The tale of the Eisenhower Dollar!
This afternoon I am feeling kind of hopeless and laying on the couch feeling alone, not lonely mind you. I can say I very, very rarely feel lonely. I needed to buy cream for my coffee and having only Eisenhower coin dollars I had received as tips years ago, I went to Wawa and took two of the dollars with a quarter I found at the bottom of my purse feeling full of self pity for the situation I have gotten myself into. Knowing nobody uses them anymore and the cashiers usually look at them and have to think about them a minute. I walk up to the register feeling very uncomfortable spending them.
I just know that everyone thinks, 'she is spending them cause she is broke.' True I am broke, broker than I have ever been, with no where to turn for help. The cashier rings up my cream, all the time chatting with another girl that works there, not really paying attention to me until I embarassingly had her the two coin dollars and the one quarter.
Feeling mortified that I had to spend those dollars.
I hand her the coins and she becomes very excited and stated 'oh, I have to buy these for my mother! She will be thrilled!' She was so happy to have them to make her mother happy about those two coins.
With that one statement my glum mood lifts and I am reminded of the time years ago when I would go to a table after I had waited on a very kind couple and there would be an 'Eisenhower Dollar.' I can still see the couple like it was yesterday and in actuality some twenty plus years have passed. They were kind and easy to serve as I went through my day in the diner I worked. I can remember we all wished we would get the couple just so we could get the very large coin, because as a waitress we would not spend it. It was one way we could save.
In that very minute as I walked out of Wawa with my cream I went from feeling broke and poor, and embarressed, to feeling hope and happiness. Happy because I made her feel so very happy. I was actually smiling as I left the store picturing the look on the cashier's face as she hands them to her mother. The look of pride on her mother's face for the great child she has raised!
My walk felt lighter and I felt as if a million pound weight of gloom and doom has lifted off my shoulders. No, none of my problems have been solved! No, I did not sell anything on eBay which I so desperately need to do! No, I did not find the three hundred dollars I need to have before Monday comes! No, nothing in the physical world had changed at all! What did change was my outlook on how I see things and I loose the hopelessness I felt before I went to buy a simple pint of cream for my coffee! The self pity and aloneness I felt before I drove that simple mile to the store!
Sadly, the cashier will probably never know how her reaction changed my entire day. Reminded me to have faith in the midst of the darkness and to know the Universal order of things always knows what we need when we need it the most.
Follw the link this http://myworld.ebay.com/spovio to look over my eBay merchandise and maybe buy a thing or two to help me make my three hundred dollars I need by Monday.
Thank You for listening.
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Mother's Day
With Mother's day fast approaching I am reminded of my Mom more than usual. If I could tell any one one word of advice about their moms it would be,
'make your peace with her this year. Tell her how much you love her. No matter what the relationship is or has been, tell her you love her and thank her for bringing you into the world. Always remember how much she loved you when you were born.'
My mother and I had a very strained relationship from my teen years on. We did not always agree on things, and for the most part were never close through my adulthood. One reason was distance, I always lived at least ninety minutes away from her and the traveling to visit always was pushed back because it seemed there were more important things to do. I can say I am sorry I did not make more of an effort to visit her. And on this mother's day I wonder how different our relationship would have been had I made more of an effort.
Years later by a twist of fate I was forced to move back into her home. I planned to only be here long enough to gather my 'bearings' and regroup. Get it together and figure out where I wanted to live next. I was waiting for fate to take over and put me where I was supposed to be at the time. The universe always put me where I was to do the most good and I knew that. I was just a little perplexed at that point, my Mom never needed anything. She was always so strong and self sufficient. She had this air of self confidence and I always thought she was not afraid of anything, she could do anything. For my entire life I always felt like I never measured up to her. We had a very strained beginning of the roommate phase of our life.
When I first came back I was very defensive and scared. Hurt and feeling like a failure. My confidence shattered. I knew the Universe put me here for a reason and I wanted to know it. I did not want to wait and let the scenario play out. Funny how the Universe has it's own plans! I ended up here for way longer than the six months I had planned. Then sometime in the years I learned the Universe did have a plan, and it was I was supposed to be here with her. Funny, I would have never come here willingly. It took me having no where else to go to be here with her and then for her, until the end. Me being here allowed her to stay home and pass in her own home.
As anyone who believes that there is a 'grand plan' at work in the 'Universal order' can understand what I mean right now. Hindsight being twenty-twenty is a great thing, but as we go through it without the luxury of 'it', seeing 'it' we can only know much later the reasons. Now looking back it was for us to heal our relationship and to be able to move forward.
I learned so much in the years spent here with my mother. My mom also learned alot about me also. I longed for her to accept me for what I am, and finally at the end of her life I think she did. I wanted her to be proud of me and to know I am really a great person. I still seek her approval in life, even with her gone. I still long for the peace it would give me if I knew she thought I am a great person with a big heart and a kind of selflessness to help everyone and everything. I think at some point she started to see how big my heart is. We would go past a dead animal and I would ask, even in my forties, did she think that animals know that one of their own was killed and would the rest of the 'family' miss it? My mom always laughed at that question. She never understood how my mind worked but I would like to think she was proud of me. Still to this day I do not know if she was proud of me or if I still did not measure up to what she wanted in a daughter?
So this Mother's Day make the peace while you can and don't spend the rest of your life wondering.
Call her or visit, do something to put all the not knowing behind you.
'make your peace with her this year. Tell her how much you love her. No matter what the relationship is or has been, tell her you love her and thank her for bringing you into the world. Always remember how much she loved you when you were born.'
My mother and I had a very strained relationship from my teen years on. We did not always agree on things, and for the most part were never close through my adulthood. One reason was distance, I always lived at least ninety minutes away from her and the traveling to visit always was pushed back because it seemed there were more important things to do. I can say I am sorry I did not make more of an effort to visit her. And on this mother's day I wonder how different our relationship would have been had I made more of an effort.
Years later by a twist of fate I was forced to move back into her home. I planned to only be here long enough to gather my 'bearings' and regroup. Get it together and figure out where I wanted to live next. I was waiting for fate to take over and put me where I was supposed to be at the time. The universe always put me where I was to do the most good and I knew that. I was just a little perplexed at that point, my Mom never needed anything. She was always so strong and self sufficient. She had this air of self confidence and I always thought she was not afraid of anything, she could do anything. For my entire life I always felt like I never measured up to her. We had a very strained beginning of the roommate phase of our life.
When I first came back I was very defensive and scared. Hurt and feeling like a failure. My confidence shattered. I knew the Universe put me here for a reason and I wanted to know it. I did not want to wait and let the scenario play out. Funny how the Universe has it's own plans! I ended up here for way longer than the six months I had planned. Then sometime in the years I learned the Universe did have a plan, and it was I was supposed to be here with her. Funny, I would have never come here willingly. It took me having no where else to go to be here with her and then for her, until the end. Me being here allowed her to stay home and pass in her own home.
As anyone who believes that there is a 'grand plan' at work in the 'Universal order' can understand what I mean right now. Hindsight being twenty-twenty is a great thing, but as we go through it without the luxury of 'it', seeing 'it' we can only know much later the reasons. Now looking back it was for us to heal our relationship and to be able to move forward.
I learned so much in the years spent here with my mother. My mom also learned alot about me also. I longed for her to accept me for what I am, and finally at the end of her life I think she did. I wanted her to be proud of me and to know I am really a great person. I still seek her approval in life, even with her gone. I still long for the peace it would give me if I knew she thought I am a great person with a big heart and a kind of selflessness to help everyone and everything. I think at some point she started to see how big my heart is. We would go past a dead animal and I would ask, even in my forties, did she think that animals know that one of their own was killed and would the rest of the 'family' miss it? My mom always laughed at that question. She never understood how my mind worked but I would like to think she was proud of me. Still to this day I do not know if she was proud of me or if I still did not measure up to what she wanted in a daughter?
So this Mother's Day make the peace while you can and don't spend the rest of your life wondering.
Call her or visit, do something to put all the not knowing behind you.
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