One day in June I caused a nationally syndicated advice columnist to run from me after I mentioned I enjoyed her column when really I had only looked her up a few days before because I was told the freelance photography job I had been assigned would include her. She wasn’t even the subject of the photos or the story; her husband was.

I think the columnist, who for the sake of this post I will call “Betty”, imagined I was some fan-girl, wannabe writer and was going to gush over her writing and beg her for advice right there in the houses her husband had built. I, however, had no intention or interest in gleaning information from her about how to become a successful writer. I don’t really have aspirations to be a successful writer, which is something a writer isn’t supposed to say, er, write. It isn’t that I wouldn’t enjoy getting paid for writing and having more than only my family appreciate it, but the idea of accepting all that comes from being well known doesn’t appeal to me.

Honestly, I couldn’t figure out why “Betty” was even present at the interview, which was being conducted by someone else and hasn’t been published yet, since the story wasn’t about her. It was about her architect husband and the tiny house community he had built along one of the picturesque Finger Lakes near us. I’m guessing her “nationally known” status was the reason for her presence, though I didn’t know her. After being told her name by the editor of the magazine I was shooting for, I looked her up where anyone else looks people up these days – Google. The couple had their engagement and wedding featured in the New York Times and her column showed up on a who’s-who list of national newspapers. It turns out she’s also a New York Times best selling author. (Disclaimer: this post was not sponsored by the New York Times, unfortunately.)

On this day “Betty” had no clear connection to the story, other than she was the wife of the subject, and I could tell even she was a bit baffled by her presence. Her confusion over the need for her to be at the interview may be why she ultimately excused herself, but I did notice that move came immediately after I said, “I enjoy your column.”

Actually, I also said, “I’m a blogger. No one reads it, so I just do it for fun.” I can see how that sounded like I was about to follow that comment up with: “What can I do to get people to read my blog?” But I wasn’t going to. Because I wasn’t there for Betty. I was there for her husband. I was actually only trying to be polite and recognize her work as well as his.

I don’t even know why I said anything because I’d only read one of her columns.

Ever.

Two days before I met her.

However, I really did enjoy it and also enjoyed listening to her talk about how creative, smart and amazing her husband was. She was a delightful person who reminded me of myself in some ways, except she’s older and has five daughters in her blended family., and, based on her column, has a great deal more talent at writing.

Shortly after, or actually immediately after, my awkward comments she leaned toward her husband and said, “If I’m no longer needed, I’m going to slip away.”

And she did, though the interviewer suggested I grab a photo of the couple before she left. I did and it was sweet how the pair, who found love for each other late in their lives, smiled and giggled at each other like young newlyweds. Still, I couldn’t figure out why a photo of her was needed because, I reiterate, the story had nothing to do with her.

It’s a shame I frightened her away because I probably could have actually learned quite a bit from her, if not about writing, then a little bit about life itself. I guess I can read her column more often if I want to learn about her view on life. I’ll probably find we don’t agree at all on a number of things but there may be others we do.

What I do have to learn is how to be more tactful when I try to compliment others on their talents.

Maybe I’ll submit a question to her advice column about all of this.

Something like:

“Dear Nationally Syndicated Columnist:

I inadvertently freaked out a nationally syndicated columnist who may or may not have thought I was trying to ask her for writing advice during an interview about her husband. I was not trying to ask her advice. How can I explain to her I’m not some weirdo freak, but really was just trying to be polite?”

Sincerely,

Weirdo Blogger in Pennsylvania.

Summer fun in our family always includes some sort of water play, mainly for the kids. sometimes they don’t even have to get wet in the water to have fun.

We have debated over the years putting in our own pool, but there really isn’t space in our yard, nor do we really want to maintain one. Luckily we seem to have enough options for water play without it.

Even if it’s not a hot summer, we have to pull out a sprinkler or a small pool for the kids to play in and then we visit the pool at a local campground, and of course the one my dad put up for the kids (and maybe a little bit for himself) a few years ago.

Our neighbor was also so sweet last weekend to invite us to swim in her pool when the weather was so hot.

I’m surprised sometimes how much my 11-year old can enjoy even the smallest pool, still managing to find fun in the littlest amount of water.

How does your family cool off in the summer?

This post is part of a monthly blog circle where a group of photographers share ten photos from the previous month, on the tenth day of the month. I know a couple of the bloggers in my group are “down under” so for them it’s winter and they may be battling some colder temperatures and obnoxious rain. What’s the weather like where you are?

To continue the circle please click on Shea Klunder’s link and see what she featured for this month’s installment.

Last month we started packing up my aunt’s life in boxes and filing the pieces of her life away.

When Aunt Dianne’s room had been completely cleaned out it looked as if she had never lived there or even been a part of our family and our lives for 67 years, more intimately for the last 8 years when she moved in with my parents.

In reality, of course, she was real, she existed and removing the material things she had accumulated doesn’t erase the impact she made in our lives.

“Let’s blow bubbles!” She announced one late summer afternoon, pulling bottles of bubble mix and wands out of a bag.

She had been living with my parents for a couple of years now and we were used to spontaneous ideas from her.

Her eyes lit up like a child’s on his or her birthday.

We all went out onto the porch and we blew bubbles out across the yard while my son, maybe 3 or 4 at the time, chased them and laughed. The bubbles glistened in the sun and Dianne “oohed” and “aahed” at the various sizes we were all able to make.

My Aunt Joan, Dianne’s sister had liked bubbles, and Dianne, or my mom, or maybe both, said we should blow them to remember Joan. Remembering special moments in a quirky or fun way was a knack Dianne had.

There were people in my aunt Dianne’s life who saw her as a throwaway person. Even before illness stole much of her life my aunt felt she didn’t matter much to the people who mattered most to her. She was often pushed aside, pushed away and backs were repeatedly turned on her. She was loud, brash, bold and mouthy at times, but not mean-spirited so it was always confusing to me why she was treated by some as the black sheep of the family.

For my brother and I, she was one of the best parts of our annual visits to North Carolina from our home in Pennsylvania, which we often made for Christmas. We spent much of our time in her bedroom at my grandparents, laughing at old movies or her off-color humor. She had an engaging and infectious personality and she was able to make anyone who met her feel like they’d known her for a lifetime.

We used to say she was the “fun aunt”. This isn’t to say our other aunt, mom’s other sister, wasn’t wonderful, because she certainly was, but she was sometimes a little more reserved than Dianne.

Dianne laughed loud, unashamedly made inappropriate comments and noises, and let us get away with things other relatives didn’t. Sometimes she laughed so hard she couldn’t breathe and turned bright red and when she laughed that hard we laughed even harder. She made us feel welcome, always wanted to give more than she received and reminded us of an excited kid, no matter how old she got. She loved old movies, crafts, cooking shows and gossip. And every Christmas we somehow came home with a photo of her rear while she bent over to pick up a gift or move something out of the way. A photo of Dianne’s butt became an unplanned holiday tradition, an inside family joke, much to her disgust.

She was a smoker and during family gatherings she chose to stand outside on the porch or locked herself in her room when she lit up. She spent much of her life trying not to bother others, maybe because she always felt she was in the way and unwanted.

Of course I realize that a person’s life isn’t defined by “things.”  A person’s life is defined by how well you love and are loved and she loved well and was loved well.  Dianne had a lot of love to give, but it was often rejected by those she tried to give it to.

My uncle Larry smelled good and made us all laugh. He was handsome and had a movie star smile and perfectly gelled hair. One Christmas I was sitting on his lap and the next Christmas he wasn’t there and no one wanted to talk about him. It wasn’t until much later I was told the truth about how he’d cheated on my aunt, demanded a divorce and she was pushed aside again.

She never remarried and never had children.

“I would have liked to have had children,” she told me one time, not long before she died, contemplating all her unreached dreams. Her gaze drifted off and she grew silent for a few moments and then she shrugged her shoulders.

“Oh well, I didn’t,” she said matter of fact because there wasn’t any point of dwelling on it when it couldn’t be changed.

She spent a lot of her life accepting what hadn’t been and couldn’t be, finding ways to make even the disappointments something to be weathered through and learned from.

A few years after Larry’s death, Dianne found a check in the mailbox at my parents, where she was now living. In his apparent rush to find something new and exciting, Larry had forgot to remove Dianne as a beneficiary on his social security and his checks were now being sent to his ex-wife, in addition to his widow. Those checks helped pay for her mounting medical bills, but also for a few nice things she hadn’t been able to have before. As a Christian I know I’m not supposed to subscribe to the idea of karma, but if it was real, this was definitely an example of it.

In his defense, Larry did, one time, shortly after he was diagnosed with cancer, try to apologize to Dianne. Unfortunately, the damage had been done and Dianne let the lies that she wasn’t worthy chip at more of her soul.

She and I shared more than one shouting match, usually caused by her unwavering stubbornness, which only got worse the further her medical conditions progressed. No matter how loud the shouting got, it wasn’t long before we were sharing “I love yous” and she was blowing a messy kiss on my cheek and calling me “Shug.” Especially in her later years, I didn’t want the last thing we said to each other to be in anger, so I’d push aside whatever she had said to offend me and be the first to offer apologies and a peace offering.

I saw her almost every weekend when our family visited my parents, but I still feel like I didn’t have enough time to tell her how special and important she was to our family, how she wasn’t defined by how she’d been treated much of her life – that it is God who says who we are, not men.

There were times she was told she was too loud, unworthy of the love and respect others were shown; that she was in the way and needed to keep herself away from others, but that was not how God saw her. The men in her life who treated her as less than could not and did not define her.

Her ex-husband, who stole her heart, then stole her faith in true love, did not define her worth.

Family who told her she wasn’t wanted or needed and ordered her to leave did not define her worth.

Her father, who emotionally and physically abused his children, later doing his best to make amends before he died, did not define her worth.

God saw HER.

He didn’t see her flaws or her failings or the negative others pointed out over and over.

He saw HER.

He saw all of her. He saw her as someone to be loved, to be enjoyed, to be honored because He had created her. He saw her as someone who cared, who reached out for love and to give love and gave it even when it was ignored.

I tried to tell her this many times but I could never seem to find the right words. I wanted to take away all the hurt others had levied at her. I wanted her to know she was loved simply because she was her. On Christmas Day we showed her love because we wanted her to know she belonged. She belonged with us and nothing could change that.

Four days after Christmas she was gone. Her health had been declining for years but none of us could imagine life without her and had established a shield of self-protecting denial around ourselves. She’d survived two heart attacks, numerous diabetic crises and other health issues, surely she’d bounce back this time too.

I’m not one who often says “God have me a vision,” or “I had this vision from God,” but shortly after Dianne died I was driving to my parents and I saw in my mind an image of her falling in my parents’ dining room. She was wearing her usual plaid, button-up shirt over a T-shirt and her pajama bottoms and slippers, an outfit that had almost become a uniform for her since she was often too tired to even change her clothes. The oxygen tube she had been wearing for a few years now was under her nose. She was heavy, as she had been for years while she battled various health conditions.

I saw her slump forward and off the chair she had sat on to catch her breath at the bottom of the stairs, as my mom had described to me, but instead of falling to the floor, I saw arms catching her and I saw her slowly turn, with her face upward. She was almost see through, like a spirit, yet still solid and her old body was on the floor, face down on the carpet, beneath her. When her face turned upwards she was young, thin, no longer bloated or her skin a grayish-blue color. She looked like the photos I had seen of her from when she was young. Her expression changed slowly from confusion to a smile of recognition and she reached up and touched someone’s face. I wish I could picture in my mind’s eye what that face looked like, but I can’t. Was it Jesus? Or was it God? Somehow in my mind I have decided it was the father himself, God.

I don’t know what this vision means to others, who might say it was something I imagined to bring comfort to our grieving family but to me I feel it was God saying “I have her. She’s ok. And now she knows she was wanted all along.”