You Have 24 hrs...Maybe

My husband warned me as I was packing to go to VA for my dog sitting week. He said "don't bother to take much..." I believe it was a NOOA/NASA friend who sent this to him. Now you too have been warned.

So... maybe a Merry Christmas ahead, maybe toast with the Zombies... If I'm not dead, I'll see you here tomorrow since no one told me where the safe houses are. The you-know-who is just up the road, so maybe I'll check with them!

Flashback Friday 11 09 16 - R.I.P.Lynn

Lynn was a good friend who worked at the Pentagon. He was not there on 9/11 because he always took the MD primary day off and had a get together with his neighbors. I believe he suffered from 'survivor's guilt' because a few years later he dropped dead of a heart attack - on the corridor steps of the Pentagon. RIP Lynn, may your spirit be at peace.

AAM Monday

Ok, this is about me and someone else. That someone, to be specific, is my first grandchild, the son of my first child(son). It was nerve wracking to be at work that day as the birth seemed imminent but slow to happen. I was in Annapolis, and the event was to be in DC which is a good drive at the best of times. Fortunately, traffic back then was not the hellish nightmare it is now .

I certainly didn't want to miss seeing the child when it was born but I also had ticket with a few of my friends to see the Subdudes up in Baltimore. I agonized all day about what I might be doing...would the baby be born in time? would I miss the concert? yada yada yada Then finally the call came and off to DC I went. Seeing the new baby was wonderful in itself, seeing a tired Mother brought back memories of my times giving birth, but seeing the joy and wonder in my own son's eyes was the real gift.

Then dancing, dancing, dancing and singing our heads off that night...what a night. The strange part is that the Subdudes drifted apart and then got back together. It was only last year that the coincidence of a major life event took place. One of my friends died after a heart transplant and a mutual friend and I had tickets for a Subdudes concert in Annapolis the day of the service. She had been with me years ago when we danced for the new grandchild. After that servie, she was with me as we wept through the music thinking of our friend, now gone, but knowing she was out of pain and at peace. The ebb and flow of life on musical notes.

Wordless Wednesday: Seeing but Not Seeing

2nd Lt. James Cathey 's body arrived at the Reno Airport

Same as it Ever Was

I have seiously loved the Talking Heads song"Once in a Lifetime" which I never heard till the late 80s, having been out of the US when it first came out. For me it means that no matter what is going on on the surface (of my life) there is water underground. There is a flow to life that exists and manages the process but it is invisible to me.

Now that our friend Gloria has finished this earthly segment, we are still mentally and emotionally involved in the long term prospects for our granddaughter Bekah. My dh has finally said that he feels she is likely to succumb to an infection at some point. I know that was really really hard for him to come to grips with. With her continuing ups and downs, it made me realize we have never known anyone, especially a child, who has a chronic, life threatening illness. (I am excluding active addiction here.) We don't know what it means to go thru this day after day, month after month...year after year?

Looking at Bekah trying to have a normal life and yet have her temperature taken every hour boggles my mind. When I said to my dh that I thought that might be excessive, he finally told me what he had been thinking. I've watched so many of my friends suffer as they tried to maintain hope for Gloria that it leaves me in a dilemma. Do I continue to have hope for Bekah? and encourage my dh to? only to make a possible sudden decline seem all the worse? Or expect the worst and hope for the best?

Each time I think I have come to grips with the concept of letting go, I find there is another deeper level of acceptance to master. It reminds me of the wonderful discussions we had in sophomore hs Religion class with Mother Helen. How do you balance an omniscient God with human free will? I know I have had those times of complete understanding, but right now is not one of them. At least I do have a history of 'getting it' and that gives me strength thru these murky days.


So, my dh dives more deeply into reading and bike riding, and I find solace in the digital. Maybe that's all I really need today. That and a phone call from a friend that helps me understand I truly do believe what I say to her. There is a plan and it's ok if I don't know the details right now. It really is ok.

Closure

original by KPieper

Our friend Gloria White died early in the hours of Saturday morning after an apparently successful heart transplant. It's very hard to imagine that I will never see her again on this plane but at the same time I know she has found peace. Thank you Gloria for the parts of you that you shared with me. I am truly grateful.

Still in Limbo

Cold Roads to Nowhere

Well, days go by and nothing has been resolved with our friend who is dying but hasn't yet, nor with our granddaughter who keeps getting infections and fevers but not well. It's really hard to keep mentally and emotionally in the moment and not wish, want, Expect! things to be resolved.

It seems so cold to wish a dying person was finished with this transition, but it's hard for friends to not be able to visit any more while family keeps this vigil that 'they' said would be a couple of days. It's over a week, and people have gone back to their out of state homes, and yet... And yet, we know she'll never come back as she was, that her death is what she chose in her Advance Directive, but when?

Our granddaughter seems to be having a brief day of being ...ok is not the word...but at least home. Then after about 24hrs, she gets a fever or an infection and it may be back to the hospital for another week or ten days. The updates go on, but there is a pattern of briefly out of the hospital but for what purpose it seems? As soon as she comes home, her immune system gets hit by something/anything. We are grandparents almost the whole country away so if we are frustrated, what is it like for her parents? What kind of plans can they make for their lives and how can they parent a little brother when this child needs so much time and attention? I know she isn't the only one in this kind of situation but she is the only one in our family.

I could pray for patience. I could...and yet, the ego says "I want it resolved now." I can deal with the known, it's the unknown, and waiting on a timetable that isn't mine that's the killer. I guess I better pray. That decision is mine, so I'll make it.

Clouds and Rain

There are still clouds in my life.


My friend Gloria is in the final days of her life and despite knowing that it is working out as it is meant to, it's still hard. What is almost harder is to watch all her other friends and family go through their own grieving process and the various ways they cope or don't cope. Years ago, I read Kubler-Ross on the stages of grieving and it comes back to me now. While I don't like drama, I accept that it is part of some people's nature and that they - and all of us - do the best we can with whatever tools we have at the time.

I really don't know what my role in all of this is but dh said maybe it's time for you to be Mother to a lot of people who might need one right now.

Many of us have also come to grips with the reminder that the unmanageableness of someone else's life doesn't have to cause unmanagebleness in ours. It's hard not to get sucked in but at the same time it's hard to just back off and let a person swirl in the chaos in their life. But detaching and not getting involved is about the only sane thing to do. Lots of us saw the domino effect of getting sucked in this past week. It was a major lesson.

Clouds still around, both outside and inside, but clouds often bring much needed rain or tears.

So Much Stuff

Today my mind is aswirl with so much stuff.

Our friend who has had the heart transplant is not recovering, and the final days as she is moved to a hospice type situation are upon us. If you don't have a living will/Advanced Directive, do so! Gloria is just in her 40s so it really can happen and having your clear instructions as to what YOU want takes so much of the burden and potential disagreement off the family members. It still isn't easy carrying those instructions out when part of everyone wants to hope, but at the same time no one wants to see a slow and painful lingering in a limbo state for anyone.

I've been so glad to see my friend from GA finally be able to get up 'north' and see our mutual friend.Right now everyone seems to have Big Issues in our lives that make the simple plans more complicated than they ordinarily are. It's always so good to have another person make the hospital visit and then compare what we see to what we think and feel. We know, absolutely know, that God has a plan that we don't always see. That allows us to have trust that no matter how it seems, things are working out as they should be. At the same time, we don't have to minimize the pain and sorrow this current situation causes us.

Then we have our granddaughter in AZ. Now the doctors feel there is aplastic anemia AND something else...but they don't know what the something else is, yet. Sigh. I know this is devastating to Bekah's parents because a 90day treatment was supposed to start last night. For the first time, they were saying that Bekah is not in good spirits. What must if feel like to be so little, 5 yrs old, and not know why your bones are sick, and just not feel good at all. A day and a week are so long when you're little. Bekah's parents have a strong faith, but it hurts to hear them talk about being grateful for the time they have had as a family, knowing that they have looked at the possibility that it won't be for that much longer.


Betwixt it all, I am trying to keep my mind occupied with the digital classes I have taken. The two are now over but it's so great that the videos and other stuff are on line till there's no more net! So I leave you with that quote...Life itself is reason for joy.

Remembering The Light

If nothing changes, nothing changes

Photo posted on Flickr one year ago...