Tag: redheads

Agenda

“The dying have their own agenda”

The night before Dan launched the hospice nurse sat us down for her “hard talk”. She told us “The dying have their own agenda as to when they are going to leave this world. So if you’re someone who is going to feel guilty or cheated because you weren’t there when they take their last breath, you need to get this. They might leave just when you step out of the room. Don’t wait. Tell Dan tonight how much you loved him, share good memories, and it’s okay to tell him that you will miss him but that you will be okay. It may not seem like it, but he can still hear you.”

I was glad for her frank talk but I thought he can’t be leaving this soon. Just that morning, another hospice nurse had told us that Dan had probably 4-6 more days. I had to go back home for a day, but maybe he would hang on until I returned. Besides, I didn’t even know what to say and didn’t want to break down. Dan had told me earlier in the day that I needed to be his “positive reinforcement” and to believe for his miraculous healing.

Several hours later, I slipped into Dan’s room and sat on the bed. I leaned down close to whisper in his ear so a group in the next room couldn’t hear me. Lord please help me to say goodbye.

I was surprised at how easily my feelings for him poured out of me. I told Dan I loved him and was grateful for every minute I had gotten with him. I shared some special memories of him and our trips and asked forgiveness for not always being a pleasant redhead. I shared that I had never felt loved by anyone as I did by him and that he had helped to heal a big hole in my heart. I cried as I told him that I would miss him terribly, but that I would be okay.

I sat back up and looked down at Dan’s face and saw one large beautiful tear coming down from his left eye. I knew he had heard me and I wanted to hold onto that precious perfect moment forever. The presence of the Holy Spirit filled the room and I could feel God’s eternal love for both of us. I was sad, but yet I felt joyful as the realization hit me that I would see Dan again.

Early the next morning, I briefly stepped out of Dan’s room to dig something out of my purse and seconds later he left. Like, I am not waiting around for you to find some gadget in that Bermuda Triangle purse of yours. The purse he bought me because my old one wasn’t “big enough”. I was like WTHeck? I was just talking to you!

I am so glad the hospice nurse had given us her hard talk. I may have mistakenly thought I had more time to think of the perfect way to say see you later….

Please don’t wait to share with someone how you feel.

Someone needs to hear this…. you can do this and I love you!

Imperfect

Sometimes I wonder how I can even be in ministry. I admit I can be terrible. Especially when I am really angry or afraid. I won’t even be fully aware of spontaneously dropping F-bombs. Rapid fire, machine gun F BOMBS! 🙂 I like to blame it on my red hair. Or the devil. It definitely isn’t His spirit in me 🙂. My therapist told me a long time ago that I need to make peace with my sometimes “highly excitable personality.” Yikes. Why can’t I just be a new person in Christ and stay there?

I was recently in a car accident. It was a shocker because I didn’t see the other car. I heard a loud bang and then saw a grey blur of metal as the impact spun my car a 180. It all happened in a heartbeat! I sat in my car shaking. What just happened? I looked down and I had red marks across my chest from the seatbelt and my left thumb was already turning colors. I looked in my rearview mirror and saw that the other driver looked much older than me. Was she okay? I was shocked and sat frozen, unable to get out of my car and access the situation. I finally caught my breath and called 911 and told them there had been an accident.

Where are you located?

I am not sure. I’m really rattled. In Maple Grove. By Walmart. Across from Valvoline. By Starbucks. That side.

Where are you? Southbound? Northbound? What road?.

Uh Uh Uh, Southbound.

I started to hyperventilate. I couldn’t recall the name of the road even though I probably drive it every day. I continued to tell her the landmarks, a block from X highway etc. and she starts screaming at me!

SCREAMING!!!

MAAM! WHY DON’T YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE? YOU NEED TO BE AWARE OF WHERE YOU ARE DRIVING!!! YOU NEED TO KNOW THE NAME OF THE STREETS YOU ARE DRIVING ON AT ALL TIMES!!! YOU NEED TO….

Her screaming was not making me think any clearer. I’m thinking, why are you yelling at me? Lady, you have no idea if I have a head injury or if my breast is cut off. Hmmm Maybe I hit my head and am worse than I realized! Now I am really panicked so I start screaming back….

Me: What the F$#@$!##@!!!!! I am rattled! I am trying to F@#$#@-ing tell you where I am and F@#$##……

OP: Stop yelling at me! Stop swearing at Me!

Me: You stop yelling at me!!!!! I’m sorry but aren’t you supposed to be the calm one? You aren’t helping this……

I mistakenly gave her the name of a street across the highway from me and she says “No you aren’t there you are on X !!!” Ahhhh….so she knew all along. 🙂 Ha! Maybe she was trying to find out if I had been day drinking.

OP: Are you blocking a lane?

Me: We are off to the side of the road and cars are going around us.

OP: THAT IS NOT WHAT I AM ASKING YOU!!!!!!! ARE YOU…..

This exchange goes on for a couple more minutes and then she finally screams “ YES YOU ARE BLOCKING A LANE!!!!! WAIT FOR AN OFFICER!!!!” Then hangs up on me. I’m thinking, don’t leave? I can’t even talk right now. I then decided to reach out for prayer so I could calm the F@$@#$# down.

We both were obviously not having a good day and she was just trying to quickly assess the situation. I cannot imagine this exchange if it was a murder scene or an abduction. Later, I told the officer that the 911 OP was a real @#$#@#. He just smiled. Hmmm, Maybe he knows her. 🙂 My sister, who showed up to help later said to me “ Do you realize when you said that he had his body cam on?”

OOPS. God is still working on this Redhead, but that doesn’t stop Him from using me. Or you.

Forgive yourself for not being perfect. Only Big Sky Daddy is perfect and He already loves and adores you. Even if you spontaneously drop an F@#$#%%.

You’ll Never Catch Me Coppers!

I looked up from my computer to see a County Sherrif’s vehicle pull up and park outside my place. I suddenly froze, held my breath and thought ” Yikes! What did I do now?” Then, I exhaled and laughed! What could I possibly have done or DO that would warrant…..well a warrant? Hahahaha!

Isn’t it funny that even though my crazy redhead days are over with, that I am so quick to condemn myself? Before anyone else does? Or before there is any proof of wrong doing? I think we all tend to do that. Or am I the only one who has some “situations” in my past? You know….the ones you are glad happened before Facebook and Instagram were invented?.

Peeps, not only do we need to get over ourselves, we need to get PAST our past.

I am getting too old for this crap. How about you?

Redheads

I laughed today, as I saw a man walk into Cub Foods with 3 energetic red-haired children. They actually looked more like a small red tornado; swirling, pulling, shoving and bouncing off of each other. I couldn’t tell if they were having fun or ready to burst into flames! Ha! The poor guy just looked frazzled.

Ahhhhh. A family full of redheaded bundles of joy. Or anger. Or hysterics. You just never know what might show up, moment to moment.

My parents were most likely glad that they only had one. My mother used to save articles that she had found on redheads for me. One was a Time or Life Magazine article, in which they did a study on a group of redheaded children. They found some significant differences. Redheads were more easily angered, frustrated, and had a very low tolerance for waiting. Waiting of any kind. The magazine stated that is why the Vikings, who were predominately redheads, enjoyed fighting, killing and pillaging. They just couldn’t help themselves!

Redheads supposedly had a lower tolerance to pain, needed more anesthesia and were found to, more often, have addictive personalities. The study also included monitoring the children’s classroom behavior, the day after Halloween. Photographs showed the children, after an evening sugar binge, out of control and literally bouncing off the walls!

I hate to admit it, but when I was a child, I could occasionally be a handful. Ok, even as a young adult. Ok, up until about 15 years ago. Ha! Glad I got more mellow as the years went on. Most days I am pretty calm. Except in rush hour traffic after my morning McDonald’s coffee buzz. Or the afternoon drive home. Or waiting in line. Especially waiting in line. I think that is why the Holy Spirit always seems to manifests when I am standing in line. Probably safer for everyone. Sure keeps my mind off of pillaging.

Ginger Snapped

Today, I went to a Costco to pick up a couple of items. I was having trouble finding them so I asked several employees who were more than happy to help me. I even went into the pharmacy area looking for a supplement. They didn’t have it but the pharmacist was more than happy to order it for me….and the price was better than I expected!

I’m as happy as a little girl 🙂 and told the pharmacist and his crew how much I appreciated them. In fact, several weeks earlier a prescription that CVS was going to charge me $1000… Yes $1000… Costco filled for $12.00!

So I decided that, on my way out, I was going to tell one of the managers how happy I was with this Costco. As I went through the checkout, I asked an employee who was helping to put my items on the conveyor belt if there were any managers on the floor. He pointed to two women that were standing 20 feet from me, near an employee area.

As the cashier ran my items through I looked over and the employee I had just spoken with had walked over to these two women. He pointed at me and I heard him say “see that woman with the red hair? She wants to see one of the managers.” They asked “Do you know what it’s about?” “No, she just said she wants to speak with one of the managers.” One of them replied “We will speak to her when she gets done checking out her items.” I thought how nice of him!

I could hear all of this because now they were only 10 feet away. Isn’t it funny how we can have supersonic hearing at times and at other times we can tune out someone who is speaking directly to us?

So as I turned to walk toward them, they looked at me, then looked at each other like “NOPE!” Then they quickly punched some numbers into a keypad and escaped behind a door as I stood there. Stood right there! They knew I was coming over and they fled!!!!! Ha! They probably thought “oh my God it’s a Karen! A redheaded Karen!”Probably fleeing for their lives. Don’t tell me there are no stereotypes of older white women. Or Redheads. Especially older, very pale large Redheads! The guy wasn’t helping me! He was warning them. 🙂

So I started speaking to a guy with a supervisor name tag on who had just walked up. “ Are you a manager?” “No, is there a problem? ” “No, I just wanted to tell a manager how much I love this store and how helpful everyone is. I’m also a new member and was concerned with having Costco fill my prescription but they’ve actually saved me a lot of money and have been more than gracious and helpful.”

Mr. Helpful Snitch started circling us to find out why the albino Karen isn’t happy and I think he was surprised that I had a big a$$ smile on my face.

The supervisor smiled, thanked me, and said he’d pass on the compliments.

I laughed and it didn’t upset me. Seriously. I love this Costco. Too bad the managers missed out on a kudos, today. Not every request of a manager is a negative one.

Redheads

“Are you mean? I heard Redheads are mean!”

WTH? Great conversation starter.

She continued, “Or are you nice?” I replied” I’m nice…..until I’m not” and then gave her a wink.

I had just sat down with a group of people who included some new faces. This woman, who came from a country of mostly dark-haired and dark-eyed residents continued to stare me down. She was the size of a kindergartner so I figured I could take her if she made any fast moves 🙂

The group began to chat about an upcoming event we were all involved in but when the conversation lulled she piped up again “So are you mean?”

I relayed the story to a friend “Seriously, do you believe that? Guess that would be redhead stereotyping”. She laughed “Well it probably doesn’t help that you and I have RBF. (resting bitch face) You also have a way of looking right through someone. I can’t tell if God’s giving you a word or if you are reading someone’s mail. It’s a little intimidating”

I sighed ” I am probably in my own little world. Just stressing out trying to remember if I locked my back door.”

Years ago, I received an email from Fr. Neal who had moved to Costa Rica. “You’ll never guess what they call redheads down here! They call them Al Qaeda!”

Oh my, everyone’s a comedian 🙂

It’s ok if you are afraid of redheads. I am seriously afraid of clowns. Oh wait….don’t most clowns have red hair?

Damn! Maybe I’m afraid of redheads too.

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