From that day forward, I forced myself to focus on the confidence and strength that had brought me up from the bathroom floor. Having changed my focus to such positive thoughts, I couldn"t believe the difference it made in my life. I felt like laughing again and I enjoyed being around people for the first time in months. I began the process of discovering the individual I had kept hidden inside myself for so long-a process that I am still enjoying today.

I had entered counseling shortly after T. J. and I moved out of the house, and I continued in that counseling for several months after the day I felt I had hit bottom. When I no longer felt the need for her support and guidance, I remember the last question my counselor asked me before I left her office that day. "What have you learned?" she asked. I didn"t even hesitate in answering. "I"ve learned that my happiness has to come from within."

It is this lesson that I am reminded of every day and that I long to share with others. I had made the mistake in my life of basing my ident.i.ty on my marriage and all the material things surrounding that relationship. I"ve learned that I am responsible for my own life and happiness. When I focus my life on another person and try to build my life and happiness around that person, I"m not truly living. To truly live I need to let the spirit within me be free and rejoice in its uniqueness. It is in this state of being that the love of another person becomes a joy and not something to be afraid of losing.

May your spirit be free and soar high!

Laurie Waldron

Tears of Joy

Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.

Lucille Ball To cry is uniquely human, to weep for joy even more so. I cry every day.

I cry for all the years I wanted and needed to cry and didn"t. I cry for the loneliness and pain I"ve felt. I cry for the sheer delight of being alive. I cry for the pleasure that moving my body brings, and for the ability to dance and stretch and sweat. I cry in grat.i.tude for the life I have now.

I was a cute little girl. I loved laughing and playing with my friends. Then, when I was eight years old, I experienced the devastating trauma of incest. In order to cope with that physical, mental and emotional nightmare, I made two unconscious decisions: First, I wanted to be as ugly as possible; second, I didn"t want to think or feel. I knew if I let myself feel anything, it would be too much for me.

So I started eating. When the fear came, I ate; when the pain came, I ate. By the time I was 12, I weighed 200 pounds.

I spent most of my time by myself, doing things with my hands or watching TV. Even with my brothers and sisters, I felt alone. I was never asked out to a dance or to a movie or on a date. I was socially invisible.

By the time I was 25, I weighed 420 pounds. My doctor gave me six months to live. My body couldn"t support the fat I was carrying. I didn"t leave my house for two years. I literally couldn"t move. I had to lose the weight if I wanted to live. And I decided I would do whatever the doctor told me to do to lose it.

I lost my first 100 pounds and I felt so light I wanted to dance. But I started to gain it back, and I realized I had to go deeper and deal with the root of my problem-the unfelt pain. I began therapy, joined a Twelve-Step program and accepted the love and support of my family and friends. At 35, I cried for the first time since I was eight. Feeling my pain was the true secret of my weight loss.

Once I turned that corner, it was up to me to continue the work and to be conscious one day at a time. It was a process of growing self-knowledge and self-acceptance. I continued my therapy. I started to study nutrition, and I learned that for me, eating fat is a sedative. I watched my behavior and monitored what brought on my need to eat. When I found myself knee-deep in Haagen-Dazs, I stopped and asked myself how I got there.

Though there were times when I would backslide, it was my acceptance of myself in all my strengths and weaknesses that helped me get back up and keep going. My goal was to be better-not perfect.

When I see childhood obesity now, it breaks my heart. We wouldn"t dream of laughing at a child who has no arm or leg or who uses a wheelchair. But people will tease and ostracize a child who has an eating disorder and is obese. We still don"t understand that the weight such a child carries is the weight of that child"s own pain.

Healing my life wasn"t just about losing weight. I had to learn how to live life as an adult. I had never learned basic social skills-once, at work, a man talked to me at the water cooler and I giggled like a 14-year-old girl. I started the process of learning about relationships and growing up.

Now, at 46, I am an adult. I have become a person I truly love. My weight is in the average range, I exercise regularly and I have a career I love as a motivational speaker. I recognize the good things that came from my years of childhood pain and isolation: my love for cla.s.sical music, my ability to sew and to do stained gla.s.s-to create beauty with my hands. Even my ability to speak well and engagingly can be traced to the many hours I spent watching such great entertainers as Lucille Ball and Milton Berle on TV.

I am grateful for the blessings in my life now, and I accept the events in my life as gifts of growth that create strength of character and strength of faith. Today I cry in grat.i.tude for the life I have.

Joan Fountain with Carol Kline

4.

ON.

MARRIAGE.

Now you will feel no rain,

For each of you will be shelter to the other.

Now you will feel no cold,

For each of you will be warmth to the other.

Now there is no more loneliness for you,

For each of you will be companion to the other.

Now you are two bodies,

But there is only one life before you.

Go now to your dwelling place,

To enter into the days of your togetherness.

And may your days be good, and long upon the earth.

Apache blessing

Home Forever

The most precious possession that ever comes to a man in this world is a woman"s heart.

Josiah G. Holland It was one of those rare days. You know the kind I mean. When I woke up in the morning, I felt at peace with the world. The sun was shining. The air was crisp with the smell of green. It was a beautiful day and all was well with the world.

It was my day off and I actually looked forward to doing the housecleaning and laundry. I work at a very busy long-term care facility as a rehabilitation nurse, and some days I welcome the kind of diversion that housework offers. Not always. But at times it is a refreshing change.

The phone rang around 8:00 A.M. On the other end of the line I could hear my mother"s voice. It was somewhat strained, and instinctively I knew something was wrong. She was on the verge of tears.

She proceeded to tell me that my grandfather, her father, was terribly upset because the nursing home he had been admitted to two weeks earlier still had not placed him in a room with my grandmother. That had been the deal: he was to share a room with his wife. We had promised him that, and he had counted on it.

Seven-and-a-half years earlier, Grandma had been placed in a nursing home due to progressing Alzheimer"s and my grandfather"s inability to care for her. She was 90 at the time of her admission, and he was 91. Every day for the next seven-and-a-half years, he walked a mile each way to spend his days with her. He fed her her meals, combed her hair, stroked her, spoke softly to her and told her how much he loved her. Although she was unable to speak or return his care and compa.s.sion, Grandpa continued his daily vigil.

Every time I visited, he told me the story of the day they first met-a day he said he would never forget. He told me how he first saw her through a crowd of people at the fair, and how he was struck by the "lovely red bow she wore in her beautiful brown hair." He then would take out his wallet and show me the picture of her from that day at the fair. He carried it with him always. I remember him showing it to me as a small child.

Eventually, Grandpa also became too frail to live alone and care for himself. At times, he was even forgetting to eat. We knew it was only a matter of time before he, too, would have to be cared for by others.

This was not an easy thing for him to accept. He was a man who had always been fiercely independent. He owned and drove a car until he was 93, and he golfed daily, when the weather permitted, until he was 96. He paid his own bills, maintained his apartment, washed his own clothes and shopped for and cooked his own meals until he was 97. But at almost 98 years of age, he could no longer care for himself.

With a lot of coaxing, love and support, Grandpa agreed to be admitted to the nursing home my grandmother was in. But only on one condition: He would share a room with my grandmother or he wouldn"t go. That was his stipulation and the family agreed. He wanted, as he said, "to be with his sweetheart."

The director of nursing at the facility agreed to the request and Grandpa was admitted to the nursing home. Upon admission, however, she stated that it would be a day or two until they could move my grandmother"s roommate out and put Grandpa into her room. We a.s.sured Grandpa that all was well. We left, a.s.suming everything was taken care of.

But the days pa.s.sed into weeks, and Grandpa still had not moved in with my grandmother. He was becoming increasingly confused and lethargic. He did not understand why he couldn"t be with her. Worse, he was on a different floor and couldn"t even "find" her.

Although my mother kept asking why Grandpa hadn"t been moved and what the delay was all about, her questions fell on deaf ears. Finally, she was told by the director of nursing that they felt it would not be in Grandpa"s best interest to move him in with my grandmother. They seemed to feel that in his frail condition, he might hurt himself trying to care for her. They had, after all, watched him dote over her for over seven years. They felt he might hurt himself trying to reposition or move her. They knew him well. They knew his independent nature-his will to do things right.

At first, my mother accepted their decision, but later she became increasingly concerned. Grandpa was not faring well separated from his wife. He wanted only to be with her-his "sweetheart " of 68 years. He talked about it constantly. And he was always sad. The twinkle in his beautiful blue eyes was fading.

On the morning my phone rang, I had not seen Grandpa since his admission. As my mother, fighting back her tears, told me what had happened, a genuine sadness came over me. The grandfather I loved so dearly, that I had idolized as a child and grown to know and respect as an adult, was spending his final years disheartened and lonely. He, my tie with infinity, was losing his spirit. He was being denied choices and control over his life. I became incensed at what I felt was truly an injustice.

After talking to my mother, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I called the director of nursing at the facility and inquired about the situation. She reiterated the information my mother had given me. I calmly explained that I felt that Grandpa should be moved into a room with my grandmother, as promised. She continued to insist that he might overdo it and hurt himself in caring for Grandma. I insisted that it was important that the promise be kept, and said that they would both benefit emotionally from the shared room. After all, they had shared a room for 68 years. I saw no reason why, at the end of their long and loving lives, they should be denied each other"s companionship. They loved each other dearly and being together had been the "deal."

After much discussion and disagreement, I could not contain myself any longer. My emotions went wild. I asked, "What"s the point? If my grandfather, who is 98 years old, had high cholesterol and absolutely loved to eat cheese-guess what? I"d let him. As a matter of fact, I"d go out and buy all his favorite cheeses for him! And if he couldn"t feed himself, I would. Being in a room with my grandmother is important to him. Important to his emotional well-being. Important to his spirit. Important for the twinkle in his eyes."

There was a long pause on the other end of the phone. I was then told by the director of nursing that she understood what I was saying and would take care of it.

It was about 9:00 A.M. when I finished speaking with the director of nursing, and I told her that she had until 2:00 P.M. that afternoon to move my grandparents into a room together. I also informed her that if the transfer was not done by that time, then I would personally remove them both from the facility and place them elsewhere-where they could share a room.

I then called my mother and said, "Drop everything and get your purse. We"re going to see Grandma and Grandpa." I drove to my mom"s, stopping on the way to buy a color TV for Grandpa. Mom met me at the door with a smile on her face, and together we drove to the nursing home, feeling wonderfully in control of the situation.

When we arrived, Grandma was sleeping soundly and Grandpa was sitting next to her, stroking her hair. He had a smile on his face and that old familiar twinkle in his wonderful blue eyes. He fussed with her covers, straightening the linens on her bed. And he began to tell me once again about his "sweetheart" and how much he loved her. He chattered on about the fair and the red bow in her beautiful brown hair. He showed me the picture in his wallet. He was finally home.

Jean Bole

A Little Holiday Magic