Stephen Colbert needs a co-host ... a Republican looking, rich white women in her mid-fifties who is not what she seems. Boy, paint up the spider veins in my legs, put me in a cute short skirt and let me sit there on a stool beside him. Could I ever confuse the waters and ride sheriff extraordinaire.

I look so much like I am not.

That I realize when I think on the fact that parking is not a problem where I attend church because most people do not have a car. In fact, most of them do not have home. Yes, you heard me ... most of them do not have a home. I have found a church home (all blond tinted, bejeweled, sharp dressed me arriving in my cinnamon colored Volvo wagon) with people who are homeless. I have found them to be the least judgmental of Christians. I ended up at this church of no judgment when the "First (fill in the blank) Church of Huntsville was suspicious of my inquiries about the sanctuary when my daughter was looking for a place to be married. Yes, I was of that denomination. Yes, I have attended church at this church this summer upon my return to Huntsville after a flee as a widow. Yes, I am a CHRISTIAN!!!!!

I look like I should be for values of faith and marriage and all that is right with the Republican party. I look nice and sweet and within the box of acceptability. However, I have experienced want and need. I have lived divorce. I have had cancer. I have lost my hair. I have lost my breasts. I have been widowed. I have had failed reconstructive surgery. I have recognized that others in life are "just trying' to live." I have watched my mother suffer and die from Alzheimer's. I see my father challenging Parkinson's. I see brother and sister living their lives along side the life of a caregiver. I see Hispanic contributors to our community who desire a life of hope and opportunity for their children that is available only in the USA. And I care. I have thought about it.

And this church of mine. It is called Grateful Life and is that ever appropriate. I love Grateful Life. We have to call down the talkers in the back of the room. We have to awaken the snorers. Sometimes, we have to clean up vomit. But, we are all there. We are mixed. And we are praising God together. Thanks be to God.

Stephen Colbert ... just try to figure this one out.

How can we get back to simplicity? How can we get back to a time before American Idol where louder, and bigger, and better is the norm? Before half time shows that are vulgar and demeaning but are heralded as show stopping? Before times where expectations lead to dissatisfaction? Where normal equals or is interpreted as insufficient? To a time where the noble and honorable is valued? Why are we stopped and silent when presented with something that matters?

Coffee Life

If only life were coffee colored. Then the coffee stains would not show up.

"Ms. Mitchell." The phlebotomist calls the name without any emotion. I get up from the waiting area and enter into a room with 9 stations. "Go to Chair #8," the phlebotomist tells me. I sit down in said Chair #8, and my gaze falls on some photographs on the wall across from me at Chair #2. How seemingly innocuous. How seemingly random. Yet, my visit for my six month oncology check up is further rattling me by one of the photos. Across the room, directly facing the anonymous "Ms. Mitchell" is a photo of my late husband.  A former and beloved patient of this same facility. In the photo he is conducting the University of Alabama Million Dollar Band in the National Anthem at the Alabama/Tennessee game of 2005. This is 2013. If anyone in the lab were to know me as the "wife" of the beloved man in the photo, the waters would part and people would become more engaged and highly sensitive and respectful of me. The photo is still there. And so am I.

2005, the same year of the photo on the wall, was the year this journey began for me. I strive to do no complaining, because I have life. When I step into CCI I go dragging fear of what might be revealed and the interruption this visit brings to my life as I have ordered it around living beyond that disease. I also step into CCI with gratitude that I am walking in healthy and robust, with my hair on my head (instead of down the drain) and more to my liking than ever before in my 55 years. I am not struggling to live. or to breathe. or to hope. or to think. or to walk out of CCI and get on with the life of my dreams.  I step in with a few extra pounds on my frame that I never fail to see as a great gift because my body is receiving and processing nutrition ... every six months I am reminded that many face the nightmare of food or drink refused by a body that can no longer coorperate with such "luxuries." I have no complaints.

I must be careful with the gratitude that I feel. It could be seen as haughty and prideful and insensitive to those patients there whose disease so defines their every moment and which is visibly seen by others. I am aware that as I step into CCI I look more like one attending and assisting a family member or friend who is a patient. The only visible indicator that I am "one of them" is the stretchy arm bandage covering the IV site and the lab work vein stick that I wear on my way out of the building. I feel myself wearing it almost like a badge or a war wound as I exit the building. With the visible sign that I, too, call oncology a familiar acquaintance, I feel camaraderie with those who more visibly suffer, and I feel more received by them. I feel authentic in that place.

And, yet, I am not authentic there. "Mitchell" is the name on the insurance card, but not the new name on the driver's license. It's the name on the chart. Dare not change for fear of confusion. It's a conflicting place to go every six months. I don't go easily. I know when I go there I am seen but not seen. I am known but not known. I am free but not free.

But, I AM alive and I AM alive. I AM healthy and I AM healthy. I WALK out and LIVE the life of my dreams. And I know life must not be measured or lived six months at a time.

I HATE it when I see my own stupidity so clearly defined in someone else ... I mean, saying things I have, or at lease could have, said - usually referencing years ago. But, the reality is that I am aware that I may still be stupid, because I know I have been stupid. The bumper sticker "Don't believe everything you think" has become my mantra.

These observations came reeling round to me this morning as I perused my Facebook newsfeed and found a comment referring to the death of Dave Brubeck, a man who lived a remarkably creative life, a genius of the music world, and who lived a "long" 91 years. Of that long and productive life, one young man makes a comment, "Most unfortunate. I actually though [sic] that he had died years ago, however, so I can't say that I'm much bothered. Guy was ancient." Oh, yeah, ancient. Yeah, he "though."

Where shall I begin? Somewhere around my mid-30's, I guess. Because that is when I think I started getting a tiny bit of a clue that maybe what I'd "though" all my life wasn't quite lining up right when I actually "thought" about it. I'm not exactly sure what I was thinking before I started thinking, but when I started really thinking I realized I neither agreed nor ascribed to many of the beliefs and convictions I held as true. I started seeing my convictions as intolerant, insensitive, uninformed, immature, and generally illogical. I was startled by these revelations ... but ultimately very glad for them. Life experiences came round to ground me, soften me, humble me, awaken me. Thank goodness I am who I am now, but wait ... what if I still count as intolerant, insensitive, uninformed, immature, and generally illogical?? Life is a cycle of prayer, reflection, evaluation, and self-examination.

The shift in my thinking messed with my head, literally. I simply had never really thought about what I thought about "things of life." Are you following me here? Such things of life as religion and justice. Things such as the teachings of Jesus that caused me to see that everyone else's life is as of much value to themselves and to God as mine is. Things like the fact that opportunity should exist for everyone ... what they do with it is their decision, but they ought to have the opportunity to take it or leave it. And, things such as knowing that while I had worked and planned and done things like I was "supposed to," it was because of More than my own rightness and goodness that I lived a life called Blessed. 

How do I sum it up. No question mark there because it's a rhetorical question ... not one really being asked or expecting an answer because I don't think there is an answer. Except to say that it has taken these life experiences to dispel my belief that life is richest in youth. That what is called "mellowing" as we age is actually a process of becoming wiser. Hopefully age brings to us a knowledge of what and who is important. It brings to us an understanding of the value that is in life ... of any and every age. Perhaps most of all it brings the undeniable realization that even if we live for 91 years, we have only a very, very short time in this world

Recognizing that there is a chance that we are stupid is the beginning of the greatest wisdom. To say that 91 years old is ancient is an insult, maybe uninformed and unintended, but still an insult. 91 years comes round in a snap of the fingers, in the proverbial blink of an eye. Should we live to the greatest extent life in this world has to offer, we still have such a short, short time at best. At "worst," life ends way too soon. Like snow on delicate begonia blossoms, a very natural event but one we're just not quite ready for.

Here's to the joy of being young, but here's to the joy of being wise ... at any and every age.

This morning I named it: We are holding in trust at out home on Russell Street "Our Menagerie of Misfits." The animals that have come to us through various avenues. Denny the dog was brought in as company for Piper the dog who had moved from the wide open country to a fenced back yard. Piper was losing herself back there in the yard by herself for much of the day, so Denny to the rescue. Denny himself had been being held in trust, having been rescued off the road as a puppy, so it was a perfect complement and solution to our Piper problem. Then Daisy the dog, an adorable and affectionate puppy (... a puppy of the giant sort!) was brought round to us, to be held in trust until she could reunite with the one who loves her most. Three dogs in the backyard did not mix well, and Piper began looking lost again. So back to the farm in the country for Piper. Yippy for all!! Thanks to my sister Piper was welcomed back...to be held in trust.

Now Denny and Daisy are in the backyard digging under the fence, making friends with the neighbors and their dogs, crying like lost souls when absent from their humans. No longer is their company of dogs satisfactory. A 24 hour a day human just for Daisy is would make her life complete.

And Meeklo, the former street cat, big snuggy guy with the cute round face is being held in trust at Russell Street, along with his new little companion Ying. Ying is now exiting the kitten stage and is so full of life that the walls can barely contain her.

They all are loved. They all are enjoyed. They all make me laugh. They all make me anxious when I feel that the "enough love to go around" truism is challenged.

In the meantime we are literally giving a home as best we can and celebrating as we hold them in trust. I think they, in the meantime, are holding Frank and me, too ... without even knowing it. Just being themselves. Bless them one and all. Us, too.

When I go to my closet to get dressed I find lots of nice garments, but when I put them together to make an outfit it ends up looking like something I wouldn't choose for myself. How is that possible? I am the person who chose it all to start with!

Turns out some of my best outfits have been from pieces that I never would have bought for myself ... a long pleated wool skirt from my mother's closet, for example. Pieces that come floating into my life that I otherwise might not have given a first consideration, much less a second. Reminds me of some of life's best experiences, the ones we don't choose for ourselves, or that we think miss the mark for what suits us or what we expect. But, there they are, hanging in our closet. Thank goodness.