Tag: faith

Sweet Dreams Alice


As we spend time on this planet we all have ties. Strings to people that have crossed our paths in various chapters of our lives who are extremely important to us. To our memories. Each one of those important strings to a life, to my life, to yours, that has been knit from birth until now. Unexpected feelings of camaraderie to perfect strangers has always been such a mystery to me. Why some people cross your path and you immediately feel a bond, a sisterhood with them. Deep friendships are a very rare and cherished thing, aren’t they. I probably, in my lifetime, can count on one hand the true deep girlfriend relationships I have had in my life. 

The unfortunate twist and irony of it all is that sometimes we don’t realize how important these threads are in our past until the comfort begins to unravel. Today has been such a day for me.

 

I met Alice on my first day at the Barbizon Hotel for Women in New York where we both were staying while we went to school. She lived on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills and I was from an industrial town on the Ohio River. Our backgrounds couldn’t have been more dissimilar. Her brother was in Princeton and mine at Cincinnati University. Her father lunched at The Brown Derby and my father took his to work with him. In spite of our different beginnings, Alice and I quickly bonded. How could you not like her. She was pretty, sweet and always had a smile and a good word for everyone. 

After we each graduated from school she went back to the West Coast and wound up in San Francisco and I stayed in New York for a while and eventually when I got married settled in Pittsburgh. But throughout the years we’ve always kept in touch talking about our boyfriends, then husbands, then our children.

Throughout the years on holidays we exchanged cards and wrote from time to time, but our relationship was forged even greater when we both found a renewed closeness on Facebook. It was like having coffee with Alice every morning when I logged onto Facebook and became a part of her life once again.

Well, this morning we lost Alice and I lost one of my forever-for-life friends. Alice always was the cheerful one-always the positive one. She told me a few months ago that she was not afraid of dying. She said she just felt sad for those that she was leaving behind. She would be going on to something better. That was Alice. Cheerful and positive to the end, or maybe as she believed to the beginning.

Alice was one of those last threads to my earlier chapters and I will miss her dearly. But one of the many things about knowing Alice has taught me is don’t be afraid to live every moment of your life while you’re here. Live it with kindness. Live it with compassion. Live it with faith.

We all will miss you dear Alice. Sweet dreams my good friend.
Copyright Sandra Hart 2016

WHAT DOES MOTHERHOOD MEAN TO YOU?

  

Someone asked me recently what are the things important to you about being a mother. I never really thought about it. It just is. I’m just a mother and that’s part of my DNA once I had children. When the nurse placed my first child in my arms I became a different person – a mother first and foremost. My children’s welfare has always come before mine and no matter how old they are now, I still think about them. I share their joy’s and their burdens and I am forever subservient to their happiness.

That doesn’t mean that I had selfish desires and wants that I followed through within my life as a mother, but basically my mind is always with them. Motherhood has always been such a strong scope of identity for me. 

My husband was killed when the children were very small, so basically my family depended upon me as the sole provider for many years. Until I got back on my feet after the shock of losing my husband, sometimes we had to exist on my children’s paper routes money. We shopped at thrift shops for clothes and did without the luxury snacks that normal homes had in their cupboards. Salted carrots were a treat for my children.

This sounds so unrealistic for the successful anchor person and television personality that I had been most of my adult life. Until I relocated to New Jersey to be with my husband and his career, money was no option. When I had to return to work I quickly, very quickly, found out that once you step off of the carousel it’s very difficult to get back into a regular 9-to-5 job versus one in television. 

Why would an anchor woman want a regular job? Because I love my children and I want to be with them as much as I can. That answer didn’t seem to muster with any of my potential employers. 

For a solid year I sent out thousands of resumes without one successful result. As time droned by I was forced to ask my aging parents for a small loan just to survive. It was my worst nightmare having to do that because my parents were not wealthy people and were outliving their own resources.

Finally, in the depths of my darkest days through an employment agency, I went on a job to be a secretary. After all I did graduate from Katherine Gibbs, so at least I knew I could type. I was lousy at shorthand, but I could type. The job was an hour’s drive on the Garden State Parkway from my home, but I went praying all the way. I was at the end of my emotional and financial line. 

When the human resources person held my resume in her hands, she looked at me and said she didn’t think I was right for the secretarial job. My heart sank. Another dead end.  I couldn’t believe my life.   Then she said I would be a perfect fit for the assistant marketing manager position. 

Well, my life began again because of that smart woman. Within two years I was VP of marketing and used my television skills and celebrity contacts to travel the country promoting our company until they relocated to Los Angeles.

Because of my love for my children, my life went in another mysterious direction that eventually led me to my second husband and to my children having advantages of furthering their lives and careers that perhaps they would not have had. 

For me, letting go and letting God, is no joke. The circuitous road traveled was the right one for me and my children. 

What has motherhood done for you and what does it mean to you ?

Copyright Sandra Hart 2016 ©

 All Rights Reserved

I DON’T WANT TO DANCE THE RHUMBA

I woke up with a start. It was three o’clock in the morning and my heart was doing an unwanted rhumba in my chest. There was no pain, but the dance in my chest was frightening. I had never experienced anything like this before. 

Since my late teen years I had suffered from palpitations and it wasn’t until I was in my 50’s that I was told I had been born with extra pathways in my heart that sometimes caused my heart to palpitate. ( Not genetic, but an anomaly.) A new technique called Radio Frequency Ablation stopped my palpitations and I finally was relieved of the disruptive disorder.

This was something entirely different. Of course, it was Sunday so I knew it would be beyond a miracle if my doctor was available. Arthur and I headed for the Emergency Room at Mt. Sinai here In Miami Beach, just ten minutes away.  

My rhumba-loving heart not wanting to stop its erratic dancing, fifty-six hours later I was sedated and a proficient electro cardiologist zapped my heart back into sinus rhythm. No one knows why people experience a one – time Atrial Fibrillation. Even athletes experience AF, so it not always has to do with physical fitness. All I know it is no fun and very scary. And it also helps one put life into perspective. We are here for just a blink of an eye in relativity, so let us meander not.

Those days in the hospital gave me time to stop and look objectively at my life and how I was living it. I knew had to reinvent who I am. Tweak my innate self a bit. So from the day I walked out of Mt. Sinai I am trying to throw WORRY out the window along with my Type A personality and brought in my deep faith, Deepac Chopra, Andrew Johnson’s meditations and have embraced the love of my wonderful family.  

I continue to exercise, follow my peleo-pescatarian diet, and meditate daily. Lifelong Type A’s are hard to train, but I am trying to let go and let my Higher Power work things out for me. I’m giving up my driver’s seat, finally, after all these years. I don’t want to be one who has gotten too smart too late.