Ruby Holler

Posted on September 12, 2019September 14, 2022 by keepinthesunlightblog@gmail.com

Ruby Holler (2002) by Sharon Creech

We’ve all read children’s stories of orphans being taken in and changing the lives of the sullen people around them, but here is a different, and probably more realistic, take. Orphan twins, Dallas and Florida, are, as one might expect, a bit untrusting, very much hurt (though they might not admit it), and extremely prone to mischief. They haven’t been dealt a great hand in life at their orphanage and haven’t learned about trust or love or respect from anyone except each other. When an older couple takes them in temporarily, the reader witnesses the changes that take place for all of them, but especially the young teen orphans.

While I wouldn’t call this one of my favorite books, it was satisfying in a quiet sort of way. To speak my truth, I didn’t always like the twins, but as the book progresses, you begin to understand why they are the way they are. And when seen through Sairy’s eyes, you can see past the childish mistakes to the true nature of these kids. In fact, several times throughout the book, I told my husband I’d like to be able to handle our child’s “mistakes,” “mischief,” “disasters” more like Sairy would.

Ch 43
“Maybe what you consider goofs aren’t what I consider goofs—it’s just stuff that happens.” (Tiller)

Ch 45
“What’s a little rain? What’s a little water? What’s a little lostness?” (Tiller)

Ch 15
“Do you think we were good parents?”

Sairy—“Of course we were, once we made our mistakes and got over worrying so much. Sometimes I think we were just getting really good at it when all of a sudden those kids were grown up and gone. Maybe that’s why it seems easier to me now, with Florida and Dallas. I figure we know what to expect and we know how to love kids.”

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A Time Apart

Posted on September 1, 2019September 14, 2019 by keepinthesunlightblog@gmail.com

A Time Apart (1999)
by Diane Stanley

When 13-year old Ginny finds out her mom has cancer, she also finds out she’ll be spending her summer with a dad she barely knows. Not only that, she’ll be heading from Texas to England where her dad is a professor heading an Iron Age project. Ginny is plopped in the middle of this experiment, living and breathing life as an Iron Age girl would have. Along with a small group of families and couples, Ginny must give up the luxuries of modern life to become a participant on this farm.

Diane Stanley is the author of one of my favorite books, Bella at Midnight. A Time Apart is definitely an enjoyable and interesting read. Since I usually gravitate towards “lighter” books, it was different for me to read something discussing a serious illness and a strained father/daughter relationship. There wasn’t anything too horribly depressing or dramatic, just a touch more reality than I typically read in my light-hearted children’s books.

Apparently, there was a 1970s early “reality show,” where participants did live on an Iron Age farm similar to the one discussed in the book. I’m excited to watch and read more about that.

My Miscarriage

Posted on May 29, 2019November 10, 2022 by keepinthesunlightblog@gmail.com

To be honest, before I miscarried, I didn’t want to read or hear anything about the subject. I thought that by merely hearing the word, I’d somehow energetically draw that to me. And as a pregnant mama or a hopeful-someday-mama, that’s the last thing I wanted. So, I skipped chapters of books or I tuned out when people tried to tell me about their experiences with losing a baby. And, now I understand both sides. I understand why some people weren’t quite there for me the way I wanted. Why people dodged me or ignored my experience. I’ve been there too.

Miscarriage can be so different for so many people. There are women who miscarry before they even knew they were pregnant and those that lose their babies right at the end of pregnancy. There are women who miscarry unwanted pregnancies and women who miscarry again and again, who desperately want to be mamas. It’s tempting to say that some of these experiences are harder or easier than others, but I really don’t think that’s anyone’s business to say. Not even, necessarily, the mama’s. I think for me it’s been tempting to compare my experience to others’ and find reasons I shouldn’t be as upset as I was or reasons my experience was tougher than other ones. Miscarriages, like anything, are whatever they are to you. And that can change with time too.

If I’m honest with myself, I knew it was coming. I had the most fleeting moment a couple months before the pregnancy. I remember where I was standing when I knew in my gut I would get pregnant soon, and I knew in my gut, I would miscarry. I knew it as sure as I knew anything, but I tucked it far, far away and continued on.

As soon as I was pregnant I had dreams about eggs. The first dream was beautiful. I held an egg in my two hands. It was painted like the Earth, and I thought to myself in the dream, “I’ve got the whole world in my hands. What will I do with it?”

But then my egg dreams changed. Instead of this image of a whole, precious egg, I dreamed of eggs cracking and breaking and slipping behind furniture. The night before the miscarriage, I had this dream:

There’s an egg carton. I’m putting an egg back in. The rest of the slots are empty. (My daughter) wants to see the egg, but it has crushed down and is oozing out of the shell. The raw egg is even seeping out of the bottom of the carton.

On the morning of the day I miscarried, without any outside, physical indication, I cried to three people that I just didn’t “feel” pregnant anymore. And, I guess I wasn’t.

My miscarriage came at 10 1/2 weeks. I don’t know what miscarriage is like for other women; I only know mine. I bled and bled and bled. Too much. I didn’t want to admit what was happening at first. I didn’t want to go to the far-away hospital. Thank Everything-in-the-Universe though, that I did. My baby’s miscarriage was tied in with my own near-death experience. The ER let me bleed too long. And then when I passed out, suddenly I ranked as needing attention. I woke to a room full of people and IVs being shoved into me at rapid speed. My heart went cold and I looked across the room at my husband and daughter and was too far gone to even see them as a reason to hold on. I hate needles. I’m beyond squeamish about blood. But some sort of life-grasping instinct took hold, because I weakly, but firmly, begged for blood. The trauma nurse was on the way for an emergency transfusion. I pleaded with everyone in there. BLOOD. NOW. FASTER. MORE! And as I watched the first two pints of blood empty into my bloodstream and then the second two, I remember thanking the Lord above for whoever donated that blood and promised myself that whenever I can and wherever I can, I WILL be donating blood. That blood saved my life. I can’t even write this without tears of gratitude. Thank you.

My miscarriage experience will never be about just losing our baby. It will always carry the memories of so much more. Of my own journey into facing death and coming back.

So, when I reflect on my miscarriage, there’s that added bit to it, as there is an added bit for everyone. I feel very lucky that I had announced my second pregnancy early on. Some people wouldn’t have liked that—having to go back and tell everyone the new news: “The baby wasn’t ready. The baby is gone.” But, for me, I couldn’t have done without the support. Women came out of the woodworks sharing their own miscarriage experiences with me. Some talked, some listened. All were helpful. I couldn’t have gotten through without them.

I laid in bed for so many days. So many weeks. I didn’t want to read or talk or watch TV. I didn’t want to do anything. I sobbed and sobbed— loud, shaky, uncontrollable tears for that baby. For days and weeks and months. And, sometimes, I cried for me too. I cried out of fear that my own life had been so close to ending. And in those instances, I mostly cried for our daughter, to think of how it would be for her to lose her mama.

And then one day I stopped lying in bed. I got up, and I wanted change. A big change. I wanted to sell all our possessions and travel the world. I wanted to grab Life and make things happen. At the very least, an adventurous, long road trip. This yearning clashed with reality, and our “big change” got smaller and smaller. We settled on a long-talked-about trip to the East Coast. Not huge, for most, but big enough for us. And all I could think was, “Baby should have been here with us for this.”

I didn’t sleep for months after the miscarriage. Everyone thought it was my sadness about the baby. I love that baby so much. I’ll always remember. But the lack of sleep had way more to do with my own frightful experience during the miscarriage. I’d lie there in a panic, night after night, worried that if I closed my eyes and relaxed, I’d pass out and die in my sleep.

Just about the time I was learning to sleep again, I got pregnant. I had been told for months after the miscarriage by multiple medical professionals that my chances of getting pregnant at my “ripe old age” of 36 were decreasing by the minute, and that if I did “miraculously” get pregnant, I was taking a big gamble with my health and my baby’s. So, on top of my own huge concerns about being pregnant again and my needing time to heal physically and emotionally and my yearning to be a mama to this new baby, I had all those lovely warnings running through my head as well. It had taken all my strength to be patient and wait until I felt healed before trying to get pregnant. And it took an even greater strength to allow the possibility of new heartbreak and, as I saw it, to put my own life on the line again. The first opportunity we “allowed” after the miscarriage though, Baby was ready.

Sometimes I believe that our second baby did her or his job, for whatever the bigger reason, and is with Grandma and Grandpa wherever souls go when they’re done with their bodies. And sometimes I think that little soul hung out and waited for a new body, a body that was healthier and ready to grow, and that our son is that same baby. I change my mind all the time on this. Maybe it doesn’t much matter, but I think about it often.

Nobody really likes to talk about miscarriage, but even less people talk about what it’s like to be pregnant after a miscarriage. I think there are assumptions that the mama will be overjoyed to be pregnant again. But I can’t tell you the tough, confusing, scary, worrisome, sad feelings associated with my third pregnancy. My hormones and emotions were all over the place. And nobody can really understand except the mama going through it. Some people ignored the pregnancy, perhaps worried I’d miscarry again. Some people ignored the past miscarriage, and acted like that second baby had never happened. Some people told me that now that I was pregnant again, I’d forget all about the “other experience.” Some people were convinced I’d never want another baby after what had happened and thought this third baby must have been a “mistake.” None of any of this mattered. Except that it did.

I was very protective of this third baby. Perhaps even more so than my first. I think subsequent babies, in general, get less attention and gifts and excitement. That’s the way it is. But, it hurt my feelings more than I could say. And this was probably due to the fact that I, myself, faced fears and doubts about this baby every single day. Right until the moment he was born, I did everything in my power to put my fears at ease. And even after the midwife helped pull him out, since he was (not surprisingly) stuck in the birth canal, I looked up to see Baby was a boy, and even then, I thought he hadn’t made it. That’s how deeply planted losing a baby had gotten. For days and weeks and months, I felt that fragility about our son’s life. I tried affirmations, meditations, and anything I could think of to trust in our baby and his body, but my miscarriage, along with my tendency to worry and overthink, had wreaked havoc on my faith. I had to work very hard to allow myself to love this baby unconditionally. To go all in and not hold back out of fear that I’d lose him.

It’s only now, a year and a half in, that I’m finally settling in a bit. Our boy doesn’t like to let go of Mama. Ever. And it can be quite frustrating to never, ever have a moment to myself, if I can be honest. But, when I am able to step back and reflect—to think that maybe, just maybe, this is the same soul who had to leave us so suddenly three years ago—I think perhaps he just needs the same time and space to settle in that I, too, have needed. Now that I’ve allowed myself feel a little more trust and faith, I hope I can help share that with our little man. And together we can realize that this time, he gets to stay.

Matchmaking for Beginners

Posted on March 3, 2019July 17, 2020 by keepinthesunlightblog@gmail.com

Matchmaking for Beginners (2018) by Maddie Dawson

It is so rare that I read a book for adults. This is probably because A) I use reading as an escape, so I don’t want to hear about adult difficulties, and B) There are SO many adult novels out there, that I usually have no idea where to begin to find a book I’ll like.

After a few suggestions of 2018 releases, and a couple ones that just weren’t for me at this time, I finally fell into Matchmaking for Beginners. And while it does cover “adult” topics like failed marriage, death, infidelity, and tragedy, I still managed to zip right through it.

Elderly Blix Holliday is a bit of an eccentric and the “oddball” of her extended family. She meets the young Marnie, her grandnephew’s fiancé at a family gathering and immediately connects with her. While Marnie is a bit unsure of herself at the time, both women find out they can sense people’s energies and use it to find good love matches for other people. Not so great at love matches for herself, however, Marnie’s doomed marriage ends during the honeymoon. She sets about trying to piece her life back together in her childhood home. Meanwhile, Blix is dying but hasn’t mentioned it to her family. When Blix unexpectedly leaves her Brooklyn home to Marnie, instead of family, everyone is surprised. Marnie has no intention of staying in the home, of course, but during her time in Brooklyn she becomes involved in the lives of those around her, finding herself in a role of helping others find love, including herself.

While I wouldn’t say that matchmaking is the central theme of this novel, despite what the title says, I found myself glued to the story and unable to stop myself from starting new chapters way past bedtime. A very enjoyable read, even if it is a book for grown-ups. =D

There’s No Good Card for This

Posted on November 30, 2018July 17, 2020 by keepinthesunlightblog@gmail.com

There Is No Good Card for This: What to Say and Do When Life is Scary, Awful, and Unfair to People You Love (2017)
by Kelsey Crowe and Emily McDowell

This book is such a gift to society, and I’m wondering if it’s possible to make a book like this required reading for everyone. I kid myself in thinking that I grew up without anyone close to me experiencing any of Life’s “tough stuff.” But, the more I think about, the more I realize I was just completely unaware. I usually consider myself a fairly empathetic person, but, sadly, it wasn’t until quite recently in my life that I woke up and realized how poorly I’ve handled so much. Being there for others, whether through an illness, a divorce, loss of a loved one, a job loss, or whatever it might be, is so very important. I keep wondering how I can change the world or “save the world,” and, sometimes, it’s truly just being there for people that counts the most. It’s all too easy when people are suffering through something to ignore the situation, avoid that person, or offer cliche words we’ve heard far too many times. I think it wasn’t until I’d gone through some of this rough stuff myself that I realized just how hurtful some of these reactions can be. And while I realize everyone is stumbling through and doing their best with what they know when it comes to supporting others through awful times, there are now beautiful resources like this one to help give us tools to be a little more graceful in our approach.

I can’t recommend this book highly enough. The authors are genuine and helpful, without ever being judgmental. It’s a book that should be read and re-read and taught through example. Ms. Crowe offers, what looks like, awesome empathy courses, and Emily McDowell has a great and hilarious line of supportive, original greeting cards.