Month: February 2019

Posted in children, Love, Uncategorized

Traces of Love

Posted on by Susannah Warner

My mother once told me that when I was small, sometimes she would find my little things lying around that had not been put away before I went to sleep, after she came downstairs. An open book maybe, a crayon (to this day pronounced “crown”), that had rolled halfway under the couch, a little wooden truck, with a popsicle stick tailgate and actual wooden wheels, that my father had made for me for my Barbies, parked in the “garage” under the coffee table, and that seeing these little reminders of me sometimes made her feel a little sad. “Traces of Love,” she and my father apparently called these things. I always liked that, and thought of it often when my children were little and I found the same sort of remnants strewn about the house, after it was finally quiet for the night.

As happy as I was to have a couple of hours of peace before I fell into bed, I would always feel a little sad too when I would see a little teacup under the radiator, and remember shamefully my annoyance hours earlier about being asked to have another tea party, always inexplicably with a blanket over our heads. Or, an orange Nerf gun dart under the pillows of the couch, having gotten wedged there after a shower of them sprayed across the living room. I always recalled too, how I only half listened to my daughter talk about her horse, while I prepared dinner. The other half of my mind was occupied with all the things I needed to remember for the next day; sign a permission slip, pack lunches, throw a load of laundry in the washer…Or how, as I read to my son I might have skipped a page or two, eager to have some time to myself.

So, when the cries of, “I’m thirsty! I’m not tired! I’m scared! I have to pee!” finally subsided, and the house took on that late night, half-asleep hushed feeling, I would usually take a minute to mentally acknowledge the things I wished I had done differently that day, before I joined my husband on the couch. Looking around at their little things, always helped me refocus and remember that no matter how tired I was at the end of the day, I had been blessed with these little people to mold and shape the best way I knew how, so that someday they could appreciate traces of love from their own little ones.

 

Posted in Love

Red Hearts

Posted on by Susannah Warner

Valentine’s day…A day for lovers, celebrated with flowers, chocolates, and dinners out at restaurants, all edged in red hearts. The red heart has long been a symbol of romantic love, although a quick google search yields no definitive answer as to why, nor the exact origin of Valentine’s Day.

One theory is based on the life and death of Valentine, a holy priest in Rome in the 3rd century after he was beaten and beheaded on February 14th by order of Emperor Claudius II ( AKA Claudius the Cruel, yikes!). Apparently ol’ Claud was having a difficult time maintaining a strong army, and since Rome was involved in many bloody endeavors during his reign, he needed to boost his enlistment campaign. However, he believed that many men were unwilling to join due to their attachment to their families and wives. Naturally, being cruel, he banned all marriages and engagements. Valentine, an apparent lover of justice and believer in love, continued to perform marriages in secret, until his acts of treason were discovered and he was dragged before the Prefect of Rome who condemned him to death. Legend has it that while he was in jail, Valentine left a farewell note signed, “from your Valentine,” to the jailer’s daughter who had become his friend. The priest was martyred for his service after his death.

In addition to St. Valentine’s execution the day before, February 15th was the date of the Feast of Lupercalia, a pagan festival of “love,” which was actually quite a violent and bloody event. It was celebrated with animal sacrifices and random matchmaking in an effort to ward off infertility and evil spirits, until it was eliminated in the 5th century AD by Pope Gelasius I.

There are other theories as to the origin of Valentines day, and other stories of how it has evolved to be the symbol of love it is today, but those two stood out to me the most, because like love itself, they are contradictory. Someone once said, “there is a fine line between love and hate,” and while no one wants to believe that they could hate, even momentarily, the person they love, my husband and I would probably have to admit that we may have had a flash of that emotion a time or two in our 28 year marriage.

The expression, “seeing red,” means that someone is extremely angry, yet I think most people would agree that the color most represented by love is red. Unlike its meek cousin pink, red is bold, vivacious, and passionate. Red is alive, just like a thriving relationship. Red is rage and heat, fury and fervor unlike the emotionless blue of cool indifference. There is no one in this world who can piss me off like my Valentine, and no one who can make me laugh as much either. Because of this, I’d say that regardless of the reason for Valentines day, a red heart represents the day, and our relationship best. Sometimes it pounds in anger, sometimes it swells with pride, sometimes it skips a beat, and sometimes it drums on unnoticed in the background. But, no matter the emotion or circumstance, it goes on.

Posted in Uncategorized

Ever In Your Favor

Posted on by Susannah Warner

Last night, after a satisfying meal of lasagna and ice cream, my husband turned on the TV, and flipped through the channels. He surfed for a bit, landing briefly on one show, then skipped to another during the commercial, as he often does; a practice that drives me crazy, as I would prefer to sit through a bunch of commercials rather than have my attention divided by three shows at one time and risk missing some of the show that I really wanted to watch. Fortunately, between DVR, Netflix, Amazon Prime, and HULU, we rarely watch live TV, so this is not usually a problem. One might think given all the opportunities listed for entertainment, that we watch a lot, but the truth is with the exception of a few reality shows (Survivor! Amazing Race! and embarrassingly, Big Brother), and an occasional movie, usually several years old by the time we get to it, we rarely watch TV at all. Certainly not in the daytime, and depending on our schedules, sometimes days go by without either one of us turning it on, since we are both of the opinion that we’d rather do something fun, then sit and watch someone else have it. This is pretty much the same reason that I refused to be a cheerleader growing up, because I never wanted to just watch the action and cheer for someone else, I wanted to get out there and have someone cheer for me.

In any event, we somehow settled on The Hunger Games, a movie I’d seen on at least two other occasions as well having read the series several years ago; a literary fad sitting squarely between the innocent Twilight series, and the grownup 50 Shades of Grey, which I could not get into because of the shocking lack of attention to detail as evidenced by the way-off base use of adjectives and verbs in a supposedly American setting (brilliant, keen…seriously?!? I don’t know any person around here who says those things!). Why not just set it in Britain then, a country whose vernacular it’s author is clearly more familiar with. Even the “Grey” in the title is the more widely used UK version. C’mon! Obvious faux pas such as these, drive me bonkers, and ruin the whole book for me, often within the first chapter and is something I consider to be a turn-off, rather than the turn-on the author intended (but, grammarly and smart people, please don’t judge me as harshly, for I am but a lowly nurse blogger with no editor and no matter how many times my super-intelligent sister tells me, I always forget the proper usage of colons and semi-colons and let’s not even get started with how many times I end a sentence with a preposition and those run-on sentences! Ugh! Sorry, Mom!).

But, I have digressed into a weird off the wall rant, so sorry about that. I had a direction for this post and it was this…Ah yes! My comparison of Hunger Games to life…. stay with me on this. My husband and I watched a bunch of normalish, albeit extra good-looking people, face an onslaught of obstacles, with only a brief rest before another attack commenced, all while also fending off other competitors in attempt to win the right to stay alive to fight another day. Although this may seem a bit far-fetched, I couldn’t help but compare the tribulations the characters faced with the trials we all face daily. Sometimes it does seem as if you’ve barely recovered from one set-back, such as costly repairs to a vehicle, when another punch lands right in your pocketbook. Add on sick kids, frozen pipes or a daycare that has inexplicably closed for the day, and it’s enough to make you inadvertently turn against your strongest allies. “Remember who the real enemy is,” one of the competitors in the game said, as the heroine froze, bow poised in a moment of fear and confusion to shoot him. And she did. She did remember before she hurt him and turned instead to aim at the true enemy.

It’s so easy to turn on the ones we love and lash out at them, although they’re there to help. At the risk of sounding cheesy, we are all playing a version of the Hunger Games, and in this game called life, with its twists and turns, its setbacks and frustrations, we must remember who our allies are, and who the real enemy is. It’s not the guy who channel hops like a bunny, and who never gets back to the real show on time, and it’s definitely not the guy who hand shredded three big blocks of cheese for the lasagna and washed a mountain of dishes after. This is my ally, my biggest fan, and the one who has my back, just like my big brother Jesus. Because lets face it, it’s impossible for the odds to always be in our favor, so I’m pretty happy that I’m always in His.