Tuesday, February 26, 2013

PROGRESS


When I get up each morning I put on my watch and clothing; and the last thing I do before I leave the confines of my bedroom is slip my cell phone in my pocket.  Then I think I’m ready to face the world, for one more day. Seems kind of hypocritical for a guy who writes about, “how life was so much simpler in the world I grew up in as a kid.” Now I’m not some important person, who is going to make an earth- shattering decision, so its imperative I stay in touch—but you not going to win cash call on the radio if your not home. If you can’t lick them you have to join them or get lost in the dust. I know a few people who do refuse to join and they seem to get along just fine. Call me a conformist.

If you ask me, my phone has become my lifeline to the world. In reality, nothing bad ever happened on the days I forgot it but that’s irrelevant. My phone tells me the temperature, but so does the sign at the bank, the thermometer by the back door and my knee. It reminds me when it’s someone’s birthday, but so does the calendar in the kitchen. I can get e-mails—that will still be on the computer when I get home. It has G.P.S if I can ever remember how to use it. I don’t text. I draw the line there as my fingers are too fat, and shake too much, so I can’t type on the dang thing anyway. It keeps my little granddaughter busy playing “Angry Birds” so her mom and I can talk.” There—I found something useful. But then, if I took the seventy dollars a month it costs to have it, I could buy her lots of stuff to keep her busy, couldn’t I.

I go to the woods for peace and quiet, but more than once, a phone call has interrupted my peace and quiet and me. I even got a call while deer hunting, sitting in my tree stand trying to be quiet. I’ve been called when I’m on the “John” and you can’t even flush because who wants them to know where you are and what you are doing. Some things still need to be a little private! I feel sorry for people who are sexually active. Now that’s a decision to make, isn’t it? The other day, I told my friend “make sure you take your phone when you go to the mailbox.” She patronized me.

When I go to church, the first announcement they make is “shut off your cell phones.” The other day in church, the guy behind me was texting while the Priest was talking and it sounded like he was playing Twinkle Twinkle little Star. Sometimes I’m on the house phone—and don’t ask me why I have both—when the cell phone rings. I want to say something classy like “Excuse me, I have a call on another line,” but usually I lose one while I’m talking to the other, and the last thing the person I am talking to hears, is “Oh crap.” What’s that? You were that person and I didn’t say crap.’ Maybe what I ought to flush is this column. I grew up in Staples and we had one basic black phone in our house. No kids allowed on it unless someone asked for you. No dials or buttons on it—you just picked it up and the operator said, “Number please.” It was a three-digit number. If there was a fire, and they blew the whistle on the water tower to summon the fireman, you could pick up the phone and say “Hey, where’s the fire, Susan?” She’d tell you. “What a bunch of backwards people,” you say. I kind of liked it. Got to go…I have a call.

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

WHAT LIFE'S ABOUT


                                                 
I have always felt that it’s not what you accomplish in your life that is so important, but how you lived your life that counts. For you see, when all is said and done, the thing that will live on the longest after you’re gone is how people felt about you. What you accomplished in life will probably fit on one page or even one paragraph, in your obituary, but what you inspired others to do might well be a book full. It’s the “gift that keeps on giving” long after you’ve left the scene, and in this case, it was my wife that gave the gift.

Last week was Valentine’s Day. Last year, I took out an old weathered Valentine my wife had given me, twenty some years ago. It was one of those with a little battery in it, and when you opened it up, it played the theme from “Love Story.” You remember…that old 1970 movie with Ryan O’Neil and Alli MacGraw. I kept it in my desk drawer all of these years, and the older it got, the fewer times I would open it because I wanted the battery to last. Then, last year after she had passed and Valentine’s Day rolled around again, I opened it once more. The battery was dead. I think the card was telling me something. That being, that lots of things—the battery in this case—only last for a while, but the real message that came with the giving of that card will go to my grave with me. That message being that she taught me how to live and love and she never meant it to stop when she did.

What have I learned in the last year and a half? I learned that you can sit and pine and wallow in your pity puddle, or you can move on…and maybe…just maybe, you will learn that you weren’t at a dead-end in life’s trip down the highway of life. That all it took was to build a new road around the obstructions that were put there, and before you know it, you’re moving forward again. It’s not a matter of betrayal or not caring; it’s a matter of survival and sharing with someone new what you learned back there on that path you traveled. Sometimes, we think we measure strength by holding on, but the true measure comes in letting go and doing the things you feared you could never do.

I saw this on the Internet and wanted to share it with you.
We don’t understand joy—until we are faced with sorrow.
Faith—until it is tested
Peace—until faced with conflict
Trust—until we are betrayed.
Love—until it is lost
Hope—until confronted with doubts.
Life is, and always will be, a series of learning lessons that do us absolutely no good until we use them. What better way to honor your teacher than to emulate him or her, and once again share your love. Love unshared isn’t love. It has to be recognized by others before it’s truly love. I bought a valentine for a special friend this year. One without a battery.

Readers. Check out my new web site.---www.mikeholstbooks.com

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

LIFE GOES ON



Yesterday I journeyed to the cities for a funeral—one of many I have gone to since my wife died. But this one had a déjà vu attached to it. For you see, my cousin lost his loving wife of sixty years. He, like me, had what so many people only dream about. A loving, faithful wife, yes, but beyond that, he too had married his best friend. It’s marriages like this that show the way for many others—namely, your children and grandchildren. The most beautiful dress in the world starts with a simple pattern or idea. Then it is cut out and sewn together to complete it. Until it is finished, it’s just a piece of cloth with no purpose. That’s how good families are built. I have been privileged in my life to be part of one such marriage, but more than that, I have witnessed many others and this was truly one of them.

I wanted to say to my cousin “Where does life go from here? With a broken heart and your spirit like this, how can you go on from here?”  Well, to start with, you simply look around you at the product of your love with him or her; and smile at your accomplishments. Namely, your decedents, for it is in them that life goes on. Yes, they are suffering now too, but it’s not the same. They will go home to their busy lives and their own families and no, they won’t forget about you or her, but time will weigh heavy on your thoughts, whereas they will be preoccupied somewhat with their families, they won’t have the opportunity to feel the pain of loss as much. Common sense tells us we can only think in so many directions at once. Your responsibility has doubled, however, because the matriarch is gone and now it’s up to you to remember each and every birthday, anniversary, to pay the bills, and do the shopping.

For a while, your house will seem like a shrine. Every knick-knack, every dish and couch pillow has a story behind it. You can’t open the picture albums because it hurts too much. The bed that seemed so small—when you were both fighting for blankets in it—now looms like a football field and you’re sleeping in the end zone. You avoid the table where you shared your meals and eat at the lunch counter, or in your chair in front of the television.  Your diet consists of anything you can fit between two slices of bread. When you’re in the car you miss the chatter, even if it was only complaints about your driving abilities or what you listened to on the radio.

But healing will take place, and it seems like the deeper the love you had, the longer the recovery takes, but here is where patience is indeed the virtue. You have to let it all play out. At some point, that big bed becomes normal again, and you find yourself sleeping in the middle. You dig out her recipe box because you’re tired of liver sausage sandwiches and potato chips. You keep the house clean because there is a reason she kept it clean and it’s finally sinking in. When springtime comes, you plant flowers because, although it reminds you of her, for once you want to be reminded. You don’t go to the cemetery as much and you cry less when you do go. For some, another lonely heart may come their way, and if it does, don’t harden your heart. Most of all make no comparisons. We’re all meant to be special in our own way—you just have to search for it. He or she would want you to be happy, would they not? Lastly—remember—pity doesn’t come in a bottomless cup.



Tuesday, February 5, 2013

THEN THERE IS LOVE.


                                                
As we go through life we experience a lot of emotions. They impact us in a variety of ways including how we act, what we say and how we feel about others. These emotions seem to run the gauntlet from hate and suspicion to laughter, sadness, love and so many more. Most of them we need to control, and some of them we could well do without if only we could—but always we need to deal with them. Most of them involve other people, and then others are just ours alone to deal with. I could write a book about all of them, and how they have impacted my life, but for right now, I want to talk about the one I think is the most important to all of us, and that is love.

It has been said that there is no real darkness—just the absence of light. Using that analogy I would say this. There is no hatefulness or loneliness in our lives, just the absence of love. Love may be gone from your life for many reasons. Some of us have never sought it. Some of us have experienced it and lost it through faults of our own, and some of us lost it because it was taken from us. Love is an essential emotion that needs to be cultured and taken care of from the time it is a tiny seed. It can’t exist without some form of cooperation from you. You give it and you will get it back.

In the lyrics to the song “The Rose,” Amanda McBroom wrote about what it’s like to live with or without love. “Some say love, it is a hunger, an endless aching need. I say love, it is a flower and you its only seed.” How many people have you known that refuse to give himself or herself to anyone? How many people have you known that can’t stand the thought of losing something or someone and for that reason they rob themselves of all the benefits of love. Love doesn’t make the world go around, that’s just a clique—but it does make the ride much more enjoyable.

The word love has been abused over the years. So many times I have heard the phrase “Make Love.” You don’t make love but you do make love happen, and more times than not it doesn’t involve anything physical. Writers are always looking for synonyms or other ways to say things. They don’t like to repeat themselves. Love, as strong as an emotion as it is, has very few synonyms. Fondness comes to mind, and maybe affection, but most people just prefer good old love. Everything else seems to smack of Hollywood’s version of love, which all too often is mostly smut.

Love is the rhythm on the dance floor of life. It’s no fun to dance alone and it’s hard to live alone, and for that reason, life and your feelings are meant to be shared. You can ignore love, but you shouldn’t. You can always close your eyes to things you don’t want to see, but you can’t close your heart to things you don’t want to feel. You have to deal with them. I speak from experience when I say, “love is like a puzzle.” When you’re in love all the pieces fit so perfectly, and the picture makes so much sense, but when your heart gets broken the pieces are meaningless, all in a mess. But if you’re careful and don’t lose any of the pieces, they will all come together again when love comes back. If you let it, it always will. “Far beneath the bitter snows, lies the seed that with the sun’s love, in the spring becomes the rose.”