A Poem By My Mother

Photo Credit: By ON at de.wikipedia

I often attribute my word artistry to my mother. She was a writer all her life, and whatever spurred that part of her was passed along to me. Whether by nature or nurture, her love for writing became mine as well. Her style of poetry was very traditional - rhyme and meter, rhyme and meter - and that's how I also write most of mine. I've tried more modern forms of poetry, but I'm never as satisfied with those attempts as I am when I sound more like Mom. This little untitled piece was in my Facebook memories this morning and I wanted to share it with you. 


Oh how I wish this could be done,
To reunite with people who've passed,
To gain back time that has been lost,
To make the special moments last.

But we must instead keep moving forward, 
Though the memories we won't forget.
Apply those lessons we've learned from the past,
And live fully, without regret.

I'd find the friends of days gone by
And the closeness we once knew.
I'd find the hopes, the plans, the dreams, 
The heart I lost to you. 

I'd find the innocence of youth,
My faith in fellowman.
I'd find a joy in simple things, 
The way I did back then.

I'd find such beauty in a rose
Or in a mountain view. 
I'd find the pleasures I have lost
In little things I do.

I'd take the bitter with the sweet,
I'd take the weeds with clover,
If I could turn the clock around
And start my life all over. 

Shirley Love
3/28/1936 - 8/31/2013

Please Hold

A couple of years ago I began working at a job where I have the coveted opportunity to spend extended time on call hold, waiting for representatives to research, check with help desk, escalate, and call a task force together to work on problems with insurance claims. Exciting, no? Thankfully this is not the sole aspect of my job or I would have been carted out in a straitjacket on day three.

Instead, I began categorizing the different types of hold music. At first it was simple. "Plucky 80s Sitcom Theme Song." Followed by "Groovy 70s Law Enforcement Action Drama." Funny enough, "Cheesy Porn-Stache Scene" was actually one of the categories. The most specific I got was "Background Synthesizer From Nestle Alpine White Commercial Circa 1986."

Until now.

Friends, I bring you "Stories From the Void."

Tuesday Morning:
This hold music sounds like a heartfelt teen movie from the late 70s where a city girl moves to the country to live with her aunt and uncle after her parents die in a car accident and she gives them all sorts of trouble at first because she's acting out in grief but then she falls in love with their horse Stanley so she sets to caring for him and it changes her life so she ends up becoming a successful veterinarian. Specifically, this is the music that is playing when she goes back to the farm to say goodbye to Stanley when he dies, and they play a poignant montage of scenes of her as a teenager caring for him and riding him and grooming him and you can practically hear her broken teen heart healing but her adult heart breaking again for the loss of her beloved Stanley. Oh Stanley! I love you so much! You made me who I am today!

Tuesday Afternoon:
80s rom-com starring post-Tootsie but pre-Rain Man Dustin Hoffman as the sad underdog who pines for a gorgeous, high-maintenance woman who barely looks his way initially but then eventually falls for his charm. This is the music that they play when she realizes that she's falling in love with him, but before her controlling ex-husband comes back into the picture and takes her attention away from sad underdog for a brief period until he does something so awful (but sanitary awful like making a hateful comment about the sad underdogs of the world accompanied by skeptical scoffing, not actually awful like filleting her skin and serving it to her during the Super Bowl) that she remembers how much she loves sad underdog and goes back to him.