Tag Archives for love

From Catastrophe to Opportunity


                        By Neal Lemery                                                                                    

(published in the Tillamook County Pioneer, 3/11/2025)

            Often, a disaster turns into a positive asset, and life improves, comes into focus, and good things emerge from the gray somber atmosphere of disaster.

            Such change comes unexpectedly. 

            The Chinese character for catastrophe is the same character for opportunity.  

There was a time in college that I had lost direction, adrift despite the abundance of good opportunities and challenges from my professors and fellow students.  I was adapting well, mastering my subjects and, at least outwardly, achieving great strides in my abilities and my knowledge of my favorite subjects. 

            Yet, I was adrift, often wondering what I was doing there, and what direction I needed to take. There were a lot of possibilities, but I didn’t have a good sense of what was right for me.  Everyone around me seemed content, hard at work, and feeling directed and motivated.  Maybe I needed to take a term off, get a job, and get my act together, stop spinning my wheels.  

            During one Christmas break, one of my aunts suddenly died.  We were all in shock, as she had been healthy, vigorous in her retirement, and embracing her passion for botany and nature conservation.  Her heart attack on a hiking trail doing what she loved left all of us feeling lost, shook up.

            She lived far away from me, but would visit several times a year, telling stories of her adventures and always bringing a special book for me.  When I was little, she’d read to me, animating the story with her voice, her laughter, and her passion for kids.  We’d have great conversations, she being a vocal advocate for education, reading, and bettering the community.  “Being of service” was the theme of a lot of our conversations and letters.  

            Her sudden passing brought my “lost in college” questions to the forefront.  I recalled her wise counsel, her urgings to me to make a difference, and do something in life.  Reminiscing about her life and her messages to me brought my dilemma into sharp focus, giving me impetus to regroup, to rethink my intentions of why I was in college, and what I was doing with my life.

            Mourning her death, and celebrating her life woke me up. I applied that grief into fuel to regroup, to have a serious talk with myself, and strive to make a difference in my life.  There were some hard lessons on not realizing the value of a person in your life until they are gone. Having my aunt in my life made a big difference in my own life, and I resolved to continue her presence, her message in my life, and our relationship.  

            Her funeral was on the day I went back to college, to start winter term. The eulogies, and the story telling among family recharged me, and I began the new year and the new term with a revitalized focus, looking for possibilities and opportunities.  I felt her spirit and vowed to remember her with my own zeal for making a difference. 

            Recently, a good friend passed away, and again I am shaken by this loss, this departing of a mentor, whose wisdom and talent were bright lights in my life.  We’d met for lunch a year ago, telling stories, laughing, and, true to her form, mentoring me and calling me out to refocus and regroup.  She’d plant seeds with me, giving me story ideas and action items, sometimes acting with such subtlety that I didn’t realize that her seeds were even in my garden. She was a master of “guerrilla gardening”. 

She was a writer, capturing the joys and treasures in ordinary life, always aiming at celebrating the community she loved and cared for.  She wrote about simple things, events and happenings, but always with an ear for the deeper message, the profound experiences of friendships and listening to our souls.  

            She was blunt, open, honest, and passionately cared about people.  Her stories of daily life were much more than a casual observation.  They were deep and profound, and the reader was often gently lured into her observations, not always expecting the strong message she had set out to convey.  She got her point across, with love and humor, but also with a depth and intensity you didn’t notice until you came to the end of her writing.  

            There were many gifts in her writings and in our conversations. She was a literary craftsman, with a big heart.  Kindness was her mantra. 

            My friend and my aunt would have been dear friends, soul mates, and I imagine they would find much to laugh about and comment on.  My sorrow for missing my aunt is rekindled by my friend’s passing.  I’m reminded that out of catastrophe comes opportunity.  

In my grief, there is renewal, there is new hunger for opportunity, for change, growth, betterment. My aunt and my friend are still there for me, still offering their gifts, and their love, still teaching me, still changing the world. 

3/11/2025

Cleaning Up After Fathers’ Day


            

                                                By Neal Lemery

(published in the Tillamook County Pioneer, June 18, 2024)

            I’m always relieved when Fathers’ Day is over for the year.  For me, it is a mix of emotions and experiences, with memories both sweet and awkward, sometimes excruciatingly painful, for me and my kids.  

            The greeting card industry portrays the day as an overly sweet and happy day, offering cards with sentimental words, and traditional gifts such as T shirts and golf balls, and barbecues and ball games.  Dad as hero, the perfect parent in our lives. In our society, reality often doesn’t resemble what commercialism tries to paint as warm, fuzzy, and normal.  

            Yet, it is a day of awkwardness.  What if one’s experiences and relationships with a father was strained, dysfunctional, full of abandonment, or downright dangerous and frightening?  What if those wounds haven’t healed, there’s a lot of unresolved anger and neglect, or simply rage about not showing up in your life?  

            The kids I call my kids wrestle with all of this. Some simply ignore the day, while others send a short, yet sincere one line message on social media.  Often, the pain of dealing with hard relationships is best kept quiet. I respect all of those responses.  They are genuine, real, and honest, and not found in the greeting card section of the store. 

Most of my kids take the safe path, and don’t open up to express what they are feeling, or how to be the kid on Fathers’ Day.  For most of us, silence is golden, safe, and non-committal.  

            I know they love me, and I love them.  I also know I’m not the perfect father, that I’ve made mistakes and caused some harm.  I like to think I’ve done more good parenting than bad, and that I’m still learning how to be a good dad.  I’d like to hope they know that about me. 

I’m here for them, after all these years, and perhaps that is enough of a role to play on a day when we are supposed to feel all warm and fuzzy, that Dad is a hero, the fulfillment of the ideal Dad. I don’t need a card or a new box of golf balls to get that recognition.  Hokie commercial gifts don’t really express what we feel for each other, anyway.  

            The father-kid relationship is complicated, anyway.  My feelings for the best fathers I’ve had in my life aren’t based on genetics, but on genuine mutual respect, working to be solid mentors and supporters of a kid trying to navigate life and to figure out who I’d be when I grew up.  Even as an adult, I needed that genuine fathering, that relationship where one could go deep and feel respected and nurtured.

            Family life is better anyway, when there is honesty, mutual respect, and acknowledgement that we all struggle with emotional pain and needing to feel good about ourselves, that we all have the potential for doing good for others.   

            I used to think that biology and genetics didn’t really matter.  It was what happened today, building a good home life and showing compassion and empathy.  But, recent scientific work is showing me that past generations’ trauma and anxiety lies deep within us, and is passed on to new generations, being a deeply ingrained aspect of our own psychology and thinking.  Part of our work on becoming better people is recognizing that genetic influence, that power of past trauma to cause pain, working on giving air to that history, and patterns of behavior.  Healing ourselves, and facing our past, even back several generations, is part of our work in changing our world, and in raising our kids.  That work is part of parenting, part of building a better society today.

            Perhaps that work, that realization, should be woven into a good Fathers’ Day observance, a day of recognition and healing, a day to celebrate healthy love between parents and kids. Those conversations, those “going deep” talks with loved ones would go far in helping us be better dads, and make for a well-celebrated and well-observed holiday. 

6/18/2024

Unsaid


 

 

You would be one hundred tomorrow,

and I would have made you a cake—

your mom’s white spice cake with what we kids used to call

cement frosting – sugar boiled to death, and slathered on

like plaster, with an old kitchen knife of Grandma’s.

 

I’d make you hot Lipton tea, even though it will be a scorcher of a day–

you with your sweater on, and me breaking a sweat.

We’d talk and laugh, but when I would ask about you growing up,

and what it was like in your younger days, you’d get quiet, and

change the subject to how my garden was doing.

 

I still think about you living with your aunt that year,

while Grandma went to Fort Worth.

I figured it out that year your

cousin’s kids came to live with us for the summer,

you adding chairs and another leaf to the table—

no explanation given.

 

Years later, when I brought our foster son to meet you,

you’d baked a pie and made your favorite dish,

put out your great grandma’s English china bowl

and just smiled and gave him a hug.

 

You’ve been gone a long time now, but I still

grow your favorite rose

and think of you when I plant my peas, using Grandpa’s hoe,

and set the table when guests are coming,

using your silverware, and folding the napkins just like you.

 

I’ll even make some Lipton tea on a stormy day, and read a book—

remembering you doing that, while a roast cooked in the oven,

filling the house with love, you saying “Hi” when I got back from school.

 

A few years ago, something great happened and I picked up the phone—

halfway through the number, I realized you wouldn’t answer the call,

and laugh when I told you the news—

I miss that, sometimes more than I think I can stand.

 

The other day, I drove by Great Grandma’s house,

where you were “born and raised” and learned to ride your uncle’s horse,

the old and “new” barns gone now, the road to the cemetery just grass,

a hundred years changed most everything, I think,

Except what really mattered, what was too often left

Unsaid.

 

 

—Neal Lemery

September 2017

 

Wisdom I Heard This Week


The Wisdom I Heard This Week

Eckhart Tolle

“May I suggest a deeper and somewhat unusual perspective on who you are?
You are not just a person, and you are not IN the Universe.
You ARE the Universe, which IN YOU is awakening, experiencing itself, becoming conscious. That consciousness is who you are in essence. We are all fleeting expressions of it. The Universe awakens THROUGH experiencing challenges and limitations. That means YOU awaken and deepen through your challenges, as does humanity as a whole. So welcome or at least accept all that life brings you. Change what can be changed, otherwise surrender to what IS. Feel the Presence within you as the background to every experience. Know that, as Jesus put it, ‘you are the light of the world.’ “
With love
Eckhart Tolle

Johnny Moses, Salish storyteller

You decide if you want to live, or if you want to die.

If you decide you want to live, you also need to decide how you will live.

Every day is a new start, a rebirth, a new beginning. You can’t go back. You have to move ahead.

Love yourself. Respect yourself. The power of loving yourself is transformative.

Every adult in the village can be a parent. When you are growing up, you need a lot of parents.

In the Salish language,
the words for singing and crying are the same
the words for death and change are the same

(Life is a process of change. Embrace that change and move on. Be reborn.)

In Salish culture, you are not a man until you can cry for your people. When boys learn to cry and share their emotions, then they become men.

Notes from the Dalai Lama’s Talk on Compassion

Portland, Oregon, May 11, 2013

“Compassion means genuine loving kindness, the wish for others to be happy. All the world’s religions — every one — message is compassion. We need the practice of tolerance. We need the practice of forgiveness.”

People of faith who aim to practice these values must be serious about it.

“In many cases, religious practice is simply lip service. Talk compassion, do something different. Sometimes religion teaches us hypocrisy.”

“We can see among non-believers some people really dedicated to serving other people. Be a compassionate person, not necessarily a religious believer.”

“Compassion is the key factor one one’s own well-being. We are social animals, but those dogs always barking often remain lonely.”

Compassion includes tolerance and acceptance. Anger is counter-balanced by tolerance and acceptance.

Serving others is a tradition of all religions. All religions have the same potential.

Be truly, sincerely committed. Everyone needs the practice of compassion, in order to be happy. Compassion is not only for religious people.

Compassion and affection are biological in nature. (For example, nurturing a baby.) As we grow older, greed and self-centeredness erode our compassion. These are the costs of growing up.

Religious tradition builds on the biological compassion, to encourage a lifetime of compassion. All faiths have a tradition of compassion.

Affection, action, and research are our karma in our lives. When change occurs, we need to research, re-evaluate, take action, and change. Action that is positive results in happiness.

A materialistic life is a cultural habit, and is living at a superficial level. It is animal thinking. So, go broader. Humans are able to reason. Use reason to extend compassion to all levels, all people. Change your thinking.

Materialism is not happiness.

The hygiene of emotion. Our emotional state is as important as our physical state. We need to educate ourselves and others about emotional health.

This is “secular ethics”. “Secular” means to respect all religions and the non-believer.

Religion promotes basic human values, but, often, religious practices and views corrupt this. The ruling class can corrupt this, and there is often bullying.

Institutions get corrupted. We need to recognize this, change, and oppose this. Religion isn’t necessarily religious institutions.

Sincerely gentle people live better, more peaceful, happier lives, and have more friends.

Affection, a sense of concern, brings trust, brings friendship.

Fear, hate, and anger eats at our immune system. Compassion increases our immune system.

People, if they are NOT the recipient of affection early on in their lives, are less satisfied, have a lesser sense of love, are more anxious, and less happy.

Be committed. Be unified with others who are also seeking more compassion in their lives.

(compiled by Neal Lemery) May 18, 2013