I want to remember the beautiful Bromeliad plants in our neighborhood.
Things get pretty “discombobulated” when you’re completing needed repairs on your home and preparing to sell and move across country. As a result, my blogs have been sorely neglected!
We all go through these “shake ups” periodically in our lives. For instance I knew the very hour and minute that I decided to divorce my children’s father. I had come to the proverbial end of my rope and I couldn’t go even a step further.
All week, I was ill with a severe bronchitis, yet I still got up each day to fix breakfast for the family and pack lunches before I stumbled back to bed. My husband came in the bedroom after work and then proceeded to leave again to help someone else in our church.
He never asked how I was; never even looked at me except with disgust. One day I asked if he could get me a drink of water. He didn’t reply nor did I see the water.
The morning of my decision, I was kneeling on the kitchen floor, coughing the loosened bronchial debris into a small wastebasket. I was still in my robe and floppy slippers feeling like hell. I heard my husband call to the children “Hurry up kids we’re going to be late!”
He barreled into the kitchen with the children in tow and looked down at me. Then they all sailed out the backdoor without a word. No one asked if I was going to be all right. No one said goodbye.
A purple orchid hanging from a neighbor’s tree.
At that moment something snapped in my brain. I thought to myself, “What if I choked on my sputum, or God forbid breathed my last? I realized then that most people treat their dogs better than I was treated in that home. I couldn’t live with so little respect and affection.
The sad thing was that my children were so used to seeing this that even many years later when we’re all together, I feel like I’m back in that lonely and God forsaken place. Oh, sure there were “Nursery Rhyme” prayers and a semblance of religion, but the love and joy were missing.
Today my dear husband held the door open on our garbage drawer for me. He could see my hands were full of table scraps. That small gesture warmed my heart. A successful marriage is made up of small and countless gestures each day that say “I love you,” and “You are special in my eyes.”
In a good marriage respect is felt and experienced daily. Sure there are differences that come, but they are forgiven and ignored rather than punished with silence or the withholding of affection.
Some spouses make public displays of attention and warmth. They laugh in a pretense of happiness like an actor on a stage.
But when their backs are turned or they are in secret behind closed doors, their actions and words tell a different story. Their body language expresses contempt and their intimidation causes fear and self-loathing.
I once heard from a marriage counselor “Never go to bed angry” and “always find a way to kiss goodnight.” But back “home on the ranch” those words were ignored. Each night I received the rebuff of an indifferent back and silence; not even a “goodnight.”
Far different from the kisses and snuggles I’ve cherished from my current husband for the last almost 17 years.
A rubber tree with luxurious trunk and bark!
Don’t allow your life or your existence to become meaningless. Either take a stand or leave. Healthy wonderful years may be ahead of you. Don’t allow others to wipe their feet on your soul. You deserve more than the crumbs that fall from other people’s plates.
When your value and significance is struggling for air, reach up and reach out for help. God did not want me to commit suicide so he lifted me up and out of an unhealthy relationship. Once I developed a closeness with Him, I found a reason to live and to thrive.
I thought this was a (silk) Momosa tree, but the leaves are wrong.
God is not just a figment of someone’s imagination. He is real. The healing power of Jesus Christ can help you find your way to a better place.
This lovely plant, keeps producing blooms!
Carol Anfinsen the Art of Living 