Clouds and Disappointments

Clouds and Disappointments         

 

By John W. Vander Velden

 

For part of my childhood we lived in central Florida.  My parent both came from large families, and family meant a great deal to them.  So each year we loaded up the 59 Chevrolet Biscayne and drove the 1100 miles to Northern Indiana.  The two long days within the white Chevrolet offered a view of the country I could never have imagined.  But I remember a particular morning on our first return when the winding mountain road led up and up.  I remember seeing the clouds, in the distance, low enough that the mountain’s higher points lay blanketed.  I stared breathlessly out of the windshield from my perch in the back seat as we climbed higher and higher moving closer and closer to clouds.  Until that morning I had only seen clouds very far above my head.  For I like any child had looked up, scanned the sky, watching the “great white sailing ships” move across the blue.  Or observed the gigantic dark tumbling masses build on gray wet days.  Clouds were big…real…but most of all, far away.  But that day…that summer morning we would drive into a cloud…a real cloud…so close…It would be all around us. 

I am not certain what I had expected.  I know my anticipation grew with each second.  But I remember the disappointment when our white car entered the fog…  Fog!  How could this be?  Clouds majestic.  Clouds ominous. Clouds special.  But common fog, the stuff you walked through to get to the school bus on cool damp mornings.  Fog! 

Dad explained that fog was a cloud…a low flying one.  But it didn’t help, I had been crushed.  My first life experience with clouds was nothing…nothing new…nothing grand…just driving up into a fog.  I knew fogs…but clouds…well  

I understand clouds better now.  Perhaps the disappointment of that summer morning helped my scientific mind recognize what others had difficulty in seeing.  But it hasn’t helped me, much, with disappointments.  Too often I set a mental image of a thing or an event, only to be brought down by reality…it is only fog.  Too often my senses soar as I approach a grand event or meeting, or whatever, only to be shaken down to reality by…fog.  But fog has not stopped me from dreaming.  Fog has not stopped me from trying to accomplish things others felt certain beyond their reach.  Fog reminds me that things are rarely what they seem and almost never what I think they are worth.  But fog also reminds me that one morning years ago I first drove through a cloud.  That clouds might not have been what I wished they were, whatever that might have been, but I penetrated the great gray mass all the same.

We have expectations.  We will be disappointed.  But we should not give up dreaming, just because they might not come out the way we thought they might.  No, I still look at clouds. I still try to see familiar shapes in their puffy masses.  But I know clouds better…what they are…what they feel like.  Perhaps the childhood magic is lost, but clouds are clouds…They are more than the damp fog that surrounds on some early mornings.  Fog may be clouds that courageously ventured too near the earth.

Some might say I set too high an expectation that morning. It was doomed to fall.  I have fallen may times since.  But high expectations are the only way to reach lofty goals.  Yes, disappointments are a price we all pay, but clouds taught me long ago…it is a price I pay willingly!

 

(611 Words)    5-17-2016       

Secrets

Secrets                   

By John W. Vander Velden

 

We all have secrets. 

Those things hidden away in dark corners.

We keep them in locked boxes

Within locked boxes,

Buried as deeply as we can.

Doing our best to eliminate their memory from our mind. 

But they remain

Ghosts from our past.

 

Among their many forms,

Embarrassment and guilt seem most common. 

Unknown to others, they hold us prisoner

With cold dark tentacles that reach from times long ago.

They threaten to leave some visible scar,

Marking us for all to see.

 

There are those best forgotten…

Moments from the past.

Clumsiness, bad choices, illnesses, and all the rest

Whose only power is what we give them.

 

Why do we fear them…Secrets? 

Are they not reminders of our humanness?

Has our dread detoured forward progress?

Though we grow out of our yesterdays,

Are we defined only by what we have dealt or done?

Have we forgotten,

That past’s actions do not describe present life?

 

We all have secrets,

That gnaw from the shadows.

Hidden failures left behind,

But not forgotten.

Secrets that retain power.

Release can only come by…

Dragging them, kicking and screaming,

From their dark places

Into the light!

 

For we all have…secrets

 

(203 Words)  4-20-2016

 

Stripes

Stripes                

By John W. Vander Velden

 

The flag flies over our land, stars in a field of blue, and stripes of white and red.

 

Years ago there were those that acted upon an untried dream.  They risked all…their homes…their families…their lives…in the hope that a new thing was possible.  Pain and sacrifice the price willingly paid to a future unborn.  Ordinary men and women…shopkeepers…business owners…farmers…stood together demanding only justice…a fair shake, but they began a social experiment not yet complete.

We are heirs to those bold, who together changed the world.  We are the next to carry the dream yet unfulfilled.  Shall we not look forward toward the possibilities…rather than dwell upon past mistakes?  Shall we not move boldly seeking the very things our forefathers yearned?  Shall we not strive to make this nation a beacon of hope in a dark world? 

We owe future generations our best.  To build upon what we have been given…given by those that have stood before…stood facing boldly what must have seem insurmountable odds to give us freedom.  Freedom purchased with hero’s blood and whip’s stripes on defiant backs.

(190 Words)                6-14-2013

To Stand Together

 

 

 

To Stand Together

 

By John W. Vander Velden

 

 

 

The world news and political views that ooze out of our televisions make it is easy to fear the future.  In chaotic age, perhaps it is a time for looking back.  Few see the significance of knowing the past, but was not this country founded amid tumultuous times?  Have we not, as a nation, faced many difficult situations and endured?  Yes, we face new situations, but did not our fathers and their fathers face troubles that none other were forced to confront. 

 

Today we find ourselves bombarded by heated rhetoric.  Hateful divisive words that promise solutions but in truth only points fingers.  Words intended to put one against another.  This has never been the solution.  Fueling mistrust and anger only increases the fire.  Fear and hate cloud our vision and stand between us and understanding.  Should we not look deeper…to see that within each is a shared heart. Yes, each of us are unique…special in our own way, yet there is a common thread...the things we all share. So on this our nations’ Birthday let us remember the things we share.  We are more than Democrats or Republicans, more than Conservatives or Progressives, more than race, more than first generation or those that can trace their heritage to the Mayflower, for we are all Americans.  And though there has always been differing opinions, and free discussion, we are united by who we are…not what we are.  Challenges have come before.  Challenges will come throughout all time.  But if we stand together, face the difficulties before us, then we will, as we have in the past, defeat those challenges.

 

For though there are those that wish to divide, putting some against others, we are brothers and sisters that share our country.  It is the people that make up America…all of them!  And if we stand together, face all challenges that stands before us, success will be within reach.  Time has taught that the task has never been easy. Each generation has been required to give some of themselves for the future yet unborn.  Let us move forward, shoulder to shoulder, giving our best, respecting one another, supporting our neighbors, family, friends, and strangers, take up this fight that demands sacrifice, patience and a common purpose.  It is time to stand together! 

 

(383 Words)  7-2-2016

 

 

 

Beyond the Rainbow

Beyond the Rainbow                     

By John W. Vander Velden

Each day we are bombarded by the news of some awful thing happening to someone, somewhere.  But when tragedy enters the inner circle of our lives it brings dreadful darkness home.  None can escape pain and disappointments; even illness is part of life.  But when death marches sudden and unannounced in to our lives, the very foundations on which we stand seem shaken.  Life is tenuous.  It is a fact we know, and yet we place it somewhere in the back recesses of our minds.  But when someone close and dear is torn from us…. How difficult it is to face those realities. 

Tragedy comes and it comes sudden.  It tumbles over us like a great wave, pushing us off balance, leaving us confused and lost.  Some will say that faith is enough.  I say yes, in the end we will be righted when the wave has passed, but now, oh now, how will we face…the now… 

Loss is something very real.  Those that have dwelt within the bubble broken understand the very realness of it.  GOD comforts, but GOD does not eliminate the pain of our lives so drastically changed.  Loss is just that…a loss.  Something is GONE.  And if that something mattered…really mattered…then it is a big SOMETHING, and we will suffer at its missing from our lives.   

Yes, there are the promises.  On that we may rely.  But we face broken hopes and dreams, scattered as ashes on a cold winter’s wind.  And regrets, never to be resolved, fester within our own souls.  How do those most deeply touched go on?  How do the parents, siblings, and closest friends face tomorrow?  The world seems a bit darker.  Time moves a bit slower.  Someday, yes someday, we will learn to exist in this new reality…to live around the hole now ragged and ugly.  Someday we will understand…maybe just a part, but it will be enough. 

Beyond the rainbow we will be shown answers.  

Beyond the rainbow there are no tears...for pain cannot follow.  

Beyond the rainbow we will again hear the laughter we now miss…

Beyond the rainbow…   

On these things we rely…and it will be enough.

(367 Words)    6-22-2016/8-24-2020

Been Thinkin’ About…Fathers

Been Thinkin’ About…Fathers

 

By John W. Vander Velden                          

 

It would seem suitable that June would be a time to think about fathers.  With the holiday approaching my mind has moved in that direction lately.  For most of us Father’s day takes our thoughts to our own fathers…and that’s good.  It is good to think outside of ourselves.  It is good to remember our dads.  Those of us that are fortunate to have had fathers worth remembering in any case.  I was.  But growing up television programs were filled with fathers.  Father Knows Best, Make Room for Daddy, and hundreds of other programs that showed families headed by strong good nearly perfect men. Though there is no “reality” on television…never was…these “characters” did often revel noble attributes.  But they could never be a true measuring stick for men facing the real challenges of real life.  I hope none of us measured our dads against these actors moving about in perfectly manufactured scenes. 

But lately my mind has focused on another father…me.  I wonder, constantly, how do I measure up?  Being a father was always part of my life’s plan.  I’m big on plans…too big.  As I look back I understand that I stepped into the role even before my son arrived.  Now twenty-two years later, I’m still at the job.  There’s no retirement plan folks.  Yet I wonder.  How did I measure up?  For so many years, work’s obligations stole moments my son rightly deserved.  Was I there when I needed to be?  Did I have enough energy to give?  Was I always fair?  Life in our home was different.  I believe each home is a unique environment.  But did I give enough, not things but of myself?

People see my son and tell me I’ve been a good father, as if I could have forced him to become the fine young person he has become.  I remind them that the jury’s still out on that.  I’m not certain that even Nick will have the platform to judge my success, and his character can not be the measure of my inputs alone.  I had a lot of help.  His father might be responsible for his height but perhaps little else.  You see everything about “fathering” was new to me.  Each challenge a first time thing.  It was kinda’ like traveling an “unknown country” with so many events coming and me feeling so unprepared and wondering if I handled them best. 

As I consider Father’s Day and my actions as a father, perhaps it would be wisest to dwell less on what I consider successes and failures, and just trust my heart and continue on…continuing on.  To understand that I am flawed and it is unreasonable to expect perfection in all of my actions.  To trust that love will guide when I stumble along wondering what is best.  To just be…and not second-guess…the best father I can be at the moment…each moment…every moment…and accept that I will be good enough.

So another Father’s Day approaches and I think about my father and the grandfathers I never knew and all those male ancestors to the beginning of time.  I think about effort and sacrifice.  I know that they too had moments of self-doubt.  But I am grateful…so very grateful for them all.  I think about my son.  I wonder if one day he too will make the conscious choice to join the ranks of fatherhood.  Yes, on Sunday, gifts will be exchanged and words spoken and that’s nice too…but…I’ve been thinking about fathers and what being a father really means….

 

(596 Words)    6-10-2016

 

Pressure!

Pressure!

By John W. Vander Velden

Elliot’s mouth fell open when he first saw his wife.  Blinking, he suggested they go outside for a breath of air.  She seemed slightly underinflated.