Sounds of Hope

I knew my stepfather but never really did know him. My mother’s relationship with him was probably as complex and complicated as any marriage. I am sure a marriage later in life, a second marriage where both have been widowed is very different from anything I have experienced. I think that overall, they were happy. I know the day he died suddenly and unexpectedly, they were happy. As I recall they had gone out for a dinner. I know he had just finished his new shed that would become his workshop. He did wood carvings. This shed had electricity for his tools and lots of room. They had moved from a large house into a two-bedroom two-bath mobile home. The shed would supplement for storage as well. My mother married her second husband in December before Bethany was born , one month before the beating and three months after I had remarried Alvin. It was a quick romance. It was so odd to see my mother with the blush of new love.  Even odder was to see my mother change into a holiness w...

I remember our move to 2007 Grace Street. Everyone was excited. My husband and I had our first child together. Her older siblings were excited. The house was great. It was an older three bedroom Victorian that had been remodeled. It had pocket doors in the living room, arches between the living room and dining room and a grand staircase. We moved from the tiny town of Hallsville Missouri. My husband taught Agriculture in Mexico Missouri half time and in the evening would deliver trays to patients at the Medical Center. I substitute taught in Hallsville. This new marriage was working out reasonably well. It had kinks like all new marriages. I was determined to be successful. Yet, something was wrong. I never felt like I belonged anywhere. Now I know that some of that was internal. I went to the same church but my life was so different than the vibrant college students, recent grads and newly married. I was newly married but not in the same fresh faced way that they were – what I saw a...

An Ending and A Beginning I am coming to the end of the reflections of the life and death of Rukhsanah Israel. I am sure I have much more to share. However, I think this reflection is ending. I have never written about her. I have talked about her many times, most of the time in snippets.  I am told that when I do talk about this and many other painful things in my life that I speak of them as if I am telling a story of someone I hardly know. They tell me that I am missing the emotion of the story. It isn’t that I don’t feel it, it is that I just am so good at compartmentalizing things. And of course, I am Norwegian and we are known for this. Today is the anniversary of the funeral. Funerals are supposed to bring closure. I am not sure that we had closure or that we ever will. However, while funerals are a looking back, they are also a looking forward. My church home was a wonderful place. We were small and like family. Barely two years before these same people had banded toget...