I'm in love with my husband.
Sure, there have been times in the last 20 years when we've wanted to throw in the towel and end it and just kick each other and call it a day.
And then there are times like tonight, when I'm tripping over my own emotions and can't stop weeping, when he says something that makes me thank God that he blessed me with this man as my partner.
I really love him. Thank you, God, for Jim.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Friday, April 25, 2008
Spirits among us?
I don't believe in ghosts.
I was raised to believe that when a person dies, they go to one of three places...Heaven, Hell or Purgatory. I was taught that angels exist, but not that the spirits of the dead walk the earth or have their fun with the living. Dead, gone (hopefully to Heaven), end of story.
I watch these haunting shows on television where these so-called ghost-hunters go into castles or old inns or other historic landmarks and they ooh and ahh over cold spots or something brushing against them or touching them or an unexplained creak in a door, and I think...they can't be serious. Do they think their audience is really that naive?
My husband, however, does believe in ghosts. He believed that one lived in the house in which he grew up. His sister swears it as well. My younegst daughter told me this evening quite matter-of-factly and without any fear in her voice that she believes in ghosts. I told her it's OK to believe that, and that it's OK not to believe it too. Daddy believes in ghosts. Mommy doesn't.
But.
When my mother in law passed away last October, I could swear I felt her presence. I have chills right now just thinking about it, although I haven't felt her since. I've been getting chills a lot these past few days. No reason, really, but when I see something on TV or read about something in a book that defies "logic," I seem to get chills. I wonder what that means? The left side of my body, from my shoulder down my left arm to my fingertips, through the left side of my chest and down my left leg, I get very strong chills. It's the most bizarre thing. I don't feel afraid, and I don't feel any pain or anything that might indicate a medical emergency, and it only lasts a few seconds.
My friend Madelyn writes fictional stories about a character that is beginning to realize that she posesses these "abilities." She's what you call an empath, or a person who senses things about those around her....emotions, feelings...secrets. Things like that. As I read and finished the third book in her Bewitching Mystery series, I got those chills. It was so creepy. I realized that her character posessed certain qualities that rang true with me as well...her inner struggle with the rules of Catholicism, her desire to believe that there was more to this world that what we only see with our eyes. And she was afraid of what that might mean to the safe little existence she has always counted on.
No duh, sister.
I've been having feelings about things since I was a little girl. I laugh about it and call it my Celtic intuition, haha. Sometimes I think it's all in my mind. It's never dependable. Sometimes it's not there at all. It could just be women's intuition...something we all posess. I told my husband about these feelings long before we even married. Over the years, when we've been faced with a tough situation, he's asked me several times, what kind of feeling do you have about it?
The only thing I can really say is, when the feeling about something is strong, it can't be ignored.
Many years ago, when we were dating, my husband and I took a trip up to Rockport on sunny weekend summer day, and just as a lark, we decided to visit the gypsies who were there and have our cards read. We told each other that we wouldn't give up any clues to her, thinking she might take advantage of that and use it. We thought we were so clever.
The woman who saw us (together) had to be close to 90 years old. She was very serious...no smiles or courtesies, and she didn't ask us anything. Nothing. And she began my husband's reading. We stayed tight-lipped throughout. She told my husband things about his family that no one outside the family knew. Intimate things...things no one, particularly this elderly woman whom we'd never seen before that day, would know.
Then she moved on to me. She told me that I would never fit in to the typical "business" world, and that my future would involve something creative and that one day I'd be very successful at it. She told us that we would be going on a long journey soon but that something would make us return one day. (We were preparing to move to California once we were married, and several years later, following a major earthquake, we returned.)
The whole way home in the car, we were silent. We laughed nervously a few times, and wondered aloud how she could know these things. That same feeling of chills came over me then too.
I don't really deny the existence of things that I don't understand. I've never met a person who accepts the existence of everything. But as I've gotten older, and am coming into some sort of peace in my mind, I'm beginning to feel the existence of something else. I don't know yet what it is. It's as though now and then, I catch a tiny glimpse of a feeling of something out of the ordinary, something unusual and not necessarily negative, but just a glimmer of the possibility of something else.
Does that make any sense at all? LOL Not to me. But maybe one day it will. Maybe one day I will believe in ghosts. There's a place down the road that has "medium nights" once a month and tonight, the place is packed. Maybe I'll get in on it one of these days and see what's what.
If nothing else, I'm hoping it will be entertaining.
I was raised to believe that when a person dies, they go to one of three places...Heaven, Hell or Purgatory. I was taught that angels exist, but not that the spirits of the dead walk the earth or have their fun with the living. Dead, gone (hopefully to Heaven), end of story.
I watch these haunting shows on television where these so-called ghost-hunters go into castles or old inns or other historic landmarks and they ooh and ahh over cold spots or something brushing against them or touching them or an unexplained creak in a door, and I think...they can't be serious. Do they think their audience is really that naive?
My husband, however, does believe in ghosts. He believed that one lived in the house in which he grew up. His sister swears it as well. My younegst daughter told me this evening quite matter-of-factly and without any fear in her voice that she believes in ghosts. I told her it's OK to believe that, and that it's OK not to believe it too. Daddy believes in ghosts. Mommy doesn't.
But.
When my mother in law passed away last October, I could swear I felt her presence. I have chills right now just thinking about it, although I haven't felt her since. I've been getting chills a lot these past few days. No reason, really, but when I see something on TV or read about something in a book that defies "logic," I seem to get chills. I wonder what that means? The left side of my body, from my shoulder down my left arm to my fingertips, through the left side of my chest and down my left leg, I get very strong chills. It's the most bizarre thing. I don't feel afraid, and I don't feel any pain or anything that might indicate a medical emergency, and it only lasts a few seconds.
My friend Madelyn writes fictional stories about a character that is beginning to realize that she posesses these "abilities." She's what you call an empath, or a person who senses things about those around her....emotions, feelings...secrets. Things like that. As I read and finished the third book in her Bewitching Mystery series, I got those chills. It was so creepy. I realized that her character posessed certain qualities that rang true with me as well...her inner struggle with the rules of Catholicism, her desire to believe that there was more to this world that what we only see with our eyes. And she was afraid of what that might mean to the safe little existence she has always counted on.
No duh, sister.
I've been having feelings about things since I was a little girl. I laugh about it and call it my Celtic intuition, haha. Sometimes I think it's all in my mind. It's never dependable. Sometimes it's not there at all. It could just be women's intuition...something we all posess. I told my husband about these feelings long before we even married. Over the years, when we've been faced with a tough situation, he's asked me several times, what kind of feeling do you have about it?
The only thing I can really say is, when the feeling about something is strong, it can't be ignored.
Many years ago, when we were dating, my husband and I took a trip up to Rockport on sunny weekend summer day, and just as a lark, we decided to visit the gypsies who were there and have our cards read. We told each other that we wouldn't give up any clues to her, thinking she might take advantage of that and use it. We thought we were so clever.
The woman who saw us (together) had to be close to 90 years old. She was very serious...no smiles or courtesies, and she didn't ask us anything. Nothing. And she began my husband's reading. We stayed tight-lipped throughout. She told my husband things about his family that no one outside the family knew. Intimate things...things no one, particularly this elderly woman whom we'd never seen before that day, would know.
Then she moved on to me. She told me that I would never fit in to the typical "business" world, and that my future would involve something creative and that one day I'd be very successful at it. She told us that we would be going on a long journey soon but that something would make us return one day. (We were preparing to move to California once we were married, and several years later, following a major earthquake, we returned.)
The whole way home in the car, we were silent. We laughed nervously a few times, and wondered aloud how she could know these things. That same feeling of chills came over me then too.
I don't really deny the existence of things that I don't understand. I've never met a person who accepts the existence of everything. But as I've gotten older, and am coming into some sort of peace in my mind, I'm beginning to feel the existence of something else. I don't know yet what it is. It's as though now and then, I catch a tiny glimpse of a feeling of something out of the ordinary, something unusual and not necessarily negative, but just a glimmer of the possibility of something else.
Does that make any sense at all? LOL Not to me. But maybe one day it will. Maybe one day I will believe in ghosts. There's a place down the road that has "medium nights" once a month and tonight, the place is packed. Maybe I'll get in on it one of these days and see what's what.
If nothing else, I'm hoping it will be entertaining.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Is this just wishful thinking?
OK, all you prophesizers and psychics, listen up! LOL
Last night I had a dream about myself. In the dream, I was in a room full of people, maybe a hundred or two. Possibly more. I didn't know any of them, and they didn't seem to know each other, or me, but we were all there for some sort of event.
There was an elderly man sitting near me, he looked like an older version of my father a little bit, maybe late 80s, and it looked like he had come to the event with a younger man, maybe a grandson or caretaker.
I remember leaning over to this man and telling him my name, and that I write a column, and I told him the name of the column.
He looked surprised at first, and then he burst into laughter. Suddenly, the room erupted into applause and shouts of support. People were patting me in the shoulder and the back and hugging me. They were all smiling and crowding around me and congratulating me. I remember feeling loved and appreciated. It was almost overwhelming.
That's it. Any thoughts?
Ann
Last night I had a dream about myself. In the dream, I was in a room full of people, maybe a hundred or two. Possibly more. I didn't know any of them, and they didn't seem to know each other, or me, but we were all there for some sort of event.
There was an elderly man sitting near me, he looked like an older version of my father a little bit, maybe late 80s, and it looked like he had come to the event with a younger man, maybe a grandson or caretaker.
I remember leaning over to this man and telling him my name, and that I write a column, and I told him the name of the column.
He looked surprised at first, and then he burst into laughter. Suddenly, the room erupted into applause and shouts of support. People were patting me in the shoulder and the back and hugging me. They were all smiling and crowding around me and congratulating me. I remember feeling loved and appreciated. It was almost overwhelming.
That's it. Any thoughts?
Ann
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