Enjoy these amazing quotes filled with truth and seasoned with humor.
1.“Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.”
“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
“Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.”
“The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.”
“Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.”
“A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.”
“All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does, and that is his.”
“With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon, who could not be happy?”
“Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit.”
“If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they’ll kill you.”
“It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.”
“To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.”
“Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.”
“No good deed goes unpunished.”
“I don’t want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.”
“Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.”
“Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast.”
“There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”
20.“A man’s face is his autobiography. A woman’s face is her work of fiction.”
“To define is to limit.”
“Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people we personally dislike.”
23.“I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.”
“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
“If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.”
“It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.”
“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”
“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.”
“You can never be overdressed or overeducated.”
“I don’t want to go to heaven. None of my friends are there.”
“Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood.”
“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.”
“A good friend will always stab you in the front.”
“Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.”
“Yes: I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.”
“I am not young enough to know everything.”
“You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit.”
“Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.”
“The heart was made to be broken.”
“A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.”
“Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes.”
“I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.”
“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.”
“You don’t love someone for their looks, or their clothes, or for their fancy car, but because they sing a song only you can hear.”
“Everything in the world is about sex except sex. Sex is about power.”
“Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty. There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.”
“Never love anyone who treats you like you’re ordinary.”
“The very essence of romance is uncertainty.”
“Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend’s success.”
“The world is a stage and the play is badly cast.”
“I am too fond of reading books to care to write them.”
“We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.”
“There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating: people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.”
“How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being”.
“Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
“Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.”
“We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities.”
“Society often forgives the criminal; it never forgives the dreamer.”
“Everything in moderation, including moderation.”
“Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the world’s original sin. If the cave-man had known how to laugh, History would have been different.”
“One should never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell one that would tell one anything.”
“The nicest feeling in the world is to do a good deed anonymously-and have somebody find out.”
“The only good thing to do with good advice is pass it on; it is never of any use to oneself.”
“Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you! Let nothing be lost upon you. Be always searching for new sensations. Be afraid of nothing.”
“Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.”
“The mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death.”
“It takes great deal of courage to see the world in all its tainted glory, and still to love it.”
Here is a writer and poet that I have never heard of. Her biography details that she was a lesbian living in a time when it wasn’t accepted. It seems that her mother wasn’t in the picture, possibly in a mental institution, but this young lady went on to publish a number of outstanding poems.
I am learning so much about these incredible people, some who lived long ago. I love reading and am instilling the love of reading in my grandchildren as I did in my own sons. You learn so much from reading and it truly enhances your vocabulary. These writers didn’t have any choice but to sit and read. I wish I had more time to read. I read a lot, but with my job and work schedule, I don’t have time to read as much as I would love to. One day I will. In due time!!
Please sit back, relax and enjoy the poetry of Miss Angelina Weld Grimké!
Biography of Angelina Weld Grimké –
Angelina Weld Grimké was born on February 27, 1880 in Boston and lived most of her life with her father to whom she was extremely attached emotionally. Soon after Angelina’s birth, her mother left the Grimké household. Information concerning Sarah Stanley Grimké is not readily available, it appears that she may have been confined to a mental institution. Angelina was named for her white great aunt, Angelina Grimké Weld.
As a young woman, Weld, along with her sister, Sarah Grimké, left South Carolina in the early nineteenth century to avoid being involved in owning slaves. The two sisters settled in Hyde Park, Massachusetts, and became well-known abolitionists and advocates of women’s rights. At age seven Angela received a letter from her mother which included beautiful metaphors and imagery. It is said that Angelina was awe-inspired by her mother’s ability to write prose so beautifully. This may have very well been what prompted Ms. Weld Grimke to write poetry.
Angelina’s father seems to have been the source of her restrictions and oppression with her sexuality. She was self-consciousness about being a lesbian. She decided to forgo the expression of her lesbian desires in order to please her father, and in her poem written to commemorate his fifty-fifth birthday she describes what she would have been without him in terms of a great horror and scandal avoided. Evidence of her sexuality appeared as early as the age fourteen where she wrote love letters to her lover, Mamie Burrill in 1896.
Grimké was educated at Fairmont Grammar School in Hyde Park (1887-1894), Carleton Academy in Northfield, Minnesota (1895), Cushing Academy in Ashburnham, Massachusetts, and Girls’ Latin School in Boston, and in 1902 she took a degree in physical education at the Boston Normal School of Gymnastics (now Wellesley College). That same year she began her teaching career as a gym teacher at Armstrong Manual Training School in Washington, D.C., but in 1907, after much tension with the principal of Armstrong, she transferred to the more academic M Street High School (later Dunbar High School) where she taught English.
Through her father’s assistance, Grimké repudiates her own self-molding and takes her dependent imprint from him. Finally, after depicting the care he has given her through her life, Grimké gives her father her highest compliment, “You have been a gentle mother to your child.” That is, the best she can say about her father is that he is almost a mother.
Much of the work of Angelina Wel Grimke has been rigorously ignored. Most of the poems were too lesbian and too sentimental for audiences during and after the Harlem Renaissance. Her fiction, on the other hand, was too stark in its unflinching descriptions of the violence of lynching. Her scenes of violence were unknown in African-American fictional literature prior to the work of Richard Wright. Her short stories with their announcements of racial self-genocide have been too politically and emotionally threatening for African Americans, and others to receive and accept.
When considering the sizable body of work Angelina Grimke produced, it is important to note that very little of her work was published. The times were not friendly to a person such as Ms. Grimke. Not only was it difficult for a Black woman to be published, but the fact that she was a Black lesbian woman at a time when such sexuality was not spoken of or in any way acceptable, made it that much more difficult when trying to become published, as well as being heard.
In 1930, after her father died, Angelina Grimke moved to New York and published nothing more. She lived there in seclusion and died on June 10, 1958. The Eyes Of My Regret –
Always at dusk, the same tearless experience,
The same dragging of feet up the same well-worn path
To the same well-worn rock;
The same crimson or gold dropping away of the sun
The same tints, – rose, saffron, violet, lavender, grey
Meeting, mingling, mixing mistily;
Before me the same blue black cedar rising jaggedly to
a point;
Over it, the same slow unlidding of twin stars,
Two eyes, unfathomable, soul-searing,
Watching, watching, watching me;
The same two eyes that draw me forth, against my will
dusk after dusk;
The same two eyes that keep me sitting late into the
night, chin on knees
Keep me there lonely, rigid, tearless, numbly
miserable –
The eyes of my Regret.
When The Green Lies Over The Earth –
When the green lies over the earth, my dear,
A mantle of witching grace,
When the smile and the tear of the young child year
Dimple across its face,
And then flee, when the wind all day is sweet
With the breath of growing things,
When the wooing bird lights on restless feet
And chirrups and trills and sings
To his lady-love
In the green above,
Then oh! my dear, when the youth’s in the year,
Yours is the face that I long to have near,
Yours is the face, my dear.
But the green is hiding your curls, my dear,
Your curls so shining and sweet;
And the gold-hearted daisies this many a year
Have bloomed and bloomed at your feet,
And the little birds just above your head
With their voices hushed, my dear,
For you have sung and have prayed and have pled
This many, many a year.
And the blossoms fall,
On the garden wall,
And drift like snow on the green below.
But the sharp thorn grows
On the budding rose,
And my heart no more leaps at the sunset glow,
For oh! my dear, when the youth’s in the year,
Yours is the face that I long to have near,
Yours is the face, my dear.
A Winter Twilight –
A silence slipping around like death,
Yet chased by a whisper, a sigh,
a breath; One group of trees, lean,
naked and cold,
Inking their cress ‘gainst a
sky green-gold;
One path that knows where the
corn flowers were;
Lonely, apart, unyielding, one fir;
And over it softly leaning down,
One star that I loved ere the
fields went brown.
Wednesday, June 12, 2019 was a sad day in Ireland. Philomena Lynott, the mother of Thin Lizzy front man, Phil Lynott died at her home in Sutton at the age of 88. Ms. Lynott had been battling cancer for years and had refused treatment stating she wanted to die with dignity. Philomena was first diagnosed with lung cancer in 2015 but fought it off after undergoing radiotherapy treatment. Throughout the years she interviewed with several television shows and stated that she felt as though if she were to start receiving chemotherapy that after each treatment, she would just go home and curl up in the bed and be cranky; after all, Philomena was a very out-going woman with a beautiful heart and bubbly personality. In 2018 after a scan it was revealed her cancer had returned.
Philomena was a strong woman and went through a living hell after the birth of her son, Philip August 20, 1949. In an interview with The Irish Sunshe recalled the days after her baby was born. “Back in those days if a child was born out of wedlock they would write ‘illegitimate bastard’ on their birth certificate. “That’s what was written on his. I was thrown into a workhouse and spat at because I had a black baby. It was a terrible, terrible time.
After leaving the work house Philomena took her baby to Crumlin to stay with her mother, Sarah and her father whom would help raise Philip while his mother went to theUK to find work. There she met a man named Dennis Keeley, where they set up a hotel in Manchester frequented by famous stars.
Later in his teens, Phil began to make a name for himself after joining some of the local bands, such as “The Black Eagles,” and later“Skid Row” founded by one of his friends, Brendan “Brush Shields,” but after losing his position as lead singer following surgery to remove his tonsils. Lynott got together with friends, Brian Downey, Eric Bell and Brian Roberson and Thin Lizzy was born. Phil became an icon as the front-man, and this amazing band blew up the charts with great hits like “The Boys are Back in Town” and “Waiting for an Alibi.”
Philomena would attend her son’s shows, sitting in the audience singing to the music, smiling at the crowd or laughing at Phil’s jokes as he worked the crowd as one of the most talented front men in rock history. The world fell in love with Thin Lizzy and Phil Lynott. The group toured the world, the UK and even the USA. The band had such a huge impact on everyone they met and performed for and their fan base continued to grow all over the world. Unfortunately it wouldn’t last, and Philomena would find herself suffering through the worst hell any parent could imagine when her beloved Phil passed away on January 4, 1986 at the age of 36 from septicemia as a result of his heroin addiction. She was crushed, the world has she knew it was gone and she didn’t know if she could make it without her child and didn’t know if she even wanted to.
TAKEN FROM THE IRISH SUN:
She claimed it was meeting another grieving mother, who lost three children in the Stardust tragedy, tending the tombstone of her deceased children in the same cemetery where Phil was buried which changed her life. Philomena said: “That was the day I stopped grieving for Phil.”
Regularly attending gigs, and the annual Vibes for Philo, Philomena was rock royalty in Ireland, and was on hand with Dublin’s then-Lord Mayor, Catherine Byrne, to see a life-size sculpture of her son unveiled on Harry Street, just off Grafton Street, in January 2009.
DAILY VISITS TO ST. FINTAN’S CEMETERY: Visiting her son’s grave daily, Philomena would clean off the leaves, change the flowers, remove the many guitar picks and other gifts left by the many fans around the world who would fly in to visit his grave and take photos next to his statue.
This is a woman who loved life, loved her son and made sure his legacy lived on years after his death. She will be buried at St. Fintan’s Cemetery.
Rest in Peace Philomena, you will truly be missed!
Phil wrote a song for his mother titled “Philomena!”
This is a little story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody. There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it.
Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it.
Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody’s job.
Everybody thought that Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn’t do it.
It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done
Think I’ll fall to pieces
If I don’t find something else to do
This sadness it never ceases
Oh I’m still in love with you
My head, it keeps on reeling
It’s got me in a crazy spin
Darling, darling, darling
Is this the end?
Still in love with you
They say time has a way of healing
Dries all the tears from your eyes
But darling it’s this empty feeling
My heart can’t disguise
After all that we’ve been through
I try my best but it’s no use
I guess I’ll just keep on loving you
Is this the end?
Still in love with you
Still in love with you
Now that it’s all over, boy
There’s something I think you should know
Baby, baby, think it over
Just one more time before you go
Call on me baby
If there’s anything I can do for you
Please call on me baby
Help me see it through
Still in love with you
Still in love with you
Still in love with you
WRITTEN BY: PHILIP PARRIS LYNOTT
2. Cry Baby – Janis Joplin
SONG LYRICS
Cry cry baby, cry baby, cry baby,
Welcome back home.
Now he told you, that he loved you much more than I
But he left you and you don’t you just don’t know why
And when you don’t know what to do
You come running and
[Chorus]
Well I can always lose,
Don’t you know nobody can love you the way that I do
Take the pain and the heartache too
Ah honey you know that I’ll be around
When you need to
[Chorus]
Welcome back home
I’ve spent so many nights
Just waiting for you to come walking through that door
And even tho you’ve made a fool of me so many times before
I know that all it takes is just the sight of your face
To make me realize that I will always love you darlin
And I can see that you got some more tears to shed
I can see it baby, cause your eyes, your eyes are getting red
WRITTEN BY: TOM RUSSELL, JONATHAN SEYMOUR, ROMILY WALDEN, RICHARD WALDRON & TOM LAMB
3. The Ghetto – Elvis Presley
SONG LYRICS
As the snow flies
On a cold and gray Chicago mornin’
A poor little baby child is born
In the ghetto
And his mama cries
Cause if there’s one thing that she don’t need
It’s another hungry mouth to feed
In the ghetto
People, don’t you understand
The child needs a helping hand
Or he’ll grow to be an angry young man some day
Take a look at you and me,
Are we too blind to see,
Do we simply turn our heads
And look the other way
Well the world turns
And a hungry little boy with a runny nose
Plays in the street as the cold wind blows
In the ghetto
And his hunger burns
So he starts to roam the streets at night
And he learns how to steal
And he learns how to fight
In the ghetto
Then one night in desperation
A young man breaks away
He buys a gun, steals a car,
Tries to run, but he don’t get far
And his mama cries
As a crowd gathers ’round an angry young man
Face down on the street with a gun in his hand
In the ghetto
As her young man dies,
On a cold and gray Chicago mornin’,
Another little baby child is born
In the ghetto
And his mama cries
WRITTEN BY: MAC DAVIS
4. I’m Living in Shame – Diana Ross and the Supremes
SONG LYRICS
Mom was cooking bread
She wore a dirty raggety scarf around her head
Always had her stockings low
Rolled to her feet, she just didn’t know
She wore a sloppy dress
Oh no matter how she tried, she always looked a mess
Out of the pot she ate, never used a fork or a dinner plate
I was always so ashamed for my uptown friends to see her
Afraid one day when I was grown that I would be her
In a college town, away from home, a new identity I found
Said I was born elite, with maids and servants at my feet
I must have been insane
I lied and said my mom died on a weekend trip to Spain
She never got out of the house, never even boarded a train
I married a guy, was livin’ high
I didn’t want him to know her
She had a grandson, two years old
I never even showed her
I’m livin’ in shame, Momma, I miss you
I know you are not to blame, Momma, I miss you
Came the telegram
Mom passed away while making homemade jam
Before she died, she cried to see me by her side
She always did her best, ah! cookin’, cleanin’
Always in the same old dress
Workin’ hard down on her knees
Always try’n to please
Momma! Momma! Momma, do you hear me
Momma! Momma! Momma, do you hear me
I’m livin’ in shame, Momma, I miss you
I know you’ve done your best
Momma, I miss you
Won’t you forgive me Momma
For all the wrong I’ve done
I know you have done your best
I know you have done your very best you could
But I never understood
Workin’ hard on your knees
Momma, you were always, always tryin’ to please
WRITTEN BY: BERRY GORDY JR, FRANK EDWARD WILSON, HENRY COSBY, PAMELA JOAN SAWYER & R. DEAN TAYLOR
5. Let’s Get It On – Marvin Gaye
SONG LYRICS
I’ve been really tryin’, baby
Tryin’ to hold back these feeling for so long
And if you feel, like I feel baby
Then come on, oh come on
Let’s get it on, oh baby
Lets get it on, let’s love baby
Let’s get it on, sugar
Let’s get it on, whoa
We’re all sensitive people
With so much to give, understand me sugar
Since we got to be here
Let’s live, I love you
There’s nothin’ wrong with me
Lovin’ you, baby love, love
And givin’ yourself to me can never be wrong
If the love is true, oh baby
Don’t you know how sweet and wonderful life can be?
I’m askin’ you baby to get it on with me, oh oh
I ain’t gonna worry, I ain’t gonna push
I won’t push you baby
So come on, come on, come on, come on baby
Stop beatin’ round the bush, hey
Let’s get it on, let’s get it on
You know what I’m talkin’ ’bout
Come on baby, let your love come out
If you believe in love
Let’s get it on, let’s get it on baby
This minute, oh yeah let’s get it on
Please, let’s get it on
I know you know what I been dreamin’ of, don’t you baby?
My whole body makes that feelin’ of love, I’m happy
I ain’t gonna worry, no I ain’t gonna push
I won’t push you baby, woo
Come on, come on, come on, come on darling
Stop beatin’ round the bush, hey
Oh, gonna get it on, threatin’ you, baby
I wanna get it on
You don’t have to worry that it’s wrong
If the spirit moves you
Let me groove you good
Let your love come down
Oh, get it on, come on baby
Do you know the meaning?
I’ve been sanctified, hey hey
Girl, you give me good feeling
So good somethin’ like sanctified
Oh dear I, baby
Nothing wrong with love
If you want to love me just let your self go
Oh baby, let’s get it on
Written by:MARVIN P. GAYE & EDWARD B. TOWNSEND
6. Little Ghetto Boy – Donny Hathaway
SONG LYRICS
Little ghetto boy, playing in the ghetto street
Whatcha’ gonna do when you grow up
And have to face responsiblity?
Will you spend your days and nights in the pool room?
Will you sell caps of madness to the neighborhood?
Little ghetto boy
You already know how proud life can be
’cause you’ve seen so much pain and misery
Little ghetto boy
Your daddy was blown away
He robbed that grocery store
Don’t you know that was a sad, sad old day?
All your young life
You’ve seen such misery and pain
The world is a cruel place to live
And it ain’t gonna change
You’re so young
You’ve got so far to go on
And don’t think you’ll reach your goal
Young man, little ghetto boy, look at you
Little ghetto boy
When, when, when you become a men
You can make things change if you just take the stand
You gotta believe it yourself in all you do
You’ve gotta fight to make it better
Then you will see how others will start believing to
Then, my son, things will start to get better
Everything has got to get better,
Everything has got to get better
Written by:ROBERT F. DIGGS,COREY WOODS ,EARL CEASAR DE ROUEN, EDWARD HOWARD & DARRYL ROBERT HILL
7. Wild Fire – Michael Martin Murphy
Song Lyrics
She comes down from Yellow Mountain On a dark, flat land she rides On a pony she named Wildfire With a whirlwind by her side On a cold Nebraska night Oh, they say she died one winter When there came a killing frost And the pony she named Wildfire Busted down its stall In a blizard he was lost She ran calling Wildfire She ran calling Wildfire She ran calling Wildfire By the dark of the moon – I planted But there came an early snow There’s been a hoot-owl howling by my window now For six nights in a row She’s coming for me I know And on Wildfire we’re both gonna go We’ll be riding Wildfire We’ll be riding Wildfire We’ll be riding Wildfire On Wildfire we’re gonna ride Gonna leave sodbustin’ behind Get these hard times right on out of our minds Riding Wildffire
Written by: Michael Martin Murphey & Larry Cansler
8. Rainy Night in Georgia – Brook Benton
Song Lyrics
Hoverin’ by my suitcase
Tryin’ to find a warm place to spend the night
A heavy rain a fallin’
Seems I hear your voice callin’
“It’s all right”
A rainy night in Georgia
A rainy night in Georgia
I believe it’s rainin’ all over the world
Neon signs a flashin’
Taxi cabs and busses passin’ through the night
The distant moanin’ of a train
Seems to play a sad refrain to the night
A rainy night in Georgia
A rainy night in Georgia
I believe it’s rainin’ all over the world
How many times I’ve wondered
It still comes out the same
No matter how you look at it, think of it
You just got to do your own thing
I find me a place in a box car
So I take out my guitar to pass some time
Late at night when it’s hard to rest
I hold your picture to my chest
And I’m all right
A rainy night in Georgia
A rainy night in Georgia
I believe it’s rainin’ all over the world
WRITTEN BY: TONY JOE WHITE
9. And When I Die – Blood, Sweat & Tears
Song Lyrics
I’m not scared of dying
And I don’t really care
If it’s peace you find in dying
Well, then let the time be near
If it’s peace you find in dying
And if dying time is here just bundle up my coffin
‘Cause it’s cold way down there
I hear that it’s cold way down there
Yeah, crazy cold way down there
And when I die, and when I’m gone
There’ll be one child born
In this world to carry on, to carry on
Now troubles are many, they’re as deep as a well
I can swear there ain’t no heaven but I pray there ain’t no hell
Swear there ain’t no heaven and I pray there ain’t no hell
But I’ll never know by living, only my dying will tell
Yes, only my dying will tell, yeah, only my dying will tell
And when I die, and when I’m gone
There’ll be one child born
In this world to carry on, to carry on, yeah yeah
Give me my freedom for as long as I be
All I ask of living is to have no chains on me
All I ask of living is to have no chains on me
And all I ask of dying is to go naturally
Oh, I want to go naturally
Here I go, hey hey
Here comes the devil right behind
Look out children
Here he comes, here he comes, hey
Don’t want to go by the devil
Don’t want to go by demon
Don’t want to go by Satan
Don’t want to die uneasy
Just let me go naturally
And when I die and when I’m dead, dead and gone
There’ll be one child born
In our world to carry on, to carry on, yeah yeah
Written by: Laura Nyro
10. Ode to Billy Joe – Bobbie Gentry
SONG LYRICS
It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day
I was out choppin’ cotton, and my brother was balin’ hay
And at dinner time we stopped and walked back to the house to eat
And mama hollered out the back door, y’all, remember to wipe your feet
And then she said, I got some news this mornin’ from Choctaw Ridge
Today, Billy Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge
And papa said to mama, as he passed around the blackeyed peas
Well, Billy Joe never had a lick of sense; pass the biscuits, please
There’s five more acres in the lower forty I’ve got to plow
And mama said it was shame about Billy Joe, anyhow
Seems like nothin’ ever comes to no good up on Choctaw Ridge
And now Billy Joe MacAllister’s jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge
And brother said he recollected when he, and Tom, and Billie Joe
Put a frog down my back at the Carroll County picture show
And wasn’t I talkin’ to him after church last Sunday night?
I’ll have another piece-a apple pie; you know, it don’t seem right
I saw him at the sawmill yesterday on Choctaw Ridge
And now ya tell me Billie Joe’s jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge
And mama said to me, child, what’s happened to your appetite?
I’ve been cookin’ all morning, and you haven’t touched a single bite
That nice young preacher, Brother Taylor, dropped by today
Said he’d be pleased to have dinner on Sunday, oh, by the way
He said he saw a girl that looked a lot like you up on Choctaw Ridge
And she and Billy Joe was throwing somethin’ off the Tallahatchie Bridge
A year has come and gone since we heard the news ’bout Billy Joe
And brother married Becky Thompson; they bought a store in Tupelo
There was a virus going ’round; papa caught it, and he died last spring
And now mama doesn’t seem to want to do much of anything
And me, I spend a lot of time pickin’ flowers up on Choctaw Ridge
And drop them into the muddy water off the Tallahatchie Bridge
It’s never too early to sit down and discuss your final wishes with your spouse and family.
Talking about funeral arrangements and death can be difficult and for some family members, they just flat don’t want to talk about it. The fact of the matter is; it needs to be discussed and to the spouse that is asking to have this discussion take place, it is very important to them.
Discussing the final wishes of a spouse leaves less guesswork, ensures that each detail is carried out according to how they would have wanted it to. It will also take the burden off of the surviving spouse and not leave them feeling guilty should something happen that they didn’t have the conversation or things weren’t carried out the way their loved one would have wanted.
I have a dear friend whose son chose to donate his body to Science after death. His mother and my friend agreed which are her final wishes as well. Her son passed away and his body was donated to Science. His mother is such a strong and well-read woman and had already done her research on this but has also discussed it with doctors and her family as well.
It can be most difficult to discuss your post-death wishes with family members but remember, “Death does not take a vacation, nor does it sleep or slumber.” When it’s our time to die, we will surely die.
It is better to have had this conversation and have all details written down and taken care of.
One of my sisters passed away in 2001. She had already planned out the details of her funeral and was also an organ donor.
Knowing all of these things took a lot of the stress and anxiety off of our family. Our sister’s wishes were carried out just as she requested.
I remember the talk my husband and I had before he passed away so suddenly from a massive heart attack. We had just arrived back home from the funeral of one of my male cousins. We all knew as a family that our cousin would be cremated and it hit hard for the most part because no one in our family had ever been cremated before. My husband sat me down in the kitchen and told me he needed to talk to me. He then proceeded to talk to me about what his last wishes were after his death. He wanted me to promise him that I would have him CREMATED. At that moment, I was ready for the conversation to be over with, but the look on his face was much different, it was somber, he was serious. It was a look he had never given me before and I knew this was an important conversation and my husband was not joking around, he needed to have this talk and he needed me to be alert and completely understand what his wishes were, so I listened. He proceeded again to tell me that this was his wish and took my hand and as he kissed it, he asked me to promise that I would carry his wish out. He wanted his ashes spread at the old home place he and his family lived at in Illinois. Choking back tears, I agreed and I knew if anything happened to my love, I would have to be strong and carry this out to the end. I had never gone against him and never would.
A few months later he suffered a massive heart attack and passed away. Then and there I was left with either being the woman that my husband knew and loved so much and carrying out his wishes or at that time, do the unthinkable and completely go against his last wishes and have him buried.
Not even a question of a word. I put on my big girl shoes, ask my Lord and Savior for strength and carried out my husband’s wishes. He had a funeral and was CREMATED a few days later.
This conversation should take place with family members while all members are in good health and a sound mind.
Here are a few links someone may find interesting and useful:
Many people throughout the years and within different cultures may have assumed and believed that life on Earth would be easy and pain-free.
The fact of the matter is; that is not the case at all. We shouldn’t give up hope of a pain – free life and/or existence, because God has promised each of us a better place for those who trust in Christ as Saviour and encourages each of us to console ourselves with that very HOPE.
We should all remain encouraged. This journey we’re on may be a long, tough one, but it’s one that we all can conquer and know that there are greater things waiting for us at the finish line!
For those of you who were born in the 60’s and grew up in the 70’s, you have to remember Roman Polanski’s movie “ROSEMARY’S BABY!” This true thriller movie was a huge hit in 1968, with a soundtrack by a Polish musician named Krzysztof Komeda.
Here’s a mini biography of Komeda who was born on April 27, 1931 in Poznan, Wielkopolskie, as Krzysztof Komeda-Trzcinski. He was a composer, known for Rosemary’s Baby (1968), The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967) and Mammals (1962). He was married to Zofia von Tittenbrun. He died on April 23, 1969 in Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland from head injuries he received in a car accident.
In December 1968, Krzysztof Komeda was walking with friends in the Hollywood Hills after a late night of drinking – Komeda was an alcoholic – when he fell, hitting his head. One of his friends picked him up but dropped him again, causing Komeda to hit his head again. He told his friends he was fine and was driven home, after which he developed flu-like symptoms and difficulty breathing. He was hospitalized with a blood clot on his brain, went into a coma and was at one point clinically dead. However, after emergency surgery, he resuscitated and after about a three-month stay, he was released. Komeda flew home to Warsaw with his wife, Zofia von Tittenbrun but died there in April at the age of 38.
I fell in love with his music while watching “Rosemary’s Baby.” The particular song I grew to love was titled “Moment Musical,” which is a soft piano playing melody that will make anyone want to sit and listen and get carried away to another world.
Mental Health Awareness Month (also referred to as “Mental Health Month,” has been observed in the month of May in the United States since 1949, reaching millions of people in the United States through the media, local events, and screenings.
For many years there have been such a great Stigma attached to this disorder. Stigma is defined as a mark of disgrace associated with a circumstance, quality, or person, according to Merriam-Webster.
MERRIAM WEBSTER, INC:
Merriam-Webster, Inc., is an American company that publishes reference books and is especially known for its dictionaries. In 1828, George and Charles Merriam founded the company as G & C Merriam Co. in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Approximately 1 in 5 adults in the U.S. (46.6 million) experiences mental illness in a given year. Approximately 1 in 25 adults in the U.S. (11.2 million) experiences a serious mental illness in a given year that substantially interferes with or limits one or more major life activities.
SEVERE MENTAL ILLNESS:
Severe mental illness is often defined by its length of duration and the disability it produces. These illnesses include disorders that produce psychotic symptoms, such as schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder, and severe forms of other disorders, such as major depression and bipolar disorder. It’s hard for many to believe that one in 17 people live with a serious mental illness such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. In addition to a person’s directly experiencing a mental illness, family, friends and communities are also affected. Families of individuals with mental illness suffer along side their loved one and many times find it difficult to know how to deal with that individual. I can honestly tell anyone, it takes educating yourself, going to appointments, listening without judging, assuring they know how much they are loved, they are not alone, and the door is always open if they need to talk. it’s also important to remember that a person’s mental health can change over time, depending on many factors: When the demands placed on a person exceed their resources and coping abilities.
If you or someone you know is suffering in silence with a mental illness, or believe you are; please reach out for help in your city and state.
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For those of you who were born in the 60’s and grew up in the 70’s, you have to remember Roman Polanski’s movie “ROSEMARY’S BABY!” This true thriller movie was a huge hit in 1968, with a soundtrack by a Polish musician named 