under the weather

Under the weather with a case of the sniffles. 

"Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a coloured pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling."-G.K. Chesterton, On Lying in Bed, Tremendous Trifles

the poetry of life

This afternoon while Emma rested and recovered from a stomach bug Torrey was doing a little writing on the iPad. I grabbed my camera for a quick shot of the day, and got a good laugh in the end. She had just written the first stanza when I started clicking away. I didn't read through the rest until I uploaded the photos, and got a good laugh when I got to the fourth stanza. I wonder who she was referring to there... 

She sent me a copy of the finished product, with permission to post it below. 

Blank
by Torrey Culbertson

Have you ever sat, 
Down on your chair, 
With a pencil, some paper, and a pen?
Staring at the paper, thinking, 
And a blank piece of paper is staring back.

Your mind wanders,
Trying to think,
Of places, times, and feelings.
Thinking of things you have thunk,
And a blank piece of paper is thinking back.

Tapping your leg, 
Gnawing your pencil,
Thinking, pondering, wandering.
Waiting for some ideas to come,
And a blank piece of paper is waiting back.

You sit there, 
Thinking away, 
When something comes clicking, zooming, and snapping.
'Tis a camera, distracting away,
And a blank piece of paper is snapping back.

Sitting there thinking,
When all of a sudden,
You're smiling, chuckling, and eventually laughing.
About your poem about nothing,
And a blank piece of paper is smiling back.

Laughing, laughing away,
At the poem you had just written,
It was about thinking, pondering, with no outcome.
This poem just written,
And the blank piece of paper has written back.

Chewing your finger,
Thinking of more,
For the poem about nothing, blankness, no more.
But your poem is done, it is written,
And the once blank piece of paper is done.

“The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.” - G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

“Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.” ― G.K. Chesterton, Alarms and Discursions

{another life well lived}

 

i love you mom

If I lacked the words a few weeks ago to write about my dad, there are even fewer now. Just three weeks and 20 hours after my dad passed away, my mom took her last breath in this world and her first in the next. I had the special privilege of keeping vigil by her bedside the last three days of her life, and of taking care of her since Fred (that's what she named the tumor and its side effects) made his first appearance on February 9th. My mom was one of those amazing few who could take on the trials of life with faith and a smile, and light up a room while she was at it. There won't be a day that goes by that I will not miss the million little things I loved about my mom. She was and is one of God's greatest gifts to me.

mom
circa 1955

mom & dad
08.25.1973

our family
circa 1981

mom & the girls

mom & me

mom & my sister

Easter

totem pole of sass

complete zeal for life

mom bred cockapoos for 10 years

xoxo

our family
circa 2009

mom with 3 out of 4 kids


mom & dad on halloween


my parents


mom & dad
January 2012


"Fred" the brain tumor
February 2012


just before mom's brain surgery
March 2012





learning how to walk again
mom & torrey


my parents with all of their grandkids
April 2012


team jackie shirts
"My biggest problem is that the left part of my brain has nothing right in it
and the right part of my brain has nothing left in it."


opposites attract


beautiful as ever


the night of mom's first seizure


one of many MRIs


after mom woke up from her six day coma


hanging with mom in rehab


emma loaning her hair to grum


hanging at oncology



mom & dad on their 39th anniversary
08.25.2012





visiting dad in the hospital
August 2012


Stan reading Scripture to mom


so close


mom's very last smile
09.24.12



mom's last day

I have read this particular essay titled, "The Advantages of Having One Leg", several times over the past nine months. The closing paragraph (below) strikes me each time with a reminder to love as if everything might be lost. If I had this year to live over again, I would take it all on again only with a little more grace and, of course, for much much longer.

All pessimism has a secret optimism for its object. All surrender of life, all denial of pleasure, all darkness, all austerity, all desolation has for its real aim this separation of something so that it may be poignantly and perfectly enjoyed. I feel grateful for the slight sprain which has introduced this mysterious and fascinating division between one of my feet and the other. The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost. In one of my feet I can feel how strong and splendid a foot is; in the other I can realize how very much otherwise it might have been. The moral of the thing is wholly exhilarating. This world and all our powers in it are fare more awful and beautiful than even we know until some accident reminds us. If you wish to perceive that limitless felicity, limit yourself if only for a moment. If you wish to realize how fearfully and wonderfully God's image is made, stand on one leg. If you want to realize the splendid vision of all visible things - wink the other eye.

G.K. Chesterton, Tremendous Trifles

 

Today would have been my mom's 60th birthday.
i miss you, mommy.