A Tisket, a Tasket, What’s in My Yellow Basket?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjJry0vhHj4

With the Easter season upon us, I’ve been thinking about Easter baskets and what we put in them. And since several people have made the comment that with everything I’ve been through in the last 10 years, they wonder why I’m not a “basket case”. Their words, not mine. And I asked myself why am I NOT a basket case. So I started to think about the old nursery rhyme that goes like this:

A-tisket a-tasket
A green and yellow basket
I wrote a letter to my love
And on the way I dropped it,
I dropped it, I dropped it,
And on the way I dropped it.
A little boy he picked it up
And put it in his pocket.^[2]

And why don’t I feel like a “basket case”? Maybe because the weave of my basket is strong, and it can survive being dropped many times. It is woven with yellow-green strands made from a strong support system. My family wove the base of the basket through my growing up years. Through every stage of life, additional family and friends who listened to my challenges have interwoven more strands. They don’t tell me how to fix things, but stand by and give support when I need it. Many different people started to be there for support through losing my father when in my 20’s and dealing with my infertility in my 30’s. Intense counseling and a support group wove more strands through the challenging teenage years of my adopted special needs kids. Through the final stages of my in-laws lives, colleagues were there to add more strands to my colorful basket.

In more recent times, friends and family have stuck by me when my 1st spouse came out of the closet as transgendered (after 33 years). While my world was falling apart, they were there giving me strength, and another support group and counselor helped cushion the bottom of that basket with my heart in it. The heart had many cracks, yet the basket kept it from falling apart. The yellow and green strands stretched to enable my heart to find someone new to help me heal and leading to my 2nd marriage.

During that 2nd marriage with its many challenges, the strands of the basket wore thin at times. In addition, the ordeal of rescuing my daughter and grandkids from homelessness strained those strands even more. Yet the strands of that basket stayed intact due to the support of many friends and family once again. The falling apart of a 2nd marriage despite trying desperately to make it work, has cracked the heart more deeply. But the basket has kept it from falling out and getting lost.

At the present time, as I’ve taken the next year to heal from the two previous very troubling ones.

My Green & Yellow basket. The basket has held me together, despite holding a cracked heart.

The question now becomes though, can that cracked heart really heal? And even more so, does it want to heal?  The heart has been bruised repeatedly, cracked from overuse by people I’ve helped and supported, but the heart has built a strong layer over itself to protect  it from being overused again.

I guess only time and the strength of a basket will tell …..