone I will never contact again, for they were rude, hostile, and that I had ever befriended them must have been that I never looked them up first.  I will admit that I, almost always, check out a friendship request, for we are in an age and time when we do not know the person behind the plastic keys, so it is better to come in to Xanga with a full profile of yourself, and if you are evil and intent on causing harm, and that is your life’s purpose, then you can hurt people on here.  You can hurt people anywhere, but maybe this is where I begin my thoughts of what I could possibly give to each of you that may make tomorrow morning begin in a nice way.  I have been thinking about this a lot, and we all get wrapped up in our needs, in our mortal wishes, and in the desires of our hearts.  You may not understand this yet, but whether we are older or especially when we are younger, it is very hard to understand that all ages have certain needs which are spiritually embedded within us, and they need to be filled, or we speak to robots, or worse — We fein friendship.

  I so wish that I could give you all the gift of, “Care.”  It takes time, and if you asked people what they need, most often it falls in the realm of worldly goods, or we do have some few who have learned from, “The Wizard of Oz,” that there are internal gifts which are so much more important than the things of this world.  All of scripture is filled with the need to give of ourselves, so if each of us had enough care, and if we could ask people to spread around the gifts of caring, then loneliness would all but disappear.  We take so much every day without even thinking, the phone call from a joyful child, the kindness of a spouse or lover to do those things which we can no longer do for ourselves, the incidental card from an old friend or now, if we are lucky — We might receive an email which changes our day.  I read back on my friend, Melanie’s letter today, the friend who plants every inch of her front yard in the earliest blooming of all the flowers from snow drops, to crocus, tulips, daffodils, iris, and she has planted so much that in the spring time her whole front entry to the delightful old Victorian where she lives is too beautiful for words.  I may have mentioned this garden before, because I have never seen anyone who has done this, and when the blooming ends, it seems as if little grasses and a touch of ivy fill in until another year her exquisite space.  But I saved a letter to read again which she had written to me as she was receiving surgery and chemotherapy for an astrocytoma which means a star shaped tumor which was on her brain, and she had gotten through the treatment, but she cared enough to mention that her garden was fooled by some early warmth in Cincinnati, but she thought they would be spared, for snow and some cold that followed seemed to have put them back in to their dormant phase.  She has had cancer, safely removed;   “Thank you God,” but she is concerned that I get back to Ohio early enough to see the splendid garden.  I am not much of a drinker, but I will swear that if her garden is all in bloom; Then when I get in and get unjet-lagged, I am going to take a bottle of wine, and Melanie and I shall enjoy the garden and wine.  She lives across the street from where Mr. Proctor of Proctor and Gamble went to church and thought up the name for Ivory soap after a sermon which dealt with, “Ivory Towers,” and masses are still held in this little Episcopal church.

  I would do something of care for each of you, because I do not feel that people are feeling very much cared for in their lives.  With younger people and corporations, it is often, not how happy are our workers, but how can we possibly take another dollar out of their wages to make those in the upper offices happy.  In hospitals, “How can we possibly get Mrs. Smith home today, for we cannot get enough procedures done on her today to make this whole day of hospital care twenty times the room charge?”  Care has taken on a factor of cost, and believe it or not younger people, that it used to be that management other than Google and the internet companies really took care of you if you proved to be a loyal employee.  If everyone had a grievance, then a grievance was apt to get resolved, but now people have to form unions to make those things happen, and the power of most unions has been shot in both legs, so even the unions are broken.  I would care for you someway and somehow if you were in need, for a person in need is not a happy person.  I believe that we do show concern for our brothers and sisters who are hungry and unclothed, for I have endeavored to explain to people who complain that cities do not do enough for their homeless when places like San Francisco try so hard to find homeless food and shelter.  Most chronic homeless people could only be kept in lock up mental hospitals, for mental illness is a primary cause of homelessness, and paranoia and a fairly decent climate will see them living out doors.  They are terrified to come inside.

  I would do something about all of the anger and bitterness which seems to flow as if bitter herbs were the first meal of the day.  I would endeavor to sooth the angry spirits, and maybe I am giving too much credit here, for there are people who are just mean, and that is the way they are, and nothing is going to change their miserable persona.  We are beyond helping them.  Along with those are the evil ones who hide like jackals ready to pounce always willing to sacrifice another at any cost, for there is evil in this world, and we are warned of evil — The power, the cunning, and we turn our televisions on to it every day.  Today in the Bay Area, it was learned a missing girl had made her last call from The Golden Gate Bridge, a favorite spot for jumpers who desire death, for over the years since its building, I believe one person has survived, and it is a horrible death, for the fall is so fast and the water so deep that the bodies react as if they had hit cement, not a nice picture.  What can be said to sooth anger, for we all experience it, but when it eats people, destroys the lives of families, offends or destroys, then anger is not a very useful tool.  I have certain bottles of anger which I cannot fix or throw away, for some anger is justified, especially if it began in the absence of care by those who inflicted it.  It is the every day anger that raises our blood pressures, that makes us dread the hours, that filters in to every aspect of our lives, then we are overwhelmed with this force, and I wish that there was a way to silence angry voices, anger which is inflicted on women and children, anger toward the elder man who cannot walk fast enough in the crosswalk.  I believe that there are ways of letting that anger just flow away, and to encourage meditation, to encourage an action event such as to confront the person who is inflicting what is bottled up within them, then perhaps we could help an angry person to just walk away and to be free of it.  Anger, being the opposite of love, re-enforces that it carries some evil turf with the emotion.  I cannot take it from you, for every person has their rational as to why this emotion is allowed, but the little stuff of every day; You have the power to lose that.  Save your anger for the hurts which are more malicious and where the opposite of care has been shown to you.  Let it be known, and as best you can, then let that person and that hurt go,  My sister feels that those who have wronged others significantly invariably wind up, “Getting their dues,” a somewhat southern fatalism as she and I were raised in, but as the years go by, I have seen my sister’s words come true.  Is it satisfying to see those who have harmed you in some way hurt?  To my sister, it is just amazing that people do tend to, “Reap what they sow.”   She has been right more than she has been wrong, so the long term things are harder, but I ask you to free yourself of the small things, for the elder man will cross the street many days, and you may as well sit and wait, sing your favorite tune, or if all else fails; Know that is you walking in front of your car, and if you live long enough — It will be, this I promise.

   

  Hope, wonderful hope, I would give you hope.  Hopelessness and despair are terrible bed mates, and they are so terribly needy that it might be hard to have any hope, but until you draw your dying breath, then there is the gift of hope.  I want you to have hope, for it will greet you each day with the news that you are alive, and in this day there is a ray of hope.  Tell that to the parents of Sandy Hook right now, and I think they would almost tremble.  Hope is more easily had if one is on a spiritual journey as such life does not end but begins when we have lived out our natural course of life.  How do I possibly give anyone hope?  How does anyone?  The more atrocities which I hear about, then the less I understand of, “Hope.”  It seems to have to begin with just helping each other through the next hour after Columbine types of incidents, or death in useless war which we continue to wage, and so we begin with a seed, and that is all we have.  I believe the parable of, “The Mustard Seed,” is our lesson on hope, that when darkness falls so deeply we cannot take the next step, then I would like to beg you to first, just rest, and then rise from your bed, and if that is as far as the pain will let you go, then you lie back down, but I think we, all of us out here, we are your hope, and you are hours.  The next day, I want you to rise up and to take a step, but I want a hand reaching for you, and when I think of the parents who lost their children in such horrible ways as holocaust or famine, or murder, I simply pray that someone else with more strength is going to be that hand, and the hands will begin coming from all over, and one step will lead you to the next place one must go, but hope is the narcotic for those who feel hopeless, and we, most of us, have felt hopeless at one point or the other in our lives.  Losing small children has to be the worst of all, and I can only say that were I reaching for a parent and endeavoring to help them make that next step, I believe that I might get around to this statement when they can finally open the door to the outside again — ‘What would your child want you to do the very first thing every day,” and most of us know the answer, “Mama,” “Daddy,” lets go out and play, and if the child is silenced by the evil of death, I would want that parent to know that a child did not want grief every day.  My children wanted to play, and no matter how old they were when you lost them, then I would ask you to begin what they would ask of you.  “Please go out and play.”  Those are words which might sound callous to some, but if I could go back and be with my now grown children, I would do just that, get out with them more.

  Hope takes persuasion, and it takes time, so much time.  I want to give to you my gift of having hope in remembering the parable of the sower and remembering that in your life, you will experience pain, hopefully not the pain some of us have known, and, Please, to all who have lost children — Those who have lost with you are the first with outstretched hands.  Another child cannot take the place of the one you lost, but if you are young enough to endeavor, a healthy baby will bring new hope in to your life.  For those who lost the only child they ever had, then perhaps, to work with teens who think they have been through it all, then they may understand through you that money and fame are useless if we believe we have lost all hope.  The prayers of a nation scatter like good seed, and any idiot who would tell you that it is time you put your grief away probably is living a foolish life, for the only people entitled to ask that of you are the children who are yours and who are living.  I feel longingly as if I would like to offer hope, regardless of what sadness  is in your life right now.  The loss of a person in death requires mourning, so to all who mourn I ask you to visualize an out stretched hand, and I believe that child’s spirit will remain with you, but the child would want to dry your tears.  The periods of mourning end, though tears will come now and again.  Just think of a hand who will help you during these times.  A portion of old scripture called God’s telephone by some reads thus, “Call on me and I will answer, and I will tell you things you may not know.”  For some that is help, but we earthlings are not that powerful, but we can lead, talk, help with chores, and we may not know it, but we are creating a quilt pattern, and it is called, “Hope.”

  I would like to give people love, and, “No,” I am not offering romantic love.  I would like to give you love as in where to look for love and to see it in action.  Love is an exquisite word which in English can be a noun, a verb, a command, an adjective, a direct object.  There are virtually no ways to not share love and its meaning.  This is a love letter, for I am talking, just talking about something which I would like to give you.  I believe that love surrounds us in the beauty of the ordinary day.  I used to only see clouds which were gray, and then one day I became aware that they were many colors of silver, pure silver, so the days of gray no longer start my day off wrong.  I see love in action, and my life’s goal is to get well enough to do more service whether it is making a family food when they are in loss, but love will not fail you if it is based in truth.  Romance fails all of the times, and two romantics marrying is a dangerous situation, for the old atage is, “We need a gardener somewhere.”  Love is the easiest to talk about, for there is love of friends, love of home, love of the people who are out there doing the work for the poor which I cannot do now.  I believe that when we are feeling lack of love, then we need to go and watch people, for you are going to see many annoyances, but you have gone to find love.  You will see it in the people who give a smile to ones just passing by, in the child who starts to cradle the hand it holds, and sometimes in the romanticism of an elderly couple still holding hands.  The flowers you enjoy as you take a walk were not planted by someone hating the moment, for they were planted as beauty by someone who knows that you or other strangers are walking by and admiring the beauty.  Every person who works in homeless shelters, the people who deliver meals on wheels;  These are acts of love.  We witness love in times of crisis, for people come together.  We offer love when we stop and talk to a friend who just comes to our minds.  We prepare simple gifts, remember a special occasion, or we decide to give someone a hug, because we have not seen them in a while, and we need to share the blessing of one’s presence.  I am all in favor of romantic love, but love in action never fails.  It is there for you and it is there for me if our eyes are wide open.

  In a beautiful concert, we love the musicians who are playing for us, or in a play — The actors give to us their very best.  I love the people of many nations from Sweden to South America, and places in between, that people come to my blog site is remarkable love.  I think of what love could do among the nations on earth as the healing balm instead of the cold forbidden bombs.  I honestly wondered what would have if three thousand or so people gathered on the line of North Korea with bags of rice and food and begged the young beloved dictator to just let them leave the food, then would he begin to think more of nations of the world?  We have dealt in war and scorn for the ages of man even after we were told that love over all things abides.  I wish that I could bring love to each of you this day, but you may be better than me at finding it.  I have admitted before that I am flawed in many ways, but when I love, I give it my very best.  I am broken from having been a nurse, for I loved  those patients, and my back aches now to the point of being disabled, but I can remember it happened, because it felt wonderful to be surrounded by love.  This day, and this hour I wish you love.  I wish you all the roses which will bloom this summer from across this beautiful country, and I wish gifts like Melanie’s garden, and  we, together, may bond in hope and love even if we never meet in this life.  We shall, for love can bind us and when love is tested, or when romantic love is broken, or when we are broken for it feels as if someone has not loved us enough; then walk out and seek the shelter of human kindness which will find you if and when you are seeking love.

  These are what I have for you this day, and I cannot tie them up in a beautiful package, but I send them forth, and I bind them with the love and the trust of a child.  May the new day bring unto you a harvest of peace and joy.

  Barbara Everett Heintz

  Author of, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” – The Book, Amazon, Kindle, Create Space, Awards in San Francisco and a First in Hollywood for Most Adaptable to other Media such as film, a movie or documentary.  One woman’s life through the Appalachian Diaspora from traumatic childhood on to the adult during The Civil Rights era.

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