Haibun: Family

Today is Haibun  Monday at dVerse Poets Pub.  “This week, let us consider gratitude: Its essence, those reasons we have for feeling it, and what our lives—and our world—may look like if we live it.”  Frank wants us to write about gratitude.  It isn’t just for American Thanksgiving, but for us all.  Traditionalist that I am, I am ending this with an American Sentence.

 

Family
“The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other’s life.” Richard Bach

The black and white photo, a Polaroid. One of the first my mother took with her new camera she bought for the heck of it. We all stared in wonder as the picture appeared on the film and she wiped the swab of developer/fixer across it. The photo has lasted for 62 years. It shows us all around the Thanksgiving table – my great-grandfather, my grandmother and grandfather, my father and mother and me, and my two aunts, the younger sisters of my mother. In the center of the table is a huge turkey, a ham, and a big platter of my father’s perfect fried chicken. Bowls of vegetables from the garden canned or frozen, and on the sideboard salads,  a luscious fresh coconut cake, several pies, a pecan pound cake with an orange glaze. The first cake I had ever baked. I was six.
We are sitting around the table smiling at the camera. My mother pressed the remote bulb and there we are, frozen in time. Now the only people left alive in the photo are my two aunts and I. However, I look in the scrapbook at the photo with tears in my eyes and gratitude in my heart. My family. My people, my tribe. How when we went around the table to speak what we were thankful for, we all to a person said, “Family”.

Love surrounds us daily even when family has passed to heaven.

Smell of Home – haibun

 

“He was conscious of a thousand odours floating in the air, each one connected with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares, long, long, forgotten.” Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

Christmas baking fills
the house with smells of love – stars
look down and make a wish.

Somehow, the tasteful artificial wreath decorated with shiny red and gold balls irked me. My mother-in-law had bought it at an outlet in Williamsburg to replace the small pine swag on our front door. The bright red bow tying it together was a little crooked. She disapproved of that as well. She missed her husband who had died shortly before Christmas of last year. I sympathized but as soon as she left, I fished out my pine swag from the trash and replaced the tasteful one, perfectly hung, on our front door with my clumsy one. We never used artificial things for Christmas when I was growing up. Until I moved to Philadelphia, every year, my father and I went into the woods and searched out the perfect tree and cut swags of pine, cedar, spruce. We knew where the holly with the thickest amount of red berries lived and had spotted the oaks with mistletoe in several oaks the week before. We both had our rifles slung on our backs. It was a contest as to who could shoot down the biggest bunch of mistletoe. We took turns letting the other win. And then to home. My grandmother and aunts had punched oranges full of holes and inserted whole cloves tying red ribbons around each. My mother put the swags of greens together for garlands, wreaths and swags which we hung inside and outside the house. The oranges were hung on the green decorations and the house smelled of the greenery, oranges, and spice.

We each baked our specialty– spicy hermit cookies, snickerdoodles, pecan snowballs, sweet potato pies, Kentucky bourbon cakes, fudge – for a week the house smelled of spices, sugar, bourbon, and fruit. I won the family award for best sweet potato pie – it’s a secret recipe – wink. One year, my teenaged middle aunt wanted Shalimar for Christmas. Somehow, the box with the exotically shaped bottle broke and Shalimar whispered its sweet tale to us all until the New Year. She used some of her Christmas gift money to buy it herself.

Ever since my father, grandfather, and grandmother died, it has not been the same. Walking through years of artificial trees, plastic baubles, white tree lights, and pine scented candles, the year I had been hospitalized for surgery and treatment for cancer I decided enough was enough. I pulled out the ancient fragile blown glass balls, the strings of brightly colored lights, My First Christmas ornament. A friend came and decorated the live tree she had picked out for me because I had asked her and I lay upon the couch for frequent rests. She helped me bake the sweet potato pies and Bourbon cake. That day, for the first time in years, my house smelled of the Christmases I remembered with tears and love. My husband laughed when he came home from work, the last day before the office closed for Christmas.

I sat on the couch that night with only the tree lights glowing. The ghosts of Christmas past were there – my father opening his joke box of chocolate covered cherries, my grandmother laughing as she clapped her hands in joy when someone opened the gift she had given them, my mother and aunts making jokes and then singing together carols –  they are alive but absent but still they came to join in. All the cats and dogs that had loved us lay about sleepy and content, filled with turkey bits sneakingly given to them, as I lay there and remembered, tears slipping down my cheeks. After that Christmas eight years ago, Christmas is happy and not a bit tasteful and perfect. My husband smiles a lot and takes in deep breaths and raids the cookie jar.  In a couple of weeks my home will be filled with those perfumed memories and gentle spirits.  The tasteful wreath has gone to a nearby church that is providing decorations to people who are in need of them. And while the elements of Christmas are here, oh how I miss those people I love. Of all the things so dear, my beloved family I miss the most.

fresh green cedar wreath
hung with oranges – sweet smelling
past whispers in dreams 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tuesday at d’Verse Poets Pub, at the beginning of this holiday season, Mary is prompting us to write about what we miss during this time.  Come and visit and share.  What do you miss?  http://dversepoets.com/2015/11/17/poetics-who-what-do-you-miss/

 

dVerse Poetics – Papa’s Peach Cobbler

Today at dVerse Poetics, I get to be the bartender and give the prompt. The prompt for today is food. And y’all know how I love food! And if you want the recipe for this, here is the link: http://kanzensakura.com/2013/06/18/papas-peach-cobbler

Papa’s Peach Cobbler

When I feel the need to go to a safe place,
A happy place,
A time when things were simple –
I close my eyes and when I open them
I’m six again.
Papa is teaching me to make his peach cobbler.
Fresh peaches – juicy drippy happy peaches –
Peeled and sliced into quarter moons –
Dropped into a bowl and sprinkled with sugar and spices.
He gives the slices a stir
And puts into the pan
With all the other good stuff
(this time he let me put in the flour!)
Into the oven….
Soon the smells of sweet crust
And cinnamon and peaches
Fills the air.
Torture. Sitting through dinner
Pretending to eat so
I can use my stomach area for cobbler….
Papa’s peach cobbler.
Safety, love, family.
A bowl filled with hot peachy love
Topped with thick country cream
Or vanilla ice cream
Or just….plain it cannot be called plain.
I stand by the table and pretend I am six again
and as he taught me, make the cobbler.
I wonder if the tears that fall into the cobbler
Change the flavor…

dVerse Poetics

Today at dVerse Poetics, Mary has given us the wonderful prompt to write about “where we are from”. Not the geographical where, but the poetic, spiritual, life where. It is a wonderful prompt. I have written a poem longer than normal but the words just flowed. I dedicate this with love to my amazing family, so much a part of where I am from.

I am from Denmark, Ireland, England Germany
I am from Celia and Luther, Josie and George, Celia and Robert
I am from family I’ll never know who landed
on the North Carolina coast three hundred years ago

Sleeping on a pallet on the sleeping porch on a hot southern night
scented by magnolia gardenia roses newly mown lawn
ceiling fans operated by long cords pulled down to the floor
going whump whump whump slow and lazy then faster as the cords
move closer to the ceiling.

I am from a family of eccentrics, strong women
tender hearted men, the builder of the house
who made damn sure the front room was the largest and
filled floor to ceiling with books bought or rescued
and all dusted and read with love and respect.

I am from a childhood of watching my grandmother
make biscuits with no recipe, watching my father
fry chicken, watching my mother make banana pud’n.
Of peach cobblers and homemade vanilla ice cream,
bowls of potato salad and devilled eggs on an ancient
fragile egg plate decorated with a drift of paprika.
Family reunions, picnics, fish fries, church dinners.

I am from Christmases with huge trees, colored lights
a mountain of packages a table loaded with food
people excited when that special gift they bought is
opened and exclaimed over or laughing in glee
when they are the one to open that gift.
I am from Christmases of erector sets and microscopes
and a beautiful yellow crinoline with pink ribbon rosebuds.

I am from summers with endless gardens of red sassy
tomatoes, sweet corn, silky butterbeans and crisp
snap beans- sitting on the backporch rocking
rocking and helping to snap snap beans and shell
butterbeans and shuck and silk corn.
And bowls and platters of those vegetables
planted and picked by us.

I am from playtimes with the family cats and dogs
and dressing them in doll clothes, loading them
into my red wagon and taking them around the neighborhood
to visit Miss Goldie, Mrs. Keranakis, Mr. Bujold
and Jamie Pollard who taught me how to write haiku
He thought being six years old was the perfect age
for me to learn.

I am from evenings of my family sitting around
and reading aloud poems from the Brownings, Yeats,
Keats, Wordsworth, Frost and Shakespeare’s sonnets.

I am from my own world of T.S. Eliot, Ginsberg, Snyder,
Kerouac, Simon and Garfunkel, Lennon and McCartney.
I am from my own world of secretly writing poetry
and feeling too odd – too odd even for my Southern
Style Addams Family family.
Keeping the fire inside secret. Hiding my notebooks
full of words written in Peacock Blue.
Sneaking out to poetry readings of Duke students
and then standing and reading mine
and feeling….not so very odd.
From bargaining with my mother:
I’ll do the cotillion if I get the next
two summers free.
Of being escorted by my sweet redhaired
cousin who committed suicide the next
summer because his father couldn’t abide
having a queer for a son.
Summers of love, moon landings, Woodstock.
I am from tears, forgiveness, pride, love,
Loss and gain, war and peace.
I am from being told to just be me.
And being loved when I was.

copyright kanzensakura

Cup of Kindness – 2015

 

And so we come to the end of another year. This has been a year of tremendous changes. In spite of so many hard things, there have been many good things.  In March, I lost my job due to ageism and racism. Ugly combination, hey? And as time has progressed, my mother has become more fragile in her health and after rescuing her from a bad situation in Florida and taking her to live with her youngest sister in Tennessee, she just seemed to just step off the edge of the cliff. Health folks often call it that. She is now in and out of reality. Dementia is a demon from which there is no escape. I call her daily. The other day she asked me where my father was and why he hadn’t been to visit. I gently told her he died 30 years ago. She didn’t remember. This is a daily heartbreak for me. It is also a daily reminder of those fragile relationships that mean so very much and could suddenly….end.

But there has been highs in this past year. I’ve been able to devote more time to my writing, reading, cooking, independent study and went back to school for pharmacy. Being an engineer, my outlook isn’t the typical glass half empty/full thing. Our thing is, if the glass is half empty or half full, then get another glass. So I got another glass.

I am also ending this year finding out that my deep depression disorder is not that at all. I am bi-polar. Not a death sentence by any means but a life sentence none the less. But I can and will cope. I have the best husband in the world and I have friends – beyond excellent friends.  Hope and faith – words for the new tomorrow.  I promise, I’ll do my best not to be whiney about it!

Dear Chloe over at: http://sirenatales.wordpress.com did a post on Automaticity. Just what I was thinking for the past week or so. Basically, practice makes perfect. Practice a dance move, a speech pattern, whatever – until you do it automatically without thinking. Like when I draw my wakizashi with that single sweep and into fight position. I don’t think, I do.

What to practice in 2015 until it becomes so engrained? Here’s my list. What about yours?   Compassion, hope, joy, positivity, sharing, honor, humility of spirit, curiosity, open mindedness, open heart, gentleness, faith…big one – Faith. 

I forget who said this: When we worry today, we rob tomorrow of its hope.  There.  Nuff said.

I thank all of you who follow both my blogs; this one and Aki no Koe. Thank you for your likes, comments, kindnesses, prayers, positive thoughts. Thank you for your posts and all you have shared. Blessings to you in 2015.  I wish you all and those you hold dear, the best that can be granted to you.

And above all, let us practice kindness. Let us drink deeply from that cup o’ kindness and pass it on. Let us practice it until we don’t have to even think about it. Kindness as automatic as our hearts beating. Sharing it without thinking.

Christmas Memories: Cocquito and Friendship

public domain Wiki image

When I was 12 years old, due to financial reasons, I was placed into the public school system. It was a shock to my system and sensibilities and it was at the point, I began to hate going to school. I did not adjust well and that adjustment was not helped by being called Four-eyed Midget, The Snot, and Weirdo by my classmates. Many of them knew my family and knew I had been one of those too-good for their own good society snots. I became outcast and except for a couple of teachers and one of the lunch room ladies, without friends. I walked to school alone and walked home alone; groups of kids passed by me, sometimes knocking my books from my arms, knocking me down, and always calling me names. I’d arrive home and go to my room and alternate cry and rant.

One day, during recess, I had had enough. One of the bigger boys who was taunting me (I see London, I see France. I see Snotty’s underpants) just plucked my last nerve. I looked up at him and challenged him to a fight. He found this most amusing and pushed me down on the ground. I gathered my wits and then launched my small frame full into him, head butting him in his crotch. We both went down rolling, punching, gauging, me biting, scratching. A crowd had gathered cheering him on when he grabbed me and held me up from the ground. I was flailing and sometimes connecting with a good kick. Suddenly, it became silent. Thank God, I said to myself. It is a teacher. I will be expelled and never have to come to this hell hole again.

It was not a teacher. It was Billy Rodriguez. To the bully, this slender boy said, “Son of a whore, put the girl down.” I was thrown down and Billy began to circle the boy. Next thing I knew, the bully was flat with Billy on his chest pounding him. It was a good moment. From that moment, Billy became my protector and his younger sister Therese, my friend as well. Old Southern family meets blended Cuban-Puerto Rican family.

They did more than keep me from a serious beating that day.  Billy, standing between me and harm with all the arrogance, honor, and bravery of a true hidalgo, helped out others who were being bullied.  Billy and Therese also walked home with me that day to explain what had happened so I would not be punished and so my family would know of the bullying I had been subjected to for several months.  The next school year, I was placed back in my old school.  That did not keep us from continuing to be friends.  That afternoon, they walked home with me. I had friends! We talked, laughed and began a walk of friendship that lasted until Billy was killed by a drunken driver and Therese died of uterine cancer a few years ago.

Billy’s mother had fled Cuba bringing her two small sons to America. His father had been murdered in the bloodbath there. Therese was the daughter of a Puerto Rican widower. it was a happy marriage and a wonderful blending of cultures.

That first Christmas of our friendship, his mother came to call on my family. She brought a large pitcher of a holiday drink: Cocquito. She explained it to us; the ingredients, the tradition of serving it at Christmas, the warning that it was lethal and to be sipped and savored. When I make Ida Ortiz recipe for Cocquito, I honor the memory and lives of these precious people who rescued me and became part of my life.

We became three families blended by friendship, food, tradition, love, and honor.  Their pork roast and cocquito have become part of our family celebrations just as their memories have blended in with all the other memories.

I raise my glass of cocquito to the friends who became family and to their memories that bring me joy.  I raise my glass to all of you, friends who have become family.  Blessings to you all and may you always be blessed with friends who become family.

Cocquito
8 oz. half and half or whole milk
4 oz. cream or half and half
1 (14-ounce) can condensed milk
1 can cream of coconut
1 can coconut milk
Pinch salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
¼ ground nutmeg
4 – 8 oz.Puerto Rican white rum
Ground cinnamon – dusting

Directions
Place all ingredients in a blender and process for 3 minutes at high speed until frothy. Store in a glass container in the refrigerator and serve chilled, dusted with a little cinnamon. NOTE: Use a rubber spatula to get all the cream of coconut and sweetened condensed milk from the cans. The egg yolks are optional. Some versions use the egg, some do not. It seems to vary from family to family.

The Smell of Home: A true Christmas story

a slice of sweet potato pie (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

NOTE:  I originally posted this in 2012.  We all have stories and memories that are part of the fabric of our lives.  This is one of those stories.  It happened about 10 years ago on a cold, sleety day in December as I was making my way to be with my mama for Christmas.

 

I’m sorry.  This might be a little long for some of you, but I hope you will read.  I was born and raised in the South and except for occasional sojourns on Long Island, Philadelphia, London, Tokyo, and San Francisco, I have lived in the South.  I grew up in a neighborhood close to the Duke east campus.  People had lived there in the same homes for generations.  We knew each other, knew all the stories about each others’ ancestors, who had converted their sleeping porches and when and when finally (we were among the last) who sold their portion of the mews and sent their last horse to live with relatives in the country.

In 1965, the impossible happened – the Pollard family next to us, finally died out.  The house was sold to strangers – maybe even folks from up North!!!  Of course, if they were connected to Duke, it might be okay.  Imagine everyone’s surprise when an African-American family moved in.  Well, nobody moved from the neighborhood or did any nastiness; after all, that Greek family had moved in a couple of streets over and nothing bad had happened.  In fact, they organized block parties and gave away thousands of Christmas cookies!!!

The McGill family consisted of the father Richard, his wife Arlene and sons – Junior (my age) and Bob. Mr. Mc and my dad became instant and best friends.  The two sons kept to themselves and Mrs. Mc considered us all a bunch of jumped up no accounts because after all, she was descended of long standing upper class Creole families in N’awlins, so there!

About three weeks before the McGill’s first Christmas in Trinity Park, the neighborhood was permeated with the most delicious, spicy, mouth watering odor.  It was slightly familiar, but better – richer and headier.  I took it upon myself to go through the hedge and knock on the McGill’s back (kitchen) door.  Mr. Mc himself answered and greeted me with a huge smile and welcome on in.  I looked in amazement – covering every surface in the kitchen and the dining room beyond, were sweet potato pies.  The kitchen was warm from the ovens (like us, he had two stoves – a gas and a wood burner).  My eyes were huge and I looked at him and without having to ask, he said, “Sweet potato pies. Every year, our church has a fund raiser to provide clothing, food, toys, rent, whatever for the needy in our parish.  I bake 100 pies for sale and I do that because I bake the best. I am the king of sweet potato pies.”

“Here’s one that is a little ugly and I was going to cut a slice and have with a cup of coffee. Want some?”  “Yes sir, I surely do.” and we proceeded to sit and eat and chat.  I discovered why my dad just loved him – funny, erudite, gentle, kind, generous….I fell in love with himself.  “That is THE best sweet potato pie I have ever had. How do you make it?”  His eyes twinkled at me and said, “Won’t tell you, it’s a secret.”  And from then until I left for college, sweet potato pie and coffee became a yearly tradition with us.  Sometimes we were joined by Junior who like his dad, was quite a cook.  Like his dad, big, gentle, kind, and funny.

Years later, I was living in Philadelphia.  One morning, I received a call from my mother.  My papa was in hospital and it was not going to be good.  I dropped everything and caught the first flight home.  All the way, I was  truly a wreck.  I jittered in my seat, bit my nails, thought about a future that did not include my father.  I wondered who would pick me up from the airport.  Papa always did.  I came to the baggage area and there was Mr. Mc waiting for me.  when I saw him, I began crying and he folded his big self around me and held me tight.  We grabbed my bag and went to the car.  In the car, as he was driving me home, he handed me his handkerchief and said, “Let me tell you how I make my sweet potato pie. But remember, it’s a secret and you can’t tell.”

My father died. I don’t remember much about the events of the days.  I choose not to.  Hidden in a blur of an unmended heartbreak, those memories will remain that way.

One thing I have learned in past years, is this:  Don’t fight with God. He always wins.  And when he tells you to do something, don’t argue, just do it and save yourself a lot of time, trouble, and stupid. More years later:  I was driving down a lonely stretch of Rt. 360 to go visit my mom.  It was a bleak, wet sleety day.  On the side of the road, a black van was pulled over with the hood up.  Two huge men were standing beside the van looking into the bowels of the vehicle and looked up hopefully as I drove past.  God says “Go back and help them.”  and of course, I argued.  it’s desolate, I don’t know them, they’re big, blahblahblahblah.  God says, “Go back and help them.”  and He said this several times.  About two miles down the road, I pulled over and just gave up.

“Alright already. I’ll do it.  But I’m just going to put my window down a bit and ask if they need help.”  God says, “Whatever. Go back.” I u-turned and headed back.  I pulled beside the van and inched my passenger window down.  The largest man leaned down and looked in the window.  Suddenly, he said, “Kanzen?”   I looked closer – “Junior?”.  Immediately I unlocked my car door and he climbed in.  “We need help. I’m on my way to Clarksville to preach a funeral and the van just stopped.  I can’t get a call through either.”  No good coverage in that area…”I go right past that funeral home. Y’all get in and I’ll have you there shortly.”

As we rode to Clarksville, the associate pastor crammed into my small back seat and Junior with the passenger seat back as far as it would go and our shoulders touching each other like old friends.  We talked about the past years to catch up.  Mr. Mc had died two years earlier. I told Junior how grieved I was to hear this.  “y’know Kanzen.  it’s hard and this time of year, it is just harder.  The house don’t smell right.  I know you understand.”  I nodded.  I did indeed understand.  “I’ve tried to fix those pies, but they aren’t right.  Mom lives with us now and she has talked about how she misses Dad. How she would love to smell one of his pies, just one more time.”

I sat in silence for a couple of miles.  I thought of my papa.  I thought of Mr. Mc and his grieving son beside me.  I smiled and though I had tears in my eyes, I turned to him.  “Junior, I know how to make your dad’s pie.  He told me when papa died.  I’ll tell you, but it’s a secret. You can’t tell anyone.”  and I began to tell him the secret of Mr. Mc’s sweet potato pie.

A couple of weeks later, I received a note in the mail.  “The house smells like home.  The home smells right.  God bless you.  Merry Christmas.”

And no, I’m not going to tell you.  It’s a secret.  Merry Christmas and God bless you. May your home be filled with love and joy and making of memories for your heart.

Happy Birthday to Me….and the rest of the 11/16 Society

I love birthdays and I especially like my own. My birthday is my New Year for me, not January 1. It is the beginning of starting a new chapter in the book of my life and for reflecting on the chapter I have just finished writing.

This past year has been full of many troubled times, challenges, and grief but it has also seen times of great joy, deep peace, incredible new friendships (thank you with much love to the Bitten Babes!), beginning again with a new profession and proving that no, I am not beaten and yes, I triumphed.

Last night at dinner at my favorite Chinese restaurant with some friends and my husband, one told me, I am so proud of all you have done this year and how you used a great injustice to move forward and grow. Wow.

So….happy birthday to me! Happy happy happy birthday. And thank you to all of you who continue to fill my life with your thoughts, travels, experiences, poems, photographs, friendship – all of you whose blogs I follow. You help me expand my universe but most important, expand my heart.

the group of us, those whom I term the 11/16 Society, I wish you all happy birthday and year filled with joy, health, and growth. I love you all. The 11/16 Society lost two of our unique band, Jeff and Jamie but….a year ago today, one of the 11/16 Society became grandfather to Jackson. So!!! Happy birthday my Band of Brothers:
Beni, Billy, Itoshi, Jackson, Mashashi, Takahashi-san, Thomas, Will, William and as noted on M-R Blog, Luke. M-R posted a Happy Birthday Greeting to Luke and I.    She is a fine lady from Oz and she keeps us all in line and honest and…wishes us happy birthday! Go visit her and go wish Luke happy birthday. Tell him Kanzen sent you by way of M-R.      http://margaretrosestringer.com/    I am link challenged but M-R is gifted – she has a link to mine and Luke’s blogs on her website…. Thank you M-R for the cake you baked as well.  I am so glad I got the pretty one and not the chocolate one.

And rest sweetly, Jamie and Jeff.  Your lifesongs have ended but the melody is still there in our hearts.   The 11/16 Society:  My friends, brothers, and maker of many of my smiles.  And a Happy Birthday wave on my 7th birthday, in the snow, long ago in a galaxy far, far away.

Kanzen’s 7th Birthday copyright Kanzensakura

 

Scenes from THE trip Part II

After 20 hours of assorted oddness, hellacious travel conditions and a motel with a moldy shower curtain, we arrived in TN right where we wanted to be, safe and sound.

So these are different pictures with different purposes the absolutely biggest crown of thorns I’ve seen (houseplant with lots of thorns and pretty pink flowers, if you’re lucky), the last tomatoes of the season on the vine, a display of family pictures in my aunt’s guest bedroom, blue sky from the plane,  shadows on the side of an old barn, a beautiful interior of a small local public library, SamCat again in the suitcase refusing to budge.

East or west, home is best.  Now, to catching up finally on missed posts from you all and hoping the “Like” button doesn’t hate me.  BTW, I’ve heard from quite a few of you who also have problems with the “Like” button not working.  It’s good to know I’m finally running with a good crowd.

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On the road again…

Tomorrow I fly back to Tampa. This time, instead of visiting my ailing mom, I will be getting there for her to be discharged from the rehab facility! so much improvement.

I am going to load up her stuff and move her to live with her youngest sister in Tennessee. It will be quite an adventure driving from Tampa to her new home.

The picture in my post is from the last visit. This 4’5″ lovely, true grit southern lady is the person for whom so many of you sent the kindest of greetings, best wishes, prayers, positive thoughts, love, and light. I thank you all so much! I hope you all will continue to think of us as we travel – two days worth of driving and resting along the way.

I’ll be back in a couple of weeks and yet again, will try to catch up as best I can. Take care of yourselves.  I’ll be back now, y’hear?

copyright Kanzen Sakura

 

public domain free image

In Memoriam – Let my Lifesong Sing to You

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsQD7rSTnxM

My husband’s father died Friday after a brief illness. We had said our goodbyes last week – he heard how we loved him and the impact he had made on our lives and our gratitude for his life of love, faith, honesty, hard work. He truly lived with abandon and embraced life and its stages and seasons. It was an honor knowing him and being married to his son, who is so very like him.

A few weeks ago I wrote several posts about death and hope.  These relate to that post:
Permalink: http://kanzensakura.com/2014/01/18/ashes-to-ashes-hope/ ‎ and Permalink: http://kanzensakura.com/2014/02/07/the-samurai-an…the-art-of-war

I wrote about the things we leave behind that are so important:  our love, joy, patience, respect.  The video for this posting is My Lifesong by Casting Crowns.  it is how I feel about my life and ultimately, my death.  It is a good song for my father-in-law.  I hope this touches you in a way that gives you peace and hope and about living your life.  He touched so many peoples’ lives in so many positive ways.  What a legacy!  He left behind a wealth of unconditional love, unquestioning charity, kindness, humor, love of family, country, and God.

Embrace life. Live life with abandon. Leave behind some of the happiness you bring to the table of life. God bless you all.

Happy New Year dear Family

       I wish all of you a safe and happy 2014.  I’ve reblogged from Chasing Rabbit Holes, a place where those of you who may be alone or need some folks to talk to, be happy with.  Click on the badge on the site and be whisked away to talk to people you may not know but will be glad you got to know.

They say you can choose your friends but not your family.  I have found, in the WordPress family, that to be most happily untrue.  My time here blogging has been an incredible journey from all parts of the US, Canada, South America, Europe, Asia, the Philippines….

We may not be stylish enough to be Freshly Pressed, all of the time, but we enjoy and appreciate each other.  That is the best to me.  To be appreciated by ones peers (family) is bestest of all.

I am grateful to you all for your support, comments, best wishes, and prayers.  I wish you all the most joyful, healthy, full of light and peace, prosperity, wisdom….all things bright and beautiful in 2014.  Happy New Year!!!

Love to you all!