I say yes, you say no, OR People are Strange

Anonymous

CLC - toasting, with my huge mug of hot green tea to your having a BORING, ROUTINE ( b4 bc) year, as the beginning of many more.  Less stress, more ease, and GOOD HEALTH

Riley - happy new home. Happy new noises, which will soon disappear and happy YOUR OWN BED, and decorating.

Barbara - good to know you are still with us, and thinking of you - hoping job is better or even better, a new job?

Athena - loved the video, Notself too - especially the SHOES, even I could wear those shoes;-)

Anyone who loves fashion ever watch the TV series: The House of Eliot.  My favorite clothes, not for my sausage shaped body, but I LOVE LOVE LOVE the look to look at.

Here's to a wonderful convention week - less rain for those who don't need it, and more for those who do.  Ours is on the way - had to pick all my sun gold tomatoes (12 plants!) even the green ones to hopefuly ripen indoors, as that damned blight is here, again.  Somehow the jerusalem artichokes ( sun chokes) which I dug down to 3 feet to remove last year, are still alive and thriving ( I give up, they can have that part of the garden) next to my bedroom window, and are attracting the MOST amazing birds: male indigo buntings, male gold finches( don't know where the females are, maybe duller so I don't see them?) to the 7 foot high leaves & bugs.  Amazing...to watch them inches from the window screen munching bugs on the "branches" of the chokes - which will soon all have yelow flowers.

Will dig them up AGAIN in the Fall well after the frost, and cook the roots ( the edible parts) - but know they won't give up ;-)  so trying to learn to just let them be....

QuinnCat

CLC - I admire you teachers.  The hardest of jobs, the pay not any where commenserate with the stress and amount of work and just the fact that you always always have to be "on."  Here's to a suprisingly good school year that you haven't even imagined yet!!

lassie11

I especially like the first day of school after retiring from a 30+ years career. Some friends and I are planning a road trip for the first day of school, tomorrow. Because we can.

YramAL

"Here's to a suprisingly good school year that you haven't even imagined yet!!" Kam-I love this! I found myself saying to a co-worker the other day, "I hope we don't have any surprises this year-there's always something..." That's not a very good attitude to start the school year with-I like yours better!

CLC-Are you sure we don't work in the same school district? Yours sounds just like mine! It's amazing how many admins it takes to make sure the rest of us don't get out of hand.

As for links with cancer-mine will forever be the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and the lead up to my 50th birthday.

Mary 

CLC

I loved Kam's wishes, too!  Thanks, Kam!

Mary...here is hoping that we both have lots of lovely surprises.  Maybe if we look for them, and ignore the bad one's, we will have a great year!  

Anonymous

Read on the active threads, Marybe is sadly, sadly very sick.  Barbara has flown to be with her.

Our ( I know everybody knows her) thoughts are with both of you.  Barbara, travel safely, and carry our love with you.

kira1234

Good luck to all  of us this school year. Mine didn't start to well. We had a major water pipe leak that flooded half of the school. What a mess. The day of open house the school stunk to high heavens. Then last week Monday our principal had a stoke. So now we are waiting to find out how long he will be gone.

We are also dealing with lots of cuts.

CLC

Oh, no...Marybe...:(

Sunflowers, thank you for posting.  Safe travels, Barbara.

pupmom

I'm really worried about Marybe. She is such an incredible woman and inspiration to us all. So glad Barbara will be there for her. Praying she will overcome this difficulty. 

YramAL

I am so sorry to hear about Marybe. She is such a strong presence here on these boards. I'm glad Barbara is able to go be with her. 

kira-that's exactly the kind of surprises I was talking about. There's always something, but as my husband keeps telling me, that's just life, I guess. Here's to an uneventful rest of the school year for you.

Mary 

QuinnCat

I never interacted with Marybe, but certainly remember her avatar. My heart goes out to her, her family and friends, both near her and at BCO.

3monstmama

Good morning!

I am not happy with environmental issues, I am not happy with the modifications to the original health care initiative.  But I view the problem not as being a failure of the President but a fine example of what happens when you have a President of one party and legislature of the other.  I am crossing my fingers that a few more Senate and House seats turn over to the democrats in November.

That said I never considered sitting out the election--alas! if life has taught me anything its that it CAN always get worse 

gardengumby

good morning (barely) all.  I had no idea there were so many teachers both past and present on this board.  I give you all my fondest thanks.  You chose a path that I wouldn't have chosen in my wildest dreams.  Teachers are the most underappreciated and underpaid group of necessary devoted people on the face of the earth in my opinion.  Good for all of you that you chose (and stuck with!) such a difficult career.

I believe most people have been somewhat disappointed with Obama, and I count myself among them.  The fault, however, does not, I believe lie with him.  It lies rather with too high an expectation, and too deep a need on the part of Democrats and other non-wonkers, to see a return to sanity in the White House and government at large.  We all (well, I) tend to forget that he  is just one person and cannot make changes without the legislature.  He had a legislature that didn't want to do anything other than block him - so they could (as they are) then claim that he didn't accomplish what he promised.  It never crossed my mind, though to not vote for him again, though for awhile, my husband threatened to sit this one out - after Romney's pick of Ryan, though, that changed in a BIG hurry!!

And, of course, as someone else stated, Obama was never very far left.  He is a centrist and the "change" that he hoped to accomplish was to bring some level of accord back to government.  It took him too long (IMO) to realize that the Republicans did not have governance in mind.  They wanted to block Obama.  Period.  Full stop.

crazy4carrots

Despite the current meme going the rounds that the President didn't get much done these last 3+ years, check out the following:

 

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/09/01/a-long-list-of-president-obamas-accomplishments-with-citations/

 

 

So very, very sorry to hear about Marybe.  I did follow some of her threads and was always encouraged by her good sense and her optimism in her posts.  Sending warm and loving thoughts to her and to her family. 

gardengumby

THANK-YOU, Linda.  I very much appreciate the link, and will use it myself.  Like I said in my earlier post, the disappointment that many feel is in part from ridiculous (looking only at myself) expectations.  The other part is that when we hear unendingly (from Republicans, admittedly) that he didn't do anything, well...  unfortunately, the Republicans do the lie thing for a reason - it does work.  If you hear something often enough, you start to believe it. 

Thanks again for a slap of reality. 

crazy4carrots

Oh my dear Gumby -- absolutely no "slap" intended! 

1Athena1

Sorry to hear about Marybe - great that she has so many people around her who love her. That's the best one can hope for at life's end.

IllinoisLady

I think I owe an apology.  I knew Marybe was having big problems early yesterday and had no idea so many people knew her here as well.  I'm so sorry for not saying anything.

Linda....I'm also glad to see this list you gave the link for.  I knew the Pres. had done a fair amt. of things, but I was incredulous at the number.  Nice to see that and get a little boost of faith.  Thanks.

Jackie

kira1234

Barbara has just gotten to Marybe's bedside.

Anonymous

Ruthbru quoted a line on the last thread Marybe posted on, and I was SO MOVED by it, I looked up the source, and it's the following poem by Rossiter Raymond( 1840-1918)

Death is Only an Horizon   Rossiter W. Raymond ( 1840- 1918)

O God, who holdest all souls in life;
and callest them unto thee as seemeth best:
we give them back, dear God,
to thee who gavest them to us.
But as thou didst not lose them in the giving,
so we do not lose them by their return.
For not as the world giveth, givest thou, O Lord of souls:
that which thou givest thou takest away:
for life is eternal, and love is immortal,
and death is only the horizon,
and the horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight.

Rossiter was a mining engineer, as well as author, and many other "professions."  Most of his work was destroyed in a fire, and this poem, is mostly how he's remembered by many.  There's just something, regardless of religious belief, which really resonates for me in his words.  Each of us, probably more than most, have had to say goodbye to a friend we met on these boards.  In some way, I hope it is comforting to more people - I can still see a wild soul wearing a pink haired wing on the back of a motorcycle, telling us about McDreamy, and Marybe with all she was going through, taking the time to share the "mistakes" of her bc journey to help others hopefully avoid some of the same pitfalls. SO many, many, many wonderful women - I still think of Robin Wendy often too...

This disease just sucks, and I am especially torn apart by this new goodbye.

riley702

There is a - not a poem, exactly. I think it's actually part of a sermon on the subject of death. It struck me so much, I had it printed out and framed and placed it on my father's casket. I have it still, and it will one day stand on my coffin.

"Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just around the corner. All is well. Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was before. How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!" - Henry Scott Holland

IllinoisLady

Riley......that piece, along with the Raymond poem are both very touching  and I feel a resonance.  I tend to see someone's passing as not so much of a death, but a transition, or I guess you say a leave-taking of the soul from the body that was needed for the soul's existence here.  Of course, I feel we are forever and so the "soul" would see time as passing much faster than we who are "living" do.....at least while we need to live in a body. 

I still dearly miss many people and am just as sad when the leave-taking begins, but have very ambivalent feelings too.  Thanks for posting that.  It is a very loving tribute to your father.  I can see it as truly and deeply comforting.

Jackie

duckyb1

The Holland piece was read at my husbands funeral Mass by my oldest son............it was so beautiful, and many tears were shed when it was spoken by him........................he died on Sept. 2nd, and was buried 1 week later..........so many discussions about Pancreatic cancer, and now these poems which are so familiar to me, brings back memories of those days, even though it was 21 years ago......................the hurt never goes away.........................it just becomes more bearable.......................love you all

Prayers for Marybe..........

bluedahlia

Marybe reached out to me in pm last year when I was being attacked by some.  A true class act.  Godspeed Marybe.

duckyb1

Blue.............hope your doing well................I need to come here more often.........your a great bunch......hugs

bluedahlia

Our door and bar is always open!

alexandria58

I don't know Marybe, and i feel the poorer for it.  She has the greatest of all treasures: friends who care for her.

Peace.

Belinda44

Praying for a miracle for Marybe. 

Reading those touching poems on the previous page, I'm reminded of one that has brought me comfort.

Parable of Immortality
by Henry Van Dyke

"I am standing by the seashore.
A ship at my side spreads her white sails to
the morning breeze
and starts for the blue ocean.
She is an object of
beauty and strength,
and I stand and watch
until at last she hangs like a
peck of white cloud
just where the sun and sky come down to mingle with each
other.

Then someone at my side says, 'There she goes!
Gone where?
Gone from my sight - that is all.

She is just as large in mast and hull
and spar
as she was when she left my side
and just as able to bear her
load of living freight
to the places of destination.
Her diminished size
is in me, not in her.

And just at the moment when someone at my side
says,
'There she goes! ' ,
there are other eyes watching her coming,
and other voices ready to take up the glad shout :
'Here she comes!'"

GatorGal

I love all the poems that have been shared. Today has been a day of tears. Just not wanting to lose another dear sister right now .... Marybe is one very special friend to so many.

Anonymous

Hello, all, just wanted to make sure we all know where Barbara is now:

http://community.breastcancer.org/forum/69/topic/779235?page=41#idx_1223