There is a woman in one of the groups that I am involved with who doesn't like me.  You know those subtle indications people make that let you know.  When I participate, she picks her nails until I am through speaking.  She rotates her body away from where I am sitting.  She talks to those around her and turns her back to me to let me know that I am not included in her discussion.

I have no idea why she doesn't like me.  It would help if I did, but I wonder if she even knows.  It is strange.  This probably happens when you join a group and the leader calls on your opinion instead of the other person???  Perhaps it is a case of jealously??  But this woman doesn't have a reason to be jealous.

When I am called on to answer a question and do so, she immediately finds something wrong with what I have said.  And expresses it out loud.  Or she rolls her eyes.  Whatever.  I find it strange.

You can't make people like you.  They either do or they don't.  There is something about your personality that clicks with theirs, or something about your personality that irritates them.  Who can figure it out.

I try to be a good listener.  At least let it look like I am listening.  I try to compliment people when they express something meaningful.  Not too often, or it looks like I am a wimp that oozes false praise.  That kind of praise grows old.  I have to work at listening.  Being a good listener puts the other fellow first.  You count them as important.  And you don't want to look like you want them to finish so you can talk.  When you are talking, you aren't learning anything.  Listen more.

We all live in our own little world.  Letting someone new in will cost you--in your time.  And I guard my time.  I don't want to know this woman any better anyway, but find it interesting that she needs to make it obvious that she doesn't want to include me.  Some things I will never understand.

"Love your brother as yourself."  That is a hard thing to do when they don't love you back.  God sent his Son knowing that people would reject him.  Why would He do that?   I don't think I'm there yet.

I went to teacher's meeting last week.  It's where we study and talk about the next Sunday's lesson and try and get additional insight from each other.  I had missed five weeks due to pneumonia, and expected someone to say, "Glad to have you back????"  Nope.  Didn't happen.

I'm going to be more conscious of things like that.  Sometimes we Christians are the very worst at the little things.  We get focused on the big picture and fail to do those little things that make up good social Christian behavior.  Things that let people know that we care about them.

Last year, I made an effort to call every person who was absent on Sunday from my class.  I wasn't one hundred percent effective--when people didn't answer.  I'll try to do better this year.

I usually only make one New Year's resolution.  If I make two or three, I'm sure to let one slide.  Last year, I determined to lose ten pounds.  I'm not much overweight, so it shouldn't have been hard.  But it was.  I'm a grazer.  I leave healthy snacks out on the counter because if I have something close by, I am pacified.  Problem is, I graze all day long.  So, I narrowed down the choices.  I lost the ten pounds, but put four of them back on over Thanksgiving.  So I am still working on last year's resolution.  I won't stop.  I'll get there.

My one resolution for this year is to watch what I am doing.  Move more cautiously, watch my feet and try not to fall.  And go to urgent care the first day I am sick--instead of trying to overcome whatever is wrong with will power.  (Which is why the pneumonia and cellulitis got such a hold on me).  In other words, take better care of myself and be more careful.  My mind thinks I am still thirty.  My body doesn't.  I hate admitting that.  It's almost as if you have given up and said that you are old.  Which I guess I am.  It stinks.

If you made a bunch of resolutions, go check your list and eliminate some of them.  Try and concentrate on one--or two--things and you will actually make progress.  Last's year's resolution was to lose 10 pounds.  I did, but now have to take off the Thanksgiving's four I gained.  Piece of "kale." The nuts on the counter may have to go.  Fewer fried foods.  Small changes.  I won't give up bread.  That's too hard.  I guess what I'm saying is that we should be honest with ourselves.

Sorry I missed writing Friday and Monday, but when I got up--or tried to--on Friday, I was so ill I had to get someone to take me to the hospital.  I thought I had the flu because I was shaking and freezing. I failed to look at my right arm--which should be my "go-to" check, since my arm  is trying to kill me.  But for whatever reason, I didn't.

Luckily, when my daughter Pat got me to the emergency room, the doctor noticed it and immediately diagnosed Cellulitis--and hospitalized me.  At that point I couldn't lift myself up to stand.  This has hospitalized me eight other times.  You go from being perfectly normal to critical in a matter of a couple of hours.  You would think I would learn.

My fault.  I know this is a problem for me.  A result of breast cancer--which I survived 10 years ago.  Thank God.  But I lost my lymph nodes in my right shoulder, and when I get a scratch of any kind, my right arm becomes septic and it spreads all over my body through the blood.  It happens quickly.

The hospitalist remembers me, as do the nurses, which is nice because I don't have to go through any explanations.  They know how sick I am.  The good thing is that once they put me on an antibiotic drip, I recover rather quickly.  The bad thing is that I could soon be resistant to any antibiotics that are out there.  But that's in the hands of God.

Another good thing is that I get to share with all of the new staff that I am a writer, give them my card and some of them get hooked.  One of the nurses went home and read what I had written starting in November.  Another nurse took a picture of the card, sent it to his mom and his sister in New York.  God allows things to happen sometimes to get you where he wants you to be.

It reminds me of the story of Paul and Silas being beaten, thrown into jail, locked in chains just for telling others the story of Jesus.  But while they were in jail singing and praising God, an earthquake broke the chains and the jailer was so overcome that he accepted Christ--and so did everyone in his family.  Sometimes God has to arrange to get us into jail--for a reason.  Paul never would have met the jailer otherwise.  For me it was a hospital.  I just try to share my faith when I get a listener.  And giving someone my card is an easy way to open the jail door.

Scott broke every bone in his body at one time or another.  His collar bone, shoulder, knee, wrist, leg, arm--and knocked his front teeth out as well.  And that's just what I remember.  He was a walking disaster looking for a place to happen.  However, walking is not the right word.  Running, full speed ahead, was how he encountered life.  Do something, then think about the consequences later.   Like I said yesterday, fearless.  Or just plain stupid, I'm not sure.

Once ,when he had just had a cast removed, we warned him not to use his skate board on our driveway while we were gone for the day.  Sure enough, he found somewhere worse to use his skateboard.  I got a call from Dr. Collins--who was a friend, and who had put a cast on some part of his body that day--there were so many I can't remember what he broke that time:  "Janie, the next time you and Ken are leaving town, call me.  I'm going to put Scott in a body cast before you leave."

And that doesn't even count the concussions.  One concussion was from sliding into home trying to beat the throw.  He took it head first, straight into the catchers chest and was knocked out cold.  Ambulance came, (not his first ambulance) took him to the hospital and seven hours later when he woke up, his first words were, "Was I out."  Yes.  Out.  And out of it.  That kind of intensity earned him baseball honors, but never slowed him down.  All State Oklahoma--which is a miracle he lived to collect.   I can't tell you how difficult it was to stay calm around him.  I never knew what he was going to do next.  He didn't either.

And he never did the same thing twice.  I'd say, "Don't do that again."  But I couldn't think of all the things I needed to tell him not to do.  He was always a jump ahead of me.

Then, nine years later, we had Jon.  Calm, quite, observant, cautious, but unusually strong.  Once when he was being tormented by a boy at school, I told him, "Jon, there's a time you have to fight.  You have to stand up to bullies."  His teacher followed him to the playground the next day and saw him pick the kid up, pin him to a wall and say, "Leave me alone, or I'm going to have to hurt you."  No one ever bothered him again.  He made All State as well, at nose guard and fullback.

Nothing I learned raising one child never helped me raise another.  They are all so different.

Ken was absolutely fearless.  Maybe what they say about, "Like father like son," is true.  They had different personalities, but Scott, like his dad had that same fearless streak.  Or maybe they just marched to a different drummer.  Anyway, Scott, my oldest son, was also a Marine.  Is a Marine.  They say, "Once a Marine, always a Marine."  I think that is true.  They have a certain mentality.  If you were in another service, you say you were in the Army, or were in the Navy, or were in the Air Force.  Not so for the Marine Corps.  They say, "I'm a Marine."  And they say that for the rest of their lives.  They aren't "in" something.  They "are."

Scott told me a funny story once, which he can tell better than I can.  Seems that back in1989-90 we were involved in an armed conflict in Panama.  He was in a reconnaissance group, in charge of securing Howard Air Force Base, (which is on the pennisula by the Panama Canal, The Bridge of America), from the Cubans that were in country.  It was an armed confrontation.

Scott was the officer in charge of his group of men, directing his team, getting everyone in place, down and ready,when he noticed that the limbs in the nearby trees were cracking and leaves in the trees were falling.  Odd, because there wasn't any wind or any noise.  He was standing up, glancing around at his men, making sure everyone was down and in place, wondering what was up with the tree limbs breaking, when he got the stuffing knocked out of him.  His Gunny Sergeant tackled him and said, "Sir, they are shooting at you."

Scott said he told the Sergeant, "Don't they know I'm a good guy?"  To which the Gunny replied, "Sir, you're _____, ______ John Wayne."

I guess they thought he was brave, when really, as he tells it, "I didn't have a clue."  That's the thing about Marines, they take care of each other.  In the most direct way possible at the moment.

Marines are the landing forces.  People shoot at them.  Sometimes you get lucky and they miss.

A person only has so many stories.  Things that happened to them or to the people around them.  When I finish writing every day, I usually call Carolyn and read it to her so she can "evaluate."  She is an English major who taught drama for a million years.  She is brilliant on top of that.  Lately, she hasn't suggested anything.  I must be getting better.  Usually the only thing wrong is a misspelled word.  And Carolyn always catches that.

She told me a story that Ken told us that I had forgotten.  Ken adopted Carolyn after Wayne died.  If Ken took me to breakfast he would always say, "Call Carolyn.  Ask her to go with us."  Ken would say, "Janie, you have great taste in friends."  I do.

The story she remembered was when Ken told us about teaching cadets to land on the carrier.  First he would teach them to hit a designated spot on land--on a runway.  They had to hook wire on the runway a zillion times, and do it right, before he would take them to a pitching deck on water.  They had to watch the Landing Signal Officer (which was one of Ken's designations) who was standing on the runway and obey every signal--which at that time was done with flags.  (Now they do it with a light--which they call the meatball.)

He had a student in the primary stage that was not doing very well.  He kept coming in too low and finally hit the gates in the fence at the end of the runway.  Ken chewed him out royally--not because he almost killed himself, but because he tore up a plane, and hadn't done what Ken had told him to do.  "What were you thinking!!  You were too low coming out of the 180 again.  I gave you an "add power" signal.  You must have concrete between your ears.  Etc.  Etc."  And then Ken said, "You did the exact same thing yesterday and didn't hit the fence."  To which the student replied,  "Yes sir.  But yesterday the gates were open."

Some cadets didn't get their wings.  We should be thankful.

I think God planned it all.  Two people absolutely meant for each other.  We had an interesting life.  The years in the Marine Corps defined who I turned out to be.  I wouldn't take a million dollars for it.  And wouldn't do it again for all the money in the world.  Military life is hard.  You are at the mercy of the government's whims--which change with every president--who is the Commander in Chief.  You don't get to choose where your live.  You don't get to choose how long you live there.  You don't get to choose whether or not you will spend the next year together--especially when there is a war.

  Five children.  Ten grandchildren.  Three great grandchildren.  Ken told me when he married me, "The difference in our ages won't matter much now, but someday, you will probably have to figure everything out by yourself."  Which I have done.  I don't like it.

The thing about being a widow is that you are a dangling appendage to the lives of other people.  Included from time to time, but not quite a fit.  It's hard to figure out what you are supposed to be doing when you have spent fifty-seven years cooking three meals a day for someone.  Washing their clothes, folding them and putting them in their drawer.  Making decisions together.

It's like you don't have a point anymore.  I have to invent things to do to fill up my time.  And yet, I enjoy the fact that I can start a book and finish it in a day if I choose.  As a matter of fact, I can do whatever I want to do.  There just isn't anyone to do it with.  Which is the biggest adjustment.

My friend Carolyn told me, "People will say, I know how you feel.  They don't.  They can't know what is like to be left behind until they go through it."  She lost Wayne years and years ago.  I'm working on the fifth year and it feels like an eternity.  The thing you miss the very most is having someone to talk to.  That listens.  That replies.  Even if it is just, "Uh-huh."

When the Bible says, "The two shall become one," it's the truth.  I think it's the completion factor.  That other person fills you out.  Complements your personality.  I know that now I feel like only half an entity.  You can't live with someone fifty-seven years, lose them, and be whole again.

Till death do us part.  To love.  To care for.  To share your life with.  He was the love of my life.