Note:
It's interesting how a comment I leave somewhere gets larger and larger to where it ends up turning into a piece of writing --and, in this case, the first column of my 21st Century version of my original college column, HODGEPODGE.
What you'll be reading below is a response in a comment thread at Facebook where I started out writing condolences in response to a comment made by a woman who was talking about missing her baby (a dog who had passed on) .
I'll be continuing the history of HODGEPODGE over the next week...
My condolences to you re: the loss of your baby. All of our loved ones--human or non-human--have special places in our hearts and leave behind a special hole when they pass on.
I have a little poem that might be of some comfort to you. It comes from a book called Heidi's Children--a sequel to the much loved Heidi book.
In it, Heidi is all grown up, married to Peter, and has twins (a boy and a girl) who are toddlers. Her best friend from boarding school days is visiting her for a few weeks, and this friend has brought along her little sister, Marta.
As those of us who are familiar with the story of Heidi know, Heidi's grandpa can come across as a pretty scary character for those who don't understand him and realize how loving and sensitive he is, and Marta wasn't impressed with him and was pretty outspoken about it telling Heidi that she hated her grandpa because he had eyes like an eagle.
I think that Heidi's grandpa must have been like a cross between a grizzly bear of a mountain man; my eighth grade teacher/grade school principal, Harold "Dutch" Creason; and a creampuff. Actually, Mr. Creason, imo, was definitely all cream-puffy on the inside even when his face was purple and he was yelling, "WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH YOU!?!"
Anyway, as Marta got to know Heidi's grandpa better, she quit hating him and soon loved him to pieces. Sadly for Marta, it wasn't too long after that when the old man took ill and passed away. Marta was in so much pain that she told Heidi that she wished that she had never quit hating and started loving her grandpa, because, had that been true, she wouldn't be hurting inside so much now.
That was when Heidi shared this little poem with her that I'm sharing with you now:
"Even death is not unkind
When living love is left behind."
It doesn't even have to be a death to bring about the feeling of an empty spot. I remember when my goddaughter (Michelle Foreman Freed) was three months old and came to stay with me for a week or so. I put chairs along one side of my bed (their backs facing the bed) so that she wouldn't fall out of bed during the night and placed her on that side of the bed.
In short, she ended up sleeping between those chair backs and me.
During the night, I had this wonderful dream where this guy who had ditched me a few months before had come back into my life again. It was one of those dreams from which I didn't want to wake up, but something was working to bring me back into the real world, and that was the stirrings of Michelle who had come awake and decided that it was time for me to wake up, too.
I could hear her baby coos beside me and her huffy-puffy baby breaths. She was definitely ready to start the day--but I wasn't. I wanted to go back to sleep again and, perhaps, continue with that wonderful dream.
If I kept my eyes closed, perhaps, Michelle would also go back to sleep again for awhile and wouldn't wake up again until I, too, was ready to start the day.
However, this wasn't in her plans.
Pretty soon, she was stroking and patting my face while continuing to make those wonderful baby sounds. Then, she embraced my nose with one of her tiny hands. She was starting to win in the tug of war for my attention--and, when I slowly opened my eyes and found myself staring into her big, dark-brown, long-lashed baby-eyes and seeing her sweet angel smile, I knew for sure that it was time to wake up and start another beautiful day together, and so we did!
After that, I would intentionally keep my eyes closed each morning just to experience that wonderful way of waking up to face the day.
Of course the time came when it was time for her to go home, and I remember when her Mommy and Daddy came to pick her up. We all visited for awhile and said our goodbyes, and I went on with my day.
I was okay until that night when it was time for me to go to sleep, and I went upstairs to my bedroom and saw those chairs along one side of the bed. It suddenly hit me that there would be no precious, cooing angel there to gentle me awake the next day, and I cried myself to sleep. Of course, I woke up happy and ready to celebrate another day in my life, but I'd still gone through a miniature form of the grieving process.
This wouldn't be the last time that I would have Michelle and/or my other godchildren over to visit me, of course. They're all grown up now with families of their own, and I'm so proud of all of them and filled with love for them.
However, this turned out to be the last time when I would have the chance to bathe Michelle in the bathroom sink.
The first time she came to stay with me at three months, she was so tiny that I put her in my bathroom sink to bathe her, and she fit there just perfectly. I have pictures of her in that sink sucking on her two favorite fingers and studying her surroundings with her great-big, dark-brown eyes while the water from the tap trickled down onto her teddy bear tummy.
The next time she came to stay with me was when she was five months old. When it came time to bathe her, I prepared to put her into my bathroom sink again--but found out that she no longer fit there.
It was time to move on to the next step.
I stripped down with her, and we both got into my shower stall after I had turned on the water and gotten it adjusted to a comfortable temperature. I placed her on the floor in a sitting position after which I sat down with her, making sure to sit on the drain.
At first, Michelle found this new way of bathing (with the water showering down on us from overhead and the floor area starting to fill with water like a wading pool) a bit scary, but she soon loved it and enjoyed splashing her hands in the water.
Back when I was a teenager, an expression became popular (went with a commercial for fabric softener, I believe) : "the fabric of our lives."
These kind of moments I've shared here--also known as "Kodak moments" way back when--go into a kind of photo album in our hearts.
We look back on the photos taken in some yesteryear while still continuing to take new photos to be added as time goes by...
It's interesting how a comment I leave somewhere gets larger and larger to where it ends up turning into a piece of writing --and, in this case, the first column of my 21st Century version of my original college column, HODGEPODGE.
What you'll be reading below is a response in a comment thread at Facebook where I started out writing condolences in response to a comment made by a woman who was talking about missing her baby (a dog who had passed on) .
I'll be continuing the history of HODGEPODGE over the next week...
My condolences to you re: the loss of your baby. All of our loved ones--human or non-human--have special places in our hearts and leave behind a special hole when they pass on.
I have a little poem that might be of some comfort to you. It comes from a book called Heidi's Children--a sequel to the much loved Heidi book.
In it, Heidi is all grown up, married to Peter, and has twins (a boy and a girl) who are toddlers. Her best friend from boarding school days is visiting her for a few weeks, and this friend has brought along her little sister, Marta.
As those of us who are familiar with the story of Heidi know, Heidi's grandpa can come across as a pretty scary character for those who don't understand him and realize how loving and sensitive he is, and Marta wasn't impressed with him and was pretty outspoken about it telling Heidi that she hated her grandpa because he had eyes like an eagle.
I think that Heidi's grandpa must have been like a cross between a grizzly bear of a mountain man; my eighth grade teacher/grade school principal, Harold "Dutch" Creason; and a creampuff. Actually, Mr. Creason, imo, was definitely all cream-puffy on the inside even when his face was purple and he was yelling, "WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH YOU!?!"
Anyway, as Marta got to know Heidi's grandpa better, she quit hating him and soon loved him to pieces. Sadly for Marta, it wasn't too long after that when the old man took ill and passed away. Marta was in so much pain that she told Heidi that she wished that she had never quit hating and started loving her grandpa, because, had that been true, she wouldn't be hurting inside so much now.
That was when Heidi shared this little poem with her that I'm sharing with you now:
"Even death is not unkind
When living love is left behind."
It doesn't even have to be a death to bring about the feeling of an empty spot. I remember when my goddaughter (Michelle Foreman Freed) was three months old and came to stay with me for a week or so. I put chairs along one side of my bed (their backs facing the bed) so that she wouldn't fall out of bed during the night and placed her on that side of the bed.
In short, she ended up sleeping between those chair backs and me.
During the night, I had this wonderful dream where this guy who had ditched me a few months before had come back into my life again. It was one of those dreams from which I didn't want to wake up, but something was working to bring me back into the real world, and that was the stirrings of Michelle who had come awake and decided that it was time for me to wake up, too.
I could hear her baby coos beside me and her huffy-puffy baby breaths. She was definitely ready to start the day--but I wasn't. I wanted to go back to sleep again and, perhaps, continue with that wonderful dream.
If I kept my eyes closed, perhaps, Michelle would also go back to sleep again for awhile and wouldn't wake up again until I, too, was ready to start the day.
However, this wasn't in her plans.
Pretty soon, she was stroking and patting my face while continuing to make those wonderful baby sounds. Then, she embraced my nose with one of her tiny hands. She was starting to win in the tug of war for my attention--and, when I slowly opened my eyes and found myself staring into her big, dark-brown, long-lashed baby-eyes and seeing her sweet angel smile, I knew for sure that it was time to wake up and start another beautiful day together, and so we did!
After that, I would intentionally keep my eyes closed each morning just to experience that wonderful way of waking up to face the day.
Of course the time came when it was time for her to go home, and I remember when her Mommy and Daddy came to pick her up. We all visited for awhile and said our goodbyes, and I went on with my day.
I was okay until that night when it was time for me to go to sleep, and I went upstairs to my bedroom and saw those chairs along one side of the bed. It suddenly hit me that there would be no precious, cooing angel there to gentle me awake the next day, and I cried myself to sleep. Of course, I woke up happy and ready to celebrate another day in my life, but I'd still gone through a miniature form of the grieving process.
This wouldn't be the last time that I would have Michelle and/or my other godchildren over to visit me, of course. They're all grown up now with families of their own, and I'm so proud of all of them and filled with love for them.
However, this turned out to be the last time when I would have the chance to bathe Michelle in the bathroom sink.
The first time she came to stay with me at three months, she was so tiny that I put her in my bathroom sink to bathe her, and she fit there just perfectly. I have pictures of her in that sink sucking on her two favorite fingers and studying her surroundings with her great-big, dark-brown eyes while the water from the tap trickled down onto her teddy bear tummy.
The next time she came to stay with me was when she was five months old. When it came time to bathe her, I prepared to put her into my bathroom sink again--but found out that she no longer fit there.
It was time to move on to the next step.
I stripped down with her, and we both got into my shower stall after I had turned on the water and gotten it adjusted to a comfortable temperature. I placed her on the floor in a sitting position after which I sat down with her, making sure to sit on the drain.
At first, Michelle found this new way of bathing (with the water showering down on us from overhead and the floor area starting to fill with water like a wading pool) a bit scary, but she soon loved it and enjoyed splashing her hands in the water.
Back when I was a teenager, an expression became popular (went with a commercial for fabric softener, I believe) : "the fabric of our lives."
These kind of moments I've shared here--also known as "Kodak moments" way back when--go into a kind of photo album in our hearts.
We look back on the photos taken in some yesteryear while still continuing to take new photos to be added as time goes by...
