Cry Havoc! And Let Go the Dogs of War...

9/11/2005 (Revisited)

I remember that morning like it was yesterday. I will always remember the intimate details of it; the sights, the sounds, the smells. It was the day that the world changed forever.

I was married at the time and had stepped down to our pond to try and catch a mess of fish for supper. I had several nice ones in a bucket when I heard her call to me that breakfast was almost ready. I pulled out for the house with my pole and bucket in hand, stopping to sit in a chair on the porch to remove my wet boots. The windows were open and the radio was on and I half-listened, half-ignored the announcer talking about a plane crash in New York. I remember thinking that it was only a matter of time before something like this was going to happen. Sooner or later some pilot was going to screw up and hit one of the massive buildings jutting up out of the ground across America...the numbers were just with it.

I went inside and turned on the television and they had a live feed of the events going on. It was just about then that the second plane hit. And my heart broke. God help us all. My eyes clouded with rage, pain, fear, sorrow and a thousand other things all at once as a tear ran down my cheek. In that instant, through all my years of training in the military, I instinctively knew that we were at war. My wife asked me what was wrong and I couldn't find my voice, or my stomach, to tell her what I already knew. I just stared at the screen in silence and disbelief.

As I tried unsuccessfully to choke down the meal she had prepared, I watched in horror as first one and then the other tower crashed to the ground. And I prayed out loud where I sat. I prayed for those in and around the towers, but more than that I prayed for my friends that I knew would soon be placed in harms way once again. Their faces and names raced through my mind; I bet he re-enlisted, he's not retired yet, either...

I got up from the table, walked out the door and pulled my wet boots back on. I picked up the bucket of fish by the steps and walked past the flag flying at the front gate towards the pond. I remember thinking as I turned those fish loose that there had been enough killing for one day. I turned the bucket upside-down, took a seat on it and thought about all that had just happened and was going to happen. It was probably one of the saddest, most helpless feeling times in my life.

I often find myself on the US Army website, reading the names of those who have died in southwest Asia. And yes, I recognize some of them by name and all of them by trade. They were my brothers and sisters and always will be. And I love them all. I would urge each and every one of you to go there for a visit and pay your respects. They are the last barrier between you and the next attack. They gave 'that last full measure of devotion' for you and me.

I think I might take my pole and a bucket down to the pond this morning and try to catch a mess for my friends. I know that they would like that, taking comfort in the fact that they are not forgotten. God love 'em.

Living in My Heart

Living In My Heart

“Hail Mary, Mother Of God…” I said as I counted the beads out with my small fingers, just as the Father had instructed me to do. I had confessed to him that I had taken two cookies before dinner. I remember my mother and grandma thought that was funny.

My Grandmother was a devout Catholic and I was raised Catholic, too. Although I grew away from Catholicism, the memories of Church and Grandma are still close to my heart.

I remember holding her hand and skipping along like busy little girls do as Grandma and me walked the six or seven blocks to Church. This would be the same Church that I would stand in front of family and friends, pick up the head of her casket and carry her down those steps for the final time.

If you have never been a pall bearer for a loved one, you can’t have any idea of the effects it has on you. I found myself looking at all the faces of those that loved her as we carried her towards the steps to leave that Church. As I walked, the fact that I was carrying my Grandmother to her final resting place hit me hard. Tears began rolling down my cheeks. Me, the hard one, the one that never cried, walked forward with my face drenched in tears and I could do nothing to wipe them or hide them. They were there for the world to see. I will never forget that feeling as long as I live.

When I would visit her as a young girl, one of the treats we had together was Dunkin Donuts. I would walk to the next block and visit the little shop there on Saturday evenings. I would pick out a couple for me and a couple for her for twenty cents or so each. We would have them before we walked to Church together on Sunday mornings.
I ate some dough nuts today to celebrate her birthday. I went all out, too. I ate a long john with creamy filling and chocolate icing and a raspberry jelly filled dough nut with white icing. I thought of her the whole time.

As Grandma neared the end of her life, she spoke of the wonderful dinner that had been prepared in her honor. She could actually see it, she said and she spoke of it. It was relayed to me in whispers, as Grandma lay there unable to move. It was then that I understood the mystery of faith.

The Good Book says some things are not meant for us to understand and when that time comes, the understanding will be granted. While my Grandmother lingered between life and death, her time to understand was granted to her. As her visitors wished her well and kissed her soft, cool cheek, she waited for the dinner bell to ring.

She laid her head on the soft pillow and her eyes fluttered softly as she realized a peace and contentment that she had been denied in this life. She drifted off to a peaceful retreat as she left the broken temple that had been her home and reached for the hand that awaited her presence at the table as she did so.

The precise moment that her fingers touched His, her golden heart stopped beating and she was gone… But never forgotten.

Happy Birthday, Grandma.

Copyright © 2006 Tamara A. Isaac

Just Something to Think About...

I didn’t write this but wish I had. I like to read it now and then. If anyone knows the author, please post their name in the comments section of this post.

The Daffodil Principle…

Several times my daughter had telephoned to say, “Mother, you must come to see the daffodils before they are over.” I wanted to go, but it was a two-hour drive from Laguna to Lake Arrowhead. “I will come next Tuesday,” I promised a little reluctantly on her third call.

Next Tuesday dawned cold and rainy. Still, I had promised, and reluctantly I drove there. When I finally walked into Carolyn’s house I was welcomed by the joyful sounds of happy children. I delightedly hugged and greeted my grandchildren. “Forget the daffodils, Carolyn! The road is invisible in these clouds and fog, and there is nothing in the world except you and these children that I want to see badly enough to drive another inch!” My daughter smiled calmly and said, “We drive in this all the time, Mother.” “Well, you won’t get me back on the road until it clears, and then I’m heading for home!” I assured her. “I was hoping you’d take me over to the garage to pick up my car.” “How far will we have to drive?” “Oh…just a few blocks,” Carolyn said. “But I’ll drive. I’m used to this.”

After several minutes, I had to ask, “Where are we going? This isn’t the way to the garage!”“We’re going to my garage the long way,” Carolyn smiled, “by way of the daffodils.”“Carolyn,” I said sternly, “please turn around.” “It’s all right, Mother, I promise. You will never forgive yourself if you miss this experience.”

After about twenty minutes, we turned onto a small gravel road and I saw a small church. On the far side of the church, I saw a hand lettered sign with an arrow that read, “Daffodil Garden.”We got out of the car, each took a child’s hand, and I followed Carolyn down the path. Then, as we turned a corner, I looked up and gasped.

Before me lay the most glorious sight. It looked as though someone had taken a great vat of gold and poured it over the mountain peak and it’s surrounding slopes. The flowers were planted in majestic, swirling patterns, great ribbons and swaths of deep orange, creamy white, lemon yellow, salmon pink, and saffron and butter yellow. Each different-colored variety was planted in large groups so that it swirled and flowed like its own river with its own unique hue. There were five acres of flowers.

“Who did this?” I asked Carolyn. “Just one woman,” Carolyn answered. “She lives on the property. That’s her home.” Carolyn pointed to a well kept A-frame house, small and modestly sitting in the midst of all that glory. We walked up to the house. On the patio, we saw a poster.
“Answers to the Questions I Know You Are Asking” was the headline. The first answer was a simple one. “50,000 bulbs,” it read. The second answer was, “One at a time, by one woman. Two hands, two feet, and one brain.” The third answer was, “Began in 1958.”

For me, that moment was a life-changing experience. I thought of this woman whom I had never met, who, more than forty years before, had begun, one bulb at a time, to bring her vision of beauty and joy to an obscure mountaintop. Planting one bulb at a time, year after year, this unknown woman had forever changed the world in which she lived. One day at a time, she had created something of extraordinary magnificence, beauty, and inspiration.

The principle her daffodil garden taught is one of the greatest principles of celebration. That is, learning to move toward our goals and desires one step at a time–often just one baby-step at time–and learning to love the doing, learning to use the accumulation of time. When we multiply tiny pieces of time with small increments of daily effort, we too will find we can accomplish magnificent things. We can change the world.

“It makes me sad in a way,” I admitted to Carolyn. “What might I have accomplished if I had thought of a wonderful goal thirty-five or forty years ago and had worked away at it ‘one bulb at a time’ through all those years? Just think what I might have been able to achieve!”

My daughter summed up the message of the day in her usual direct way. “Start tomorrow,” she said.

She was right. It’s so pointless to think of the lost hours of yesterdays. The way to make learning a lesson of celebration instead of a cause for regret is to only ask, “How can I put this to use today?”

Use the Daffodil Principle.

Stop waiting…..

Until your car or home is paid off.

Until you get a new car or home.

Until your kids leave the house.

Until you go back to school.

Until you finish school.

Until you clean the house.

Until you organize the garage.

Until you clean off your desk.

Until you lose 10 lbs.

Until you gain 10 lbs.

Until you get married.

Until you get a divorce.

Until you have kids.

Until the kids go to school.

Until you retire.

Until summer.

Until spring.

Until winter.

Until fall.

Until you die…

There is no better time than right now to be happy

Happiness is a journey, not a destination.

So work like you don’t need money.

Love like you’ve never been hurt, and

Dance like no one’s watching.

Winter Sounds Good About Now...

Written while sitting on a log in a secluded patch of woods near my home. The ground covered in a virgin snow that not even the birds had tracked across.

Sweet Lonliness...

Silence... Dead silence

That is all I hear

Save the pounding of my heart in my ears

This blanket of white silence

That has buried living and dead

A silent shroud of tranquility

Nothing but the grave could ever be as silent

As the woods, under cloudless skies, covered in snow

The songs of birds are frozen in their throats

And not a leaf rustles or stirs

All is silent… Dead silent

How peaceful, how sacred

How absolutely divine

No sound on Earth is quite as profound

As woods asleep in the snow

The sound of sweet loneliness

Copyright © 2007 Mike Lawson

To Simply Be...

Dawn, dusk
Daytime, night time
Sunshine, rain
The chill of a first cool Fall day
The warmth of a shirt-sleeve day in Spring

A mother duck, string of little ones behind her
Watching the bees working the clover in the pasture
First peach blossoms in the Spring
First killing frost in the Fall

Cats piled together, a furry carpet on a sunny porch
A newborn calf sucks its mother the first time
Bale hay, cut tobacco, feed cattle
Fish, read, hold her hand as the sun goes down

Get up early in the morning
Sip coffee,listen to the day come alive
Lay down to rest at night
Tired and satisfied from the day worked hard

I find much to be happy about
As I face the challenges of life
All things, good and bad
Sing their songs to my heart
And in that moment of quiet gratitude
I am thankful for the chance to simply be


Copyright © 2007 Mike Lawson