Your Dying Spouse 733 - Almost Home {Five Minute Friday}

It's fun, but it's getting kind of rough.

Learning ASL is a hoot, because I have to find a new paradigm for humour; the quick and witty comeback doesn't really work when fingerspelling. Jokes have to be planned, and rehearsed, so Barb will find the delivery unambiguous.

The reason for having to learn, though, is getting a bit distressing, physically. Everything just hurts too darn much, and just bending over runs me out of breath real quick.

And I do sometimes think about What Comes Next.

Won't say, "I can hardly wait!" That would be forced.

But a part of me is waiting, a kind of calm curious waiting.

Shakespearean flair for the dramatic,

words attuned to weighty depth;

now they seem so trite, pedantic

when I am running out of breath.

It is all so very simple now,

and why did I not know before

that the only virtue lies in how

you live before that final door

opens to eternal light

and outlined there are God and friends

against a morning sun so bright

in a dawn that never ends.

The wheel has turned, the die is cast,

and I am going home at last.

Music from Mercy Me, with Almost Home.

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Marley, the canine waif from Afghanistan, whom WE helped save, has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.

Your Dying Spouse 732 - Changes in Attitudes

This was written early in 2020, before my voice went away for good, but I think, and hope, that it might still be worth reading.

It's been an extraordinarily rough couple of weeks here. The tumour in the navel is really spoiling the beach-body, the one in the neck is making swallowing something I have to think about (try it, it ain't fun), and...

...Barb got the flu. And then, so did I, which can be really, really dangerous (especially with no medical care...did I really think this through?). (This predates the 'coronavirus' thing.)

I got so sick I had to back off the sonnets, and wrote haiku instead.

And those seasonally-centered seventeen-syllable throwaways changed me.

I was challenged to look at life from a very different perspective, one that's built around the dynamic tension of the seasonal year that God ordained.

There is inevitability, but there's also grace.

It's all about what we choose to carry.

The heart that carries summer within it

will never know

winter chill

Music from George Harrison, with My Sweet Lord.

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Marley, the canine waif from Afghanistan, whom WE helped save, has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.

Your Dying Spouse 731 - Hallmark's Hidden History {Five Minute Friday}

They say that Valentine's Day is the Hallmark Holiday, and I guess maybe they're right...glossy cards dripping with so much sentiment that you want to wear a biohazard suit, or at least a tinfoil hat.

And I wonder how many are bought by men who realize that it's the evening of February 13, and that, if they don't act, tomorrow is Armageddon?

It's said though, that the tradition of Valentine's Day predates Hallmark by 1500 years or so.

I'm not sure I buy that.

Yes, they found it, yes they did,

and the whole world made a fuss

when Indy Jones pried the lid

off that old sarcophagus.

You should have heard the oohs and ahs

(and the sneezes; it was dusty),

though the smell did give them pause,

something rather worse than musty.

Paradigms were bent and shifted,

staid assumptions had been felled,

intriguing questions now were lifted

as the digging team beheld

the mummy's hand still holding hard

to a Get Well Hallmark card.

This poem first appeared as a comment to Paul Byerly's post Show Your Love Daily on his wonderful Christian marriage blog, The Generous Husband.

As for other things, well, not so hot. Even a whisper is close to impossible, it's mighty hard to breathe, and moving really hurts, like...everywhere.

ASL is really coming into its own.

And I have learned to 'sing' I Feel Pretty in sign language. 

It's funny, things are just so bad (and a lot of it in a physically nasty way, if you get my drift), and I'm happier that I can ever remember being in my life.

Isn't that odd?

Or, Isn't that God!

Music from Petula Clark, with...wait for it A Sign of the Times.

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Marley, the canine waif from Afghanistan, whom WE helped save, has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.

Your Dying Spouse 730 - Fever Dream Jesus

I was very, very ill over the weekend, and this sonnet came into my head, fully formed.

I hope God has a sense of humour.

Saw Jesus in a cowboy bar,

His halo had done slipped.

Some good ol’ boys had gone too far;

their asses would be whipped.

You do not take His name in vain

with arrogant aplomb,

and if you are nearly sane,

you don’t insult His mom.

But these guys thought their jokes were cool,

and that The Christ would understand,

but if you play the heathen fool

you’re going to face the Christian hand

that points out the verbal flaw

in the breaking of the jaw.

Music from Toby Keith, with Should've been a A Cowboy.

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Marley, the canine waif from Afghanistan, whom WE helped save, has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.