Read all about it!

A couple days ago I was running an errand with my son Jay. I had just picked him up after school and he was a little quiet. I asked him the usual questions...how was school, did he eat his lunch, did anything exciting happen. He answered those and then said, hey mom, did you know that scientist's say that the world's gonna end in four years? I was quiet. Honey, I said, I don't think the world's gonna end in four years. And I don't think a scientist said that. No mom, it's true.

Well, I tried as best as I could to refute the official "world's gonna end in four years" news but he would not believe me. He finally admitted that he heard this from a schoolmate who KNEW a scientist. Four years. Poof.

Just a few years ago that child would believe anything I said. I think this is our last year for Santa Claus.

Sunday morning

My seratonin level is over-producing again. I have coffee and a newspaper. My office is cluttered but the rest of the house is fairly straightened. I think one of the dogs did a little yuck behind one of the chairs which I need to attend to. My son is in bed reading a book. The sun is shining but it's br-r-r cold outside. I am looking forward to spring. But I love my now.

Just watch this

Birthdays

So, my birthday was yesterday. I love birthdays. And not just my own. I think birthdays are like a personal, private New Year's Eve. That's always when I make my resolutions and feel like I have a fresh start. I made prime rib and Yorkshire pudding on Friday with a few girlfriends (It was so good and none of us had ever done it before) and then Jay and I went out for a sushi lunch on Saturday. He is a great gifter already at ten years old. He picked out this stained glass dragonfly and a polished rock in the shape of a heart.

We were sitting there at the sushi bar, eating our shrimp tempura rolls, and this song comes on. It was one of those songs that you can't remember the name of (It was all piano music) but I knew it had meant something at one point in my life and it was familiar and took me back somewhere but I just couldn't quite place it. So that got me all sentimental. Then, Somewhere Over The Rainbow comes on (I AM from Kansas), and that got me to thinking about my mom and dad and how this is my first birthday as an orphan. Then, The Way We Were comes on and I had the tears going. What a DORK! Jay looks over at me and just stares. I said (blubbered), I just love these songs. He must think I am so weird. And anyway, it's really just another day.

This was me on my second birthday. I thought a little man lived inside the camera and painted our pictures and I liked to wave at him. I don't think I'm an overly obnoxious person but I do like to tell people it's my birthday. If I'm going trough the check-out at Target, I tell the person ringing my stuff up. If I'm getting a bagel or a coffee, I tell the cashier. Hi, It's my birthday. They always say Happy Birthday. I don't expect free stuff or a ticker tape parade, I just like having lots of people wish me Happy Birthday. I like birthdays so much I want to have a hundred of them.

Cheers to a new year and another chance for
us to get it right.
-- Oprah Winfrey

Graduation

Once upon a time there was a little boy. When he started to school, he wrote with his left hand. The year was sometime around 1924. Every child was taught to write with their right hand. When that little boy would write, the teacher would bang his left hand with a ruler. He naturally wrote left handed and the teacher had to hit him so often that when he got home from school his knuckles would be bloody. He learned to write right-handed. He also, from that point on, developed a horrible stutter. He grew up, stayed right-handed and kept the stutter. It was embarrassing, and under stress, debilitating. In high school, he had to take a speech class. He decided to do his big speech on Nestle Chocolate and wrote to Nestle to get information. He was armed with candy bars, pages of facts and his own writing. He was in the twelfth grade. When he got up to speak, he couldn't. He started to stutter. He couldn't say a clear word. His teacher told him to sit down. He tried again, and couldn't do it. He left class. His teacher didn't pass him. He did not graduate from high school.

That was my dad. He went on to get a job at Dillon's Grocery Store and worked for them for 42 years. He was, as he called it, a career groceryman. He was an honest, good, kind, regular guy. He was a good father, a good husband to my mom, and a good friend. He could yell really loud sometimes but he was supportive and brave and a great teacher. He was curious about everything his whole life - he never, ever stopped learning about people and the world.

For the last few years of my dad's life, my son and I would drive to Phoenix every other weekend to stay with my parents at their assisted living facility, Fountain View Village. When my mom and my son went to sleep, my dad and I would talk, or watch Jay Leno. I asked him, when he was 86, if there was anything he wished he would have done that he didn't. He said that the only regret he had was that he didn't graduate from high school. He'd always felt bad about it.

I called his high school, my brother called the Superintendent, and my dad got a letter in the mail saying Hutchinson High School wanted to give him his well-deserved, slightly late high school diploma. He cried when he got the letter. It said that they could either mail him the diploma, he could walk with the class in May, or he could come to a special school board meeting and pick it up, there in Hutchinson. At that point, my dad used a cane or a scooter, he had hip and knee problems, he had a faulty heart. But in September of 2003, we went back to Kansas, so my dad could finally go to his high school graduation. He sat in the front row at the meeting, hoisted himself up with his cane, and walked to the front of the room. He cried during the entire meeting he was so happy. He was very proud of that diploma. Here he is on that night, a high school graduate, with his grandson, little Jay. He died two months later on November 1st. I'm so glad he got his wish.

And the stuttering....well, after that year he met a guy named Harold Faldtz. They became best buddies and Harold would punch him solid in the arm every time he'd stutter. It's certainly not the way we'd cure that kind of thing today, but my dad stopped stuttering quite soon, being buddies with Harold. He was friends with Harold all his life.

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was,
'thank you,' that would suffice.
- Meister Eckhart

A Tiny Story

There's this story about my dad I want to write about but I really want the correct picture to go with it. I have the picture...it sits near my desk. But I need to scan the print onto a disk and then transfer it onto my computer. It's just a matter of going to Target or Sam's to get it copied. So, I think about writing this dad blog everyday. I grabbed the picture this morning and was on my way out the door when I thought Hey, I might as well take a few if I'm going to put them on a disk. So, then, I take an hour going through old pictures. Haha, isn't that cute...Isn't that cool...wow, I gotta get a copy of that one. Finally, I'm on my way to Target with a big envelope of pictures. I scan about 25 and realize I've been at the picture machine in Target for AN HOUR. I decide to finish the one I'm doing and copy onto a disk. Ah-oh, it doesn't scan right... so I push the button marked "previous" and all the pictures I've scanned just disappear. OF COURSE it can be fixed...the girl just needs to hit a few buttons, bring my order back up and...

No, they're gone. She said sorry, and we can give you a $3 off coupon for our photo department. Why would I want $3 off when I'm never going to use the photo department there again?! I said, Actually, I'd like a $10 gift card. She got the okay (I must have looked distraught) and I came home.

Tomorrow I'll try again. Soon, the dad blog. With picture. And I'm going to use that whole ten dollar gift card on Starbuck's coffee.

Newton Exposed

Wow. What a great trip we had. I hope you checked out the link to Newton in my last post. Here were the highlights...

Friday
All aboard the Amtrak at 6:30 am. Checked out the roomette (small but comfy), headed to the dining car for breakfast. This trip could have also been called "Eating Tour 2008". Chicken/apple sausage, omelets, croissants, hash browns. The sausage was exquisite. Friday was just a day filled with farkel, dominoes, food, magazine reading (me), and DS Lite (Jay). For lunch; veggie burger, sliced beef with mashed potatoes, Key Lime pie, cheesecake. Dinner; Cornish Hen, Talapia, mashed potatoes, more dessert. Our attendant made up the beds around 8:00 pm and we slept until 2:30.

Saturday
Pulled into Newton at 2:50 am. Got to the Best Western and slept until 8:00. Looked at nine houses for sale, went to Conrad Snider's gallery, drove to Hutchinson to see my Aunt Patty and my cousin Jodi. Explored Newton a bit, drove around, went into antique stores, checked out the neighborhoods, ate dinner at Montana Mikes. It was such a great day but I didn't really LOVE any of the houses I toured.

Sunday
I had decided Saturday that the house thing just was not going to happen this trip. I figured it was a fun time but I'd have to come back to find a good house.
There were two more to look at but from the pictures on the Internet, I wasn't expecting to LOVE either one. My realtor, Kati, was awesome through it all. She was fun and helpful and zero pressure. We met around 11:00 on Sunday at this little bungalow style house and when we walked inside, I looked around and LOVED it. Small, well kept, with dark wide original wood trim on all the doorways. A root cellar out back, a new kitchen, a cute neighborhood. Fairly new heating, AC, and roof. Underneath the carpet in the dining room...wood floors! Built in 1915. I think I'm going to get it. Didn't even go see the second house. Turned in the rental car, Jerry came in from Salina to pick us up and get us down the highway toward Topeka. Jennifer met us halfway, Jay and I changed cars and were in Topeka where my friend, Kristy, picked us up to get us to the train station by midnight. In forty-six hours I went house hunting, saw great art, picked up a great doily in the shape of a butterfly at the antique store, saw relatives and friends, and ate A LOT.

Monday
Back on the train at 1:00 am. Slept until 8:30 am and did Friday all over again. Arrived in Flagstaff at 9:30 pm.

If you have never traveled on Amtrak, DO IT! It's fun and not too expensive. You see small towns, landscape, and animals that you just wouldn't see otherwise. We saw wild horses, antelope, deer, a baby coyote, and a bizillion animal tracks in the snow. We met great people (in the dining car they seat four to a table so we always had two strangers to chat with) and were relaxed when we stepped off the train.

This last picture is of a boarded up church that we passed. It was just beautiful and haunting. Scenes like this flew by several times a day. The chance to just get on a train and see this country in a new way is such a gift. If you ever get the chance, take a train somewhere.

My grandma is buried in Inman, Kansas. There is a quote that she said ALL the time. In fact, it's on her headstone. I've always loved it...

"This is the day which the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in
it."
Psalms

Tripping

Jay and I are heading out to Newton this weekend. Back to the land of grain elevators, fireflys (well, not this time of year) and wheat fields. I cannot wait to get on the train and go. Part of the excitement is the train, part is a trip with Jay, but a lot of it is that I'm going back to where my mom and dad lived. My whole life we've (my mom and dad and me) spent time in that part of Kansas, driving on those old brick streets, looking at the house they lived in in the forties (614 Elm Street), the first Dillon's store my dad worked at, and stopping by friends and relatives houses. I have such a desire to be there, in that place. The last few times I've been there it's been with my sister or brother, hearing about the times before I was born, stories about my dad filling the whole, huge back yard with tomato plants or my mom, the only girl in her family to go to high school, working at Kreskies Drug and her dad picking up her pay check every Friday. I heard a quote, and I cannot remember the source right now , that goes "When an old person dies, a library burns down" and it's so true. There's so much I wish I'd asked but didn't.

Two Things That Could Save Your Life

#1 - Poetry. Not really. But it could help you like life more. See life better. Feel like other people go through the same stellar, beautiful, awkward, nasty-ass, mardigras, sublime, tragic experiences too. I think poetry helps people feel less alone. It can, in a very short span, introduce the reader to stories and feelings that are un-nameable yet familiar. Or not. I don't know for sure. But it's worth a try. Here's a picture of a random poetry stand that my friend Kate sent when she was in Oregon. What a swell idea! If you all want to write a Haiku comment, do it! Haiku - a three line poem with the first line being 5 syllables, the second line being 7 syllables, and the third line being 5 again. It's cool if there is a little twist in the last line. Jack Kerouac says this..."it has to be a simple little picture in three little lines, that tells a great big story." Here are a couple I like....

The falling flower
I saw drift back to the branch
was a butterfly
--Arakida Moritake

To write a blues song
is to regiment riots
and pluck gems from graves.
--Etheridge Knight

#2 (Which is appropriately numbered) Colonoscopy.
Getting a colonoscopy can save your life! My brother, Jerry got one at thirty-nine, had a tumor in there, had surgery, chemo, and is alive and cancer free today. Yeah! It's painless, easy, and you should do it. I'm doing mine tomorrow!! So today I'm on clear liquids all day, which is really kind of fun and challenging. I don't think about food that much but today it's ALL I can think about. I want homemade chicken nuggets with honey mustard, and a big slice of berry pie, heated up, with ice cream. I want mashed potatoes and stuffed pork chops. I want chicken, cheese and spinache tamales with rice and beans. I want a thick slice of fresh, hot bread slathered with butter. And, I want hot and sour soup and sesame chicken and beef with broccoli. YUM! Instead, I'm drinking water and ginger-ale and tonight for dinner I'll have a big bowl of chicken consomme. Then, tomorrow for lunch I'll appreciate food so much.

Chia

Yes, I know it's juvenile. But it makes me laugh.

I bought a Chia Head for Jay at Christmas and it's flawed. There's a leak at the bottom so most of the water seeps out. So, Chia guy is just growing neck hair. Eewww! And...I swear I did not do this on purpose but somehow a chia seed ended up at the edge of this guy's nose and now he has a green boog. Yuck!

Moving on....
Exciting news! Jay and I are taking the train to Newton, Kansas in a week or so. We are going have SO MUCH FUN. I love Kansas. It's where my folks were from, and there's something about all that that I need to go back there for right now. I would not move there for good (I also LOVE my town and friends and life here!) but I cannot wait to get back there for a visit.

"I finally figured out the only reason to be alive is to enjoy it."
Rita Mae Brown

Happy Birthday Jaybug

My son turned ten yesterday and I thought I'd include this wonderful poem by Billy Collins. I, of course, did not give it to Jay to read...it's the kind of poem that might be about turning ten but wouldn't be truly understandable until he's thirty.

When Jay was two he had an imaginary friend named Orban. Then came Hair, Glasses, Head Frensky and Fudd. All five of Jay's imaginary friends. Orban was the main guy, but he was killed in China a few years back (where in the heck did that come from?) and the other's have just faded away. I miss those guys! Here's a poem, for Jay....


On Turning Ten


The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I'm coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light--
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.

You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.

But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.

This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.

It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I could shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed.

Billy Collins

Did You Know...

that if you click on a picture in someone's blog, it enlarges the picture?!?! Well, it does. Cool.

Goodbye Christmas, Hello Philosophy

I have put Bumble away and that can only mean Christmas is over. I love all the old Christmas shows; Rudolph, Frosty the Snowman, It's a Wonderful Life, and The Grinch. OMG, and Charlie Brown. Did you LOVE that tiny Christmas tree. And did you just well up with tears when all the kids realized what Christmas was REALLY about and, most important, that the little wilty tree was beautiful. Sigh. Then, after Christmas it all goes away in a box until next year. That's a problem with video and DVD. When I was a kid, those shows came on once a year and we all knew which night and what time at least a few days in advance. My mom would make fudge and put my hair in pink foam curlers and my dad and mom and I would sit on the (weird) green shag carpet and watch. So, to combat the instant gratification disease, I put all the movies in a box and they only come out at the holidays. I make fudge or peppernuts but I do not put my son's hair in curlers.

Speaking of Jay, Here's a bit of a story. I have these cork squares on my office wall by the computer. He was intrigued by the one that says, Laugh too loud. When people look at you, laugh louder (given to me by Maggie years ago). He asked me, What does that mean exactly? He's already mortified if I just giggle in public. He has forbidden me from car dancing and he's not too happy with my singing either. When I got that slush spilled down into my car window a few weeks ago, he just sat in the back seat saying, Can we just go. It will be fine. Do you have to talk to the manager? I try and explain to him how NECESSARY it is in life to speak out, to be yourself, to laugh too loud sometimes but he just thinks I'm a weirdo. I love that the thing that's taken me years to accomplish...the thing I'm proud of, just being myself, is the very thing that mortifies and embarrasses my dear son. When I told him what I think that card means; that it's okay to be silly in public/have fun/be who you are, he just said, That doesn't make any sense to me.

I have four of those cork squares up, here's another. I hope you can read the Bukowski poem, it rocks. The tiny button in the middle I've had for years and never seen another like it. I love it. It says, in itty bitty letters, It's so fuckin great to be alive. You know how some people's brains don't make enough serotonin? Sometimes I think mine produces too much. :P


I just took this picture out my office window. It's snowing like crazy here. There is this one very specific feeling that I love. It's being inside...inside anywhere...a car, a house, the library, all warm and dry. And outside it's snowing or raining and cold. Yum. I love that feeling. Now, on the flip side, I cannot stand to ice skate or go sledding. It's too freakin cold! I'd rather be in the lodge, by the roaring fire, reading a book with a glass of red then swooshing down the slopes outside. And occasionally laughing too loud.

Signing On

I'm back. Back from Christmas with my family in Phoenix, back from being too busy to write, back from being sad 90% of the time. I want to write. I want to be more alive. I have ideas for books and furniture and recipes and hats. I feel a weird hope that things might work out okay.

A couple things to catch up on...here are the bottles I painted for the beer I made. They were less on the creative, abstract side and more on the informative side. But the beer was quite stellar. Also, I think I'm going to buy a tiny little house in Newton, Kansas. It's on the Amtrak line so I could get on in Flagstaff and get off in Newton. They're so flipping cheap back there. Built in 1910, wood floors, nice woodwork. We'll see, but I'm seriously looking. I'll never move from Flagstaff, it ROCKS, but it would be cool to have a great place to write and go to when I need to have a change of scenery. I've got relatives back there. I grew up in Topeka. Okay, also, we're taking both my parents back there this summer and I'll be damned if I'm going to quit taking care of them now. They'll be in Hutchinson which is twelve miles from Newton so I'd be close. Plus, bonus, lightning bugs!!!! I'm a freak.

When my dad died four years ago, I cried for weeks. It wasn't like a sobbing, hysterical thing. It was more like my eyes just leaked continually. I owned a little wine shop back then and I'd wait on people and just cry and they seemed to be fine with it. We'd talk about it and I knew most of them anyway but I just couldn't seem to stop. Now, with my mom, I get sad but I feel calmer about it. I spent months crying in the elevator at The Peaks, the same leaky eye thing, after I'd go spend time with her but since she died, I feel a sense of relief. For her. When I was seventeen, she and my dad sat me down at the kitchen table and made me promise that if either of them were ever hooked up to machines...a vegetable is what they called it, that I needed to pull the plug. But there wasn't any plug to pull for my mom. I was helpless to do what she wanted.

I'm not sure what I believe about Heaven but if there is a place where we get to hang out with the people we knew before, I sure hope she's there with my dad, playing a little gin rummy and eating peanuts.

Catching Up

A few weeks ago a friend of mine made the comment, "It feels like you're out of town right now", and it DID feel that way. I think I'm heading back. The last of my family left today (bye Suz!) and it feels a bit lonely but I also need, and am ready, to get back into my life again.

The week was very surreal. My list of things to do included both *go to the mortuary* and *wrap presents*, and then, the day before my mom's memorial, my book came out. I'd been waiting for that to happen for months (years actually) and then when it did, It was tough conjuring up any excitement. But last night I sat down and looked through it and read the copyright date and the table of contents and saw that it really has an ISBN number and I realized that I have a published book. That felt good. If anyone would like a copy, there's a link on the right hand side of this blog for Two Dogs Press. There are some other wonderful books on there too so take a look.

Some other things from the last month that I have not blogged about but might have.....I brewed a good beer, and ESB, and bottled it. Pictures of the bottles to come later, this is the beer (the wort) boiling away. It's pretty darn good. Also, it snowed 20 inches here and is flipping cold (single digits at night). And also too, when I was at Sonic drive-in, the girl who delivers the food dropped a large slush into the window crack of my car. And I mean INTO. My window was open all the way and the slush cup fell apart as she was handing it over. So it went down into the door and now, when I open the window, it makes a sound like a very masculine cat having it's toenails removed with tweezers. I made the manager write a note regarding the slush incident and sign it so after the holidays, I'm going to deal with THAT.

My mom's memorial was beautiful. My brother and sister both spoke and told stories about her, and two of my friends read poems. I read this passage from The Prophet, which is my quote for the day....

On Joy and Sorrow
Kahlil Gibran

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits, alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.
When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.

Warrior

My mom died Saturday, yesterday, morning at 8:13. I just finished writing her obituary. Both Thursday and Friday were really hard. She was struggling. I so wanted her to go the same way my father had - easily, in her sleep and peaceful. So Thursday and Friday were not what I expected. It was scary for me. Her face was so sunken and her body had become so small. Her breathing was labored and her movements were erratic. I did not take Jay up there. But I held her hand and was with her those days. I kept asking them to give her more meds. Frantic about it. By Friday night, she had stabilized and was breathing better. But I kept seeing her struggling. At first I was so saddened by it. Man, it was hard to think about. It was so hard to see. Then yesterday, after I sat with her, after hospice came and the man from the mortuary, after I walked the stretcher down to the van, after I said my very last goodbye to the body and was driving home alone, I realized that she had had her warrior face on. How silly of me to think she was going to go easy! She was fighting to stay in this world. My dad was so ready to go. He had told me so for a year before his death. So he closed his eyes in the hospital and left. But my mom, she wanted to stay. I realized how okay it all was. That she didn't want to go. I was proud of her, even in dying. I thought she was saying (this woman who I can only remember cussing ONE time when I was a child) "fuck you death" on her way out. I thought that that's how I'll be. Fighting to stay here. And I have so many memories of that wonderful mama smiling and looking so happy and content that I don't mind the memory of her warrior face. I want to hold that one close too. She was a warrior and I want to honor that in her. I was so frightened and afraid for her, and she was most likely afraid too...of the unknown and the moving on. But she fought a good fight. I'm going to miss her so.

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
--Dylan Thomas

Still here

I wasn't going to write again until my mom was gone. But I've had some hard days and writing seems to be one thing that ties me to the world still. She is wavering. I've been spending all my time with her, gladly, and seeing those little mommisms from time to time. A smile or the way she raises her eyebrows up or her mouth in a perfect little "oh" like she used to do a decade ago. So, I've been holding on to those. Yesterday, though, it was obvious that she's suffering. I wanted the "go to sleep and never wake up" kind of passing for her. Hospice thought she needed to be on heavy meds to be able to relax into the going and I'm the one that needed to okay that. So when I was up there yesterday, I saw the last of her mom mannerisms. I had to choose not to see those things again. Because the only real thing I wanted then was for her to not feel pain. It was really hard. But now she is sleeping, under, relaxing, and I know it was the right decision. It is a weird thing though because I keep having these irrational thoughts. I have a rational, detached mind that mulls over when do I go to the mortuary, and then I have this irrational, emotional side that thinks things like, if I had just fed her better two months ago she'd be fine. I know what the truths are; it's just difficult to believe them when the letting go is so darn sad for me.

One of the hospice caregivers gave me this little book called "Gone from my Sight". There was this one passage in it that was really good. In an earlier post, I talked about how I told my mom that I thought it was going to be like getting on a boat, with me here and dad at the other end. And then someone hands me this little book. Here is the passage from that book....

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.
Then someone at my side says, "There, she is gone!"
"Gone Where?"
Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port. Her diminished size is in me, not her. And at that moment when someone at my side says, "There, she is gone!" there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout; "Here she comes!" And that is dying.
--Henry Van Dyke

The boat

Thanksgiving night. My mom is heading out soon. She has taken a turn for the worse over the last week. I've been with her a lot. This may a be graphic as far as death and dying go, so read ahead if you'd like. She's so tiny now. Thin as a rail, something she might have said, and it's exactly true. I can encircle her upper arm with my hand, thumb to middle finger. She doesn't eat now. Well, actually she had a bit of food yesterday. She had a cup of Dairy Queen vanilla ice cream for lunch(Jay and I stopped and had a lunch of hot fudge sundaes there ourselves and got a cup to go for her) and then for supper she had the filling part of two pieces of pumpkin pie. Her body is tight and stiffening. Hospice is good and the caregivers at The Peaks have been wonderful. A couple nights ago I laid down with her and snuggled her up. I just talked to her about how much we all love her, and how I think it will be like getting on a boat...that I'm here, seeing her off at the dock, and my dad will be there at the other end, waiting for her to arrive and go on to the next adventure. I don't know how it will be but I like to think of it that way. I told her she can go, and to enjoy the boat ride. I love being with her. I still can't imagine not being able to touch her face or her hair, or to hold her hand. She still has the tightest grip ever. She's just holding on for all she's worth. She stays horizontal now mostly. Occasionally, over the last few days, she's looked into my eyes, focused for a few seconds and then her eyes drift up above my head and she focuses again, at something above me. I like to think she's seeing into that other world. Tonight, before I left her, she was in bed and her arms, small and skinny as they are now, were held up in the air in a perfect hug. I said, who are you hugging missy? and she smiled for a brief flash of a second. I walked down the hall to talk to one of the caregivers and when I came back in her room, she still had those arms wrapped around someone. I sat next to her on her bed for a while and put her arms down, one by her side and one around that baby she loves to hold, kissed her, said I love you, and headed home to wait for tomorrow.

Life is a great sunrise. I do not see why death should not
be an even greater one.
--Vladimir Nobokov

Bridges

Here's a picture of my mom with her baby. I took it yesterday. I just think she is beautiful. For a while, when she was on about 14 pills a day, she had that look in her eyes of someone lost. Vague, never focused. Now, off meds, she'll look right into my eyes, so intent and mind-loud. Very serious but quite aware. She does sleep a lot. She's having trouble fighting off infection. She's had c-diff (an intestinal infection) 4 or 5 times since the broken hip. She can't really speak and can't walk. But when she looks me in the eyes I swear she's saying something to me. I like to think she's on a bridge right now, between two worlds, and she's trying to tell me about the next one.

I have a little story.....
When I was seven she took me to the dentist. It was probably 8 am as she always made the first appointment of the day. I had to get two teeth filled (I was a cavity prone kid) and I was a little worried. I was seated in the dental chair, my mom was ushered back out to the waiting room, and the dentist came in. The assistant was getting all the equipment ready and dropped something on the floor. The dentist, Mr X, cussed at that girl. I was mortified and the girl was quiet. He started working on my teeth. He was rough. I think he was mad and tired and who knows what. It hurt! I was a shy, timid child (me?) but finally I involuntarily yelped out an "ouch!". He said, loudly, "Goddamnit shut-up". My mom came flying through that exam room door like a super hero. Hands on her hips, she said, "Do not EVER speak to my daughter that way. She is seven years old! You should be ashamed of yourself, speaking like that to a
child" and she got me out of that chair and we left. I always felt good that she stuck up for me and got me out of there. I felt protected and part of a team.

One more.....
When I was two I got this coat for Christmas. As you can see, I was very happy. I wore it all the time. It had a little muff to go with it that hung around my neck and I could put my tiny hands into to keep warm. It was the softest, wooliest, warmest coat in the world. I loved it so much I used to want to wear it to watch cartoons. One of my best memories is sitting on the living room floor in my coat, watching Loony Toons, my mom ironing clothes behind me while we both watched the Road Runner escape Wiley Coyote and just the both of us laughing away. And I still have that coat.

"Ordinary riches can be stolen: real riches cannot. In your soul are
infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you."
Oscar Wilde, 1891

Stale Pears

Today when I got up, my son, who was already up and watching cartoons, informed me that Archie smells bad...like "stale pears". This initially made me happy because to describe a smelly dog with the words, "stale pears" makes me think someday he will surely be a writer. Then, it made me think eeww-w-w, because Archie walked right up next to me and yes, he did smell like stale pears.....stinky, old, moldy pears. He got a bath today, his first, and now smells like shampoo and Milk Bones...the way a dog should smell.

Writer's Block

The weirdest thing happened. I think I got blog-writer's-block. For over a week I was unable to blog. I thought about it during the day...hmmmmmm, what should I write about today? I carried my camera everywhere thinking I might be graced with an amazing incident or cool experience that I could capture and write about. No deal. Then, weirder still, I started to feel boring. Yes, BORING. As in, I have nothing to say and no way to say it. As in, nothing EVER happens to me (whine....).

Oh well, I'm back, making myself push through the muck that's in my brain, trying to stay right on the edge of boring but not topple in. So, I thought I'd start off with my stomach flu experience. October 30, 1:25 am, I wake up from a wonderfully sound sleep with that feeling of, holy crap I better get to the toilet. After one delightful hurl (sorry), I remembered that I had this prescription for not-vomiting, It's called phenergan. I fumbled around in the make-up drawer, throwing hair ties and lip gloss everywhere, and opened the child proof bottle (score!). Pop one down and, I kid you not, in five minutes I was stellar, all nausea gone, all stomach spasms dissipated.....and so tired I had to crawl to bed. But it works. But man, what a sleep. I was down. I slept until 4:25 pm the next day (Halloween). You may thank me later that there are no pictures on this post :)

Halloween night - totally uneventful as I was still groggy. The usual m.o. is tom and jerry's (the drinks, not the cartoon) as we moms walk the kids around the neighborhood. Instead I had a teeny tiny taste of the infamous drink (thanks Tim) and walked until I could walk no more, acted grouchy toward friends, and went home.

Since then I've gone on an awesome field trip to Jerome with my son's fourth grade class. We camped and looked at old buildings and learned about mining. The kids really loved it but mostly enjoyed visiting the gift shops. And I found a great book called Soiled Doves - Prostitution in the Early West by Anne Seagraves. It's really interesting damnit. It's historical! I was going to state next that I'd just like my life to be a series of field trips, but then I realized that it kind of IS a series of field trips.

My own book is at the printer's. I should have a copy by Christmas. Cool. I haven't been writing much poetry. It's kind of like when I was twelve and did a walk-a-thon. Twenty flipping miles. I did it. Got pledges, kept on a walking, drank Gatorade (ewww), finished all twenty miles. I was beat! Never went on another one of those. Done. Been there, done that. I haven't written much since I found out my book would be published. Damn. I will though. I've been collecting titles in my head. Not telling any of them yet. I like to write the poem after I have the title.

Whew! It looks like I've broken through. No pictures (which is a first), but a scant amount of writing spewed (I shouldn't use that word in this post) forth. Of course, a little fun and super eventful times over the next week would certainly help.

I really like this following quote but I cannot for the life of me figure out why it was said by the Dell Crossword.
Success is not permanent. The same is also true of failure.
--Dell Crossword