Written by Dorothy Johnson of Reflections from Dorothy’s Ridge.

John Lennon said, “Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.” The longer I live, the more I know it to be true. Sometimes “what happens” is exciting and even better than our youthful dreams, but more often, life brings unexpected disappointments and even loss.

I recently spent the weekend with a childhood friend whose family has faced more personal tragedy than anyone should have to bear. Sherry’s son passed away at age 25 after suffering more than ten years with a rare genetic disorder that slowly robbed him of the ability to move and speak. Shortly afterwards, her husband began a prolonged physical battle, which he lost. Then her parents’ health began to decline, and her father died. Now her mother is disappearing into Alzheimer’s.

Although we live five hours apart, we’ve stayed in touch. Over the years, I’ve been amazed by Sherry’s courage and the grace with which she has handled each ordeal. She has always been matter of fact about their circumstances but never dwelt on their sorrow. Instead, Sherry usually found something funny or positive to share and expressed sincere interest in what was going on with the rest of us.

During this visit, we talked about her losses and how she is learning to live alone for the first time in her life. Sherry said there had been times when she thought she couldn’t bear what was happening, but she made it through because of her faith and the support of family and friends. In visiting with her daughter, son-in-law, grandchildren and some of the friends who’ve walked through these things with Sherry, I caught a glimpse of the love, joy and strength that sustained them all through those difficult times.

This courageous company reminds me of a little clump of flowers I once saw growing out of rocky ground. The surroundings looked too dry and rough to sustain life, yet the blossoms stretched upward with their faces toward the sun. That’s how I see my friend, always abloom, even in the harshest conditions. Someday soon, I hope Sherry and crew will be transplanted to a lush garden. But in the meantime, her beautiful spirit will bless others, wherever she may be!

The Lord is my strength and song … Ex. 15:2

I’m a retired Arkansas girl who should have been interviewed for Gail Sheehy’s book PASSAGES. I’ve taught junior high school English, spent time at home raising kids, worked as an associate editor at Leisure Arts, and functioned as a liaison to the community and cardiologists at Baptist Health. Now I’m trying my hand at inspirational writing, fiction and poetry.

Written by Lisa Montgomery, Owner of AWBU13 Sponsor, Pinot’s Palette

My story: On July 19 2012, I experienced a rite of passage that all of us, if we live long enough, will go through: My Mother Dear passed away, at the age of 91 just eleven days shy of her 92nd birthday. I do not take it lightly in saying that she was next to God the singular most important reason for my living. I thought I was ready…but I wasn’t. Now, whether I live ten days or ten thousand day, it will be one too many without my Mother Dear but I will live every last one that is allotted for me with the same purpose as I always have: to make my mommy proud of me and aware of the true legacy that she has left all of us. Many times in my conversations with her, she would tell me that when she died she wouldn’t have much to leave behind for her children but that she was leaving whatever that was to me, her youngest of seven, to take care of for the family.

My mother was born in 1920…poor, black and in the Deep South (Hollywood, Mississippi). She was unfortunate enough to have seen many of Lena Horne’s “Strange Fruit” hanging from the trees of her small Mississippi town. She was only permitted a fourth grade education because she was needed to help on the family’s subsistence farm of 80 acres—which ultimately was swindled from my mother’s grandfather and the family when he died in the late 1940’s. My mother married at age 17 to an abusive man 30 years her senior; she left him and subsequently raised her seven children without the assistance or support of any of our fathers (five different ones, I’m finally not afraid to share).

So fast forward to February 15, 2013–six months after losing my mom–the day I was unceremoniously downsized from my job as a University Vice President–Ph.D., 25 years of experience and all–due to “restructuring and budget challenges”. A few weeks later in March, I decided to sell my newly built 1.5 year old house; there was no way I could afford to keep it now. These three losses so close together in proximity were devastatingly difficult to fathom, but I began to think about my mother’s “legacy,” the one that she felt would be empty and consisting only of a small house on an acre of land. I thought about the courage, persistence, determination and survival skills that my mother had endowed in me just by her example alone. I decided that my purpose in life would continue to be my mother. She left 60+ grandchildren behind and they needed to know her beyond an obituary as they grow up. From February to April, I got up every day, dressed and went to the local library in Houston where I lived at the time—just as if I was going to work. I sat at the same library table every day, just as if it were the desk in my office , trying to figure out what to do. Finally, I decided and in April I formed my own C Corporation, ABM Legacy Enterprises, Inc., in honor of my mother, Annie Bell Montgomery. The first order of business for the new corporation was to purchase my first business franchise, Pinot’s Palette. My house sold in April, closed in June and two days later, I came home to Arkansas after 30 years of roaming the country to pursuing an empty and passionless career.

I am a Christian and very much believe in at least one ghost, the Holy Ghost, and one angel, my mother. Since I made this decision, I have felt my mother’s presence and love even more strongly than I did when she was alive. Through God, she has guided and protected me in some unbelievable, and sometimes, funny ways—like just recently when I tried to purchase some supplies for my new business complaining the whole time how expensive the produce was– and every time I tried to enter the zip code, the field for the city would change and vice versa. I finally gave up temporarily and started searching for some other products, only a few moments later to find the exact same product at one-eighth of the shipping costs! The logo for my company is a blue angel; my mother’s favorite color was blue angel she’s guiding me every step of the way. She would always say to me, “You’ve taken care of Mother Dear and all of us. I worry who will take care of you as you in the future.” She worried so much about, that it got me to worrying too. Now I know the answer…I love you, Mother Dear!

About Pinot’s Palette Founded in 2009 ~ Pinot’s Palette is an upscale, entertainment art studio franchise based in Houston, Texas, and combines the appreciation of art and wine through guided, step-by-step painting classes by trained local artists. Today, dozens of studios host hundreds of painters each week and the company has become one of the fastest-growing Paint and Sip franchises in the country. Pinot’s Palette of Little Rock is located in the Pleasant Ridge Town Center at 11525 Cantrell Road, Ste. 607, Little Rock, AR 72212. For more information, visit www.PinotsPalette.com.

My husband just got a new job. It was unexpected, happened very quickly, and was very nerve-racking.

You see my husband, like me, is a teacher. He has taught at the same school for the last 12 years. The same school district that he grew up in and graduated from. So altogether, he spent 24 years on that campus. That’s a LONG time!

There were some good times and some bad times but definitely more good than bad. He was unhappy with parts of his job but as a whole he loved it. He loved the kids, mostly. Because, after all, any good teacher will tell you, it has to be about the kids because it sure isn’t about the money and fame! Richie had every intention of returning to his job at the end of the summer.

I used to teach at the same school. I loved working with my husband but there were some things I was unhappy about and it just came time for me to leave. Two years ago, I took a job in a neighboring school district. The new job was the same distance (7 miles) from my house but came with a small pay raise. In the world of teaching even a SMALL pay raise can seem like A LOT of money. While the pay raise was a great bonus, it wasn’t the entire reason for my decision. Personal happiness and mental well-being were much larger factors.

Richie was never swayed by the things I was unhappy about. Perhaps because he’s a guy or perhaps because he is more laid back. I can’t be certain but what I do know is that at the end of the day he was able to let go of things a little quicker than I.

I digress. Back to the new job…

Last week, Richie got a call from a friend that there was a job opening in another school district. The school is 45 minutes from our house and there was no pay raise over his current position. He sent in his resume on a whim and said, “Why not?” when they called him for an interview the next day.

He went to the interview with only the purpose of experiencing the interview. He likes to keep on top of the type of questions people ask “just in case” he ever decides to try for a new position. He didn’t even shave and told me he was “keepin’ it real” in the interview. Whatever that means!

Low and behold, they called him and offered him the job. Richie was shocked and didn’t know what to say. After all, he hadn’t even considered that they might actually want him. He hadn’t even considered being faced with the decision of whether to take it or leave it and for the next 24 hours he fretted over the decision.

There will be no pay raise. He isn’t concerned with personal happiness or mental well-being. The fact is that the position isn’t a “better” position than his current one, it is just a “different” position. So how do you make that decision? When faced with choosing between two, for all purposes identical things, how do you decide? It’s 50/50. It’s heads or tails. It’s anything but black and white.

In the end, Richie chose to take it. Why? Simply because there was really no reason not to.

So how does that relate to our theme {Grow Where You Are Planted}? Honestly, I don’t know. But at the same time, I do.

In life, opportunities are presented to us. We can take them or we can pass them by. Choosing one over the other may not alter our destiny but they may open some doors (or windows, or crawl spaces). They may not.

Sometimes being able to grow where you are planted requires the stretching of your roots. It requires bending to reach the sun. It requires change.

Sometimes, in order to {Grow Where You Are Planted}, you have to pack up and move.

Do you have a story that relates to our August Theme of {Grow Where You Are Planted}? Send your stories to julie@arkansaswomenbloggers.com.

Bicycle riding. Cloud gazing. Tree climbing.

Sleepovers with cousins, scary movies, giggling til dawn.

Church revival, the pew hard, would the sermon never end?

Trapping lightning bugs in mayonnaise jars. Pork ribs smoking on the grill. Can we eat yet?

Hunting down the perfect stick for late night marshmallow roasts. Shooting Roman candles from the dock. Oh beautiful, for spacious skies…

Days were long. Nights were sultry. By the first fall football game, summer had evaporated in a blur of laughter, a sweet memory recorded in my diary, recorded in my mind.

What memories will you make this summer?

Talya

Follow Grace Grits and Gardening for heartfelt stories of food, farm, family and life. Talya blogs for the East-Dallas Lakewood Advocate and is a monthly contributor to Inspiration Cafe. A farm girl from Northeast Arkansas, she splits time between Dallas and Arkansas.

By Guest Blogger Margaret Rutherford, Ph.D., of NestAche.com (Member of the 2013 NWA LTYM Cast)

Maya Angelou spoke at Bill Clinton’s inauguration in 1993 as Poet Laureate.  I had just finished graduate school in Clinical Psychology, completing my dissertation,  and was about as interested in reading a poem or much less a book as I was in throwing myself in front of a truck.  But there was just something about this softspoken woman that riveted me to the TV screen.  I  knew her voice was going to be important for me.

I went several weeks later to Barnes & Noble to find one of her books to read.  I picked the very smallest one, 139 pages: Wouldn’t Take Nothing For My Journey Now.  I didn’t know if she even considered it one of her best.  It’s not lauded anywhere as that.  I didn’t care, it was short.  After reading it, I have never been able to forget it.  This simple collection of essays turned on lights for me.

I was 38 at the time.  Married, living in Fayetteville, Arkansas.  Had been reared to be a Southern belle in South Arkansas, taking three years of etiquette lessons, accomplishing such tasks at ten years old as walking with a book on my head up and down a flight of stairs, reciting Shakespeare, learning how to set a table and greeting people politely in a receiving line.  All from a lady named Mrs. Vashti Triplett, who actually lived in the house where my dad had been born.  If I recall, the house had a hole in it from a Civil War cannonball as well.  Patched up, obviously.  I was handed a girdle when I was twelve (TWELVE!!!), and I guess that was the last straw.  I refused to be a debutante–to “come out” to society.  I jokingly told my mom I was already out.  It was the early 70’s, and off I went to a fairly liberal college.

The next twenty years, in a nutshell, was a journey of finding out who I could be outside of that very strong cultural pull.  I made some good choices.  I made lots of mistakes.  And then found my path.  Which gets me back to Maya Angelou’s book.

The many essays were beautifully written, brief, to the point.  Elegant.  One on curtailing your own style if it embarrasses your emerging teenage child, just out of love for him or her.   One on stopping someone before they said something to you that, “might hurt your feelings” or “make you mad”.  “Well, then, don’t say it,” would be Maya Angelou’s point, although she described it far more eloquently than I just did.

The essay I found most profound was one where she told the story of herself at a nightclub.  She was alone, and lonely, but had just won “Person of the Week” from the New York Post and was being congratulated from those all around.  She had too much to drink and, in her own words, “… I began a performance which now, more than twenty years later, can still cause me to seriously consider changing my name and my country of residence”.  What followed in the story, although fascinating, was not as important as those words to me.  Here was this amazing woman from Stamps, Arkansas, baring her heart and soul to a nation.  Allowing herself to be seen as who she really was.  Both wise guide and, at times, confused seeker.

Why is this important?  How many people have I talked to in twenty five years now that feel like someone, one of these days, is going to find them out, that they are not really who they are chalked up to be or that they shouldn’t really be in the position they have, something like that.  That’s because they are not doing what Maya Angelou is showing us–to accept that we are both our successes and our mistakes.   The power of her voice at that moment for me was her display of self-acceptance, although still tinged with whimsical regret.

I knew exactly what she meant when she said those words about wanting to disappear from existence because of her performance.  I had had many of those moments.  Like the time I fell off the five-foot-tall high school graduation platform and splayed onto the football field in my cap and gown because I was laughing about something so hard, my eyes were closed.  My brother claimed in the stands that he didn’t know me.  Or the time that my two-year-old sobbing kid was in the back of the car, very sick, strapped in his carseat  and had thrown up in some cup I had found in the car.  It was very, very full of you-know-what, and I couldn’t think of what to do with it.  So in my utter confusion, I stopped, handed it to a lady in her front yard and asked her to throw it away.  I think about that and think, Why did I do that?  I don’t want that lady to know who I am.  She probably developed a phobia about going into her front yard.

But those are funny ones.  The ones you can tell in public.  There are some that are not funny.  That you don’t want anyone to know.  And Maya Angelou put a non-funny one down in a book.  That is what struck me as awesome that day.  I realize lots of folks do it, but her doing it that day struck me.  Her voice led me.

Her voice led me to bloom into someone who could laugh at herself more, who could accept herself more.  Who could talk about and hopefully help others talk about shame and then let that shame go.  If she could do it, I could do it.

Hence the next twenty years!  A private practice in psychology, raising a son, finally having a happy marriage, and now blogging about it all!  In the first essay “In All Ways A Woman”, Ms. Angelou writes, “… [women] must be tough, tender, laugh as much as possible, and live long lives.  The struggle for equality continues unabated, and the woman warrior who is armed with wit and courage will be among the first to celebrate victory”.  These qualities, when coupled with self-acceptance and value, are ones I strive for and are where I want my mind, heart and soul to live.

So thank you, Maya Angelou.  I wouldn’t take nothing for the journey.

About Margaret Rutherford, Ph.D.
Jingle and jazz singer, clinical psychologist, community volunteer, actor, children’s choir director and recent writer/blogger–all of these are passions that have been part of Margaret Rutherford’s life.  Add Mom, Wife, Daughter, Sister and Friend to the list, and you understand what is important to her.  She coined the term “NestAche” when her only son left for college in fall 2012, and she began writing about her experiences at http://www.nestache.com. Now living in Fayetteville, Arkansas, she continues with her private practice, works in community theater and is learning more and more about the world of blogging! Connect with her at http://facebook.com/NestAcheBlog or http://twitter.com/NestAche.