Two by Randy

V is for “A Valued Class of Vintage Memoirists”

By Randy Brandemihl

My senior memoir class is a very special group of people. The variety of their vivid backgrounds is one of the very things that make them valuable. Their vintage years and vivacious friendship is the very thing that binds us all together.

In the very beginning, we all came here seeking a variety of pleasurable pastimes, such as humor, knowledge, companionship and, of course, memoir writing.

Of that goal I feel, without a doubt, that we have all vanquished a darkness and found a very fine and victorious bright day.

Viva la Vida!!!

What Makes this Group Special?

By Randy Brandemihl

I would like to say thanks to this special group of memoir writers and explain what makes you more special than any group I’ve ever known.

The groups I’ve known in the past, beginning with my youth in grade school and going forward into my high school years and then my military service, all provided me with great memories. We were young then and shared such good things as movies, birthdays and first kisses. The groups in the military were different from the school groups. We were no longer children; we were men and women. My military friends and I shared good memories, but we also shared our fears and losses. My memories of those years are some of the worst and some of the best.

As we grow older we make all these great memories as we move down the long epic road of life. I’ve come to this group, here in one bright cheery room in Norwalk, all these years later and a million miles from where I was born. I’ve found a place where I could tell all my stories that I’ve collected over these years; not only that, but I’ve found great people that will listen and even enjoy my stories as I enjoy theirs.

Unlike the stories we told in school that revealed our youth and inexperience, the stories in this room are stories that reflect, collectively, over a thousand years of lifetime experiences. To tell them and to tell them well, we have become poets, storytellers and playwrights. Each one of you has touched my heart.

Thank you and our great group leader, Bonnie.

L is for “Love, ” By Margaret Takacs

“L” is the beginning letter of the most powerful world of our dictionary. It covers a multitude of emotions, which can trigger a multitude of events from history and from individual lives.

“Love is a Many Splendored Thing;” so says a lovely old song I have heard my daughter Kathy sing so many times. It can take many forms: love of family, friends, cherished pets, plants, favorite possessions, and foods – all the colorful mosaics of our lives. It surely has taken me to the pinnacle of happiness and to the depth of despair in my lifetime.

Throughout the years, as my daughters heard (maybe too often) the stories of my life, they always encouraged me to put those stories down on paper. I don’t know what held me back: maybe procrastination, laziness or reluctance, not knowing how to reveal the tumult of my life.

Then in my retirement, when my physical disabilities started to affect the vitality of my life, came an unexpected pleasure I greatly value and enjoy today. Before that, one of my daughters, Judith, gave me a book to read and record the important events of my life.

It touched my cord of resistance, and I thought it would be a lot easier this way. And then my other daughter, Kathleen, met by chance with Bonnie Mansell, and she sort of enlisted me in Bonnie’s memoir writing class, leaving me no more excuses.

Joining Bonnie’s memory writing class brought many pleasures into my life. Her sunny-spirited guidance overrides my occasional glum and my resistance to writing. We have a wonderful company of classmates who become friends while sharing each others stories ~ sometimes with tears of sorrow, sometimes with joy, sometimes with great humor and laughter. We value and enjoy the stories of each other’s lives.

In my writing class I find companionship sharing each other’s joys or sorrows or burdens, and in the process we rediscover that love is a many splendored thing, which can teach even my ninety-year-old heart to sing. Yes, love is truly a “many splendored thing.”

A PRELUDE TO A SLEEP, by (Kacie) Kathy Cooper

My emotions exceed my power to contain them
And so I sleep...
Should I raise my voice and complain then?
T'would only make me weak

For who would hear my deepest sighs?
A trailing of the wind
And who-so-ever would recognize
The sadness I hide within

Only He who towers high on high
Beyond the marvels of existence
No time or space can ere deny
His beauty, his consistence

Be with me then, inside my darkness
Erase my "worldly" view
Tighten up my sense of sharpness
And let me see, see only You

Brother Bill’s Conversation with Toby, by Charlotte Boquist

(As told to Mary Jane and Charlotte March 3, 2011)

            Toby, son of a Baptist lay teacher, is married to Bill’s granddaughter, Carolee.  These two men had a special relationship; they were buddies and shared much through the years.  They had, on several occasions discussed Heaven and Hell at length, while sitting out on Bill’s patio.

            Visiting him in the hospital, Bill not being able to call out indicated that he wanted to speak with Toby, so Carolee traded places with her husband who was minding the children outside the room. 

            Toby leaned down close to the bed since Bill was so weak that he was only able to whisper, the first thing that Bill said was, “Don’t think this is from the drugs or that I’m hallucinating.”  Then he told of seeing friends that some had been dead for twenty-five years, walking around, waving to him on the other side of something that was hazy, like looking through a glad bag”.  Bill was reaching out and grasping at something in the air.  Toby asked what he was doing.  Bill said that he was trying to get though the veil.  He wanted to be there, “But” he said, “Don’t tell Grandma because she will fight to keep me here.”

Toby asked if his friends talked to him.  Bill replied no, just the lady spoke to him.  The lady was dressed in white, all fluffy like lace or ruffles.  She was first up in the corner, then in his face, and then over there.  She was flitting about the room.  Bill asked her who she was and she replied that she was “The Greeter”.

            Toby asked if he saw anyone else.  Bill replied that there were lots of people walking around and that he wanted to get over there, and he kept picking at the veil.   (Toby told us that Bill would reach up with his hands and pick at the air).  Toby asked him if they said anything, Bill said he couldn’t hear them.  He couldn’t see his Mom and Dad, but he knew they were there.

            Later Bill told Shirley (his wife) and Debbie (his daughter) that he just wanted to go home.  They, of course, thought he meant back to Basin, but he meant “over there”.

"Love is not just a spoken word" by Noemi S Rabina

This was submitted as a Valentine's story -- I have been negligent in waiting so long to publish it. But, when you think about it, any day is a good day to be thinking about love. ~ Bonnie

Coming from a meeting one beautiful Thursday morning, as I drove along Downey ave. I was annalyzing the message that I heard from the speaker about love. She based her message on I Corinthians 13. What struck me most were the passages that says, "(V4) Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. (V5) It is not rude, it is not self seeking. It is not easily provoked, it keeps no record of wrong doings. (6) Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. (7) It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."

God's love is always directed toward others, not towards ourselves. It is possible to practice this kind of love, giving love to others and expecting nothing in return. We can give without loving, but we can not love without giving.

I thought of my sister living not too far from me. We have not talked nor have seen each other for a long time. Both of us were busy doing our own activities. While I was on the road, I saw the newly built bakery shop on Downey Ave. I stopped to get some pastries for my sister to surprise her with a love gift since Valentine’s Day was around the corner. I called her up and said that I will just pass by on the way to my Memoir Writing Class. She invited me in but I just stood by the door for they have a big watch dog inside. The dog loves me so much that it will leap on me and sit on my lap. Not this time when I have to go to my class.

Since then, my sister and I have talked more often, putting aside small petty disagreements. Another sister of mine lives across the ocean and I also love her. I always remember her with gifts from the heart. God made us sisters and all that God has created are good. It is better to build bridges than putting a fence between friends, relatives, and especially, sisters.

MY ONE-ARMED FAIRY by Peggy Knorr

I had purchased a little fairy figurine just a few days before Joe, my husband, became ill. I had bought her even though one of her arms was broken off because she was so especially beautiful, and I had planned to place her on a shelf in a way so the missing arm would not be noticed. As the time went by during my tending to Joe, I began to realize how she was symbolic of that which he and I were going through at that time.

Poised in dance-like abandon on my dining room table, she was my comfort and guiding light when I would sit down for a needed break, while Joe, lying in the hospital bed in the living room, was slowly and gradually slipping away each day.

My fairy would give me of her delicate strength that assured me that this situation was in divine order, totally in God's control and playing out in the way it was supposed to be doing. This little soul had suffered the loss of her arm and yet was intrepidly giving forth of her beautiful spirit in ecstasy and rapture. Her severed limb spoke of the coming loss which I was about to go through, the separation of a vital part of me, my right arm, that which Joe was to me, even during the time his torn mind had hidden itself into obscurity. But my fairy reminded me that at his death I could continue in elegance and faith, still looking upwards to my highest good, soaring with Joe's spirit into acceptance of what was yet to come.

I will continue to dance, despite my loss, like my inspired little fairy, a fractured but triumphant spirit, who was still poised and able to hold her head high in acceptance of God's wondrous ways. My companion and husband, my right arm.... gone.... torn asunder by the reality of the order of life; but because of the fortitude of this luminous little being my exultant spirit is joining with him in higher realms of faith and hope and courage.

photo by Mary Ramirez

Thoughts on healing and love, by Annette Skarin

How swiftly my life slips
through the hourglass allotted me
I try to make sense of the plots and characters
woven between each line

I reduce the monsters to peons
one-dimensional and harmless
I listen intently for my real name
which only my Creator knows.

My story flows from my pen
The ink dries with each healing word
leaving a permanent trail of discovery
My abusers become powerless
with each forgiving thought

Today a friend said
“I love you, Annette”
leaving me warm and full
Today my Father whispers to my heart
I love you my child – if I will be still and listen
The denouement of my story is His

http://carinskarin.blogspot.com/