Gratefulness and unanswered prayers

by Helen DePrima

Thankfulness can take many forms. I hark back to a Garth Brooks song: "Thank God for Unanswered Prayers." I think of the times in my life when a loss turned out to be a gain, a disappointment made way for a greater good.

I never knew my mother; she died the day I was born, possibly an anesthesia death. I like to think she simply went to sleep at the happiest moment of her life, expecting to wake holding her new baby. Sometimes growing up, I dreamed about her, the dark-haired young woman in snapshots and portraits whose smile seemed to light my whole small world. A sad tale, except that I grew up with my grandparents and aunt on their Kentucky farm, a story-book childhood of fields and woods, horses and pet goats and lambs, kittens and chickens, with five cousins living barely a stone’s throw away.

Because I fell in love with all things Western after a dude ranch visit, I attended the University of Colorado with the express goal of finding a cowboy to marry. I should have done better research; all the cowboys were forty miles north at Colorado State. Instead I married an Italian from New Jersey, a husband who would go through fire or flood for me. With fifty years of marriage behind us, I have sense enough to be thankful for my unanswered prayer that brought me with him to New Hampshire rather than my earlier fantasy of life in Colorado.

After spending the better part of a year back home in Kentucky caring for my elderly aunt who raised me, I tried to write a personal account of returning to my childhood home, this time as the parent. A total non-starter – instead, I turned it into a novel of what my aunt’s life should have been except for giving up a Navy career to take my mother’s place. I’m proud of that book, which gave me the confidence to embark on my Cameron’s Pride series for Heartwarming.

Sometimes, the road not taken, the opportunity abandoned, deserve as much gratefulness as the way our lives do play out. Thank God for Unanswered Prayers

by Liz Flaherty

Helen and I wanted to visit Thanksgiving because, after all, it's November. I loved her path to thankfulness with all the twists and turns in it that make life so interesting. It also make me think of some of my own experiences with life happening while I was making other plans.
  • I wanted to move far away from where I grew up, where it was flat and boring and I'd had a less-than-happy childhood. I have spent the last 40 years living five miles from the house where I grew up. I love it there.
  • As I grew up, I gave little thought to having children. There would be plenty of time for that later. After I'd had all the other adventures I wanted to have, perhaps I would have one. No more than two. Instead, I had three--all by the time I was 23. Thank goodness.
  • I'm afraid of water. To the point of always preferring a shower to a tub. So one of my first post-retirement adventures was parasailing. Over the Gulf of Mexico. Or heaven, however you want to look at it.
  • One day in 1979, I skipped a day of work to take a civil service test an hour away from home. I never expected anything to come of it (other than losing a day's pay), but I passed the test--with less than flying colors--and went to work at the Post Office two years later. I retired after 30 years. 
In actuality, not much has gone according to plan. Not my plan, anyway. And for that, I am truly grateful.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Comments

  1. Replies
    1. When I was her age, mid-twenties, I looked eerily like her except for inheriting my grandmother's auburn hair. The resemblance must have been hard for my grandparents; she was the adored youngest of four children.

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    2. That had to have been so difficult for your grandparents, but I'm sure having you helped more than it hurt.

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  2. Love both of your posts, Liz and Helen. And I must say, Helen, that's such a beautiful photo of your mom.

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    1. I love the lovely old portraits. My grandparents weren't wealthy, but they were comfortable enough to afford good photographs. I've made a montage of posed photos, from my great-grandmother down through my daughter.

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  3. Both of your posts are just fantastic! I agree--life is so much more interesting than I can ever plan for myself!

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    1. I'm still in love with the West and return as often as possible, but who knows how different my life would have been if I'd found my cowboy? Now we're only an hour from the ocean which gives me the same sense of space and peace I got from the plains and mountains.

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    2. I'm with you on the space and peace--I can find it in both those places. And in the cornfields. :-)

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    3. And wrist-deep in my garden's dirt.

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  4. Lovely post, ladies. Your mother was beautiful, Helen.

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    1. Thanks, Jill -- of course, no one speaks ill of the dead, but everyone always spoke of her kindness and sweet smile more than of her looks. I wish I could have known her, but I had my Aunt Willa's love and zany humor for 87 years, so I can't complain.

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    2. My Aunt Gladys (who also passed at 87) was our giver of love and zany humor! I'm so grateful to have had that, too.

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  5. What an interesting post, ladies. Beautiful picture of your mom, Helen. I have an oval framed portrait of...someone, I think my maternal great grandmother. My mother’s mom died of TB when my mom was eight months old. She grew up with her grandparents on a farm too. Parasailing, LIz? That’s a pretty amazing way to conquer your fear of water. Good for you! And I’m thankful too for all those forks in the road that lead to unexpected places in our lives.

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    1. I loved parasailing, but, yeah, I'm still scared of the water. But I do love those forks in the road.

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  6. Thanks for sharing your stories, ladies.

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    1. Like Liz, I dreamed of foreign travel and work. I minored in Spanish and imagined myself living in Spain or possibly South America. I did see quite a bit of Europe and the Middle East, including Egypt, when conditions were considerably safer for tourists. Unlike her, I didn't settle down so close to home -- New Hampshire is quite a distance both in miles and culture from Kentucky.

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    2. I often think if I found myself alone, I would probably move to another place. As it is, I hope that doesn't happen.

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  7. One of the jobs I've held over the years was doing pre-approval insurance physicals, often involving unpaved roads with little or no signage. I did get lost a time or two, but I saw met such interesting people when I stopped to ask directions (pre-GPS). And when my husband and I take road trips, we always seek out "the road less traveled", finding wonderful surprises like the Teen Nos Pos Trading Post on the road from Bluff UT to Shiprock on the Navajo Reservation. Never stop exploring!

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    1. GPS has given us endless freedom when traveling, because we can't get lost!

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    2. I'd like to agree with you about GPS, but we often poke into areas when the voice says essentially: "You're on your own."
      I still depend on paper maps; as the navigator, I love tracing routes marked Unimproved.

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  8. Helen and Liz, lovely stories of reasons for all of us to be thankful for the planned or unplanned lives we're fortunate to have. Helen, it's wonderful that you were able to be raised by family who knew and loved your mother. My mom's mother died in childbirth with her. She was raised by her father and 3 brothers. I remember her saying that no one ever spoke about her mother. Reading your memories, I realize how difficult that must have been for her. Happy upcoming Thanksgiving to all.

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    1. Hi Roz -- My grandparents could never talk about my mother, but my aunt told me stories about her. My mother was a swimmer; my aunt was a horsewoman, even played polo. She tried unsuccessfully to teach my mother to ride but hated the water. I grew up on horseback and love swimming as well, so I inherited the best from both.

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    2. My mother-in-law's mother died when she was three, and she missed her all of her life. She never got to hear enough about her.

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  9. Helen, I see your mom's smile in you. You were probably very dear to your aunt, especially because you would be the one person she could confide to your about your mom. Liz, I also have a fear of water. My two kids have none. Getting into the pool with them was always a bit traumatizing.

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    1. Yeah. I'm there with you on the pool and the kids. It's always better if someone else is RIGHT THERE!

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    2. My grandparents were already in their 60's when I was born, too old to keep up with a rambunctious child running free on a farm. My aunt was always just a jump behind me, and sometimes one ahead because she had been so adventurous. My dad took me to swimming lessons and on hikes in the woods, later fishing and hunting.

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  10. These are lovely posts--I was reminded of my own mother--same era of the waved hair, I think. I'm touched when I see those pix of the women who came before us. I saw something on a writing site the other day about writing being hard, a tough business, and so on, but the author of the essay also reminded all of us that it's special and we can be grateful we're a part of it, that we get to do it at all! I like the exploration of unanswered prayers--I guess I might have put it another way and say I'm grateful for being saved from myself many times!

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    1. I had a pretty firm plan for my first indie novel, but for the first in the Cameron's Pride series, all I had was a woman hitchhiking in a snowstorm and a man skidding off the road when he stopped to pick her up. Beyond that, I pretty much just reported what happened next. And next. . .

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    2. Yes, being saved from ourselves is important, isn't it?

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  11. I love hearing all about your experiences and unanswered prayers, or at least answered in a way you never expected. How can we know exactly what we want when we can't even imagine the possibilities? Beautiful portrait of you mother, Helen. She looks like a frequent smiler.

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    1. Thanks, Beth -- by all accounts, my mother was everyone's best friend; in fact, her best friend at work married my uncle and raised their five children just next door to my grandparents.

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    2. I'm so glad you got to hear about her, Helen.

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  12. I had to laugh, Liz, at your living five miles from where you grew up. Isn't that they way it always! I'm so thankful for the many things I wanted and did not get. Although some of the things I wanted, I bulldozed my way to them and what a disaster.

    But as I've aged, I've learned to be content wherever I am. Loved both of your posts.

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    1. Patricia, like you, I've finally learned to love being where I am. Yes, I wish lived closer to the coast, and Louisville will always be home to me, but I'm having fun making my home exactly the way I want it. Next project, a birch clump just outside my writing space, an antique day bed in the spare bedroom

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    2. I think as we age, we get better at blooming where we're planted--at least I have!

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  13. What a moving post ladies. Thank you for sharing.

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    1. I guess we're better off not being entirely in charge of how our lives play out. Call it fate, God, some cosmic master plan -- I believe that events play out as they're supposed to, despite our puny efforts at control.

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  14. New to the blog and found this on the Heartwarming Facebook page. Thanks so much for sharing this story.

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