Coffee Shop Heart Sounds

Heart sounds are lub-dub, lub-dub or so the medical folks say but I say that heart sounds are big rippling laughs like the laughter and chatter of a coffee shop ignoring the usual topic of the weather, talking of cruises and a new craze of ‘walking soccer’. Some may call it shallow or trivial but I would call these coffee shop heart sounds just what a gray rainy day needs.

“Laughter is an instant vacation.”

~ Milton Berle

Memories of my Dad

Thinking of my dad today. It's been 29 years  since he took flight from this life. What do I remember most about my dad? “Good golly day in the mornin’!!” I’m sure that was in place of some other  more colourful expletive. Ice tea! I still have one of the long handled spoons for his ice tea when he came in from the field. Then there was when he laid a new floor in the dining room - put a plywood subfloor down first; I watched him measure and draw the squared lines across the entire floor for placement of tiles. He showed me, and my siblings, the fields, the birds, and thunder storms. Those memories barely scratch the surface of my memories of my dad. I know my brothers and sisters have many more. Was he perfect? Of course not, but it was that part of him that stopped the tractor to move a killdeers nest, that part of him that explained thunderstorms and weather, that gave me a big, warm hug when I did well at my piano recital, showing a softer side of my dad. A good, hard working man with a gentle heart.

“We can’t always do what we want in life,” 

answered her father,“so we do the best we can.”

~ Beverly Cleary, Ramona Forever

Silence within the Storm

Rolling growling shoving my mood aside, the blackness of the cloud bigger, louder than the blackness of my mood, as though I have no right to try to match nature’s mood. Burly and stomping through the heavens 

dumping cooling rain, 

icy hail no matter where it lands. Allowing lightning to pierce the bulky cloud for a 

fraction of a second. Just long 

enough to see a dripping lamp post, 

a shining street. Silence within the 

storm, between raindrops and hail 

bouncing on sidewalks and 

pavement. Then it stalks away, 

leaving the drip drip drip 

from the rain-washed city, 

promising to return.

“There’s something about violently, growling thunder….

and the sound of hard racing rain that settles my spirit.”

~ Niedria Kenny, Compilation of Contemplation

On a Summer's Evening Walk

Standing tall over wilted weeds, 

little faces shine up at me under

a globe of dainty faded flowers ~ 

a charming late summer garden.

“The Amen of nature is always a flower.”

~ Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

 

One More Year

In 1980 I was fed up with nursing and threw away all my pins. I resigned for a year - of course never to darken a hospital door again - but kept returning.  I also return to our five year class reunion, as often as possible. But today’s luncheon was one more year for the RGH School of Nursing luncheon. The 45th RGH School of Nursing Alumnae luncheon. More than one more class, but classes from 1949 through each year until the School closed in 1972. We were all girls then, many from farming communities throughout the province. Now we are scattered across Canada, the U.S. and even globally. Our careers have taken us to the North, into the military and war zones, at the bedside from birth to old age, public health, and into universities to teach other young people. Today, we were as those girls in the ’60’s. But our numbers grow smaller. We honour those that are no longer with us. Our hair is streaked with white, some more than others. We share about our families and fuss about how nursing has changed in ways that are different. But we are the same and will meet again next September to share a meal, our school song, memories and lots of laughter. 

“True friends are never apart, maybe in distance but never in heart.”

~ Helen Keller