Collected Phrases and Such

As quoted from Mary Barnes Cormack, 102 years old Austin American-Statesman Tuesday, December 31, 1996

"Normal is loving someone, Stephen.  Sharing and giving, growing together.  Not everyone is capable of love.  Sometimes I think it's a real gift.  And if it is, what difference does it make whom you love?  As long as you do love?

"I see children as kites.  You spend a lifetime trying to get them off the ground.  You run with them until you’re both breathless… They crash... You add a longer tail… They hit the rooftop… You pluck them out of the spout… You patch and comfort, adjust and teach.  You watch them lifted by the wind and assure them that someday they’ll fly… Finally they’re airborne… There is a sadness that goes with the joy because the kite becomes more distant and somehow you know that it won’t be long before that beautiful creature will snap the lifeline that bound you together and soar as it was meant to soar… free and alone.  Only then do you know that you did your job."

From a 1988 column by humorist Erma Bombeck

"A friend is one to whom one may pour out all the contents of one's heart chaff and grain together knowing that the gentlest of hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away."

A section of a lyric from The Ascent of F6: a Tragedy in Two Acts by W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood.  Another similar version appears in W.H. Auden's Collected Shorter Poems: 1927-1957, which is the one, above, recited in the movie, Four Weddings and a Funeral.

Meditation read by Cary Grant

Now Lord you've known me a long time.  You know me better than I know myself.  You know that each day I am growing older and some day may even be very old.  So meanwhile please keep me from the habit of thinking I must say something on every subject and on every occasion.

Release me from trying to straighten out everyone's affairs.  Make me thoughtful, but not moody, helpful but not overbearing.

I've a certain amount of knowledge to share, still it would be very nice to have a few friends who, at the end, recognized and forgave the knowledge I lacked.  Keep my tongue free from the recital of endless details.  Seal my lips on my aches and pains:  They increase daily and the need to speak of them becomes almost a compulsion.

I ask for grace enough to listen to the retelling of others' afflictions, and to be helped to endure them with patience.  I would like to have improved memory, but I'll settle for growing humility and an ability to capitulate when my memory clashes with the memory of others.

Teach me the glorious lesson that on some occasions I may be mistaken.  Keep me reasonably kind; I've never aspired to be a saint...saints must be rather dificult to live with.  Yet on the other hand, an embittered old person is a constant burden.

Please give me the ability to see good in unlikely places and talents in unexpected people.  And give me the grace to tell them so, dear Lord.

A personal meditation read by actor, Cary Grant, at the close of his show at the Performing Arts Center, University of Texas at Austin campus.  It appeared on Page B5 of the Austin American Statesman on Tuesday, March 4, 1986, in the Ellie Rucker column.

If you're ever accused of being over-emotional, consider this observation by the sage Joseph Collins:

When you tell somebody you're going to stay home tonight, you suggest you're not going to do anything adventuresome. That's wrong, said G.K. Chesterton.

To Remember Me

At a certain moment a doctor will determine that my brain has ceased to function and that, for all intents and purposes, my life has stopped.

When that happens, do not attempt to instill artificial life into my body by the use of a machine. And don't call this my "deathbed".  Call it my "bed of life," and let my body be taken from it to help others lead fuller lives.

Give my sight to a man who has never seen a sunrise, a baby's face or love in the yes of a woman.

Give my heart to a person whose own heart has caused nothing but endless days of pain.

Give my blood to the teen-ager who has been pulled from the wreckage of his car, so that he might live to see his grandchildren play.

Give my kidneys to one who depends on a machine to exist from week to week.

Take my bones, every muscle, every fiber and nerve in my body and find a way to make a crippled child walk.

Explore every corner of my brain.  Take my cells, if necessary, and let them grow so that someday a speechless boy will shout at the crack of a bat and a deaf girl will hear the sound of rain against her windows.

Burn what is left of me and scatter the ashes to the winds to help the flowers grow.

If you must bury something, let it be my faults, my weaknesses and all my prejudice against my fellow man.

Give my sins to the devil.  Give my soul to God.

If, by chance, you wish to remember me, do it with a kind deed or word to someone who needs you.

If you do all I have asked, I will live forever.

Robert N. Test - 1976

Ten Reasons Why We Need to Hear from Our Children

P  for the Peace of mind it brings.
L  for the Longing to know that you're all right.
E  for the eagerness to hear your "hello."
A  for the Anticipation felt when the phone rings.
S  for the sound of your familiar voice.
E  for Each and Every time we get to chat.

C  for the Chance to find out what's new with you.
A  for keeping our staying in touch Alive.
L  for shortening the Long distance between us.
L  for being able to say directly, we Love you.

A Mother in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin

Ziggy, by Tom Wilson, 4/25/97

"The Austin workforce is a reflection of the original populations that settled here.  Recognizing and valuing the richness of this diversity, as evidenced by the tolerant attitudes reflected in various City ordinances, is what makes Austin a highly desirable city to call 'home'.  After all, when citizens embrace the concept of diversity they learn not only to appreciate another human being, but they also learn to understand themselves better.  The City of Austin will remain a successful and model employer as long as its employees continue to learn from each other."

from Sonnets to Orpheus by Ranier Maria Rilke:

A god can do it.  But tell me how
a man can follow him through the narrow
lyre.  The human self is split; where two
heartways cross, there is no temple to Apollo.

Song, as you teach it, is not desire, not
a wooing of something that's finally attained:
song is existence.  Easy for the god. But
when do we exist?  And when does he spend

the earth and the stars on our being?
When we love?  That's what you think when you're young;
not so, though your voice forces open your mouth, --

learn to forget how you sang.  That fades.
Real singing is a different kind of breath.
A nothing-breath.  A ripple in the god.  A wind.

SHMILY

My grandparents were married for over half a century, and played their own special game from the time they had met each other.  The goal of their game was to write the word "shmily" in a surprise place for the other to find.  They took turns leaving "shmily" around the house, and as soon as one of them discovered it, it was their turn to hide it once more.  They dragged "shmily" with their fingers through the sugar and flour containers to await whoever was preparing the next meal.  They smeared it in the dew on the windows overlooking the patio where my grandma always fed us warm, homemade pudding with blue food coloring.  "Shmily" was written in the steam left on the mirror after a hot shower, where it would reappear bath after bath.  At one point, my grandmother even unrolled an entire roll of toilet paper to leave "shmily" on the very last sheet.  There was no end to the places "shmily" would pop up.  Little notes with "shmily" scribbled hurriedly were found on dashboards and car seats, or taped to steering wheels.  The notes were stuffed inside shoes and left under pillows.  "Shmily" was written in the dust upon the mantel and traced in the ashes of the fireplace.  This mysterious word was as much a part of my grandparents' house as the furniture.

It took me a long time before I was able to fully appreciate my grandparents' game.  Skepticism has kept me from believing in true love - one that is pure and enduring.  However, I never doubted my grandparents' relationship.  They had love down pat.  It was more than their flirtatious little games; it was a way of life.  Their relationship was based on a devotion and passionate affection which not everyone is lucky enough to experience.

Grandma and Grandpa held hands every chance they could.  They stole kisses as they bumped into each other in their tiny kitchen.  They finished each other's sentences and shared the daily crossword puzzle and word jumble.  My grandma whispered to me about how cute my grandpa was, how handsome and old he had grown to be.  She claimed that she really knew "how to pick 'em."  Before every meal they bowed their heads and gave thanks, marveling at their blessings:  a wonderful family, good fortune, and each other.

But there was a dark cloud in my grandparents' life:  my grandmother had breast cancer.  The disease had first appeared ten years earlier.  As always, Grandpa was with her every step of the way.  He comforted her in their yellow room, painted that way so that she could always be surrounded by sunshine, even when she was too sick to go outside.  Now the cancer was again attacking her body.  With the help of a cane and my grandfather's steady hand, they went to church every morning.

But my grandmother grew steadily weaker until, finally, she could not leave the house anymore.  For a while, Grandpa would go to church alone, praying to God to watch over his wife.  Then one day, what we all dreaded finally happened.  Grandma was gone.

"Shmily."  It was scrawled in yellow on the pink ribbons of my grandmother's funeral bouquet.  As the crowd thinned and the last mourners turned to leave, my aunts, uncles, cousins and other family members came forward and gathered around Grandma one last time.

Grandpa stepped up to my grandmother's casket and, taking a shaky breath, he began to sing to her.  Through his tears and grief, the song came, a deep and throaty lullaby.  Shaking with my own sorrow, I will never forget that moment.  For I knew that, although I couldn't begin to fathom the depth of their love, I had been privileged to witness its unmatched beauty.

S-h-m-i-l-y........... See How Much I Love You.

~~~author unknown~~~

THOUGHTS

Maybe God wants us to meet a few wrong people before meeting the right one so that when we finally meet the right person, we will know how to be grateful for that gift.

When the door of happiness closes, another opens, but often times we look so long at the closed door that we don't see the one which has been opened for us.

The best kind of friend is the kind you can sit on a porch and swing with, never say a word, and then walk away feeling like it was the best conversation you've ever had.

It's true that we don't know what we've got until we lose it, but it's also true that we don't know what we've been missing until it arrives.

Giving someone all your love is never an assurance that they'll love you back! Don't expect love in return; just wait for it to grow in their heart but if it doesn't, be content it grew in yours. It takes only a minute to get a crush on someone, an hour to like someone, and a day to love someone, but it takes a lifetime to forget someone.

Don't go for looks; they can deceive. Don't go for wealth; even that fades away. Go for someone who makes you smile because it takes only a smile to make a dark day seem bright. Find the one that makes your heart smile.

There are moments in life when you miss someone so much that you just want to pick them from your dreams and hug them for real!

Dream what you want to dream; go where you want to go; be what you want to be, because you have only one life and one chance to do all the things you want to do.

May you have enough happiness to make you sweet, enough trials to make you strong, enough sorrow to keep you human, enough hope to make you happy.

Always put yourself in others' shoes. If you feel that it hurts you, it probably hurts the other person, too.

The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes along their way.

Happiness lies for those who cry, those who hurt, those who have searched, and those who have tried, for only they can appreciate the importance of people who have touched their lives.

Love begins with a smile, grows with a kiss and ends with a tear.

The brightest future will always be based on a forgotten past, you can't go on well in life until you let go of your past failures and heartaches.

When you were born, you were crying and everyone around you was smiling. Live your life so that when you die, you're the one who is smiling and everyone around you is crying.

Please cut and paste this message and send it to those people who mean something to you, to those who have touched your life in one way or another, to those who make you smile when you really need it, to those that make you see the brighter side of things when you are really down and to those you want to tell how much their friendship is appreciated. And if you don't, don't worry, nothing bad will happen to you; you will just miss out on the opportunity to brighten someone's day with this message.....

N I K O L A

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