Diaries of the Breadman’s Daughter: Regrets, Do-overs and the Night My Dog Died.

January 21, 2012September 8, 2015 / boo king / 6 Comments

Andy hated having to wear the dreaded “cone.”

I have regrets. Probably more than I care to admit, or face. I’m not one of those people who boldly declare, “I regret nothing.” I don’t necessarily wallow in them like a drunk on the bar stool, but they do exist and suffice to say, are now part of my DNA. I don’t judge but I do acknowledge.

One of my biggest regrets, and the author of my sadness, is that I wasn’t with my mother when she died. I was there a few hours beforehand but not at the moment she left. That was over a decade ago and I pined for a do-over, an opportunity to hold her hand, say one last good-bye and bear witness to her presence and her passing. And until last September I thought this was just the wishful thinking of a heartbroken daughter. But in a peculiar and unexpected way I got my do-over.

Little back story: On those rare occasions when Ma went to her Dark Place she would refer to herself as a dog. “I feel like a dog,” she’d say. Ma wasn’t one to feel sorry for herself, but we all go there at times and she was no exception. Although I heard her sorrowful dog Mantra and even took it to heart at times, I also dismissed it as crazy-talk, and never really gave it much energy nor validation.

Then I fell in love. At first sight. With Andy. He was a dog. Really. Literally. A long haired Jack Russell. Not since the dog of my childhood, Sugar Miettinen, had I loved a creature so. He was heavenly. Divine. A wonder. And I loved him. We got him the year after Ma died. We responded to an ad in our little neighborhood weekly that said something like “male Jack Russell, 12 weeks old, last one of the litter.” By the time my husband, daughter and I arrived at the farm where he had spent his first weeks of life, we had him named and our hearts were spilling over with dreams. On the way home, I happily joked that it wouldn’t have mattered how much he cost, because I knew the minute I laid eyes on him, he was coming home with me.

Our daughter was nine at the time. Years before, we had promised her that when we bought a house we would get her a puppy. We were diehard renters and had cats because for some reason they were more “landlord-friendly,” which is, among other things, a testimony to the intelligence and cunning of the feline persuasion. When Ma and The Old Man died, I inherited a small amount of money, enough for a down payment on our home. A month after we moved in, so did Andy.

He took over the house and our hearts. He was brilliant that way. I expected him to be around for at least twenty years like Sugar Miettinen and Dee Dee, the country and western cat. Both lived extraordinary wonderful lives. I used to brag that my pets lived long. I had this naive notion that my love was the secret sauce, the reason for their inexplicable longevity. I was wrong.

At the beginning of September, while my husband was on the East Cost, thousands of miles away burying his father, Andy got sick. At first I thought he had “the bloat.” This was something I discovered on the internet after hours of research the night I noticed his stomach was swollen and he was having trouble breathing. It was serious but not necessarily life threatening. It was, however, enough to scare the bejesus out of my daughter and myself. We wrapped a blanket around him and piled into my sister’s car. I called her because I couldn’t think straight, much less drive. My brain was consumed by “the bloat.” By now it was well after ten o’clock so our only recourse was to take him to an emergency Vet clinic across town. The Vet examined him, then took X-rays. And then he delivered the news that Andy did not have “the bloat” but in fact, he had congestive heart failure. His little heart was surrounded by water. Mine was surrounded by pain. The Vet, who was very nice, but due to all the surrounding circumstances, and him being the bearer of bad news, I took an instant dislike for him. Basically he gave us two options: he could euthanize him right then or we could take him home and Andy would continue to have “episodes” and eventually he would have one final heart attack and die. Needless to say, the floodgates opened and neither my daughter nor I could control the tears. Not that we wanted to anyway.

I learned a couple of things about myself and my daughter in those moments after hearing Andy’s death sentence. We don’t take bad news well, perhaps we don’t take it at all. We’re full of hope, even when it’s clearly hopeless. And we’re either incredibly optimistic people or we live in chasm of denial. Regardless, just like that day nine years earlier when I knew I wasn’t leaving the farm without him, I scooped Andy up in my arms and brought him home. I had no game plan. I had no idea what I was doing. I only knew that he had been sick a total of 24 hours and I couldn’t let this be the end.

Andy lasted a week. My daughter and I tried everything we could to save him starting with a second opinion. Two days later we took him to our own Vet and she offered us the hope we so desperately sought. She gave us medication and prescribed a heart healthy dog food. But by this point, Andy wasn’t interested in food and getting the pills down his throat was next to impossible. It was tantamount to wrestling an alligator.

Thursday, September 8 was Ma’s birthday. It was also the day Andy died.

All that day, at the back of my mind I thought “this is the day.” Ma died from congestive heart failure. So did Andy. Not all that unusual I suppose, perhaps a little coincidental at best, except for this. One of the reasons I knew I would never leave the farm without Andy was because of his eyes. They were dark and sweet like the finest rich chocolate. When I looked into those dark sweet eyes I saw my mother’s eyes looking back at me. There was an ancient connection. I knew him. I shared this “knowing” with my husband and daughter. I’m not sure they really understood but they never ever, not even once in nine years, denied my conviction that in some cosmic kooky way my mother was with me through Andy. I always called him my “healing dog,” the one who helped ease the pain of relentless grief, and recover from the rawness of loss.

On the night Andy died I got my do-over. I was sitting in my office waiting for my bedtime cup of milk to heat in the microwave. It takes 220 seconds to do so. I heard the sound of a dog’s toes tapping along the wooden floors of the hallway leading to my office. I assumed it was our other dog Coco, who we had rescued a few years earlier from a life not worth living, coming to visit me. Andy hadn’t been able to make the climb up the stairs for a few days so I was surprised to see him walk through the door to where I was sitting in the dark. I greeted him, gave him a gentle pat behind the ear, told him how lovely it was to see him. He laid down on the floor facing me. I thought this was some sign from God that he was having a miraculous recovery and that he was healed. Hallelujah. Before the microwave could beep, Andy got up and headed towards our bedroom. Instinctively I followed him. He got next to the bed and started to heave and gag. I knelt down with him, massaged his throat to help him breathe – we had been doing this all week during his episodes – and told him it would be okay. Everything would be all right little buddy. He let out two deep grunts, stiffened and collapsed.

That was it. I got my do-over. What a privilege to have been with him in his final moments, to have been the last one to touch him. What a gift that he chose me.

I didn’t really have a game plan for how I was going to care for Andy after we left the Vet’s but I did start to think about what I would do should he die at home with just my daughter and I alone to manage on our own. I was terrified. I also knew I wanted him buried in our garden, the place where he chased sticks, laid under the Garry Oak trees, drank from the pond, sat with my husband and watched the fish, the place where he barked incessantly at every passer-by, where he stood on the rocks keeping guard over his family, the place where he pooped. That’s where I wanted him to be. Close. Forever near. I knew I couldn’t dig a hole, at least not one that Andy would be placed in. But I knew someone who could. While my daughter held vigil, I threw on my jacket and went next door to our neighbor, who is young enough to be my son, strong from years of working as a garden designer, and who on that night, brought truth to the meaning of “good neighbor.”

In the quiet darkness, on September 8th, Christian dug a hole, and while doing so we talked in hushed tones about our mother’s deaths, about our connection to the earth, the trees and plants we both salvaged from their gardens, and most importantly, how connected we were to them. Something beyond words happened that night. Something far greater than the death of my beloved pet. I learned about the unwavering kindness of human beings, and their generosity and willingness to help with things that are often incomprehensibly difficult.

I am forever grateful to Christian. He knows this. The following evening he contacted me to see how I was. He shared something with me, something so profound it took my breath away. As grateful as I was to have had him participate – however unintentional on his part – in this sacred ritual, he too was grateful. It touched him deeply. All that day he told me he “felt so alive.” Is this what true, unselfish acts of kindness do for us? Even in the face of death, in the middle of the night, in the shroud of darkness, if we reach out, feel our connectedness, we get a glimpse of the Divine.

And then, we know for sure that we are alive.

Diaries of the Breadman’s Daughter: Everything Scares Me.

January 16, 2012May 7, 2015 / boo king / 3 Comments

I was even too afraid to smile in my Kindergarten photo.

I have fears. I have always been afraid. Everything scares me. Anxiety has haunted me from the beginning, probably even in the womb. Perhaps there is deeper meaning to that first cry. I have no conscious memory of not being anxious about something. In fact, fear and anxiety have been such an indelible part of my life I suspect on some level I’ve grown comfortable with this diabolic duo of emotional destruction.

I’m an ordinary woman who has always longed to live an extraordinary life. And in some ways I do. I look back with wide-eyed wonder at the life I have led, the people who have surrounded me, travelled this journey with me. I’ve come a long way baby! From the little girl trembling and weeping on her mother’s knee because she didn’t want to go to kindergarten without her to a fully evolved woman with accomplishments, skills, adroitness, and stuff under my belt. I’ve had the privilege to have met and worked with sublimely talented people, who have shared their gifts with me and enriched my life, both professionally and personally. I’ve fallen in love, married and had children, who have sat on my knee and wept. What an honor to be their mother and to have dried their tears. Yet through it all I have been afraid. Some days just getting out of bed is an act of courage.

It’s a miracle that I’ve done anything with my life. I don’t recall what got me off my mother’s knee and into that kindergarten classroom. I don’t know what she said or did. But I do know it required faith and trust. The flip side of the coin. The antithesis of the diabolical duo. Faith that someone or something was out there watching over me. Trust in my mother, that she wouldn’t lead me astray nor send me somewhere that would cause me harm. I was her dear one.

I tried a slew of things to overcome this underlying malaise that colored my days including reading copious pop psychology books. In turn I became a perennial student of self-help, a physician to my subconscious wounds and minister to my spiritual being. Some of these books were helpful, downright inspired, especially those written by Dr. Wayne Dyer. I think I’ve read everything he’s written from Your Erroneous Zones to the one I’m reading right now, Change Your Thoughts – Change Your Life.

In addition to books, I took fitness classes, practiced yoga, tried meditation, attempted creative visualization, ran my butt off, rode my bike everywhere, hopped on an elliptical machine every morning for a year, and I walked and walked and walked. I still run five mornings a week, practice yoga every morning prior to the run and I walk almost every day.

All of this mental and physical activity has helped. But nothing has helped more than the time I spend in quiet solitude writing my letters to God. Sometimes it feels a bit like we’re pen pals, albeit a tad one-sided. And other times it feels like unrequited love. No cards. No flowers. No love letters in return. But bit by bit, day by day I’m learning to trust in the process of life. I’m slowly letting go and letting God. And I tell myself that I was Ma’s dear one. And I like to think that I am God’s dear one too. Only good can come from a relationship like that. Nothing to fear.

Diaries of the Breadman’s Daughter: Growing The Compassion Muscle.

January 7, 2012February 18, 2012 / boo king / 1 Comment

Me and The Old Man

At the start of every new year, I resolve. I gave up resolving out-loud years ago, but I resolve none the less. This year is no exception.

Like a lot of people, I’ve resolved to lose – weight, toxic relationship, bad habits, double chin, muffin top. And to gain – more knowledge, more money, more fun, more wisdom, more sleep. This year I thought I’d try something new. I have resolved to grow. Not a garden full of tomatoes nor my bank account nor my hair. The focus will be on one very specific muscle, which really isn’t a muscle at all, but I like to think of it that way. Compassion. It’s right next to the heart muscle. Not really. But for argument’s sake, let’s say it is. Anyway, I want to grow this in a big way. I want it to be so large I’ll have to give it a name and buy it a wardrobe.

I wish I had resolved to do this sooner. About ten years sooner, while my father was still alive. Or probably further back than that so it could have actually had some affect on our relationship.

Little back story. As far back as I can remember I had this love-hate relationship with my Old Man. That’s what my siblings and I called him, not to his face of course. Actually we referred to him as “The” Old Man. He didn’t even warrant a personal pronoun. Looking back, that disrespectful name-calling makes me sad. I guess my compassion muscle is already starting to grow. In our defense, referring to your father as your Old Man was pretty common back then, even amongst offspring who revered their fathers.

There were reasons for my love-hate relationship with The Old Man. First and foremost, he was an alcoholic. And it wasn’t pretty. He wasn’t the life of the party, the fun guy when he drank. He was mean and miserable and terrorized my timid mother and her four kids. I being the youngest, and his only biological child had no memory of a father who didn’t drink. Not that it’s any consolation, but my siblings had a few good years without an alcoholic in their midst prior to my parents meeting and falling in love. Okay, that’s the hate part – the ‘I wish he’d drop dead’ silent prayers.

The love part goes like this. The Old Man was a sweet, shy, funny, give you the shirt off your back guy – when he was sober. That father took me with him when he delivered bread, went to my parent-teacher nights, took me to baseball games that he umpired, brought home pastries from the bakery, bought me my first teddy bear when I was sick (that I still have), took us for Sunday drives in the country, on trips to Duluth, taught me to drive, hugged me when my heart was broken, yelled at drivers who sped down our street for fear one would hit me, spit on my warts every morning because he’d heard this was a cure, took me to church, loved me unconditionally, thought I was beautiful. And so much more.

My father’s alcoholism got in the way of things. It especially interfered with my ability to love him like a daughter. As I grew older, so did my resentment and impatience. Even long after he had found sobriety, my detachment and lack of interest in my father’s thoughts or feelings was ever-present and my inability to forgive was paramount. As he became elderly, he also grew cantankerous and ornery, demanding of my mother. This was just fodder for the chasm that lay between us. Even as his hands shook and his gate faltered, his hearing went and his eyes clouded over, as he developed Diabetes, Parkinson’s and Petit Mal Seizures I was unmoved, detached and lacking in compassion. None of this touched my heart, or if it did, I wasn’t about to tell him. I was over it, past all that. Emotionally bankrupt.

Of course, I’m not over it. And probably never will be. I also have regrets. I wish I had spent more time with him that last year of his life. I wish I hadn’t scolded him for sneaking cookies and cake, threatening that it would send him into a diabetic coma. I wish I had listened better to his stories at the dinner table. I wish I hadn’t looked away, called him an asshole under my breath. I wish I had told him I loved him more often. I wish I had said ‘thank you.’

My father died of a broken heart five weeks after my mother. I had this crazy thought in my head when my sister-in-law called to tell me the news. I was relieved. Not because my prayer for him to drop dead had finally been answered but because I took comfort in the thought that perhaps he was with my mother. For the five weeks prior to his death, I worried about her being all alone “out there” and now she wasn’t.

A few months after he died my sister-in-law sent me a small box of his stuff. There wasn’t much in it – his wallet, watch, ring, a few photos, a Finnish Bible and a Song Book that belonged to his mother and some newspaper clippings which included his obituary and an article on his days driving a horse-drawn bread wagon, the last of his kind.

In his wallet was a photograph taken by my mother of The Old Man and I when I was about three months old. It was tattered, torn and cracked, barely recognizable. I didn’t know it existed. He had carried it with him my entire life. I love that photo. My heart expands when I look at it. As does my compassion muscle.

Diaries of the Breadman’s Daughter: Wisdom Doesn’t Come Easy.

January 3, 2012June 26, 2012 / boo king / 2 Comments

Ma loved the shade her summer hats provided.

When my mother died two things happened. First, I lost one of the people who were most dear and precious to me. And second, she didn’t leave me with any words of wisdom regarding the “meaning of life and why we’re here.” She didn’t uncover any big secret during her life and impart that to me on her deathbed. No, instead Ma, my daughter M and I played “I Spy with My Little Eye” on what would be the eve of her departure to God knows where. We laughed at the grey wall. I never knew it was her last night. I thought there was still time for her to cough up some tidbit that would help me understand what this thing we call life is all about.

I realize unearthing the meaning of life is a huge topic and probably an impossible burden to have placed on my sweet Ma, especially at the end of her life when she was so terribly ill but in my defense, she was a wise woman and I just assumed she would say something that I could hang onto for the rest of my life. Put an end to all this seeking and just sail on through without any effort or care until we hooked up in the great Hereafter. I mean it’s only fair. She was my mother for God’s sake. She was supposed part with something really great, incredibly profound and comforting that would explain my purpose for being here.

Ten years later, I still grieve for Ma. Not the way I did initially but I think of her daily and every now and again I am overcome with sadness and I cry. These sudden spurts of emotion are random and always unexpected. I can pass a photo of her every day for months and not think too much about it and then one day out of the blue I’ll see the photo in a completely different way, as if for the first time, and I start to cry. Like a baby. Inconsolable sobbing. Snot-faced and red-eyed ugly. It isn’t just a photo that can reduce me to tears either. Anything can trigger it: an elderly woman with veiny hands and long piano fingers examines a mango in the grocery store; a baby in the park with dark chocolate eyes glances my way; a dog barks in the dead of night; a piece of pie in the fridge looks cold; a fallen leaf forlorn; a rock; a bird; a plane, a hat. Anything can set me off really. There’s no rhyme. And there certainly is no reason.

Why does this happen? What is it about this random, seemingly unconnected stuff that reminds me of Ma and touches my heart so deeply. Maybe because it isn’t so random after all. And it is connected. All of it. To Ma. To me. To you. To God.

As it turns out, I did learn something profound through that whole journey of Ma getting ill and ultimately dying. This probably shouldn’t have been the epic revelation it was but I can be a little dim sometimes. Anyway, here’s the thing: it wasn’t Ma’s job to tell me the meaning of life, nor answer the big question of why we’re here. That wasn’t her responsibility. It’s mine. This is all part of my quest, my journey. Her’s was entirely something else. Between her and God. None of my business. And maybe she did know something and wouldn’t tell me because by doing so she would have robbed me of the chance to figure this out on my own. What greater gift. Ma was wise.

Diaries of the Breadman’s Daughter: Liberty Will Set You Free.

January 1, 2012March 18, 2012 / boo king / 2 Comments

Liberty will set you free.

I started writing letters to God about twenty years ago. At the time, I desperately needed to talk to someone and there wasn’t anyone in close proximity that I could tell this stuff to. I could have gone to a shrink I suppose, but I’m not sure I thought this was all that shrink-worthy at the time. In retrospect, it probably was. It was just private, intimate, inside your head kind of material that you can’t really share with anyone human, no matter how much you love them and they love you. So who do you turn to? I remembered from those years at Christ Lutheran that Pastor M said you could always talk to God and he would listen – even to the worst of the worst. Well that was me. I was a long-time renegade from organized religion by this point, and the mere thought of getting down on my knees and praying out-loud, or even silently, was painful. So I did what came naturally to me. I wrote.

Little back story. My first letters weren’t actually letters at all. And they weren’t written in a Plain Jane Hilroy notebook either. The first compilation of “prayers, petitions and pleas to God” were contained in a genuine bona fide journal. I can’t remember who gave it to me but I’m guessing it was my best friend B because we gave each other gifts like that. It is one of those cloth covered dealios with sweet little flowers in pink and periwinkle and many many many daunting blank pages to fill. The word “LIBERTY” is engraved in gold leaf front and back, along with the words “Hand Made in England”, also engraved in gold leaf.

All this gold leaf and English pedigree seemed to not only endow this chronicle of my early interior life with virtues I surely didn’t possess but with magical powers as well. And I have to say I still love the notion that by the mere act of writing in this supernatural diary I would be set free, just as all that gold leaf LIBERTY promised. If there was a theme, some common thread woven throughout this first flowery treatise, it was the need for freedom and the desire to hit the road Jack. And of course, I needed God’s help to achieve this. Really.

It is also filled with all kinds of “New Age” postulations, which looking back, make the older me both smile affectionately and cringe with horror. A bit like looking at prehistoric photos of myself in bell bottoms. What was I thinking? Here’s the thing. I’m not sure I was. Thinking that is, at least not clearly. But somewhere between the inside front cover inscription of “My Book of Gratitude, Love & Appreciation” and the last sentence “Thank you Father” some sense of clarity was achieved. Not a lot. But enough to begin this journey, to first get me the hell out of Dodge and then to begin having these daily conversations with God.

Dear God. It’s me.

Diaries of the Breadman’s Daughter: The Awesome Power in a Sweet Ride.

December 31, 2011December 31, 2012 / boo king / Leave a comment

There were other religious influences. They say kids are like sponges. I don’t particularly like that analogy, for a number of reasons. But suffice to say Bob and Square Pants, and just leave it at that. I do think kids possess naturally open and insatiably curious minds though. More like bottomless toy boxes that always have room for more. Or the magicians black hat. Rabbits and endless chiffon scarves. Doves and other wondrous things extracted with ease.

At least that was how my young mind worked. Still does.

One of my favorite things to ponder as a child, and to this day for that matter, is God. Such an infinite subject. I wanted to know Him/Her. I wanted to know me. Where I came from. Where God came from. If God made me then who made God? I thought about that so much it made my head spin. Still no answer. Will I ever know?

Little back story. When I was six my oldest brother met the love of his life and the woman who would become my sister-in-law. They were engaged for four years, which at the time seemed like an eternity to me. Truthfully, I think it seemed like an eternity to J as well. We both had our reasons. I was very young and she was eager to be a blushing bride.

During those four years my brother, who once smoked unfiltered cigarettes and drove a mauve Harley Davidson, wore his black Italian hair slicked back like John Travolta in Grease and had a chipped front tooth, became a Catholic. He did it for love. I can’t think of a better reason. My sister-in-law played an instrumental role the conversion, which was a good thing. The entire family agreed. It transformed my brother’s life, gave it purpose and made him happy, beyond his wildest imaginings. That was my first introduction into the awesome power of God. I was a firsthand witness to a metamorphosis so rich and profound and eternal. Undeniable. Love taking action. All these years later, it still exists.

The Awesome Power of God Manifested in a Sweet Ride

Even though by then, The Old Man, Ma and I were attending the Lutheran Church every Sunday I still felt kind of bad. Not quite good enough. Compared to St. Michael and All Angels Anglican Church that the other two Musketeers attended and Corpus Cristi Catholic Church, right across the road for God’s sake, that my brother and sister-in-law were members, the Christ Lutheran Church seemed somehow second rate. No one I knew went there. What did they know that we didn’t? Why were the other churches up on Red River Road and ours was down on Walkover Street? It seemed we couldn’t get anything right.

Furthermore, the Christ Lutheran Church was full of Finlanders with blonde hair, pale skin and weird accents. The Old Man fit in nicely, being a Finlander, but my painfully shy olive-complected Italian/English mother and I were misfits. Strangers in a strange land. As Jim Morrison so aptly put it, “People are strange when you’re a stranger.” That’s predominantly how I felt the entire time I attended Christ Lutheran Church.

I stopped attending when I turned 19, the year of my emancipation from organized religion. I was very disorganized after that.

I didn’t know it at the time but I guess it was also the year I became an “Other.”

Diaries of the Breadman’s Daughter: Sometimes It Can Be Awkward.

December 30, 2011December 28, 2012 / boo king / Leave a comment

boo posing awkwardly in white communion dress with white bible in front of floral curtains.

The day that I had the epiphany, that ‘ah ha!’ moment after reading Eric Weiner’s article in The New York Times, I got to thinking about when this whole thing began. Not the world beginning, that big bang thing or whatever it was that started what is commonly known as life. I’m talking about something far more personal. I’m talking about my life with God – and when that all began.

I wish I could say it started in the womb and that I had these primordial memories of being in heaven and sitting on God’s lap, but it didn’t. Or if it did I don’t remember so that doesn’t count. The best I can recall is that this ‘relationship’ (and I use the term loosely, at least in this context) began in elementary school.

Little back story. Until this juncture I don’t recall being from a terribly religious family. We celebrated Christmas (with presents under the tree and a turkey with cranberry sauce) and Easter (with ham and scalloped potatoes, new shoes and an awkward photo op.) But we also celebrated Thanksgiving (with mashed potatoes, turkey with cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie instead of presents), and Birthdays (no turkey, no cranberry sauce, no pumpkin pie but a galaxy of presents for the special one of the hour.) So throughout the year there were many celebrations and it was hard to tell which ones, if any, had religious affiliations. It was confusing at best, given the abundance of delicious food and divine presents attached to every one of these celebrations that took place at 204.

Anyway, my best guess is ‘it’ all began sometime in early elementary school when I hooked up with S and T and we became the three Musketeers, a nickname coined by T’s father, who was the manager of the local movie theater. It could have been worse. We could have ended up the Three Stooges.

They both went to church, as did many of my other classmates. I did not. This made me feel bad. Inferior. Flawed. Unworthy of God’s favor, whatever that meant. To not feel bad, or worse yet, to not be a blemished cursed sinner I approached my parents with the notion that we go to church. At least this is what I recall. I probably didn’t. It was most likely their idea, but this is my take. Besides, I’m too old to have clear memories, and that was a long long time ago. But we’re talking about God and He/She forgives the forgetter.

Of my parents, oddly enough, it was The Old Man who had the closest connection to what would be considered organized religion. He was a Finlander and there was some sort of ancestral connection to Lutheranism. Ma may have been Anglican as a child but that affiliation was long gone and best forgotten. Her connection to religion was unorganized, I suppose. So off we went to Christ Lutheran Church.

Thus began my indoctrination into the Christian faith.

Diaries of the Breadman’s Daughter: Letters to God.

November 20, 2011December 24, 2012 / boo king / 1 Comment

The thing about God is. No one knows for sure. Really.

I read this article in The New York Times by Eric Weiner called Americans: Undecided About God. Weiner so eloquently writes that the national conversation about God “has been co-opted by the True Believers, on the one hand, and Angry Atheists on the other.” He asks, “what about the rest of us?” Weiner calls these folks the Nones. Nones doesn’t do it for me. I think of myself as an Other. Don’t ask me why. It’s just kind of the way I am. But regardless of the moniker – Nones or Others – I agree with Weiner, we haven’t been a part of this conversation. We’ve been this tight-lipped group who shied away from any discussion, even remotely religious, like sheep about to be sheared and left standing naked in the field. Awkward. Embarrassing. Uncomfortable. Skin-crawly. To say Weiner’s article resonated with me is an understatement. It got me thinking. Then it inspired me. And then I felt like having a conversation about None Other than God.

Little back story. For the past twenty years I’ve been writing these letters to God. Some people, far more intellectual or spiritual, or hip to this pursuit than I, call this “Journaling.” I call it writing letters in spiral bound Hilroy notebooks. Nothing terribly fancy. But organized. And to prove that these are letters, not emails or memos, or blogs to the Big Guy in the Sky, they all begin “Dear God” and end “Love, Me.” In my world that constitutes the basics of Letter Writing 101.

I write one almost every day. Except on the weekends. I do other things. Like grocery shopping. Errand running. Movie watching. I relax and generally do everything I can to break the Monday to Friday routine. Basically I laze around and waste time. Even God rested on the seventh day.

Box of Letters to God

After reading the New York Times article it occurred to me that after twenty years of writing almost daily to God, I must have something to say about the topic. I’m an “Other.” Typically when it comes to religion I keep my opinions to myself. Unless in the company of other “Others.” Then I might say something provocative like “no one really knows for sure do they?” Even that comment is plagued with doubt. Ends in a question mark, implying uncertainty. Not a definitive, confident period.

This blog is about all things God – big and little g. It’s about wonder. And awe. And marvel. About where we came from and where we’re ultimately going. Not only in the big cosmic sense but in the small personal close to your heart way too. All are welcome here – Others and everyone else. Just open your heart. And bring your head.

My Thing About God