Since the inception of my blog I have always strived to post positive, personal stories.  Today I have returned stronger and with a renewed sense of purpose.  During my hiatus I got my only ever tattoo on my inner left wrist.  Every time I check my phone or pray with my daughter I am reminded of the mantra that has passed through my head this entire past year.  These three words are from a poem written by the late author and poet Maya Angelou.  I have always loved to roller skate.  Several years back I had a bad fall on that wrist after someone knocked me down.  It has not been the same since.  I had to have surgery and a plate and screws were put in.  I carry a scar there now that marks my trauma.  It was something I did not ask for, did not deserve, and did not cause.  But it happened nonetheless. There is no use looking back and wondering if I could have done something different.  It happened and I had no choice but to mend my break and move forward.  I have not let that fall define me and I still love to roller skate.  Only now if I ever fall again I will know how lo land.  That wrist can no longer be broken.  It is made of steel and can withstand just about anything.  Note the words.

Still I Rise

Someone whom I have always greatly admired, the late great Helen Keller, once said, “Your success and happiness lies in you.  Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.”  On this, the first day of the New Year, many have made resolutions.  The difference between a resolution and a resolve is different.  A resolution is defined as a decision to do or NOT to do something.  To resolve means a firm determination to DO something.  I am continually striving for the positive.  So, for instance, I would rather say I am going to eat more vegetables instead of adding a negative by declaring, “I am NOT eating sweets.”  It may seem like semantics, but I have always believed in the power of words as well as their importance.  A couple of weeks ago I fractured some toes on my right foot.  My big toe especially has hurt a lot ever since but I figured it would get better.  Our wise eleven-year-old said I had better go have it checked out because it could get even worse; turns out she was right.  Apparently the lower knuckle bone is resting on top of my upper one (right underneath my big toe nail) and the doctors say I need surgery to correct it.  If not they say I will be affected in years to come not just with arthritis but with stability, balance, and all sorts of other things.  I have been told I cannot drive or bear weight on it for potentially three months in order for it to properly heal.  At present they are undecided if I will have a plate, pins, or what.  My inner “Negative Nelly” started whining, “What about your exercise regimen you were about to start?!” and “How can I work if I cannot drive?!”  “How will I get my child hone from school??”  “How am I supposed to walk our wolf dog!!”  I tried to stifle my negative thoughts as my little one and I were going to lunch with my father-in-law.  Entering the restaurant, I noticed an older lady with twinkling eyes, a bright smile, and uproarious laughter seated at a table to my left.  I also saw the huge boot she had sticking out awkwardly and hollered, “HEY!” as I waggled my surgical shoe at her.  “Hey!” she greeted me like a lost friend.  We immediately began a deep dive into tendons in our feet, things fusing, and procedures.  She told me she was a week and a half out of surgery with over six more to go with no weight-bearing on it.  I informed her I had a break that was starting to fuse badly and that my surgery was the following week.  During our conversation not once did I hear her express ANYthing but gratitude.  And then I thought to myself:  “What is wrong with you??”  I have a friend who just lost two of his toes to diabetes.  I have another who has never even had the use of her feet.  Two other close girlfriends of mine have both endured a lot of really difficult surgeries over the past several years.  I silently chastised Negative Nelly and brought out Positive Polly instead.  After our meals this woman and I happened to leave at the same time and we wished each other well.  As she zoomed down the disabled ramp on her knee scooter she gleefully rang an old-school bike bell she’d attached to it.  Those three rings made my day.  A girlfriend of mine just gave me a beautiful bell (pictured above) this Christmas for my bike.  I found myself looking forward to first putting it on my knee scooter, provided I’ll need one.  Beginning this year, with the good and the bad, I am reminding myself to put a bell on it.

When I was in the fourth grade, I began serving as an acolyte in the Methodist church.  I remember it was one of the very few “positions” open to girls.  We would process in before the service and go up to the altar to light the candles.  Afterward the two of us would sit on opposite sides of the church and then we would rise together to extinguish the candles at the end of the service.  In college (at Southern Methodist University) ironically I fell in love with the Episcopal Church.  Now I have a little girl who is in the fourth grade and she has begun serving as an acolyte in the Episcopal Church.  There are differences, as there is more responsibility in the Episcopal church versus when I was a Methodist.  An acolyte in the Episcopal church is more like a torchbearer:  two of them walk on either side of the crucifer (the acolyte who carries the cross/crucifix) up and down the aisle at the beginning and the end of the service.  In addition, they accompany the priest when the Holy Gospel is read.  My favorite is the thurifer, an acolyte who administers the incense.  Additional duties of acolytes may include taking the offering plates from the ushers so that the priest may bless them, as well as carrying the Sacraments up to the Celebrant for consecration.  It was my great honor to have attended my first “Stations of the Cross” with my little one serving as an acolyte.  In Anglican, Roman Catholic, and Orthodox churches (Greek, Russian, Ethiopian, etc.) all around the sanctuary there are scenes depicted of Christ’s journey to His crucifixion.  During Lent congregants may make a “pilgrimage,” following the path Jesus made to Calvary, from His condemnation to His entombment.  Commonly, a series of fourteen images are arranged in chronological order, and there is a pause at each station to pray and to reflect.  The cross upon which Christ was crucified was heavy; so are the torches acolytes carry to illuminate His journey.  My little one held her tall, wooden torch throughout all fourteen stations, and I was afraid she could not maintain it for that long.  I covertly snapped this picture of her first time to serve, kneeling at the altar, with the Sanctus bell off to her left.  I began serving formally in the church in the fourth grade and now my daughter is as well … life’s cycles continuing.  Empedocles was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher who once said, “The nature of God is a circle of which the center is everywhere and the circumference is nowhere.”  I love this so very much.  We are all encompassed in the nature of God’s circle.

I was reared Methodist, but ironically, when I was at Southern Methodist University finishing college, I joined the Episcopal Church (as it is known in the United States and Canada,) which is to say the Anglican Church or The Church of England.  I count among my friends Agnostics, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, and I was flattered when my Jewish girlfriend invited my husband and me to their child’s bris several years ago.  My extremely squeamish husband was enjoying himself immensely, talking “Old Testament” with the Rabbi, up until he wondered why they were “strapping the baby into a chair.”  I had to get him into the dining room for fear of passing out and he broke into the Challah bread before it was time.  I write this with the hope that anyone who reads this will not feel excluded.  I realize customs and rituals differ; I can only write of my own experiences.  After being confirmed in the Episcopal Church I learned about a wonderful Advent tradition entitled “Lessons and Carols.”  In the liturgical calendar Advent is the time Christians await the coming of Christ in the form of baby Jesus.  It is told in nine Biblical readings, each followed by Christmas hymns, and/or choir anthems.  I shall confess I always attended for the love of the music and to participate in the singing.  When I was in the fourth grade; the same age my daughter is now, my music teacher, Mrs. Martin, encouraged my parents to let me try out for the Dallas Girls’ Chorus.  I auditioned solo and was accepted, and my first professional concert was held at SMU that following spring.  I can still remember walking around in circles on top of the ridge of the great fountain in front of Dallas Hall after that concert.  The air was warm and scented heavily with smell of freshly baked bread.  (At that time a large distributor had a plant across the street.)  That was precisely when I made up my mind that I wanted to attend college there someday.  I wound up at SMU on academic scholarship; only I let my great love for music drop because I was was working two full-time jobs and attending school full-time as well.  My degree was in journalism, but I kept up with music by covering as my first story for the Daily Campus the dedication of the Fisk organ at Caruth Auditorium — the very same place in which I had sung all those years ago.  Talk about a full-circle moment …  Both of my folks loved to sing and they did so almost daily.  My mother could sing and Daddy had a great voice … just not the best ear.  It never mattered to me.  I spent my entire life watching him sing with his whole heart, both in church and outside of it.  I was 28 when my father died and I never joined the church choir because I did not want my mother sitting all alone.  Later, after I was lucky enough to have found “THE ONE,” I was just thrilled to be sitting with him each Sunday in church.  After being blessed with a truly miraculous pregnancy, I sang to my child from the second I knew I was carrying her.  Although music (and sacred music in particular) had been such an integral part of my life, I realized our child might have no interest.  Fast forward ten years later.  I was thrilled when the choirmaster asked if our fourth grade little girl would be interested in joining the parish’s children’s choir, which was reviving after the pandemic we’ve all been living through.  She was excited and eager and I am proud to say I think it went well.  I’ve noticed my little one singing with me more and more in the car:  everything from John Legend to Bette Midler to the (real) Von Trapp family children’s Christmas songs.  I was allowed to participate in Lessons & Carols with the children and I realized an integral part of my soul had been cut off for so long.  It took me forty-one years to even become a mother; hoping my daughter might take to singing as I did was something of which I had only dreamed.  Now getting to sing with my child is beyond words.  A man named Sai Baba of Shridi, who was revered by both Hindus and Muslims, once said, “Life is a song — sing it.  Life is a game — play it.  Life is a challenge — meet it.  Life is a dream — realize it.  Life is a sacrifice — offer it.  Life is love — enjoy it.”  I never imagined how very much I would come to learn from “Lessons and Carols.”

The first two definitions of the word “sign” when used as a noun according to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary are:  1) a motion or gesture by which a thought is expressed or a command or wish made known, and 2) a signal.  My father taught me an appreciation for signs, both when learning to track (but we never hunted) and also when he taught me to drive.  Like my father, my husband and I share a love for historic markers, old signs, and even advertising.  I guess the most classic is the old bar sign, “Beware of Pickpockets and Loose Women.”  I believe it originated in New Orleans, although I am not sure.  I also love the more modern “All Unattended Children Will Be Given an Expresso and a Free Puppy.”  I have no idea as to the origin of that one either.  In our neighborhood a couple of years ago someone chainsawed an old, historic living tree for its wood.  It rises up from a creek bank and grows parallel to the ground instead of vertically.  That is known as an “Indian marker tree,” tied back long ago as a sapling to help tribes know where they were.  This was especially important because where we live is basically all flat.  I still remember on the beginning day of our honeymoon in Paris I asked my husband where he thought we should go first.  He said we should go to the top of the Eiffel Tower and he was so right.  From above he was able to orient us, helping us learn not only where famous landmarks were but in which direction.  I may have been the one who knew French but he really helped navigate us around the city.  Of course sign language is imperative for those who cannot speak and/or are unable to hear, and “Indian” sign language was crucial for cross-cultural communication.  Old cartoons used to poke fun at it, but smoke signals were also an ingenious way for Native Americans to communicate.  Daddy fought in Korea and he said, despite all their reconnaissance, they could just not figure out how “the enemy” was getting their information.  Turns out an elderly couple in this tiny little house were posting American coordinates by the way they hung their laundry.  In the Bible Luke 2:12 says, “And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.”  Rainbows are said to be a sign given from God.  I am reminded of the old joke where this guy is in a flood and someone comes along with a rowboat, telling him to get in.  “God will save me!” the man cried.  As the waters rose a motorboat stops to offer help but the man said again, “God will save me!”  After hours of severe flooding the man wound up on top of his roof.  A helicopter spots him but the man waved him away, yelling, “God will save me!”  When the man drowned and got to Heaven he asked God why He didn’t save him.  And God replied, “What?  Two boats and a helicopter weren’t enough?”  I have always liked signs, in whatever form they may take.  I recently found this sign and it now hangs in our kitchen.  Whether you believe in fate, you may be lost, or seeking inspiration … I say always look for the signs.

The American aphorist Mason Cooley once said, “Procrastination makes easy things hard, hard things harder.”  In this third day of the new year I have tried to get a jump-start by not putting off my New Year’s Resolutions until day one.  Instead of closing 2020 with my vices I tried to think of starting this new year with more virtues.  I read something a friend posted on Facebook that really resonated with me.  It was about choosing your hard.  Since then I’ve been thinking about this; I tend not to like the idea that life is hard.  I try to see it for all its potential.  I also try and think positively and admitting that things can be hard seems negative.  But things ARE hard; its how we choose to deal with them that turns this optimistically for me.  Losing weight is hard.  Being overweight is hard.  Chose your hard.  For years we had paid a woman to help clean our home once a week.  It really wasn’t clean (never dusted; never thoroughly wiped down) but she was nice and I did not want to make waves.  I KNEW our floors were not clean because our feet would get dirty, which was a great embarrassment to me.  However, living with two wolf hybrids is not exactly conducive to having pristine floors.  She had no vacuum cleaner but I think she was saving up for it.  Then one day she said she was sick and didn’t show up for work.  Naturally I was glad she chose to isolate herself if she had Covid but I sent numerous queries as to how she was and/or if I could help but she did not respond.  I began to wonder if she would even return.  Then a dear friend brought a movie over and he said my cleaning lady was deplorable; that there was dust everywhere.  I cannot explain it, but somehow he managed to convey this without me dissolving into tears.  I knew he wasn’t judging ME; rather the job that was supposed to be done.  And so I looked online in search of a housekeeper.  I know I have mentioned before I am not the most adept with change.  Some people change houses like others change toothbrushes.  I confess I do not actively seek change unless it is essentially thrust upon me.  I realize that without change things would eventually stagnate; I just cannot seem to change for change’s sake.  I think it was by the grace of God that I found this woman and her employee.  My word, EVERY part of my house is clean … from the ceiling fans (which hadn’t been dusted in years) to the baseboards which were cleaned by hand.  I have walked through our house and have marveled at the shiny floors and immaculate windows which I suppose most moneyed people (inadvertently) take for granted.  For years I had chosen my hard, and it proved only to be hard on me.  Look at this silly picture of our bathroom from our new housekeeper!  (His name is now Mr. Flushy.)  It absolutely MADE my day and was such an unexpected delight.  Changing can be hard; but staying can be even harder.  If there is something you are not happy with in your life this is the beginning of a new year!  I encourage you:  don’t inwardly complain; outwardly change.

Growing up in our little apartment my mother kept out several things I distinctly remember.  On her baby grand piano there was my baby picture flanked by my bronzed baby shoes, and a set of bronze praying hands.  Over the years my baby picture was replaced with older ones of me as I grew and my bronzed baby shoes were packed away.  Those praying hands, though, never left.  They were a constant throughout my entire childhood.  Normally I dislike detached body parts (like busts) but there was something about seeing those hands cupped together and tilted slightly upward in prayer that never failed to move me.  Despite looking slightly masculine in nature, I imagined they still could have belonged to either a man or a woman.  It seemed to me they were made from a kneeling position, allowing the layered cuffs around them to fall gently back in order to better offer themselves to God.  Recently I came across this small pair pictured above in a catalogue.  I had told my husband how much I’d always loved my folks’ praying hands and he and our little girl surprised me with them as a gift for Mother’s Day.  They now lovingly reside on our den table so that every time we sit on our sofa we can see them and can be reminded.  Prayer takes many forms:  thanksgiving, worship, confession, and supplication are the ones I tend to use most often.  Mahatma Gandhi said, “Prayer is the key of the morning and the bolt of the evening.”  When I came across that it made me think of the Episcopal practice of saying morning and evening prayers.  I confess I am enjoying being able to participate in morning prayers now from the comfort of home.  I like to see that as one positive of this Covid-19 virus.  I was never able to make daily prayers at church and now I can even play them back if I choose.  Both Eastern and Western Christian churches (Orthodox, Anglican, Catholic, Assyrian, Lutheran and some other Protestant denominations) still practice the Liturgy of the Hours (multiple prayers said daily.)  This grew from the Jewish practice of reciting prayers at set times of the day known as zmanim (literally “hours” in Hebrew.)  Matins (“morning” in French,) Lauds (prayers at dawn,) Prime (the first hour of prayer,) Terce (mid-morning,) Sext (midday,) None (mid-afternoon,) Vespers (“at the lighting of the lamps” in late afternoon,) and Compline (the last prayer said before bed.)  There are five daily prayers prescribed in Islam.  To this day, one of my fondest memories is of hearing the Muslim call to prayer sung and projected throughout the medina during Ramadan while we were in Tangiers.  I know Hindus and Buddhists have daily mantras and meditations as well.  Even those who are not religious can be seen clasping their hands together at times.  For me the praying hands are a symbol of hope, gratitude, solace, praise, and peace.  As my daughter grows up I hope she will view praying hands in much the same way I did.  They serve as a reminder that prayer is both an opening of the heart and a closing of worry … the key and the bolt.

I have been thinking a lot about change lately.  For me change is scary.  I have mentioned before that my little family and I do not do well with change.  However one of the best pieces of advice I ever received was from my Grandmother-in-law, who is now 93.  She is kind, funny, and self-deprecating.  I remember about a decade ago she told me that the world keeps changing and we have to keep on changing with it.  I think some people crave change and others don’t.  I have lived in only five places my entire life, and they have all been within a 15 mile radius of one another.  I have never been the type to suddenly change furniture or hair styles out of “boredom.”  Rather, I prefer the familiar, unless it just breaks down or simply becomes too dated.  I suppose the only area where I can say I readily embrace change is with technology.  When I first came to SMU most of the kids had their own private computers … and had for years.  I not only lacked my own; I had barely even touched one.  As a journalist major, I went from clinging to old school note taking with pen and paper to being forced by one of my professors to type my thoughts directly onto a computer.  At the time I thought he was mad.  I realize now he was so set upon helping me because he was struggling to do the same.  At first I can remember being incredibly intimidated; crippled with fear and embarrassment … and then I realized I’d have to adapt in order to pass my classes and progress.  Fast forward about a decade later:  when I first got married and we bought our home.  I discovered my husband kept losing his keys; I mean CONSTANTLY!  I tried hiding spares to no avail; he’d just lose them, too.  At one point I had a locksmith in my directory because he kept losing them.  Of course it wasn’t just the house, it was his car, too.  Once I had to drive all the way out to the Dallas/Fort Worth International airport late at night because he’d locked himself out of the car.  It may have seemed like spending money but I finally took charge and saved a ton of money (and stress) by going keyless.  Our house has been connected with a wireless alarm system and cameras accessible by phone for years.  In addition, when my husband complained he could not work the TV I had the different remotes combined into one as well.  When he lost the remote I discovered there was an app that could be used from the phone just as easily.  Yes, he has lost his phone several unfortunate times but I have it backed up and now it is only accessible biometrically.  As an extra precaution I can lock and wipe his phone remotely within seconds but restore it all to a new one in minutes, should the need arise.  He can now start and lock his car from his phone, as well as control the climate and all of the lights in our home.  Now when we go on walks we can lock the door with our hand and not risk losing keys.  Change can be stressful or restful; it can be forged or forced, and sometimes it can just simply be.  The ancient Roman philosopher Seneca once said, “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”  After 16 years at the same church I felt we should change.  This is the parish in which I attended before so many of my life changes took place.  It is there that I met my beloved husband, got married, baptised our child, buried my mother, and where our little girl received her first Holy Communion.  I am still learning that change does not need to be the result of something bad.  As I grow older I am trying to accept that all things change.  I like the idea that out of an ending comes a new beginning.  And so, as this is the start of the first full week of the New Year, in a new decade, in this new millennium, I offer salutations to new beginnings.

My little one has a delightful habit of saying, “This is the best day ever!”  Today is not only the first day of a new year; it is the first day of the new decade in this new millennium.  As someone from the last century, 2020 still sounds somewhat futuristic.  January 1 (depending upon what calendar you follow) marks a new beginning.  My father always taught me to look forward, to have goals, and — above all — to always be grateful.  I can remember my mother often exclaiming, “This is the best *fill in the blank* I ever had!”  It became sort of a running joke that EVERYTHING was always “the best” she’d “ever had.”  Our child is so much like my mother; her namesake, it is uncanny.  I have watched my little one apply lip balm in the EXACT same manner in which my mother used to put on her lipstick.  I have watched her decorate things exactly the way I know my mother would have.  They love the same foods and have a shared love of playing the piano as well.  I cannot recall exactly when, but at a very early age our daughter start saying:  “THIS IS THE BEST DAY EVER!”  She has just as earnestly proclaimed it when we took her to Disney World as when we gathered leaves on our street for our Thanksgiving table.  Looking back on my childhood “bests” I realize that more often than not they did not involve money.  I loved taping our Halloween decorations on our apartment window every year.  I loved going to church each Sunday with my folks and watching them hold hands.  Money is of course not a bad thing; it is just not EVERYthing.  I think it is human nature to enter into a new year wanting to make personal improvements — whether that is making more money, paying more attention to our diet, carving out more time to exercise, or giving more effort to learning a new language or skill.  In the past, for whatever reason, I have always viewed an improvement as something “more.”  I should try more; do more; be more.  My mother gave me an appreciation for classical poetry, among many other things.  I cannot help but think of the British poet Alfred Lord Tennyson, who was the Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland during much of Queen Victoria’s reign.  However trite, this poem of his, “Ring Out, Wild Bells,” comes to mind:

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,

The flying cloud, the frosty light:

The year is dying in the night;

Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,

Ring, happy bells, across the snow:

The year is going, let him go;

Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind

For those that here we see no more;

Ring out the feud of rich and poor,

Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,

And ancient forms of party strife;

Ring in the nobler modes of life,

With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,

The faithless coldness of the times;

Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes

But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,

The civic slander and the spite;

Ring in the love of truth and right,

Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;

Ring out the thousand wars of old,

Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,

The larger heart, the kindlier hand;

Ring out the darkness of the land,

Ring in the Christ that is to be.

And so as we ring in this New Year, I shall strive to ring OUT some things for the first time:  doubt, despair, and darkness to name a few.  I shall focus instead upon faith, hope, and light.  And I resolve to find something between each new dawn and dusk that has made it the “best day ever.”

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about scars.  Perhaps the first thing that comes to mind are visible markings on the body left behind by some accident.  I remember as a kid asking my father about the wicked scar I’d noticed one time on his chest.  During the eight years he fought in Korea he had seen hand-to-hand combat, and it had come from a bayonet.  “COOL!!!”  I exclaimed.  “Did you kill people?!”  I will never forget the shadow that fell across my father’s face.  Always such a gentle soul, I vividly recall him taking me by the upper arms and admonishing me.  “Honey,” he said, “war is a terrible thing.  It is either kill or be killed.”  I would discover many years later at my father’s funeral that he never lost a man on night patrol.  And the men who revered him (who were alive because of him) had never forgotten.  My father was a proud yet humble man.  He did not speak much of the the time he served in America’s “Forgotten War.”  For one thing, it upset my mother greatly.  Eventually I came to understand, as high school sweethearts, just how much she suffered as well during all those years my father was away.  Waiting faithfully for him, she did not marry anyone else, despite pressure from her family to do so.  While my father may have born visible scars, I realized my mother carried invisible ones that ran just as deep.  I know people today who have very painful scars as adults from their parents’ divorce when they were children.  Sometimes these scars can fester and even grow, like if their parents’ marriage (in the Protestant Church) was annulled for the sake of a parent wanting to participate in the Catholic church.  They feel that, along with their offspring, they have been bastardized, and it remains hurtful beyond words.  The scar you see pictured has caused me no small degree of embarrassment.  I cannot recall if I have written previously about it or not so here goes:  I got new roller skates last year in anticipation of my little girls’ seventh “70’s” birthday party.  It turns out the wheels were set way too slow and I fell.  I figured they were just much more slick.  At any rate, when I broke my fall I knew immediately I’d broken my left wrist as well.  At the age of 46 I discovered I would not properly recover without surgery, a steel plate, and set of screws.  This was a great source of humiliation for me.  I wasn’t some lame old lady who fell trying to roller skate:  I was the cool mom who could spin and skate backwards with ease.  The biggest blow to my pride was in having this young man (age give-away just by that statement alone) help wheel me off the floor.  I say without arrogance I have always been cool, so this was particularly painful both mentally and physically.  On Valentine’s Day of this year I started playing tennis.  I have always worn my watch on my left wrist, but I discovered an app which shows how many shots I’ve played after each game.  It breaks down the percentage of forehand, backhand, volleyed, served, etc.  Since I hit with my right I had to wear my Apple Watch on the right and I decided to just leave it on that side.  Surprisingly, it took no time to adjust.  However, now I found the scar on my left wrist was vulnerable and exposed.  When I noticed people saw the underside of my arm I found myself hastily joking that I did not attempt to kill myself.  And then I started to wonder what of those who had?  I used to gaze upon my fair, red-haired mother silently aghast at how freckled her arms were.  Half French and half Irish, she’d earned all those spots by taking me to swim lessons each summer.  Never imagining I would one day look the same, given how deeply tan I was as a mixed-race child, I now find myself sporting a million freckles dotting my arms just like her.  As I have learned time and again, life is cyclical; my freckles appeared while being in the sun watching my own little girl learning how to swim.  Whereas I was horrified by the notion as a child, I have come to at least accept them as an adult.  Just the other day my little one said to me she did not want to wind up with all my freckles and I just chuckled.  “I said the same thing to my mother.  You will,” I declared with an air of certainty.  What I also know is that one day she will come to understand what those “scars” mean — and she will not be ashamed to have them.  The late American writer and publisher Elbert Hubbard once said, “God will not look you over for medals degrees or diplomas, but for scars.”  Scars suggest a life lived; some bear them outwardly; many bear them inwardly.  My mother wisely once said you never know what someone else has been through, and my father taught me never to assume.  So, dear readers, I urge you — do not judge someone solely based upon what you may see.  You never know where they may carry their scars.