praise the Lord

My neighbor D died a week ago. She was 84 years old. She and her husband had been married for 62 years.

They had lived together in the house across the street from me for over 40 years (well, they lived in that house for over 40 years; I've only been across the street from them for 18).

Together they had 9 children. More than 20 grandchildren, more than 20 great grandchildren.

Their son V who still lives with them came to tell me. I gave him a hug and said I would be over in a while with some food.

So I made gallon or more of lentil soup, a green bean casserole and two sweet potato pies. With my husband K we walked over when he got home and delivered the food.

V was convinced he had sent me a telepathic message about the sweet potato pie.

That was Friday.

Sunday I brought over macaroni & cheese and brownies in the late morning. Then we went to visitation in the afternoon.

It was an open casket. She was dressed in a gold dress that she wore when she and her husband renewed their vows on the occasion of their 60th wedding anniversary.

There was also a video slide show of photos of her life.

I went to the funeral on Tuesday morning. It was at a Detroit church with a mainly African-American congregation. It was touching to see literally hundreds of people turning out to show their respects.

There were six clergy listed on the full - color, multi-page program. Much was made of the comment D made in her youth that she didn't want to marry a preacher or a farmer-- and the man she married was called to both professions.

Interesting to me was that there were microphones in the congregation as well as on the pulpit. It was clear that this was a very participatory congregation.

The speakers, one and all, commenced with Praise the Lord and sprinkled the rest of their comments with more PTLs and multiple Amens. There was humor and song and tenderness and tension.

A comment that struck me most was the one made by a clergyman to my neighbor, the new widower. This clergyman, too, had lost a wife after many years.

He said: You won't get over this, but you will get through it.

Amen. Praise the Lord.

I went home. Made four more sweet potato pies, and kissed my husband.

Amen. Praise the Lord.

the why

One of my favorite bloggers recently wrote of the persistent stress dream that has plagued so many of us for so long. You know the one, where I've signed up for a class and forgotten to attend and forgotten to drop it and now it is finals and I'm going to FAIL....



I added my variations (one includes a school bus driving into my house to get me), but commented that meditations on WHY might be too long for a comment.



So this my meditation on why:



Those of us who are driven to be overachievers (yeah, you know I'm talking about you) often have secret (0r not-so-secret) fears that really we are inadequate. As the stress dreams reveal, we are deeply afraid that we really don't know, we aren't prepared, we will be found out.



I think, in my case at least, the truth is that although I have been told all my life that I am "smart, I have been rewarded academically throughout my long educational process for being "smart", I don't feel "smart".



I just feel regular. Like me. Nothing out of the ordinary. And on occasion, I in fact have felt pretty stupid or foolish.



Add to this the fact that in certain eras of my life I felt deeply that this "smart" thing, myth or not, was all I had going for me, the idea that others might find out the truth of my interior ordinary-ness was/is terrifying.



So, that is my meditation on why.

picture perfect

So I have done the two weddings. They went well and I think everyone was pleased. In fact, both wedding couples have suggested that this is something I should look into doing professionally...

(weddings and funerals by design... atheists and unaffiliated my specialty)

AND the photos are back and both wedding couples have shared photos with me.

Which is lovely

though I am not.

ARGHHHH why is my weight so weighty? I worry about it. I even try doing something about it, with mixed results.

REALLY depressing.

gator dreams

I dreamed last night that I and a few others were riding inside an alligator. This was after we had been kicked out of the gym where we had been trying to rehearse, after having been kicked out of the rehearsal rooms where we had been trying to rehearse. After being kicked out twice and traveling in the alligator, we finally found a restaurant with an upstairs room where we went up and ordered biscuits and tea as an excuse to be there and moved the furniture around so that we could rehearse in the restaurant. My friend August was somehow the restaurateur, and was quite cheerful about having a crowd that only ordered biscuits and tea.

This is too much like real life.

All except the alligator part. In my dream, the alligator was black and smooth skinned. I kept thinking it was a Cyclops alligator, but truly it did have two eyes. And it moved pretty fast for having a theater troupe inside it.

I am always confused about the difference between alligators and crocodiles.

I asked my dad about it. He said they are different species. WELL DUH. Thanks, not so helpful.

(Oh, by the way, since "I am always confused..." we are back in real life... which makes sense, in a way).

So, for my own edification, here is the difference. Alligators and crocodiles are both members of the family Crocodylidae.

What I *didn't* know is that there are two more species: the caimans and the gharial.

This is the American alligator. It has a rounded snout.

The crocodile tends to have a pointier snout and it has lower jaw teeth that are visible even when its mouth is closed.

This is a Black Caiman, an endangered species.

This is a gharial. If you are on the Ganges River in India, and a log opens its mouth to reveal teeth, it is probably a gharial.