The hands of God

Sometimes there just isn't much you can do to make things better.

When your best friend's husband has cancer and she calls to tell you. How do you talk back? Sick feeling in the stomach, lump in the throat, eyes welling. That doesn't help much.

When your college, sit-on-the-balcony-and-talk friend loses her mother to a suffocating lung disease. What can you do? Send flowers?

When your tennis partner's husband lies, or your neighbor's all-grown-up baby moves away ... Or your glass-of-wine friend moves --friendless -- across the country...

Traumatized.

Grieving.

Betrayed.

Empty.

Lonely.

You can't put a bandaid on that.

Even food doesn't salve the pain of a heart truly shattered and a mind flying around looking for the window to reason.

When I wake in the night, turning worry into prayers for a friend, I grasp for something to help ease the pain.

Only one thing I've found. Hand-holding.

When Patti Anne and I were in college, we would sit at night on the balcony of the Phi Mu house. We talked a lot about changing the world as we watched the girls next door stumble up the sidewalk with their dates.

Some of our sorority sisters looked sideways at us -- two coeds from separate, enemy sororities who really didn't give a rip what their cliquish friends thought. There were no cell phones to interrupt us. No email messages waiting.

All the stars lined up right last week and we were able to get together for dinner in Memphis. Only a few weeks away from the death of her gorgeous, silver-haired mother, Patti Anne talked about being motherless, about minor regrets and about major breakthroughs. She brought gorgeous roses just like the ones from her mother's famous rose garden.

Tears came and went. Mine and hers.

Maybe that's what we were practicing so many years ago in the rocking chairs on the balcony. Maybe that's just the way we change the world.

Hand holding.

Like sands through the hourglass

Just do it! Buy the plates, have the party, take the trip, lose the weight.

Do we really want to do all those things on our lists, or do we just enjoy talking about them?

Last week, I heard there were blueberries -- big, fat, sweet ones-- at Blue River Farms in Mt. Olive. Being a fitness and health nut, and knowing about antioxidants and vitamin C and dietary fiber, I decided to go. The Next Day!

Generally, I would have talked about blueberries -- maybe even read an article about blueberries -- and stalled until blueberry season was over (you still have another three weeks or so). But miraculously, I just went.

There's something about picking your own two gallons of blueberries and putting them in the freezer or into a pie that makes you feel accomplished. If you go, take Highway 84 west from Laurel towards Collins. Take a right at Hot Coffee on Highway 532 and drive until you get there. The drive from Laurel takes less than 30 minutes.

Blueberries are easy. But there's a world of things I'm just talking about:

*Visiting the Grand Canyon -- all talk, no plans.

*Getting a face lift -- more talk.

*Making the dog a pet therapist -- actually happening, I think.

*Telling the ex-husbands of my good friends what I REALLY think of them -- not gonna happen.

I've made some progress. I took an incredible trip with my friends to Cozumel. I started playing tennis again. I bought a new sofa.

I still have GOT to schedule dinner with those good friends I haven't seen in forever and plan a party with Mr. Ducker's fabulous boy band!

And quit just talking about it.

Time goes, you say? Ah no!
Alas, Time stays, we go.
~Henry Austin Dobson

Get your purse and get in the car

At one time, I aspired to be a trophy wife. The kind of lady who walks on the red carpet arm-in-arm with her husband. Looking at least 20 years younger. Smiling for the camera. Wearing the latest gorgeous fashion with matching jewels.

Now, I think I just wanna be Nanny.

Nanny had a housekeeper six days a week -- and on Christmas. Most days, after she awakened and made her bed, Nanny spent time in the yard raking pine straw into piles. She would tour her monstrous back yard with her grandchildren -- identifying blooming bridal wreath and grape-like wisteria and poisonous tung apple trees.

Unexpectedly, I find myself doing similar things: looking for new blooms on the Gerber daisies, moving the sprinkler around to revive the withering lantana, pinching the tops off the basil.

Nanny had a great old Hollywood name, Doris. When it was too hot to putter in the yard, she would can figs from the tree out back, paint her nails in the palest of pinks or write in her diary about the happenings of the day.

Nanny was great at telling stories about the tramps who visited her house during the Depression or the way Eve (and consequently every other female) got punished with painful childbearing for tempting Adam with the apple. She let us wear her pop beads and climb her magnolia tree.

About mid-afternoon, when housework and yard work were done, Nanny would go in for a bath.

She took her own sweet time about things. If she wanted a "Co-cola" float in the afternoon, she would have one. If she wanted to watch Art Linkletter or Lawrence Welk, better just enjoy the Lennon sisters and "Kids Say the Darndest Things." If she offered you pistachio pudding when the older cousins from Florence dropped by, you might as well get a spoon.

She just wouldn't get in a hurry.

Now that's a lifestyle I could get comfortable with.

I know what you mean

I love the little phrases that tie life together

Without a longtime husband or longtime friends to repeat and remind, they could be tossed aside like yesterday’s marigold blooms.

Here are some of my favorites:

My friend's grandfather to grandmother (about the shape of her body):

"They may not be big, Maude, but they sure are long.”

That’s just not something you look forward to in old age.

And this one – from the same rich source – appropriate for every holiday just before the big feed:

“We got the ham, by damn.”

Add a person to the family and they bring their own special truisms:

Oldest daughter, age three, after eating a raw oyster: “Don’t wike it Daddy.”

New son-in-law getting into a hot car: “Hot, hot, gonna vomit.”

And, just yesterday, the one from 16-year-old Rachel that will live in infamy: “You are the coolest of the uncool.”

When our precious friend Jenny Lee was three years old, she was quite a rebel. She still likes to do things her way. I am a big fan.

Jenny Lee was sitting at the dinner table with her angelic sister, Sarah Grace. (They used BOTH names then, when they were little girls. That was before Jenny became a rowdy guitar player and Sarah became a preacher’s wife.)

Anyway, the blessing had been pronounced and the food was ready to eat when Sarah Grace said: “I have the love of Jesus in my heart.” Her proud parents echoed her comment and turned to Jenny expectantly.

Looking just like herself, Jenny said: “I have the big, bad wolf in my heart!”

Thank you, sweet Jenny, for giving us a great phrase to use when we are irritated, defiant, selfish and bad. And good for you that you know what might be lurking and are honest enough to say so.