Caring hands’ work ends
Loved ones pass away. Void fills
From gratitude’s well.

Our selfless caring
effort’s reward: that we can
know our best was done.

© 2010 Shari Lynne Smothers

A recent death in my family and the funeral this weekend got me thinking about the role of the care-giver after the work is done. The process of getting through these tough times, isn’t easy to understand, and it helps me just to mull it over. I guess these writings will keep coming out until I discover the answer, or become otherwise distracted.

A luscious menu includes mouthwatering staples.
Family and friends enhance flavors and aromas.
Delectable conversation smooths digestion.
Delightful entertainment devours the hours.
The slightest hint of a taste missed
as I remember my dad and others no longer with me.
And I am thankful for each morsel and memory
that serves and fills me completely.

©2009 Shari Lynne Smothers

Prompt: Write a thankful poem. Day 26 of the 2009 November PAD Chapbook Challenge, from Poetic Asides.

Family, friends, favorite ink pens
wide ruled composition books
all sizes, bindings, page styles
and the new colors of Moleskines.

“The Mirror has Two Faces”
is my all-time favorite movie
of the many I adore from Barbara Streisand.
Thank God I’m a girl otherwise
according to “In & Out”
that affinity might betray
my natural attraction to men.

My computer in good working order.
External hard drive and DVD burner
at the ready to facilitate
me doing my things.
The internet and my own blogs
the fast tracks to sharing
my life with welcome visitors.

So much more I’m grateful for
‘til I probably could continue
for long pages.
Suffice it to say, some kind of way
these things have become part of me.

Even ex-boyfriends strange as
that may be by TV standards.
The reality is it’s harder to erase them
when our main component was friendship.

Can we talk?
Film cameras: My first and last Minoltas
SRT-201 and Maxxum STsi
and a low budget retro-looking
medium format Seagull to get my feet wet.
Favorite web tools WordPress and HTML-Kit.

No way would I part easily
with any of these and other things
tethered to my life.
If cherishing were an exercise or burden
I’d be totally, daily spent.

©2009 Shari Lynne Smothers

Prompt: Write an attachment poem. Day 19 of the 2009 November PAD Chapbook Challenge, from Poetic Asides by Robert Lee Brewer.

Notes: The two movies mentioned have great casts, but I only list a few. You can click on each title to visit their IMDB listing for more information.

• The Mirror has Two Faces, 1996, Stellar cast includes stars Barbara Streisand, Lauren Bacall, Jeff Bridges, Brenda Vaccaro
• In & Out, 1997, Stellar cast includes stars Kevin Kline, Joan Kusack, Tom Selleck, Wilford Brimley
• Moleskines are available online and in many stores. Check out this online site for fun stuff like Moleskine sightings on TV and in movies.

In my little life
blessed to be sure,
both joy and sorrow
have brought me to tears.

Both drain me of energy
to celebrate
and recuperate.

Both bring me to
gratitude
which replenishes me
and my
journey through life
continues.

©2009 Shari Lynne Smothers

Prompt: Write a renewable poem. This is my poem for Day 13 of the 2009 November PAD Chapbook Challenge.

Death in the Family

My grandmother died March 30, 2003. It was painful and breathtaking. And then…

Maybe ten days later, my father was rushed to the ER. Blood clots were killing him. By the time I got to the hospital, dad’s heart had stopped and he’d been resuscitated twice.

The doctor working with him asked if we wanted to sign DNR papers. I didn’t want that and I was certain my mom didn’t, but she was so distraught she couldn’t make the decision.

My dad died twice more and was revived without having to crack his chest, before my mom made her decision. In fact, she never made the decision.

My dad stabilized again and this time they were able to move him to the ICU for monitoring. None of his doctors expected him to get better. In defiance of all expectations, he got better. Slowly, steadily, and the doctors just watched. No surgery, just monitoring and maintaining his breathing and blood pressure.

He’ll be Fine

The next day, I was in his hospital room. I’d never seen him waylaid and it was unnerving. At the door, I hesitated to see him with all those tubes coming out of his body, and the ventilator breathing for him. I watched him for a moment longer, adjusting to seeing my dad look so human, so mortal. I touched his foot, then his hand, then his arm. I whispered in his ear, I love you, dad.

My twenty minutes was up and the same hesitation I had entering the room came to me again as I was leaving. At the foot of his bed, I turned to look at him even though it grieved me so, to see him down like this. I knew that if I could, I would have switched places with him. Suddenly, quietly as if a voice whispered in my ear, I heard in my head, no need, he’ll be fine.

I trusted that voice, and told my mom about it. And I was done worrying. I was just waiting for him to get better. I still hated to see him go through all that he had to. He was conscious only infrequently. One Saturday, I went to visit him before a picnic. I talked and he would nod a little. And then my time was up. I said I love you dad and he squeezed my hand. I was so excited that tears escaped my eyes. And he smiled because he knew he got to me. With a lump in my throat, I think I floated out of his room that day.

His Healing Affected Many

Dad had a team of doctors each in the top of his field and no one could explain why he was getting better. One doctor named it the miracle it was. He said they weren’t doing anything for my dad that they hadn’t done for many other patients before him. Most of them didn’t get better–at all. Another of his doctors would stop in, check the machine and vitals and leave shaking his head in dismay. That was the doctor that offered my mom the DNR papers.

Attempts to take him off the ventilator failed until they gave him a bronchoscopy to clear his lungs. That was all it took. He got off the ventilator and never went back.

When my dad left ICU alive, he went on the ward. A very special nurse who cared for him in ICU came up to see him one day. She always talked to my dad in ICU. On this particular visit, my dad talked back. His throat was still sore from the ventilator pipe, so it was a whisper but it was his voice. Her tears flowed. She told him to keep talking and please excuse her; she explained that it was the first time she’d heard him at all.

From the hospital ward, my dad was transferred out to a rehabilitation facility to get his strength and coordination back, so that he could function normally again. You see, he suffered no permanent damage to his motor skills. The day he was leaving the hospital, the ER nurse who took care of him the first day was there. He reached up to my dad in the ambulance and shook his hand. With red, tearing eyes, he hugged my mom, my brother and me one after the other. He explained that in his job he didn’t get to see cases like my dad come to happy conclusions.

Rehabilitation got him to the point where he could go home safely. I drove my dad home from that facility and we never looked back. At home we had to tell him to slow down because he was still recovering. His days were filled with big events, travels and small events too. There were graduations, swearing in’s, weddings, births, Hurricane Katrina, relocation to Houston, fights with insurance companies, trips back and forth. Four years was given to us all.

Time to Go

Then, in April 2007 he was diagnosed with lung cancer. October 25, 2007 my dad died. This time I knew it was coming–not that I ever stopped hoping. I knew that I was strong enough.

My Lessons from the Mountaintops

Erwin Raphael McManus wrote “Gratitude is the healing ointment for brokeness.” And I know it to be true.

What I learned is that gratitude can see me through even the harshest things. Gratitude is how I made it through. It’s a funny thing gratitude. From a little girl, when I tried to be upset or disappointed about something, my mom would say, count your blessings, name them one by one. It was frustrating sometimes but I did it. So, I grew into a habit of gratitude. Still, to experience it in action, on big things, is profound.

Today, I miss my dad–like salt. I have a life time of memories to sustain me. And this: Throughout the time he was ill, I was available to him, helping him, keeping him company, talking to him when he didn’t have strength to talk anymore. And I am grateful beyond words, beyond measure that I was there for him.

I wrote this for the Middle Zone Musings June group writing project, What  I Learned From…a Mountaintop Experience

by Shari Lynne Smothers

Thank you Father, for everything.
For the flowers and the trees
and birds that sing.
For the cool, smooth crooning,
Jazz playing on my stereo.
For all the places You’ve taken me.
For all the experiences I have yet to know.
There are so many things
that I have yet to learn.
There are so many doors that You’ve opened for me
until I know not which way to turn.

I falter at times. Though generally I try hard,
I don’t always put my best foot forward.
Eternally grateful am I that You’re not at all, to me,
indifferent apathetic and untoward.
The ever-vigil watch that You keep,
continuing my very breathing while I sleep
sometimes goes unnoticed.
I can’t always see You through my worries.
I forget that Your graces are
all-powerful through all my stories.
Each scenario I come up with to
worry me to pieces
is a contingent handled. Before I get there
I have been released.

Woe be unto me, not for having been forsaken,
but for forgetting who was in charge of
this light of mine, for forgetting
that Your unerring watch will ever remain unshaken.

from Pebbles in My Shoes ©2004

Back-story: This poem is older than many of the others included in the book. It came from a morning reflection after a particularly hectic time in my life. I was sitting in my car parked at the Lake Front in New Orleans, Louisiana reading a book.

I was distracted by emotion thinking about having finally finished college. And I was grateful. I wanted to capture the gratitude, appreciation and thankfulness I was feeling. I flipped to the back of the book that I was reading and let this flow from my pencil.

Amen represents a culmination of a lifetime of gratitude to that point. It’s in this book because that sense of gratitude is ever present, certainly reinforced by milestones in my life, like the publication of Pebbles in My Shoes.

Gratitude Habit

It’s fitting to end this month with this poem because I’m pleased that I managed to participate even for a short while in National Poetry Month. And I got to do it on my own terms.

Blogging is a great way for me to get my writing out. It’s been pretty exciting since I’m usually not so brave. When I think back, this time last year I hardly knew what the bloggosphere was about. Now I write posts at work and at home and I only want to get better at it.

I’m grateful. And this habit of being thankful has taken over my life. It is something that I consciously cultivated as I reminded myself even in my heaviest hours to be grateful. It’s been joyfully dubbed my gratitude habit by a very dear friend.

Please share your expressions of gratitude. I would love to include a link to your blog in a post in early May.

I suffered an invisibility crisis. Being unappreciated was an associated feeling. It wasn’t from passing insecurities, but from the words. And I marveled again at how cutting and devastating they can be. I may have been out of practice because it’s been a while since anyone hurt my feelings. But just a brief sentence sent me reeling.

Partly Cloudy

Overcast without a cloud
no external indication
save for the
sarcastic tones
of address
and heavy sighs
of discontent.

Always the sense
of having fallen short
of the mark
expected for me to reach.

I took time to regain my balance. Returning to my center was going to take some doing. I didn’t have time to just sit with it because there was so much going on. The first chance I got to think and to meditate and be, I was too upset to focus.

It’s always intrigues me how God put things and people and messages in our paths at just the right time. It’s because of Morning B.R.E.W. sessions that I can step outside of most things quickly. And even closer to the event, the day before, the church sermon was for me. Pastor Edwards’ message was to ask for mercy that fits my case. Figure out what I need according to me and tell it to God.

My soul cried out in anguish. And I sent up prayers of thanks because I knew that I didn’t have to stay in this way. Watching, praying, grateful that I just trusted that better was moments away.

At home, I checked my email and found the message I needed in my BREW series newsletter, the Monday Morning Inspiration.

Date : 2008-04-07

BREW MONDAY INSPIRATION

Dear God,
Help me to be
still enough
long enough
to know that there is a place within
on the other side of silence

where love lives.
Amen

©2008 by Kirk Byron Jones

My prayers were a guide for what I needed. I learned that my efforts were not appreciated or even seen. And I had to accept that but I needed to know that I am enough. My focus was then on what could make me whole again, make me want to continue to try. This prayer/poem was the perfect message for me, from God through Kirk Byron Jones.

Once again, I am granted what I asked for, peace of mind. In this and many instances besides, I attest to the power of prayer and meditation and Morning B.R.E.W. time.

Partly Cloudy is from my poetry collection called Pebbles in My Shoes, published by Author House in 2004. It’s where the feelings took me for a while.