Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: feelings

  • Mr. Rogers Mug

    He could not find his coffee cup. He knew he had had it in the car when he had driven to a friend’s to bike from her home. The biking and sharing was part of his processing the grief.

    Maybe he had left his coffee cup on her porch.

    He went to the kitchen to get another cup.

    His eyes went right to the Mr. Rogers mug!

    He began to read the messages:

      “It’s a good feeling to be with you.”

      “When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less SCARY.”

      “Often when you think you’re at the end of something you’re at the beginning of something else.”

    Everything, absolutely everything, seemed to be helping him get through this challenging time. As his biking friend told him, “We don’t get over grief, we get through it…. because our loved ones leave their bodies but they don’t leave us.”

    This is the way Mr. Rogers says it on the mug:

      “Infinity just is and that’s the way I think love is, too.”

  • Motherless Child

    Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,
    Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,
    Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,
    A long way from home, a long way from home.

    Odetta knew what LIFE can feel like.

    Just yesterday — one day of LIFE holding sooooo much feeling.

    A dear friend, navigating tenuous steps speaking her feelings toward her husband (related to the complications of decisions that could birth a new beginning):”This father does not want the child,” she says, speaking metaphorically, of course.

    Another dear friend welcoming a companion as she was filled with trepidation reading online the results of a recent PET scan (positron emission tomography).

    Sad news from our daughter that our grand-kitty, Thor, crossed the rainbow bridge. Thor, one of THOSE beings. Love oozed from Thor’s pores. Thor massaged love into your most tender spots, and his purr moved mountains of misunderstandings.


    Utterances from the lips of a wife, candidly wondering aloud if they would both be better off if her husband stayed in long-term care.

    “We are called beyond and empowered by the silver thread of hope that hangs by a thread below,” this expression of LIFE written by my friend in the midst of it all drapes over the feelings of the day like low-hanging clouds.

    Don’t do things for personal benefit. And don’t do things to avoid personal damage. Do things to feel personal authenticity. Then your life will make sense, no matter what is going on around you. ~ Neale Donald Walsch

    Today is the anniversary of my mom’s “rebirth” day on May 20, 2003.

    May 20 is also the rebirth day of the woman who owned and lived in this tiny home for 33 years before we purchased it in 2017. Ursel had actually purchased the home on May 20 – 33 years prior.

    According to the teachings of the Buddha, emotions are a fundamental part of who you are — an expression of our basic intelligence and creative energy. “When you can connect with the essence of your emotions, you can respond without preconceptions and judgments.”

    Experiences are pleasant, unpleasant or neutral.

    We tend to grasp after the pleasant feelings, try to avoid unpleasant feelings, and miss the neutral feelings much of the time.

    Thought for Today

    Breathing in, I am aware of you, of your suffering. Breathing out, I hold space for your suffering. Breathing in, I am aware of my suffering. Breathing out, I hold space for my suffering. Your suffering and my suffering, the same.

    ~ Aaron