Marketing Tip: Your “Why” Should Make You “Cry”
Inspiration for women entrepreneurs, small business owners and female owned businesses
The room was full of positive energy, hugs and joy. The women who gathered at this special luncheon were not there just to network or learn something new; they were there to celebrate one of their own. The keynote speaker was a familiar local entrepreneur with bountiful spirit, a joyful laugh and an award winning take on business.
Entrepreneurship can be lonely at times especially for the thousands of solo business owners who work all hours of the day, night and weekend to accomplish their dream. Their families do not always understand their drive, their decision to work for themselves or their satisfaction of a lower salary to follow their passion. Only other solo entrepreneurs understand.
During the Women TIES luncheon presentation the inspirational speaker told the audience one of her business success strategies. She said, “I believe your why should make you cry.” Women who run businesses often can lose track of their purpose after a hardship, troublesome period or economic turmoil. In the words of Ronnie McCluskey of RM Irish Jewels, they must remember “why” they are in business. By focusing on the why, you rediscover your purpose, vision and mission.
Today’s post is to remind you to think about “why” you are in business. It might be for the creativity, flexibility, unlimited income potential; but it might also be for the way you make your customers feel, how they need you or how valuable your services or products are in their lives. Don’t ever lose track of the ‘why.’ Focus on it today.
When I drove home from the luncheon presentation I remembered my “why” because of a statement by a member as she left, “I have never seen a business event with so much affection in the room or the large number of women who have truly created strong positive relationships because of your organization. Thank you.” I am so grateful to all the women who have come through my company’s doors the past 23 years. I definitely know my why.
Waiting to Be in Full Bloom Again
Inspiration for women and women entrepreneurs
It has been almost ten years since I wore an expensive real hair wig to cover my balding head during the height of my last alopecia areata occurrence. From November until April, for what seemed like five long months, the wig embraced my head keeping it warm and fashionable until my hair began sprouting like the spring grass.
Right now as I write, I am in the second week of a medical sabbatical because my alopecia roared back into my life in January. It fell out faster and more drastically this time than before. I’m lucky if I have 15% of my long brown hair remaining. I will conceal my head under my 2017 Boston Marathon hat when leave in a couple hours to have a new expensive treatment using my own blood platelets with a “concoction” of vitamins added to it to inject back into my scalp. People twinge when I mention shots to my head but I don’t anymore because I’ve been getting them regularly between bouts of the illness….and I’m tough.
As I walked in my beautiful backyard today, preoccupied with the new procedure, I felt defeated. I am a very optimistic person but today I wasn’t feeling it. I strolled enjoying the fresh cool air on my face trying to keep my friend Teresa Huggins in mind. Teresa positively tackled breast cancer by not believing it had any hold over her mentally and physically and today she is healthy. I had her words in my head as I took in the spring air, watched two ducks return to our pond and stared at the tree buds wanting to germinate but just couldn’t because the air was cold and the skies cloudy. I spoke to the buds as if I was one of them saying, “I know I want to sprout hair as bad as you want to sprout full green leaves; I guess for now we have to be patient.”
Sometimes when setbacks happen we get so lost we can’t focus on why the setback has occurred. This wasn’t true for me because I had plenty of time a month ago to sit in silence thinking about my health in a caring hospice house witnessing the last week of my beautiful stepmother’s life. I am aware I have pushed myself too hard the past five years and suffered a major mental loss as both sons moved to New York City and the true essence of pure joy was now 400 miles away. I believe that transition affected my heart, spirit and hair in ways I could not predict. During that time, I ignored a strict diet I needed to adhere to for my hair, increased my exercise training for a marathon and simply never gave myself a break to just “mourn” that loss in my life. I just pushed on. Sound familiar?
The lesson to myself today as I “communicated” with the closed buds on the trees thinking of them like my hair follicles was “I guess we have to be more patient” and wait for the sun to shine, the air to warm up and our “sprouts” to leap forward in joy for another season – hopefully a long lasting season with new, strong life.
I hope the lesson of patience resonates with you today. We simply can’t always control the changes that happen in our lives; but we can live with more intuition so we can take the step we need to heal, slow down or sprout. Time can pass slowly waiting for lessons we are to learn as we are lingering in a circumstance we can’t control. All I know right now is its okay to take the time needed to rest until we are back to full bloom again.
The Social Network, Women Entrepreneurs and Mark Zuckerberg
Inspiration and Wednesday Wisdom for Women Entrepreneurs, Small Businesses and Female Business Owners
In 2010 I watched a movie called “The Social Network” by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg based on the creation of a social networking site he founded in February 2004. The wildly successful social networking site became Facebook making Zuckerberg one of the youngest billionaires in history in six short years. As a woman entrepreneur, long before Zuckerberg began his innovation, I was intrigued by this brilliant person growing a company from concept to over one billion users.
I think most entrepreneurs hope they’ll succeed like Zuckerberg when they conceive their business concept and plan; but most of us don’t for various reasons. I can tell you as a computer science major in 1982 trying to code programs; I was not giving Bill Gates a run for his money! You not only have to be brilliant enough to be wildly innovative but in the right place at the right time.
Not surprisingly yesterday I went to Facebook to “share” a blog post I wrote about Equal Pay Day, I noticed a feed to Mark Zuckerberg’s hearing in front of Congress. The old computer wizard in me and entrepreneur decided to watch the hearing to learn more about how Facebook has become what it is today with all its positive and negative contributions to society. For two hours Zuckerberg answered questions calmly, professionally, and cautiously. I was impressed with his non-emotional answers to incriminating questions while trying to maintain not disclose trade secrets to world watching and his competitors.
By looking at the age of the Senators, it appeared a majority didn’t operate their own Facebook accounts or really understand the essence of a social media marketing platform. What struck me most about their questions was the extent and content of user policies especially as it related to privacy issues for customers and also protection issues for Facebook. It made me think about whether most women entrepreneurs have policies drawn up and available if a customer asks for one. My assumption is no.
About five years into having Women TIES, I needed to post a policy on our website after a member wanted to terminate her membership mid-way because she was moving and not going to use the service anymore. My company never had been asked the question before so I turned to my advisory board for their opinion. We decided no-refunds would be made and I put that policy on my website so it was clear going forward. This was one simple policy that I needed to make public but honestly never thought of until asked.
Today’s Wednesday Wisdom is a technical one for you today. Do you have clear written corporate policies for your company? Where do you post them? Do you include them on your website or as an opt-in for people to read before purchasing a product or hiring your team? Perhaps you keep them in a binder to share when needed with a curious customer? If you don’t have any policies written down, maybe today is the day you start thinking about policies to create and have available when the time arises.
If you have an hour today to learn from Zuckerberg too, I recommend turning on your computer, Facebook page or television to glean insight into a billionaire innovators mind.
Inspiration and Advice on Equal Pay Day for Women
On a hot summer day in Central New York, I walked into a conference room at Burnet Park Zoo to provide testimony to New York State Labor Commissioner Roberta Reardon. Never being shy to speak on behalf of women entrepreneurs, I entered the room slightly nervous about what I had to share with the panel of women conducting the testimony. I was prepared and first on the agenda. Most of the other speakers were women who worked in corporate or non-profit settings as employees or bosses, I was there as a woman entrepreneur who could set her own pay rate and work as hard as she needed to make more money. I thought to myself, “Why was I asked to speak? Don’t they think like the world female owned companies shouldn’t complain about unequal pay because they set their own pricing and rules?”
Well women entrepreneurs can set their own pay rate and fees but that doesn’t mean our consumers or marketplace will buy from us or agree we are “worth” the prices we set. Within our fee are basic costs of running a business, staff salaries, insurance fees, paper supplies, product development and more. We can’t just set a price, take all the earnings for ourselves and build up our bank account quickly. It doesn’t work that way in self employment. Yet time and again, I heard from hundreds of women entrepreneurs at my events that they were barely making ends meet as entrepreneurs and were struggling financially. I knew what they meant because there were times I had struggled financially over 23 years of entrepreneurship.
So with my research and prepared remarks, I sat down at the proceedings table with a microphone at my mouth and took my pink reading glasses by the hand and put them on my face saying, “I have to wear my pink glasses because I only see things through the lenses of being a woman and representing women.” I think I caught their attention with the motion and then began this speech,
“My name is Tracy Chamberlain Higginbotham, the Founder and President of Women TIES, LLC, which stands for Women Together Inspiring Entrepreneurial Success, founded on March 3, 2005, during women’s history month. For the past 13 years, Women TIES has specialized in promoting, publicizing and uniting New York State women entrepreneurs and their companies online and in person in order to cultivate strong economic relationships to advance their companies, and help eradicate pay inequality. Yes, you heard it right “help eradicate pay inequality” is literally part of my company’s mission statement.
Ever since becoming a woman entrepreneur 22 years ago with my first company I have surrounded myself with other women business owners and know this niche very well, so well I have received many awards including “Women in Business Champion” awards from the USA Syracuse Business District – one in 2005 and another in 2011. I do not tell you this to boost but to have you understand my deep and unwavering commitment to help women entrepreneurs succeed.
In fact, my personal mission statement for 22 years has been to help women become more financially successful by encouraging them to put their money in the hands, pocket books and bank accounts of other women first and foremost to increase their individual revenue and assist this generation of women and the ones to follow to have a more financially successful future.
The main reason behind my unique “feministic” approach to business lies in the pay inequality issue that has plagued women for centuries and continues today. Women do not earn the same as men in Corporate America or for Woman Owned Companies and the government has not done enough to equal the playing field for women by passing an equal pay bill to ensure women, who make up 52% of our population, receive fair salaries compared to men.
Women similar to me choose entrepreneurship as a career for five main reasons based on many articles I have read on this subject online. According to the readings, my own experience and speaking with thousands of women entrepreneurs the past two decades, women become entrepreneurs because they
1. Want to be challenged
2. Desire independence
3. Want a flexible work schedule
4. Yearn to Balance work and life duties
5. AND Expectation for higher earnings
Women may find success in the first 4 reasons but not in the fifth one of higher earnings because:
1. Women set their expectations and salaries against the benchmark of salaried women which are earning less than men.
2. We lack confidence when we look at historical data perspectives on the financial success of women.
3. Women tend to negotiate themselves down in contract pricing.
4. There is pronounced gender segregation in types of businesses men and women start.
5. AND only 42% of women vs. 57% of men pay themselves a salary.
These situations were true for me as well:
* I left an Assistant Director position at a local college after having my second son and work from home.
* I have never giving myself a set salary. I put the money back into my businesses or helped save for my two son’s college expenses as equally as my husband.
* I own a service business which demands a lower hourly rate than a woman in a technology, science or product type business.
I’m happy with my career choices but wish – not only for myself – but for the thousands of women entrepreneurs I have represented over two decades that there was Equal Pay for Women law so we had justification for asking a certain hourly wage based on our education, experience expertise and a rate comparable to our corporate sisters in the marketplace.
I honestly believe equal pay will only happen for professional career women whether entrepreneurs or employees – if our great nation finally creates and passes an Equal Pay Act Law. The important word in all that I have stated is the word “law.”
I urge you and your congress members this year – 2017 – the 100th Anniversary of Women’s Suffrage in New York State, to finally pass a law for equal pay just like it passed a law for women to vote.
Women couldn’t wish to vote. We had to have it be a law. Women can’t wish to receive equal pay. It must become a law. That law will help not only women, but families earn more which in turns helps them contribute in greater ways to our local and national economy.”
I thanked them for their time and left feeling proud of my speech and representation of women I knew.
So today on Equal Pay Day, I hope you share this blog post on your social media marketing pages, talk about the subject with other women you know and make a considered effort to buy from women every single change you have until one day the government officially passes an Equal Pay Day bill.
Being Fearless on an Average Monday
Inspiration for women, women entrepreneurs and female athletes on a Monday
It is the second Monday of my medical sabbatical and the 23 year woman entrepreneur in me finds it difficult to not think about jumpstarting my work week like I’ve done for two decades. I glance at the clock and realize I don’t have to be anywhere or do anything today really because I am giving myself three months to get my health back in order with my only duty to run and write every day. The logical decision to follow my body and not my head and heart is a tricky one for someone who is ultra passionate about her work and love for her clients.
I contemplate doing a brisk run up my road to stay in shape for the only event I have planned for this sabbatical – a 6.5 mile hilly run in England with women from Malta, Switzerland and England as part of 261 Fearless “Women Can Marathon” Team created after the inspiration of Kathrine Switzer. I started working part time for 261 Fearless a year ago helping them with marketing and communication to grow their brand and clubs in the USA. I have loved the concept of 261 Fearless since meeting the founders in November 2015 in New York City. It was “love at first sight” for me when it came to this global organization of passionate women who love running.
I turned on my Facebook to check on messages when I found inspiring “fearless” advice from 4 of Australia’s best female sports champions interviewed by Sophie Tedmanson, one of our 2018 261 Fearless Boston Marathon team members, at the Commonwealth Games over the weekend. She interviewed Dawn Fraiser a multiple Olympic Games gold medalist; Natalie Cook an Olympic beach volleyball gold medalist and a World Olympians Association campaigner for women in sport; Lisa Curry an Olympian & Commonwealth Games swimming champion; and Michelle Payne, who in 2015 became the first female jockey to win the Melbourne Cup.
These women, who excelled in their sports over different decades from the 1950s to now, kindly let Sophie interview them for her 261 blog and discussed breaking down gender barriers, returning to professional competition after motherhood, and, of course, what makes them Fearless.
Here is what they said about being fearless to jump start your Monday with motivation whether it’s being fearless in entrepreneurship, business, sports or even taking a medical sabbatical:
* Fearless means really wanting to win at something and not being content to stay on the sidelines but to fight for that win.
* Fearless means when people say you can’t do something, you do it anyways!
* Fearless is when your desire to accomplish something stronger than your fear.
* Fearless is knowing what you want and knowing it will be hard because you aren’t doing it for fun, you are doing it to be the best.
* Fearless is about finding new adventures to motivate you in every aspect of your life.
* Fearless is being confident.
I am going to take that run up the road, write some more today, continue to think about ways I can help promote the members of my company Women TIES and 261 Fearless while I take care of my health. I know with confidence that I’m stronger than any fear that swishes around in my mind about this temporary medical leave because I am fearless. Thank you to all the fearless women in this blog post today that inspire me.
The Masters, Tiger and Business Hope
Inspiration and Wisdom for women entrepreneurs, female business owners, and small business
I began my 550 Words project two days ago after Zooming in with writing teacher Linda Lowen, who I’ve known for a long time as an accomplished author and media contributor. I decided to join the project when faced with an unexpected three month medical sabbatical and needing daily focus.
We were told by Linda to write about anything we want as long as we write a minimum of 550 words a day and signed a “accountability tracker”. I have considered myself a ‘writer’ since 2007 when I created my first blog post and when one of my short stories made it into “Chicken Soup for the Soul: Power Moms” edition in 2009. When you see your words in a print publication or even onscreen one might classify themselves as a writer.
“By the end of this project, you will have a 50,000 page publication ready for print,” Linda said. I was startled by the number. At first I thought I would write some speeches, blog posts, training programs for my business return, but then I became excited about writing a “novel” in 3 months. So what would I write about I asked myself? What is burning a hole in my spirit to pull up and spill out? Linda said, “Your ‘book’ will die when you die if you don’t put it down in writing.”
As I faced the first blank page to be filled with 550 words, I started writing about my love for sports and how I was inspired by my parents who were both Physical Education majors when they met in 1963 and how my early life focused around swimming, downhill skiing, water skiing, ballet and sailing before I was ten years old. We lived on a lake and every day we spent it outside in the elements. I know my love for sports, which has continued the past 50 years, was because I was born to them.
A funny thing happened his morning as I started my second day of writing, I had to plan my writing time around watching the Masters. I love watching golf although I can’t perfect that sport. As I watched Tiger Woods return to the Masters for the first time in three years after taking his own “medical leave,” I realized if Tiger could return to the Masters one day, I could return to my business when I am healed. I needed that hope and inspiration today.
I remain grateful for sports shedding a light on my forward journey of healing, writing and hope.
Inspiration for women entrepreneurs and female business owners
I was walking up a beautiful road with my husband in Spring 1990 when I said to him, “You know I think it is time?” He said confused, “Time for what?” I responded “Having children because women have timelines you know?” He seemed more perplexed and said, “What timeline?” to which I said, “You know the time it takes to get pregnant, deliver the baby, take time off of work, find a great babysitter, return to work to not lose a job and then plan the next baby!” He said, “Oh My Gosh is that really how women think and plan?”
I couldn’t answer his question honestly because I wasn’t sure if other women planned their family that way; but as a professional “event planner” it made perfect sense to me to “plan the right time” to have my first child. Much to my hopes, we had our first son about 10 months later with a plan to continue my career in higher education – that plan worked out pretty well. But after his entrance into the world, planning more children became unexpected as I had one miscarriage and finally had my second son after months of the doctors telling me it might not be possible. The planning for his birth could have been any time and I wouldn’t have cared; I just wanted a healthy baby….and I got one. So why am I sharing part of my personal life with women entrepreneurs today….don’t worry I have a plan.
Yesterday I wrote a letter to my loyal Women TIES members telling them I was taking a medical sabbatical to deal with some non-life threatening health issues. I thought about taking the three month leave since early January but couldn’t find the “right time” to take or announce the temporary departure until I lost my stepmother a couple weeks ago and realized individual health is the most important thing to human beings.
Determining the right time to announce the leave had to be and done right because I love what I do and who I serve and always have. My members are the most important people to me besides my large family; so saying a temporary good-bye to something you love isn’t as easy as it sounds. With the hard decision come thoughts of losing the business, losing customers, losing market share and never rebounding from the choice. I hope the brave move I am making for my own health, and announcing it with you and the public, gives other women who are afraid to take that step inspiration to follow in my footsteps.
I definitely won’t be the first woman or last to take a break from their business for reasons important to them but I hope if you are given the choice to make that decision you choose what is best for your personal and professional life because we only get one.
Today’s Wednesday Wisdom hopefully makes you think about the timing of decisions in your life and company. Your situation doesn’t have to be personal like mine, it could be deciding to downsize for retirement or scaling up by adding staff or branching out to new locations because the market demands it. It could be planning time to rewrite your business plan or recreate your brand. When business owners are constantly busy in the day-to-day details of running a business, it can be difficult to take a long break from work.
I hope you reflect on when you might need to take a break, the reasons for it and how you communicate it to your clients. Make sure to contemplate what happens to revenue and sales during that time period. Just like I said to my husband on our country road, “Women like to think and plan.”
Vital Sales Tool = Your Calendar!
Inspiration and Success Strategies for Women Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses
As I listened to our guest speaker Amanda Funk, the word she used over and over again when giving us advice about conducting follow-up sales calls was the word “calendar.” By the end of the program, I thought the presentation should have been called “All You Really Need to Succeed in Sales is Your Calendar.”
Sometimes repetition drives home an important thought or message. It’s no wonder a business repeats it’s TV commercials methodically throughout an advertising sales period. Repetition captures the attention of viewers, listeners and readers when promoting one’s business in the media. This fact made me appreciate the voracity at which the word calendar was used within this saleswoman’s speech to drive home its importance to motivate entrepreneurs to follow-up with prospects for new or repeat sales.
Since my calendar has been open and used more often since that presentation, I wanted to share with women entrepreneurs and our readers how they can use their calendars to aid them in making more sales calls to increase their sales revenue.
* An entrepreneur must schedule a time to call their prospects or people they recently met. By using their calendar they set dates so they don’t forget when to follow-up with someone. Many times busy business owners simply forget to contact prospects or customers back and lose the lead or sale.
* If you call a prospect or lead and they do not have time to talk to you, ask them specifically about a date to call back (For example, a week, two weeks, or specific day) and then write the date and time immediately in your calendar so you don’t forget and then make that call when the time arrives no matter what. Don’t be deterred that day from placing the call.
* The best days to place business calls are Tuesday and Wednesday. The best days for personal meetings are Wednesdays. Consider these facts when you set your weekly phone call or meeting schedule. By creating a set calendar of when you make calls and meetings every single week, you stay on track with your sales appointments, calls and goals.
Your business calendar might just be the most important sales tool you can use. Start using it correctly with serious sales intent and watch your revenue grow.
Do You Shine A Light On Your Business?
Inspiration and Wisdom for Women Entrepreneurs and Small Business Owners
In the wee early morning of March 20th, I was conversing with a hospice nurse when she said to me, “What’s your full name?” I said, “Tracy Chamberlain Higginbotham.” She said, “I know you! I attended your annual Retreat a number of years ago. It really inspired me.” For five days the hospice nurses thought I was Tracy Chamberlain, since my stepmother’s name was JB Chamberlain. There I was with limited makeup on, rustled hair from sleeping in a chair and donning athletic clothes but my “words of wisdom” rang a bell with her after speaking to me for a couple days and seeing the way I treated my siblings.
“Well that’s amazing,” I said to her in disbelief. She continued, “I loved that event. I really loved that you bring women together from all over the state to be inspired.” I said, “I can’t believe you know me and have been to one of my programs, how serendipitous!” I was shocked this woman knew what I did professionally since she only knew me as the oldest of 8 children visiting our mother during her last days on earth. I wasn’t dressing professional or sharing what I did for a living; but she “saw” me through my words and actions.
Major companies crave brand recognition. They spend thousands of dollars to create the best tagline, institute online advertisements and buy billboards hoping someone will remember their name and services or benefits they provide. Paid marketing can be an essential part of promotion of an enterprise, but I learned last week, so can your personality and presence. For millions of solo entrepreneurs and small business owners, the CEO is the brand, carrying her company into the public everywhere she goes.
Today’s Wednesday Wisdom is a simple and short one for your contemplation, “Would someone meeting you in unfamiliar circumstances remember what you do for a living and know what your company stands for?” Do you elude the same persona in public as you do in corporate settings? How important is it to you that your corporate brand is recognizable by your personal actions? We don’t have to spend major money to brand our company if as its leader we represent it in our daily lives.
I believe my love and caring for my siblings and stepmother is what “shined a light” on who I was for this woman because she saw the same compassion and passion I have for others at our annual conference. The question for you today is, “Do you shine a light on your business by how you act and communicate so others can recognize you and your company?”
The Inspiration Behind Blogging and A Love Letter to My JB
Inspiration and Wisdom for Women Entrepreneurs and Female Business Owners
So many women entrepreneurs ask me where I get the inspiration to write and blog, I always say it is easy because I write from my heart but that wasn’t always the case.
Like so many other non-writers, I struggled with “finding” the topic to write about when I started blogging in 2007 when starting a blog was a new social media marketing medium. I remember hosting a blogging workshop in Ithaca, one of my company’s business regions, to learn from someone doing a great job blogging. Some of her advice stuck with me and inspired me to begin writing and sharing entrepreneurial experiences with my followers. I am grateful to her for that lesson.
Since then, I have written a “Wednesday Wisdom” every Wednesday the past 13 years to inspire the women entrepreneurs who follow me. Along the way, my readership has increased as I learned how to tag, post, repost and share my written word with the public. I will be hosting a “conversational seminar” on the subject this Wednesday in an intimate gathering because I believe blogging and writing are about personal experiences.
Today I am sharing the eulogy I wrote for my beloved stepmother JB who passed away last Tuesday. My love for writing – and actually – the need to share my emotions with others propelled the “speech” and blog post today. I hope my style of writing inspires you to listen to your heart more in business, write down the experiences that move you and share them with others to help them. Have a blessed writing day my friends.
“A Love Letter to My JB”
Good Afternoon everyone, my name is Tracy Chamberlain Higginbotham, I am the proud daughter of JB Chamberlain – as she used to refer to me when introducing me to anyone we met together the past 40 years.
Although I am not one of JB’s biological children, God had a plan for her and I when we met one winter day in March 1979 after my father married her. God also knew what he was doing by joining my father and “my JB” as I call her, together so they could create a complete family of love so when they both returned to God and left us on this earth, the 8 of us could and would exist onward in deep love, friendship and humor together. In fact a traditional wedding bible script says it all – “What God has joined together, let no one separate.” Mark 10:9.
Let me write, speak and paint an image of what “My JB” has meant to me. It all started one day on top a ski hill when my father and sister Jill were about to “ski” down a hill together in the end of February 1979. My father said, “Girls, I need to tell you something,” we said okay. “I have met a woman who I really like and she has 3 daughters. I just wanted you to know.” As a slightly selfish daughter at the time, I said, “Oh Dad, you aren’t going to get married right away are you?” He said through his sunglasses and Schuss Ski Shop hat on, “No Tracy don’t you worry about that.” Then we skied off down the hill singing “Crackling Rosie” by Neil Diamond.
The next thing I remember, Dad and JB were married a couple weeks later on March 10, 1979. So much for trusting my Dad’s words! I have often thought maybe he was high as a kite from skiing that day when he answered me! But a couple weeks later when we met JB and her three daughters Chrissy, Mari and Beth, God knew again what he was doing. Five girls aged 14 – 8 years old got along perfectly at first sight. We cross country skied on an open snowy field with the sun shining that day as our first “bonding” experience. No fighting just laughs and happiness. We really were an immediate family.
When we got back to their big white Mayfield house after skiing, JB served sauce and spaghetti. JB didn’t know Jill and I were from a first generation Italian mother, so she was nervous we wouldn’t like her rendition of sauce, but we did, so she asked me to teach her how to make Italian sauce like my family made. I wrote down the recipe and brought it with me and taught her the next time were where together. That sauce was the first of many meals JB and I would cooked together throughout our lives in Mayfield, Northville, Johnstown and Kennebunkport Maine where her and I perfected a Butternut Soup recipe on Thanksgiving 2005.
But back to 1979 for a moment…actually April 3, 1979…when Jill and I received a letter in the mail from our new stepmother; I had to read the letter to you because it shows something so true about JB….
Dearest Tracy and Jill,
Missing you. Its cold and awful here. Feels like fall not spring.
I wrote this next part about your father and knowing how much you love him I thought I would share it with you. You could even add some things you think of and if you do I’d like to see! I love to write poetry and non poetry and just write. Here it goes.
Charles
He is coffee, and cigarettes, and warm brown eyes, over a Manhattan:
He’s the Buccaneers, and Marching Bands, and sunglasses and basket ball.
He’s cowboy clothes and a mustache muffling mumbles,
and long brown haired bangs and strong legs, and tackles in the snow.
He’s downhill skies and mountain breezes
He’s vests and leather belts and
Mexican fury and Indian Delight….
He’s all American boy grown into man
and he’s decency somehow –
the fourth of July and Christmas Eve…
And a return to treasured morals, and uprighteness.
He’s a mystery of simplicity.
He is faithful and strict with his own rules
but open hearted truly,
and he’s Honesty –
and He’s love.
She wrote after the poem. Do you like it? Did I capture Him the way you see him too??
I send you off with this thought for today….“When you’re not around, we just pretend you’re here!”
Much love,
JB and Dad
Chris, Mari and Beth
and Rasin and Fuzzy and mittens and the dust kittys
and Mayfield.
If you listened closely to her this “love letter” to her new stepdaughters, you hear her immediate caring for us because she knew how much we loved our father and didn’t want him to leave us. This is the JB I came to love instantly and as I stand here today and forever.
It is really hard to sum up a deep love for someone else in a words because I don’t think the mind can necessarily translate the depths of emotion we feel in our heart although JB could and did all her life. You’ll hear that from my other siblings too as they read “love letters” from her to them.
I thought in tribute to JB for this first letter she sent to me and Jill, I would attempt to capture her essence in my original poem written in the same cadence as she wrote the one about my Dad so my beloved siblings have it. Everyone is seen differently in everyone’s eyes, so I wrote it from my heart, how I saw and experienced JB, and not how others might have seen her although I think it speaks pretty true and if you didn’t know her well, I hope you know her when the poem is finished. Here it goes….
JB
She is tea, and scones, and sparkling green eyes, over a glass of wine:
She’s of bible readings, and deep green gardens,
And a floppy hat and walks along the sea shore.
She’s floral shirts and contagious laughter
And beautiful white hair and porcelain skin
And shopping at the Red Barn.
She’s harp music and summer Northville breezes
She’s both canvas and paint brush and
Canadian pride and Gypsy soul…
She’s a Nova Scotia girl grown into woman
And beauty inside and out
And Mother’s Day
And glorious Easter morning…
And a return to old fashion home making,
And faith.
She’s a mystery of complexity.
She is our angel protector and guide
yet willing to rise with the butterflies
and She’s our Mother
and She’s love.
As JB once said to me….
Did you like it? Did I capture her the way you see her too?
My JB…..I’ll send you off with this one thought…“When you’re not around, we will pretend you are here!”
Much love always and forever,
Tracy, Chris, Jill, Mari, Beth, Bre, Chad and Jake
And
Your grandchildren and friends
And the dust kittys
And Northville……
As I close I have one more of JB’s “love letters to me” to mention. It simply said…
“Tracy, you are greatly loved by me. No matter what…forever. Even if you don’t think it is true. Always in my heart – always is my love for you.” I say back to her,
“JB, you are greatly loved by me. No matter what…forever. Even if you don’t think it is true. Always in my heart – always is my love for you.”
Business Lesson for today learn to blog and write from your heart and experiences to be successful.
Women TIES 