“As the Parade goes by…”

As of two weeks ago, I had no plans for Thanksgiving.  What I always do when that happens is to turn it over to God – “I’m counting on you to come up with the right place for me to be to enjoy your bounty in just the right way,” and I let it go.  He always comes through.

This year was no different.  A few days after I said my prayer, my new/old friend Tommy called me, “What are you doing for Thanksgiving?” he said.  “Nothing,” I replied.  He immediately invited me to join him with his cousin and his very close friend at a Thanksgiving luncheon at the New York Athletic club – not too shabby, the oldest and most prestigious club in the city, if not the world.

Tommy had a request.  “You know, I’ve never been to the Thanksgiving Parade.  Don’t you know someone who lives along the parade route where we can go for a half hour and watch some balloons?”  I have to admit that I was instantly entranced at the possibility, “Yes, wouldn’t that be great?”   I hadn’t been to the parade since Josh was little — and my own growing up years in New York always included sitting on a blanket, curbside on Central Park West, from 8AM on the morning of Thanksgiving day to watch those floats and balloons and bands go marching by, each of the four of us taking turns sitting on my father’s shoulders for an even better look.  I think he loved it as much as we did.  We went every year until I was 10.

Tommy looked up the parade route on the Internet and found that it passed right by 59^th Street and Seventh Avenue, the corner on which sat the NYAC.  We agreed to meet at 11AM and see what we could see.

I couldn’t wait.  And, when I did arrive, Tommy was already there, having scoped out the best viewing spot – and Boy! Was it worth it!  Just as I took my position among the crowd, I could see Kermit the Frog turning onto Central Park South and heading towards us.  I was as excited as all the kids atop adult shoulders around me, “Look, Daddy, look! – there’s Kermit!  Kermit the Frog!”  He was huge and green and rubbery and legs and arms gangly hanging down while waving in the air – and, there I was, “Look, Tommy, look! – there’s Kermit!  Kermit the Frog!”

The balloons kept coming – I spotted the blue Smurf from far away and was dancing up and down until he turned onto Seventh Avenue and I could get my picture and my excitement in sync.

Oh, My God!  How lucky I am to be here!  I feel the hot tears on my chilled face – it only takes a few big balloons, Santa on a float, and the happy faces of children all around me to remind me that I am so very, very blessed;  so very, very thankful.

Once Santa and his reindeer passed by, the parade was over – at 59^th and Seventh, anyway.  It still had another 25 blocks or so to go to get to Macy’s and the closing ceremonies; but, for me, the parade had worked its magic, the child had emerged, and I was back again to simpler times, arms wrapped around my siblings or holding my father’s hand in the crowd.

I smiled at a child on her father’s shoulders.  She smiled back at me.  It was an innocent moment.  I thought, “I know what that feels like, to be so safe, to experience something so magical.”  It’s all mixed up together:  balloons, turkey, brothers and sister, cold weather, the smell of my father, hanging onto his hat or his chin or anything else of him I could grab, Mom cooking at home, someplace to belong.

The parade disappeared from view and Tommy and I walked into the club and met his friends and we had a glorious Thanksgiving repast.  We held hands and said a prayer and each of us said what we were thankful for.

It was a wonderful day, better than anything I could have dreamed up on my own.

God works his magic, I tell you – if only we let him.

I am so grateful.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Deliciously yours in the Bounty of it All,  Linda

“If the only prayer you ever say in your whole life is ‘thank you,’ that would suffice.”   Meister Eckhart, theologian, philosopher, and mystic.

NOTE:  I took the picture of Kermit that appears in the header (I’ve put it here now that the header has changed):  Yes, he was that close! 

And here’s my picture of Smurf:

© Linda Ruocco and “Spiritual Chocolate”, 2011. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Linda Ruocco and “Spiritual Chocolate”  with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.  Thank you.

“A Course in Weight Loss”: A Review

I was looking forward to receiving Marianne Williamson’s new book, “A Course in Weight Loss:  21 Spiritual Lessons For Surrendering Your Weight Forever” to review for Hay House Publishing.  As a student of “A Course in Miracles”, the spiritual self-study program that Marianne herself turned me on to many years ago, I had a feeling that this was not going to be your typical weight-loss book – and I was right.

To begin, I’ve been on a diet since last May and lost 16 pounds doing that.  I was so proud of myself for making it through most of the Christmas holidays without gaining anything back – I thought I had this “monkey” off my back for good.

Alas, that was not so.  At the end of the Christmas holidays, my ex-husband and wonderful friend called to tell me he was getting married in the new year.  I never expected my grieving reaction until I realized that I never mourned my marriage the way I needed to.  January started that time – and, in the two months since, I’ve gained back 8 of the 16 pounds I lost.

I received Marianne’s book right in the midst of all the pain of my long over-due grief.

My original plan — before I found myself plunged into my unexpected despair — was to read it and review it here on this blog.    If I could take something on for myself – Well, then, I would, but I really didn’t think I needed it as much as someone else might need it.

How wrong could I have been?  I needed this book to come the very moment it did!   As spiritual as I think I am, the fact is that circumstances can and do throw me for a loop – and send me right back into thinking the old disempowering thoughts about myself that get me to start eating without thinking:  “I’m not good enough,” “I was a terrible wife,” “Who would want me? I’m so selfish”.  Before I knew it, I re-gained the 8 pounds I’d lost!

“A Course in Weight Loss” addresses these very issues of how we disempower ourselves, how we hate how we look, how we feel about ourselves when we don’t feel good about ourselves.  Bottom line?  Marianne’s book was exactly what I needed to appear in my life!

This is a book that is definitely a “course” – a step-by-step approach to – a diet?  NO!  The approach is to assist us in being willing to take on that which, as “A Course in Miracles” says, is our only problem – we think we are separate from God.  It is a step-by-step approach to have us remember Who we are: a beautiful, perfect child of God — and, as such, everything we need is right here already.  We need only remember Who we are.

Marianne’s instructions are graceful and loving:  to build an altar to ourselves and that which we know to be the Divine within us.  Then, Marianne  guides us:  to enhance our altars as a symbol of being in touch with our own spirit,   buying ONE piece of carefully and lovingly chosen piece of fruit to put on the altar,  to write  letters to the self we are leaving behind so as to transform to the Self we are becoming, and to become aware of those triggers that send us right back into our pain.  It is nothing less than a spiritual journey into our own hearts and minds to find the Real Self, the thin and whole spiritual Self that has been there all along.

Marianne doesn’t hold back, that’s for sure.  There is one chapter called, “Exit the Alone Zone” that I am positive she wrote just for ME! I spend a lot of time alone – I work alone in my home office every day – and I always feel a bit lonely about that.  This book made me realize that I – or the ego part of me – orchestrated that”alone-ness”  in order to keep me separate from others – as separate as I sometimes feel when I forget my spiritual path, when I forget that “alone” is an illusion that I have created.

Well, now it’s time to create something new!

There are beautiful prayers at the end of each chapter that  moved me to tears, each one inviting God in to heal us, to heal our un-healed wounds – as only He can do.

I finished reading the book through once, and now I have started it again, beginning with my altar in my window: a beautiful Buddha and a flower and a picture of a laughing Christ.  As “A Course in Miracles” resonated for me as my spiritual path, Marianne’s “Course in Weight Loss” is resonating for me as the path to healing all my wounds, not only weight, but money, relationship, and career.  That is a plan that I am joyfully taking on!

I want to end with one of Marianne’s beautiful prayers – the prayer that is at the end of Lesson 15, “Exit the Alone Zone.”  To me, this is the essence of so much of this wonderful book:

“Dear God, Please melt the walls that separate me from others, imprisoning me within myself.

Please heal my wounded places and free my heart to love.

Help me connect to others that I might isolate no more.

I know, dear God, that when I am alone, I fear;

and when I fear, I self-destruct.

What I suffer now and have suffered before,

dear God, may I suffer no more.

Amen”

And, to that, my own  “Hallelujah!”

Deliciously yours in the Sacred Self that we all are,  Linda

This is Marianne Williamson, a New York Times best-selling author several times over.  Her book, “A Return to Love” is a spiritual classic and widely considered by many to be the cliff notes to ‘A Course in Miracles'”.  Marianne is an internationally known speaker and teacher.  You can visit her site:  www.marianne.com to see where she is speaking in your area.

Here is the link to Hay House publishing where you can purchase Marianne’s book:

<a title="Hay House Link to Marianne's Book" href="“><a href=”http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/click?id=JZjyJRjtyzs&offerid=206928.10000509&type=2&subid=0″><IMG border=0 src=”http://affiliate.hayhouse.com/IndivProd/978-1-4019-2152-1.gif&#8221; ></a><IMG border=0 width=1 height=1 src=”http://ad.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/show?id=JZjyJRjtyzs&bids=206928.10000509&type=2&subid=0&#8243; >

Disclosure:  I received Marianne Williamson’s book, “A Course in Weight Loss:  21 Spiritual Lessons For Surrendering Your Weight Forever” for free from Hay House Publishing.

© Linda Ruocco and “Spiritual Chocolate”, 2011. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Linda Ruocco and ”Spiritual Chocolate”  with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.  Thank you.

“Little Boy Blue and the Man in the Moon…”

Alzheimer’s disease is what made the difference in my relationship with my father.  It saved us and it transformed our relationship.

I know that sounds strange and perhaps even cruel, given that Alzheimer’s is a horrible, degenerative disease.  I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.  But, for me and my father….  Well, there was a blessing in there…

For most of my life, my father was a scary man – an Italian “machismo” alpha male, socially and physically dominating, imposing his will on his wife and children with an angry voice and demeanor – a “Stanley Kowalski”-type, loud and boisterous with a love of dancing, parties, and beautiful women.

I do remember loving him when I was very  little, running to meet him at the door every day when he came home from work, jabbering away at the dinner table, trying to drown out my brothers and sister to be the one to get his attention with all my stories, some real and some made up.  I remember he laughed and I thought that was great.

When I was four or five, I started a practice of giving him a fake “manicure” every night after dinner while he watched his favorite shows on television.  I would bring my little stool to sit beside his chair and pretend to file each nail and then buff them with a handkerchief that I had rolled up to look  like a real nail buffer.  I don’t know how I knew about manicures, but I did – and that was how I showered him with my love and affection.

Something changed when I was 11.  That’s when my mother had her first heart attack and went into the hospital for two weeks — and I had to cook the food, which I burned, and do the laundry, which I ruined —  mixing the red towels with the white sheets — for which I got in trouble every night when he came home.  I was really scared:  scared of messing up, scared my mother would die, and scared that my father would yell at me.

It never occurred to me that he might be scared, too.

So, scary is how I thought of him then – even after I had taken a stand for myself on the fourth or fifth day of her hospital stay – the same fourth or fifth day in a row that I burned the dinner – and I turned to his angry ranting and said, “You can’t yell at me like that anymore.  I don’t know how to do these things and yelling at me won’t make a difference.”

Things were never the same between me and my father after that.  There was an awkward distance between us.  We would try to have a conversation every once in a while, but it always deteriorated into rolling eyes, anger, and a phone slammed down, or stomping out of the room by one or both of us.

By the time I went away to college, I was relieved not to have to see him every day anymore.

I went to an all-girls school.  Every year, they had a “Father-Daughter Day” and, for the first two years, I invited him to come, which he did.

It rained on “Father-Daughter Day”.  As we walked under his umbrella, I watched the other girls with their fathers, arms around each other’s waists, snuggling together under their umbrellas, as I tried desperately to hold the handle of ours without having to touch his hand.  That’s when I understood that I had a strange relationship with my father – a relationship that other girls didn’t have.

In my junior year, I didn’t invite my father to come.  I thought it would pass un-noticed, but it didn’t.  One day, he asked me when “Father-Daughter Day” was.  I lied and said, “That’s just for freshman and sophomores.  No one in the upper classes does that.”

I didn’t look at him when I said it, but I think he knew I was lying.

It went on like that for most of my life.  I had as little to do with him as possible.  I had a life and he wasn’t in it – and I didn’t think he cared any more than I did.

When he was in his early 80’s, his behavior became erratic and we realized that he couldn’t live alone anymore.  My sister found a terrific assisted-living Marriott for him. Even then, he was grumpy and cantankerous – he didn’t want to go, he didn’t want to stay, he used to escape whenever he could get out, and the director would have to call us to say they had caught my father trying to get off the grounds.

Soon, they called to say that he couldn’t take care of himself anymore – and the dreaded diagnosis was delivered:  my father had Alzheimer’s disease.  That particular Marriott had an Alzheimer’s wing and we made a decision that he would stay there.  He was accepted into that program and I breathed a sigh of relief – that someone else would be taking care of him and it wouldn’t have to be me.

God works in mysterious ways and this time was no different.

My own life had been falling apart for years – I was separated from my husband, my son had chosen to live with his Dad, and I was virtually a recluse, not working, going out only to the gym and to the store, dating men I had no business dating, spiraling down into who knows what?  I sold my beautifully renovated three-bedroom apartment and prepared to move into a rental – which fell through at the last moment, leaving me with no place to live.

My brother’s daughter was getting married, so I put all my stuff in storage, packed a few bags, and headed to my brother’s house where the weekend visit for her wedding turned into a two-month stay.

My sister picked my father up and brought him to the wedding.  That’s the night I noticed that he was no longer his boisterous, party-loving self – he was quiet and distant and sat in his chair, saying almost nothing the whole evening.  I remembered how much he loved to dance.  Years before, my father had been an Arthur Murray dance instructor.   I asked him if he wanted to dance.

He followed me to the dance floor.  Suddenly, a remnant of his former self appeared.   On the dance floor that night, my father transformed into the fabulous dancer that he had once been, leading me strongly across the floor as if he were still a young man.  We glided and turned effortlessly — the way it always is with a good dancer.

When the music was over, so was he.  His shoulders slumped and he walked back to his seat – where he sat for the rest of the night.

Something shifted inside me.  I caught a glimpse of what he must have been when he was much younger — and I remembered what it was like before he was scary all the time.  For so many years, everything that he was or did was colored for me by his anger and impatience.   There was no anger or impatience that night.

The next week, we got a call that he was in the hospital.  He started to bleed in the bathroom and he continued to bleed so much that they couldn’t do anything to find out what was causing it until they could get the bleeding to stop.

I had planned to use my brother’s house as my base to travel into the city to find another apartment.   My father’s car had been there ever since we took it away from him because it wasn’t safe for him to drive anymore.  Since my father was in the hospital over an hour away, I started driving his car to the hospital every day to see him.  I don’t remember consciously saying, “I’ll go visit him every day.”  It just seemed like the natural thing to do — and there was the car.

Once there, I talked to him, I straightened his bedclothes; I bathed his face and his hands.  Most of the time, what he talked about made no sense to me – sometimes he even lapsed into Italian, his first language.  I smiled and answered and reassured him, although I never got the sense that he really understood what I was saying.  Often, I had to champion for him with the nurses who were over-worked and forgot to shave him or didn’t respond quickly enough when he needed a bedpan or to have it removed from under him.

I started cutting his nails and cleaning them every day before I left.  It took a while before I flashed back on how I gave him his manicures when I was little.  The moment I thought of that, I looked up and caught him staring at me with a slight smile curling up at the corners of his mouth.  I smiled back at him and finished cleaning his nails.

Every day, before I left him, I shook his top sheet and folded it back down across his lap.  I smoothed it out and tucked it in loosely at the sides.  One day, as I was performing this ritual, he looked at me and said — as lucid and as clear as could be –“You know, Linda, you turned out to be a nice girl after all.”  Laughing,  I said, “Daddy, I always was a nice girl.  You just never noticed before.”  He laughed with me.  A moment later, he stopped and looked away.  He was gone again.

I stood there, watching him for a while.  He looked so helpless and so innocent.  All those angry years – his AND mine — melted away and I saw who he really was – a man who tried to do his best to raise his family and probably didn’t know how to do that.

I cried the whole way home to my brother’s house that night.  I thought about my father when my mother was in the hospital and how it must have been for him, with 4 children under the age of 12.  I thought about how scared he must have been because we were so young and couldn’t take care of ourselves, what with me burning the food and ruining the laundry.  He must have worried about what he would do if she didn’t come home.  I thought about how I had blamed him and took myself away from him – never giving him a break as someone who was just doing the best he could.  I realized how angry and impatient I had been with him all those years.

I thought of how I wouldn’t forgive him for just being human.

The next day, I went back to the hospital and I was a different person with him.  I was lively and excited and listened more intently, and I looked at him – all the time.  Every once in a while, he smiled back. Every once in a while, he looked happy to see me.

Alzheimer’s is an awful disease – but, for me and my father, it gave me the opportunity to see his humanity.  We were both redeemed.

He did finally go back to the Marriott for another year before he died.  He even got himself a girlfriend there – a sweet lady who also had Alzheimer’s.  The director had to call us again – this time to let us know that he was “having a relationship” with this lady and was it OK with us?  I was happy this time – not relieved that I didn’t have to take care of him, but happy that he found someone to be with in loving relationship before he died.  He deserved that.

We all do.

Happy Father’s Day.

Deliciously yours in the Innocence of it All, Linda

The blog post title is from Harry Chapin’s hit song, “Cat’s in the Cradle”:

“I’ve long since retired and my son’s moved away.
I called him up just the other day.
I said, “I’d like to see you if you don’t mind.”
He said, “I’d love to, dad, if I could find the time.
You see, my new job’s a hassle, and the kid’s got the flu,
But it’s sure nice talking to you, dad.
It’s been sure nice talking to you.”
And as I hung up the phone, it occurred to me,
He’d grown up just like me.
My boy was just like me.

And the cat’s in the cradle and the silver spoon,
Little boy blue and the man in the moon.
“When you coming home, son?” “I don’t know when,
But we’ll get together then, dad.
You know we’ll have a good time then.””          …by Sandy and Harry Chapin   Here’s Harry Chapin singing the song:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zH46SmVv8SU

This is my father, Ralph L. Ruocco, when he was in the army and dating my mother.

© Linda Ruocco and “Spiritual Chocolate”, 2010. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Linda Ruocco and ”Spiritual Chocolate” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.  Thank you.

“My Mother, Myself…”

My mother’s been gone for as many years as my son is old – he was born prematurely on August 24^th, 1979, and spent the next 9 weeks in neonatal intensive care, a victim of my own RH-Negative blood protecting me against the perceived intruder that his RH-Positive blood seemed to be.  After an intrauterine transfusion three weeks prior, it was time to take him out.  My body was killing him.

The next week, my mother went into intensive care in a hospital in New Jersey with angina – and died of a heart attack on October 2, 1979 on the day she was to be released.

Josh came out of the hospital 10 days after she died.

She saw him once.

It was on the day after he was born.  She stood outside the ICU, looking through the glass – at his little, less than 4 pound body lying on a light-table, with infant straps holding him in place while the nourishing lights took away his jaundice, waiting for the second of his seven exchange transfusions before he would be OK.  I stood by his infant bed and waved at her, all smiles, oblivious to the scary scene of tubes from the ceiling, incubators with babies that were so small, they didn’t even look human, weeping  parents in one corner, saying good-bye to their early infant who would die an hour later.  I saw her crying – crying for my son who was born early and sick, and crying for me, that I would have to go through this scary time, wondering if my baby would survive, scared for me that I could have no more after this one.

Mother’s Day is always a roller-coaster ride  for me:  I’m so happy and so blessed that Josh is my son – just talking to him puts me on such a high.  Then, I think of my mother, and the missing her is almost too much, even today, 30 years later.  I go back and forth, between those two places, all day, every Mother’s Day.

I feel two ways about that, too.  I’m sad she’s gone and that she never got to know my son and he never got to know her – a sadness that stands as the great sorrow of my life.  Then I remember how she loved me, how she brushed my hair in her lap, even when I was an adult, how happy she always was to see me, how — even when I was angry, she never bought into that – rather, she was concerned for my well-being as I raged, worried about my blood pressure, calming me with her always soft voice and manner.

I feel blessed that she was my mother and that I had her for as long as I did.  She saved me in many ways I cannot say here  right now — she formed me in every way that is good and true on this earth.

She wasn’t that way only with me.  Not only did she love all of us, her four children, she loved ALL children.  That was her thing — children.

I remember once when I was dating my soon-to-be husband.  He had been married before and had two young children, Brian and Cindy.  I was very jealous of them.  I wanted Fred all to myself and that wasn’t possible – thank goodness.  I should have seen that the ferocious way he protected his relationship with them would be the same way he would protect his relationship with our future children – with our son.

Fred wanted his children to be with us for Thanksgiving.  I wanted to go to my parents’ – with just Fred.  We fought about it, and finally he told me that I could go to my mother’s house – he was going to spend Thanksgiving at a restaurant with his kids.

A few days before Thanksgiving, my mother asked if Fred was coming.  I told her that no, he was going to be with Cindy and Brian.  She said, “Why doesn’t he bring them here?  They shouldn’t be spending Thanksgiving in a restaurant.”  I looked down, silent, feeling the hot shame crawl into my cheeks.  I knew that I was being selfish and unreasonable.

My mother turned to look at me.  Her silent appraisal got it all.  She came over to me, gently picked up my chin in her hand, looked at me and said, almost in a whisper, “Linda, they’re just children.  They’re innocent.  You can’t let yourself be like that.  It will take all the love away.  Please let them come here.”  I nodded my head without looking back at her or speaking.  Then, her voice became excited.  She said, “It will be so nice to have young children here again.  I would really like that.”

She always knew what to say.  I let out a deep breath I didn’t know I was holding.  That’s when I hugged her – hugged her so hard that she laughed and pulled back and said, “I know you love me! – Do you have to hug me to death?”

We had the best day that Thanksgiving – my mother hovered over those children, bringing them whatever they wanted, taking care of them – and, by taking care of them, she was taking care of me and Fred, too.  Fred was relieved.  He looked at me in gratitude.   I think it made him love me more.   I knew my Mom was right.

As she always was…

I miss her.  I always will.  Oh, I know she’s always with me, and I even pray to her.   But, what I wouldn’t give to hug her once more until she laughs and  pulls away and says, “Linda, I know you love me…”

Happy Mother’s Day to all!

Deliciously yours in the Huge Mother Love that is today, Linda

This is my mother, standing on my grandparents’ porch, looking at us playing in front of her.

© Linda Ruocco and “Spiritual Chocolate”, 2010. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Linda Ruocco and ”Spiritual Chocolate”  with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.  Thank you.

“Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus…”

Josh was four years old and all he wanted for Christmas was a toy record-player.

We spent hours composing our letter to Santa Claus, enumerating all the ways that Josh had been such a good boy that year:   helping Mommy and Daddy, putting his toys away  after he was finished playing,  and helping homeless people in the street… 

We walked hand-in-hand to the post office, mailing our letter to “Santa Claus, North Pole” and marking it “Urgent – Please read upon receipt” across the back of the envelope. 

A few weeks before Christmas, we were invited to my brother’s house in New Jersey for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  Ralph has four girls, and the two youngest   – Jackie and Julie – were only eight months older than Josh – beautiful redheaded twins who adored Joshua — and he loved being around them. 

This time, though, Josh seemed upset that we were going to visit “the girls”,  as we called them.  With each passing day – each day closer to Christmas – he seemed to get more withdrawn.  Every now and then, he would ask me, “Do we have to go to Uncle Ralph’s for Christmas?” 

I didn’t get it.  I said, “Oh, Honey, you’ll have a great time!  You and the girls can play with all your toys and we’ll all be together!  Won’t that be fun?”  He looked down to the floor and walked away… 

Finally, after about four of these exchanges…  I followed him out of the kitchen into his room to find him sitting in the middle of the floor, just looking down at his hands… 

“What’s the matter, Josh?”   He looked up at me with tears in his eyes and said, “Mommy, I don’t want to go to Uncle Ralph’s for Christmas.” 

This time, I paid attention and didn’t brush it off… 

I sat down on the floor, next to him.  

“Honey, talk to me.  What’s bothering you?”  

With that, Josh put his arms around my neck, leaned into my chest, and started crying in earnest, “Mommy, how will Santa know where I am if we go to Uncle Ralph’s?   He’s expecting me to be here…”

I wrapped my arms around him and rocked him….  

“Oh, Honey, Santa knows EVERYTHING!    He’ll know where you are!” 

He looked up at me, eyes wide, “He does?  How will he know?” 

I thought for a moment.  I knew this was a very important question – for him and for me… 

“Josh, there are things we know, not because we can see them or touch them…  but, they’re real just the same.  We know these things in our hearts…  and I know that Santa knows where you are because you are in his heart…  Not just at Christmas time, but all year long – even when you’re  not thinking about Him…    You have to believe…” 

We sat there a little longer while Josh thought about this… He wanted to believe me, but I could see he wasn’t quite there yet…. 

“I’ll tell you what, Josh…  Why don’t we leave him a note?  Just in case he accidentally forgets…  I don’t think he will, but, if it will make you feel better, we can do that.  What do you think?” 

He thought that was a great idea…   

On Christmas Eve morning, we prepared to go to my brother’s house.  My husband, Fred, had taken all the presents – including the coveted toy record-player – down to the car and put them in the trunk the night before. 

Josh brought me a piece of paper and a crayon to write the note to Santa… 

“Dear Santa,” I wrote carefully, “Just in case you come here first, I just want to let you know that I am at my Uncle Ralph’s with Jackie and Julie.  Please bring my presents there.”  And, just in case Santa didn’t know how to get there, we gave directions, “Just look down from your sleigh and follow the New Jersey Turnpike…” 

While it was all I could do not to smile, I realized that this “crucible of doubt” was going to be a turning point for Josh – this was very serious business. .. 

We set up a little table between the fireplace and the tree – where Santa couldn’t miss it – and laid out His usual milk and cookies — the “bread and wine” of Santa devotion — and placed the note carefully between the glass and the dish…

We left for New Jersey.   But, not before Fred went back upstairs, “to go to the bathroom,” poured the milk back in the carton and left the glass where he found it, grabbed the note, and put the cookies in his pocket.

Josh had a great time that evening, playing with his cousins. As hard as they tried to stay up and sneak a peek at Santa, all the kids finally couldn’t keep their eyes open.  Off they went to bed. 

The next morning, I heard the excited screams as all the kids ran down the stairs.  I heard the whooping and hollering and crying out in delight at what they saw under the tree. 

I rolled over and said to Fred, “C’mon, wake up… we have to get these pictures…”   We pulled on sweats and walked out into the hall…. 

There was Josh, standing all alone at the top of the stairs.  The sounds of Christmas laughter  and the smell of cinnamon-Christmas-something were wafting up the stairs to us… 

“Honey, what’s the matter?  Why aren’t you downstairs with the others?” 

His soulful eyes looked up at me and he whispered, “What if Santa forgot me….?” 

I walked to him, kissed his cheek and took his hand, “Honey, remember what I told you?  I’m sure that Santa didn’t forget you…  He knows everything…” 

We walked down the stairs and into the living room where all the kids were tearing open packages and laughing… 

I went to the tree and picked the package I knew contained the record player.  I looked at the card to see whose present it could be….  “Oh!  Here’s one for you, Josh!”

I read aloud:

“Dear Josh, I know you’ve been such a good boy this year.  Merry Christmas, Love, Santa…” 

Josh ran to me and reached up for his present.  He dropped to the floor, and I sat with him, watching his face as he ripped open the wrapping… 

“It’s my record-player!” 

He looked up at me and then  straight into the camera that Fred held, and said…

“Oh, Mommy, you’re right!  Santa DOES know EVERYTHING!” 

Yes,  my dear, sweet child….  He does…. 

As I breathed in the tree lights,  beautiful sights, laughing sounds, and evergreen smell of Christmas, I silently thanked the SomeOne Else who really does know everything….  “Thank you, thank you… for this… for this moment… for this child….  for this family…  for all this Love…” 

Merry Christmas to all, and to all….  I wish you the greatest gifts…  Faith, Beauty, and Love… Miracles, creation, and Joy…

Believe. 

Deliciously yours in the Wonder of it All, Linda 

“Now, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”   Hebrews, 11:1 

This is Josh at that “Ah-ha!” moment about Santa, with Julie and Jackie in the background and me and the record player in the foreground.  The Big Eyes tell the whole story….

“Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight.  The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.” 

*Note:  The title and this excerpt are from the famous editorial published in the New York Sun on September 21, 1897, entitled, “Is there a Santa Claus?” written by Frances P. Church.  Here is the link to the full editorial:  http://beebo.org/smackerels/yes-virginia.html

© Linda Ruocco and “Spiritual Chocolate”, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Linda Ruocco and “Spritiual Chocolate”  with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.  Thank you.

“By the Sea…”

Hi, it’s Linda here again… and this week’s story is a bit nostalgic… a sweet taste, savored long ago, that still lingers…. stirring up memories of love that once was….and, somewhere, still is…..

There is a time for everything in life…. a time when we fall in love, we get married, we have a child…

Sometimes that beautiful story continues. Often, there are bumps along the way and life takes a turn that we don’t expect. It can be challenging to leave behind what once was… and, yet, there is no future in life until we let go of the past, the beautiful times as well as the tough times….

Only when our space is “clean” can there be room for something new…

Here’s a story about letting go of one of those beautiful times… and how we can do that with love….

Years ago, just before I married my husband, Fred, we had the opportunity to rent – and then buy – a house on the beach in Westhampton, New York. One of Fred’s colleagues had just taken a job in Ohio and was not going to be able to use the house that he had rented — with an option to buy, no less. He called Fred and said, “Go out there and take a look at it… If you like it, I’ll turn over the lease to you…”

The next Saturday – a cold, clear day in February, 1976 – we traveled out to the Hamptons to take a look. The long drive ended with a desolate stretch along Dune Road, passing boarded up cottages and empty driveways — to arrive at a burgundy cottage, high up on pilings, boarded up like all the others, with a rickety staircase climbing up to the front door and a high dune on the ocean-side that prevented us from seeing what lay beyond…

Like kids, we jumped out of the car and ran up the stairs, trying to peek inside – to no avail. It was a worn house, small – but the air was crisp and the sky was blue – and we whispered about how good it would be to spend the summer at the beach…

And, if we liked it? Well, it was a very inexpensive house – as all of them were then… and we could afford it if we didn’t buy an apartment in the city…. we had such freedom to choose!

When we couldn’t see inside from the front door – or even crack the board on a window a bit… we decided that we’d go under the house and climb the dune and see what the ocean looked like from there…

We scrambled up the back of the high dune – it must have been 15 feet! – and pulled each other up to the top to see a back porch that was also old and weathered…. and then we turned around….

It was beautiful… breath-taking, really… the ocean stretched out before us in an endless expanse of sea and sky… the waves rolled in a rhythmic pattern from left to right, curling foam to crash upon the white sand.…

We looked at each other and we knew this was it…. this was our house…. we hugged and we kissed and we loved and we gave everything in our hearts to each other and to this house…..

When we got home, Fred called his friend – “Yes, we’ll take it….”

We got married in May and moved into our beach house for Memorial Day weekend…. It was old and worn inside, but we didn’t care… it was warm and it was cozy and it was ours….

It would be impossible in this little story for me to tell you everything that happened in that house… the wonderful times with friends, the beautiful sun-filled weekends, the runs along the beach with the sea breeze moving us along and lobster roasts in the sand…. How we spent every weekend there from May to October every year, loving every moment of it…. so that, even in the cold of winter, when we never went out there, it lived for us in the background of our minds — as the love nest that it truly was….

When we lost our first baby in May, 1978, that summer at the beach house was a time and a place of mourning that turned into a haven of healing and love for both of us…

When Josh was born the following year, we brought him home — after 8 weeks in the hospital and a scary time when it was all about transfusions and intensive care for him — and intensive care followed by my mother’s death for her – we headed out to the beach house, in the middle of October, even though the season was over and the road was quiet and the town was empty — and we slept in our room, with Joshua in his Moses-basket by our bed….

We were at peace there…

As I look back on it now, it strikes me as odd – and strangely synchronistic: how our lives together — and what happened to the beach house — seemed to mirror each other…

Fred and I drifted into a troubled and confusing time… and the beach house suffered from winter Northeasters that left it standing precariously on three less pilings… and listing dangerously to one side – not unlike how our marriage was standing…. scary to look at, dangerous to enter, and doomed to fall into the ocean if we couldn’t fix it….

Try as we did, both the house and the marriage collapsed…. a series of winter storms in 1993 finally took the house out to sea…. the same winter that Fred and I no longer had anything left to stand on either…

After the last storm, we went out to look at where the house once stood. The road – what there was of it — was blocked, the rest of the area was flooded so that the only way out to where the house used to be was by barge — a big one with wheels that rolled into — and then floated on — the ocean… I couldn’t look… it was too painful to see it all gone…

We left the beach that day and didn’t go back… There were community groups and lawsuits to work on rebuilding the beach – and the meetings and the legal trials, once again, were much like the discord that now existed between Fred and me…

It was hard to remember how we were together before… as it was hard to remember how beautiful it had been in our house at the beach….

Over several years… and little by little, the beach was restored – lawsuits won by the community, a new town created, Westhampton Dunes, and an agreement by the government to manage the beach over the next 30 years to keep it from drifting away again…

In those same years, Fred and I mended our own hearts and – even though we chose different lives – what emerged was the foundation of real love and affection that always lay under the surface of our problems – those problems that were really defenses — against what? We don’t remember now…

Years later, when the beach was beautiful again, I went out to look at our land…. it had sat barren and empty for a long time. The lawsuits won, the area was going through a building boom and there was our beach in the midst of framed-out houses and newly planted dunes…

Waiting for a new life….

Neither Fred nor I could let it go….

Shortly after that, a developer called and made a nice offer for the land. Fred and I had been separated for years – we knew that we would never build on that land again. AND… knowing that it was in the background… that it was there… spoke of something unfinished….

Something incomplete….

It was time to let go…

We took the offer…

The week before we closed, I went out to the beach by myself… I brought a notebook and a pen and a folding chair. I opened the chair and sat there all afternoon, writing in my book – anything that I could remember about everything that ever happened in that house.

One memory was emblazoned on my heart…

The spring after Joshua was born, we opened the house early and started bringing him out there every weekend. One night, I was holding him in my arms, rocking him to sleep in an antique rocker that we had in our bedroom….

Our house was a strange shape… the master bedroom jutted out onto the back deck, facing the ocean – and the main house was at a right angle to the bedroom doors that opened onto the deck…. Sitting in the rocking chair, holding my baby – I could see both the ocean – and — if I looked a little to the right – I could see across the deck, into the living room where Fred was sitting, reading his book.

It was a perfect moment.

I felt a love wash over me that I had never felt before…. there was nothing there BUT love… I looked down at Joshua, his little eyelashes fluttering on his soft, sweet cheeks and my heart filled up and overflowed… I lifted my head and saw Fred and was overwhelmed with love for him – I turned towards the ocean and watched those beautiful waves rolling in curls onto the sand and the moonlight glistening on the ocean…. and all I could think was, “This is it… This is bliss… Thank you, God… You have blessed me…. I have everything I could ever want in my life…. I am so grateful…..” and the tears rolled down my face – I was that happy…..

And… that was a long time ago…

As I sat in the folding chair and looked at my little plot of beach – that same beach that was the place of my fondest memory and my deepest love…. I knew that what I wanted for whomever would live there was exactly that….

Love.

I took a stick and made the Reiki symbol for “love” in the sand. I climbed up the dune, one last time. Standing there, facing the sea — with the sharp, salty breeze brushing against my face and blowing my hair back — I blessed the sky, I blessed the beach, I blessed the ocean…

I said good-bye…

I packed up my folding chair, my notebook, and my bag… I turned and left…

I have a new life now, a different life…. A life I love… and, I am blessed that I had that life… once, a long time ago….

As for Fred and me? Well, real love never dies…. it changes, it looks different… but it is always love… We are friends now and that is a gift….

Deliciously yours in the Beauty of it all, Linda

“A time to build up, a time to break down
A time to dance, a time to mourn
A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together

To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time for every purpose, under heaven”

…”Turn, Turn, Turn”, The Bryds

This is me, on the front deck of our beach house on Dune Road in Westhampton, in the summer of 1983. It was a beautiful time — for Fred and Josh and for me, for our two other children from Fred’s first marriage, Brian and Cindy, for our house, for our friends who came to visit….. With love, always…. xoxo

 

 

© Linda Ruocco and “Spiritual Chocolate”, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Linda Ruocco and “Spritiual Chocolate”  with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.  Thank you.

“Beauty is as Beauty Does…”

 

In a world of material beauty, it is often challenging to stay present to the real beauty in the world: love, compassion, kindness — without which the world would surely be a sad, dark, and lonely place…

I remember that my mother, in her vigilant attempt to keep me free from false pride about my own face or figure, would remind me that these were not the important things of life. If one of my parents’ friends would make a fuss about my looks, my mother would take me aside and whisper in my ear, “Just remember, Linda, beauty is as beauty does….”

Still, I spent most of my life enamored of beautiful people, beautiful clothes, and beautiful places and things… I spent most of my career in the fashion business where those things are one’s stock in trade – equally important to any merchandising or marketing talent one might actually have….

I left the fashion business years ago, not without some longing and regret, but always knowing that there was something else for me to do, something new for me to learn, something more for me to “get” about life…

How much I had changed became clear to me when I volunteered at the armory in New York City after 9/11 to work with the victims’ families — Here is a story that captures my altered view of the world….

I was sitting with a family whose husband and father was among the many who had not appeared anywhere after four days…. most people there were left without certainty about what had happened to their loved ones… and it was for the volunteers to sit with them, pray with them, get them some food – be there for them…

I heard someone say, “There’s Elizabeth Taylor!”

I turned, and, sure enough, there was Elizabeth Taylor with an entourage of about three or four people. She had on a long caftan and was walking with a cane. She was speaking with the men in her group and looking around the cavernous hall.

I had seen her in person many years before. When I was at Bloomingdale’s, I had been invited to a fund-raising dinner for an AIDS benefit. I don’t think it was called “AMFAR” yet – it was in the early days of the AIDS pandemic. It was a very elegant, star-studded, fashionable affair.

Elizabeth Taylor was the main draw.

I kept trying to get near her. She had always been my favorite actress, ever since I had seen the film, “National Velvet”. Her affair and subsequent marriage to Richard Burton was the tabloid fodder of my growing-up years. One time, I even drew this sexy black mole near where I had seen that she had one, and, at fifteen, I dyed my hair black and did everything I could to have her hairstyle, her make-up, her face. Alas, those are gifts one is born with, and so I eventually grew out of that phase. But, I never stopped admiring her in the years after I had given up trying to be her. If anything, she had gained more of my admiration for her continued work for AIDS victims.

I spent the whole time at the AIDS event trying to position myself to be near enough that I could see her up close – I wanted to see those violet eyes, that crowd-stopping face. I wanted to hear that whisper-y, sexy, Elizabeth Taylor voice just once in my life!

She had been heavy at some point prior to the event, but now was a very petite, slim woman with enormous breasts – a feature I had never noticed before. I attributed that to her beauty. Her face was so beautiful, and, of course, those eyes! No one in the magazines ever seemed to emphasize the rest of her figure except to report on its weight fluctuations.

I was about ready to give up hope of getting close to her when I was tapped on the shoulder by one of her bodyguards and asked to step to the side. I did and turned around – and there she was.

She was walking in my direction — She stopped to talk to someone about two feet away from me. I was stuck to the ground — I couldn’t take my eyes from her face.

People were pushing me to get near her. Usually, I would have let people get in front of me rather than stand my ground and possibly get trampled.   This time, I pushed back.   No one was getting between Elizabeth and me!

She turned back toward me — her bodyguard touched her arm to urge her onward. As she was turning, she looked right at me. It could only have been for a moment, but it was enough.

I saw them. I looked right at her face — and I saw them. The violet eyes. I felt as if I was close to some fabulous jewels that not everyone would ever get to see and I was one of those lucky ones. Her eyes were all I COULD see – and, they were violet. Beautiful, deep, purple-y violet.

She looked right at me.

As she walked by, she was mere inches away…. I couldn’t believe that I had actually been that close to her. ..

Everyone rushed past me to keep up with her, but I was rooted to the spot. Finally, I turned in time to see her being swept out the door.

Now, here she was again – older, heavier, clearly walking with difficulty, even with her cane. But, the face – there was no mistake. That was Elizabeth Taylor.

She kept looking around and her eyes finally settled on the family I was with. She walked towards us. I was sitting with my arm around the mother of the group. Elizabeth came over and sat down right next to us and then turned her attention to the rest of the family. She started talking to them. The mother had been crying and I had been comforting her — even we stopped to listen.

Her sexy, whisper-y Elizabeth Taylor voice somehow landed for me now as sweet and mellifluous, gentle and loving…

I don’t remember everything she said. She told them that she was so sorry and that she wished that she could do something. She took her hand and put it on the daughter’s cheek. She asked them questions about their father. She listened as they spoke. They asked her to sign their placard with his picture and she graciously did so.

She turned back towards the mother and said something to console her. Then she lifted her head and looked directly into my eyes. I looked back into hers. We were just being there together: Two people, wanting to help, wanting the pain to go away, wanting to make a difference…

I saw her eyes well with tears….

Her bodyguards helped her up and led her away. She looked around as she headed for the front door. She stopped a few more times and spoke to more people, but not for long.

And then she was gone.

It occurred to me…. I hadn’t noticed what color her eyes were…

I’m sure they were as violet and as beautiful as ever….

Something had shifted for me, though…. the beauty I saw that night was her transcendant beauty — a beauty of the heart in service to the world…

As my mother would say, “Beauty is as beauty does…..”

Deliciously yours in the Gorgeousness of it All…. Linda

“The ideals which have lighted me on my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully — have been Truth, Goodness, and Beauty”. . . . Albert Einstein

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen, nor touched … but are felt in the heart.” … Helen Keller

© Linda Ruocco and “Spiritual Chocolate”, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Linda Ruocco and “Spritiual Chocolate”  with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.  Thank you.

“When did he grow to be so tall….?”

Hi, it’s Linda here again… back from a visit with my son, Josh, and Oh, what a delicious visit it was….!

Everyone who knows me knows how much I love Josh!   He is the Great Blessing of my life…   AND, it hasn’t always been easy between us….

Let me first tell you that the dream of my life was always to have a child…   I can pinpoint the moment I knew…

One night when I was 12, I was babysitting at our neighbors’  across the street. They had a tiny baby.  I had never babysat a “real” baby before.  I thought he would sleep the whole time, but he didn’t. He cried and cried and cried – that little “new-baby-cry” that sounded like he couldn’t catch his breath.

I was afraid to touch him.

I called my mother and begged her to come over.  She did.  She went into the baby’s room, picked him up and put him on the changing table. I stood next to her as she opened his diaper. She never said a word, but she stopped for a minute and so I looked. What I saw was disgusting to my 12 year old sensibilities – the baby was raw from his waist to his knees, the diaper reeked of urine, and brown poop lay slathered over the red skin like warrior markings.

My mother started to do what I knew she knew best – taking care of children who couldn’t take care of themselves. She was ever so gentle as she cleaned that baby up. As she took care of him, he started to calm down. She put Vaseline all over him – thick layers of the stuff to block out the hurt and the pain. He stopped crying. She diapered him and picked him up. She rocked him on her shoulder, patting his back and crooning to him, until he fell asleep. She put him back in his crib.

I was in awe of her.

I decided, right then, that I was going to have a baby and I was going to be a mother just like my mother – and no child of mine was ever going to feel hurt or pain…

Ever…

And, well….  It doesn’t always go like that, does it?

For years, when Josh was little, it seemed that life was easy and happy – I joke that the three of us were like “The Three Musketeers”, always together, full of adventure and fun…

Life didn’t go on like that forever… Fred and I started to lose who we were in our marriage… we did what we did and we knew Josh had a hard time with that…

Separation and divorce are never easy for a child, no matter how old they are…

For Josh, well… he had to go through it twice…

Fred and I first separated when he was six years old. We stayed apart for two years and then we wanted to try again to make our marriage work…

The next six years were progressively painful for all of us. By the time Fred and I separated the second time, Josh was fourteen…

He chose to live with his Dad…

Since then, Josh and I have been riding a roller-coaster of emotion, trying to repair what neither of us dared to even speak of…

A pattern emerged out of the way we were together… if I said “black,” he said “white”… and then I would spend a lot of time defending “black” as if being a good mother were at stake…

Oh, we loved each other, for sure… that was never in doubt… we just weren’t always present to the love…  As a result, we didn’t have an easy, comfortable way with each other… we were both anxious, tentative, and finally…  automatic…

“Hi, Josh, it’s Mom… How’s work?”

“It’s fine. How are you?”

There would be a bit of news on either side… then…

Silence.

“Ok, Honey… I’ll let you go… I love you…!”

“Love you, too, Mom…”

Click.

When we agreed that I’d come to Minneapolis for a visit, I was determined that this time it would be different. I was committed to shift something in this relationship. I wasn’t willing to let it go on like this for one more minute…

I was willing to do anything to create the space for that to happen…

I cleared myself with a few of my committed listeners.   My friends were ruthlessly compassionate with me:   “Linda, you are either going to spend your life defending and explaining or you are going to listen to him and love him no matter what he says.   You can’t have both…”

A little scared… off I went to Minneapolis…

I started on Saturday by saying, “Josh, I know that there is something between us…”

He interrupted me, “Mom, not here at breakfast… Let’s go home and talk about this….”

When we got to his apartment, I tried again, “Josh, you can say anything you want to say to me…   I am here to listen…”

And, listen I did… for hours….

What he said is not for here… and it’s not what is at the heart of the matter, anyway… What IS the essence – the life — is that the way he saw it is the way it happened for him — and I needed to get that…

It was not easy. He spoke of things from when he was 9, when he was 13 – and times before, after, and in-between…

There were moments I wanted to jump in and say, “No, that’s not what happened…” and I remembered my friends’ caution… “Whatever way it is for him is the way it is for him… Just BE with it… That is the only way to honor him…”

Every time I wanted to correct his perception, I watched myself WANT to do that — and what went through my mind was, “this is not about being right about anything… this is about loving him…”

The more I listened, the more he said…

By four in the afternoon, we were both quiet….

What I did finally say was, “Josh, I am committed to having an extraordinary relationship with you….”

And, he said:

“Mom, I am committed to having an extraordinary relationship with you, too….”

We stopped the “heavy stuff” and proceeded to have a great weekend… He cooked for me, we watched a movie on TV and I scratched his head like I always did when he was a little boy….

The next day, he was still impatient with me and I was still trying too hard to be a “good mother”…

Old patterns die hard….

But, something had shifted… something transformed…. the impatience was more playful, the “good mother” was not so righteous… or needy…

He drove me to the airport early Monday morning. As I kissed him “Good-bye” and turned to go… I knew that we had done something huge that weekend…  I was at peace.

If anyone had told me when I was 12 that I could ever hurt my child or cause him pain, I would have said that it was not possible….

What I learned is that there are other ways to hurt a child besides leaving him in a urine-soaked diaper…

We do what we do in any moment because that is our level of consciousness at that time…

It is a gift to be able to grow in awareness… to take responsibility for what we have done and to acknowledge the impact it has on the people around us… and commit to something new, something greater, something full of love and compassion for who they are….

And… for who WE are…

Anything is possible now for me and Josh ….

I have no idea what that looks like…

Now, THAT’S an adventure worth having…

Deliciously yours in the Glory of it All,  Linda

“Is this the little girl I carried?
Is this the little boy at play?
I don’t remember growing older,
When did they?

When did she get to be a beauty?
When did he grow to be so tall?
Wasn’t it yesterday when they were small?

Sunrise, sunset…
Sunrise, sunset…
Swiftly flow the years.
One season following another,
Laiden with happiness and tears.”
…from “Fiddler on the Roof”

This is my son, Josh Feuer…  An amazing man, if I do say so — and not just because I’m his mother…..  xoxo

How did I learn to listen like this?  See www.landmarkeducation.com.

“So Just Look at Them and Sigh…”

What a great celebration is Mother’s Day! The day we show our mothers what they mean to us, the day we remember all the good stuff – and, for us as mothers, the day we look back and say… “I think I did some really great things here… Now where are those memories…? Hmmm, let me think…”

One of my son’s favorite stories to tease me with is that – to this day, I am brought to tears about leaving him at camp when he was ten years old…. something he’s long forgiven and forgotten, but which can still reduce me to a blubbering lump of soggy mess just to think about having to peel him off my body as I turned to go to the parking lot, leaving him to cry inconsolably behind me…..

AND…

I have LOTS of good moments to remember – and TONS of great ones… Moments that remind me that there were many times that I got it right….

Here’s one of the sweet ones….

Joshua was four — and he had a play-date at our house. His little friend, Evan, came over, and his mom brought a plate of chocolate chip cookies for the boys to share…

They had a great time that afternoon. Joshua’s nanny, Daisy, who was an amazing and BIG woman from Jamaica, took the boys to the park where they ran and played and tumbled and threw balls and ate all those cookies! What a great time they had!

The next day, I noticed the cookie dish that Daisy had washed and set on the dining room table, waiting to take it back over to Evan’s house. It caught my eye that it looked particularly beautiful, which I hadn’t noticed before, and so I picked it up and turned it over – the inscription on the back said “Baccarat.” I shook my head – who sends chocolate chip cookies over in a Baccarat candy dish?

As I sat at the table, doing some work I had brought home with me, Joshua and Daisy came into the room – Joshua was dressed to go out in the cold weather, all bundled up in his parka and mittens with his fuzzy cap on and his hood over it and tied up under his chin. For such a skinny little kid, he looked like a big, round, blue puffball!

As Daisy picked up the dish, Joshua reached up and, in his little squeaky voice, he said, “Daisy, let ME! I can carry that to Evan’s house.” Daisy shook her head and reached for the plate, “No, I’ll take it, Joshua, you might break it.”

Joshua was crushed. Even at four, he was a careful child, very sensitive and precise – I saw him shrink before my eyes…

I quickly jumped in, “Daisy, Joshua can take the dish to Evan’s house.” She shot me a surprised glance and started to protest, but I turned to look at my son…

“Daisy, I have confidence in Joshua – he’s a very careful boy and I feel confident that he will bring the dish back to Evan’s house and it will be just fine.”

With a sigh, Daisy started to put the dish back in Joshua’s hands. He said, “Wait, Daisy, I have to take my mittens off so I can hold it better.” Daisy didn’t say anything – she just turned to look at me. It was February and cold outside – was I really going to let him go out without his mittens on?

“What a good idea, Joshua! See, Daisy? I told you Joshua is a careful boy!”

They walked out the door together, this big woman – 250 pounds, easy! – and my little blue puffball, walking carefully and slowly, holding the dish in his two hands at chest height in front of him, watching it every minute as he took one slow step after another…

Daisy shot me one last glance as if to say, “I hope you know what you’re doing….”

The answer to that is yes, I did know what I was doing — and what I was doing was giving my son an opportunity to show what he could do, giving him the gift of possibility that yes, indeed, he could be careful and he could be responsible and he could do that all by himself.

Did it ever cross my mind that he might drop the dish?

Yes, it did. And, if he did, I would have replaced it and I would have been very, very sorry with Evan’s Mom. However, it would have been just a broken dish – albeit Baccarat! – and easily replaced.

Joshua’s self-esteem was much more valuable to me – his sense of himself, his confidence in his own ability to handle challenging tasks – well, that was priceless to me – and, if broken, that could never be repaired or replaced.

A half hour later, they returned. Joshua walked in the door… He was all puffed up — and it wasn’t just about the jacket!!

“I did it, Mommy! I brought the dish to Evan’s and I didn’t break it!”

I picked him up and held him high — and pulled him in close to me, full of love for him. “I am so proud of you!” I said.

I brought him back down to the floor and kneeled in front of him. As I helped him take his jacket off so that I could get close enough to give him the biggest hug ever, I said, “What’s even more important is that you’re proud of yourself. Are you?”

“I’m SO proud of myself,” he said. He was beaming!

I pulled him close and hugged him tight…. and I knew that there wasn’t a candy dish or any dish or any “thing”, for that matter, anywhere on earth that was worth more than what I gave my son that day….

That day, I got it right…..

This is for me and for my mother and for my mother’s mother and for all those mothers who worry and wait and try and cry and go to bed exhausted at night, all for the love of their children…

Happy Mother’s Day!

Deliciously yours in the Sweetness of it all, Linda

“I’ll teach my son the sweetest things; I’ll teach him how the owlet sings…” William Wordsworth

“Don’t you ever ask them why
If they told you, you will cry
So just look at them and sigh
And know they love you.”
Graham Nash of Crosby Stills and Nash, “Teach your children well”

THIS is my amazing son, Josh Feuer, now almost 30 years old…. As precious to me as the day he was born…. He lives in Minneapolis and works for Target and he gave me the best present for Mother’s Day: a StoryPeople pendant that says, “For a long time, she flew only when she thought no one else was watching.” I will wear it around my neck forever..

I love you, Josh… You are my Hero! Mom xox

 

 

 

 

© Linda Ruocco and “Spiritual Chocolate”, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Linda Ruocco and “Spritiual Chocolate”  with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.  Thank you.