CREAMING

By

Linda Wood Rondeau

I pulled out my recipe for snicker doodles, an old-time favorite for the holidays. As I put in the shortening, butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla, the recipe said to blend until creamy. My mind flashed to when I first learned how to bake, back in the day when cake mixes were a novelty or used for last minute church suppers.

The kitchen was my mother’s paradise and her instructions were gospel. To deter meant banishment from the stove.

First: “Wash your hands. No good cook comes to the kitchen with dirty hands.”

Next: “Now read the recipe, and put all the ingredients on the shelf.”

Third step, to my mother the most crucial in the whole process: “cream the shortening, butter, eggs and sugars.”

I stuck in the rotary beaters, set it on high and splashed wet globs from one end of the kitchen to the other. “Done,” I said.

Mother knew better, knew I was always in a hurry to get to the end of a project. “Nope. It’s too grainy. Set the beater on low, scrape the sides frequently, fold the batter together and repeat. Let time and the ingredients do their magic.”

Reluctantly, I started again, following her directions blowing out my frustration all the while. “This takes too long.” 

“Don’t rush it,” Mother said. “Creaming is the most important step in the whole process. If you hurry the creaming, the cookies will come out crumbly and dry. Creaming is what makes them chewy and delectable. Don’t rush the creaming. It takes time but the result is worth it.”

I slowed down and watched with wonder as the goo gradually melded into a creamy, light texture, the ingredients transforming before my eyes.

As I carefully creamed for the snicker doodles, Mother’s words came back to me. I thought about our instant society, how we crave immediate results, the growing tendency to hurry through life in the fastest checkout line. In our haste we blunder through the mix of it all, leaving globs of broken dreams in the muck of our speed.

I thought how the creaming principle is true in all the rooms of our lives, not just the kitchen. We tend to rush for the pleasure without enduring the process. God has given us the recipe for a rich, textured life.

 If we take the time to cream it, not be satisfied with grainy goo or toss it aside because of its unpleasantness—if we repeatedly scrape, fold and beat for as long as it takes, the grimy gook of our shattered hopes will become that creamed foundation that awakens the flavor of our human experience.  

About Linda Wood Rondeau

A best-selling author and award-winning author,  LINDA WOOD RONDEAU writes out of the box. Her stories are told with poignancy and always splashed with humor. Walk with her unforgettable characters as they journey paths not unlike our own. A veteran social worker, the author now resides in Jacksonville, Florida.

Out of the box Christian literature 
Books:

The Other Side of Darkness (Pelican Book Group/2011)

It Really IS a Wonderful Life  (Lighthouse of the Carolinas/2012)

Days of Vines and Roses (Helping Hands Press/2013)

I Prayed for Patience God Gave Me Children (Helping Hands Press/2013

        

THE TALK

BY LINDA LANGE

Reprinted by permission

When my father died, it was almost a relief, because it meant we wouldn’t be having The Talk.

The talk in question has nothing to do with birds and bees.  It’s that other discussion—the one about Dad’s driving.

By the time Dad was in his seventies, he’d had cataract surgery and wore thick glasses.  Surgery to reattach his retina was only partially successful.  He’d had a collision with a truck that I ascribed to his impaired vision. When he mentioned one day that a young friend had asked him to pick up her son after school, I almost choked.

Like many children of elderly drivers, I dreaded The Talk and put it off.  I lived 500 miles from Dad, so I couldn’t become his wheels.  When he passed away in his sleep at seventy-seven, keys on the dresser and car safely stowed in the garage, grief wasn’t the only emotion I felt.

I was forty-three then; I’m sixty-five now. I don’t know when my turn is coming, but I know it will. I’ve always had faulty depth perception, and it’s getting worse as I age. And my neck doesn’t turn as far as it used to.  So far my occasional driving misjudgments have been confined to parking attempts.

A failed parking attempt

For now, I’m planning to buy a smaller, more maneuverable car. I hope I’ll know when to turn in my keys.

So I was intrigued when I picked up the April 7 Cincinnati Enquirer and read about a program called Beyond Driving with Dignity. It has been offered in Cincinnati since 2011, and it’s spreading throughout the United States and Canada.

Matt Gurwell, a retired Ohio State Highway patrolman, founded the program in Cleveland in 2008. In his twenty-four years on the force, he delivered hundreds of death notifications to families of crash victims, including older drivers.  Now CEO of Keeping Us Safe, parent company for the BDD program, Gurwell developed a curriculum, workbook, and exercises to help senior citizens assess whether they can keep driving safely.  Families can elect to work with elderly drivers on their own or engage a certified BDD professional at a cost of a few hundred dollars.

BDD workbook

I wanted to know more.  I sent for the workbook and was pleasantly surprised when it arrived with a thank-you note from Gurwell saying, “If I can be of assistance to you or your family, please let me know.”

I flipped through the workbook. I liked its guiding principle, “This project needs to be worked as a collaborative effort between family and the older driver.  It cannot be approached with an ‘us vs. him’ attitude, or as two opposing forces waiting to meet in a dark alley.”

Gurwell covers all the bases with chapters on initiating driving-related conversations, understanding an elderly driver’s fears, and assessing health issues such as vision, hearing, memory, reaction time, strength and flexibility, and medication.  There is a guide for rating the older driver’s performance and another for modifying the vehicle, if appropriate, to make it safer for him or her to drive.  Finally, there is an all-important chapter on finding workable transportation alternatives.

From what I read, I’m good to go for a few more years, at least.  But I consider this book a valuable resource.  I plan to keep it and check it periodically—before my son decides we need to have The Talk.

For more information on Beyond Driving with Dignity, visit the Keeping Us Safe website, http://www.keepingussafe.org/, or call toll-free to 877-907-8841.

Incomplete Passes, Linda’s first book, was named a finalist in the 2012 Next Generation Indie Book Awards.

Linda has been married since 1969 to Scott Lange, an announcer and narrator.  They have two cats and a son who is not named after “Mr. A” in Incomplete Passes.

Follow Linda Lange and Incomplete Passes on the Internet:

Website:  www.incompletepasses.com

Incomplete Passes blog:  http://lindalange.authorsxpress.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Incomplete-Passes/277798228904875

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/linda_lange

Pinterest:  http://pinterest.com/lindafromgb/     

Contact Linda Lange:

incompletepasses@yahoo.com

513-378-4730

Health Care- It's Making Me Sick!

Health Care- It's Making Me Sick!

by Kevin Parsons

I'm not whining that health care is expensive, but the other day I refinanced the house for my annual exam. And yes, my doctor drives a Mercedes, but when I saw a laboratory rat driving one, that seemed excessive. 

When you visit the doctor's, they hand you a pen and clipboard. Wow. Welcome to the 1800s. And you know you fill out the paper and hand it to the nurse, someone back there is going to take your information and sell it to Google.

And the questions, you don't know these people! 'Do you smoke? Do you drink? Do you have an irregular heartbeat?' Yes, when I see my bill.

But actually, if they need so much information from you, why don't they get it from Google? They wouldn't even have to ask the questions. "So, Mr. Parsons, we see that you engage in risky behaviors. Did you know you ran twelve yellow lights last month?"

They always check your blood pressure. Wouldn't it register lower if they checked it before you had to pay? Or before you filled out the questionnaire? I look at the list of questions and wonder if I DO have some of those maladies. Maybe you could check your blood pressure before you got there. You could pay homeless people to give blood pressure checks out on the sidewalk. Now you could shave health care costs and help somebody else out. 

And the waiting room. There must be a service that provides seven year old magazines. I read an article about how the ice man's job is in jeopardy. And who wants to sit around and wait? Maybe they could learn from the Apple Store. The doctors and nurses wander around and help you on the spot. Oops, got a visual there. Definitely not going to work. 

When they put you in the examination room, they should heat it. You put on those thin backward gowns and stick to the frozen table like a kid's tongue to a flagpole. Why don't they heat the tables and chairs? And since health care is so expensive, they should make it feel like you're getting something. That paper tablecloth you sit on, for instance. Wouldn't you feel better if it was smooth and soft, like the hide from an almost extinct animal? 

And everyone is in such a hurry. The nurse rushes in and takes your temperature. The doctor flies through and off to the next patient. Another nurse dashes in and takes all your money. 

The examination room is so sterile too, nothing on the walls except dire warnings about diseases. Why don't they show photographs of the doctor and his family on vacation at a five star hotel in Fiji? You'd get the message: "If you answered 'no' to more of the questions on the clipboard, we wouldn't be here."

 

Follow Kevin's '50 States in 50 Weeks' tour

www.kevinbparsons.blogspot.com

MARJORIE RAWLINGS HOME

Annette Bergman For years we have driven highway 301 in Florida and each trip I saw the sign that said Cross Creek: Home of Marjorie Rawlings.  With each trip I became more curious. This time I was determined to stop and find out for myself. I was so grateful to be able to walk the ground of this Cracker style home where Marjorie Rawlings had written so many novels. Painted white with forest green shutters, the long windows was just perfect for peeping. Several round braided rugs covered the time worn natural wood floors. The furniture seemed to be the original furnishing in the home. The screened porch had a sitting room at one end with a daybed covered with a chenille bedspread.  The other end of the porch held a round oak pedestal table. A manual type writer was situated on top of the table where the view was to the road in front of the house. The chairs were ladder back and the caning had been replaced with deer hide.  Some of the hide was bear of hair and other spots still had the deer hair on them.  This was the table and chairs that Marjorie Rawlings used to write. The small bedroom had a crocheted bedspread on the bed. The closet still held her clothes. This was Marjorie’s room, there again with a view of the road. A treadle Singer Sewing machine was opened, a red pin cushion and a Kerr jelly jar, with old buttons in it, were sitting next to the machine. A second bedroom had a small pieced quilt on the bed and was very neat and sparsely furnished. The bath room had been added later, the claw foot tub was painted pink on the underside and the floor was covered with rose colored linoleum with yellow and turquoise flowers. There were porches on all sides of the house. Some screened and some not. The back of the house had a big wooden bench complete with wash tubs, and the boiling pot was upside down in the yard. A peek into the summer kitchen that was separated from the house by a breeze way, held a wooden ironing board with a pop bottle sprinkler top on it.  A wooden bucket and an ice cream churn were sitting next to a wooden bench.  A homemade clothes pin bag hung on the wall. The kitchen had an old wood stove and small table, along with cooking utensils of the twenties and thirties. The garden at the back of the summer kitchen was complete with a high fence to keep out the wild animals. I could see how Mrs. Rawlings had found the peacefulness to write in such a setting.  I was just hoping that by some strange miracle of nature I could experience some type of osmosis, from walking where Marjorie Rawlings had walked and lived, would give me some talent, or just a fractions of the talent, that this Pulitzer Prize winner possessed. I went there thinking The Yearling, was her first and only novel.  It was her third book.   She cranked out six more books after that and then three others were published after her death in 1953 at the age of 57. Three of her novels were made into movies. Yet, she chose to never leave her home on the edge of Orange Lake where she had lived in her inspirations to write. Annette Bergman Author of: Things That Make Me Nuts and Return To Tybee Web site: www.annettebergman.com http://annettebergman.blogspot.com/2012/...

THE PURPLE ELEPHANT

The Purple Elephant

By Dr. Jeri Fink

They think I’m crazy.

I can name every resident and their address in New Amsterdam, 1660 – but only a few of my present

neighbors.

I can tell you what foods came from Dutch New York – but can’t eat any of them because of my geezer diet.

I can describe exactly what Peter Stuyvesant wore in 1664 – but can’t remember what I wore yesterday.

It’s hard enough being a geezer. It’s worse if you’re a geezer author.

I’m presently completing my fourth book in a series of six historical novels. You guessed it – the book is located in New Amsterdam, 1660. When my friends discuss the best shows on Broadway, I tell them it was originally a dirt path filled with wood houses, roaming pigs, drunks, and hookers. It doesn’t impress them. When they want a glass of wine, I offer tankards of ale or brandywein and inform them that the New Amsterdam children were given watered-down beer because the drinking water wasn’t safe.

Now my kids are afraid I might put something . . . unusual . . . in my grandsons’ Sippy cups.

What’s a geezer-author to do? I have to prove myself as a robust, red-blooded American grandparent. Does playing competitive soccer with a one-year old count? Or discussing the purple elephant that lives in my grandsons’ backyard? How about “stealing” noses and “eating” little feet? (toes are very tasty).

Everyone around me is too literal – not literary. I need a best-seller to be validated but that isn’t happening any sooner than the purple elephant is leaving the backyard. I have to be realistic. No more elephant. No more baby soccer. Perhaps I should buy a Makey Makey – a real device that lets you control your computer with bananas or silly putty? Maybe I should visit with an amazing stacking Gadzooks “big bad wolf” toy?

I trained my 100-pound dog to “read” by barking when I hold up a

sign that says “talk.” The four-year old was impressed. His brother, a worldly 6-year old, now demands that my dog read an entire book. Even worse, he’s insisting that the dog read my book. You know - the one with his name in the acknowledgments.

BTW how long does it take to teach a child that “nana is a bit crazy” and he shouldn’t believe everything I say? Especially when he’s still trying to figure out how I can be nana and an author.

I think I have the same problem.

I confess. Young or old, life is boring when the purple elephant doesn’t live in the backyard and dogs can’t read books. The New Amsterdam neighbors are much more interesting than the people next door who talk about taxes and termites. And if I can’t eat Dutch panicakes, I’ll try (or make) the sugar-free version. An author’s life is rich with reality and imagination. We’re very

fortunate.

Except for the fact that they all still think I’m crazy.

Dr. Jeri Fink is a proud geezer and the author of hundreds of articles and nineteen published books. Trees Cry For Rain, her latest book, is a gripping historical novel where the past crashes ruthlessly into the present. It can be purchased at amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com.

Her new series, Broken, consists of six separate novels that follow dramatic, related paths through genealogical time, from the Spanish Inquisition to the present. Each novel focuses on a psychopath who lived in the era. The Broken series will be introduced in fall, 2013 in the new genre of Baby Boomer Thrillers.

Visit Jeri at her website www.drjerifink.com or email her at drjeri@drjerifink.com

RIDING THE ROLLERCOASTER

by Larry Constantine

I’m not a boomer—too old—and I do not write boomer lit. I write intrigue and action-filled page-turners. True, some of my recurring characters are almost as old as I am, and in The Rosen Singularity, a work that walks a wobbly line between literary fiction and thriller, some of the players are much older than any human being has a right to be. (To fully understand that throwaway line, you will just have to read the book.) 

If you pick up any of my novels, make sure your pacemaker is functioning, because my readers are taken on a figurative rollercoaster and may even end up shouting at the pages.

Besides giving readers an amusement park ride, I write to get people thinking.

 Among my interests is the part that age and age differences plays in love and friendship. One of the central characters in my first novel, Bashert, is Karl Lustig, who emerges as a protagonist for the entire Homeland Connection series. Karl starts out as a settled and self-sufficient older bachelor who gets manipulated by a manufactured mystery into a connection with a significantly younger woman, the widow of a college chum. Their relationship evolves over four novels, reaching a point where Shira has to step in and take the strong, decisive lead in looking after an incapacitated Karl.

The screenplay that has been written for Bashert and is now being floated under the working title, “Destined,” highlights the dilemma my story creates. The screenwriter rejected the core bit of subtext and made Karl much younger and a contemporary of Shira. This basement-level renovation not only compressed the time span of the novel, simplifying filming, but would make the couple ever so much easier for the movie-going public to identify with. So the argument goes.

There is still plenty of action and suspense in the script, but the age issue and the dynamics it introduces have been rubbed out. The opening scene of the screenplay is straight out of my prologue—I tend to write quite cinematic fiction—and most of the dialogue is taken almost verbatim from the book, which pleases me no end, since reading dialogue aloud and revising repeatedly are important parts of my writing process.

All in all, the screenplay is very good, and a savvy studio would be smart to option it before some competitor gets to film the first Lior Samson blockbuster. But it is a very different tale than the one I told. That in itself is to be expected; feature films and novels are profoundly different art forms. My disappointment—which I expect may vanish the moment I step onto the red carpet at the world premiere of the movie—is that one of the important pieces of what the story and series is about—age—has been lost. If the first film is a success and the other novels become onscreen sequels, the heroes will have to continue as an ordinary, middle-age couple stumbling onto and defeating terrorist plots. Heck, it could even be the basis of a television series. I can see it all now.

There are, of course, plenty of “older” protagonists in movies, television, and fiction in general, and aging has been at or near the heart of a number of Hollywood hits—“Driving Miss Daisy” and “The Notebook” spring to mind—but I was trying for something different. I wanted age and age difference to be important but incidental, as in real life, where we are not defined by our ages or the differences in or ages, but where these are nevertheless unavoidable subtexts in the narrative of our lives.

Bio

Larry Constantine is a designer and university professor who writes fiction under the pen name Lior Samson. His most recent novel, Chipset, is the sweeping conclusion to the four-volume Homeland Connection series of techno-thrillers. He teaches at the University of Madeira, Portugal, where much of the action in Chipset is set. He is working on his sixth novel, his first murder mystery, which also explores the role of age in human relationships. He is known among family and friends as an inspired chef, resonant baritone, and sometime composer of choral music.

ONCE UPON A TIME: A LETTER TO MY MOTHER

By Doris Meredith

Dear Mama,

Mother's Day is approaching, and Mike will buy me flowers. They will remind how beautiful our yard always was. Do you remember the corner you dedicated to Oklahoma wild flowers? When we drove to town you would make Daddy stop every time you saw a wildflower you didn't already have. Daddy's face would turn grumpy after six or seven stops. Not that he ever said anything; he was a very reserved man except when he and Uncle Charlie argued every Sunday after dinner. Did you know that what we called dinner is called lunch now?

Your wildflower garden had Indian paint brush, black-eyed Susans, and, I don't remember what else. We had morning glories on the west fence, honeysuckle that draped the side of the garage, straw flowers that surrounded the propane tank. But it was the rose garden in the corner of the yard closest to my room that I loved the most. No hybrids, just the old-fashioned kind of roses that smelled so sweet and were covered with thorns.

Do you remember the summer afternoons when we would play board games--Checkers, Chinese checkers, dominoes? We always played on a card table set up in your bedroom, because in those days when there was no air conditioning, your bedroom was the coolest room in the house.

My daughter Megan always liked to play board games, too, but you know that, don't you, even though you've never met Megan in person.  She likes to sew, to, even has a sewing machine, and makes gifts for all the ladies in the family. She is even going to learn to quilt. I never much cared to sew, never liked so-called handwork of any kind. But I'm glad Megan is interested in sewing. It gives her something in common with you.

My son Matt, but you know him, too, even though you've never met him in person either. He was a kind boy and grew up to be a kind man. I visited him once before he married. He had two cats and would rescue any little critter they caught. He even rescued lizards. He's married a nice girl you would definitely classify as a lady. You always wanted me to grow up to be a lady, but I never did. I never learned to play the piano either, despite how much you wanted me to. 

As I write this letter, so many memories come back: the Christmas Santa Claus brought me my doll house, Daddy reading me the comics every Sunday; but most of all, how you always listened to me when I read you one of my stories, even though I hadn't learned how to write. You gave my scribbles all the careful attention you would pay to a play by Shakespeare. You were my first critic, but you never criticized, you encouraged. Encouragement at just the right moment is the most precious gift a mother can give.

One of my last and most poignant memories is that Sunday morning, Mother's Day, when we cut two roses to wear to church. It was the custom, to wear a rose on Mother's Day. A red rose if your mother was still living; a white rose if she was not. I was ten years old that May morning. I don't remember what dress I wore with my red rose, but I remember what color dress I wore that Tuesday in September at your funeral. It was yellow. And I was still just ten years old.

I still remember you, Mama, and I still miss you.

Your daughter,

******

 D.R. Meredith is an  award-winning author of nineteen novels, both mysteries and historical, and numerous short stories. A fan of mysteries since a childhood obsession with Agatha Christie and Rex Stout, D. R. Meredith has written three mystery series set in the Texas Panhandle, a little-known area of the state even to other Texans. For more information about her books visit http://highwatermysteries.wordpress.com/

DEMENTIA AND PRETTY THINGS

By Carol Howell 

I love pretty things.  Making my house beautiful is something I totally enjoy.  When I can sit in my chair, look at my surroundings and smile, well, then I am a happy camper.

This is a picture of my kitchen counter.  All the components came together quite by accident.  The mirror and large plate in the background are always part of my kitchen.  I like the way the mirror reflects the back of the plate.  The basket holds fruit and vegetables – a necessary parts of my plant based eating lifestyle.  All the components make for an attractive scene.

When your loved one moves to an assisted living, enhanced care facility, group home, or memory care environment, make their new home pretty.  Decorate the walls with the pictures they enjoy.  (Hint – If they spend their days in a wheelchair, hang those pictures at their eye level.)  Bring their favorite bedspread or blanket.  Include draperies, that old recliner they enjoy, and even ask if their pet is allowed to join them.

Turning this new living environment into “home” starts with making it pretty.  Hope that gives you Something To Ponder.  

Carol Howell is a Certified Dementia Specialist and Music Therapy Coach.  Her book - If My Body Is A Temple, Why Am I Eating Doughnuts? - is available for e-readers at www.amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com .  Her latest book, LET'S TALK DEMENTIA - A Caregiver's Guide is a help for those peripherally affected by dementia, written with her characteristic humor. Contact her at carol@seniorlifejourneys.com or read more at www.seniorlifejourneys.com.   

  

DENTAL FLOSS AND FOOD STUFF

By Ed VanDeMark

Thirty three times I tried to get that piece of dental floss perpendicular to my teeth and thirty three times I managed to do parallel. 

I tried moving the floss. I tried adjusting my head, and cranking my neck six ways of sideways. I tried making faces. I tried looking in the mirror and I tried prayer, I even said a bad word.

Not even Mr. Wizard  of 1950's television fame was able to help me. I've tried salad twice since Richard Nixon was President and it’s no better now than it was during the Kennedy administration . Veggies aren’t much better. I can handle broccoli if you boil the flavor out of it, serve it hot and give me a full salt shaker. You must also decide in advance not be offended when I feed the stalks to the dog. 

It doesn't take me long to make decisions about what I'll be putting in my mouth. I'll tell you right now I reject wight out of every ten foods based on reputation, appearance, odor and superstition. 

 One of the remaining two will be ejected from the arena for foul flavor or for having the texture of a grub.

Linda and I went to Israel. I tried to be nice. I sampled two new foods in an attempt to foster good will between our nations. The best news is most places in Israel offer American foods as a failsafe for finicky eaters like me. 

They also offer several selections from St. Peter’s mother-in-law’s cook book. Cola is good in every language, so are sugar and salt and God made a covenant to supply Israel with an endless supply of chocolate. I survived, In fact I gained four pounds. Yet I must warn you, don’t eat the falafels.  Falafel is the Hebrew spelling of awful. 

Dear rebel friends wipe that grin off your face, I don’t like grits, sweet tea or collard greens they're the stuff race horse owners feed to the other guy’s contender. Liver in all its forms is still liver and I wouldn't serve it to a lizard. 

Edible is a survivalist word, it has nothing to do with real food like pizza, burgers and fries. Edible is rattle snake, burdock roots, mice, worms and insects.

I've mentioned numerous so called foods I don't want stuck between my teeth. Yet attempting to remove them with dental floss is a life time sentence to yuck in the mouth disease. Give me an old fashioned tooth pick, or a tooth brush and a half ton of peppermint. Shucks give me a cherry bomb, it would work better than dental floss.

 (EXCERPTS FROM “My Story”

Edward is a pompous name and Eddie is condescending, I therefore prefer to be called “Ed” which is, in my opinion, neither pompous nor condescending.

I was born in Endicott, New York on July 16, 1941 and have lived most of my life fifteen miles west of Endicott in or near the village of Owego. When I find something good I stick with it.

I’m married to Linda (Masters). We have three fine adult children (Tony, Lisa and Dan) and nine wonderful grandchildren ranging in age from 20 to 2.

I write about my observations of life and draw cartoons because there is a force embedded deep inside of me that will not release me to ignore these modes of expression. I’m not interested in a second career as a writer or as a cartoonist. I’ve served my time meeting other people’s deadlines and I’m not in love with the tension they cause yet I do send off finished works for publication. Chicken Soup for the Soul has published three of my stories as have other lesser known publications.

The two best pieces of advice I’ve received as a writer are 1. Just tell your story and 2. Make it sing.

God Bless you my friends.

Ed VanDeMark.

I CAN'T DO THIS!

By

Patti Shene

Beep! Beep! Beep! The soft but persistent alarm invaded my sleep like a clap of thunder in the wee hours of a summer night. My husband’s machine sent out a warning that something was wrong. My heart sped up to three times its normal speed as I forced myself into wakefulness.

“Canister full,” the touch screen read. My mouth felt like I’d stuffed it with cotton and sweat beaded my forehead. I hadn’t anticipated this happening until we were home and securely in the hands of a public health nurse who knew what she was doing.

Sure, I had a nursing degree, but my experience had never included a machine that sucked at a gaping wound in my husband’s leg. I was a few thousand miles out of my comfort zone here. A motel room over a hundred miles from home at 1:00 AM was not my idea of the greatest setting to learn a new skill.

“I can’t do this, God,” my palpitating heart screamed. “How about some help here, Lord?”

The contact phone numbers at my disposal proved useless. No surprise on a Friday night. Fear turned my shaking hands to ice as I struggled to calm myself and deceive my unsuspecting husband that I knew exactly what I was doing.

After another hasty prayer, I cast my eyes around the room, knowing the answer would not be written on the wall.

But it was in the confines of that room. A cardboard box containing medical supplies necessary for the wound vac machine also held, wonder of wonders, an instruction book. Once I found the page that addressed the problem, I realized I had performed these steps at the hospital under the supervision of the nursing staff and could, in fact, complete this task now.

How quick we are to say “I can’t do this, God! Please don’t make me!” Although it may seem like we are left alone at times, and we tend to cry out, “where are you, God?” He is right there with us. He never gives us a task without providing a resource to complete it. Sometimes that resource turns out to be our own common sense.

Patti Shene is a retired RN, formerly from Long Island, who has resided in Colorado for the past forty years. She is a Christian writer, blogger, and avid reader. Having entered her senior years, Patti enjoys supporting, promoting, and encouraging older writers. Patti is published in two anthologies and local publications. Visit Patti’s blogs at her website, www.pattishene.com, and leave a comment to let her know you stopped by!

Connect with her on Twitter (https://twitter.com/PattiShene),

Linkedin (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/patti-shene/34/1a2/a1a) and

Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/gunsmokefan)

SISTER

copyright Denis Michel

So softly treads the night. And you. You haven’t been around for a long time. But I’ve never forgotten you. Enter my writing room, sister. Tread softly. I’m easily frightened since I was nine and you left me. There. You’re standing behind my right shoulder. No breath reaches my skin.                                                                      *** “It isn’t normal.” Mother’s rules of normality were very straightforward. There were rich people and there were poor people. We were poor. Thus we had to work hard. Poor people couldn’t become rich people but with hard work they could become less poor.  A nine-year-old who wanted to read was queer, to say the least. A nine-year-old who saw things in the night was just plain lazy. As a result of that flaw of character his fantasy had run amuck. Idleness is the ear cushion of the devil.  Father tried to understand. Secretly, because he was raised in a farmer’s family that was even poorer, he had been a dreamer in his youth too. Yet he never saw an invisible sister. “I would have been afraid, when I was your age, if I had seen a girl who no one else can see,” he said to me. “Aren’t you?” Father was a kind man but explicitly absent in our family. He had to juggle two jobs in order to pay the mortgage of the decrepit tiny house we were living in. My elder brother used to say: “The in-house here is the outhouse elsewhere.” Nevertheless, Father was very proud of the house. He called his jobs “rooting for survival and holding a roof above our heads”. I vowed that sometime he would be proud of me. When he was old  and could not work anymore, when the roof held itself. Maybe then he wouldn’t be afraid anymore.                              copyright Synthia Maes.                                                                   *** It was 1962. May 7th when my elder brother pushed me from the stairs. Accidently? Yes. Never mind that we had an argument just before that. He had said that I shouldn’t be a boy, but a girl. Because I fantasized playing with a girl. So we fought. So I lost. So I fell from the stairs. Mother and Father brought me to the hospital unconscious.                                                                                    *** So. In that hospital I lost her, my invisible sister. Until then she had been like a twin. When I did something, she did. When I said something, she did. She was me, but then again quite a separate person. I was attached to her. Because she wasn’t there anymore, I began to love her. She became a world on her own that I couldn’t enter.                                                                                      *** So. So I faded from this world which I no longer could understand. Not a jota, not a bit, not a morsel. It was in my recovery bed that I deliberately started to forget about my Mother and Father and my Brother. The nine-year-old was on his own now. Because he had taken a loss, everything and everyone else had to do too.                                                                *** 51 years later I’m reading Philip Roth’s Patrimony about the last months of his Father.  I am fascinated. Flabbergasted. A sea of rich details. Of Roth’s youth. Of his Father’s youth. I envy Roth. Instead of falling from stairs, he swims in the sea. Since my ninth year, my memories of my childhood are like overexposed snapshots. Continuously, I try to give them sharpness in my novels. I fail. Only one memory has always been sharp and clear. And became solid again months ago when something terrible struck me. What that was, is mine to know only.                                                           *** Here, softly treads the night. And you. You’re standing behind my right shoulder. No breath reaches my skin. Forgive me, sister. Bob Van Laerhoven Bio: In the mean time: “La Vengeance de Baudelaire”, the French translation of “De Wraak van Baudelaire” has been published in Canada and will be published in France in June. In the UK we probably will sell the e-book rights of the English translation (Baudelaire’s Revenge) to Endeavour press. There is another Publishing House and an agent in the running, so we have the luxury of being able to choose.