landscape, Photograph by Ken Gehle, Photography, Wordless Wednesday
Death Valley I - Death Valley, CA, Stovepipe Wells sand dunes All of the Wordless Wednesday images are available as fine art prints. See the details...
landscape, Photograph by Ken Gehle, Photography, spiritual, Wordless Wednesday
All of the Wordless Wednesday images are available as fine art prints. See the details...
art, just be, memories, Photograph by Ken Gehle, Photography, Widow Blog Hop, Wordless Wednesday
Deserted Gear on the road to Goblin Valley State Park, Utah. This month I’m participating in a blog hop with fellow widows/widowers. I encourage you to enjoy these other blogs and leave them a comment or two: Samantha of the Crazy Courage blog Janine of One Breath At A Time Red’s The M3 Blog Becky’s Choosing Grace Today Marriott of Miracles and Answers to the Prayers in the Life of Marriott Cole Christine of Widow Island Robin of The Fresh Widow Tim’s Diary of a Widower Running Forward: Abel Keogh’s Blog Carolyn at Modern Widow’s Club Hello Grief Andrea of International Brotherhood of Single Mothers Tamara of Artful Living After Loss Jessica at Buttons to Beans Anne – Missing Bobby: A Widow’s Journey The Grief...
book recommendations, grace, grief, letting go, Photograph by Ken Gehle, Photograph by Tamara Beachum, Pinterest, prayer
I have a confession. I’m a life-long Presbyterian who went to Catholic school (that’s not the confession but probably enough to make one crazy right there.) I am currently an elder in my church which would make my grandparents bust with pride. My grandfather was a stalwart Presbyterian church elder and my grandmother was the quintessential church lady and official silver communion plate polisher. Not a meal was taken in their house without grace spoken before it. Sandwich over the sink? Say grace. So here it is: I don’t know how to pray. My grandfather and father were the official family grace sayers and used a standard prayer. Check. In school we had the rote memorization of the rosary prayers. Done. None of those prayers felt like a personal conversation with God though. Don’t get me wrong, I have spoken to God quite a bit in the last five years but I’m not sure begging counts as prayer. My prayers sound a lot like wishes to my ears: that my husband would live, that my father would live and before that that my grandfather would live at least long enough to meet the great-grandchild I carried. He did not. My timing is off. The futility of when I pray has led me not to do it so much. It seems I’m always asking for the thing I so desperately desire after the conclusion has already been reached. “Please let this test be clean,” I pleaded. Too late, the cancer was growing. The test was just there to show the foregone conclusion. This was the case with my father. I...
grief, loss, Photograph by Ken Gehle, poetry, storm, teacher, why
According to my daughter’s Facebook profile she has two mothers: me and a dear teacher from middle school. I have always been fond of being in that company because this woman loves my children, I mean really loves them. She does this for them and hundreds of others. She is proof positive that the heart does not have a finite amount of love to give. She was only 34 when she died. Stacey Daniel taught Language Arts bringing stories alive for hundreds of children and supporting them as they learned that they too had stories to tell. She found the special talent in each child, lovingly brought it out from where it was hidden and wrapped it up as a gift before handing it back. Wide-eyed children opened those presents and found that they could do what they had not imagined. They believed because she believed. As she was leaving, a hurricane was crawling up the east coast. Today there is a storm in our hearts. I remember seeing Stacey sign my husband’s memorial service guestbook, a modified portfolio of his images. I was so touched that she and several other teachers were there for my children. As I tried to process this unexpected news, I looked back at the page she signed. Her name rests beside this image of another storm our family endured. How ironic? How apropos? Yes, both. Another hurricane at another time. Another unexpected loss. Another wave crashes down. While I use prose to articulate my thoughts I so admire those who use poetry as their art form. Stacey’s friend, Jon Goode, an Emmy...
car, grief, letting go, memories, permission, Photograph by Ken Gehle, Photograph by Tamara Beachum
His car was worth $3. No really, count ‘em: one, two, three. That’s it. According to the blue book value the trade-in value was a whopping three bucks. But that 1989 Volvo station wagon was worth so much more than that to me. Ken and I met in the year that car was created, 1989. In 1991, we married and, planning ahead, bought a sensible vehicle that could serve as family car for us and company car for Ken’s photography business. Our other cars – five of them – came and went but “The Truck” as we called it was always there. It was our rock. It carried precious cargo in safety seats and everything else from photo gear to bails of pine straw. It was our workhorse. The Truck took us on adventures. The console became a scrapbook of sorts holding a smooth rock from one journey, an abandoned skate egg sack from an annual beach trip and a ticket stub from the tallest lighthouse in North America. Only Ken had climbed that lighthouse late one afternoon before the rain set in. The Truck was our safe harbor. When Ken was sick The Truck sat until it became sick too. A few months after he died I had it brought back to working condition for our daughter. Hearing the particular rev of its engine and the sound the tires made on our cobble driveway was a comfort. She was able to drive it into her senior year in high school but its age, twenty years now, was showing. Pieces started falling off. New noises and squeaks made their...
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