“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

I woke up thinking about this blog this morning, and then I thought about how blessed I am to wake up next to my husband, with his gentle snores, and little murmurs, and the way he rolls over by pulling the pillow that was under his head to his side, and the one that was at his side under his head, in one smooth movement so he’s all snug and comfy, and usually there’s a cat wrapped around his neck, and his long, black fluffy fur fluffs up with each little snore. And I thought about how safe I am with this man next to me, not just physically safe, but emotionally and spiritually safe, because the man just gets me, even though he says often, “You are a mystery to me.” And he is to me also, and isn’t that amazing to know someone so completely yet still be mesmerized by that person’s mystique?

And I got to thinking that this blog is really a blog about, well, me. And how that can get awfully boring writing about me, and people reading about me (which by the way my blog is up to 230 views, which blows my humble mind.)  And then I thought about how I love to text my son, Ricky, a Master of Fine Arts and say, “129 views today”, and hear what he has to say, and then I revel in how I encouraged him in his life to write and to be true even if it hurt me or made me uncomfortable, because writing is about his view of the world, not mine, and now he’s encouraging me, and saying “Mom, you are a poet.” and I get a little bashful and think, yes, I am, because my own sweet master tells me so.  And a lifetime of a relationship has developed through so many common things other than I am his mother and he is my son, but now, he is my mentor as I was his, and that’s so beautiful, don’t you think?

And I thought about how accuracy has to be paramount, and how when I wrote about Bethani and Grammy yesterday, I remembered the name Clara for the lady who passed away, and her name was Etta, corrected by Bethani, and how much more crisper and real that whole blog became for me because Etta did die, and her name should be mentioned, and the truth is as compelling as the name “Etta” and the woman who was called Etta and how she won her last bingo game at the nursing home, went to sleep that night and didn’t wake up.

And I asked Bethani what she thought of the blog and she said she really liked it but to make sure to keep TMI to a minimum and I’m like, “TMI ? Like talking about how Grammy’s stay in the nursing home affected your dad’s and my marriage, or the fear that I might someday write about sex?”

“Yah, that you’ll someday write about sex.”  And well, here it is, sex is good, it’s a wonderful, healthy thing, it starts out being THE most important thing, and then, it starts being the one thing that is only about you and him in a world when it’s about little kids, back packs, and peanut butter sandwiches, and then it becomes softer and less urgent, yet no less genuine or powerful, and yes, there will be talk about intimacy, because life includes it, and it’s so darned important, but that’s not what this blog today is about so, stay tuned.

If I were to write about just things like visiting Grammy in the nursing home with Bethani, and that Grammy’s teeth went missing along with her mind, skipping over the gritty parts of how it affected us–like skipping on a sidewalk without mentioning the cracks we try to skip over so you won’t break your mommy’s back–leaves out the character and the honesty, because most sidewalks have CRACKS and the cracks trip us up sometimes, and we all know it, so why leave them out?

But if I did, it would be a fine enough blog, just not necessarily one that someone would say, “I can relate to that.”  But, when, you “write down the bones” and say, Grammy not remembering her name left streaks of tears down Bethani’s beautiful face, or her being there weighed heavily on my shoulders and put a strain on my marriage, and that it was hard and pierced our hearts like a shard of glass, that’s when someone sighs with understanding, “Oh, yes, I know that feeling, I had that when my mom was in the nursing home, and I didn’t know how to protect my child from it or how my marriage would survive it…” And then my blog about me really becomes about that person reading it, and her memories and the camaraderie of finding a person who survived it, too.

So, I will keep writing this blog and hope that someone will read it and it will linger on his or her heart and it will become a part of them, not because something happened to me, but that the something happened to them, and they had the same experience, or now understand their loved one who experienced it like me, and that opened a door of understanding and maybe healing, and that would be so tremendously awesome for me to think that in this instance, the oyster truly held a pearl and not just a little lumpy rock made up of tiny grains of sand.