run on sentences

I wish you could have seen her sweet face as she stood there in a driveway, not her own, her outstretched arms holding a freshly baked loaf of bread, still steaming in it's plastic bag.  Her smile was angelic and her eyes clear and sparkling. I stopped mid run, sweaty from the unusual humidity and my unusually fast (for me) pace.   "Joy to the world" I said.  "So happy to see you"  What are you doing here?" I knew this was not her house. I have gotten to know this beautiful lady on my runs.  I usually meet her in the same place on my route and always stop to say hello.  She walks with a fast purposeful gait, her walker in front of her.  She says she doesn't need it but her husband, worried that she will fall, insists she take it.   "I take it so he doesn't worry" she once told me. Some days she tells me she is 76 and other days she claims 83 years.  I am not sure how old she really is and maybe she isn't either.   It doesn't matter

  I think you were born with your blue eyes  lit up and a smile on your face ready to change the world with your happy little light life will be good for you little one,  wanted  so much you took your time getting here it was too cozy where you were Maybe you were waiting  for a background check on all of us August 27 2022 “We made it to the hospital waiting room” your dad says Your extended family stood by in various parts of the world - France, Utah, Michigan texting  notes of encouragement making jokes waiting and waiting I sat knitting aunt Barb did too like my mom did while your dad was being born. You stayed put, safe inside your mom reluctant to leave we didn’t know if you were a boy or girl and didn’t care as long as you got here Day turned into night and back into day And into another night. “We love you” came the voices from the family to your mom and dad  and to you As if the reassurances that you were already loved site unseen would get you here faster “Is it time for the

13 years in your young life are not the same as 13 years in mine. 13 years ago I was 56 still working  and waiting for you, my first grandson 13 years ago you were just being kissed By my mom and sent down here from Wherever you were,  before you were. “Goopye now”, she said.  “You can Tell ‘em” Baby Cakes number 1 Staring curiously at the world Newly born, a little bit of all of us Sitting with me in my blue chair Playing patty cake. Sneaking up the stairs on mornings when  Everyone else was asleep Snuggling  a moment when it was still A new day I treasure the memory of those mornings Toast and Barb jam Or pancakes Baking bread with grandpa Playing bouncy balls in the hallway We did a 5k once  You in a stroller still less than one year old We made blanket forts in St. Louis Danced at your parents wedding  In New Orleans Had the best helado At Parque Cafe in Quindio  We sat on a porch in Guatapé, you in a hammock Listening to your dad reading Harry Potter Now you’ve read it in at least

Note : I wrote this a few years ago but it never made it to my blog. It's a long time (12 years) since I worked in the ER but some patients have stayed with me. Maybe all of the sad things are melded into this one memory, this one little boy. This child didn't get a chance to make his mark in the world. This child, and many others who suffer by those who should protect them. Unfortunately child abuse is still all too common. I looked up from my stationary bike at the gym and noticed a woman in a squatting position, her back leaning against the wall - an exercise meant to strengthen one’s core, hamstrings and quads.  I remember hating this exercise in gym class in high school.   Watching her, I had a flashback to an incident that happened somewhere in the early 80’s during a shift I was working as a pediatric ER nurse.   This memory came to me so clearly that I almost felt panicky as I began to pedal faster on the bike.  I felt cold and hot and like I couldn’t breath as

The old house where I grew up is abandoned now, weathered, and leaning to one side.  It seems to be held in place by a cable connecting it to the power line on the corner.  For some reason, I think of the 1000 piece puzzle,  hanging in a frame  at the top of the stairs outside the bedrooms.   One piece is missing. It had always been missing, this bright blue odd shaped piece that would fit right in the middle of Lake of the C louds, a lake in  northern Michigan nestled between the Porcupine mountains,  near where I grew up.   Ernie, a man who had lived with my family, had finished that puzzle  a few years before he died. “Did you ever sleep with Ernie?” I asked my mom once when she was in her late 70’s and was willing to talk about anything. “No,”   she answered.  “I married your father for better or for worse”.   There probably was a a fair amount of “worse”.  My dad had had an affair with one of her  friends.  She forgave him because that is what wives did in those days.   Ernie

The big shiny black/brown cockroach was in the same place as it was the day before in Olive's basement. I wasn't sure if it was dead, alive, or plastic. I was in her basement in the house where she had lived for almost 60 years with her husband Les. I had been down there many times over the years and never saw cockroaches. I am not a fan of them but I was hoping it was alive. I wanted something to be alive in Olive's soon to be empty house. The auction company was coming soon to get rid of all of house's contents, once Olive and Les' treasured, collected over their 70+ years of marriage. "It’s dead", I thought.    I waited for it to move but it didn’t, not even when I turned the light on.  Wasn’t it supposed to scurry off when a light was turned on?  I couldn’t bring myself to poke it or squish it.  So I let it be.  It wasn’t going to bother anyone.  The house would soon be empty and it would find a new home. If my friend Olive wasn’t already dead

  I could  be angry at my brother  for stuffing his life into tallboy cans of beer and drinking them down, one year after another.   In the year since he died, I  have tried to write about my brother Ray without making him sound like a Saint or like the stereotypical alcoholic.  I wrote his obituary and highlighted all of the best parts of him like one always does in an obituary.    I cannot deny the pain he caused his friends and family because he loved beer more than anything else.  But it would serve no purpose for me to write about that.  My brother above everything else, was a good person. Ray and I  went to church when I visited my little hometown, once or twice a year.  It was the only time he went to church and I always looked forward to that time with him.   During my last visit before he died,  he didn’t  meet me at the usual time.   He wasn’t always reliable but this was the first time he didn’t show up at my sister’s house to walk the few blocks to the church.  I knew he wa