Christmas 2013

Today is Christmas Eve and my heart is so heavy and so sad. I’ve never had a brother, but my cousin Leon feels like a brother to me. He was so good to my dad when he was in assistant living. I would take Leon so he could cut my dad’s hair. At one time, I think he was cutting every man’s hair that lived there. Then when Charles got so bad, Leon would come over every night and just sit and talk to Charles. He kept Charles’ hair cut and also shaved him. One night Leon was coming in and Charles said, Leon is that you? Leon of course said yes. Charles said, “I love you Leon.” I can still hear Leon laugh as he said, “well Charles I love you too!” Then Charles said, “But Leon, I REALLY LOVE you!” Charles was not the type to show his emotions like that, and I will never forget it. Leon is a year younger than me, and Leon always liked to tell everybody that. Of course, it isn’t even a full year. After Charles died, Leon and I became very close. He helped me with so many things at my house, and he also went with me to some places. One morning he went with me when I was having some blood work done. When I came out, he said, “Let’s go to Nancy and Bobby’s house.” I called to make sure they were home and off we went. When we would leave, we would usually be gone until dark. One night he built a great big bon fire and nobody would sit down there with us. We sat by the fire and talked and talked. His granddaughter, Kristin, said we were just alike. I asked her, how? Kristin said, “You and Poppy just strike up conversations with complete strangers.” A couple of months ago, Leon and Debbie learned something terrible—cancer. I’ve never seen anyone go down so fast. I’m losing one of my best friends. I just can’t understand why, but I know that God’s timing is never our timing. My mother-in-law told me one time that if you live long enough, you will see more and more of your friends and family die. I’m beginning to see that more and more. I can only say that it is not easy. There are no words to describe the pain and the sense of not knowing what to do. I told Leon today that I loved him, and he responded back to me, “I’ve always loved you.” He reached up and held my hand. Oh Leon, I feel so much at a loss. I thought we had a bunch more years to have fun. I guess God wants you more. DR 12/24/13

Fantasies

We all have fantasies or sometimes I have called them my dreams. One of my fantasies is to be able to do the Viennese Waltz. I can picture myself in a beautiful long flowing gown and gliding all over a marble type floor with a wonderful dance partner. I have learned to do the basic steps in a waltz, but I would love to be able to be an expert. Well, so much for that fantasy. But, who knows, it may come true. Sometimes our fantasies do come true, only to become a nightmare. You may have had some of those. Even though you have had some to materialize and not really be as wonderful as you had imagined, don’t give up. Don’t stop dreaming. What do you think the most about? If you’re like me, you become too busy to even think about dreaming or fantasizing. Life with all of its complications may have become too much of a hassle. I had dreamed of a lifetime with my husband—well that didn’t work out. I went through a time of wondering what do I do now? So, here I go again, dreaming of what could happen in the “golden” years of my life. I can still remember my mother saying that whoever called these the golden years must have been crazy, because all my mother had seen was “rust.” We can get that way, thinking that life has dealt us a bad hand. My mother lived a long life and she only had a few years that were bad and actually the last few she didn’t even know how bad it really was and I’m very thankful for that. Well, fantasies/dreams? What are yours? Think about it. DR 9/17/13

Cell Phone Blues

I never really knew how much I was attached to my cell phone until the unthinkable happened. I’ve heard stories of other people who have dropped their phone in the lake or dropped it and it shattered or a bunch of other crazy stories, but for me to drop my phone into the toilet was absolutely one of the craziest things I’ve ever done. I never put my phone in my back pocket, but I did. I forgot it was there and well, you can imagine the rest. I dried it off, used a hair dryer, put it in rice over night. Nothing worked. My phone was dead. I had just gotten my phone about 2 months ago. I need my phone because of my work. The first thing I did was get a temporary phone. It took me all day to just learn to “answer” a call. Then, of course, the laughter of my friends—well, family. My family thought it was hilarious. My cousin even had the sound of my phone hitting the water—which by the way, I did not hear when it happened. This happened on Friday and I had to wait until Monday to get my new phone. I discovered that my insurance did not cover “water” damage. Of course, just my luck. I finally got my phone and I had a backup from my previous Iphone 4. When my daughter tried to recover it all, it required a password. Neither one of us remembered putting a password on that. We tried every password we had ever used—nothing worked. Fortunately, she recovered my apps from ITunes. She downloaded each one separately. I got most of my things back, but I also lost some things. It was a costly, time consuming, nerve wracking experience. I even bought a new cover that is waterproof, dustproof, and snow proof. Guess what? I can’t use it. I went out to show houses and my adapter for the ekey would not fit. I had to remove the cover. I just hope that Verizon will let me get my money back. My advice to all cell phone owners—this could happen to you. I never thought that I would be a victim. DR 9/6/13

Broken Dreams

I am about to tell a story about me that very few people know about. Some of the things that have been happening lately concerning pastors/churches has really brought this terrible thing back to my memory. In 1975 my husband and I quit our jobs here in Chattanooga to serve in full time ministry. We were so excited. We had made several visits to this church and felt that God was really calling us there. I knew after about a week or two that we might be in a situation that was going to be bad. We arrived at the church to go visiting. The pastor called my husband into another room and told him that I could not go on visitation because my dress was too short. Evidently he saw me when I was getting out of the car and my skirt must have been above my knees. Regardless, my skirt was below my knees when I stood up. Anyone who knew me back then knew that I was a very conservative person. I made all of my clothes and made sure that they were not offensive in any way. I had to sit there until everyone got back. I felt so humiliated. After we got home, the pastor’s wife called me and asked me why I was trying to entice her husband. Entice her husband???? Today I would have told her that if I wanted to entice somebody they would not be old, fat, bald, and wear ugly black glasses. As we stayed, every three months the pastor would call both of us in. I wasn’t even on the payroll but I got a lecture every three months. We could not do anything right. I could go into so much detail as to a lot of the things that happened, but as time went on, we knew that it didn’t matter how we left, it would be terrible. We learned that the pastor had stood a deacon and his entire family in front of the church and told all of the terrible things they had done and had the church vote them out. The previous associate pastor and his wife had to stand in front of the church while the pastor proceeded to tell all of the bad things they had done. The church not only voted them out, but went to their house and sat all of their furniture out in the yard. We heard these stories when we visited members trying to get them to come back to church. We knew that this would happen to us—there was no way of getting out of it. So my husband resigned at a deacon’s meeting. The pastor got so angry that he turned blood red and threw his glasses across the table. He said you can’t. My husband said, I just did and walked out. The pastor lost his chance to stand us in front of the church. The next week was like a week in hell. We proceeded to get all of our things packed and get out of the house. Oh, did I forget to tell that by this time I was teaching kindergarten there and I dearly loved all of those children. The pastor went to each family and told them what a bad person I was. After we got back to Chattanooga we received an 11 page letter written by the pastor. He went into detail about all of the things that he thought we had done so badly. He made copies of that letter and handed it out to every church member and also mailed that same letter to several pastors here in Chattanooga. I took the letter to my attorney and he told me that this man must really be crazy because the things he wrote were just crazy. I wanted to sue him so bad for slander but my attorney said that this man would probably love to have a good fight. He said to ignore it and it would probably drive him crazy. I don’t know who went crazy because I had nightmares every night and had to go on nerve medicine. I couldn’t believe a man of God could treat anyone like he was treating us. We truly thought that we would be serving God and instead it felt like we went straight to hell. It didn’t even end there. When we finally decided to move our “letter” to a church here in Chattanooga, we told our pastor that he would probably get that 11 page letter. Well not only did he get that one but the pastor wrote another personal letter. He outlined how the church had grown while we were there and how it dropped off to half its size when we left. Did he not realize that he was the cause of the loss of membership? We didn’t talk to anyone there except one deacon and his family whom we had gotten close to. We knew that the people loved us. During the summer they filled our car with vegetables. At Christmas my high school girls’ Sunday school class took me to Montgomery for dinner and gave me a present. They loved going on visitation with me. Oh, and about my high school girls class. One of the girls got pregnant. She was the daughter of one of the deacons. The girls and I wanted her to know that we loved her so we planned a baby shower. I got a phone call from the pastor. He told me that not only could I not give her a shower but I could not attend a shower or give her a present. It would be like the church putting its ok on premarital sex. I told him that God had forgiven her and so had we. He said you heard what I said. After we left that church this girl married the baby’s father. They had a little girl. One night it was raining and they ran off the road and hit a telephone pole and killed all three of them plus another friend in the back seat. I wanted to go to her funeral, but guess who was going to do the funeral? You guessed right the same pastor who said I couldn’t give her a baby shower. I lived in fear of this man until after I had married Charles. Charles and I had gone back to the church we got married in for a homecoming. The pastor who married us had moved to Georgia but he was the preacher that day. I told Charles we had to go to let him know we were still married and happy. The church was packed. They introduced some of the preachers there and the first one was, you guessed it, my biggest fear was right there in that church! I told Charles I had to speak to him after the service. I went over to the fellowship hall where everyone was eating and I went up to him and he stood up to shake my hand. He kept looking at my name tag and I introduced myself as Diane Rizzo but you know me better as Diane Gasaway. I had a death grip on his hand. I could tell he wanted to let go. His wife looked down at her plate and never looked up at me. I smiled so big at him and it was like the heaviest weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I faced my fear and I think he was actually afraid of me. Charles told me he wished he could have video taped his face. He said his expression changed from smiling to like he wanted to bolt and run. Well, I’ve told most of this story. But I just think that Christians don’t act like that. It took me a long time to recover, but it taught me a lesson. We answer to God. Not all Christians are really Christians. We should pray and help one another. There was only one perfect person, Jesus, and I am certainly not even close to perfect. I try to treat others the way I would like to be treated. I have found that kindness outweighs any ugly words that you can ever say to another person. This was hard for me to write. It is tough sharing something this humiliating. But, it became a stepping stone. I never want to set myself up as judge and jury against someone. Would Jesus had treated anyone like that? And there you have one of my broken dreams. DR 8/23/13

Dunkin' Donuts

Construction started a couple of months ago on Signal Mountain Road beside the new Zaxby’s and Baskin Robbins. I had heard that it would be Starbucks and I’m really not crazy about Starbucks. Today I passed by and the signs were up—Dunkin’ Donuts. I immediately thought back to something that happened years ago. One night Charles and I had a terrible argument. It must not have been too serious because I don’t even remember what it was over. Anyway, we were in our Chattanooga apartment and he stormed out and it was 11 p.m. After about an hour when he didn’t come back, I started calling our house on Lookout Mountain. I thought he was probably being stubborn and just not answering. So, I got into my car, I had an RX7 at the time, and drove home. Boy at 1 o’clock in the morning going down that mile long driveway was really scary. I parked and the house was all dark and no Charles. I went into the house just to check and see if he had been there, but it didn’t look like it. I left to go back to Chattanooga. I got to the foot of the mountain when a Nissan truck flew past me. I thought there he goes. So I turned around and went back up the mountain and went down that dark driveway again and when I got to the house, still no Charles. I got back into my car and headed toward Chattanooga. By this time, I was praying and asking God to please keep him safe. All the time I was still calling his cell phone and the phone in Chattanooga. I was beside myself until I turned into the driveway and there sat Charles’ truck and the lights inside were all off. I burst into the door turning on the lights and asking him where he had been. He said he didn’t want to talk about it and just come to bed. I didn’t want to come to bed, I wanted to know why he wouldn’t answer any phone. He just said, come to bed. So reluctantly I went to bed and in the stillness and quietness and darkness, I realized where he had been. I asked, “What kind of donut did you have with your hot chocolate?” He giggled and said “Toasted Coconut, how did you know?” I said “That’s the only place open this late.” So, all was well. I had to get up early to meet a friend for breakfast at the Cracker Barrel. It was my birthday. She handed me my card and it said, “To my warm and crazy friend.” I laughed and said, do you want to know how crazy??? DR 8/21/13

Dreams

I shared a flash dance of a waltz by Tchaikovsky on Face Book. It put me in my fantasy world of being able to waltz to that. I’ve always wanted to be able to dance and if I could just waltz to that, it would be wonderful. But, there is at least one thing that I need to do to copy the dream. I need to be in a beautiful long, flowing dress. I could picture myself waltzing this time because I have learned how. When I listen to classical music it always puts me in another world. It puts me in the world of dreams and hopes and where everything is wonderful. It takes me back in time. I can remember as a little girl I loved to read because I could become the character in my books and live that fantasy. Where do all of our hopes and dreams go? Why do we not hold onto them? I guess the reality of life sets in. That’s why it’s so wonderful when you listen to songs like this, you can close your eyes and all of a sudden you’re in a different world. DR 8/15/13

Worry

I don’t know why I have this problem of “worry.” I seem to worry about everything. I worry if I look ok. I worry if I’m going to say something to somebody and they take it wrong. I worry that somebody may not like me. I want everybody to like me, but I know there must be some people who probably hate me. I have to admit that I don’t have anyone in my life that I hate. I do worry that I will not find someone to spend the rest of my life with. I don’t worry about that as much as I used to though. It seems the longer that I am alone, the better I like it. I think that you have to like yourself and enjoy your own company. I seem to get along with myself pretty well. I worry about my daughter, son-in-law, and I especially worry about my grandsons. So far, I think I have two wonderful grandsons and they are good. Oh, they have their moments, but they are always good to me. When I need hugs, I just go over to Christi’s and get plenty of them there. They tell me I look good, and I think everybody needs to hear that every once in a while. I’ve never thought that I’m pretty, so I try to make up for it in personality. Well, I worry about that too. Sometimes I think I talk too much, and I worry about that, but Chloe never talks to me, so if I talk a lot to you, I apologize in advance. Just tell me to shut up. Then I’ll worry about you telling me to shut up. Do you get where I’m going? I worry about any and everything. Oh, how I wish I could never worry about anything, but that wouldn’t be me. Well, now that I’ve said all of this, I’ll worry about what people will say about all of the things I’ve said about worry. Oh well…… DR 8/10/13