Category: Life Lessons

Does Your Heart Break on Mother’s Day?
family · Grief · Life Lessons · Memoirs · Mom · My Thoughts · poetry

Does Your Heart Break on Mother’s Day?

Larada Horner-Miller1 Comment

Here it is six years after my Mom’s death and Mother’s Day smacks me in the face with fresh grief—I miss buying Mom a card and flowers and calling her up. I miss her infectious laughter and her practical jokes. The pain never goes away.

Many people face grief on this celebratory day—the graphic above shows those affected most. For many years before Mom died, I dreaded this day. Why? Because I am not a mother, and that hole in my heart pulsated to an overwhelming size on this annual day of remembrance.

I remember going to church one Mother’s Day many years ago (not to my present church for sure), and they had all the mothers present stand and gave them a flower. Again, I stifled tears being reminded of my lack.

Today my church gave every woman present a chrysanthemum and said a prayer for “Mothers, Potential Mothers, and Women Who ‘Mother’ in Any Way.” Today I stood, satisfied for sure.

Yes, I have mothered many people’s children. I was a middle school teacher for twenty years. My brother and his wife knew my deep longing for a child—I had a miscarriage about the time they got pregnant with the first of their three children. They share their children with me in a deep meaningful way, and I am close to them and their children.

After the miscarriage, my first husband and I sought help from a fertility specialist in Denver, Colorado—the famous Dr. Bradley who pioneered a natural child method. We started with fertility tests with my husband and went no further because he had aspermia, a disease of weak sperm.

So we thought about artificial insemination. The thought thrilled me because finally I could get pregnant, but my husband didn’t agree. So we planned to adopt a child and were within six months of getting our baby. I had knitted booties, baby blankets and put together a nursery. We went through Lutheran Social Services in Denver, Colorado, and they did the work-up on the couple a few months before placement instead of at the beginning. They felt if a couple lasted the four year wait; they were a sure bet. We had waited our four years to get our baby, but as the great day drew near, the tension in our marriage increased and he walked out. I later found out he had unsavory skeletons in his closet, and I was heartbroken in my double losses!

My mother especially grieved with me over the loss of a child—I had been raised to get married, live happily ever after and have 2.4 children. The Horner’s celebrated children and grandchildren. After my divorce, Mom talked about artificial insemination—she even offered to help me pay the hefty price of $10,000 for it! (Remember, this was in the early 1980s.)

The battle raged inside me—I could finally have the baby I always wanted, but I labored over the fact of being a single Mom. In the end, I chose not to do it which looking back; I realized was a wise decision for me.

The next few years I drank away, numbing my broken heart and acting out! God’s mercy won in the choice I made. I would have injured a child with my crazy lifestyle at that time.

The years have healed that profound ache, and I am satisfied with my childless life today, but I will always be indebted to my Mom and her undying support of the need she knew I had!

Here are two poems I wrote in 1996 and 2005 while I was still lamenting the lack of a child in my life:

Childless – 1996

The pain of being without a child!  Eternally alone!
No child has burst forth from my womb
nor sucked at my breast.
Barren cavity deep inside waiting to be filled with life.
Waiting, waiting, waiting!

I have no child to pass my stories on to, my history, our history,
how Grandad created our ranch,
how special Branson Christmas trees are
because we cut them down from our ranch, our land,
how to do the Jessie polka and waltz,
how I was almost named Jessie.

My name, Larada, that should pass on to my granddaughter,
like my grandmother passed it on to me, 
every other generation for 7 generations.

Cheated, robbed, failed!

Not woman, not mom, nothing!  Does a child define woman? 
Does the lack of them define me?

Names and faces dance in circles in my mind—
Lael Marie
Patrick Lawrence
Curly blond hair, blue inquisitive eyes.
Bright red hair, changeable hazel eyes.
A mixture of him and me.

I have no daughter that has my smile nor a son with my Dad’s red hair.
No one to call me, “Mommy.”

The empty cavity waiting to be filled has grown larger
no longer just my womb,
but now my whole being,
my every thought,
ME!

Aching, lonely, pulsating to the beat of life
missing what never was!

****************

Childless at 51 – 2005

I am childless
51
single!
Reality hit yesterday as life in
My 50’s sheds light on my life’s fact.

Who will carry on the stories I have –
A lifetime full of
Traditions?

Who will recall that
Grandma Horner demanded
I have a set of sheets
With yellow roses?
Her mark of innocence for me, her namesake.

Who will name their child Larada?
Will that meaningful name
Die with me?

Who will remember that Dad
Called me Shorty?
Who will share my travel escapades?
My love for the Mayas!

Who will know the story behind
Each Christmas decoration
Hanging on my tree?

Who will understand the
Spiritual voyage I took
By looking through my
Personal library of life?
Will you be able to stitch together
The words that formed the
Frame that I draped
My life over?

That gave me closure to
The search through
The pages, the beliefs,
The heart-wrenching self
That examined herself
Through various beliefs
and concepts.

Who will look at all
My belongings
And be able to define
The complex mystery
Of Larada?
No one, but me!

Are you sad this Mother’s Day? If so, tell me your pain so I can share it and lessen your burden.

Check out my web site at https://www.laradasbooks.com

MOTHER’S DAY SPECIAL UNTIL MAY 14, 2019: 25% off of A Time to Grow Up: A Daughter’s Grief Memoir—digital & paper copies. Visit my Etsy Shop, Larada‘s Reading Loft, to purchase my books.

Would you like to join the Marshall Flippo Fan Club Facebook page? Interesting posts about Flippo’s life. https://www.facebook.com/groups/328325644382769/

Do you want to pre-order the Marshall Flippo biography? Go here to order the version you want. Monthly SWAG Giveaways! https://goo.gl/forms/4D4hwbHdme1fvJc42

I Have Stomach Pain! An Anti-Depressant?
Life Lessons · My Thoughts

I Have Stomach Pain! An Anti-Depressant?

Larada Horner-MillerLeave a comment

After my Mom died in 2013, I got terribly sick, losing weight and having severe stomach pain. I was diagnosed with Celiac Compression Disorder—an artery to my stomach is compressed by 70%.

Since then, I have had some reoccurrences but nothing like what I’ve experienced in the last three weeks. On Monday, March 4, 2019, I was at a square dance promoting a festival we’re having in May, and the cramps started at about 7:00 PM on the drive to the dance hall. I kept thinking they’d go away, but they intensified. I hadn’t had a full-blown stomach problem for several years.

It only worsened during the evening, and I had to leave abruptly in the middle of making a promotional announcement about our dance. I had an eighteen-mile drive home and prayed the whole way, hoping the diarrhea would hold off until I got home. The cramps increased. Sweat beaded on my brow; I turned off the radio so I could concentrate on breathing and not exploding.

I called my husband, Lin, as I turned down our lane, and he had the garage door open. I turned off the car, jumped out and ran to the bathroom, and the diarrhea hit. It relieved the pain for a while, but the cramps/spasms came back with a vengeance until 3:00 AM. At one point, I thought I was dying the pain was so intense.

Tuesday morning I called my GI doctor and luckily scheduled an appointment for the next day with a Nurse Practitioner because my doctor was not available. To my surprise, my doctor followed the Nurse Practitioner in the exam room and was a part of the discussion. I shared the questions I had written out and they answered them, as best they could. We scheduled a CT Angiogram scan for that Friday. Again, I was able to get this much quicker than I thought possible.

The scan was done easily in the morning, and I received the results that afternoon on MyChart, the medical portal I have access to through Presbyterian insurance. I read the results, not understanding the findings. It all sounded good, but I wasn’t sure. I needed a doctor’s interpretation.

I had a long weekend, not feeling good and wondering about the results.

On Monday, a nurse called me from the GI office with the results, but still I wasn’t clear about the results and next steps, so I asked to have the Nurse Practitioner call me. She did call back on Tuesday, but my phone was upstairs and I was downstairs, so I didn’t make it. She never did call back.

I kept wondering—what are the next steps then? And I felt lousy!

On Thursday morning, I had another stomach attack that hit suddenly. I called the GI office, and they counseled me to go to the emergency room. Lin and I decided not to do that, so we spent the afternoon researching on the Internet—what could this be?

We both came up with an ulcer and the need for an endoscopy.

I spent most of Friday and Saturday in bed, but Saturday afternoon, I joined Lin downstairs to watch some TV, and it hit again. The pain doubled me over into the fetal position. This was different—two episodes in a few days. That had never happened before.

I spent the rest of the weekend in bed, miserable with the pain and fear of what was going on.

On Monday, again I called the GI doctor for another appointment, and I was able to see her on Tuesday. Lin accompanied me. We walked in, armed with a list of questions, and we requested an endoscopy, so she scheduled one. I was afraid it would take a while, but there was an opening on Friday—again, my God intervened.

Our conversation took a strange twist during this appointment. The Nurse Practitioner asked if I had any stress in my life which I could understand with stomach pain. I answered yes, and she asked me how I handle it. I told her I write. Then she told me that many people come to their office with stomach pain, do the testing and end up with normal test results. She suggested I see a therapist for stress management at their Behavioral Science department, and she prescribed an anti-depressant, Amitriptyline.

I was so sick that day, I filled the prescription without thinking—Medicare and my supplemental insurance didn’t cover it, but it was inexpensive. I brought it back to the car and read the warnings to Lin. We both gasped at “Suicide, depression, etc.”

Here’s what shocked me even more when I researched this drug on the Internet:

This drug has a black box warning. This is the most serious warning from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). A black box warning alerts doctors and patients about drug effects that may be dangerous.
Amitriptyline can increase the risk of suicidal thoughts and behavior, especially in children, adolescents, and young adults. People of all ages who are started on antidepressant therapy should be watched closely for signs of changes in behavior or worsening depression.

https://www.healthline.com/health/amitriptyline-oral-tablet#warnings

The Nurse Practitioner called me after I filled the prescription and said to not start it until I got an EKG because I didn’t have one on file. I think that was my God intervening here to stop the process.

When I got home, I received a call from the stress management office; they have no openings and put me on a waiting list.

I did the endoscopy on Friday, and the doctor there was really concerned about the compressed celiac artery, saying it could be causing all the problems. We’re waiting for the biopsy results.

I’m having the EKG tomorrow, Monday, March 25, but I’m not going to start the anti-depressants. I know what depression feels like—been there, done that; I am not depressed. Lin said she didn’t prescribe it for depression; she prescribed it for pain. Why not use Tylenol?

Besides its alternative use as sleep aid, amitriptyline is also used to treat pain associated with a wide array of medical conditions.

https://www.insomnia.net/medications/amitriptyline/

I still don’t understand the prescription of this medicine. Is this how the opioid crisis happened in America? She took a sidetrack with me that day trying to prepare me for no new diagnosis for my severe stomach pain, forgetting about the 2013 diagnosis I received.

The doctor that did the endoscopy said the compressed artery could cause the severe stomach pain and could be fixed surgically by removing scar tissue. That seems like a solution—the anti-depressant doesn’t!

Have you ever had an experience like this? What did you do?

Check out my NEW and IMPROVED web site at https://www.laradasbooks.com

25% off of When Will Papa Get Home? — digital & paper copies. Visit my Etsy Shop, Larada’s Reading Loft, to purchase my books.

Do you want to pre-order the Marshall Flippo biography? Go here to order the version you want. https://goo.gl/forms/4D4hwbHdme1fvJc42

Why Knit?
Christmas · family · Life Lessons · Mom · My Thoughts

Why Knit?

Larada Horner-MillerLeave a comment

A skein of colorful yarn, two needles and a knitting pattern–life is good! Yes, I’ve been a knitter since I was about 10 or 11 years old. I saw a friend knitting and was mesmerized, so I asked my 4-H leader to teach me and the rest is history!

My Mom and maternal grandmother both crocheted, but I fell in love with knitting. I’ve made a variety of items. I started with slippers, and I remember the pride I felt with the first pair I made. Then my whole family wanted a pair!

I graduated to sweaters, ponchos, vests, socks, afghans, dish rags, dresses, and Christmas stockings. It was my habit to knit when I was watching TV growing up, and I have continued this habit. I loved giving a knitted gift to a family member or friend because spent the whole time I was knitting thinking about that person. I filled it up with good vibes!

Often, my Dad would tease me, saying the sofa bounced with the rhythm of my knitting needles. He used to chide me when I ripped out a huge chunk that had taken hours to complete, thinking I was a perfectionist. In reality, with an intricate knitting pattern, a mistake threw the whole design off, so I had no choice but to rip. This taught me ripping was a part of the process.

When I was in high school, I knitted my dream sweater for my last 4-H project. The project required more than one color and carrying the different colored yarn on the underside of the garment. I made my Dad a sweater with a Hereford bull on the back and his brand on the front. It was the most ambitious project I’d ever done. When I finished his, Mom wanted me.

My Dad’s Sweater

After high school, my life had gotten complicated—I was off to college and busy with my fun-filled college life, so I played a trick on Mom. The first Christmas, I gave her the back and two fronts because that’s all I had completed. The next Christmas, I gave her the sleeves. We enjoyed the craziness of that, and she loved it when I finished it and wore it proudly.

I took an evening class for advance knitting at Trinidad State Junior College and learned some amazing skills that took my knitting to a new level.

I took a break from knitting for several years after I was diagnosed with arthritis in all three thumb joints of both hands. The doctor put me in hand splints to save the joints, but they limited anything I did with my hands. I gave up on them and returned to knitting, and I have had less thumb pain now than then. The movement has helped my arthritic hands, not hurt them!

In 2013 after my Mom died, I returned to the hobby I love and made dish rags, a simple lovely pattern I could make without thinking. The rhythmic motion of the needles soothed my broken heart, and I ended up making more than 40 dish rags in the year after she died. I know it had a meditative quality for me with the repetition. It quieted in my mind and soothed my soul, and family and friends benefited from work.

Last year I had three family and friends having babies, so I made each one a baby afghan. Then for Christmas, I made them each a Christmas stocking with his name knitted into the stocking.

Recently I heard something that confirmed my belief that knitting has healing qualities. I listen to Dr. Bob Martin’s radio show driving to church each Sunday. On this one Sunday, he listed 10 ways to reduce stress and knitting was on the list. I chuckled as I heard him laud the hobby that had been a part of my life for over 50 years—what confirmation for me!

“According to new research by Knit For Peace, knitting could actually improve your health. The U.K. nonprofit organization published findings on the benefits of knitting based on extensive past research, as well as their own — and there are quite a few reasons to start stitching.
 
Health benefits were both physical and mental, and included lower blood pressure, reduced depression and anxiety, delayed onset of dementia. Knitting was deemed as relaxing as yoga, the researchers noted.”


https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2018/03/14/knitting-health-benefits_a_23385911/

One of the three sweaters I have knitted & I will use this pattern next!

My next project will be a rainbow-colored sweater made out of lamb’s wool and a fashionable pattern I’ve already made three times. I’ve had the yarn for a few years, and I’m anxious to get started!

After that—I bought several skeins of beige Aran yarn in Ireland at the Irish Store in Blarney two years ago, so I will be making an Aran sweater with all of its complexity! I love the history I found about the Aran sweater.

“From its origins, the Aran sweater has been intimately linked to clans and their identities. The many combinations of stitches seen on the garment are not incidental, far from it. They can impart vast amounts of information to those who know how to interpret them. Aran sweaters were, and remain, a reflection of the lives of the knitters, and their families. On the Aran islands, sweater patterns were zealously guarded, kept within the same clan throughout generations. These Aran sweaters were often used to help identify bodies of fishermen washed up on the beach following an accident at sea. An official register of these historic patterns has been compiled, and can be seen in the Aran Sweater Market on the Aran Islands.”


https://www.aransweatermarket.com/history-of-aran-sweaters

“As a craft, the Aran Sweater continues to fascinate audiences around the world. A finished Aran sweater contains approximately 100,000 carefully constructed stitches, and can take the knitter up to sixty days to complete. It can contain any combination of stitches, depending on the particular clan pattern being followed. Many of the stitches used in the Aran Sweater are reflective of Celtic Art, and comparisons have been drawn between the stitches and patterns found at Neolithic burial sites such as Newgrange in Co. Meath.
Each stitch carries its own unique meaning, a historic legacy from the lives of the Island community many years ago. The Cable Stitch is a depiction of the fisherman’s ropes, and represents a wish for a fruitful day at sea. The Diamond Stitch reflects the small fields of the islands. These diamonds are sometimes filled with Irish moss stitch, depicting the seaweed that was used to fertilise the barren fields and produce a good harvest. Hence the diamond stitch is a wish for success and wealth. The Zig Zag Stitch, a half diamond, is often used in the Aran Sweaters, and popularly represents the twisting cliff paths on the islands. The Tree of Life is one of the original stitches, and is unique to the earliest examples of the Aran knitwear. It again reflects the importance of the clan, and is an expression of a desire for clan unity, with long-lived parents and strong children.


https://www.aransweatermarket.com/history-of-aran-sweaters

I will finish my lamb’s wool sweater first. I have admired the Aran patterns for years but never attempted to make one because I knew it was a complicated pattern to knit. So, as you can see, the Aran sweater will take me a while to make, but I look forward to the day when I get to wear my two new creations!

Are you a knitter? What have you made? How do you feel when you knit?

Check out my NEW and IMPROVED web site at https://www.laradasbooks.com

25% off of When Will Papa Get Home? — digital & paper copies. Visit my Etsy Shop, Larada’s Reading Loft, to purchase my books.

Do you want to pre-order the Marshall Flippo biography? Go here to order the version you want. https://goo.gl/forms/4D4hwbHdme1fvJc42

Time Flies! What Happened to January?
Goals · Life Lessons · My Thoughts

Time Flies! What Happened to January?

Larada Horner-MillerLeave a comment

Here it is January 30 and where did the month go? Have you accomplished all you hoped for these past thirty days?

When I look at January on the calendar, I annually feel like cleaning out disheveled drawers, closets and file cabinets. I want to clear the clutter on my desk and get the year off to a good start.

I want to get tax preparation finished before it becomes a burden that haunts me in the wee hours. I yearn for organization, structure and clarity.

The sad news is life gets in the way, and here it is January 30, and very little of those desires have been achieved.

I have done a few things that I feel great about:

  • I did the tax preparation for our ranch.
  • I started my personal and business tax preparation.
  • I set an appointment to do a living will (that’s been on my To Do List for years!).
  • I created a weekly organizational sheet that has directed me on daily and weekly goals for my personal and writing life.

Last year, I would get a brainstorm and create a reminder on my iPad app to do some brilliant action for my book business. So often then, they went undone because I just clicked the alert off when it appeared, got distracted and didn’t do it.

With my weekly organizational sheet, I have check boxes for key areas and have more accountability right in front of me. To really use it effectively, on Saturday I review what I did the past week and notice what I didn’t do, and prioritize that for the next week.

I’m a checklist-type person. I’ve used several checklists to organize my current writing project, the authorized biography of Marshall Flippo, world-famous square dance caller. I have 37 recorded interviews, 4 steno-note pads full of notes from the interviews, 100’s of pictures, and 6 photo albums/scrapbooks to keep track. Checklists have helped me organize and cross-reference all the support material for specific chapters in the book.

Facing this part of my life, the key words are MINDFULNESS & ORGANIZATION! Routinely I get busy with what is at hand instead of being mindful for the day and have specific activities to do. Being retired plays into that, too. It seems I used to get so much more accomplished when I was working and had to manage my free time. My organizational sheet helps me with that, especially when I start the day with a review of what’s pending for the day.

My husband is very organized; his desk is free of clutter. I’m organized in an unorganized fashion with clutter everywhere, so here’s a goal for me for the month of February:

A DESK THAT LOOKS LIKE THIS!

Yes, January puts me in the mindset of clearing out and starting fresh–the newness of a new year. Here’s to your new year and your new ways of being mindful and organized.

Are you organized? Do you have clutter? How do you deal with it? Let me know!

Two days left for 25% discount of all my digital books at my Etsy Shop, Larada’s Reading Loft

Visit my web site and see what’s new: https://www.laradasbooks.com