In Repose Blog

Mom is on the Mend

Things are improving for my mom. She is out of the hospital and in a nursing facility working on being able to walk again.

I am certain your prayers have something to do with that fact.

Thank you--
Candace

A Break for In Repose

Literally.

My mother has broken her pelvis. I am off to be with her. Then when I return, there is graduation and all of its festivities and visitors from out of town. I will resume posts when life settles down a bit.

Should you be the type to pray, or send intentions for healing, please send my mother your best. Her name is Eve Craw and she lives in Wichita Kansas.

Thanks--
Candace

20 Years Ago Today...

I lost my brother and only sibling. My parents lost their only son. Everything about life changed April 2, 1989.

Everything.

I can easily remember the shock and the pain and all that was horrible about my brother's death, even with the passing of 20 years. I am sure my parents can as well.

But I don't want to focus on that today. Today,  I want to remember him as my little brother. The person I grew up with. The person who I rode bikes with and built forts together and had snowball fights with. The person who could make me laugh, no matter what. The person who once took a spanking from our Dad for something that I did.

Here is Randy on his 6th birthday I think, which was in 1969. I was 7 and a half. Look at my pink candy-striped dress. I really loved that dress. Randy wore a red clip on bow tie. We really got dressed up for the occasion.

To my left are the Brittain boys, Derk and Brent. I am afraid I don't remember the other boys to Randy's right, but check out the fella in green plaid, all helpful with the blowing of the candles.

Randy was a really good kid. He was a really good person when he was all grown up too.

We miss him so much. Its a shame the world only had him for 26 years.

Where were you in 1967?

I was six and in first grade. I lived in Kansas with my mom and my little brother. My dad was some place far away called "Viet Nam".

One April day my mom answered the telephone. It was the local newspaper. They asked her how she felt about her husband's jet being shot down out of the sky. I think I was standing behind her in the hallway. I think I felt the air being sucked out of the house.

I was only six but I had a fair notion about what war was and what it meant. I watched some tv news, I looked to see if I saw my dad's face in the news footage while Walter Chronkite talked. I knew some kid's dads came home before they were supposed to. Some of them came in boxes, some came all bandaged up. I didn't know for a little while if my dad got the box or the bandage.

I still remember how that felt to my stomach. The good news was dad was alive. They were talking about cutting off his leg, but he was alive and he was coming home with bandages and not in a box. Here is one of the photographs that landed in the local paper.

I saw other things on the news too. I knew there were people called "hippies" who did things like march for peace. Peace sounded like a good idea to me, if the people who were shooting at my dad would consider the idea a good one too. There was also rock and roll on the radio and this song by a group named "Hair". Remember?

When the Moon is in the seventh house

and Jupiter aligns with Mars.

Then peace will guide the planets

and love will steer the stars

At dawn on 14^th February the day dedicated to St Valentine, the patron saint of Love, the Moon in Libra enters the seventh house of relationships. And Jupiter and Mars are aligned in Aquarius in the twelfth house of spiritual transformation.

We actually then, now begin this age of Aquarius. Read more here.

The suggestion is that at 7:25am GMT, or at 7:25am your own local time, you might want to join with others to give a few minutes of your time and attention, and therefore your vibration, however you feel appropriate, to the dawning of Aquarius.

Seems like a lovely Valentine's morning thing to do.

P.S. Don't forget to tell your friends, especially your Radical Muslim friends, or maybe any Mexican Drug Cartel members you happen to pal around with, you know, lets get those kind of people involved.

Till Death do us Part, Part, Part.

As it happens I had lunch in Austin yesterday with four women I had just met.

One was a former Marine. Who was a former pastor. Who was actually talking about how many ministers and pastors she knew who deceived their wives and had affairs with congregation members.

No one at the table seemed surprised at anything said so far.

Until she continued by saying, "I mean, its not like I am not willing to accept open relationships, Heck, I have two husbands AND a wife!" She held up a hand that held multiple wedding bands.

I chewed one more bite of my greek salad, and swallowed. No one said anything for a few seconds. I then asked if she wouldn't mind repeating that last part  as I wasn't quite sure if she said she HAD or HAS two husbands and a wife.

"Oh I said have,"  Explaining a bit further she elaborated that she and her husband met and married another couple last year and they all live happily in one big house.

Whatever works, I say.

Only in Austin!

Thoughts on Embalming

Mostly my personal thoughts have been against embalming, and speaking about my own body, I probably still would not choose to preserve my flesh. But after attending a funeral last week, of the lovely baby pictured in the August 19 entry, I am rethinking the entire concept.

The little boy only lived a short while. He had many people in the room with him just after his birth and during his death. Friends and family and loved ones of his parents. Many people got to say hello and goodbye, with his first and his last breaths. Many many more people came to say hello and goodbye a few days later at the visitation and the funeral as well. Embalming allowed those who were NOT at the hospital a chance to do the same thing, face to face.

I have to say that in this case, the services were probably nicer for everyone, especially his parents, with the baby right there with them, than they might have been with a closed casket or an urn of ashes.

This family was a remarkable one. In the midst of the death of their child, they managed to celebrate his short life and the good things that came of it.

I was most honored to be there.

Our Family's "Container" Part 3

Here is the photograph I snapped while leaving Mrs. Brackman's current house and my own long ago home. On its face it is a very unremarkable image. But to ME, its almost magical. Its not easy to see because of the trees, but this story is about that pink house in the middle, that, and a dream I had when I was 11.

First, a little background: As a child I saw many strange things. (Heck, I still see odd things but, thats a story for another day!) Mostly I saw them when I was alone, playing. Sometimes I saw them when my brother and I were playing together, and yes, he saw them too.  I had many dreams and an active imagination. I still do. (Just ask my husband.)

Sometimes when I was young I would tell my mom of the things I would see or hear or feel. Often, my mother would tell me I was just dreaming or imagining or whatever. She told me what I saw was not real. She would tell me my dreams were just dreams, and their story lines meaningless to reality.

I don't blame my mother for dampening my exuberance in describing some of these fantastic sights and experiences, its what most mothers would do, and rightly so.

But there were a few times I insisted she listen to me about what I saw or dreamed about. I wonder if she remembers this one! When I was about 11, and right before we moved from Kansas to this neighborhood in Florida I had a series of memorable, remarkable dreams.

I would have a dream and, in the next day or two, it would materialize in front of my eyes. It was never a dream about anything big or scary or important. It was almost always a very regular, mundane type of dream that would just happen to me in real life after the fact. It was quite amazing. I never knew which of my dreams would become real, there was no timing to them or special quality...nothing really at all, except they would as a film might, just repeat themselves in front of my eyes just as they had in my dream, much to my utter astonishment.

So back to the story: When my mother and father went ahead to Florida to find a home for us, my brother and I stayed in Kansas with friends. While my parents were gone I had this dream of a house. It was very detailed and I could not wait to tell my mom. I knew it was likely to be one of the precognitive dreams (although at the time I had no word for such a thing) I had been having. I was sure I dreamed about our new home!

My mother called us when they picked out a house. She started to tell me about it over the phone. I stopped her before she even started. I told her that I dreamed about the house and I already knew what it looked like and I was going to prove to her I was having dreams that would come true.  I told her to wait to tell me any details until I told her about the dream I had about our new house.

I described the dream. I said, it was night time and dark. I said, there was a door on the right side of a V shaped roofline where one side was rocks in a jumble and the other was wood with a door, and the door was orange. I said there was a yellow light next to the door and also two similar lights by the garage door. I said there was one square window between these two doors and there was a little brown dog that stayed by the front door and barked. I paused and waited. Then I asked my mom to describe our new house. She did, and of course she described something completely different. Our house, she said, was a white house on a high driveway, with a green door, no dog, an iron porch rail, nothing sounded like my dream at ALL.

I really felt defeated.

I was sure, just sure, that I had dreamed of the place that we were going to live. It was so real, so solid in my mind. I was crushed that I was not describing our house and also that I was not proven accurate with my "wild imagination" and dreams that became reality. But, I got over it.  I had other things to deal with. Leaving my home of 7 years, and my PONY whom I loved more than almost anything, at the age of 11 was not an easy thing to do. I put the dream out of my mind.

Until, that is, we drove up to our new home in Tampa in 1972. It was night time. We walked up the driveway and I got my first look at our new home. I remember being very tired and carrying at least one of our cats in a make-shift carrier of a pillowcase toward the front door. My parents busied themselves looking for the key. I turned around, just at the place where I took this photo and looked at the view from the front porch.

There, directly across the street was the house that I dreamed about. I remember the surprise registering in my belly while taking in the details. It is pink now, and the door is white, but in 1972 that house was brown. It had an orange door, and there was a little brown dog barking wildly that night at our car. He was barking at the new family on the block who just drove in from Kansas and who were bone-weary and unlocking the door to a new life in here in Florida.

As I recall I tried to point out to my mother that the house directly opposite of ours was the house I dreamed about, and the house I told her about.  I don't believe she paid much attention and of course she was tired too, and busy with umpteen other things any adult would be busy with when starting a new life in a new state in a new house.

I kept my thoughts pretty much to myself after that, but I have never, ever stopped paying attention to my dreams.

Our Family's "Container" Part 2

Mrs. Brackman was so kind and welcomed me, an utter stranger with a camera, right into her home, and smiled the entire time. I can't believe its because she remembered what I looked like. Thirty five years tends to change a person, especially if that person was only 12 at the time.

Happily, she was a trusting soul and I walked in, assuring her I would not take up much of her morning. I asked permission and took this photo almost immediately...So quickly as a matter of fact the original suffers a bit from camera shake.

My parents will find the photo interesting in that they can see the house has had some serious upgrades. Where there was once mediocre wall-to-wall shag carpet there now exists lovely tile and deep wood accents. Those stairs used to be carpeted as well. Shag was everywhere, it was the 70's you know.

The first thing I saw in my mind's eye was a late afternoon scene of long ago, the old RCA tv in the corner of the room playing Gilligan's Island or maybe The Brady Bunch Show and me and Randy laying around on the sofa or floor eating Doritos while the afternoon sun beamed in strongly from the patio door there on the right, probably just another day after school. I recalled Randy's laughter and some chasing games around this banister on the left, and generally good and easy times with bikes in the driveway and beach sand in our Keds and friends in the yard and meals on the dining room table behind me.

But then I allowed myself to really look at the stairs. These stairs are really very important to me. They represent proof to me of the soul's ability to exist apart from the human body.

There is a room down these two little stairs to the left. We used it as a den. It was there, 35 years ago where I laid very ill and something amazing happened to me. I blogged about it months ago, in this post called Are You Afraid to Die?

So standing there really was quite a culmination of feelings. This was our family home. This is where I played with my late brother whom I still miss with aching regularity.  This, though, this spot is the physical path my soul journeyed away from my body and absolutely proved to me that I could indeed exist without it, and so assures me that I have every reason to believe that I WILL see my brother again, and we all have a shot at existing without our physical selves.

It happened 35 years ago but I remember every tiny detail as vividly as any other in my life, and I will always believe now, in life after death.

Mrs. Brackman beamed a sweet smile and pat my arm gently as I wiped away the tears from my eyes and swallowed hard and sighed harder.

After thanks and goodbyes and as I walked to the rental car where Lauren was waiting for me I took one final photograph from a very specific place on the front porch. It has to do with another out-of-body experience that I had when I was 11. I will tell you about that one in my next post.

(To be continued...)

Our Family's "Container" Circa 1972

This Tampa Florida house was where my family lived for a short while in 1972-73. I was 11 and 12 years old at the time. My brother was 9 and 10. If you can make out the figures, thats me on the left in the photograph with my dog Toby and my friend Stephanie. The cat in the driveway was named Old Man.  (My dad still owns both of those cars, by the way.)

Traveling to Sarasota, my daughter and I flew into Tampa and I made sure to plan to save enough time to drive by the old house and neighborhood before getting to the airport for our return flight. Even though I had been back to Florida more than once, even living in Miami for a time in 1984, I had not seen this house since our family left it in 1973.

It was easy enough to find the house, and the neighborhood, while not bright and shiny new, certainly had not changed as much as it might have in 35 years. The sidewalks looked worn and the trees were bigger, but the yards were still mostly tidy and the streets quiet.

The house looked great. I think it was white when we first moved into it but my mom insisted on painting it yellow. I remember my late uncle Burshi helping with that large chore while he and my aunt Irmi came for a visit from Germany. The house was still very yellow and that made me smile. It was easily the nicest looking home on the block.

I planned on taking this photo and I hoped that somehow someone might be home if I knocked on the door.

Someone was.

The same woman who bought the  home from my parents all those years ago. Her name is Mrs. Brackman. And happily, she invited me inside, and when she did, I found myself transported back into time, and for a few minutes, I was 12 years old again.

(To be continued)

Family Heirloom

Charles Peavey's family had an unusual family heirloom; a mummified corpse of a baby. "Baby John" was lovingly passed down for generations. But a judge has ordered Baby John to be put to rest in burial because there is no DNA evidence proving kinship.

Say what? So as long as its a blood relative, New Hampshire is ok with its citizens collecting and drying dead babies?

Until police confiscated Baby John in 2006, the mummy had been on display on a bureau in the Peavey home. Relatives and friends reportedly treated the desiccated infant as a family member. He would get holiday cards and even gifts. One, he was given a dried fish.

Denying any "wierdness" going on, Peavey says he cannot afford the DNA testing the state required to be able to release the remains back to his family.

Peavey tried hard to keep "Baby John", believed to be the stillborn child of a great great uncle, in the family. "It's one of the few things from our family past that we have left. When I pass on, I was looking forward to passing  it on to another family member to keep some of the history for future family members."

Sheesh. What about an inheritance or even a stamp collection, dude?

--Thanks to Jo Dwyer for the newspaper clipping!