Do More than Just Remember

Memorial Day is set aside for remembering those who gave their lives fighting for their country.  More specifically, fighting to defend a lifestyle of enviable freedoms enjoyed by citizens of the United States of America.  It is important we understand that these freedoms came about because of the willingness of individuals to sacrifice for every human's right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, unalienable rights endowed by the Creator of us all.  

It is important that we remember.  

It is vital we do more than just remember.

How wonderful the occasion is when a banquet is laid out before us, rich with foods and delicacies in sweet variety.  We may feel immense gratitude towards those who spent days preparing the feast.  We may to some extent attempt to understand the sacrifices made by these men and women who made possible our enviable feast.  But what good is all their hard work and effort if those at the banquet do nothing more than sit and admire the end results? Compliments are ill-served if no one ventures to taste the delicacies. 

Likewise, we may express our gratitude while keeping in our hearts those who have fallen to defend our precious rights and freedoms.  But our gratitude is ill-shown when we fail to use those freedoms to our advantage by creating better homes, better lives, and better communities within our united states. 

On this Memorial Day, take time to remember those who have fallen.  But on every day after, do more than simply remember; put the freedoms they died for to greater and nobler uses.  

Do I Love You?

I stand in the night and stare up at a lone star, wondering what love means.  You whisper your desire—do I love you?  I dare say yes.  But my eyes drift back to that solitary star; my mind is plagued with intimate uncertainty. 

What art thou, Love?  Tell me. 

I contemplate what I know—the qualities love doth not possess.  Love lifts no cruel or unkind hand, for it seeketh no harm.  It shirks from constraints and demands, for tyranny is not love.  A boisterous voice never crosses love’s lips, for to speak with thunder chases its very presence from the heart.  Love inflicts no pain, no fear, no misery, but conquers all such foes.  It is said love is not selfish, yet it does not guilt those who are.  On a heart unwillingly given it stakes no claim.  Love is nothing from Pandora’s box; it is no evil, sin, or sorrow unleashed on this world. 

My eyes glimmer as the star I gaze upon twinkles with brightness I do not possess.  I recognize my smallness—my ignorance of the One whose hands placed that star in the heavens for me. 

He is love.  By His own mouth He proclaimed it. 

Again the whispered question hits my ear—do I love you?  I dare say yes.  But my eyes squint tight, wishing on a lonely star, wondering what love means.

— Richelle E. Goodrich, Smile Anyway

Copyright © 2013 Richelle E. Goodrich

You Breathe....Thank Your Mother

It's almost Mother's Day, and so I've been pondering ways I can convey to my mother the depth of gratitude I feel for those great and numberless tasks she performed for my good when I was a child, not to mention her continual influence still shaping my thoughts and actions today.  My mother has given me much by making sacrifices beyond my comprehension.  She means the world to me.

The truth is, I have a wonderful mother.  

The truth is, not everyone can say those words.

I know people who ignore the holiday entirely.  Some rehearse a mental list of faults possessed by the woman they call mother.  Still others wonder around this time who their mother is....or was.....if only they could have been blessed to know her.  Despite our varied differences and attitudes about Mother's Day, there is one thing we share in common—one precious truth for which we can show our gratitude regardless.  And that is this:

Our mothers—apart from their strengths and defects, their successes and failures, their good and bad behavior, and even their mental, emotional, or physical absence or overbearing attentiveness—gave us the miraculous, valuable, precious gift of life.

Miraculous because we could never have bestowed it upon ourselves.

Valuable because of the endless opportunities and experiences it affords us.  

Precious because we have but one.  

So regardless of blame, faults, and flaws, remember you were given life by a woman.

You breathe.

You feel.

You see

and hear

and smell

and taste

and think

and move

and laugh

and weep

and heal

and dance

and sing

and love.

Thank your mother.

Such a Nasty Bruise

     

     “Such a nasty bruise,” he says, staring straight into my eyes.  I am stunned he can see it.  Delicate to the touch and tender on every side, the bruise is deeper than days.  My hand automatically moves to my chest.

     Science taught me with valid assurance that my heart was fixed in my rib cage, but life has since shown me otherwise.  My heart in fact dangles from a tangle of strings.  The ends are grasped tight by numerous people who yank and release, having caused many painful bruises over time.  I cry because they are invisible to most.

     “Such a nasty bruise,” he repeats, tugging on my poor heart. 

     His kind eyes fall away from mine as I feel a squeeze on my arm.  He twists it enough to show me a small, round patch of purple surrounded by a sickly yellowish corona. 

     “Oh.  My elbow.”  I let the air exhale from my lungs.  Another bruise forms where my heart has hit the floor.  It is jerked up again. 

     “Can I do anything for you?”  I see in his eyes the mirror image of a finger—his finger—wrapped in one of the dangling strings.  He tugs and I feel it.

     “No,” I reply to his question.  But it is a lie.  There is something he could do, along with all who grasp a portion of the web entangling my heart.  I wish they would mercifully let go.

Copyright 2016 Richelle E. Goodrich

I Slay Dragons at Night

I slay dragons at night while you sleep. 

I see by the way your face contorts how they exist in your dreams. 

Willing a magic sword, I plunge into your deepest nightmares and swing at the beasts with all my might, dodging flames exhaled by monsters that would eat me alive to go on torturing the fair one I love. I see your face relax, eyes still drowsily closed, when the mighty dragon is slain. 

It may be that my fingers rub soft circles on your forehead as I imagine my brave fight as a knight reclaiming your dreams. You smile under the spell of my touch, and I am rewarded.

And so, my love, as I await the dawn, I stand ready to slay dragons while you sleep.

― Richelle E. Goodrich, Slaying Dragons
 Copyright 2016 Richelle E. Goodrich

Before the Dawn

In the darkest night the sun may seem like an extinguished match or an ember drowned by rain. 

A light forever lost.

The cold world grows steadily colder and shrinks like the abused, closing in on all sides.  Laughter, smiles, the glimmer of dancing eyes, and all else indicative of human brightness is gone.  Colors leeched from everything leave shadows and emotion dull-gray in their absence. 

Time is a void.  A moment feels eternal. 

Hope does not blossom in the darkness but withers fast, starving for what only the sun can offer.  As its petals turn to dust, fear blows in and sweeps the remnants away.  The soul succumbs by degrees to nightmares emboldened by the dead of night. 

All is lost!  All is lost! 

The wretched sun, repulsed by our nothingness,

has abandoned the lives in its care!  

And then the eyes open wide, 

seeing mountains take shape on the horizon.

~Richelle E. Goodrich, Slaying Dragons

Copyright 2016 Richelle E. Goodrich

A Valentine Fairytale

Once upon a time there was a king and a queen though not of the same kingdom.  They were of different lands and ruled over very different subjects, possessing unique talents and single hearts.

This valiant king and beautiful queen one day found themselves treading the same route which happened to meander through both their lands.  Upon this chance meeting they detected in one another distinctive, worthy qualities, both intriguing and impressive enough to cause them to want to cross paths again.

Letters were exchanged from his kingdom to hers, delivered in haste.  For even the heralds could see what a marvelous thing it might be to join these two great empires.  And so, through written exchanges, it was agreed that this king would escort the queen in his grand, red carriage to view the celebrated, annual light festival in her land—an experience enjoyed after sunset.

On the night of the event, they rode along for hours, talking, laughing and smiling frequently at one another.  Their hearts beat in rhythm, pattering with pleasure and tenderness, one toward the other.  Jolly tunes played over the air, enhancing their bliss.  The king shared pictures of his royal family and subjects, portraits that pleased the beautiful queen.  And upon this enchanted night, surrounded by twinkling lights, their hearts swelled and the two fell in love.

It was not long before their kingdoms joined; a merger solidified through marriage.  It was a union that made them both forever good and rich.

To say that they lived happily ever after would be in error, because their days consisted of continual and unnumbered trials.  There were some periods that sparkled and warmed their souls like the festive lights under which this king and queen fell spellbound in love.  Other times proved darker, but not without growth and gain.  The promise was that through enduring these trials together—remaining a forever united kingdom in laughter, sorrow, hardship, and love—their uniquely beating hearts would eventually, someday, meld as one. 

The Valentine is one heart shared by two.  

   ~Richelle E. Goodrich, Making Wishes 

      Copyright 2015 Richelle E. Goodrich