run on sentences

My sister Barbara Jean has a long list of people she says a prayer for every night. She has a superstition about her list too. She never talks about praying - just "putting in a good word" for people who might need it. This term came from my dad who always asked us to "put in a good word" for him. Barb has people on her "good word list" who have long been dead....like grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and even many pets that we had as kids and that she had as an adult. She even puts folks on the list that she reads about in newspapers or who may just be "locals" that she doesn't know but figures they could use some help. I once asked her how she ever gets to sleep with all those folks to remember. She says she just thinks of them but does not pray out loud. She has considered just asking the good Lord to refer to the previous night's list, and only list out the new additions. Once you are lucky enough to be on her list, you never get...

When I ran last Sunday with Sid, I had a feeling that my dad was running with us. The air after a warm rain smelled unusually damp and woody like when I was a kid and would go to the woods to peel pulp with my dad. He died about 5 months ago and I haven’t had many dreams about him or really felt his presence much before. He has never gone running with me and unless he got his amputated leg back in the afterlife, I don’t think it would be something he would come back here to do. But he was there and I mentally told him to go away. I love him and miss him a lot, but I am worried he is coming to convince my mom to join him. She always pretty much did what he wanted. Earlier that week, my mom had a small stroke that seemed to only affect her speech. When I talk to her now, I feel as though she is being drawn in another direction. She is distant and her affect is flat. My dad never could fend for himself so I suppose he finds it difficult to live without her in the afterlife, even though th...

My sister Barbara Jean recently learned how to do text messaging. I receive several from her each day. I also talk to her at least twice a day. She always sends me a "good night, i luv u" message. B. Jean, as I call her, lives about 1200 miles away in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where we grew up. She is 5 years older than me and we are very close. I cannot imagine my life without her. She cannot comprehend families who don't talk to or seem to care about each other. A few weeks ago when I spoke to her, she related a conversation she had with her dying neighbor's sister. The sister commented "maybe it would be better if she would just die while we are here". Then she went on to discuss her own aches and pains and how she needed to get back home and it would be better to not have to come back for a funeral. Barb wondered how this woman could talk about her own sister this way. I could tell that she was still puzzling over this when I received a text messag...

1. Can anyone really live each day as if it were their last? We all know there is a truck heading our way and it will hit us someday. But most of us don't see it coming yet. 2. Can one ever really regain trust in someone who has told a lie? Or more than one lie? Or will the lie live between them forever? 3. Do things really work out for the best or are humans just adaptable so we can survive? 4. Can we ever be happy with what we have? 5. What would happen if I really forwarded those chain emails to 24 of my closest friends? Would I really get good luck at 6pm? And because I don't forward them, will I have very bad luck someday?

“Will you still love me if I get an apron”? This was a question I called my daughter to ask one night at 11pm. For some reason, it became an important topic that night as I was watching reruns of SVU. I was pretty sure I knew the answer. After laughing at my question, she said, “Mom you won’t get an apron"! She is always good at reassuring me, just like I did when she and her brothers were little and worried about something. Getting an apron is high on my list of feared things as I get older, second only to getting a “helmet haircut”. I keep my hair long because helmet hair is usually a term used for a short hair cut. I keep running and eat pretty well in hopes of avoiding the apron. Once in a while I do yoga. What is this apron? There is a medical term for it: a pannis. I don't know where it came from. It probably is a Latin term for "overhang". As a young student nurse, I vividly remembered the apron areas on older ladies. This was the area where their extra abdomi...

Yes, I know that this title has already been taken by someone else - Ellen Gilcrist I believe. I love her books where one of her main characters usually is a rich, spoiled girl named Rhoda. Anyway, I have these weird dreams, some of which are reoccurring and some that are just too strange to be experienced more than once. The most common reoccurring dream is about dirty bathrooms (one of my unwritten books will be titled "Dirty Bathroom Dreams" which sounds like a racy novel but won't be). I dream that I am constantly scrubbing a bathroom around the area where the toilet is attached to the floor. No matter how I scrub I cannot get it clean and I must hurry because some guests need to use the toilet. My sister B Jean, has a similar dream. She dreams that she is trying to use a toilet that is full and she can't flush it. Why do we dream this? Part of it for me, I think, is stress. I dream this when I am worried, upset, or have a lot to do. I think it is because, as a ki...

Every Sunday morning I run with my 81 (almost 82) year old friend. He is waiting for me and Jack the dog every Sunday - rain, wind, or snow. About a block away from his house, Jack runs to his door and waits for the inevitable treat. I am greeted with a big hug. My friend and I have become necessary to each other on these Sunday mornings. I know I would stay in bed if I knew he was not waiting for me. My friend is an inspiration to me and it is sad that his grandchildren do not see how cool he is and what depth he has. I wish they would take advantage of his good health and his good stories and spend more time with him. His new year's resolution is to not feel sorry for himself so much - although I never see evidence of self pity during our runs. I feel lucky to hear his stories every Sunday about his childhood in Montana, and his life before he gave up drinking and became a runner in his 50's. His wife said to him one day "When are you going to grow up and be a man...