"You look like Ms Jesus"

I had a dream recently where there were billowing clouds around the form of Jesus who was reaching his hand down to me.  I was looking up towards Him with my arm stretched as far as it would go, reaching for His hand.  I guess you would call it a vision, rather than a dream.  I was asleep, nevertheless, so I’m calling it a dream, and it was vivid to me.  Usually I don’t remember dreams but I remember this one.  I told it to my husband the next day.  I told it to my daughter the next time I saw her.  The very first thing out of her mouth was, “Did He look like Charly?”  We just fell out in the floor laughing!

Now, please don’t get me wrong.  I believe with all my heart that I am going to Heaven when I die and I would never make a joke about my Christianity so I’m going to have to do a little explaining about this bout of hilarity between us two idiots.  Those who know me, know I have a streak of humor in me that sometimes only I can see.  Well, maybe a few other quirky folks might, but not always.  Some say it is the “curious side” of the Scott’s.  That’s my Momma’s side.

Now Momma was a piece of work.  She was one of a kind.  There has never been a more talented person on this earth than my Momma.  She had the gift of music that only comes from God.  She never had one moment of formal instruction on the keyboard, but could hear a song one time and play it instantly on the piano.  She loved her music!  That being said, she loved her children!  I was the first child.  Fifteen years later, came a beautiful baby boy.  Now let me tell you, this child could do no wrong.    Mother and Daddy thought the sun rose and set in this boy.  I loved him to pieces too.  I still do, by the way.   I wanted my first child to look like him.  (My first child looked totally unlike him but was just as good looking.)

I always felt a little bit jealous because of the fuss she made over Charly.  It was Charly this, and Charly that.  I just tried to smile and agree.  After all, I was a big girl when he was born and shouldn’t have those feelings.  He was just a boy!  But, still…… Well, wouldn’t you know, one day, I’m taking Momma on a road trip to see Charly.  She’s jabbering away about Charly.  This was back in the days when long hair on boys was popular and Charly was right in style.  His locks were down his back.  All of sudden Momma turns to me and says, “You know, Charly looks like Jesus!”  I almost wrecked the car and glared at her like she had lost her marbles for sure!  She realized what she had said and to whom she had said it, and without skipping a beat she said, “Well, YOU look like “Ms. Jesus!”  I just bent double with laughter!   

This story has become a family legend.  So now you know why my daughter’s curiosity got the best of her.  

To my BFWWW

I came across my little keepsake box not too long ago that has a few little treasures in it.  It has in it, a plug of tobacco that was found in my Big Daddy’s pocket when he died, my Mother’s “quarter” which she kept in her pocket at the nursing home, so she would always have some money, my Granny Elkins wedding band, which she always said belonged to LaRose upon her death, and a squished up Werther’s Original candy with a little note attached to it with a rubber band.  Let met tell you about that little treasure.

Somewhere around 1975, I looked out my kitchen window and saw a beautiful red headed little woman walking hand in hand with what I assumed to be her husband down the middle of our neighborhood street.  Since there were only a few houses on the street, most of them brand new, I decided they had to be the newest family that had just moved in and was eager to meet them as they appeared to be near the age of me and my husband and I had already decided I liked the looks of the red head.  If she liked the husband, then he must be ok. 

I don’t remember exactly how our actual meeting took place.  Nevertheless, a bond was formed.  We clicked.  The red head was Frankie.  The husband was Ray.  Now we had never met anyone like Frankie and Ray.  They knew how to have fun!  Turns out, they were newlyweds of sorts.  Both had been married previously.  Frankie’s youngest daughter was still school age and lived with them. 

Frankie taught me more about living than I had learned in my entire life before I met her.  She saw beauty in things I had never given a single thought to.  She loved every creature, big and small.  This woman would cry at road kill!  She was so loving and caring for people.  She cared for the neighbors who couldn’t drive to the doctor.   She volunteered at her church.  She sang in the choir, visited and cared for the sick.  Frankie taught me how to hug.  She always had a smile and a big hug when I got out of the car or when she walked in my door.  We cried together over our children and parent problems. We shared problems and stories that only we knew about to this day.  We were soul mates. 

Our husbands were not left out of our bond.  They were best friends too.  We were a foursome.  We vacationed together.  We were silent together and we laughed together.  We went to church together.  We prayed together.  But most of all, we loved and respected each other as friends.  We never felt an obligation to buy gifts at Christmas or birthdays.  Our love for one another was unspoken.  We never discussed politics.  We were on different sides of the isle politically so we never went there.

When we moved to Virginia in 1993, after the moving van left I drove over to Frankie and Ray’s house for our last goodbye.  We cried and hugged.  Frankie opened my hand and handed me a little piece of candy wrapped with a note.    I laughed because I saw it was a Werther’s candy and put it in my pocket and drove away.  Later on, I discovered the note attached which said “To my BFWWW”.  We had a little joke between us saying that we were best friends in the whole wide world.  I put the Werthers in my dresser drawer where it stayed for the next 10 years. 

In 2003, we were so excited in the spring because we were moving back to Georgia and Frankie and I had so much planned.  She promised to help me with the yard.  She was such an accomplished gardener and had a beautiful flower garden.  Then our world was stricken with disaster.  My best friend in the whole wide world was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor in July.  My heart was broken.

 She never gave up hope and kept her sweet smile to the end.  My beautiful soul mate and best friend Frankie is now gardening with the angels.  Every now and then when something comes up that I find so hilarious, I laugh out loud and look toward heaven and say “did you hear that Frankie?”  I know she's giggling so hard she's 'bout to wet her pants!

How amazing it is to see the days and weeks turn into months and years!   I remember how important it used to be to have the current styles in home decor and the latest name brand attire I could afford.   God forbid, I should get caught outside without my full makeup and hair perfectly coiffed and sprayed rigid with Aqua Net.

    

Whoa! Now I'm looking at well worn,  but perfectly good furniture.   I'm thinking it gets prettier every day as I browse furniture prices!   I have decided that the garment industry has changed the sizing on all clothing,  which looks like it belongs on someone from some foreign planet anyway, particularly the shoes.  I can't imagine how anyone could possibly get their feet into those weird looking things,  much less walk in them!

I'm glad I'm where I am in life today.  It gives me a certain right of passage.  I can claim I didn't hear or understand something,  I don't like or want to hear.  I can say my eyesight isn't what it used to be,  when I don't like what I see, or I don't want to read something somebody gives me.  Sometimes, I might even use my age to gain attention from my children.  That doesn't work too often, however.  

Mostly, I'm just glad to have been given the opportunity to live a life full of the love of family and friends.  

IN MY OWN WORDS..........: Mandatory Reading

Mandatory Reading

Some books that I have read have touched me in a way that I  feel everybody should have the same opportunity to have the same warm, wonderful, sweet, happy, sentimental, or whatever deep down gut feeling I've experienced from reading that particular book.  I want EVERYBODY to read it!  I think that EVERYBODY will receive the same benefit that I received from the book that I received, which, of course is absurd.

One book in particular that I just have finished reading tops my list of "mandatory" reading, however.  "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom had me mesmerized from the very start.  This story of the ten Boom family who helped hide Jews during World War II in their  home in Holland is an unbelievable account of their courage and love of Jesus.  Corrie describes her time as a prisoner of the German army and the agonizing months she and her sister Betsy spent waiting for release but at the same time giving hope and encouragement to others with whatever they could.  I think this is the only book I can say I truly wanted to start over and read again because of the feeling I had when it was over.  What a woman Corrie was!  Her sister Betsy died in prison but Corrie carried on with their dreams after being released (by accident).

I can't describe the feeling I had when I finished this book.  I guess if I had to put it into words, humble or unworthy, would come to mind.  Certainly the life that I have lived and known has been grand in comparison to what this powerful woman lived through and I feel ashamed for ever complaining over "my lot" in life.
That's why I think reading and re-reading this book should be mandatory.  It gives me and anyone else who reads it an "attitude adjustment" and an opportunity to reflect on what's really important in your life.

IN MY OWN WORDS..........Who'd have thunk it....

Who'd have thunk I would be smart enough to figure out how to do this?  I'm 73 years and counting and when I learned to type, I used a manual typewriter with an ink tape and a throw carriage, and still managed to type over 100 words a minutes!  Times have sure changed......I'm not so sure they are all so good.  

I've learned some good things though.  I learned to be patient.  You need to be patient when you have children.  I have three.  All grown now.  You need to be patient when you have to be the care giver of aging parents.  They depend on you just like the children do.  You don't let any of them down no matter what so patience is of utmost importance.  But it comes pretty easily since the love you have for them comes first and the patience falls right in behind.  

I've learned to be resilient.  You have to learn to bounce!  There are times when you get so low down you feel you'll never get up.  But you know what, you do!  I've bounced back up so many times, I've felt like a rubber ball.  

I've learned to laugh.  Now that one took a long time.  Laughing didn't come easy for me because I grew up being a serious, straight, black or white, (no grey) , person.  And, I guess to some extent I still am.  But, I finally learned that sweating the small stuff isn't important and learned to see some humor in things that was there all the time but I just wouldn't allow myself to laugh at it.  Now, I laugh at things that maybe others don't even think are funny.  I even create things to laugh at!  It's good for my soul!  I enjoy laughing and enjoy seeing others laugh!

I've learned compassion for the elderly.  After my Mom died, I felt a deep need to do something to make a difference in the life of someone who didn't have anyone in their life to visit them or make them happy in some way.  I knew how much it meant to Mother for me and my brother to visit her and anybody else that she knew.  She was in a nursing home and although she was infirm and blind, she had her mental capabilities and was miserable without someone to talk to.  So, I vowed to try to do something for someone to give back what I could to society in her memory.  

I've learned that I can't fix everything for everybody.  I can't make my children perfect nor can I make their children perfect for them and so on down the line.  I can't pick money off trees, I can't go back and unsay things that have been said and  undo things that have been done.  So what?  I am where I am.  I am WHO I am.  God loves me JUST as I am.  Thank you God for giving me all that I have and allowing me to be the unworthy soul that I am today.