Brava Bowling

I want to bowl. Sounds crazy, but I really want to bowl. I worked in an office for a while that had a bowling league. I had the best time! I bowled with folks from work that I really didn’t have a relationship with except for the ‘high five’ on the bowling lanes. And I loved it!

I have fond memories of bowling. Not me, though, my Dad. My Mom used to bowl, too. She had a slew of trophies but I didn’t get to watch her bowl unless we went out as a family. She bowled with a league from work, so I would usually not see her until afterwards on bowling night.

My Dad bowled for as long as I can remember.  When I was younger, I used to go hang out with him at the bowling alley and he would give me coins to play the pinball machines. (Y’all remember pinball machines?) I would play for a while and then come back for more quarters. Sometimes I’d be gone for a significant length of time because I was doing well. Other times, I was there with my hand out, in what seemed like just minutes later.

When my Mother died, I used to go to the alley to hang out with him. I wouldn’t see him otherwise. I even joined the league, but I didn’t go much. I went a couple times, but my friend Peter bowled on our team and he and I had a falling out, so I didn’t really want to face him at the bowling alley. And I had a crush on another guy at the alley, but he and I had an ‘I-almost-got-raped’ moment, and I thought my Dad might be able to tell, so I was dodging him as well.

At the end of the season, when they won their money, the team didn’t think I deserved any. But my Dad insisted that he had put in for me all those weeks – so I got a bonus at the end anyway. I didn’t really want it to end. I wanted to believe that I could still go to that alley on any given Thursday night and he would be there. That was not to be.

A couple years later, after I had been living in Las Vegas, one of his ‘girlfriends’ called me.

‘Your Dad is in the hospital,’ she said. ‘You need to come home.’  Almost immediately, I began to get calls from the hospital.

He had a stroke. They had trouble getting to him because he was in a doorway, blocking their access. They literally destroyed the door to get to him. I flew out immediately.

When he was in the hospital as a result of the stroke, I called my friend the nurse to visit the hospital with me to interpret his chart and all his ailments. When I visited, they told me that they needed me to sign documents to move him to a nursing home for therapy.  After much chaos and conflicting information, I signed all the appropriate paperwork and he was off to a nursing home.

Ultimately, he spent two years in that nursing home out in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania. Far away from friends and family. Hardly anyone got to see him very often. I was 3,000 miles away. His sister was several hundred miles away. She went a couple times. I sent things. I was broke most of the time and struggling to keep my head above water. I was not in a position to help. I felt awful, but at the time, I thought I had no recourse.

He had a pension that was keeping him in residence there, and I got regular and positive reports from the nurses. I even got to speak to him occasionally. Until, a little less than two years later, I got a second phone call from a hospital.

‘Your father fell and broke his hip, we decided that he was a fine candidate for surgery, until, soon after the surgery, he had a stroke. His diabetes flared up as a result of the surgery and now he has an infection. Also, it is possible that as a young man, he had syphilis because that disease has appeared as well…’ The Doctor kept talking, but I stopped listening. What could I do?

The hospital started to call me daily asking for my permission to do this or that procedure. Much of it I didn’t understand, but I said yes every time. His body was falling apart. I had to get there quick, fast and in a hurry.

When he went into the hospital this time, I called my dearest friend to hold my hand through the finale. I knew it was the finale even before I arrived at the ICU that day.

‘Your father is here in intensive care,’ the Doctor said. ‘He’s had a stroke and he is unresponsive.’

We would stand in the doorway of the room and call his name. Nothing. His eyes would roll around in his head. When we told him that I was there, still nothing. No response. I visited him every day and stayed for hours at a time. I would leave the room to go cry for several minutes away from his room, or outside. I would then return to his room bright and cheery and start talking to him and calling his name over and over again. No response.

Things went from bad to worse. The Kidney Doctor called to say they wanted to do dialysis. The Heart Doctor called because they were concerned about something or another going on with his heart. The Lung Doctor was afraid that he had pneumonia. He was no longer eating food. They wanted to put a tube in his neck to send food to his stomach.

The Orthopedic Doctor called to apologize because he thought my Dad was a good candidate and he didn’t expect all these complications, and he thought he was doing a good thing…I let him off the hook immediately. You couldn’t have known, I said.

Too many different Doctors were calling. I finally said that I wanted to speak to ONE person who could tell me my options. They sent me the Social worker. The Social worker basically said, ‘He is taking up a bed in the intensive care unit and with all of these things happening his body is shutting down so I suggest hospice care.’

They moved him into a private room. I sat by his bedside every day and read the Daily Word aloud. I cried a lot. I had no brothers or sisters to help carry the burden. My husband was not emotionally available to me at the time. My children did their best to comfort me. They were seriously into Nordic Mythology and the Vikings at the time.  My Number One son told me, ‘Valhalla is ready for him, Mom. He is guaranteed safe passage.’ Somehow, that comforted me.

So I am in the room, and I am nearing the last day of my ‘spontaneous’ vacation. I’m reading the Daily Word. His eyes are rolling around in his head looking here and there. The nurse comes in as usual. I step back so she can give him a shot - he snatches his hand away and says, in PLAIN ENGLISH, ‘I don’t want this anymore.’ We look at each other, startled, neither of us believing what we have just heard. He looks into my eyes and says in a clear voice, ‘I don’t want this anymore.’ And moments later, his eyes started rolling around in his head again.

You heard that? I said to the Nurse.

Yes, yes I did, she replied.

I kissed and stroked his forehead. I said, I love you, Daddy. And I left that day.

He used to say that when he was in the Marines and he came home for TDY, his heart would leap as he saw the trestle bridge over the Trenton River that says, ‘Trenton Makes - the World Takes.’

He was cremated and, years later, scattered onto the Trenton River.

Here I write

I started cleaning up my paperwork, going through old files, digging through boxes and drawers, and I found words at every turn. I have steno pads, note pads, composition books, spiral bound notebooks, 3-ring binders. Any available piece of lined paper - I wrote on it – and, apparently, kept it!

I started writing short stories in the black and white composition books I would get for elementary school. I was always asking for new ones. Often, they would start out as my Math homework or my Science Lab book, and I would have to get a new one and spend half the night transferring the information because I had inevitably written a short story in the middle of a baking soda experiment.

I flunked History in 9th grade, but I went to Creative Writing camp that summer anyway. I visited a cousin who lived in the Midwest and she typed up all my poems. I continued to write. I started keeping a diary. I was recording things I was doing, things I wanted to do, and people I’d meet. I would then make up stories using the personalities of the people I interacted with.

I started writing stories using my friends as fodder. I wrote two novels. It was a mistake to have them read it. I would never do this, one said. I would never say something like this, they said. Now I understood the fiction disclaimer at the beginning of books: All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Sure, it was them at the beginning, but we hadn’t lived as much life as I was writing about and liberties had to be taken!

My mother died suddenly right after I turned 21. I was devastated. Eighteen months I spent being a zombie. I wasn’t writing much, just journaling mostly, because it was all so painful. I started crying all the time – even when I wasn’t sad. I would wake up in tears. I would be in the middle of a TV production class, and tears would roll down my cheeks. I could be in the middle of telling a funny story..well, you get the picture. 

During one of these uncontrollable episodes, I wandered into the campus therapist’s office. He asked, ‘What do you miss the most?’ I told him that I missed talking to her. He said, ‘Then why don’t you write to her?’ Well, DUH. What a concept! Not to write ABOUT her, but to write TO her. So I did. After writing to her for weeks, I had a breakthrough. In the end, it became the very thing that saved my life. I started writing again in more than my journal. I wrote short stories and poems again. I even wrote a full length play!

Here I will share more of what I wrote and more of how I wrote. Here is a perfect time and a perfect place to share who I am, where I’ve been, and where I’m going. So here I am. Write now.

Is my education a problem?

Yes, I’m a baby boomer. Born of the 1950s generation. Celebrated by many as the generation of impact. Enough of us to change the world.

The Civil Rights era gave us access. We invaded the hallowed halls of previously predominantly white institutions. And yes, we swelled the rolls of the Historically Black Colleges as well. We not only went to public schools, but private and parochial schools as well. Degrees were greater than high school diplomas – Bachelor’s, Masters’ and PhDs.

And beyond Civil Rights, there were wars to be protested. The Hippies who defied convention, the Pacifists and others who marched against the war we decided was unjust and had gone on too long. Protesting and overturning the mandatory recruitment of young men, the burning of draft cards. And the women – demanding the rights afforded the men – hallowed institutions invaded by not just Black people, but rights afforded against all matter of discrimination.

Yes, I attended the first march on Washington, D.C. to protest the war in Viet Nam. Yes, I dated Jewish boys and Italians and learned all the words to protest songs. Yes, my environment was fully integrated - my school, my neighborhood, my friends. In situations where there were only one, or two, or three of us, our solidarity ceased at knowing each other’s names, we were free to befriend whomever we liked.

We traveled. Oh the places we’d go, the borders we’d cross, the people we’d meet, the stereotypes we challenged – both in ourselves, our history, and in others.

At 10 months old I attended my first dance performance at Radio City Music Hall. It was Easter. At 14, I traveled to the British West Indies. At 17, I traveled to Europe with my Girl Scout Troop. At 21, I traversed the continent on a Greyhound bus including Toronto and Montreal, Canada. At 22, I moved from the East Coast to the West Coast and danced in a dance company. 

My friends were doing the same. Girls that were NOT light, bright, or  damn near white, were performing in events OTHER than Black dramas; dancing in more than Black dance companies; working in jobs far more significant than helpers or assistants. We were the generation of hundreds of '...the first Black…’ fill in the blank. And the culmination of our success was the election of the first Black President!

Yes, we are different. We are doctors and lawyers, judges and teachers, professors and scientists, politicians, and poets, and we are independent. 

Whether to our detriment or to our desire, we are fiercely independent. Therein lies the rub. We don’t ‘have’ to live anywhere. We don’t ‘have’ to be anything other than what we work, live and strive to do. There are no boundaries, there is no ‘color’ line in our experience. Maybe society has that notion, but it is not bred into those of us who continue to strive to be ‘more.’ We are more than Middle class as we have overcome more than a monetary distinction; we are more than the elite as we have overcome more than an insidious racial barrier; and we are more than worthy of that which we have striven to learn and become through the overwhelming barriers and obstacles we were forced to conquer.

Don’t be hatin'.

Happy Birthday to Me!

As I open my eyes and savor this day, my birthday, I am happy to report that I am in good health, good spirits and blessed by good fortune. I am grateful for a supportive spouse, healthy sons, beautiful grandchildren (their wives contributions duly noted!) and thoughtful friends. Ironically, the last of my Mother’s sisters passed on this same week, yet the legacy continues. I am proud and happy of the bloodline from which I am wrought.

Today I celebrate the abundance of ordinary miracles that are happening all around me. I smell the flowers, I hear the birds chirping from the trees, I touch the soft fur of my dog, and I see the sun shine!

And I say, thank you for this day, another day. And a special thank you to my friends, those who live and those who have passed on, and anyone who has ever crossed my path because each of you has brought me or taught me something. You have all contributed to this life that is my life right here and right now.

Today is my gift, today is my present.

All Good Gifts

Spent last weekend in San Jose, California at an event that I will forever remember as a milestone in my personal growth and development. I promised myself that if I ever had the money, I would participate in a Tony Robbins event - and I had the money, so I did. What this powerful weekend did for me was jettison me out of whatever was left of the comfort zones in my life and motivate me to reach for the stars! So many of my breakthroughs were from things in my life that I thought were over and done, but now, they really are!

For me, it was all about taking action! First, I celebrated the many successes that I have achieved in my life in this past year - the negative things that I gave up and all the blessings that came to pass. Second, I forgave myself for all the time and energy I spent giving my power away to all those things that were detrimental to my personal health, wealth, power and wisdom. And then, the realization that it's never too late to begin again came to me like the burst of a camera flash.  

So here I am, at the beginning. There are products to create, websites to develop and wisdom to share. There are relationships to cultivate that are long past due in my life - both friends and lovers. And there is much to pay forward for all the blessings that I realize have come to pass in my life.

The Truth About Me

I have been resisting. I wanted my life to be glamorous, and then I settled for behind the scenes, and then I settled for obscurity. That's just not right. I was born to shine. I was born to make a mark in this world. I am a unique wonder of the Universe. My purpose in life used to be to share, to make everyone I came into contact with happy, and to create peace. Today, my purpose is to create opportunities, to be a positive influence, to be a blessing where I can and to share love and wisdom.

I wanted to be a dancer, and then I was happy being a producer, now I'm in a dead-end job with no chance of making a difference. That is what I believed.
The truth is, I am a writer. I have ALWAYS been a writer. The only thing that I have done from the minute I had pen in hand to this day, is write. Toni Morrison said that if I had not read a story that was MY story, then I was obliged to tell it. 

So here I am to tell my story. I will post chapters and stories on my new blog. In the end, I will put them altogether as a legacy for my children and what's left of my family. Much of this story will be my family's story. They are entwined in all the pages of my memories. But I don't have to get their permission and I don't have to please them either. After all, in the end, this is  still about me. So I hope you will join me on this journey. 

I have created a new website, samelasunshine.com for this purpose. This site will continue to be reflections on the Spiritual side of my life, but stop on over to SamelaSunshine.com when you can and see where it all began.

"My only purpose for being on the planet is to awaken to my God Self!  To celebrate life!  And to do what brings me joy!"Rev Michael Bernard Beckwith

One Love

As soon as I realized that I was blocking my own abundance and subsequently opened up to the Universe – not only do I have money in the bank (two paychecks in a row!) Money is starting to come from everywhere! In lieu of my past mindset of blowing the money by gambling it away at the bar, I have used the money to pay off a bill here and there and to buy stuff I could actually use. Now I see where the Universe has brought me these same opportunities in the past and I have called them serendipity yet in the same breath I have gone out and BLOWN the money creating an even deeper hole than before! It’s not like that anymore. As my relationship to the One Spirit, One Universe, One Divine Presence blossoms, I see that there is no going back. I have been changed for good…