My Friend Jack Died

By Bernadette A. Sahm

Each and every death forces us to face our own mortality. My friend Jack died yesterday on April 10th; I learned this early this morning after I received a text from his daughter Dawn. She sent it the same day that he died. That same morning, I mailed him a card. I was just saying hi and I am thinking of you, mailed it from our local post office. I had no idea that just a few hours earlier he had passed away.

Jack came into my life in early 1999, we met at my retail store located in the old Hunt Valley Mall. He lived in Pennsylvania just north of our location. He had a huge warm and happy demeanor. He soon became my friend and not long after like family to me and my family.

God knows what and who we need, the year I met Jack my heart was broken. A few months earlier my then teen daughter graduated from high school and weeks later estranged from me. I was a walking wooded wreck. I was writing and shared some of my stories with Jack. Initially I believe he felt sorry for me and couldn’t understand it. He had been retired with grown adult children who remained in his life, and some of them he was very close with … he openly welcomed me and my heart break into his family.

We went to his home in Pennsylvania on an Easter holiday and got to know him and his family. It was exactly what I needed at that time. Years later he moved to Mississippi to be close to his daughter and grandchildren who had relocated there. Again, our family made the long trip from Maryland to Mississippi to share Thanksgiving with him, his wife and children. Always fun to be in Jack’s company.

One year Jack and his wife Marlyn came back to our area and stayed for a week with us in Maryland. During that time, he attended one of my fundraiser events Trends, Tulips & Tea at a special needs school. He came with his family and was as usual so complimentary and supportive. That same trip I drove Jack and Marlyn to our beach house in Delaware for a few nights. He loved it! He loved the ocean and could see why we would eventually retire to this beach town.

Jack loved it that I was an author and supported me and my books. One year I had a tent at the Baltimore Book Festival and Jack showed up. He ended up staying and helping my husband Brian sell my books. It was there and over a few beers and book sales that they bonded.

The last time I spoke with Jack he sounded rough and that he was struggling to speak. I felt bad and wanted to get off the phone. He was in his 90’s and I knew the end was near. Yet today I find myself fighting back the tears. I have so many memories! All good ones! One year I flew down to Mississippi by myself for a long weekend visit. He was waiting for me at the airport. Jack couldn’t wait to tell me he had purchased tickets to see Travis Tritt in concert at the local casino. It was a birthday surprise for me and I loved it. He didn’t need another daughter as he had three of his own, and yet I felt totally embraced and loved by Jack.

He would love it that I am writing about him and sharing some of our stories. If he was alive and I wrote all this, I just know he would take it to all his friends and family and share my words and stories. He was so proud of his friend being a writer and made sure everyone knew it.

Heaven has a new angel, and those of us who knew and loved him are both saddened by his departure and warmed by all the love and fun times we shared with him. Oh, and then there was the time we went to Elvis’ house, Graceland in Memphis together and another the opening weekend at the movies for the Johnny Cash movie Walk the Line. One year we met up during the holidays at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee. Many memories for sure …

Jack loved his wife Marlyn, and he loved all his children, he loved them dearly and deeply, and to know Jack was to love him. RIP my dear friend, you will not be forgotten. My life is so much better for having you in it.

Bernadette on Facebook at http://www.Facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer and Instagram @bernadetteamoyer @bernadettesahm

#friends #death #life #loss #love

What is love?

By Bernadette A. Sahm

I remember when I worked with someone who said that love was the most overused word in the English language. And I was like absolutely not, you can’t say it enough and you can’t act on it enough! LOVE LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, just saying it makes me so happy!

For me I love so many things and so many people, I love my husband more than anyone else and I love my friends and my precious pooches. I love our home, family and friends. I could go on and on about all the many things that I love.

But on a deeper level, what is love? An emotion, a feeling, an act, a way of life? How do you define love? Is it simplistic or is it complicated? I’m guessing it can be many things to many people.

For me it feels good to love and to be loved. My husband has been my greatest “love” in both giving me love and in receiving my love. For days I thought about writing this blog. What does love mean? Is it caring, it is sharing is it _____?

When I asked my husband Brian, “What does love mean to you?” In a very sober and rapid response he said, “One word, Bernadette.” Wow! I didn’t see that one coming but what a great response. At least for me!

We are retired; we raised three children together. We had career jobs, a few houses, many cars, many travels and five precious pups. A lifetime of love built on a solid commitment of caring, devotion and love. I was initially afraid to get married because I had failed relationships and never wanted to be divorced.

My husband has loved me more and longer than anyone else. I know how lucky I am and how lucky we are as we thrived and survived through many life altering events. It has not always been easy, and it has not always been without our share of friction. One of the best parts of this stage of our lives is that we are so happy together and at peace, we love.

When we go to sleep at night, my husband holds me until I fall asleep, He holds me every night. We laugh because he says it hurts his arm but don’t worry, I am here to hold you until you fall asleep. I don’t believe my love, our love, is supposed to look like your love and that is the beauty of love.

Many times, my husband has said that he would die for me, my response is always the same in, but I want you to live for me!

“I don’t know about you, but I was put here to live and love so what if I don’t do it like everyone else does.” From the song Like It’s A Bad Thing by Gary Allan

MY WISH is that we as a community and as a society would focus more on love and all that we love instead of hatred and discourse. I want love for all the friends I have for all the family I have and for everyone. Love more and your life is sure to be so much happier, we get what we focus on, we receive what we put our energy into.

“Where there is love there is life.” Mahatma Gandhi

Bernadette on Facebook at http://www.Facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer Instagram @bernadetteamoyer @Bernadettesahm

#love #caring #relationships #happiness

What Is Meant For You

By Bernadette A. Sahm

What is meant for you, will find you! I am a firm believer in this statement. If it is meant to happen, if someone is meant to be in your life, it will happen.

Several years ago, I was working on a project with another professional colleague. We shared some personal stories. I was talking to her about a relationship that ended and left me quite sad and gutted. Her response was, “It wasn’t meant to be.” At the time that was not what I wanted to hear. Since then, I have often reflected on it. It wasn’t meant to be.

We all get older and hopefully wiser. My younger self wanted a different outcome. Today my mature self believes what is meant for you, will find you. If it doesn’t it wasn’t meant to be. Peace and happiness come from acceptance and understanding.

All that I have is meant for me, all that I don’t wasn’t meant to be. I know it sounds so simple, but I think that it’s meant to be that simplistic.

Think about all things that just came naturally and at the time when you were open and ready to receive it. What is meant for you quotes emphasize that destined opportunities, relationships, and successes will naturally align with your life, and this encourages patience, trust, and letting go of forced outcomes.

What is meant for you, will find you!

Peace and blessings, Bernadette

Bernadette on Facebook at http://www.Facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer and Instagram @bernadetteamoyer @Bernadettesahm

The Grief I Carried

by Bernadette A. Sahm

The grief I carried was deep and not because of all the hurts I survived

But rather for the empty holes left inside of me, by you

The pain of real loss, loss in not having but

Knowing you should have had, the pain of no desire for understanding

The pain of your many convictions, the pain was real and yet through it all

These many years lives so deeply that its no longer relevant

Nor present on a daily basis that pain of believing

I had you, loved you, knew you and only came to realize

I never had you, nor could I love you enough to right all your many wrongs

And in the end, I found that I never knew you at all

My peace didn’t come from trying to hang on, it came from shedding

It was the letting go with grace and in God’s love

Where I survived and thrived in love and in happiness

Bernadette on Facebook at http://www.Facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer and Instagram @bernadetteamoyer @bernadettesahm

#life #lessons #wisdom #love #grace #peace #faith #God

Jeezled Up

By Bernadette A. Sahm

Our whipped up

Jeezled up society

Hatred and anger

Unkind unforgiving

Lawless days and nights

Endless fights

Wrong for right

Right for wrong

Sad simmering

Inside out outside in

Living in a constant state of hate

Robbing yourself and others of peace

Unhappy unhealthy

Constant strife living jeezled up

We see you

Shake our heads

Don’t you know

You are harming yourself

Much more than hurting others

They say anger is hurt inside out

Based in fear and insecurity

It comes off so weak

Living whipped and jeezled up

Bernadette on Facebook http://www.Facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer

Instagram @bernadetteamoyer @bernadettesahm

#anger #fear #unhealthy #whippedup #jeezled #hate #stateofourunion

#sad #hurt #wrong #right

He Gone

by Bernadette A. Sahm

You can’t open any news source without learning that celebrity couple Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman have split after 19 years of marriage. Like most people I am a bit shocked and saddened as it appeared they were a happy and loving couple.

This celebrity news has caused more than a few “couple conversations” with my husband. We have been together for 34 years now and married for 28 years. It is not always easy, but we are committed and stay in love. I hate the term “work at it” as I would rather say we try to keep it fun and happy. We enjoyed each other’s company and like many of the same things. We grew up during the same time period.

They say Keith moved out from the family months ago and are just now making it public knowledge. My husband’s immediate response was “somebody didn’t want it” in regard to their marriage. It made me think that yeah, the only “secret” to a happy marriage is that both people have to want it.

When a man moves out of the family home and purchases his own private residence you can almost guarantee it is because he has found a new partner. I am willing to bet that Nicole has been replaced with a younger version. We have witnessed this show before …

I am a firm believer that when it is over, it is over, both people have to want it for a marriage to succeed. I can’t imagine what is more difficult to leave or to stay in a relationship that you don’t want to be in and are unhappy.

What I think is that he is gone and in my life experience Nicole will find someone or someone better!

Bernadette on Facebook at http://www.Facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer

Instagram @bernadetteamoyer @bernadettesahm

Group Think

by Bernadette A. Sahm

When I was a kid, I was friends with all the kids. Friends with the jocks, the artists, the pot heads, the brainiacs, the religious, the non-believers, all of them. I still have that same belief that each person, each type of person has something special to offer. And I was interested in knowing them.

Although I am personally a Christian and Conservative, I never force my beliefs on others. I do my best to live by the “golden rule” treat others as you wish to be treated. It’s not my place to change anyone else but rather to continue to work on and improve myself. If I live a live that is worthy of friends and followers, so be and if not, that is fine too,

What I find increasingly difficult to understand is our current culture or “group think” and the desire to hate and even hurt those that think differently. I find our current political discourse to be soul crushing. I see people that I love and adore spew political hatred at their so called “opposition” and it saddens me. Not because of the target of their wrath and hatred because of how small it makes them look. Often, I shake my head. How could someone so smart and so accomplished spew hatred toward another group of people just because they think/believe in a different way?

We used to believe that shared ideas from opposing viewpoints meted out the best outcomes, today we aren’t even able to have those conversations. I worry for anyone who lives with any hatred in their hearts. I believe it is like a cancer that will harm them from the inside out. Peace and love and acceptance are so much healthier.

My parents taught me that “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all” what if someone said something you didn’t like, you just walked away, turned them off, didn’t listen?

Today it’s apparent that there are people who believe that if you don’t think and believe as they do, you deserve to be murdered. How can this even be possible? How on earth did we get here? And more importantly, where do we go from here?

Written on the day after Charlie Kirk was murdered …

Bernadette on Facebook at http://www.Facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer

Instagram @bernadettesahm

Wave Watcher

by Bernadette A. Sahm

“When I sit here by the sea and listen to the sounds of waves, I feel free from all obligations and people of this world.” Henry David Thoreau

Wave watcher

Am I

Soft foam

Gentle wave

Unique forms

High tide

Wave watcher

Am I

Fierce crisp and cold

So many sounds and shapes

Not alone

Gather here

Celebrate there

Low tide

Ebb and flow

Wave watcher

Am I

Never gets old

Does not disappoint

Always amazing

Sunny hot

Dark and cold

Wave watcher

Am I

Winter Spring Summer and Fall

Flows and goes

In and out

Today, tomorrow and forever

Wave watcher

Am I

Follow Bernadette on Facebook at http://www.Facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer and Instagram @bernadettesahm

#ocean #life #love #peace #sea #beach

Enough

by Bernadette A. Sahm

For some time now I have been contemplating the phrase “less is more” and “down-sizing” and neither felt right. They seem negative to me like its “less” and less than what I am thinking about and trying to convey. We aren’t living with “less” we are living with enough! Doesn’t that sound better “enough is more” enough is enough!

Not that long ago we owned two homes and three vehicles for just two people. It was enough and it was more than what most people accumulate. Then one day as we approached retirement, we questioned what do we need? What do we want? We decided to “edit” and make decisions on what was best suited in our new lifestyle. It seemed like the common phrases of “down-sizing” and “less is more” were the common definitions for most people. Yet it didn’t sit well with me because I felt so happy and so content. It is living with enough … we really don’t need so much to live well and to be happy. Honestly it feels more liberating, deliberate and natural. It easy and less stressful.

How do you define “enough” … think about the amount of energy and responsibility it takes to manage more than enough and how much more enjoyable we can be when we come to view our lifestyle choices as “enough”

Peace and blessings on this rainy Sunday afternoon!

Bernadette

On Facebook at http://www.Facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer and Instagram @bernadettesahm

#Enough #Grateful #Appreciation #Joy #Peace #Grace #Livingwell #Blessed

The Slower Life Gets

By Bernadette A. Sahm

The slower life gets, the more it feels like living. I heard the birds chirping this morning. I smell the fresh ground coffee beans dripping fresh brewed coffee. The curtains are gently swaying with cool crisp breezes trickling through the open windows. The sky so lovely bright blue with soft white cottony clouds.

The slower life gets, the more it feels like living. Quiet is the fun new excitement. Stillness is the new action word. Peace is the mantra for these days. Loving is the overall theme and daily goal.

I’ve slowed down and I have never felt more alive. The slower life gets, the more it feels like living!

Bernadette on Facebook at http://www.Facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer

Instagram @bernadettesahm

#peace #love #life #living #retirement