Week Two of Advent: Prepararation

Matthew 5:13-16 (NIV)

"You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men. You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven."

The Second Week of Advent

I was raised Catholic, for at least eight years of my life anyway. From first to eighth grade the Advent season was a season of love in our school as we prepared for the birthday of our Lord and Savior. The season was more about the love of God than the love of gifts so that was our focus. In the morning before classes began, all of the children were called to the central hallway where we were tightly gathered. One child lit a candle and we all sang in unison, 'O come O come Emmanuel'. We would do this every day before classes began for the next four weeks. 

This was the season that our Christmas plays were put together and as a whole school we were in unison with one another, no grade was doing anything much different, we were all focused on the season in some way. Our classrooms and curriculum consisted of the Jesus Story, the memorizing of Luke, exchanging of Christmas cards, Christmas tree decoration, and all the adornment that we saw on the outside of school, during the next four weeks the holyday was magnified in the halls and classrooms of my Catholic school, St. Mary’s.

Every year since I converted from Roman Catholicism, Advent always held a special time of reflection, of coming closer to God through the lighting of candles, meditation, singing and rejoicing and, spreading love and listening, yes listening, to Him for the way I should go. My Lenten season is similar but that season is the season of renewal, advent is the season of reflection. Reflection of where you’ve been and where you’re going. A peace and contentment with the love of Christ. 

Last week my reflection consisted of Google Earth. Yeah, I know that’s odd but I went back home and looked at the home where I  grew up. The house on William street meant more to me than just the home I grew up in, the house right next door is where my cousins once lived and the house that I would eventually give birth to my first living son.

Sitting there looking at the house I grew up in on my screen, opened a floodgate of memories. The tall slender rowhome with its now brick facade but the same marble steps we used to scrub with comet to get them clean and white, were still there. The long narrow windows were present and I looked, with tears in my eyes as the kid in me remembered so many good Christmas’ decorating those windows. Memories of putting up the Christmas tree right in front of those windows, and the stairs, the winding stairs my sister and I would sit at the top of and secretly watch my mother place gifts under the tree. I’m certain our giggles gave us away. What good memories but oh the memories. 

I know I’ve written about my life and it not being the greatest childhood, (I know, I know, no one had a great childhood but mine was exceptionally bad) except for the Christmas season memories, they were always the best! My grade school was right around the corner from my house so as I visited my ‘old home’ I had to visit my old school, too. I think last week was for me, let’s walk down memory lane.

As I visited my old school the memories of the Christmas plays came flooding in along with the snowflakes I’d cut out or the Christmas construction-paper-cutout trees we decorated and placed around the halls, or the manger I built as a classroom assignment.

I remembered the Christmas play where I was in the back row of the stage standing on a milk crate in a line of students also balancing on a milk crate. Well wouldn’t you know, it would take little Joni to lose her balance and wipe out the entire row of kids as we all came crashing to the floor in giggles. The next year Sister Karl Ann made sure she placed me safely seated in the front row, with a small bongo in my hand as I played the Little Drummer Boy as we all sang.

It seemed I only allowed the good memories in as Memory Lane had changed over the years. I’ve worked so hard the past two years on letting the bad memories go into the Forgiven Pool where they could drown that they no longer held sway in my mind when Memory Lane opened up.

This is the week I prepared to face another Christmas, one in my new life seemingly a million miles away from my old life in Baltimore. Nowhere in my past did chickens and roosters come to my front door or turkeys would eat my birdseed. The only cluttered streets I see out here are when I drive two hours into Omaha where they have what they call ‘City Life’. It’s kind of funny, if only they knew what REAL city life was like. A rock formation in the far western reaches of the state constitutes a ‘mountain’ to them, and sand in front of a lake is what they deem ‘a beach’. To them, a city is where there are tall buildings and a nightlife. A nightlife that is kept at bay in the country living. They have bars out here but nothing like a real CITY has for sure.

Baltimore City's Inner Harbor

my playground as a child

Growing up in Baltimore City I lived right in the crook of the Chesapeake Bay, you know, that was a small portion of the Atlantic Ocean where there were numerous ‘beaches’ all a part of the shoreline of the ocean. Home of Fort McHenry where our national anthem was written by Francis Scott Key. The mountains in the tiny Maryland state escorted you right into Pennsylvania where even bigger and better mountains lined the landscape.

A canon at Fort McHenry facing the FSK bridge

Out here in the midwest often called, The Bible Belt, the land is flat, no matter what they tell you! You can see lightning in the sky over fifty miles away, sometimes a hundred miles away depending on the severity of the storm. The one thing I cherish out here in this new life? LOVE! The love of family is simply amazing out here. The love of God is monumental. The love of life is respected and Memory Lane to them is filled with cows, barns, dirt roads, steak, pulled pork (they call sloppy-joe) with taters and a huge pumpkin pie that grandma made from scratch.

cows on a farm off of a Nebraska dirt road

a barn, Anywhere, Ne.

In the wood framed houses of Nebraska and acres of farm, within each smokestack stood a child looking at a Christmas tree knowing what it meant to appreciate the joys of the Advent season and the welcome of love received when opening the door on Christmas Day. Yes, the road from there to here was filled with rubble but to me with every rock along the way, I saw within, a million mountains ready to climb and a summit to reach.

May the joy of the season walk you down memory lane and you remember all the love that God has poured out to you. His gift to you was His Son, His love for you immeasurable, His Light? Well, each one of us is His Light, it depends on how you see it. God Bless you all!

Luke 2:10-14 “And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

A Healing Journey: Understanding now...

Pss. 118: 23 “This is the LORD's doing; it is marvellous in our eyes.”

A healing journey: Understanding now…

What I didn’t know then

Ever since this healing journey began which pretty much feels like most of my life, flashbacks. Flashbacks are the instances you thought you long forgot but something triggers a memory and you wonder, where did that come from? I believe it is all part of the healing plan and releasing the old baggage to pack a new one filled with the good arsenal that remains. I’m beginning to understand now what I didn’t know then.

When I was diagnosed I kicked into research mode seeking out the causes of this disease and remedies because I knew that nothing I did in life was of the conventional method. I knew from the very beginning that the unconventional route was going to be my journey so I set out on a mission of research and understanding. The first thing I stumbled on was stress. Stress happens to be one of the main factors of many diseases we now know to inhabit our bodies. 

From the outside, you might look at people and say, ‘they don’t look like they have stress’ or you might think, ‘I don’t have any stress’. Allow me to tell you, we ALL have stress that has built up solid walls inside us that if not tackled and taken down WILL surface as an illness now or later in life. While PTSD is a well-known stress ‘disorder’, not reserved just for soldiers, people are reluctant to admit to their own stress disorder lurking like a shadowed grim reaper.

From the Science Daily link:
"Effects of stress on regulation of immune and inflammatory processes have the potential to influence depression, infectious, autoimmune, and coronary artery disease, and at least some (e.g., viral) cancers," the authors write. 

There is PROOF that stress triggers autoimmune disorders. Stress is linked to many other cardiovascular illnesses also. Just type stress and autoimmune into your ‘search’ box and see what pops up. Stress is a leading factor of death. The trick here is to not rely on drugs to assist you in healing. Drugs may be important for some things but not good as pacifiers that are only going to continue to disguise your symptoms. Later on, when you realize the drugs are not helping, you’re going to need to actually mentally DEAL with what caused the stress to begin with, one way or another.

For me, it’s in the way of flashbacks. I’ve had tons to deal with over my life but not as much as many other people, I know, but of course looking from the inside out mine is always bigger. I’m sure everyone feels that their stress is bigger than anyone else’s too. It’s like all this snow we’re getting in the beginning days of spring. Winter and Spring are having a wrestling match and since Spring moved into winter territory for years, winter now feels entitled to waltz right into spring terrain! My winter looks worse because I’m here living through it but when I look out at the world, this winter is mild compared to other states.

While healing from stress you need to look from the inside out. I thought I’ve cleaned out this closet so well that I could now head into an adventure filled path of healing. That’s funny because the more I clean out, the more secret compartments I find to dig into usually in the form of flashbacks. Just one little trigger memory exposes the hidden door. I believe this is where any prescription drugs you are taking masks the hidden compartments and you can’t find a complete healing. Doctor after doctor, therapist after therapist, there will be no healing as long as you’re on drugs; the compartments stay medicinally hidden.

I don’t have the luxury of drugs pacifying my memories and burying portions of my past. The shadow of doors are all open, it’s just a matter of seeing what is behind each one so I can face it head on, release the trauma, and edge my way to a healing spot in my journey. Recently, the further I climb down the rabbit hole the more flashbacks surface and expose an event I overlooked. Now where did that come from I think to myself, but then I know it is all part of the Master’s plan and a big player on my healing journey.

While I’m on the healing path I look out at those who are essentially stricken with the need to kill themselves on the drug route and face death. My brother, who fractured his hip over a month ago, was told he needed surgery. They’ve tried weaning him off alcohol and Oxycontin [gave him a different lethal drug], cigarettes [gave him the patch], and gave him physical therapy to try and mend the too far gone bones in his body. They told him not to walk on his one leg or it will put too much pressure on his already weakened legs. Word came through the wires that he is not listening to anything they’ve told him. How frustrating to hear. Nobody wants to listen and adhere. They all want to be part of the herd. 

I was told that chemotherapy might add a year or two to my life and the stubborn (or sound?) woman in me scoffed at their offer of drugs that would kill me quicker than any alternative route. I’m sure people laugh and shake their head at me, as they pop yet another pill. I’m sure there are people out there feeling like chemotherapy saves lives, but they’re also waiting for the bomb to drop that well, guess what, the disease is back, the pacifier failed.

As my flashbacks open further doorways in my healing, I hurt for the many who basically live with all of the doors closed and are only willing to follow the herd. I crave life and living while they feed off of neutrality. I long to stand firm and walk on my path while others take the train. I wonder if they knew now what they didn’t know then would anything change, or would they allow fear to reign?

A quote from a Dr. Coldwell:
"Needle biopsies, for example. People need to understand that a tumour is there to save your life. When your body is full with poison, toxaemic and acidosis and you are basically going to die of that poison – your body builds a bag and collects all the poison from your body into this bag, which they call a tumour. So the body did all the work. And now they come and they say "We need to do a needle biopsy." and pinch into this highly toxic tumour; which of course now explodes and pours all the poison into the body. And then they say "You have a very fast growing, very aggressive form of cancer." They GAVE it to you. They created it.

And most cancers disappear on their own anyway, because about 7-10 times, everybody has cancer in their lifetime. If you don’t become unlucky enough to fall into the hands of a medical professional and get a test done and they tell you that you have something bad going on; and the very next day, can start murdering you with chemotherapy, which is based on mustard gas. Mustard gas is forbidden after the Geneva Convention as a war chemical; they put it into your bloodstream and radiate you to death. Or cut you surgically – which always spreads the cancer." – Dr. Leonard Coldwell

"Cancer is not an illness – cancer is a symptom. These cancerous growths, the cell growths, whatever it might be, that we don’t want in our body, is a symptom; it is not the cancer. So cutting the symptom out does not resolve your problem, at all. And that's why it reappears. Or why they kill the entire body with chemotherapy for two years. Now, anything shrinks. Your organs shrink, the brain shrinks – and the tumour shrinks. Because they dehydrate the body. So now, at the same rate at your organs are shrinking, your tumour is shrinking. Now they say "It's working. The tumour is shrinking." It's [chemo] one of the biggest frauds ever." – Dr. Leonard Coldwell

Clearly - Grace Vanderwaal

I Had A Dream

Prov. 16:24 “Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones.”

I Had A Dream

My dreams of late have become increasingly strange and last night's dream was no different. My subconscious is working overtime here lately with the diagnosis of the Big C. 

Do you remember in childhood cartoons the big refuse trucks? They looked like big vacuums, big hoses placed over the sewage and when turned on the sewage was sucked through the tube? 

I have to say first since I grew up on the Eastern portion of the US that the ocean was a yearly visit and sometimes twice a year since it was only a two or three-hour drive from my house. I grew up in Baltimore Maryland where the Inner Harbor goes right out to the Chesapeake Bay. Ocean City, Maryland was our yearly vacation spot. The great memories, the sand between my toes and the family together. Yes, the family.

Well, my dreams of late for some reason have me near the ocean, in a house right on the beach with crashing waves, salt taste in my mouth and the grit when I wash my hair. Last night I was in that beach house when a big smelly refuse truck pulled up to the house. 

A big burly man got out of the truck. I didn’t recognize him but he had sandy blonde wavy close-cropped hair and the infamous farmer Bob jeans. He knocked on the door and informed me he was here to clean the house out. I know I looked at him puzzled when he told me to go in and relax it won’t hurt a bit. 

I went and relaxed on the sofa as the big old vacuum churned into action. With the door open, he held the hose to the front door, not very far from me. Suddenly things started flying by me. Not furniture but tiny cells, fungus, strands of molecular disease, spores of mold and anything foreign that was disease ridden. They were being sucked out of the entire house including my body. 

It was so strange seeing spider web like strands being sucked from my mouth but I just sat in amazement that there was a successful way to be rid of all this disease. The sound lasted for what seemed like hours but more than likely minutes as germ after toxic germ was contained in this big sewage truck. 

The noise stopped, he waved to me and yelled out, “All clean!” and I watched as he revved the truck engine. With eyes on the long pier, I stood aghast at the thought of what this man was about to do.  

He sped down the pier I know hitting top speeds for a refuse truck and just at the end of the pier the truck leaped off of the end of the pier and descended into the ocean sinking to the bottom. I felt I was out of my body watching this in slow-motion. 

I was frantic, what did he just do? I ran to the end of the pier tossing out life preservers but I knew he didn’t get out of the truck in time but I didn’t give up hope as I saw helicopters fly into the position of retrieving the body alive or dead. 

“He died for you,” kept playing like a choir of angels in my ears. He died for you, He died for you. I woke but it was too early to get up so I tried to go back to sleep and bring the dream back, all I could get from the continued dream was veiled curtains blowing in the sea breeze, sun shining through the window and me, resting on the bed exhausted. All disease sucked out of me and the tiring months I spent fighting flashing in my mind. I rested; I cradled my covers and rested.

My husband entered the room as well as our sister-in-law. I don’t know why they showed up but they did and I could hear them talking about the miracle they had just witnessed. I rested, listened and rested. 

I finally woke after a wonderful eight hours of sleep and knew I had to write this down before I forgot but the images feel so fresh as if I’m reliving the dream over and over again in my waking hours.

I’ll take my walk today and relive that miracle of all disease being sucked from my body and being tossed out to sea by the one and only Man I know who died for me in my lifetime. 

I’m feeling good. My spirits are high and this is what I want to feel all the way up to my last day. I feel disheartened by the medical community but who isn’t? They were trained to care for patients when the majority of the time, they are just there to write a prescription and send you on your way. 

Yesterday I got a phone call from my General Practitioner, who was the original doctor who set all of this in motion for me. She called to see how I was doing and asked if there was anything she could do for me. I cried. I feel like the medical community is in cahoots and all have just fallen short of offering me anything of value after I uttered those words NO CHEMO and Alternative Medicine. Then she called, left a message, and offered her heart. I’m amazed. 

I am truly blessed in this journey, no matter what the turnout, I am truly blessed and I say that upon waking every single morning. May you all feel the blessings of each and every day. Cancer is NOT a death sentence; it is a new lease on life! THAT is how I see it! Thank you, Jesus!

Prov. 4:22 “For they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh.”

Poetry Sunday ~ Memories

4 Ezra 4:45 “Shew me then whether there be more to come than is past, or more past than is to come.”

Memories

When tears leak from my eyes I find

a place of healing that’s no surprise,

I find I’m lost once being found is not easy

To mechanically turn life around.

The glorious light of which I cling to 

Allows me comfort waters to wade through

I’m not the one who lives daily in fear

Let me make it clear why I’m still here

The days are long often filled with pain

I’ll say it again in life I’ll remain

The one who finds God in all that I do

As I waddle through memories I once knew

The past is there for me to step around

Tiptoe through eggshells for all I’ve found

Religion and alcohol a cocktail of frights

I made it through the dark stormy nights

I didn’t have a mother who cooked and baked 

I’m lucky to have had the food that we ate.

A penguin filled schoolhouse was my only friend

That carried my memories to the rivers bend

With a concrete garden and asphalt street

My life in Baltimore was never complete

Crimson skies lined my sunset dreams

Away from home’s not as murky it seems

I’ll go and drown my empty sorrow 

For all I carry to every tomorrow

What’s done is done what’s gone is gone

I’ll live my life and carry on.

Memory Lane

Annapolis Maryland

Pss. 23:3 “He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.”

The Path Down Memory Lane

Last week was one long stroll down memory lane. I understand we’re not to live in the past but to move forward, but something about the season of fall makes me want to stroll down that path, at least once a year to revisit the good and bad that I left behind.

I don’t wallow in the mire; I never cling to the dust, I just reminisce then brush it off like an over neglected attic. Sweep the lint, brush away the good and bad crud, filter what goes out and comes back in. Yeah, that’s the best way to deal with an unsavory past.

When people see me now they think, ‘oh it couldn’t have been all that bad, look how well she turned out.’ This statement might be true from your perspective, on the outside looking in, but from my perspective, life was not good in any way shape or form.  

I started writing my blog in 2005 but didn’t start taking the writing and expression of my thoughts seriously until 2008. In the very beginning the blog was just about my thoughts, most of which I deleted but by 2008 I turned the blog into helping writers and the craft of writing. 

I’ve been writing poetry all of my life and really didn’t get into writing fiction until about 2004 when WVU (Writers Village University) came into my life and changed my path forever. I was so excited with the new turn in my life, I shared it with my family who as always, never for one second encouraged me and didn’t really care about my writing unless I was famous and making tons of money. 

As years passed by my love of writing grew and my blog has been an important avenue of healing because it is here where I bare my soul and that’s why the name changed a few years back, I was healing and moving away from the painful past and moving into a new leg of the journey that God had carved out for me in my path to the future. 

My journey is not about making money, my journey is about healing and this is what you read, a sinner on the path of healing. I write from my heart and if my family read anything I wrote they would, I’m certain, be ashamed of not having more to do with me or they’d be angry and finger pointing but such as it is, they will only look for my writing AFTER my death.

Job 30:13 “They mar my path, they set forward my calamity, they have no help.”

I have written my mother and father poems since I was very young. I can honestly say I can’t remember the last time I bought a Hallmark card for them, I’ve always written my own. Maybe not Hallmark quality but it spoke to them and how much I cherished them in my life. My sister was always jealous of my ability to convey meaning to my parents via poems and she has tried writing a poem once but her one try in life came off as forced emotion; whereas my father adored my poems and looked forward to them with every Christmas, birthday and father’s day.

This is what started the stroll down memory lane last week when my mother was reading the poems I wrote to my dad and she told me that she cried with reading each one. She also said that my dad had kept a lot of them in his drawer, I guess so he could read them and feel somewhat close to me as I, his baby, was so far away from home. Then she said something that unknowingly hurt, she said my father read one and looked at her and said, “We’re never going to see her again, are we.” It hurt because he never had a chance to see me again or to hear the last poem I wrote him. (Thanks to my sister, he never got to hear it read. Bitter? YES! Admittedly so!)

While everyone is ranting and raging about politics, I’m taking a stroll, one that has me thinking selfishly about my healing, my growth and myself. Is that selfish? I don’t think so, I’m reminded of a childhood that was, I reminisce of the pain-filled life I left behind, and I look to a brighter future with my Lord by my side and Him whispering to me saying, “he (my father) heard the last poem you wrote, as did I, I am well pleased.”

Yes, He always talks to me like that. Always has and always will! The stroll down memory lane will end for now as I head into my future with my Lord and I walking hand-in-hand. 

Pss. 16:11 “Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.”

On This Day

1 Cor. 15:2 “By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.”

On This Day

On this day last year my dad passed away. This week has been a culmination of tears and memories leading me down memory lane. Every phone call to my mother this week has been of her rehashing the weeks that led to the final week which led to the day that my dad passed. I sat and listened allowing her to let out her grief so maybe she would find solace.

She tells me over and over again how my brother in Tennessee is still taking it hard and he let’s her know repeatedly how much he misses my father. Then there is the story of my sister who (now has his car) is driving around with a picture of my dad on the dashboard and how she wears the memorial necklace ALL the time.

I haven’t heard from ANY of my siblings since my dad passed. The last call to my brother was last year when he said, as we ended the call, to stay in touch and I did try, but as you can imagine he has his own family and doesn’t really have anything to do with any of his siblings anymore. There comes a time when the letdown is not worth the pain attributed to the lack of communication from siblings.

I can’t handle people saying over and over, “But that is your family; your blood.” I only have one dear friend who told me to just let them go and move on, the pain is not worth it, and he’s right. 

These past thirteen years haven’t been the easiest on me but I feel a peace here I’ve never had in my entire life. I feel loved; possibly for the first time an unconditional love that I only thought existed in fairytales. This time it is real because I feel it in my bones, in every essence of my being!

This week has been a stroll down memory lane. Many of the memories I’ve buried and plan to keep there but some memories good or bad surface like hot springs bubbling in anticipation of an explosion; none of which I’ll let come to fruition because I’m all about healing.

The bitterness inside will have to wait to eat away at me because this peace I feel now will not be ruined by any kind of confrontation and where my family is concerned, a simple chat is always a confrontational debate. 

Everybody grieves differently and while I wake and think about my dad daily, I don’t cry on a daily basis because I know he is at peace and don’t want us carrying on. I have to admit the only regret I have is not seeing him before he died and well, I’ll carry that with me to the grave but I’ve already told my mother that I won’t be coming back for her funeral either, not out of disrespect but out of love. After she leaves this earth, there will be not a thing tying me to that crutch of a place that tried strangling me to death all those years. She said she understands.  

That’ll be just another reason for my family to justifiably disown me and I’m okay with that since I’ve come to terms with my not being able to return. I’m at peace knowing I can move on in life alone but not ALL alone, I do have family here that has embraced me like their own and I have the most loving and understanding Heavenly Father.

So while I grieve on the one-year anniversary for my father’s death, I’m at peace knowing he is at peace and no longer suffering. While my family is back home living with regrets of what did or didn’t happen in their life, my only regret is not seeing my dad alive, one last time. And if I don’t get to see my mother one last time alive, I’ll deal with that regret when it happens. Until then… my poetry is what bound them to me eternally. 

Luke 1:79 (KJV) “To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

I Think Too Much

Matt. 26:53  "Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?"

Wow, Joni thinks too much, who’d a thought that? Well, my dear, sweet friends that’s who! Boy, when you’re feeling discouraged or depressed they make sure that frown is turned upside down! Apparently, I think too much and should just write about it so here goes. 

I could allow memes to speak for me but where is the originality in that? I could also allow a copy/paste guilt trip to speak for me but where is the sincerity in that? I mean a meme here and there but a constant stream of memes becomes tedious in just the action it takes when my fingers could be used typing a blog post or writing a novel.

I’m not judging the people that do the meme stream, sometimes people have nothing to really say and it can become easy to allow someone else to do the thinking for you via the meme-stream. I was once that person until I was God-slapped into waking up. I usually try to allow bible verses or quotations to express the way I’m feeling or sometimes I open my mouth and my fingers let out what is considered truth-nobody-wants-to hear. Is that a bad trait? Nah, its justice to my soul is what it is!

The meme-stream opened my eyes when ‘your memories on facebook’ popped up every day. I’ve tried to close it down but it keeps popping up but you know what, they’re not my memories. They’re just some beautiful meme I shared years ago and I realized I allowed someone else to speak for me and that isn’t a memory because I can’t for the life of me know what I was thinking or doing when I shared the image. 

We’re living in a world where we’ve grown accustomed to others speaking for us because basically, that is all that social media is, a stream of thoughts, even if they’re the thoughts of people you’ve never met, the meme stream is the ‘in’ thing. Now, what could be wrong with a society that is full of people not thinking for themselves? Well, we’ll see when November rolls around, won’t we?

We’re all so pre-occupied with the meme-streaming that something is happening out in the REAL world that has gained control and nobody has the time to take action because the reins of the meme-stream are ruling over them. The reason people believe the lies are because they are fed the lies in ticker-tape fashion through memes disguised as truth. Society disappoints me more and more on a daily basis than it does in giving me hope for the future. 

I love the pictures that people take of their family (pets are family), their gardens, their weekly excursions with camera in hand. That gives me hope as I visually see the beauty being flooded in from their lives into my little neck of the world. A meme doesn’t give me the same hope in the world since more times than not they’re just used to click-bait the naïve so some megalomaniac can make money off of ad revenue. A vicious cycle if I do say so myself. And the language, goodness gracious me oh my, people post anything! The F-bomb, S-bomb, A-bomb; I realize so-called Christians could care less what they share with the world and allow people to see who they REALLY are. Yes people, Christians curse like sailors and drink like them too. 

Now back to my thinking too much. This is clearly the truth. Why should I care if people live and love the meme-stream? Why should I care what the so-called Christians are doing? I only care because I see a diminished society being ruled not by their world around them but by social media. I love my friends and care a little about facebook since all of my friends reside there. I love communicating via the written word (my blog) but I am totally done with ‘this day in history’ because guess what, nothing happened five years ago that I can share, that are my own thoughts.

I have one or two, five friends tops that convey their day via WORDS, the other eighty some friends meme-stream and I have to wonder, do they even know I exist? They probably do but more than likely block me so they don’t hear my tales of this God and Son that I’m addicted to. I’m okay with that. I’m okay with screaming into the emptiness of space and time and no one noticing. 

I try to lift the spirits of other people but sometimes I get bogged down and distracted by the meme-stream so I have to withdraw for a bit so I can rebuild my strength. I live to write and share my words, uplift not bring people down. I live to live and embrace whatever God throws at me on any given day and no friends, my days are not spent on facebook, twitter or any other meme-stream forum.

The season of slumber will find me reflecting on the previous months in the year, the truths that I’ve shared, and what’s going on in today’s world means to me. When you look at me and read my words, don’t see a hypocrite, don’t see a so-called Christian, see God in me and that’s it!

God bless!

Heal Today...Gone Tomorrow

Fort McHenry cannon looking toward

the Francis Scott Key bridge

where my uncle took his life

Pss. 30:2  “O LORD my God, I cried unto thee, and thou hast healed me.”

Heels today… gone tomorrow

You ever have one of those days where everything is going along fine. Then you see something and reality smacks you upside the head? We’re doing some fall cleaning here; we get to the cluttered closet and there sits a box of shoes. Heels that I’ve never worn. 

I said, “I have to get rid of that entire box.” 
He replied, “Well when you can walk again, we’ll pull them back out of the box.”  

Tears filled my eyes and kept on filling. The reality is…I’ll never be able to walk normal again. Just thought I’d share that with you all as I release some of this anguish I’m lugging around.

I used to love wearing high heels, not real high, just a classy kind of heel with jeans or a skirt; then about four years ago, with too many Omaha trips (eight hours round trip) high-heel wearing came to a screeching halt. I remember going to the doctor and she sent me to the hospital for some x-rays and a day later it was explained that I had lower lumbar facet joint arthritis. Sure, some meds and a highly paid chiropractor could offer some relief, but that's just it, a false relief, not a healing plan.

Here I was, still enjoying my youth and am told that I have arthritis and as many of you know, that is a chronic disability that doesn’t just go away. I had tried to wear my lower heels and even they were awkward to walk in and the limp in my stride didn’t sync with a low heel. I was relinquished to tennis shoes and even they were getting uncomfortable mainly in the summertime heat. I did buy some comfy sandals by Earth Spirit (yes, WalMart brand) but don’t ya know, I can’t wear them in the winter now can I? 

I have my up and down days where I feel sorry for myself and the me I once was but have to learn to accept that this is the new me and whom God created.  But when we were cleaning out the closet and the box with my heels in it passed me by, I cried. I admit it, it hurt to see a part of myself shoved in the basement never to be seen again. I think my husband was trying to make me feel good when he said the words, “When you walk again.” The reality was and is, I’ll never walk normal again.

My dear friends try to comfort me, “there is Hope,” they say. My first thought was yeah when I get to heaven and can run free! They mean well, they really do and I won’t for one minute minimize the love I feel for them or from them, and the comfort they bring to my life but understand, I was one on the go woman all of my life. You don’t fit into the same jeans you wore twenty years ago by NOT being an overly active woman. Then yesterday…

Heal today… gone tomorrow.

I don’t know what the universe is trying to tell me when yesterday I answered my phone, thinking for one idiotic moment it was my sister calling to tell me about her daughter. No, it wasn’t her, it was an old friend who called me last year some time (he got the number from my mother) and wanted to rehash the past just like he did last year when I stopped answering my phone because I AM NOT ABOUT MY PAST!

I told him last year that I didn’t want to talk about that stuff but he just kept going on and on, “Do you remember…” You name the memory, I remember it with all its hurts and pains that I let go of, in vivid painstaking detail. His call started that way this time in asking where my ex-husband lived (they were friends) and talking about my abuse until I finally said, “I’m really busy right now.” (Joni is a terrible liar! Luckily I WAS busy!)

He said, “I better let you go or I’ll keep talking and talking.”
My instant reply was, “yes you will but call me when I have FREE minutes, like the weekend.” I seriously was trying to hang up without hurting his feelings because that’s just the way I am, then and now, I don’t like to hurt ANYONE. I just wish he had shown me the same consideration because I know I won’t be answering the phone this weekend. 

For thirteen years I wrestled with my pained past. When I first left Baltimore and left my family and past behind, I got caught up in a tornado of healing as memories whizzed passed and choked me into anxiety attacks where running off alone in the rain on darkened streets were my only solace. I would lie in bed cradling my pillow as tears soaked the very sheets where I slept. I was in a better place but it was a place of healing that had to be measured by agonizing sickened memories of the past.

Haunting is the only way to describe the lingering past. A ghost that would appear out of nowhere when I least expected it and scare me into a non-drug induced panic attack. I don’t take drugs for my pain and dealing with what I’m dealt in a meditative God loving fashion is all I’ve ever known to do. 

A close friend once told me that I needed to just let go of those memories and the people who hold those memories if all they’re there for is to hurt me, why hold on? Yes, that meant family and old friends who think rehashing an excruciating pain-filled past is what the future is all about. 

My now and my future is all about healing. My pain is washed away with every rainfall and I release the past as if it never existed into a tornadic funnel to be released wherever it may go. I will not allow thirteen years of healing to be scrubbed by one phone call of the bitter past. I face my tomorrows with the prayerful meditation that I have known to grow me into a hopeful tomorrow.

I woke this morning only to be hit with news of an earthquake where a dear friend lives. I prayed. The universe will leave something in my life called HOPE, LOVE and COMPASSION; he arrived to let me know he and his family are well. 

Praise be to God!

Angel Always... Godspeed

Pss. 104:4 “Who maketh his angels spirits; his ministers a flaming fire:”

Have you ever had one of those really good weeks where you wonder when the bottom is going to drop right out? It’s been that kind of week. 

Let me take you back two weeks when a dog, a yellow lab rounded the corner of the big blue barn-shed beside my house. Timid and scared, she made her way through my garden, around to the front of the house only to come back and sniff me out to see if I was an evil master or a good angel that she could trust. Anyone who knows me, knows she found a good person to trust in, right? 

I put up signs the next day looking for the owner, I searched lost dog sites and Facebook Lost Pet society to see if ANYONE owned this beautiful but scared dog. The one dog I saw on FB was named Reilly and this dog, for some reason, was responding to that name, but after posting a pic, the lady said it was not her dog. 

I own a dog, a pretty sizable female dog, so keeping Reilly is not an option but every day I’d wake and find her on my front steps or curled up in my garden. The days pass by and she’s still here letting us know she isn’t going anywhere. 

She has one of the deepest barks I’ve ever heard and keeping my neighbors and myself awake at night was going to be a serious problem! I bought a leash to hook her up to in the evening for when she goes on her midnight romps of chasing deer, skunk, raccoon or whatever she can bark at and it is working. She fell silent the nights hinged (a long chain with a collar) to a tree so I’ve since let her off to allow her the freedom, she barks it’s back on but this intelligent dog knows, just knows what I’m doing or trying to teach her. 

I posted a pic and my niece, Sara, right away said she looked like a dog I used to own named Shannon and that I just HAD to keep this dog. Another friend said that I HAD to take care of her because, Angel always? (my signature from way back) And that God would never turn ME away (yeah, the guilt card) and I’m kind of buying it but my husband has not softened up to her, yet. My sister said the dog was an angel sent for me. Oh my…

This was right around the time my husband lost his job but also right around the time he applied for a new job and got a call right away. Now, we can’t feed this oversized dog AND our oversized dog AND feed the family since well, no job and the time it will take to get money from the new job. Everything is stacked against me, or so it seems, from keeping this dog.

My neighbor has two small terrier dogs, a miniature Chihuahua and Reilly seems to think they’re her play toys. One day she played with them all day acting like the puppy that she is, not hurting them mind you, just jumping all around them telling them to play. Being older dogs they wanted nothing to do with Reilly. It brought back some unsettling memories of me as a child wanting to play and no one wanting to play with me because I was annoying or just the riff-raff type that their mothers wouldn’t allow their kids to play with. (Thanks Reilly)

Just so you know, I HAVE been feeding Reilly and giving her food and maybe THAT is why she won’t leave. When a thunderstorm hit the other night I was totally nervous for this dog being outside and I tried so hard to get her into my shed but she just shied away from me. Yesterday’s rain had me calling her again but she sauntered off and went under my neighbor Lisa’s trailer that she keeps as a doghouse for her dogs. It is just a trailer full of junk like old books and papers, magazines, old rugs and stuff. Reilly is one smart dog!

That brings me to today. Yes Reilly is still here wandering around this big old run down Turkey Ranch and greeting us when we walked out the door this morning to take my son to get his driver’s license. He had to take the same test that he failed three times before. But today would be different yes? YES!

Different from the other times was Adam’s optimism and confidence. I allowed him to wear my thumbprint necklace, which is a thumbprint of my deceased father. I wanted a part of my dad to be a part of this day. When Adam walked out the door of the DMV with a MALE who was going to test him, I knew, I just knew that this would be the day he passed! I even said, “He’s going to pass.” Just by seeing whom the tester was.

The other times he had a female to test him and Adam was not confident with them. This time was different Adam left with a smile and returned with A SMILE! A smile that signaled to me, he passed! I cried! I didn’t bawl my eyes out but tears began trickling out of my eyes. He came out the door with his temporary license in his hand, a smile on his face and I gave him the biggest hug ever! 

The week has been richly full of blessings. My mother has seen to it that we can make it until we get a real paycheck again by sending me ‘a treat’ which will buy me food and me taking care of Reilly is essentially ‘paying it forward’.

May the week continue to be joyful and prosperous as I head into my birthday week!

Angel Always, Godspeed.

Ezra 5:31 “Now when I had spoken these words, the angel that came to me the night afore was sent unto me,”

Reilly

Death Is Never Easy

Pss. 23:4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Death is never easy…

Death is never easy when it hits close to home. I mean, it’s hard any time when we see death surrounding us on the battlefield called earth. People dying everywhere your heart just aches.

Then someone like an online friend dies and though you never knew the person physically, you still feel like something is missing from your spirit. A part of your heart has a burn hole in it. Then a friend loses a mother or a father or sadly both parents the hole begins to grow. Online friends become your family over years and years of communication. They become a part of your everyday life, so to speak.

Now when a family member from your bloodline passes away, someone who you actually grew up with in your physical world, shared Christmas’ with and passed on the road from child to adult, the sting is even harder.

Yesterday, the 25^th, my aunt passed away. She was a jolly soul, tall with graying hair, always a   bright smile and a laugh to share. A little on the heavy side but she never let that hinder her from having a good life, attending church or being a social butterfly always fluttering around from place to place.

I can’t remember exactly when they found a tumor but I know she wanted to have back surgery and it was discovered. They had to remove the tumor before cutting into her back. They discovered the tumor, removed and chemo-therapy ensued. They found another tumor and more chemo, another then the same thing over and over for the past year.

She began losing the weight as the cancer was eating her away. That did not stop her smiles. When she had the strength she’d continue doing what she did. Attended church, visited with her grandchildren, hugged her children, and enjoyed the community of Locust Point and what bit of vibrancy that was left in her.

I remember in my younger years she always called me Noni. She had told me of how when I was really little just learning to speak, I had called her Aunt Nerl, for Aunt Gerald, so she would jokingly hug me and say, “There’s Noni.” She was never short on hugs and every time she saw me she’d say, “There’s Noni.” And give me one of the hardiest of hugs.

I don’t think any of my other aunts loved me like she did. Living over a thousand miles away for the past twelve years hasn’t allowed me many visits back home, but the one time I did go back to see my mother in the hospital, Aunt Nerl showed up and there she said again, “There’s Noni!”

She always told me that I reminded her of her. Always laughing, always seemingly happy, making others laugh and just a personality that mirrored hers. That made me pretty proud because no offense to my other aunts, they were not as jovial as we were/are. Since my Aunt Gerald is my father’s sister, I could see where my DNA had coursed.

Yesterday was a tough day for my mother and father. My dad almost seemed irate when he learned that my brother had found out about my aunts death on the computer. They are not of the computer age and think this gadget is a turnstile from hell. He doesn’t understand that facebook is used as a source of comfort when we need to be consoled. My cousins announced their mothers’ death to seek comfort not to degrade her in any way and I tried to let my parents know that.

Thumbprints are left on the soul. We have people in our lives that leave lasting prints never to be washed away. Whether these people are online friends or physical beings in your life, a print is made and you cling to the person via the memories and stories left on your soul.

We all mourn differently. This past week as my mother kept telling me to pray for my aunt, I told her I was praying for her peace, not her miraculous healing. While I am notably an optimist and believe in miracles, I knew when I heard that my aunt had cancer of the blood, it would not be long before I heard of her death. The realist in me accepted this portion of the journey that we must all take.

Last Saturday my aunt was given forty-eight hours to live. It was a miracle that by Monday morning she had a chance to sit up, eat some jell-o and meet with her kids one last time. By Sunday the 25^th, her needed organs ceased to function and she went on into eternal peace, just what I prayed for. Peace from the continued suffering. Peace to let go and meet the Lord head on. Peace to finally be free of these earthly restrictions.

Death is never easy for the living.

Pss. 61: 1-4  Hear my cry, O God; attend unto my prayer.
From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I.
For thou hast been a shelter for me, and a strong tower from the enemy.
I will abide in thy tabernacle for ever: I will trust in the covert of thy wings. Selah.

Memorial Day...

Rom. 14: 19 Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another.
***

I remember when I was a kid, Memorial Day meant a day off of school, and a day where we had cookouts. You could smell the grills churning from blocks away. It was as if everyone in the city had a cookout on this day.

We didn’t really celebrate it as a Memorial Day to soldiers who served our country, and little did I know about the day or the sacrifices made. You could call me ignorant to the facts, but no one ever really just said it plain and simple for me, so I could appreciate and honor the day and respect those who served.

My Dad always hung the flag, “Because it’s Memorial Day.” He was a Marine himself in his day, and I had many family members who served, fought in wars, and possibly died later from PTSD.

As I sat in church yesterday, and they showed a clip of a Dad taking his son to Washington DC for memorial day, I was hit with a ton of memories, a floodgate opened up and I appreciated the soldier in a whole new light.

The man went to the Capital, he took his son to the birthplace of our founding fathers, the White House, Lincoln Memorial and then they ended the day at Arlington Cemetery. The boy asked what all the crosses were for, and the dad said, “Heroes.” As the son turned around a soldier stood Saluting a grave, “Dad? Is he a hero too?” The father quietly whispered, “Yes son, he’s a hero too.”

These were all places that as a child, were part of our annual school field trips, since we only lived about 30 minutes away. We never went to any of these places as a family, because my family was too busy fighting the years of dysfunction to be bothered with ‘family’.

Which brings me to the other part of our service yesterday. It was about the importance a grandparent holds for generations to come. How they essentially determine what the future generations will bring forth in life. Pastor Mike went on to give examples of former Presidents, whose descendent's produced many political senator’s, presidents, and other upstanding citizens. While at the same time, he took a murderer, and looked at say, 500 of his descendants. Over half followed suit and were either incarcerated or followed the path of the illegal.

That scared me. I had four grandparents, two who died when I was eight, within two months of one another. While extremely of poor lineage and alcoholics, they had a heart of gold. My other two grandparents were boozers I call them. They come from and were taught to be selfish, greedy and to drink your problems away.

Maybe that is why I was an alcoholic before the age of twelve. I never had good examples to look up to. So I began carving a new me, I looked up to new things. I accepted God and built a life around him and as he embraced me, essentially becoming my grandparent, we strode together to form something to pass down to MY next generation.

As you have your cookout today, as you sit with family. Look around you, and see just what it is that you as a human being are going to pass down to YOUR future generations.

And Thank you Soldiers of past and present... I thank you and appreciate all you have done for me and the generations that will look up to and follow you.

God Bless America!

Poetry Sunday~ Cimmerian Morn

2 Sam. 22: 29 For thou art my lamp, O LORD: and the LORD will lighten my darkness.

***

Cimmerian Morn
***
A cloud descends
like a brick of gold
a new year begins
memories unfold.

Snow it glistens
steadily falling
no sounds to hear
but my heart calling.

Goodbye pain
so long to sorrow
may intimacy fill
my longing tomorrow.

The winds strong gust
it steals my heart
loneliness holds
a poisonous dart.

Fate will lay
its palm on me
carried off
by destiny.

The Lord will fill
my veins with bliss
Ascend my soul
to happiness!

Poetry Sunday

Christmas Thoughts

Though I’m not there to be with you

my spirit fills the room.

Remember I am happy now

no longer full of gloom.

I left a void with those I love;

my soul it craved release.

I had to move on as God had asked,

so the pain in me would cease.

Often times I shed a tear,

thinking of all I lost.

Relinquishing all material wealth,

is all that it would cost.

The price so small in my mind’s eye

as the Lord embraces my being.

Sacrifice is a message instilled.

His light is all I’m seeing.

As holidays will come and go,

my love lives in your heart.

For as long as my memory lingers

we’ll never be far apart.

Think of me as if I’m there

as hard as it all seems.

I’ll be home for Christmas,

If only in my dreams.

Memory Lane Part II

Pss. 90:4 For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.
***

That post was longer than anticipated yesterday and I thought it warranted a continuation.

As writers, what we are doing in our stories, whether our fictional work or our non-fictional work, we are bringing our past into a character, a scene, an emotion, or maybe a dream.

When I read novel, as a writer, I know in some part there are pieces of the author strewn all about the pages like confetti on New Years. Take To Kill a Mockingbird for example, you can not write something like that without knowing the intricate depths of a situation.

Even authors  like Stephen King has laid pieces of himself in the pages of his stories. He has said about while writing The Shining, he felt like a mad man, drinking boozing it up, life getting out of control, and the Jack Torrance that we (most of us) have all come to know, was born. In his later works after King sobered up, his story Duma Key took on a new color as a new phase took over Mr. Kings life.

I find in my writings, I like to dip into the spiritual pool. My early childhood was shaped by spirits, whether good spirits or the dark nasty ones that you really don’t want to talk about. You’d rather lock them in a closet in the back of the basement somewhere and pretend that they don’t exist.

As a writer, all the doors of your past are open wide, even the little nasty stuff that you buried comes spilling out onto the page. Things you hadn’t remembered for years comes to the surface, you grab your net and scoop up the memory like a fisherman on a good day. You’ve dipped, you now have caught, you own it and you place it on the page.

My childhood was shaped by experience also. Images of the men, the smoke-filled bars, pool balls clanking, men cheering or arguing, the tapping of glasses, the smell, the awful stale aroma of beer that lay in the taps basin. The music, the jukebox that was probably my savior at nine years old.

Ask my brothers if they were sitting in bars at nine years old. Ask them if men felt them up in places that drunken old men thought was playful but to a child felt dirty. Ask the boys, ask one of them, or my sister for that matter, did they sneak drinks of vodka and orange when they were mere babies? Eight or nine year old's belong home not in a bar sipping drinks, sneaking from the glass that was okay for mother to drink from. But then again, home wasn’t much different from the bars.

Yeah that was me, spoiled rotten and given everything. A drinking, toking, smoking child is what shaped my past. Do I long for what was? Never! I bury it in my stories. I was saved by the grace of the Lord. When I write, I write from heartfelt true-blue experience. My inspiration comes from the only thing that has ever grabbed onto me and stuck and that is God!

And that is a piece of MY story.

Day 5: Letting go...

Isa 23:7 Is this your joyous city, whose antiquity is of ancient days? her own feet shall carry her afar off to sojourn.
***

Today is Friday! YAY! This is the last of my “pity-me-my-son-is-not-here” posts. I’ve had to do some soul searching this week as I let my son go out into the great beyond called, The World. It’s been an enlightening week for sure.

Letting go is a hard obstacle to maneuver around. The last time that I let anything major in my life go, was about seven years ago when I left my home in Maryland and moved to Texas with a strange man, and brought my son on the journey with me. He was only seven at the time and we both had major adjustments to get used to.

I had been married for twenty years, and the marriage disintegrated quickly after I got a computer. The obsessive type of man could not bear me having friends whether online or off. Paranoid and controlling did not work for me, fun and fancy free, so we both parted ways. I left everything.

Steven came and picked me up, rented a small u- haul to hang on the back of his truck and it followed us to the grand state of Texas. Not before letting go of all my worldly possessions. There were treasured nic-nacs, favored dolls, ornaments, some books, memorabilia, and yes, the beloved home, a cape-cod surrounded by trees and a garden full of birds! Not to mention, my family.

No one came on the day I left except my niece. (I have four brothers and a sister) I had seen my father, mother and sister’s clan the prior evening, so on the day of my departure, I walked alone. Only I wasn’t alone, I had Adam, my life support.

Now I know how Adam must have felt on day one of his first day at school. The same way I felt when I left home. Lost, lonely, scared, uncertain of what the future holds. But I sit here almost eight years later and can see that had I stayed, I would not be the woman I am today. I’m a writer! Back home I was a wife, mother, servant, in that order. Today I’m a mother, writer, fiancé, servant of God. I wouldn’t change a thing.

I’ve often been asked the question, “If there was one thing in your life you could go back and change, what would it be?” My answer then and always will be, “Not a thing!” You see, if we change one thing, then everything that followed that one thing would change. Everything would be different. Your life, your family, your SELF. I would not change my SELF because I like who I am!

Sure I’ve lived, loved and lost, but I am who I am today BECAUSE of all of my experiences. Sometimes we just need to let go so new doors are opened for us. The winds of change will not be able to swiftly blow through your hair if you leave the door closed.

For Adam’s sake and my own...IMNOPENDOOR!

Thank you all for your support during this time!

Job 8:19 Behold, this is the joy of his way, and out of the earth shall others grow.

Poetry Sunday~ Memories

Home is not where your material things are, it's where memories are made. ~joni

***

Memories

***

On the walls where children
displayed in a montage grew
Memories tucked in boxes;
nostalgia all askew.

They climbed the stairs as babies
footfalls have all faded.
Silent is the house they grew,
no memories for them jaded.

Barren walls; no longer filled
with all the kids that were
an intricate part of the shape
the small ones not a blur.

The new house sits by waiting
for the rooms to cradle laughter
All grown up they come to visit
for memories that they’re after.

Some will say sweet sentiments
were hung from the bough
No longer there for us to see
A new nest awaits us now.

Grandma is what made the home
a blessed place to be.
Now she fills a place her own
with room for the family!

*

For Mom

Backstory

Backstory or memory lane?

You are going to come across this somewhere along the line in writing your short story, novel, or your memoirs. Backstory is the past of the character that you’ll want your reader to know about.

You don’t start a book in backstory. This will have your reader scratching his/her head and wondering, “Where did THAT come from?” You want to gently guide them down memory lane and give them little bits and pieces of your characters past.

Don’t try and give the reader a platter full of memories. When we go out to a fine restaurant are we served the main course right away? No, we’re given an appetizer to wet our whistles, so we look forward to the more delectable meal to come.

This is what we’ll use backstory for. The character has a past and the reader, after you have them hooked on the character, will want to know what secrets lie in their past that makes them who they are. The reader is craving more and you will give them an appetizer of your characters past.

You will lead the reader down the winding path through the backstory until the reader has an “AHA” moment. They will tie all the pieces together through the little bites that you’ve given them and not only will they want more, they'll go back for seconds!

The dessert of the story is the conclusion that after the reader has had his meal, he now looks forward to the finale. With all the backstory given in gentle bites, your reader will savor the dessert even more.

Don’t try and force the backstory on your reader. Let it come naturally in places where not only your character needs it but the other characters in the story feed off of it. Maybe they were present in some of these memories. Maybe this bit of backstory is due to something that they did to the main character, once again, tightening the bond of author and reader.

You’re not writing a mystery but through the backstory a mystery is unfolding. You need to make the backstory relevant to the story as a whole. If it has no use in the context of the story then don’t use it. During revision it might even be cut all together because you see it doesn’t fit in that certain place. But keep it just in case that it fits somewhere else.

Memories can be a blessing or a curse. When I was a kid I remember being four, when I was an adult, I remembered being a teen. Now that I’m wiser than I was in my twenties I remember being four, ten, 16, 20, etc etc. But in my memoirs I am only putting relevant memories that are MINE.

Do this with your character, only use their memories and make them relevant to the story so that it moves the story forward. Just because it’s called ‘backstory’ doesn’t mean you’re taking your story backwards, it means you will be propelling your reader further into the depths of the character.