Old Blue Chair

 It takes serenity, courage and wisdom to maintain a healthy attitude when life isn’t fair.  We can’t change the fact that our world is imperfect and things are far from the way they should be, but we can choose our attitudes.  We need serenity from God to help us change our responses to the injustice of life.  We need courage to face with optimism the days when we are treated unfairly.  We need wisdom to know whether to fight injustice or to make the best of a bad situation.

I am sure many of need to hear this right now.  There are many who have lost loved ones during this pandemic and are struggling to find a new norm.  However, the world also has to find a new norm.  We can’t go on isolating our elderly nor can we continue to isolate non-COVID patients in hospitals.

It’s been 5 months since Em passed.  Since then we have welcomed our first grandson into the world.  And yes he is a blessing.  But that doesn’t take away the loss of Em.  There is guilt for feeling happy and there is guilt for feeling sad, and there’s no right or wrong.  Grief does that too you.  We live in a world in which each of us believe people should grieve in a certain way.  But I can tell you that Don and I have learned there’s no right way or wrong way to grieve.  Thankfully we have been able to talk to each other and understand how the other one is feeling.

I feel that for us in our situation, there is a fine line that we walk.  From now on it will be a first with Cam and a first without Em.  It’s difficult to know what you are supposed to feel.  We want Cam to know who Em was and how excited she was to be an aunt.  We want him to know how much she loved him!  In the mornings when he comes we sit out on the front porch in my blue chair and we rock and listen to the birds just like Em use to do.  There is joy that I am able to do that but there is also sadness, because is should be Em rocking him in that blue chair.

The blue rocking chair has a lot of history.  Many years ago when I was struggling, I listened to Kenny’s Be as you are album.  My favorite song was “Old Blue Chair”.  So for Christmas Don bought me a rocking chair and painted it blue.  As the verse goes “I’ve read a lot of books, wrote a few songs, Looked at my life, where it’s goin and where it’s gone...But nothing compares to the way that I see it when I sit in that old blue chair”.  I sure Em did a lot of thinking in that chair.  And when Cam gets older I’ll tell him the significance of that old blue chair.