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Saturday, May 4, 2013

...and there it was in the Salvation Army...

Thursday, longing to be out of the house for a bit,
I head to one of my favorite Thrift stores. Other people
may bar hop when lonely, I thrift store hop.
I am not looking for anything special, just a place
to spend an hour or two, finding enjoyment in digging 
trough others trash. I decide that day that I am going to tackle
all the old books. There are many there.
It's a smorgasbord of a store. 
I found many beauties that day.
Many to add to the library I will have.
The fact that two books for the price of one is
going on, adds to my excitement.
I pull books out, I read the titles, I smell them,
I look for those added treasures that only used books have,
the hand written dedications, the forgotten about book marks,
I find some pictures in one, another
with a handwritten note from a mother to her child
going away to college. 
Then I come across my "find of the day"
HEARTSTRINGS OF LAUGHTER AND LOVE
A TRIBUTE TO MOTHERS
There is a beautiful books full of vintage photo
pages, full of writings and poems all about Mothers.
Each one I read, I am pulled to a memory,
a time in my childhood.
This one book, along with about 30 more, come home with me.
It is comforting to me at a time when I miss my Mommy so much.
Last night this is what I read:
HOME IS MEANT TO BE A PLACE WHERE
HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS ARE TO BE UNDERSTOOD
FOR ALL THE SITUATIONS IN LATER LIFE,
AND WHERE A SHELTER IS TO BE FOUND
FOR ALL SORTS OF HURTS, PHYSICAL
AND EMOTIONAL 
-edith schaeffer
Ironically this reading has me going back to a time with
my daddy rather than my Mommy.
I speak of this time often when I am out doing 
motivational speaking.
Let me take you back there:
I am a little gilr once again, have
been teased by my peers about my unruly, curly hair,
my brown stained teeth. I do not tell any of them
that I earned those things by fighting for my life,
the aftermath of chemotherapy and radiation.
No, I speak nothing of this in second and third grade.
Instead, I laugh with them, when they call me 
"bird nest" I pass my hands in my hair.
When they ask why I didn't brush my teeth, 
I smile big. I have already learned that to fuss, get mad,
cry in front of them will only add fuel to the fire.
Instead, I make fun of myself.
Until the end of the day and I get off that bus,
I turn my back to a yellow bus full of those who tease,
and I walk the few feet to my house.
I know the tears are building up.
I think,
"Never let them see you cry"
I walk into my front door of this very large but
very run down home and there is my sweet daddy,
sitting in his chair, his face lights up when he sees me.
That man is not the one some of you may remember when
he was older and sick but the man who has watched his
little girl fight for her life, and won.
I begin to cry, I go to him, I spill all that has happened
to me on that day,
He is not a man who can show affection easily unless it 
comes to one of his little girls who is upset.
There, in his arms, he gives me the best gift a father
can ever give his little girl.
he says to me words that I use often, exactly what
I needed to hear to build the self esteem I have still today.
"LILLY, IT DOES NOT MATTER WHAT THE WORLD
OUT THERE THINKS OR SAYS ABOUT YOU,
THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS IS THAT
WHEN YOU COME THROUGH THESE DOORS
OF OUR HOME, YOU ARE LOVED."
A great man, he was, such a multifaceted man,
who rarely used heartfelt words, that day,
he gave me self confidence that has followed me
through my whole life.
I was  one lucky little girl.

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