Stuffed Pork Tenderloin and Homemade Mac & Cheese when I feel like PB & J

As I pound my pork roast and get it ready to stuff, sometimes I think, "why do I even bother". Peanut butter and jelly would be so much easier, and peanut butter is a protein and jelly is a fruit, right? I keep the table set with flowers, that who, really, ever sees? We always use my dishware, not paper or plastic, but why?  I try to whistle or sing, an attitude I learned from my wonderful Mother who had also seen displayed by her Mother.  I am trying to hide my fears.  Maybe the kids won't sense my real anxiety. As I pound the pork I realize I am pounding a little too hard, are my hippie friends right? You don't know how many of my, lets just say "liberal",  I affectionately call them hippie  women friends have picked at and made fun of me for years for doing these things, and this afternoon I am second guessing myself, but don't we all? I fix these elaborate meals night after night as some form of "Calgon take me away", do you remember those commercials? Somehow, if I have everything in order, nice and neat, the kids schedule, the dogs bathed, Kenny and my relationship "attended" to, it will make this chaos make sense. Which, in reality, will make no difference. I have had a day of immense loneliness and dispare, even while sitting in my home church. As I headed for church and locked the door behind me, as if I was locking the door to my 6th avenue home and would return to nap,  Kenny's truck would be in the drive, the boat in its spot, and my Denali in the driveway, somehow forgetting we are in a very desperate situation. I had so craved, in my heart, a glance, a smile, any acknowledgment from someone at my church that said "I see you", "I am here", "I am praying for you", "I feel your pain", "your are of value". I don't know, when you get in these situations your perception of things gets so screwed up, and I will tell you I doubt myself almost daily. Our Church here is fairly large and the greatest class I had ever taken in a church, and I have taken many, was at this church.  It was a chaplaincy class developed by the Billy Graham Association. It put into an organized form what had been my nature my entire life.  We talked about he homeless, the broken, the families in trauma, and how we can serve them, it was custom made for Me!  I had been to many classes, many services, many prayer gatherings, yet, today, it was as if not a soul recognized me, not even on a superficial level.  Certainly, it was more my depression than anything else, but it made me remember that Church should never elevate programs over people.  Old time Churches had little money, little technology, little property, yet they lived by the creed, that "loving" people was the sum total of what God is, and, thereby, what the Church should be. It is at the basis for what people always have needed, and always will. Preachers that could barely read was the mouth piece of God. Today we have the most educated men we have ever had and somehow we lack. I made a new commitment, yeah another one, that I would always be sure to search for the people about me who seem disconnected, lonely, or deeply sad and make sure they sense my compassion for them.  I did come to the realization, in spite of the conflict, I still have a responsibility to myself and family, we may be in hard times, but we have not been stripped of everything we have known. We can maintain some form of normalcy in our life, and for centuries hasn't that been what women have done? They have been the strength that has held societies, cultures and communities together, forever, my Mother and her Mother (my granny) and the untold Mothers before us, and not under the best of circumstance. So, if they can do it I can. If I can do anything, I can do whatever it takes to be whatever I have to be for the loves of my life.  It still doesn't change a lot about the way I feel, but life should be more about decisions than feelings.  This sad feeling in Church did, however, remind me of another such
time, it was near the end of 2007. Kenny was presiding over the funeral of a man we deeply admired and
respected, Mr. Norman  Munyon. and at that funeral we were to met a woman who would be the connection, or the link, to what, I would come to feel, would be our demise.