Peace Begins With Me

Most people that know me or of my family or have read my journal, Adventures of Suzy Colorado, know that I am from a huge, dysfunctional family. In the center of it was my mother for many years because my father died in a car wreck just before Thanksgiving 1948, and I was one year old. She moved my brother and me through two more marriages adding 6 more children through births and the husbands' other marriages. It often seemed like some huge moving amoeba sucking up people into its life, always in the center of it, my mother. She proclaimed herself a tolerant liberal throughout but like a human being she often broke and shattered the peace and became a (shudder) cruel fascist dictator.

My mother is alone for the first time this year in her entire adult life. She is 82 almost 83 years old. She has been through 3 marriages and I don't know how many lovers. My brother is off to Mexico to live in a hammock resort community and be a gardener and play until he passes away, content that he has re-connected in some way with this parent and made a peace and maybe even with me.

One thing we all don't like is the big theater of war. My mom and I honored my dad in the WWII Memorial in Washington D.C. and I honor my grandfather's memory who was mortally wounded in WWI and lived out his life until the damage done from mustard gas ended his life. Both loved music dearly and my father was a professional musician. They both were deep patriots to this country and are from an ancient European family known for its bravery and valor in battle and love of Christ. Both men were deeply religious.

I miss my own family, my father. I'm not married. My daughter and her husband and my grandchildren live over 1,000 miles away. It leaves an empty place in my life for sure.

My country is at war in a far away country. There are people in power now who are changing the fabric and history of our country in such ways that are exploitive and detrimental to our lands that we leave to our children and grandchildren for all to share...something both main parties were preserving. What in the world has happened?

These are all very negative energies as the year 2005 ends. We may lose species of animals we take for granted like polar bears, sea otters, the American bald eagle, who knows where it will end. Organizations are suing the government to stop this, brave judges are stopping with injunctions, the logging, mining, drilling whatever. Why is this happening? Greed? It is hard to believe it has grown so powerful in this country.

I remember a Christmas during the VietNam War, I hardly had anything and my daughter was small and full of wonder. I was still married though separated and her father, who was from a very wealthy family who seemed to toss him money occasionally. Although we both hated the war, he rarely shared, he had learned his family's ways. He was more disillusioned than I was with our country at the time. The snow was falling so gently and I found a sweet little tree at the corner lot to take home. On the way home, I thought, I can't chant or yell or scream Peace Now! I have to change. So I thought, peace begins with me. I have to walk softer, talk more gently, care a little more for the other person, love God... He seemed so far away. It became a phrase and it worked for me. It got me through the rest of the war years and there were four more hard years.

I called my mom up last night and asked her if she had put up her tree yet. She said she hadn't. I asked her if she would like to come to my house for Christmas, something she has never done. There was a nice Christmas Eve service at a chucrch down the road and I could cook a dinner, my house was already decorated.

She said yes immediately. I was so happy and a bit surprised. I went out today and bought her a stocking to hang so she doesn't have to go into any storage for anything.

Yes, Peace begins with me.