I read that your father passed to his next chapter. I had a tough conversation with my mother about two weeks before she died. I didn’t know she was going to die. She didn’t know I was having a tough conversation with her. You see this 1945 Phi Beta Kappa graduate from Duke University had been rendered speechless and immobile by that devil Alzheimer’s. But I sat at her feet on the floor with my head in her lap as she was strapped into her wheelchair. She stroked my hair and I poured out my heart. I forgave her and myself, kissed her head, and left. This was 14 years ago but I still am thankful for that precious time.
They says time heals. I think it’s a lot more than time.
Hug yourself and those you love. Snuggle the animals. And breathe.
Thank you, so much, for sharing this with me. It's such a sacred time when they're making a transition, whether we know it is the transition or not. I kept feeling my urgency try to rush my father along, and the old wisdom buried in my bones urging me to let that feeling fade away. It will take me a long time to work out the things I experienced in the week before his passing, but I'm so thankful for you and all of us in my community who are present and experiencing the hard and the good. I'm going to snuggle some animals. Thank you! I'm sending you so much love.
I used to tell my education students that doctors get to practice but teachers are supposed to get it right the first time. Using this definition “In the Old French, practiser meant to perform or carry out, to act upon, to apply knowledge.” I realize we all practice. If I could go back I’d also tell them ‘don’t stop trying’. This holiday season I’m a bit bogged down but I’ll keep practicing showing up for my loved ones and myself.
We all do practice as we go about life, don't we? I am so deeply thankful for you showing up here with me. I hope you have the most peaceful holiday week.
Wow...I'm glad Christopher had that talk with your neighbor and it worked out well. Here in my home, french doors look out at my fenced yard and a wooded area behind. I heard gunshots one night and had no idea where or what or why. I closed my lights so I wouldn't be seen or a target. Not long after I went into a restaurant nearby and the young waiter somehow got into a conversation about the area. I mentioned the shots and he said, oh, that's my Dad. It turned out he lived on a house I use to admire coming up the road toward my development. And his Dad teaches target practice. They may have moved because I don't hear them regularly anymore. And one night a neighbor of mine (now deceased) took a gun out to kill the coyotes in their den. But in a while, others used the creek to navigate their way to our woods again and no one seems to care enough to go out and shoot them. I will say, I don't mind the howling at sirens when they visit those woods, but one night I heard the primal sound of a kill and that stopped me in my tracks and had my hair standing on end. I'm also in need of a new fence but not able to do that right now...a neighbor not on the wooded side asked why I felt I needed a fence. hahaha. Not really keen on the idea of coyotes looking in my windows.
It's wild that coyotes have only migrated into our area in my lifetime. One of my professors from Wofford wrote a book about how the coyotes made it to upstate SC. I remember my first job at a horse farm where they told me where the shotgun rested and to use it if coyotes came into the barn. Now we have them in our basic neighborhoods. After that neighbor spent time trying and failing to eradicate what he deemed a threat (I had lived and worked beside the packs for two decades when he moved in) -- I learned that if you remove a member of the pack, the females immediately go into heat to produce more. And if you wipe out the entire pack, another pack will come into the territory to take their place and they will potentially have less knowledge of how to live and work beside humans and other animals. It's a conundrum. But the coyotes have never threatened my large animals. And the barn cats seem to have worked out truces with them unless they are sick or failing.
Interesting...and I think they are more into smaller prey so glad the cats have their agreements with them. Speaking of books, a favorite author of mine is Barbara Kingsolver who wrote Poisonwood Bible (incredible) and then while I was still living in SE Florida, she published Prodigal Summer. It is set here in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Morgantown NC. I had no idea I would be moving to this area. A female Park Ranger and coyotes coming in are central to the much broader plot. When I moved up here I read it again...and I could recongize those places and people. Still haven't heard the pack in my woods so far...surprising because of the weather but maybe it's because the creek back there is usually low since we haven't had much rain.
Love this, Kim! Brings tears as I work on my practice of showing up for myself. I have misunderstood that somehow I did not manage to be born into a Disney movie. That my road to practice is not always filled with cute birds paving my way. That the rewards for showing up consistently aren’t accompanied by symphony scores. lol. But how magical is it that it’s quiet steady steps can bring us back to center amidst our fears! Way bigger than Disney.
It is so hard for me to let go of the feeling, in my deepest control freak way, that things are only okay when the pieces are all lining up. I read this comment just before we began our Rooted Gathering last week, and I cannot tell you how much of a privilege it is to be able to figure things out beside you. Thank you.
Kimberly
I read that your father passed to his next chapter. I had a tough conversation with my mother about two weeks before she died. I didn’t know she was going to die. She didn’t know I was having a tough conversation with her. You see this 1945 Phi Beta Kappa graduate from Duke University had been rendered speechless and immobile by that devil Alzheimer’s. But I sat at her feet on the floor with my head in her lap as she was strapped into her wheelchair. She stroked my hair and I poured out my heart. I forgave her and myself, kissed her head, and left. This was 14 years ago but I still am thankful for that precious time.
They says time heals. I think it’s a lot more than time.
Hug yourself and those you love. Snuggle the animals. And breathe.
Thank you, so much, for sharing this with me. It's such a sacred time when they're making a transition, whether we know it is the transition or not. I kept feeling my urgency try to rush my father along, and the old wisdom buried in my bones urging me to let that feeling fade away. It will take me a long time to work out the things I experienced in the week before his passing, but I'm so thankful for you and all of us in my community who are present and experiencing the hard and the good. I'm going to snuggle some animals. Thank you! I'm sending you so much love.
I used to tell my education students that doctors get to practice but teachers are supposed to get it right the first time. Using this definition “In the Old French, practiser meant to perform or carry out, to act upon, to apply knowledge.” I realize we all practice. If I could go back I’d also tell them ‘don’t stop trying’. This holiday season I’m a bit bogged down but I’ll keep practicing showing up for my loved ones and myself.
As always, with enormous appreciation.
Cathy
We all do practice as we go about life, don't we? I am so deeply thankful for you showing up here with me. I hope you have the most peaceful holiday week.
Wow...I'm glad Christopher had that talk with your neighbor and it worked out well. Here in my home, french doors look out at my fenced yard and a wooded area behind. I heard gunshots one night and had no idea where or what or why. I closed my lights so I wouldn't be seen or a target. Not long after I went into a restaurant nearby and the young waiter somehow got into a conversation about the area. I mentioned the shots and he said, oh, that's my Dad. It turned out he lived on a house I use to admire coming up the road toward my development. And his Dad teaches target practice. They may have moved because I don't hear them regularly anymore. And one night a neighbor of mine (now deceased) took a gun out to kill the coyotes in their den. But in a while, others used the creek to navigate their way to our woods again and no one seems to care enough to go out and shoot them. I will say, I don't mind the howling at sirens when they visit those woods, but one night I heard the primal sound of a kill and that stopped me in my tracks and had my hair standing on end. I'm also in need of a new fence but not able to do that right now...a neighbor not on the wooded side asked why I felt I needed a fence. hahaha. Not really keen on the idea of coyotes looking in my windows.
It's wild that coyotes have only migrated into our area in my lifetime. One of my professors from Wofford wrote a book about how the coyotes made it to upstate SC. I remember my first job at a horse farm where they told me where the shotgun rested and to use it if coyotes came into the barn. Now we have them in our basic neighborhoods. After that neighbor spent time trying and failing to eradicate what he deemed a threat (I had lived and worked beside the packs for two decades when he moved in) -- I learned that if you remove a member of the pack, the females immediately go into heat to produce more. And if you wipe out the entire pack, another pack will come into the territory to take their place and they will potentially have less knowledge of how to live and work beside humans and other animals. It's a conundrum. But the coyotes have never threatened my large animals. And the barn cats seem to have worked out truces with them unless they are sick or failing.
Interesting...and I think they are more into smaller prey so glad the cats have their agreements with them. Speaking of books, a favorite author of mine is Barbara Kingsolver who wrote Poisonwood Bible (incredible) and then while I was still living in SE Florida, she published Prodigal Summer. It is set here in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Morgantown NC. I had no idea I would be moving to this area. A female Park Ranger and coyotes coming in are central to the much broader plot. When I moved up here I read it again...and I could recongize those places and people. Still haven't heard the pack in my woods so far...surprising because of the weather but maybe it's because the creek back there is usually low since we haven't had much rain.
Love this, Kim! Brings tears as I work on my practice of showing up for myself. I have misunderstood that somehow I did not manage to be born into a Disney movie. That my road to practice is not always filled with cute birds paving my way. That the rewards for showing up consistently aren’t accompanied by symphony scores. lol. But how magical is it that it’s quiet steady steps can bring us back to center amidst our fears! Way bigger than Disney.
It is so hard for me to let go of the feeling, in my deepest control freak way, that things are only okay when the pieces are all lining up. I read this comment just before we began our Rooted Gathering last week, and I cannot tell you how much of a privilege it is to be able to figure things out beside you. Thank you.