“Tell her I love her.”

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It was a challenging day in a challenging week. I was at school, working with a student on an essay. My phone rang. It was Hospice calling. When I know a call is from Hospice, I always answer. The caller introduced herself as Trish, the nurse who was visiting with Dad today. She said Dad was doing well – she said she was with Dad at the kitchen table and he was eating a good breakfast. I heard her turn to Dad and tell him she was talking to “Karen.”
Dad: (A happy sound in his voice.) Karen? You’re talking to my daughter, Karen?
Trish: Yes. I’m talking to your daughter.
Dad: Tell her I love her.
Trish to me: He says he loves you.
(I started tearing up – there’s just something so touching about hearing his quavery 100 year-old voice coming through the line.)
Karen to Trish: Tell him I love him.
Trish to Dad: Karen says she loves you.
(I heard Dad talking in the background…)
Trish: (To me.) He wants to know if we’ve met. (To Dad.) No, I’ve never met Karen.
(I heard more talking in the background.)
Trish to me: He says if I ever meet you I’ll love you.
(And now I was all choked up. I felt myself begin to sob. Oh Daddy. You gave me exactly what t needed today.)

Response to Presidential Address

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Mr. President, YOU are the humanitarian crisis. Return the children to their parents. Let those seeking asylum into our country. Let the government workers get back to work.

It is Time for Him to Resign

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I’m not one of those folks who has a need to see our current President led away in chains and locked up – I don’t have a need for anyone to suffer – but I really hope that this man will resign soon so our nation can begin the process of recovery and healing from the injuries he and his administration have inflicted on us. Our environment has been trashed. Literally. Children have been separated from their parents – and some have died. Hate crimes against minorities have increased. Federal employees have been thrown aside like they don’t matter. Our economy is going down the toilet. We are in trouble here.

Mitch McConnell: Do the Right Thing

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Mitch McConnell –

You were elected to serve the people who live in this nation. You were entrusted with great power, and with great responsibility. People are trusting you to do the right thing – to put the well-being, rights, and prosperity of the people you were elected to serve ahead of politics. End this government shut down. Put the bill that the House just passed that would end the shutdown (the same bill the Senate approved unanimously a few weeks ago) in front of the Senate for another vote and get our government running again. It’s time to stop holding the lives of the American people hostage.

Sincerely,
Karen Molenaar Terrell

Bring Joy in with the Sad

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Sitting in sadness and worry
with a free day ahead of me
I ask myself – what do I want
to do? What do I want to see?
what will bring me joy?
Photos, I think. I’ll find
swans or snow geese.
A drive with Dad.
A walk in the fresh air.
Get dressed. Get out.
Bring joy in with the sad.

I go to Dad’s and find
him asleep at the table.
I ask him if he wants
to go for a drive, he
says he wouldn’t mind.

Dad beside me in the car
we pass trumpeter swans
before we go very far
in a muddy field – Mount
Baker and a red barn
in the background – and I
pull over so Dad can gaze
at Baker, and I can take
photos of the swans
as they graze.

Next a stop at the post office –
a package for Dad there
from my cousin, Debby.
Dad pulls out a pair
of cinnamon-scented discs,
wrapped in aluminum foil.
What do you think it is?
Speculaas, he guesses,
and smiles. He slowly
unwraps the treat – foil,
plastic wrap – pulls a chunk
of soft, spicy, speculaas free
and brings it to his mouth
Is it good? Yes, says he,
and nods. I pull off a piece
for me.

Back through the flats
and fields, along the shore,
over the hill and down
the other side, past more
swans, and through town
I bring Dad back to his
home, and into the recliner.
I love you, we tell each other.

As I’m driving back to my own
home, I realize I’m not done, yet.
On impulse, I exit onto I-5
and head for Bellingham to get
my walk in the sunshine.

Seagulls – a dozen, maybe more! –
call to each other and soar
overhead as I walk down
the ramp to the boardwalk.
A little further and I spy
an otter family scampering
and playing on the rocks
A woman passes by
and I point out the otters –
she stops and we talk
for a moment about the joy
of otters – before we each
continue on our own adventures.

I reach the end of my journey
and head back and the thought
I’m thinking at that moment –
the painful pebble that’s caught
in the bottom of my mental shoe –
is, “I haven’t felt like I belonged
for fifty years” and right then
I hear a woman call my name:
Karen!
I turn and recognize a new
friend from a sharing circle I
went to a month ago in a town
forty minutes away from here
and we come together and hug
and laugh and shed a tear.

My new friend and I walk
back together through the park,
down the boardwalk, past the dock,
up the ramp – we share and talk –
and she says she’s happy we met
today and I say, “It’s magic, isn’t it?”
– Karen Molenaar Terrell

 

 

Trumpeter Swans, Red Barn, Mount Baker
Dad and Speculaas
Seagull in Bellingham
Canadian Coastals
Otters on the Rocks

 

 

Ode to Boxing Day

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It’s a humble holiday, tucked in between
Christmas and New Year’s, but it’s really keen.
Things look a little bedraggled, it’s true
The tree’s a little droopy and no longer new

The movies and music of the Christmas season
Are getting on our nerves now, and we’re seeing no reason
To eat even one more sugary oversweet sweet
It’s time for broccoli and carrots (maybe hold on the beets)

The pressure for perfection comes off on this day,
The toys have been opened, and it’s come time to play.
And if before we were wearing faux holiday cheer
To blend in with the others and not Scroogey appear

It’s time now to be genuine, and honest and real
The food banks are empty, people still need a warm meal
The homeless and hungry and jobless and alone
Still need love and caring, still need a home.

So maybe we can celebrate the day after Christmas –
By keeping the spirit of hope alive, we might make that our business.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell

 

Good Wall or Good Will?

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I took a course in Peace and War one time. One of the things the instructor talked about was how a country’s security depends on the prosperity of its neighbors. Helping our neighbors (on the other side of the border) have what they need to prosper makes it less likely for them to want to invade our country, or seek asylum in it. In other words, according to my instructor, it’s not walls that create safety – it’s caring for each other and “Good will to all…”

“Peace on earth; good will to all.” – Luke 2:14

earth NASA

“I don’t need to claim these thoughts!”

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“Stand porter at the door of thought.”
– Mary Baker Eddy

I was in a funk today. There’s been another Christmas tragedy. Don’t want to talk about that, really. But it led me to some dark places in my thoughts. I stopped by to see Dad, hoping that would cheer me up. But he was struggling – questioning the veracity of a Christmas card I brought him from a friend, saying it seemed “fishy” – questionable – and he didn’t trust it. He argued with me about the background in a photograph – insisted it was a stadium with bleachers – which… it wasn’t. I told him I loved him, and he told me he loved me, and I left.

As I was driving home dark thoughts came knocking on the door of my consciousness – thoughts of despair and discouragement and fear for the future. Thoughts about death. And I felt afraid and guilty that I was even having these thoughts. And then I had this moment of clarity: “But I don’t need to claim these thoughts as mine! Just because these thoughts knocked on my door doesn’t mean they belong to me! They aren’t any part of me!” I realized I could choose whether I wanted to let those thoughts enter and be part of my identity, or not.

A decade ago, when I was going through a massive depression, I felt I didn’t have a choice – I felt I didn’t have control over the thoughts that came into my head, and the feelings of despair and hopelessness and guilt – and it all seemed overwhelming at times. But I acquired some tools for dealing with life’s challenges and struggles during that time. First, I learned not to fight my feelings – that only seemed to make the feelings bigger – but to let myself surf on top of them. I learned I could be happy even when I was sad.  And I learned a trick from Eckhart Tolle’s book The Power of Now that was really helpful, too – and that I was reminded of today. In his book, Tolle writes: “Try a little experiment. Close your eyes and say to yourself: ‘I wonder what my next thought is going to be.’ Then become very alert and wait for the next thought. Be like a cat watching a mouse hole. What thought is going to come out of the mouse hole? Try it now.” When I tried that experiment all those years ago (and when I tried it just now, too) – when I waited for my next thought – it didn’t come! I was filled with a blessed, peaceful stillness.

I had a healing today. And it felt like this…
healing

 

Waiting for the Daffodils

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Winter just started officially yesterday, but I already feel like I’ve been sitting in winter for months now. This season once held a lot of magic for me – glittering snowflakes swirling down through a starry sky, and snowmen and skiing, and pie-baking and caroling through the neighborhood. And there’s still magic, I guess – but… the last few years have also brought tragedy in winter, and now I find myself growing a little wary as the dark and cold relentlessly approaches my part of the world…

Christmas lights on the tree –
sparkling through the cold
and dark – and I wait
for daffodils.  Wait to see
their sunshiny flowers
filling the fields again.
But daffodils need to go through
winter to bloom, and if we want
to see them so do we.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell

daffodil christmas tree

The Balcony Where You Used to Wave

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I pick up your mail at the retirement inn –
it still comes there nearly two years after
your passing – almost entirely requests
from charities – veterans, environmental
groups, help for homeless people and
animals – and I see your name on the
envelopes and remember your generous
heart and I smile. As I get in the car I glance
back to the balcony where you used to wave
good bye to me and I feel a tug on my heart.
You’re still there. I can see you clearly, smiling
your love at me from the second floor.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell