Author: monicainga

Faith is not always easy. To have belief in or to trust an omnipotent omnipresent Being sometimes looks like it is absurd. Why in the world would someone trust Someone or Something that they can’t see?

For me, it’s easier to trust what I can’t see than what I can. What I can see is hurt, pain, and destruction. I also see great beauty, especially in nature, like flowers, stars, sunrises, sunsets, and beaches.  

Think about it, did people create sunrises and sunsets? Did people make flowers? Yes, people can synthesize existing flowers into hybrids.  But, where did the raw material originate?

It’s an even greater leap of faith for me to believe that the world, with all of its genetic material just happened to exist.  Someone had to do something to start grass growing. It’s easier for me to believe that there’s a Creator. 

If there’s a Creator that created everything, it’s not a big stretch of the imagination to believe that this Creator cares for the creation.  If I write something or paint a picture, I care about my work. I don’t want to see it ruined or destroyed.  

When people experience pain, hardship, sadness, trauma, and wanton destruction or violence, the question that’s always asked is, “Where was God when this happened?”  I believe that He witnessed the destruction of His creation and cried bigger tears than Iron Eyes Cody did in the conservation television commercials of the seventies and eighties.

The next question asked is usually, “Why didn’t He stop it?” I  don’t have an answer to this question. But, what I do know is that the pain is not wasted. 

One of the names of God is “The God who Wastes Nothing.” The pain, if turned outward can help another person experiencing a similar situation. If the pain is turned inward and kept to oneself, negative feelings and emotions take control.  The self-preservation part of the brain ignites. Then, anything to numb the pain seems rational. But, the numbness doesn’t last. Instead, an ever-increasing amount of substance is needed, but the circumstances don’t change. 

When I experience pain, I desperately want Someone who loves me unconditionally to comfort me. I want Someone to show me how I can use my pain to help others. In short, faith becomes essential. I choose to believe because I need to believe.

The definition of reentry is “the act of retaking possession of land, etc, under a right reserved in an earlier transfer of the property, such as a lease. the return of a spacecraft into the earth’s atmosphere.” Today I have been preparing for and experiencing my own form of reentry. It has been sixteen days since I have slept at my house. This is longest time that I have spent away from home since I tried out college for six months.

It is too simplistic to say that college life was not for me. It’s also inaccurate. College life definitely suited me. It was the academic life that didn’t suit. In the more than three decades since I left higher education, I have thought about and tried to come up with an explanation for why I didn’t succeed. Nope. I got nothing. There’s probably a deep psychological reason, but I haven’t delved into it. There’s something about experiencing failure, rather than being motivated to do better, I will cease any and all activity in that direction.

This is an all-or-nothing thinking pattern. After completing the step study class, I started a class on healing from trauma. It was there that I learned that this all-or-nothing pattern is how I dealt with the trauma. Because the traumatic events occurred before I was eighteen, I have been classified as a childhood trauma survivor. In class, I made a joke about this, because I am extremely uncomfortable being called a survivor. I told the rest of the class that I survived, because I didn’t know that I had been given an option.

This was an attempt at humor to deflect because I had no response to being called a survivor. When I think survivor, I think of holocaust survivors and cancer survivors. What did I survive? I survived being a kid. Yes, my family had problems. But, doesn’t everyone have problems in their family?

In all likelihood my lack of preparedness for the college experience is rooted in coping skills that I learned as a child. Once in an environment where I was treated as an adult, I had no blueprint for navigating this new phase.

Now, thirty plus years later, I still have no blueprint for navigation. But, my need and desire for one has decidedly decreased. What changed? I decided to take Jesus seriously. He said that there’s only two things that I must do – love God and love other people. I can do that. Mostly.

In order for me to do it all of the time, I would need to stay off the Atlanta interstate highway system. But, I have taken measures to help me not be so uptight while I drive. I now have a ride-along mascot that helps me not take driving so seriously.

Yes. I put a small stuffed Buc-ee the beaver on the dashboard of my car. When I start to feel my anger kick in, I look at Buc-ee and smile. Yes, it’s silly. I prefer to think of it as a new way to cope.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that I don’t get mad anymore. I’m not perfect. If I was perfect, I would not need God in my life. In my brokenness, I sought after the One who can heal me. I am not healed, yet, and I won’t be this side of Heaven. But, there are amazing people in my life that encourage me to “do better”. I am thankful that my re-entry tonight included some of them.

A couple of days ago I compared the beginning of a new year to a blank page. So, that’s my New Year’s gift to you. Here’s a blank page. Please craft your story of 2024.

Happy New Year’s Eve! I am celebrating just the way I want – a meal of sparkling apple juice, cheese, crackers, nuts, with a little bit of chocolate while watching Hallmark Christmas movies. It’s not a fancy dress party in a hotel or the ball drop in Times Square, but it’s perfect for me.

When I was a little girl, I thought that parties were how all grown-ups celebrated New Year’s Eve, because it’s what my parents did.  Every year they would invite everyone, seriously, everyone that they knew to a party that they hosted at our house.  I spent most of the celebrations at my grandparents, who babysat me and my sister while my parents partied. 

Though, I remember one party. Well, not the party, because it was past my bedtime. But, I remember helping out with the set up.  I was amazed at how the balloons stuck to the fake wood paneling just by rubbing them on my hair.  The food spread was a seventies hors d’oevres extravaganza, complete with a cheese ball and crackers, potato chips with a dip made from sour cream and dry onion soup mix, fancy meatballs with frilly toothpicks, and maybe a Jell-o mold. My sister and I greeted a few guests and we were sent to bed. Since that was what I knew, I thought that everybody celebrated the New Year that way.  Plus, I knew that when I was a grown-up that I would celebrate just like they did. What I didn’t know, because I was only six or seven, is that the only constant in life was that things would change. 

The world changed.  By the time I could legally have champagne at midnight, AIDS was an epidemic and people were worried about their cholesterol. MTV played the music rather than my parents hi-fi, complete with an 8-track tape player. The world changed and I had changed. 

The New Year’s Eve that I was twenty-one, I was pregnant with my first child. There was no champagne for me that year. The next one, I was a nursing mother,  The third New Year’s Eve I was pregnant with my second child.  By the fourth one, I was used to sparkling apple juice and a clear head, which I needed with two children in diapers. The idea of a New Year’s Eve cocktail party didn’t appeal to me as much as going to bed before midnight and getting a night of uninterrupted sleep.  I developed a habit of not partying, unintentionally, but a habit nonetheless. 

This got me to thinking about habits for the next year.  I would rather cultivate a habit than write a resolution. Habits are made with the intent of developing a lifestyle discipline. Resolutions made on December 31st have all been forgotten by Valentine’s Day.  

This year, I want to revive my habit of going to bed before midnight. I lost my bedtime routine habit and also my habit of wearing pants with a zipper in 2020 during Covid lockdown.  Since I didn’t have to drive anywhere and just had to walk a few feet to the computer for Zoom meetings, I acquired bad habits instead good ones.  

Unfortunately, they have persisted until today.  I don’t want to get back to my crazy pre-Covid over-scheduled life. However, I do want back the discipline of getting up at around the same time the sun does. By staying up late, my day now starts off at about the time I would have had a second cup of coffee. I don’t like it. Even though I am awake for the same amount of time, my productivity drops off when the sun goes down. 

Habit number one for 2024 is a better bedtime routine. Habit number two is one that I saw on a friend’s posting on Facebook that I want to adopt also. I want to pray for one friend each week. If you want me to pray for you, please send me the verse that you would like for me to pray for you. If you can’t think of a verse, that’s okay. I just want to pray for you.

Here’s to 2024! May it be a year that bad habits are broken and good ones take their place!

Happy New Years Adam! Get it? It’s because Adam came before Eve!  Yes, I know that I used it on Christmas Eve but it also applies today.

With the new year just a couple of days away, I remembered how I used to spend the days leading up to the New Year.  I would spend them examining what I did wrong during the year. Then, I would make a list how I would be better in the new one. 

It sounds pretty dismal, now. But, back then I approached each new year with a sense of anticipation.  I had a clean blank slate in the form of a new year. It was clean and white, like a piece of paper that had no writing on it.   I was full of hope that the new year would be better.  

This hope and excitement for the new year lasted for about two weeks.  At that point, I would be overwhelmed by reality and find myself making the same mistakes. Then, I would spend the next fifty weeks in a cycle of self-improvement —> mistake —> guilt —> condemnation —> depression —> self-improvement. It was exhausting. I just couldn’t be good enough to last whole year. 

This was the attitude of someone who professed to be a Christian. Yes, that’s right.  I went to church every Sunday. I had a cross necklace and more than one Bible. What I didn’t have is faith. 

Now, don’t get me wrong, I believed in God. I had been taught about God by my great-grandmother and my grandmother.  My parents sent me to a Christian preschool where I learned the Lord’s Prayer. My grandmother taught me a bedtime prayer, “Now I lay me down to sleep…” I even was baptized when I was ten years old. 

Despite this religious education, as a child, church attendance was hit or miss, due to my parents’ divorce when I was 9. My grandmother who taught me my bedtime prayer lived twelve hours away and my great-grandmother who told me about God was eight hours away. My parents believed in God.  But, a lifestyle based on a relationship with God was not modeled for me as a child. 

I knew about prayer. I prayed for many years that my parents would get remarried. I saw The Parent Trap on The Wonderful World of Disney. I knew that if I had enough faith my parents would get back together.  Only, that didn’t happen. First, my dad remarried and divorced. Then, my mother remarried. Clearly, prayer didn’t work.   So, why bother? I mean, God was still there and all. I celebrated Jesus’ birthday on Christmas. But, neither of them seemed to care very much about me or what I wanted and I wasn’t quite sure who or what the Holy Ghost was. It sounded like something off Scooby Doo. But, no one had ever explained it to me. That wasn’t anyone’s fault, though, I never thought to ask.  

This was my religious upbringing up until the summer between my sophomore and junior years of high school. My mom had joined a church, probably because her husband had been hospitalized with a severe brain injury, was in a coma for several months, and was now at home with round the clock nurses, and she had told them about her daughters in high school. 

One of the youth counselors invited me to join the church youth group for the summer. At this point, I was on my tenth school and tenth house. Desperate for any sort of connection, I said yes to the counselor. To make a long story a little shorter, I had a fantastic summer and school year attending this youth group.

Then, my mother’s husband died, and my mom wanted to move back to be closer to her parents. I didn’t. I was finally settled, again, and I was going to be a senior next year. I learned more about praying from the youth group leaders, but had no evidence that it actually worked. God was still there somewhere. I still celebrated Jesus’ birthday at Christmas. This time, though, I learned about the Advent Wreath. The Holy Ghost, who now was called the Holy Spirit, was still a mystery. But, now I knew that it had nothing to do with the Mystery Machine or Scooby Doo.

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I will tell more of this story later. It’s almost too long already. There’s no way that I can wrap it up the way I want to in the space allowed. So, there will definitely be a part two at some point. 

Happy New Year’s Adam!

“Take care of yourself!” That was a phrase that I heard over and over again, after my spouse came out publicly in July of 2022. What did that even mean? Was I supposed to get a mani/pedi? Was I supposed to exercise? Eat my vegetables? Drink water? Get a massage? I had no clue where to start.  

It wasn’t until I began a step study class through my recovery group the next February that  I learned how to take care of myself. Imagine that!  A lady who had spent over a half century on Earth just now learning how to take care of herself. 

Most of the past fifty plus years were spent taking care of others. First, I took care of, or at least tried to, my newlywed spouse and our first home together – an apartment out of the 1970’s complete with avocado green shag carpet and macramé hooks. I say tried to, because my housekeeping and cooking skills were decidedly lackluster. Our family grew with the birth of our first child almost fourteen months after we were married. Then, his three siblings followed over the next ten and a half years. I was better at taking care of children than a house, but only marginally.

Unresolved childhood trauma created an inner voice that told me that the only way to be sure to not “mess up” or damage my children was to be a perfect mother. I really tried. Unfortunately, my perfectionism was more damaging to my children and husband than if I had simply stumbled through cooking, cleaning, child-rearing, and marriage in my own messy and imperfect  nature.  But, that’s a story for another time. 

Having spent more than thirty years trying to take care of others left me clueless about taking care of myself. In the step study class, the other ladies who were students and our fearless leaders helped set me straight. It didn’t happen right away. It was only about halfway through the class that I learned how to recognize when I needed to take care of myself. 

The answer is that I need to take care of myself every day.  If I don’t, then my family doesn’t get my best self.  My best self is a caring, empathetic, witty, and fun-loving person.  My worst self is a person that is pissed off by everything, up to and including someone breathing the wrong way. 

I wish that I could write one of those articles, like, “100 Surefire Never-Fail Self-Care Must Do’s that Everyone Over 30 Needs to Know’.  Well, I could write it, but I would be lying.  Self-care is as unique as each person is unique. What works for one person, might not work for everyone. 

If you are looking for ways to take care of yourself, begin by interviewing yourself. Ask yourself the following questions:

1.  What do I like to do?
2. What activity, when I do it, causes me to lose track of time?
3. How do I feel about my appearance?
4. If I don’t like it, what can I do for fifteen minutes that will help me feel better about it?
5. What were my favorite things to do as a child? If it’s an activity that could result in a broken bone, maybe start out slow on this one,
6. If I had an hour to spend where I could go anywhere and do anything, where would I go and what would I do?
7. Lastly,thank you, Marie Kondo, what sparks joy?

For me, working the twelve steps is the most crucial self-care that I do. I believe that everyone can benefit from them. However, not everyone is ready to just go out and join a twelve step group, much less take time to spend actually working on doing the steps and the tasks implied in each step. Again, twelve step readiness is as unique as each person. In my natural enthusiasm, I learned the hard way that it’s not good for a relationship to tell someone else that they should go to a twelve step group.

 A recovery program works best when the participant wants to do it. 

I said earlier that taking care of yourself needs to happen everyday. It really does. The reason I know this is because I didn’t do it for a long time.  Over that time of ignoring myself, I was depressed, stressed, filled with anxiety, guilt, shame, and self-loathing. No one knew it, though. I would hide behind a smile and say “Fine”, for many years when someone would ask how I was. Eventually, I could not lie anymore, but I still said “FINE”, referring to the acronym of Effed up, insecure, neurotic, and emotional. When I got to the point where I couldn’t go on, I was shown a way out. But, that’s another story for another time. 

Be well my friends and take care!

Yesterday I was rather lighthearted when I mentioned that I can write whatever I want because no one is reading the blog. I have had at least three people tell me that they are reading it, and that doesn’t include my mother. Tonight, I pray that this entry will reach the right person.  

Yes, the holiday season can be a time of laughter, love, and excitement. It can also be a time when the loss of loved ones is felt very strongly. Or, perhaps it’s a stressful time due to job loss or financial challenges. Or, perhaps there is relationship trouble, like on Christmas you were in a relationship, but this New Year’s Eve, the one that you planned on kissing at midnight has dumped you.

I will be one of the first to agree with you that sometimes life sucks and that when nothing seems like it’s going right it just hurts like crazy.  But, please hear me loud and clear, nothing, I mean absolutely nothing, is bad enough to justify ending your life. 

If you are reading this and you feel like no one cares whether you live or die, you are wrong. I love every single person that I have ever met.  If you’re not someone I know, which is highly unlikely, given my readership, then you are most likely  a friend of a friend, who reposted this. If you breathe air, you are important. 

As a Jesus follower, I believe that life is inherently precious.  You have been created by a loving God for a unique role and purpose, which will never be fulfilled if your life is ended prematurely.  God will take the 💩 of your life and redeem it. We go through stuff, but we’re not alone in our suffering. God is here to get us through our whole life – the good parts and the not so good. 

If you are not like me and don’t follow Jesus, so you feel like the above doesn’t apply to you, I respectfully disagree. Science agrees that something started this world and everything is it. Something or Someone started the Big Bang or the spark that caused life to begin. Regardless of your spiritual beliefs, you are alive now. So, the Universe, or Spirit, or whatever decided that the world needed one of you.  Who are you to argue with your maker?

I have been to more than one funeral for a person who ended their own life.  I have seen for myself the devastation on the faces of parents and siblings. I heard one significant other speak at one of the funerals. This person could hardly speak through their voice shaking and the tears running down their face.  Even if it seems like no one cares, someone does.  Don’t listen to that ugly voice that says that you would be better off dead, it’s a big fat lie.  

I have been in recovery for about twenty months. The incident which prompted me to seek out recovery is not a pleasant story. To make a long story short, for a few hours, I listened to the lie and actually believed it. 

My faith played a large part in bringing me back, but it’s also what led me to believe that I would have a better life. That’s true, but not entirely.  A partial truth is a lie.  

If my life had ended prematurely, I would not be writing this essay, now. I may not save someone else’s life with this. Maybe I just wrote it to remind myself and a few others how precious life is and how much I and everyone else is loved by the Creator. 

I hope  that 2024 will be your best year. If it’s even marginally upsetting, please message me. I will listen and if you want, pray. 

“Now faith, hope, and love remain – these three things – and the greatest of these is love.” 1 Corinthians 13:13

Resources:

https://www.projectsemicolon.com/

https://www.celebraterecovery.com/

988 – National suicide hotline

https://suicideanonymous.net/

https://www.jennieallen.com/gooyh

For a long time, I was terrified to express myself in such a public forum as a blog. Prior self-expression had only occurred in my key lock diary that I had when I was nine and in several journals since that time. Writing in my diary and journals were safe. No one could read my thoughts and use them against me. Blogging is extremely scary and vulnerable. This week, I found a positive to the blogging.

There’s not enough people reading what I write to invite criticism. In a public space, a critical mass must be reached before the internet “trolls” come out of their holes. Trolls are people who make mean and ugly comments on purpose, They want to cause a commotion to engage with others in pointless debate. My readership is too low for trolls to mess with me.

I feel like Kevin McAllister in Home Alone, “I can do whatever I want!!!” Today, I want to haiku. I did some reading today on dreams. So, dreams are the subject of my haiku.

Dreams – a haiku

Dreams are essential.

Without dreams, all is Winter –

cold, dead, and lifeless.

Welcome to my writing sandbox! I hope you will enjoy your visit.

Have you heard about the enneagram? It’s a personality typing system that is dynamic, rather than fixed.  I first heard about it when I heard Dave Ramsey do an interview with author, Ian Morgan Cron on The Dave Ramsey Show about his book, The Road Back to You, which he co-wrote with Suzanne Stabile and had just been released.  I bought the book shortly after I heard that interview and read it. It was fascinating to learn about myself, but mostly I found it to be an explanation for my behavior and why I did things, like make up my own holidays. 

One of my made up holidays is Pajama Day. I started Pajama Day when I was in my mid to late 30’s. One year on Christmas Eve, our family had just had our last extended family celebration until December 26. I was tired and stressed from trying to create the “perfect” Christmas for my children. Apparently I had neglected to make sure that I was enjoying the festive things I was doing. I decided on the car ride home that Christmas Eve, that I would spend all day Christmas Day in my new Christmas pajamas.

Having made my mind up to do it, I carried out my plan. I even cooked and ate Christmas Day dinner in my pajamas. (This was unheard of in my extended family where a holiday meal was eaten off china that had to be hand washed.  The utensils were sterling silver and also had to be hand washed. The glasses were stemware that, you guessed it, also had to be hand washed.) I loaded the dishwasher in my pajamas, put leftovers away in my pajamas, and then I sat down to read my new book, in my pajamas. It was a wonderful laidback celebration, which renewed my social energy enough to enjoy the gathering the next day. 

Since spending the day in my pajamas was so successful in restoring me back to my fun-loving and unstressed self, it became a tradition for me. Pajama Day did not have a set date.  Sometimes it was Christmas Day.  Sometimes it was December 23rd. Mostly, it was whenever I could find time to do it before December 31st. 

My family was invited to join me in the Pajama Day celebration. Sometimes they did and sometimes they didn’t. I remember one year that Pajama Day was reduced to a half—day celebration by some people who chose to go to the movies. I was willing to go with them to the movies, but I was told that I would have to put on clothes.  So, I stayed home and continued my Pajama Day celebration. 

BEGIN ASIDE: Nowadays, I have seen people at the movie theater wearing their pajamas or carrying blankets. I wonder if it is because the theater has seats that recline? I don’t understand it.  With the price of movie tickets in the double digits, even for children or senior citizens, why would anyone spend that kind of money and then set themselves up to fall asleep during the movie?:ASIDE END

In order for me to justify taking a break for my own mental health, did I have to create a fake holiday? No. Was it more fun for me? Yes.  Over the years, I even created Pajama Day traditions. One tradition, if Pajama Day didn’t happen to fall on Christmas Day, was to cook once in the morning and then pull out leftovers for people to serve themselves. Sometimes, movies are watched on TV by some. Usually, I celebrate Pajama Day in the traditional way by reading all day. When I found out about the Icelandic celebration, Jolabokaflod, where people read books and drink chocolate, I included hot chocolate as part of Pajamas Day. 

Yes, Pajama Day is every bit the made up holiday that Festivus is. It’s origins come from the same place of frustration with the modern day Christmas traditions that Frank Costanza experienced. The logical part of my mind does not comprehend why the celebration of the birth of the Prince of Peace can leave me in such a tizzy. To counteract the hustle and bustle and confusion and craziness, I created Pajama Day. It’s a day with no agenda or expectations, other than the wearing of pajamas.

It’s finally here! It’s Christmas Day! Merry Christmas!

Christmas Day and the days leading up to it, also known as Advent, are my favorites of the year. It’s a time where I can wear flashy gaudy clothes and people think that I am wearing my “ugly Christmas” attire. I can sample all of my Christmas foods, visit all of the people, go to all of the parties, and see all of the Christmas specials, including hundreds of Hallmark Christmas movies. Throw in a few days of shopping and it’s a perfect Christmas, right?

In the past, I would do, see, eat, watch, and buy all of the things, people, foods, drinks, desserts, specials, concerts, movies, animated TV, and presents. Then, Christmas Day would arrive. I would have fun and socialize and eat and drink and open presents and maybe sing. After my last gathering, I would go home thinking, “Is that it? Weeks of planning, preparation, and execution have all come to an end, at least for a whole year! What a letdown.” Then, I would be sad as my world shifted from glitz and sparkle to dull, drab, and commonplace.

But, somewhere along the way, things changed. Maybe it was having a child or four that caused it. Maybe it was times of financial hardship. Or, maybe it was grieving family members that had died. Somehow someway things changed. Suddenly, I couldn’t do all of the things anymore. I would run out of time or money or both with my list of people and things to do, see, buy, eat, drink, or watch would not be completed by December 25. I would experience a letdown again, because I had not done all that I meant to do.

Two of my favorite animated Christmas specials speak out against this attitude of go, do, and be all of the things at Christmastime. They are the original Chuck Jones version of Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas and A Charlie Brown Christmas. In, as my family called it, “The Grinch”, the title character observes, “It came without ribbons or shopping or bags… somehow it came just the same. “ In the Peanuts special, good ol’ Charlie Briwn has a minor meltdown and screams, “Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?” His good friend Linus replies,”Sure, Charlie Brown, I will tell you what it’s all about.” Then Linus recites these words that were written over four hundred years ago,”And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” It was a simple Christmas that very first Christmas Day. Why can’t it be simple now? Do only what you want to do.

When I have gone out of my way to make Christmas the best one ever for everyone else, I end up letting myself down, because I didn’t do what I really wanted. Instead I did what I felt like everyone else needed. But the truth is that what everyone needed was for me to not feel so wrung out and strung out that I didn’t enjoy the time spent with others. I encourage you to do exactly what you want to do and not one tiny bit more. That will make for a very merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas to you and your loved ones, and as Tiny Tim observed, “God bless us, everyone!”