Coronavirus, Fear or Caution?

My grandsons have asked, “Grandma are you afraid of this virus? Does this scare you?”

I answer honestly knowing that’s what they want to hear but also knowing that I don’t want them to live in fear.

“I am not afraid. I try to be cautious. I don’t live worrying or in fear. I hope I don’t get this virus, I am taking precautions, and that is all I can do.”

I then look at them and ask, “Are you afraid?”

They tell me they are not. They now realize it is serious. They still feel the inconvenience of not having the freedom to come and go and have friends in and out of their house. They miss the social life with friends, as do even the adults.

Finding it hard to believe in some ways, yet totally understanding in other ways, they tell me they miss school. The twins will graduate this year and feel they are missing out on the last part of their education, full of fun events and important ceremonies. We don’t know yet if they will return to school even for a couple of weeks. We have no definite idea if there will be a graduation ceremony and if so, when it might happen. More than likely they will not have a Senior prom to attend. My youngest grandson won't get to play baseball for the high school this most likely.

I have to admit that when this first started I felt it was a news media prop. I felt like the newscasters were trying to put fear in us as they do with every other “Breaking Story” that often ends up being minor. I know they have to grab our attention to get and keep their ratings but I had come to the point of not even watching the news because they hyped the stories up bigger than needed. Fear sells in the news.

I remember telling a neighbor that I thought this was out of proportion. Lots of people die from the flu every year so why is this getting so much attention. We don’t hear the reports of how many died from the flu. I told her I didn’t care if I ever heard the word Coronavirus again!

Well that was a few weeks ago. I now find myself watching the news nearly every day. Our Governor, Mike DeWine, has been doing a daily broadcast to keep us up to date on what is happening in Ohio. I appreciate that.

President Trump has been giving updated reports often. I find myself watching, listening, and digesting.

Yet fear is not the word I feel. The news media hyped up their nightly broadcast about the fear we are experiencing over this virus in America and how it is affecting our lives.

Yes, it has affected my life and every American’s life as well as all over the world. There are people living in fear. Fear of getting the virus, fear that their loved one who has the virus may not make it. There are millions of people who live in fear of how they will survive financially without a job to earn wages to pay bills and feed their families. I feel for all of those people. I understand their fear.

I am unusually lucky because I no longer have to work. I am retired with a "fixed income."  I can still pay my bills and buy groceries.                     💰

Yet I don’t feel fear. First of all, I have a strong faith in God, who has always taken care of me. We have gone through many hard times with loss of jobs, illness, etc., but He has always brought us through. I feel incredibly blessed in so many ways in my entire life. I know that those blessings have come from God, my Protector. 

I ask for His help often, His guidance, advice and safekeeping. I pray for our country and the world over that this virus goes away, knowing that God is in control of it.

I also hope that we all come out of this terrible situation as better people, stronger families, and more reliant on God in all things. He controls things and blesses us if we accept His blessings and ask for them.

Come on people, pray to God and ask for healing. Ask for forgiveness. Ask for protection.

Then believe He will deliver it! Give Him the praise for it.

MOTHER'S RING

Last night I dreamed about a special person who occupied a big part of my life. That was my mother-in-law. What a woman she was. Giving, kind, organized and most of all, the family Big Kahuna.

 

In my dream, she had come back, was alive. She was a little confused, having been gone so long. How I have missed her!  

She mentioned that she used to have a ring with colored gems in it. I knew she was talking about her Mother’s Ring that she wore always, except when she had her hands in a bowl, mixing ground meat or kneading dough.

 “You mean your Mother’s Ring? I have that Dee. It has stones in colors for the months your family was born.” She looked at me quizzically, probably wondering why in the world I have her Mother’s Ring.

 

 

 

That ring, so precious to her, now sits in my jewelry box, protected, not to be lost. Its value in dollars? Probably not much. Its worth in sentimental value, more than money could buy.

 It was worn so much that the top of one stone is partially worn down. She was so proud of her family. Her husband, her children, her grandchildren, her brothers and sisters, and her parents.

 

Her house was the “Gathering Place” on Christmas Eve and many other times throughout the year. There were often spur of the moment card games or game nights held with just a phone call from her to a few members of the family.

 

She might call and say, “I’m making homemade soup, do you want some?” 

Or pizza. She would say, “I’m making pizza. I’ll do the St. Rose wrap. Just stop after work and pick it up.” The St. Rose wrap was wrapping the pizza in waxed paper, then wrapping it again in newspaper. A local church she attended sold pizza on Fridays when my husband was a boy and that is how they wrapped it.

 So for today, that ring is going to be displayed on my pinky finger in honor of Dee. I am curious to see if anyone notices I am wearing it and why. I can’t have her with me, but she does appear in my dreams. For some reason this ring was in the dream with Dee. Maybe she will travel with me throughout this day, as she travels with me in my heart every day.

 

 

 

Do you know someone with a Mother's Ring? Do they or you still wear it?

 

In the Path of a Gentle Giant

 

A soft spoken gentle giant has left us for greener pastures, or more

Dan VanDam

accurately phrased, a Righteous Palace. Standing well over 6 foot tall, Dan Van Dam’s height was never intimidating because he was such a kind and patient person. He always had time to talk and never seemed to be in a hurry. He was concerned about others first, their health, their happiness, their needs or wants. He enjoyed hearing stories about others’ families because to Dan, family came first. 

He proved that over and over when he would tell me about his children or grandchildren who were so special to him. He was proud of each one of them and was available to them always.

Dan was someone you could talk to, knowing that you could trust him to tell you the truth. He offered simple but good advice when needed, being the level headed, patient, and wise man that he was.

I always felt that he truly cared about me and my family. Seldom did I see Dan that he did not ask how my husband was doing. Forget the fact of his own sometimes fragile and ill health, he cared about others.

Dan was the owner of the company that I work for part-time. I can’t say that I referred to Dan as my boss, not that I didn’t respect him as such, but because he didn’t act like a BOSS. If he wanted something, he would quietly ask me to get it, ‘when you have time’. Another thing that always amazed me about Dan is that he always would say, “Thank you for coming in.”

Thank you for coming in? I was being paid to come in and he made it sound like I was doing him a favor. This too was part of Dan.

His soft heart led him to give much more than he probably ever received and I have a feeling he was okay with that. While working for him, I wrote many checks for donations to organizations and people.

 “Those people need meals to eat, especially on the holiday,” he would say as he told me to write another check to the Rescue Mission. “The Rescue Mission does great work.”

“We have to support our veterans. Send money to them.” Giving just came naturally to Dan.

Dan spoke softly. He spoke so softly that oftentimes I would have to walk closer to him and ask him to repeat himself. “Dan, you speak softly like me and I can’t hear. We could be a comedy act!” I remember telling him.

I marveled at Dan’s patience. I often heard him talking to customer service representatives from companies such as the cable or electric or a credit card company. Most people would grow impatient with being put on hold, but not Dan. He would just say something like, “Okay, take your time. I’m not going anywhere,” and then he would sit there patiently waiting to get an answer to his question.

So yes, I had the good fortune to cross paths with a most gracious, giving, kind and patient gentle giant and I have been blessed more for it than I ever gave back to Dan. Rest in Peace Good Man. We miss you already but still feel your presence in our lives.

 

Like a Mourning Dove

I once saw a video of a mourning dove standing in the street next to another dove who was dying. The healthy dove, never left the side of the sick one.

The video was heart wrenching, seeing the devotion of one dove to the other.

Like a mourning dove, I have been lucky enough to find my soul mate that I plan to spend the rest of my life with. Given the chance, I plan to be there until the end with him - whether that is me going first, or being there with him on his way out to a better world.

Like that dove, I have stood beside him, watching him suffer through experiences beyond his control -surgeries, sicknesses, pains, spells and
what-not.

Like that dove, I would do anything I could to alleviate that pain, take it away from him. Switch places if I could.

I will urge him to keep trying until I know he has no more to give. Until I know his time has come and I have to let go.
 
Likewise, I have watched "my dove", my soulmate, hurt so badly when I was down. It was an earth shattering event for him when I was in the hospital earlier this year and as I recuperated at home. Like that mourning dove in the street, he stayed by my side, crying on the inside and the outside, never wavering to help me in any way he could.

Like Mourning Doves, a couple so close and involved as one, we will make it together to the end.

Grandma's Bible

Has there been someone in your young life that you respected and looked up to, someone that was extra special to you?

For me, that is my grandmother. She lived only a couple of houses away. I had the opportunity as a child to visit often. She usually had something baked to offer and always an ear ready to listen. I can’t remember her giving lots of advice, but she always seemed supportive.

For me, one of the reasons she is so special is that she was the person who took me to church. I knew by the way she acted that she believed and carried out what she read in her Bible. Sometimes when I would visit she would be reading it.

As a teenager I thought that owning her Bible someday would be great. If she had marked it up in any way such as I have mine, maybe I would learn something new about the Bible or about what was important enough to her to mark a certain passage. I thought owning that Bible would be like having a piece of Grandma’s heart and soul with me.

So, I asked her one day if I could have her Bible after she dies. “Of course you can!” she remarked, somewhat surprised by my request.

 

Grandma has been gone now for seven years. The person who has her Bible is not me. I have requested getting it several times, have been shown it by this person who possesses it, but it has not been turned over.

Evidently the person who now has this Bible feels a need of her own to keep it even though she knows how badly I would love to have it -not for the material possession of it, but for the emotional and religious reason.

I have given up the hope of ever owning Grandma’s Bible. But I will not surrender my memories of Grandma, the good times taking rides in the car, the things she taught me, the time we spent together mostly doing nothing except talking, occasionally baking a cake. I will remember her serving me cookies and a drink while we sat on her porch, she in her chair and me on the glider, watching what was going on in the neighborhood while we chatted. I will remember sitting around her kitchen table reminiscing about the good ole’ days when she grew up or when she met my Grandfather. I loved hearing stories of her playing basketball way back when. I had been amazed that girls were even allowed to play basketball when my grandma was in school for you see she was born in 1905. She also was not a tall woman, only about 5’2” or so. To think that my sweet grandmother had enough guts to play on a team amazed me.

But she had determination all through her life. She didn’t quit when times were tough nor did she give up hope. She was a joyful woman and people liked being around her even when she was in her 90’s and early 100’s.

 

Her life had been put on hold for several years while her youngest son recovered, not fully, from a car accident when he was in his 20’s. He lived with her the rest of his life, dying only a couple years before her. She cared for him throughout his life without complaining. That’s the kind of spunk she had.

Her belief in God and the way He chose things to take place in her life was evident. She trusted His word and knew He would guide her.

I may not have her Bible but I will always have Grandma in my heart. That is way more important than being able to hold onto a material thing.

 

Thank you Grandma for being the wonderful loving woman you were.