A Patchwork Life – Part 2

January 17, 2014 / annjohnsonmurphree / 14 Comments

Living and Breathing a Patchwork Life…

I have never believed that I should be immune to grief; I have accepted that my living a life in a constant state of unhappiness conditioned me to believe that it was normal; I had not labeled it grief. Before my children my world was to exist, afterwards I had happy moments; life for me consisted of keeping my children happy and safe, if possible. Then later with children, grandchildren and work suddenly came retirement, being alone, and I had to stop and think about how I got to this place, this questioning place. There is a time to search and a time to give up (Ecclesiastes), so the search continues in my life.

The dynamics of my life no longer made sense, I could not identify with what this stage of my life should be; alone, old, a storehouse of memories that could only be defined as constant grief. With this life style being “normal”, the means of processing it could not be accomplished in any normal way that I knew, any way that I could find in books, talking to others; I had to begin a journey that I did not have a “lifetime” to prepare, the need to seek the answers and understanding is now urgent.

We must live within our own schedule, we all experience grief, it is impossible for us to define it in the same way. Whether a lifetime or moments, days what causes grief is many times the same; the death of grandparents, parents, children, friends, death comes in different forms, but it all results in three words; it is final. When we lose our place in a family or have the lack of one, divorce, misplace a friendship, it all results in dealing with a grieving process.

It seems that happiness and grief go hand in hand; my mother never wanted me, she never gave hugs, kissed or told me she loved me; this has caused me a lifetime of grief. Yet I have had to be happy that she allowed me to come see her once a year! When she died, I did not suffer the grief of her dying as she had lived a long life and on her terms; I grieved because I had never heard her say “I love you”. Standing over a mound of red southern dirt brought this home to me, she had thrown away her chance to tell me and I had no more time to continue to try to get her to say it. One might say you need to let go, you must forget…unless you have never heard your mother or father tell you that they love you, you may not understand. Nevertheless, that child in me cannot heal, so I allow her to grieve, and I have given her permission to heal in her own time, if possible. After all, somewhere within she is still that child who wanted desperately to please, to hear that she mattered; and the grown up must now search for the answer too, “Who am I now”.

My heart continues to be like a patchwork quilt, keeping the memories alive it keeps breaking apart and I keep trying to mend it piece by piece, I hope my experience; my words will help others in some small way with their own losses throughout their lives. There are others, I know that I am not alone!

A Patchwork Life – Part 1

January 15, 2014 / annjohnsonmurphree / 7 Comments

Living and Breathing a Patchwork Life…

Life is a succession of achievements and failures, gains and losses, one foot ahead…two behind, saying hello and goodbye; the final good-bye leaves wounds that will never heal. We must walk alone in our grief, yet it is universal. Birth, death, reality, to experience life one must expect final good-byes! As humans, we easily forget or do not take into account many of our losses in life.

A mother experiences pregnancy, but does not feel the loss of being pregnant until she realizes she has given birth to her last child. Parents naturally take care of their babies, young children, teen-agers, but does not feel the loss as the years go quickly into having adult children; then they realize the house is empty…where did the years go?

I believe that we do not realize it at the time, but all of these disregarded little losses have prepared us for the major losses we will experience throughout our lives, the final good-byes. Family and friends taken from us, young and old, there is a time for everything, a time to be born and a time to die (Ecclesiastes); we are never prepared.

It is essential that you remember that healing may take a life time; give yourself permission to grieve, to hide away, to remember, to cry, to smile, there is no set point in time when you are expected to heal!

I will continue to write my poetry as it has gotten me through many dark days since my child’s death and it has taken me four years of grief too finally express my collective feelings about the contents of these four paragraphs, this expression of my loss in writing will be ongoing in my blog.

My heart must look like a patchwork quilt, it keep breaking apart and I keep trying to mend it piece by piece, I hope my experience, my words will help others in some small way with their own losses throughout their lives.

Honeysuckle Memories at Amazon.com

January 11, 2014 / annjohnsonmurphree / 1 Comment

On a warm summer day, an old soul returned to a place where parts of it had remain for years. Waiting while misplaced pieces of it floated through life on waves of tears. Many gathered on this day all had the same ancestral blood flowing through their veins. Some came out of respect; the unbroken circle… was there for gain.

These mortals had tried to keep the old soul away from this final commemoration. They did not care about its many years of painful isolation. Death had not fractured the unbroken circle had gone unchanged for years. The return of this old soul brought to the cloistered multitude panic and fear.

Disregarded, invisible with no right to be heard, the Old soul was damned in their every fearful word. Watched closely, made to feel like a thief, an intruder daring to be a part of their hypocritical grief. The old soul tried to enter this circle of mourning, doors slammed in its face. A reminder of why it was not wanted in this protected place.

Unwanted at birth, cast out on a journey at an incredible cost, to penetrate the unbroken circle was a battle that would forever be lost. The old soul believed there was a time to grieve, a time to pray. A time to remember when an innocent soul simply forgotten and tossed away.

On soft breezes, those that gathered could be heard with a pretense of moans. Their voices echoed memorials where truth was silenced the real story hidden, inside of the unbroken circle truth forbidden. The old soul stared down at a mound of dirt waiting for love that the grave could not offer, while the unbroken circle gathered and divided their coffers. A loving soul had returned to where a part of it remained years, it gathered up the pieces of its heart and wiped away its tears. The shattered old soul had returned on that warm summer day, to grieve the loss of never hearing “I love you” or feeling a parent’s gentle touch. It needed to tell the unbroken circle when children are unloved their lives are crushed.

Poetry eBook on sale at Amazon.com

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A Red Bird Day…

January 9, 2014 / annjohnsonmurphree / 2 Comments

Revisiting childhood…

It is a Red Bird kind of day as I carefully walked the bramble-hedged path through the forest that edged our home. I could hear leaves crunching, not from my shoes… but a lighter slower movement.

I can hear the crusted creek running beside the path flowing gently through vein like openings in the ice. I can smell the wood smoke from our potbelly stove.

I know that on the warming shelves of the old wood cook stove are hot; biscuits and ham waiting for me to get home from scurrying the woods for nuts and berries, a treat while we sit around the stove listening to grandpa’s latest tale of the war he fought during his youth.

Then I saw mother watching from the window for signs of my bright colored hat she knitted me for Christmas, she opened the door and waved; I was late and she was worried. I showed her my overflowing basket, she smiled…I wanted keep her happy so, I did not tell her about the Wolf!

Infinite Hope…

January 2, 2014 / annjohnsonmurphree / 10 Comments

What does one do in these bad days, my mind that of an old woman, I will clear my soul if I can. It is in old age that we try to be kind, in younger days we walk through life without worry and blind.

Youth to old age, life passionate and wild, yet within time the aged returns to the days of a child.

I do not ask from my bed of death to be free, I do ask that my God let me die in dignity.

I ask that death allow me to find the freedom that my life denied; that I am strong when my family is at my side.

Spare me of the whisperings of a crowded room, that there be ceremonious air and not one that is gloom.

I have lived without glory or fame; no one will remember my name. No one knows when I am bound for death, only God knows when I will take my last breath.

While the world around me in silence lies, move me outside so I can see sunshine once more before I die. Let it bathe me in the wonder that I was born, across my face its beauty spread, like the sun I ask only for your smiles of love when I am dead.

I pray for no sickroom, no mortal strife, no turmoil for a little breath, let it be a natural passing, no struggling with death. Let me go composed, fearless, mind clear, willing to let my spirit go somewhere else to wait for everyone that to me is so dear.

Beyond the Voices

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New Short Story…

January 2, 2014 / annjohnsonmurphree / 7 Comments

On January 1, 2014, New Years Day, I submitted a short story for publication. Below is a synopsis and a few lines of the story. Now on to one of my 2014 goals… cleaning up and critiquing the next story!

My Story…

Unbroken Circle – A Christmas Story submitted for possible acceptance for Christmas 2014. Written in 2013 the story came from a dream about a woman living alone on top of a mountain in Colorado, aged, early dementia her thoughts turn to the return of her son and preparing him a welcome home supper. The other individual melded into the story as a good person who had lost everything, his time with her after an accident on the narrow mountain road gave him hope that he had lost and her story gave him back the will to clean up his life.

Unbroken Circle – A Christmas Stor

Ann Johnson-Murphree

Mark Mooney lifted himself from a lumpy mattress; rubbed his side with one hand while reaching for the half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels on his nightstand with the other. As the last of the amber liquid slid down his troth, he knew that there was not enough left to dull his troubled mind. It was Christmas Eve, all he could think of was his wife and daughter, how he had messed up; and he should be home with his family instead of living in the cold dingy room above Looney’s General Store.

The alarm clock leap to life once again from snooze jerking him back to reality, jumping out of bed wrapped a worn blanket he stood over the open floor vent to catch what little heat that rose from the store below. Rumbling through a clothesbasket he shook out the cleanest looking uniform washed his face, dressed and walked out the door.

Crawling into his old pickup Mark looked down at the doll wrapped from used Christmas paper pulled out of the office party trash; the one he did not remember leaving. His plans were to drop it off after work; on his way to Dixon’s bowling alley; where a few other single parents he knew, mostly men gathered on Christmas Eve to get drunk and forget their blunders in life.

Pulling into the Post Office parking lot, he popped a stick of gum in his mouth; he needed to avoid getting close to anyone; he knew that his breath reeked of whiskey. He could not remember the last time he was very sober, and he worried about keeping it from his employer…………

“Your thoughts fellow writers?” AJM