A poem for grandpa

Still Fighting



Grandpa showered us little girls in rare silver coins.

Half-dollars, Silver B. Anthony’s, maybe even Pocahontas’s,

He’d pull them out of his pocket and we’d run to him

I have hundreds now, a child’s treasure box.


I remember many things,

But mostly gathering ‘round a recliner while grandpa recited “Paul Revere’s Ride,”

gesturing boldy with his war-crippled fingers,

speaking the 130-line poem from memory.



His voice boomed and I listened wide-eyed, eating slices of frozen pizza.

I didn’t understand belfries and British muskets.

Yet every word of his poetic rhyme mesmerized this young mind,

and there kindled a love for literature and poetry.


Grandpa always dresses in his Sunday best, even sitting at home

Crisp trousers, gold rings and a sweater vest

A comb ran through his hair before a picture.


There is no a holiday, nor get-together

Without grandpa raising a glass to his family

With an Irish limerick or “ode to someone.”

Never passing up a moment to teach, humor and inspire.



When grandpa talks, it hushes my boisterous family

And although they won’t admit it,

They fear him when he approaches a game of poker,

Dropping that heavy purple cloth bag of change on the table


He is many things, my grandpa:

A man who questions the world around him,

A professor, a poet, an orator, a veteran,

but mostly the proud patriarch of his family.


Now 85 years young and married 65

We almost lost him in May

Survived two gunshot wounds in Iwo Jima and now,

A third heart attack, the heart still beating – his body refusing to let go


I bet he’s wondering “Why me?”

As famously repeated in his Iwo Jima poem.

They said he’d die, but no-

He’s on the homeland, yet fighting still


Grandpa makes a mockery of the doctor’s assumptions,

And keeps waking up in the morning.

They take his vitals and say he’ll expire soon,

But, no, they don’t know my grandpa.



He jokes with nurses, that glint still in his eyes

Says he’s given up reading for Lent,

And raises his hands in a helpless shrug when someone asks him if he’d like a beer,

Answering “I’ll try,” when I say he better be at my September wedding.



Robbed of his ears in the war and now his heart,

A valve damaged on the operating table,

Grandpa sits in a nursing home, biding away his time.

Smiling lovingly into grandma’s eyes, and writing her love notes.




My grandpa's name is William Madden. At left, is the book in which his poem was published, and the book was also named after him by the author. You can see his poem by looking inside the electronic copy on Amazon. Also, the author wrote a nice note to him on the first couple of pages.

City of Seattle

I recently took a mini-vacation to Seattle, Washington. I had a work training to attend, plus I have a friend who lives out there that I haven't seen in ages, so I stayed an extra day for a little sight-seeing.

Seattle is an interesting city. It's true what they say, that it's cloudy and rains a lot, although when the sunshine does peak out and sparkle over the water and mountains, it's quite majestic. One morning I watched fog crawl in between mountain peaks past the city skyline from my hotel window (pics below) and found it to be absolutely beautiful. If I'd had more time, I would have tried to get a little closer to the mountains and actually do some hinking. Also unique to Seattle were the people. They are cyclists, organic/vegan food and coffee enthusiasts, and music lovers. In Seattle, it's okay to be different or not the average American "Joe." In fact, I think everyone is expected to be a little different, and if you're not different than your obviously an outsider. I knew I stood out like a sore thumb when I walked to Nordstrom's in my work attire and a man carrying a skateboard jeered at me: "Hey lady you look fancy, you look good. Niiiiice."

It's not uncommon in Seattle to get served coffee by a tattooed lady with a mohawk, or to live by the waters' edge in a floating house covered in artwork and statues. The guys sport beards and the local newspaper peddles medical marijuana in its ads. Everyone stops for pedestrians and cyclists, even if you are a ways down the street from the car. Cats seem to randomly wander the streets.

People (like my friend) often live in neighborhoods with steep hills that close down on Seattle's few icy days. There is also some GREAT food in Seattle, much of it from small coffeeshops and family owned neighborhood sandwich joints. Below are some pictures I took. Enjoy.

The mountains encased by morning fog and sunrise...taken from Renaissance Hotel downtown.

The city, and some notable signs.

bauhaus cafe: Best cafe mocha ever! And they have Koolaid on the menu (for $1.50 lol!)

Seattle Art Museum.

Pike Place Fish market: famous for fish-throwing. And for using too many exclamation points.

Piroshkis at Pike Place...I didn't try but a friend said they are AMAZING. The line to get one was like an hour long.

First Starbucks ever. Again, the line was too long so I didn't go in. But, notice how different the Starbucks symbol is. They must have opted to go with a more culturally acceptable logo than this old one in which my friend calls a "vag-tail."

This potato looked amazing so I thought it deserved a picture although I did not eat it :)

by the ocean...

Rocky Mountain Chocolate Company....all I can say is yum

Below are Seattle's floating houses and the boardwalks/area around them. Beautiful and unique.

I want one.

I like Thai food and Seattle has lots of Thai and Asian-inspired restaurants. There is also LOTS of sushi if you are a sushi fan. Below is Prik King Chicken from the restaurant Rom Mai Thai. Very good, even though I asked for a "1" spicy on a scale from 1 to 5, and actually got more like a "4."

Best crab wontons EVER. All home-made. Not a good picture because we ravenously started devouring them before I could stop to get the camera out.

Picture taken from inside my friend's house on a hill, where she has to put her parking brake on every time she parks and swears she got so skinny from pushing babies in a stroller up and down the street. I need a new occupation. ;)

Great city! Will go back and next time visit the mountains, and maybe Portland as well. Hopefully next time I won't come back with a sinus infection :(

Future of the blog

All frogs aside, as I continue to head in a direction of mindful peace, I am going to continue writing this blog a bit differently than I have in the past.

When I started this, I was in a place of tragedy upon tragedy, so most of the posts were about overcoming tragedy. Even long before my marriage ended, it seemed I was in a constant place of crisis (and I was).

I heard somewhere that if you live your life and act in ways not in accordance with your thoughts or beliefs, you will never be happy (actually I think this is a Buddhist belief, maybe from the Tao) and that is what I was doing – my actions were not in accordance with my beliefs. I was living in a place and in a life I no longer belonged in. The person I was with did not even have the same beliefs as I did – about anything. Including how we lived our day-to-day lives. Because of trying to do what was “right” and following through on commitments, I tried to make a round peg fit in a square hole. The longer I kept up this charade, the more I became unhappy. I became an expert on changing my thoughts to make myself “feel” happy and finding ways to improve my own life, but what I didn’t realize is that the foundation of the house had crumbled, and with it I was denying myself the happiness that was waiting out there for me. No matter how many coats of paint or reinforcement I tried to smather on the situation, those walls were destined to fall. And they fell hard.

Of course, after the walls fell I still had plenty more crisises to deal with. I was learning and using techniques to deal with the crisis bit by bit. As I found a safer place where I was recovering from the situation and moving away from it (with legal protection from HIM), that is when I started to write. Most of my writing dealt with my suffering and techniques to help others overcome it. And it was also therapeutic for me to write down my thoughts.

However, I am not in a place anymore of tragedy upon tragedy rocking the metaphorical boat of my daily life. I have pieced my life back together, over a year later. I am still taking new steps to change my life for the better day after day. I am honest with myself now, and my beliefs and actions are in accordance. Amazing how long it took to climb out of my difficult situation, yet how quickly wonderful things now fall upon my life like raindrops, drenching me in blessings.

So, the blog will be thoughts, things happening in my life, entertaining stories, travels, and any other poetic musing I feel the need to share. Some entries will still have Mara undertones as Mara is always present but not controlling my life, but it won’t be focused on Mara. This will help me to post more often – about happier things, lighter things, things consistent with my current life.

I hope you keep reading :)

As the snow banks melt, so does my heart

So much is happening in my life lately I can’t keep up on the blog. I usually have to have some sort of focus, a common thread, some nagging thought that keeps popping up in the dark of night or wee hours of the morning….a thought that starts making more sense in my head, turning into an idea that turns into a blog entry.


But lately I haven’t been able to focus my thoughts, reflect, or make sense of much because life is moving SO FAST. It’s not a bad thing, because all of the things happening so fast are good, positive things. Things I’d always dreamed of. (Just a few: I’m engaged to a wonderful man, almost all my debt is paid off, my old house is being sold, I’ve moved into a beautiful house, I’m in the best health of my life as I’m training for a triathlon, my masters degree is almost complete, we are planning a trip to Tahiti, etc. etc.)

Sometimes I tend to over-reflect, and over-emotionalize things. Sometimes it’s good to just let things happen, to remember that God is the wizard behind the curtain and you need not fret. His plan is unfolding before my eyes, and I’m amazed and in awe of it. I am like an audience member in my own movie theater – and I actually like the movie. I know that all is well. So again, it's not a bad thing that I haven't stopped to brood.

However, I did have a common thread escape like an air bubble from my brain yesterday. It happened when I finally gave myself a moment of pure thought. I rolled it around on my tongue like a piece of chocolate and let it melt in its sugary exquisiteness.

It started when I lead a women’s committee event at work where I brought in a psychologist – a mindfulness meditation expert – to do an informative session for about 150 women. Her guided meditation focused on a calm, peaceful lake. While I was meditating on the lake, here is what popped out of my subconscious, and I believe it is somehow a reflection of everything that has been happening so fast in my life lately:

When I was a little girl, I used to love to catch little toads. My dad fished a lot, and sometimes he would take us to this pond in the woods and we would find ways to entertain ourselves while he fished. It was a “secret” fishing spot smack in the middle of acres of woods in a state park, and we had to hike a pretty long trail to get there. It was a beautiful place, seemingly untouched. Often we would try to catch frogs for hours in the tall grass and muck with little luck, chasing them through the weeds. Sometimes we would try to find snails in the algae by the shore. Either way, it was the chase that entertained us.

When we did actually catch a frog, we didn’t really know what to do with it. It was like we had accomplished this great achievement, but now what? Usually we would hold it for a while, peering into the cracks of our fingers. We would precariously cup this scared wide-eyed little creature like we won a prize.

Eventually, when dad was done fishing and it was time to go home, we would have to open our hands and let the frog hop away. Every time, this would frustrate and sadden us incredibly. My dad would say, “No, you can’t take it home. This is its home.”

A catch-and-release fisherman, dad always would leave the environment the way he had found it. Plus, I’m sure mom would not have been happy had we brought home a new slimy pet.

Of course, the frog needed to stay in its natural environment to survive and thrive. It was a beautiful thing to our childish eyes, but we did not understand that it shouldn’t be captured, imprisoned, prodded with a child’s hand, or taken from its home. Eventually it will pee on you or even bite you (yes, both happened).

My favorite saying....for the new year :)

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world.



There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”


-Marianne Morrison