tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36779553085488647182024-03-05T04:15:53.878-08:00Just Another CandleAngiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05754244704171281174noreply@blogger.comBlogger91125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3677955308548864718.post-83331589930235724972021-03-06T10:53:00.000-08:002021-03-06T10:53:11.235-08:00In the Midst of Winter<div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdXVMma5ldFihKiiYNHiowFB3nWbcc3m1z3VCO4OUtodrks2zj15__jmYskn7M3bYA4C1AQIdalg-H80pooC_kLq_XGs4eW6eDtt1C5CbsRXH1ZvHzjFpbZmNaEuK2cB-vrJgXC-z-M58/s1280/winter+scene.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdXVMma5ldFihKiiYNHiowFB3nWbcc3m1z3VCO4OUtodrks2zj15__jmYskn7M3bYA4C1AQIdalg-H80pooC_kLq_XGs4eW6eDtt1C5CbsRXH1ZvHzjFpbZmNaEuK2cB-vrJgXC-z-M58/s320/winter+scene.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;"> <span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #4d5156; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">“In the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6368; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">midst</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #4d5156; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;"> of </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6368; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">winter</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6368; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;">, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6368; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">I found</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #4d5156; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;"> there was, within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there's something stronger – something better, pushing right back.” ― Albert Camus.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #4d5156; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #4d5156; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">As I sit to write today, it is still winter in my new home in upper New York. In some ways, it feels as though it has been winter for months now. It is, in fact, almost a year to the day when, at that time still in UT, it became obvious to me and my friends that we should cancel gatherings and practice stay at home strategies to protect ourselves and each other from the corona virus. In fact, as a friend just reminded me, March 10, 2020 was the last time we gathered to celebrate another friend's birthday.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #4d5156; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">One year, and here I am. Looking out across the remnants of several snowfalls, out to a bank of evergreens. Looking out across a new living space, in an apartment for the first time in over 40 years, typing in a stillness broken only by the sound of of my breathing, the hum of one of the several space heaters employed to break the chill I cannot seem to otherwise dispel, or the creaking of the footsteps of upstairs' neighbors I've yet to meet. </span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #4d5156; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">The boxes of belongings have all been opened, though piles exist in almost every room, waiting for my final decision - do I keep or do I let go? For I have brought more than I need, more than I can use, and, increasingly, more than I want. </span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #4d5156; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">Rufus has adjusted well, perhaps even more quickly than I did. He has learned to climb the stairs that I bought for him when I could hear myself question how long I would be able to lift him into bed. He sleeps there now as I type. He has become attached to my sister, the main reason I decided to move this past fall. And no, he doesn't like the snow which is a good thing. As small as he is and as high as the snow drifts have been, I would have had to dig him out had he gone romping into it.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #4d5156; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">I would be remiss if I did not admit that this move has been harder than I expected. For almost two months my belongings remained in Utah while the search for a van driver went unheeded. For almost two months we lived with my sister and brother-in-law who were generous, loving and supportive. But for someone who has been independent for over 40 years, these were a long two months. And for someone who has lived in a house for over 40 years, apartment living has been a challenge to my creativity and an adjustment that is only getting easier now. </span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #4d5156; font-family: helvetica;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">And then there was my birthday, my 80th birthday. The birthday John and I had talked about in recent years as an occasion to host a big party as we had done for my 50th. Followed the same week by Valentine's Day. Alone. With too much time and space to dwell on past birthdays and Valentine's Days with him, taking the entire week to celebrate, to read the beautiful cards he would send, cards I came upon opening the last box.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #4d5156; font-family: helvetica;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">Then, yesterday, a message from someone I hope will become a new friend calling me amazing for having the courage to move across country, by myself, at this stage of my life. So, I took pause to let that in. To write in my personal journal this morning all that I have accomplished since moving in. All the boxes unpacked, all the services I have found, the hard decisions I have made, the many ways I've reached out to stay connected, the new ways I am using technology, the environment I am creating to sustain and nourish myself and my little Rufus.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #4d5156; font-family: helvetica;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">I also took time to acknowledge all the help I've received - from the staff in the leasing office and the young handymen who put together shelf upon shelf and took apart box after box, to new insurance agents and clerks in the grocery and hardware stores, and strangers who, hearing I am new to the area, have been warm and welcoming. Mostly, to my sister and brother-in-law who have welcomed me with open arms and generous hearts and to all my friends who call and Skype and Zoom and send notes to remind me that I really am not alone.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #4d5156; font-family: helvetica;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">So, amazing? I'm not sure. But strong, yes. Courageous, yes. Creative, yes. Determined, yes. Optimistic, yes. And certainly, blessed.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #4d5156; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #4d5156; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #4d5156; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #4d5156; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #4d5156; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #4d5156; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #4d5156; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #4d5156; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></span></p>Angiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05754244704171281174noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3677955308548864718.post-16185307116838222242020-11-25T13:21:00.000-08:002020-11-25T13:21:13.457-08:00On This Thanksgiving<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiYg_wAU0eLwE9ngZETfUDCWgGeeM2riobKU4NoWJiujjK-YYN9Ep0awkCO0dxonZb3xWIXpZJAR7FKiGb9pvAYV8SHyeQFbmbp2QLQxjWuyFzFZXT_TWQGKaYXl9ULPN_ZAifdspBj5o/s612/cornucopia.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="408" data-original-width="612" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiYg_wAU0eLwE9ngZETfUDCWgGeeM2riobKU4NoWJiujjK-YYN9Ep0awkCO0dxonZb3xWIXpZJAR7FKiGb9pvAYV8SHyeQFbmbp2QLQxjWuyFzFZXT_TWQGKaYXl9ULPN_ZAifdspBj5o/w200-h133/cornucopia.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><p></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">"Optimism is really rooted in gratitude."</span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">~ Michael J. Fox </span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;">As this third Thanksgiving since John died approaches, I find myself with a sense of optimism I have not felt for many months. Surprisingly so, considering this past year filled with a global pandemic, isolation, political unrest, and the rampant fear, anxiety, and anger that resulted. But reading this quote by the actor, Michael J. Fox, makes so much sense to me because in spite of daily upsets and conspiracy theories, in spite of constant "the sky is falling" and threats and recriminations, I have managed somehow to record 3-5 statements of gratitude every night. On only one occasion were the statements a repeat of "I made it through the day." And though not always optimistic, I know the practice kept me from despair.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Were John alive, we would have engaged with a Thanksgiving ritual of taking turns expressing what we were grateful for over the past year. This year, I will initiate the ritual with my sister and brother-in-law with whom I am staying while I await the availability of my own apartment in the rolling hills of central NY. For, this, in itself, is certainly one of the most important items on my year's list of gratitudes. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;">I offer my list in the hope that it will trigger yours, initiate the possibility that you will adopt this ritual, and conclude with a feeling of optimism for the coming year.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;">This year I am grateful for:</span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: helvetica;">having made it without contracting the virus</span></li><li><span style="font-family: helvetica;">having friends who were as careful as I was, thus never endangering me</span></li><li><span style="font-family: helvetica;">the technology that made it, and will make it, possible for us to stay in contact, possibly the silver lining in this mess</span></li><li><span style="font-family: helvetica;">the e-mails and jokes that brought moments of laughter and respite from the steady stream of vitriol on the airwaves and social media</span></li><li><span style="font-family: helvetica;">my circle of "sisters" - you know who you are - who message every morning and every evening to stay in touch, just in case</span></li><li><span style="font-family: helvetica;">dessert sunsets in Utah</span></li><li><span style="font-family: helvetica;">autumn colors in NY</span></li><li><span style="font-family: helvetica;">the constant companionship of my sweet rescue dog, Rufus</span></li><li><span style="font-family: helvetica;">having sold my home in UT in 2 days</span></li><li><span style="font-family: helvetica;">the incredible efforts of support from friends who were there when I most needed them and helped to make the move a success in a very short time</span></li><li><span style="font-family: helvetica;">the kind notes and e-mails that acknowledged the contributions I tried to make to my little Utah community and the many friendships I forged in the process; the notes and e-mails from old friends to encourage and cheer me on</span></li><li><span style="font-family: helvetica;">a safe automobile journey across the country, thanks to the chauffeuring of a young friend and the absence of snow</span></li><li><span style="font-family: helvetica;">her continued help in tying up loose ends; I never could have pulled this off without her</span></li><li><span style="font-family: helvetica;">the care and generosity of my sister and brother-in-law, especially his wonderful cooking and both of their patience and tutelage as I learn my way around newer technology and newer environs</span></li><li><span style="font-family: helvetica;">getting to know them at a different level, growing to love and appreciate them even more</span></li><li><span style="font-family: helvetica;">chocolate covered blueberries and glasses of chilled white wine</span></li><li><span style="font-family: helvetica;">finding an apartment that meets all of my criteria </span></li><li><span style="font-family: helvetica;">the unexpected kindnesses of strangers, strangers who are willing to wear masks</span></li><li><span style="font-family: helvetica;">the prospect of seeing old friends I haven't seen in years and family I have yet to meet</span></li><li><span style="font-family: helvetica;">being with my sister on the second anniversary of John's death, she who was with us that night</span></li><li><span style="font-family: helvetica;">warm memories that bring smiles now instead of tears</span></li><li><span style="font-family: helvetica;">being in the position to explore the area, make new friends, strengthen family ties, indulge in hobbies - how fortunate am I?</span></li><li><span style="font-family: helvetica;">and last, but most certainly not least, the e-mail from an old friend on the day I was questioning my decision to move, wondering what lies ahead of me, filled with doubts and misgivings. Her kind assurance that John would surely say, "that's my Angie", was the perfect boost. I, too, know he would. </span></li></ul><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;">With so much to be grateful for, how could I not be optimistic? </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;">.</span></p><p> </p><p> </p>Angiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05754244704171281174noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3677955308548864718.post-43965297483191378872020-08-19T13:46:00.013-07:002020-08-20T18:16:35.072-07:00The Sounds of Silence<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"To hear, one must be silent."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It has taken me a few months to venture into the waters of silence. I'd like to say I purposely chose to wade in, but it has happened gradually and accidentally at first. Like so many folks these days, technology has made it all too easy for me to be distracted - the computer, the TV, the phone, notepads - so easy and enticing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With John's death, 21 months ago today to be exact, I initially found silence to be foreboding. In the middle of the night, when I would wake to overwhelming grief and anxiety, it became a habit to get up, turn on the TV or music and distract myself until I could fall back to sleep. During the day, I would read (usually with a background of music), or call a friend, or run off to do errands or attend a meeting—anything to keep the pain at bay, at least for a little while. At least until I could parcel it out in doses and drum up tried and true approaches that had guided me through other challenges of my life - approaches, in retrospect, that only kept the demons at bay. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And then, the virus hit, and though I thought and hoped, as many of us did, that everything would be back to normal by autumn, the rising statistics this summer soon proved me wrong. June and July presented a confrontation with everything I believed about myself, the future, and my ability to quiet the cacophony in my head and plan for the future. How does one plan for such an unknown future?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Then, one recent morning, with no particular reason that I can recall, I started to journal in total silence. No music, no news, silence, and the quality of my writing and the level of honesty was so noticeably different that I knew immediately that I could only still the inner noise and confusion by being willing to be quiet enough to hear and deal with it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At first, I was stunned by a level of grief that I now realize I had simply covered up. Cloudbursts of tears became thunderstorms at the mere glance at John's photo or the discovery of a loving card. I could feel waves of irritation or anxiety physically when I prepared to run even the simplest errand. The more I wrote in silence, the more I got in touch with outrage over how this virus has been mishandled and my dismay over the distrust, nastiness, and division I see in my country. The more I wrote, I more I got in touch with a fear of incompetence and a degree of loneliness I had not felt in decades.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Gradually, I lengthened the periods of silence. I wrote more and more. Began to take my lunch out to the patio and just listen for birds or children playing behind the backyard wall. Slowed down and enjoyed my food. Noticed the sound of the breeze through the trees in the early hours of the morning or Rufus' gentle breathing as he curled up beside me in bed. Caught an idea as it surfaced unexpectedly. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But most importantly, I recognized, quite abruptly in fact, that my underlying fear was not that I couldn't cope with the present, but instead that I had no sense of purpose for the future, and that I knew errands, and house maintenance and even volunteering were no longer enough. That, without John, I have come to yearn for family and physical proximity to people with whom I have a longer and more intimate shared history. At that very moment, I decided that I will move to New York State when my younger sister retires. At that very moment, I accepted that just as a future decision has emerged in my willingness to be still, so will a larger purpose.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One recent night I realized that I hadn't watched TV for a week other than to turn on some music while I cleaned the house. And that I am going to bed earlier and sleeping better. That when I do wake, I don't get upset. I merely read awhile until I go back to sleep. That projects are emerging more naturally, like simplifying the house, not just organizing it. Or finding it easier to let go of "stuff" because I'm already thinking of moving. Or knowing what I want to blog about without false starts and second-guessing!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Am I totally comfortable with silence? Not by a long shot. Do I plan to take up meditation? Not now, not yet. But I am growing comfortable with long stretches of silence, more confident that I will hear what I need to hear. And, surprisingly, grateful for this period of solitude.</span></div>
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Angiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05754244704171281174noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3677955308548864718.post-4747901944644285582020-07-14T15:28:00.000-07:002020-07-14T15:28:50.911-07:00Once Again<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Angiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05754244704171281174noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3677955308548864718.post-53849734362861866872020-06-03T17:25:00.003-07:002020-06-04T09:09:51.154-07:00Just When I Think.....<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span id="goog_636999532"></span><span style="background: color: #333333;">"Future shock is the shattering stress and
disorientation that we induce in individuals by subjecting them to too much
change in too short a time. "</span></span><br />
<span style="background: color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">and</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"The illiterate of the future will not be the
person who cannot read. It will be the person who does not know how to learn." </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">~Alvin<span style="background-color: color: #333333;">
Toffler </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Typically, I would choose only one quote to launch a post, but these are not typical times. They are, in fact, the times that Alvin Toffler, the futurist, first described in 1970 in <u>Future Shock</u>, a future time of unprecedented change at an unprecedented acceleration. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I was privileged to hear Toffler speak at a convention where he described the future of change not only in the United States but globally. What I remember most vividly is the first question that was asked in the Q and A period following his presentation, and his response. Question: "When will this slow down?" Response: A smile and then, "I'm smiling because yours is the first question I always get and my reply is the one I always give, not in your lifetime."</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I went back to Toffler after reading my personal journal entries from April and May and recognizing how much had changed in the outer world reported in the news and my inner world recorded in my journals in only these past two months. After I could see how much I felt like a ping pong ball bouncing from player to player to player to player. After seeing how I could vacillate between the throes of frustration, outrage, and self-doubt one day and the reassurance that my coping skills were more than adequate and then back again, sometimes within one day. Yup, stress and disorientation.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So, I have chosen to reflect on what I am learning, what I may have forgotten that could be helpful, and maybe most important, on evidence that I am learning from this.</span></div>
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<li style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Just when I think I've recovered a modicum sense of equilibrium, something happens to throw me back into free fall. I come across conflicting information or distressing national news, I forget or lose or break something, I learn of a friend with a serious health challenge. Sometimes all within one day. Change does seem to be happening at warp speed.</span></li>
<li style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Data and information are not enough. I own the responsibility to seek out the appropriate experts and check the veracity of the information. (Taking the medical advice of a politician is akin to asking my auto mechanic to clean my teeth!) </span></li>
<li style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I need occasional breaks from outside information for my mental and emotional health. I woke up yesterday to the news and images of protests springing up across the US, to some of the violence that was occurring, to the inflammatory responses being reported from people who could and should offer otherwise. I could feel the sorrow and outrage bubbling up, so I chose to turn off the TV and clean a closet.</span></li>
<li style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Taking care of my mental and emotional health is as important as taking care of my physical health.</span></li>
<li style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">An <i>occasional</i> escape from the harsh realities we can now see 24/7 in technicolor is respite rather than denial, healthy respite.</span></li>
<li style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I'm recognizing sooner the things I find stressful. Too much negative news at one time. Generalizations, attack, hatred, denial, although understandable, don't help in the long run. Maybe at the moment, but not in the long run. Including, and especially, my own even if silently expressed. Sharing worries and anger, frustrations, vitriol, and fears, although helpful for awhile, indulged too long only seem to exacerbate them.</span></li>
<li style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I'm also learning to recognize the signs of disorientation soon enough to reorganize - waking in the middle of the night and being unable to return to sleep, becoming clumsy or unusually forgetful, talking faster, feeling irritable or blue for no apparent reason, leaving simple tasks unfinished. These are my signs.</span></li>
<li style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Three things help me adjust more gracefully to the next change - staying as conscious and present to the immediate moment, paying attention to what is positive and works for me (rather than worrying about what's "right" or what others think I should do) and looking for creative solutions to the problems I can control. I'm far from mastering any of this. I wish I were more agile, but I guess I'm a work in progress.</span></li>
<li style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It is more helpful to me to challenge my own thinking than the thinking of everyone else. More satisfying, more possible, and more effective.</span></li>
<li style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I am more of an introvert than I ever would have suspected. But I also need to connect with someone every day, and seeing that person, if only on Zoom or Skype, is a pleasure. I love my little rescue dog, Rufus. I find myself talking to him a lot, but beyond wagging his tail and rolling over on his belly to be scratched, he can't answer me. He can't ask the question that helps me slow down my inner dialogue or evoke some laughter when I most need it.</span></li>
<li style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There is something exhilarating about solving my own problems. You'd think I had conquered Mt. Kilamanjaro whenever I solve a computer issue on my own.</span></li>
<li style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Nevertheless, I am still learning when to ask for help.</span></li>
<li style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">To quote Sheldon Kopp, "The world is not necessarily just. Being good often does not pay off and there is no compensation for misfortune. You have a responsibility to do your best nonetheless."</span></li>
<li style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Either/or thinking at best limits possibilities, at worst, it's creating havoc in our public life. I am striving to remain vigilant when I fall into that trap. </span></li>
<li style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It helps to focus on the possibilities inherent in all this change, as much as the breakdowns and problems that present themselves. I appreciate my home more. I relish my time with friends. Having learned that I can weather the depths of my grief over John's passing, I know I can weather the grief of my current disappointment and disillusion in my country. Eventually, if not now. I have a much neater home and I'm even learning to enjoy cooking and playing around with technology. </span> </li>
<li style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The little things. Thank heaven for a bumper crop of roses, a stranger who offers help, a breeze when it's hot and air conditioning (!), the desert sky at dusk, a friend who calls just to check in, a good piece of chocolate or a glass of homemade lemonade, a happy memory, the quote that helps me make sense of what I'm seeing or feeling or thinking, and always, my sweet little Rufus. The little things that are always available, just waiting to be noticed and appreciated. The little things that I am noticing and appreciating more than ever.</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Well, I can at least take some comfort in knowing I can't be called illiterate!</span></div>
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Angiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05754244704171281174noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3677955308548864718.post-12504244660453282382020-04-21T13:33:00.000-07:002020-04-21T13:33:16.299-07:00You Are Not Alone<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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"<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This is a longer and much different post that I intended to write in February. Life did indeed happen while I was making other plans. What follows is a compilation of excerpts from my personal journal. I share them, not to offer any profound insights or solutions, but in the hope that you can identify with some of my thoughts and emotions and find that at least a little comforting.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Mar. 3 - This virus - why am I only attending to it now? Apparently, it's been ravaging other countries for weeks now. This is the downside of not watching the news. How many other Americans are unaware of the problems that may be coming our way?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Mar. 4 - At a recent rally, the President actually said we could wake up one day and it would be gone. It's one thing for me to be oblivious, but the President?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Mar. 6 - Italy has shut down all of its schools. And still, we do not seem to be taking this seriously. This denial and even arrogance is astonishing and bodes serious concerns for us, I fear.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Mar. 9 - Why am I feeling such a sense of trepidation?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Mar. 11 - Italy is in complete lockdown. I just watched videos of Italians in Siena, Naples and somewhere in Sicily standing on their balconies singing together to try to uplift their spirits. One of my favorite memories is of a visit with friends to Siena on a bright afternoon, eating gelato among a throng of tourists. Today both husbands are gone, taken by cancer within the same week and Siena looks like a ghost town. I weep at the breadth of loss.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Mar. 12 - We've canceled our April and May luncheons. If our government won't give us a clear direction, we have to make decisions to protect our selves and our membership. I am so proud of this Board. And speaking of decisions, I am putting boundaries around watching the news. I've been glued to the TV, seeking information and recommendations from the scientific and medical communities. But too much information and I leapfrog across depression into despair. I need to pay as much attention to my mental and emotional health as I do my physical health.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Mar. 13 - Emerging voices are sounding an alarm that we are not prepared for a crisis of this magnitude. Not enough ICU beds, not enough supplies or personnel should this hit us the way it has hit Italy or Spain. Not enough people taking this seriously. The attack on science and our press in recent months has diminished their authority. I fear this pandemic is going to accentuate the cost of our political polarity and expose the underbelly of our society. We are certainly going to see an interesting cast of heroes and villains.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Mar. 14 - A FOX commentator asserting this is a hoax, accusing opponents of using the virus to embarrass the President. This is not helpful. We need facts and reliable information. How do I remain responsible and sane amidst comments like this and the name-calling and diatribe on TV and social media venues?! Boundaries, boundaries!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Mar. 15 - I just created a binder of lists - books to read, friends to contact, projects to complete, topics/ideas to explore, hobbies to take up again, etc. At least, it helped to restore a minimal sense of control.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Mar. 17 - I woke this morning and set about my usual routine - breakfast, taking a few moments to notice and appreciate the shrub beyond the courtyard wall in its coat of purple spring buds, then curling up in my favorite chair with my journal in hand. Then, I made the mistake of checking the stats - 4565 cases in the U.S. and 87 dead. The juxtaposition leaves me at best confused and at worst, anxious. And if I am anxious, retired </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">here in the safety of southwestern UT, what about all those millions of people out of work, many in congested cities? How are they coping?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Mar. 18 - Watching views of people ignoring the call for social distancing - or is it that they just don't care?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Mar. 19 - Sixteen months today since John died. I am taken by a wave of relief that he died when and how he died - his valiant heart simply giving up the struggle, in our home, his hand in mine, my sister here to support me. How would I have handled watching him struggle for air behind a glass barrier as I have seen images of people in just that circumstance? What if our doctors have to decide who they will try to save as Italian doctors are facing?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Mar. 21 - Structure, focus, mindfulness, gratitude - I cling to these words. Far too easy to descend into anxiety or outrage at the ineptitude of our federal government. Thank heaven for some of the governors who are showing up in this leadership vacuum.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Mar. 23 - Thankfully, I have much to be grateful for - friends checking in, the network of support I'm blessed with, learning to use new technology, spring weather, living in a relatively small and safe community, and always the companionship of my sweet rescue dog, Rufus.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Mar. 26 - The cloudbursts of personal grief seem to have subsided, blown away by the larger sense of loss, existential grief as it were. So much loss - jobs, security, trust in our institutions, in one another, in the belief that we will be strong enough, resilient enough, smart enough and united enough to emerge from this whole and healthy. My habit of recording five things to be grateful every night is a sanity saver.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Mar. 27 - I have to remember not to try to make sense out of nonsense - it's impossible and exhausting.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Mar. 28 - Thank heavens for images of individuals helping their older neighbors or the creative uses of technology to stay connected, or the generosity of some of our athletes and celebrities and the amazing courage and compassion of our health care workers. These images comprise a life preserver in this sea of uncertainty. They restore a sense of hope for me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That's enough for now. I hope this does as I had hoped for some of you out there - you are not alone.</span></div>
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Angiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05754244704171281174noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3677955308548864718.post-27654893020608943552020-01-28T16:35:00.000-08:002020-01-29T07:55:08.660-08:00Looking Back in Order to Look Forward<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"Sometimes you have to look back to be able to look forward."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It's that time of the year when I look back to see where I've been, what I've accomplished, and where I want to head in the coming year. I've done this every year for the past 35 years except last year. John had died in November and the best I could do was hope that I'd endure the grief and mourning that overwhelmed me - and I wasn't so sure about that.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So, this year I dared to pull out my private journals from 2018 and 2019 (six in all) and began to read, hesitantly, a few pages at a time. Knowing I would dredge up painful memories, bittersweet memories, but also, hopefully, memories that could sustain me and buoy up my tentative optimism for the coming year.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I had so many questions:</span></div>
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<li style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Had I been the compassionate companion I wanted to be? Did I do enough?</span></li>
<li style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What help and support meant the most to John, to me, to us?</span></li>
<li style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What help could I or should I have asked for sooner?</span></li>
<li style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Why was this past autumn so challenging? Why am I optimistic, even if cautiously, now?</span></li>
<li style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What have I learned from these past two years? How have they shaped me?</span></li>
<li style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What could I accomplish or contribute as a result? What calls to me?</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I've started at both ends of those 26 months, the early months after the diagnosis and the last months immediately preceding and succeeding his death. And the months of this previous autumn. It's glaringly obvious that this will take me more than a couple weeks to accomplish, as I write a minimum of two college-lined 8 1/2 x 11 pages every day and many of them are challenging to read. I've taken on a project that could well take a few months.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But this much I have learned already:</span></div>
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<li style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This past autumn was so challenging, in part, because the summer flew by with relative ease, and I became complacent. I was stunned by the impact of darker mornings and earlier dusks and much more anxious than I had anticipated for the impending anniversary of John's death as well as the holidays. My private journal pages contain more grief and anxiety than is my intention to share here. Not that I didn't share that with close friends and a counselor, but my intention here is to be helpful and as positive as possible.</span></li>
<li style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Speaking of intention, I was reminded that we promised each other from the very first week that, whatever came our way, we would handle it together with as much grace and dignity as we could muster. And my reading to date reaffirms that we did, some days better than others, of course, but we clung to that promise especially in the final weeks of his life.</span></li>
<li style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In the weeks following John's death, I was overcome with regrets. Normal, I'm told, but so very painful. It was, therefore, a gift, and an affirmation of the value of all that journal writing, to come across the passage where I captured one of the last things he said to me - "How was I ever so lucky to have found you?" He thought I did enough, more than enough. And today, that's good enough for me. </span></li>
<li style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Regarding support, I learned so much about support - especially about needing it, asking for it and accepting it willingly and graciously when offered. So much that it will be the topic of my next post(s), maybe eventually, a book. For me, looking back is helping me to rebuild a bruised sense of self-confidence, to reassure me that I will be ok, maybe stronger than ok, and to point optimistically to a future that holds purpose and satisfaction. </span></li>
<li style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I'm back.</span></li>
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Angiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05754244704171281174noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3677955308548864718.post-30383163870275779652019-10-07T08:29:00.000-07:002019-10-07T08:29:01.292-07:00Thank Goodness for the Little Things<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"In grief, the little things are </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the big things."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">~Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>Grief One Day at a Time</u></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have been expressing my thankfulness for little things in gratitude journals for over 40 years. This practice has been a support through divorce, illness, and times of conflict and stress, but never as much as these past months since John's death. So, upon coming across this quote recently, I decided to revisit the gratitude journal I've just completed to see what little things buoyed me up this past summer. Could it be that noticing and appreciating these things contributed to the summer being easier than I had dreaded? </span></div>
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<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">a bumper crop of roses - John would have been so pleased</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">a hummingbird hovering within inches of my face</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">chilled red grapes</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">a decent night's sleep</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and an afternoon nap on the patio chaise</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">figuring out how to program the TV on my own</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">frozen yogurt on a hot day</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">a good book - great writing, thought-provoking, elegant - the perfect book for the moment</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">an unexpected call from an old friend</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and an invitation for lunch from a new one</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">two dozen, yes two, yellow tulips (my favorite flower) from a friend, "just because"</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the desert sky at dusk</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">a slice of cheesecake that I treated myself to</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">chicken noodle soup when I'm under the weather</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">how much better everything sounds with my new hearing aids</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">finding an old love letter</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">a sudden, unexpected happy memory</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">a card, a joke, a silly gift - moments that evoked giggles, even outright belly laughs</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">a customer service agent who actually provides good service</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">helpful strangers who reach objects on top shelves without my asking (I'm only 4'11 and need all the help I can get)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">anyone who asks how I'm doing and is willing to hear the truth</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">friends who have walked this path before me and can reassure me that what I'm experiencing is normal</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">a stranger telling me how much she or he enjoyed John and misses him</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">old musicals - especially anything with Gene Kelly</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and gripping British mysteries</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">a good news story that sets the tone for a positive day</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">stumbling on an inspirational quote</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">finding something I've misplaced </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and always, always, my sweet Rufus, my little companion, who greets me with pirouettes and soft growls, tailing wagging, a guarantee I never walk into an empty house</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Reflecting a bit on this list, I can see that this simple practice of recording 3-5 little things I'm grateful for every night is, indeed, one of the little things that is helping me endure this grief. Without this as an established practice, I suspect I could find it almost impossible to notice the little things. For this enduring practice of finding gratitude for the little things, I am most grateful.</span></div>
Angiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05754244704171281174noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3677955308548864718.post-1662060466615450882019-09-10T13:36:00.000-07:002019-09-10T13:36:03.034-07:00How Could I Forget?<div style="text-align: center;">
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"<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">~ John Lennon</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Where did the summer go? I had so many plans - plans to write, maybe travel a bit, complete reorganizing the house, lose 10 pounds (again), and of course, deal with this on-going grief as it was sure to arise.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Then, life happened. It interrupted my plans in late May when I woke in the middle of the night with an attack of vertigo, the room spinning, my stomach churning, and the realization that should I fall, no one would know. A realization that brought on a wave of grief and anxiety I hadn't known since the days immediately following John's death in November.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It was this event that set into motion a series of challenges and decisions that would occupy several following weeks. First, the diagnosis of Positional Vertigo, exercises to correct it, weeks of unsteadiness and incipient nausea, and always the fear of falling. Then, hearing testing and hearing aids. Followed by a balance assessment and the warning that my balance was so poor that I was in danger of falling, with or without vertigo.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For a while, it seemed that each new attempt to resolve a problem only led to the identification of another problem. It took all of my emotional energy to avoid holding a major pity party for myself. Needless to say, I didn't travel, didn't write beyond my personal journal pages, and comfort snacking didn't do much for a diet! So much for plans.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Ultimately, I did resolve my health challenges. I enrolled in a balance course and made significant inroads in organizing the house. I got an alert system which has alleviated much of my concern about</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> being alone. And while I haven't lost weight, I haven't gained any - a small victory considering all the stress!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">So, as dawn arrives later every day and dusk settles sooner, as autumn is in the air and I anticipate the first anniversary of John's death, my second Thanksgiving and Christmas without him, I could easily descend into anxiety and trepidation. However, the greatest accomplishment of this summer has been to remind me, not that life happens while I'm making other plans, but that I have the resiliency, the skills and support to deal with it. I almost forgot. </span></div>
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Angiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05754244704171281174noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3677955308548864718.post-23033461700320612542019-06-09T20:10:00.000-07:002019-06-09T20:10:45.223-07:00Just Not Yet<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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"<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I love Dr. Seuss and I so want to believe this. I can recognize that I am making progress, for sure. In those first few weeks after John died, I despaired of remembering him other than from those last six months when he declined so significantly, losing weight, losing his ability to drive, losing his eyesight, eventually needing my help for even the most rudimentary tasks. I panicked when I couldn't remember the silly little jingle he created and sang only in the shower. I couldn't sleep in our bed, couldn't ward off the regrets. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I turned to a multitude of grief books, hoping to find that someone else, anyone else, who felt the way I did. Thankfully, I found the reassurance I was looking forward. Not crazy, not unusual to feel so frantic. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Then one morning, out of nowhere, the jingle emerged as I was waking up. Gradually, sweet memories from those last six months returned. How pleased he was that our little rescue dog, Rufus, and I had "found each other." </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">How he would sing to me, "Have I told you lately that I love you?" several times a day. </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> How, when I asked if he knew how much I loved him, his response was "and do you know how much that mattered?" How he always expressed his gratitude to me, to his doctor, to the home health care and hospice nurses who cared for him. Memories that, though they first brought tears, could also evoke a smile. Not either/or but both.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: helvetica neue, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">In recent months, other memories have returned, sometimes initiated deliberately by someone sharing a common experience. Or when I have had the courage to sit with photo albums or my basket of all the cards he sent me over the years. When I have had the courage to go through a travel journal - our trips to Tuscany or the one to Sicily when we came upon a relative of mine sitting on a doorstep in her housecoat and flannel slippers, a scene from a Fellini movie. Or the photos from the helicopter ride down the face of the Jurassic Falls. How thrilled he was to sit beside the pilot. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: helvetica neue, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">There are the memories that pop up unexpectedly - when it's dusk and I can hear him call to me to "come see this. You won't believe the sky." Or when I wake in the morning and recall how he would ask how I slept. Hearing that Tiger Woods won the Masters and knowing he would have said, "I told you so." Walking into the local Starbucks and ordering an iced tea the way he would have.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: helvetica neue, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">The intimate memories - the night we met in a "bar in Kansas City." Well, an elegant lounge actually, but he loved telling everyone it was a bar. Our wedding, the way he hovered when I had breast cancer, the beautiful messages he wrote on every card until he could no longer even sign his name. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: helvetica neue, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">There isn't a day now when yet another memory emerges. Bidden, unbidden. Most of the time I can smile, well, at least smile first. Am I at the point when I don't cry? Not yet. Will there come a day when I can simply smile because it happened? Maybe, hopefully, but just not yet.</span><br />
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Angiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05754244704171281174noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3677955308548864718.post-36800948647193674152019-04-10T14:01:00.000-07:002019-04-10T14:01:17.026-07:00This Much I Know<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"Healing in grief is a lot like the onset of spring. It's unreliable and fickle."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">~ Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Unreliable and fickle. Certainly my experience. It's uncanny how this spring my inner mood so reflects the weather - or is it vice versa? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Some days, the skies are gunmetal gray and the temperatures have dropped by ten degrees. It's all I can do to get out of my nightgown and accomplish anything. A song, a telephone conversation, an unexpected request related to John's death and I'm weeping. A grief burst to rival the cloudbursts that have been all too common this spring. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Some days, I wake to sunshine and the expectation of a good day, but by noon, banks of gray clouds roll in and the threat of yet another cloudburst increases by the hour. On these days, it takes so little to unleash my own cloudburst of tears. For how could those grief experts who warn you to prepare for the first anniversary or birthday or holiday know how easily I can fall apart at the sight of the first tulip, remembering the delight he took in planting them. Or the sight of the first hummingbird, reminding me that he is not here to fill the feeder. Or how even anticipating the first roses brings tears as I know he will never again bring in a </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">fresh rose in the morning to greet my day, How could they know?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Lately, however, there are days when I think I'm making progress through the forest of my grief. The sun shines. It's warm and a breeze whispers the shrubbery. I have energy, look forward to the day and getting out and among folks. The memories are sweet. I barely shed a tear. I even laugh. On these days, I can believe there will be</span> <span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">more such days, </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">hopefully</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">, many more.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So, this much I have come to know about this path I'm walking - </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">the</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> journey <i>is</i>, at best, unreliable and fickle.</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Grief bursts are to be expected at the most unexpected times. They are a part of the journey, but they, like spring showers, eventually pass. </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So, </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I do best when I take it a day at a time, some days an hour at a time. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I know that quotes like the above help me to make sense of my experience. I know that the good </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">days</span>,<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> and there are good days, are cause for celebration. </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The good </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">days</span>,<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> and there are more good days, are cause for optimism.</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I know that somehow, someday, the firsts will not overwhelm me. I know that I will survive, and maybe, just maybe, even thrive again. Even if, today, the clouds roll in again.</span></div>
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Angiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05754244704171281174noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3677955308548864718.post-14521449541000587182019-02-11T10:45:00.000-08:002019-02-11T10:45:12.031-08:00I Am No Stranger to Grief<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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"<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Grief is not a train track toward acceptance. Instead, it is more of a 'getting lost in the woods.'"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">~ Alan D. Wolfelt, PhD</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am no stranger to grief. I have walked the path of grief alone and as a companion of family members and friends many times in my 78 years. I have grieved openly over the assassinations of my youth and the shootings too common these past few years. I am no stranger to grief.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So I thought I was prepared for John's death. I was naive enough to think I was "ready". Moreover, I was more concerned that I would be relieved rather than bereaved. I wasn't - either ready or relieved. I was shocked, that the pain and fear and regret were so crippling; also shocked that I was shocked.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It has been 12 weeks now, 12 weeks today, and the initial shock waves after subsided. I have put my feet forward into the woods, deliberately, albeit with no small measure of anxiety and trepidation. It is helping to think of this as a journey on an unchartered path through a dense forest. This metaphor helps me when I'm going along, seemingly upright and grief descends like an unexpected branch that smacks me in the chest or an unseen root sending me tumbling face forward to the ground. It helps when is a ray of sunshine breaks through the canopy of grief and for a moment I feel guilty that I feel OK.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm pretty sure not everyone thinks in metaphors nor finds solace in them, but this one works for me. Grief as a path, an unchartered path through a dark forest. A path that one has to create slowly, carefully, a step at a time. Sometimes moving in the wrong direction, sometimes stumbling, sometimes frightened and disillusioned, but eventually finding the clearing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I remind myself that I am no stranger to grief. I may not have been lost in so vast, so dark a forest before, but I have made it through a miscarriage, a divorce, the loss and betrayal of friends, my own cancer - I will survive. Someday, I may even thrive again.</span></div>
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Angiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05754244704171281174noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3677955308548864718.post-86110702637091917362019-01-01T14:17:00.001-08:002019-01-01T14:38:16.342-08:00To Remember<div style="text-align: center;">
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" 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"<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Promise me you'll always remember:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">You're braver than you believe,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">And stronger than you seem, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">And smarter than you think."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">~ </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Christopher Robin to Pooh</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I gave a plaque with this quote to John two years ago, at the beginning of his valiant battle with a rare cancer of the blood, a battle he lost the Monday before Thanksgiving. I wanted him to cling to these words, wanted him to remember every day through the hundreds of transfusions he received, through his steady decline how much I believed in him. How brave and strong and smart I knew him to be.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Then I forgot that I had given it to him. He never used the words brave, or strong, or smart when people marveled at how resilient he seemed, how courageous, how amazing that he survived beyond the initial prognosis of six months. Instead, publicly he would credit it to his orneriness or stubbornness. Privately, he would declare that he expected a miracle. For hadn't he survived non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, several bouts of skin cancer. He was going to beat these odds, too, and be the first to defeat what we had been told was incurable. He didn't use the words, but every day he lived them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I forgot about it as I sent him more cards, found other plaques, penned letters of acknowledgment and gratitude and encouragement, and grieved as I watched him decline, eventually surrender to Home Health Care, and finally to Hospice services. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Then, on a day following his death, when I could muster the courage to check out his computer and immediate surroundings, I found the plaque and shared it with my sister who had come to be with us, to be with me. She encouraged me to place it where I could see it. Where it could serve me as surely it had served him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So, it now rests on my bedside table where it nudges me to remind myself in the morning and in the evening, in the moments when grief and loneliness descend on me like a sudden thunderstorm, when I fear I haven't enough years left to ever feel content again, that</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I repeat the words and hope someday I'll believe them. Just not yet.</span></div>
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Angiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05754244704171281174noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3677955308548864718.post-82728122466206243112018-06-13T13:33:00.000-07:002018-06-13T13:33:21.027-07:00Who Will Remember?<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"I never wanted to be the eldest."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I haven't thought of this comment in years. Many years. Dad made it at the news of the death of his remaining older brother over 25 years ago. Dad was just about the age I am today. I didn't pursue the comment. Maybe it was because I am the eldest child and grandchild and had never given it much thought at the point. Maybe I feared I'd make both of us uncomfortable discussing why he felt that way. Maybe I arrogantly assumed I understood. </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Whatever - I just let it pass, one more comment to file away. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Until recently, when I caught a video of my remaining uncle, now in his 80's, suddenly frail, undoubtedly old. In the weeks that have followed, my dad's comment has popped up at the most unexpected moments. Finally, I suspect I understand. When this uncle dies, when I am the eldest in the clan, who will remember?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: helvetica neue, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">For, it's not only that this uncle is the last of his generation. </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">In many ways, he was more an older brother than an uncle. </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">We lived under the same roof at the end of World War II. He consoled me and tried to protect me when the stress of that household at that time was too much for a little girl. </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">He took me </span>trick<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> or treating. He fixed my plate at the buffet when we celebrated my great-grandmother's 100th birthday. He was there when I was baptized, and when I received Holy Communion. He remembers the day Grandma gave up her icebox for a refrigerator, what it took to keep the coal burning furnace going, the snowstorm that crippled the city in 1947.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">He was the first male in the family to get a college degree; I was the first female. He was the first to leave the city and his family to serve in Korea. I was the first to leave the city and never return.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">When he dies, there will be no one left who knows where I began, who can appreciate even remotely what it has taken to be who and where I am today. There will be no one else who remembers. I'm not sure this is what Dad meant when he made that comment so many years ago. But I rather suspect I'm in the ballpark.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I know there are scientific reasons given for why we older folks begin to dwell on memories of our younger selves. But what if it isn't also that we reach a point when we are the eldest and there is no one else who remembers?</span><br />
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Angiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05754244704171281174noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3677955308548864718.post-50251608070866731412018-05-04T17:23:00.000-07:002018-05-04T17:23:32.280-07:00Because He Listens<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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"<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The first duty of love is to listen.</span>"<br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I write this as we approach our 35th, and I fear our last, wedding anniversary. We met 38 years ago, Aug. 18, 1980, to be exact. In a bar in Kansas City, as the song goes. Just 15 minutes before I had determined to leave. I was there with a colleague, sharing with her the highlight of a long road trip I had taken alone, so proud of what I had done.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">John walked in with a friend to celebrate a successful business transaction and sat at a nearby table. His first trip to Kansas City, he asked a question of his friend that the man could not answer. But I could, and without much thought, did.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We continued to talk - about the city, and then work, and backgrounds and interests - and he listened, at a level I had rarely experienced.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When we parted, we exchanged telephone numbers in case I ever got to Cleveland, his home base. In case he ever visited Kansas City again. Which I seriously doubted. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The next day, I told my mother that I had met someone who, though I was sure I would never see again, gave me hope that there might be someone with whom I could build a lasting, supportive relationship. In fact, I told her, were we to live in the same city I was sure we would end up married.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">He called the following Sunday morning just to talk. And he listened. As he did every Sunday morning for weeks. And eventually every Wednesday evening, and eventually every night. As he did throughout the challenges of determining how to create a lasting relationship across miles and different careers, across different backgrounds and commitments, across significant hesitations and considerations. Somehow, even when he became most fearful or I became most frustrated and angry, he strove to listen.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And I came to realize that for all the reasons I had come to love him, at the top of the list was that he always listened, no matter how difficult the conversation. I moved to Cleveland, and we married in l983.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That foundation of talking and listening through the tough conversations has served us well. Sustained us through several moves, career changes, presidential campaigns, caregiving for my elderly parents, and battles with cancer. It continues to be a basic survival skill as we deal with this, the greatest challenge we have ever faced, the most difficult conversations we have ever had to have. Still, he listens. I have never loved him more.</span></div>
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Angiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05754244704171281174noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3677955308548864718.post-3808868279316341072018-02-26T15:40:00.000-08:002018-02-27T07:15:10.325-08:00Coming Full Circle<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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"<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We never know from one day to the next what surprise lurks around the corner</span>."</div>
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~<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> Joy Loverde, <u>Who Will Take Care of Me When I'm Old</u> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I know, heaven knows I know, what Joy is talking about. From the major surprises like disease, death, or natural disasters to the minor surprises like a garage door that suddenly won't open or a burst water pipe or a flat tire, we never know. But we also never know when we'll meet someone who will change the course of our lives or pick up a book that gives us the answer we've been looking for for months. Or, as happened to me last week, the information that I made a difference in someone's life who continues to make a far greater difference than I ever could have made.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Joy is an old friend. We go back over 25 years. More than a friend, more like a much younger sister or the daughter I never had or would have been proud to have had. There was a day when she asked to come in for a coaching session as she wanted to talk about a career change. A change from the marketing career at which she was skilled, experienced and successful. A change to something that would use those skills for something that made a bigger difference than promoting someone else's product or business.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I remember that conversation as though it happened yesterday. I've shared the experience of it many times in coachings and trainings in the years that followed. I asked Joy only one question. "What issues are you passionate about - in what arena would you like to make a difference?" She answered quickly - "The way children are treated and the way old people are treated." I then suggested she go home and choose the one she would like to focus on and think about how she could apply her skills and talents to the problems she saw.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It was as simple as that. She returned shortly saying she had chosen to approach the issue of eldercare and knew exactly how she might carve out a new career. What followed was her first book, <u>The Complete Elder Care Planner</u>, speaking engagements, workshops, consulting and ultimately recognition as a major contributor in the growing eldercare advisory industry.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Fast forward to a week ago. I was searching for a book, any book that might address the overwhelm I was feeling about a future without my husband. The perfect book appeared, at least the title suggested that it might be. As though the author could read my mind - <u>Who Will Take Care of Me When I'm Old.</u> And the author - Joy Loverde, my Joy. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I downloaded it immediately and started to read it. Exactly as I expected, it is well-written, well-researched, clear and compassionate. But what I didn't expect was to find my name in her acknowledgments. After all these years. I didn't expect the tears, gratitude, and the profound sense of satisfaction and delight that almost overwhelmed me. To know that I had influenced someone who now influences so many others and will continue to do so. And that I am now a recipient of what was set in motion in that simple conversation long ago. We have come full circle. And t</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">hat knowledge, in itself, may be more important to me than anything in the book.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>*If you found this helpful or know someone who might, please share and like my page.</i></span></div>
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Angiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05754244704171281174noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3677955308548864718.post-19640137995189291212018-02-13T12:52:00.001-08:002018-02-16T14:35:28.712-08:00Random Acts of Kindness<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6ekt_GbEp51hiTls6Xoqi_QithNT5nzO_HaEhBQOpPpqjUn7LHI1zhOqkdZKHJgBlVKP-tAIyRD1_7wBkLTsQX6Rar5lgeUsqX1nuORI7QlqB92NdEZlewKPxt-JLC6QiwRxOipO2hoY/s1600/helping+hands.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="191" data-original-width="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6ekt_GbEp51hiTls6Xoqi_QithNT5nzO_HaEhBQOpPpqjUn7LHI1zhOqkdZKHJgBlVKP-tAIyRD1_7wBkLTsQX6Rar5lgeUsqX1nuORI7QlqB92NdEZlewKPxt-JLC6QiwRxOipO2hoY/s1600/helping+hands.jpg" /></a></div>
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"<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Unexpected kindness is the most powerful, least costly, most underrated agent of human change."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">~ <span style="font-size: x-small;">Bob Kerrey</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I woke this morning to a damp and dreary day. A good day to rest, read, and reflect - especially since we are still recouping from our recent trip to MD Anderson Cancer Center.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This trip can take a lot out of us. It's not just that air travel has become more difficult. It's also the emotional stress of not knowing what we might hear from the hematologist, the physical stress of pushing John everywhere in a wheelchair, the physical stress for him of yet another bone marrow biopsy. And when we're done, managing another day of travel and our morale for at least another week until we receive the biopsy report.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We've made this trip three times within 17 months. Each with a similar routine, yet each yielding radically different reactions. The first visit we met with the hematologist assigned to us, an austere Russian trained research physician, whose honesty bordered on bluntness, a shocking confrontation with reality while we were already shell-shocked. By our second visit, she was warmer, gentler, but the news she delivered still bleak and unpromising. Still no cure on the horizon. No appropriate clinical trials available. And her concern for John's appearance disconcerting. The biopsy took two attempts, and the results still were inconclusive. Overall, every bit as challenging a visit. Maybe even more so.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It was a surprise, therefore, when we both affirmed as we left our accommodations that this trip was a much more positive experience even though we couldn't pinpoint why at first. Yes, our doctor was even warmer, more personable, more patient with our questions, clearer with her answers. But still no cure, no appropriate clinical trials. The biopsy went smoother. But still no results yet.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And then it hit us in the airport as someone offered to help with our luggage. This what was different. The constant stream of kindness that had enveloped us the entire trip. People who lifted luggage without being asked. People who held doors and offered help with the wheelchair. People who not only gave directions but walked with us to be sure we were headed the right way - and not because they were paid to do so. People who smiled first. People who genuinely seemed pleased to see us and willing to listen. People who reminded me with every gesture that there are wonderful, kind and decent people all around us.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Simple, unrequested, unexpected acts of kindness. I'd like to think I would always be aware of and grateful for them. But I suspect they have meant so much more because I am so much more aware of our fragility, so much more susceptible to cynicism and despair. Powerful, inexpensive but not underrated in this household.</span></div>
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Angiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05754244704171281174noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3677955308548864718.post-100868178468183002018-02-05T18:12:00.000-08:002018-02-16T14:49:11.508-08:00One Step at a Time<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3fK4ay0_yTA0DxGcXRjOEK002YWZ0c5HtKqQfaia5dEaVzI_14iy2yJt_tOcVHqB2vZMvzrEEcmsUXZmIvxMWh-1_xeDeBEVKc0mYiQ4iL8TnzThu2_pgWCWHjBmAWnM_xs3IxJ4UEFU/s1600/mountain-landscape-2031539_960_720.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="960" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3fK4ay0_yTA0DxGcXRjOEK002YWZ0c5HtKqQfaia5dEaVzI_14iy2yJt_tOcVHqB2vZMvzrEEcmsUXZmIvxMWh-1_xeDeBEVKc0mYiQ4iL8TnzThu2_pgWCWHjBmAWnM_xs3IxJ4UEFU/s320/mountain-landscape-2031539_960_720.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"Mountains cannot be surmounted except by winding paths."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">~<span style="font-size: x-small;"> Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As much as I love a good quote and have notebooks and computer files filled with them, I have committed very few to memory. This quote by Goethe is the most recent.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In reflecting on how few I have memorized, I realize there are three reasons a quote makes the cut - it conveys something I already believe but with fewer and more impactful words, it evokes a feeling or belief I wasn't aware I have, or most importantly, it challenges and impacts the way I am thinking. This quote falls into the third category.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Prior to coming upon the quote, I was most influenced in the way I think about life and its challenges by a transaction with a friend in December l999. We had just moved to Vegas with my mother, who was grieving the sudden death of my dad that October. Determined to give her a decent Christmas and reassure her that this was now her home, exhausted and grieving myself, I nonetheless pulled out all the stops and decorated the house (with many boxes still unpacked in the garage) and invited friends for a holiday party. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The evening hadn't progressed very long when my friend pulled me aside to paraphrase the Breda O'Connor quote and remind me that my future as my mother's caregiver was a marathon and not a sprint - a simple, immediate, and effective image for me. So effective that I clung to that image for the next 18 years, through caregiving for mom, my battle with breast cancer and John's stem cell treatment for non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. And it served me well.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But today, soon to be 77, once again a caregiver, the metaphor or image of running a race, even if a marathon and not a sprint, is no longer helpful. Not that I would have recognized this were it not for stumbling on this quote. Somehow the image of walking a winding path feels more congruent with my experiences these past 18 months since John was diagnosed with a currently incurable form of MDS. Plugging uphill, with unpredictable switchbacks, dips in the road, obstacles to be cleared or avoided, moments when I can barely breathe, the path ahead poorly marked - yes, a winding path up a mountainside. The more I have reflected on this quote, the more validating it has become. The more helpful it looms for the months ahead.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I don't know the shape of the mountain ahead of us or how far up the path we will make it together, but I do know, without a doubt, that it will be winding and circuitous, in spots even treacherous. I do know that we can and will take it one step at a time.</span><br />
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Angiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05754244704171281174noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3677955308548864718.post-27541565954134254102018-01-13T06:38:00.000-08:002018-01-14T11:48:25.479-08:00Rest and Re-creation<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"Rested, we are ready for the world but not held hostage by it, rested we care again for the right things and the right people in the right way."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">~ <span style="font-size: x-small;">David Whyte, <u>Consolations</u></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It's been a long three weeks. Coughing fits that left me exhausted, a tissue box a day head cold, aches, fitful sleeping. Not the way I'd hoped to spend the holidays. Not what I wanted, but perhaps, exactly what I needed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Time to nap, to catch up on taped TV shows and movies, to listen to some favorite music, to read (and reread <u>Consolations</u>) without the usual demands and commitments that the holidays can present. More important, time to reflect on the past year, a particularly difficult year at that, and to consider possibilities for the coming one, as I have done for the past 34 years.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In the past, I would sit down with pen in hand over a couple days and create an elaborate list of goals, with a detailed action plan of tasks and deadlines and resources. Elaborate, detailed and even if not totally achieved, enough to keep me focused and feeling somewhat responsible and successful. In retrospect, however, many of these goals were what I thought I <i>should</i> pursue, what my company or family or obligations required. What the goal setting books advised. What I advised others to do. Responsible and successful, but also too often driven and stressful. Regretting what I didn't get done as much as taking satisfaction in what I did.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This year, partly due to the debilitating nature of my cold, partly because of my reflections on the past year's challenges and stressors, and partly due to the uncertainty of John's prognosis, I decided to just let go and see what emerged more naturally. To not be "held hostage" by external goals, by "shoulds" and "ought to's" over which I have little control anyway. Rather, to commit to broad objectives that felt right for me as well as for the people I love and for my community. Simple objectives - like spend quality time every day with John, take care of my health at a level equal to the demands of our lives, create something and learn something every day if possible, enjoy - really enjoy - our home and friends, listen to good music, read good literature, commit some time to an organization whose mission I believe in. And equally important, to remember to rest at a level commensurate with these commitments. Objectives, not goals. Commitments, not resolutions. Direction, not destination.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For, whatever 2018 may hold, I aim to deal with it with grace and equanimity, to be content and satisfied with my choices, and to arrive next January with a grateful heart and a healthy body. </span><br />
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Angiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05754244704171281174noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3677955308548864718.post-30719176536650524772017-12-20T13:11:00.000-08:002018-02-16T14:50:02.079-08:00It Was a Very Good Day<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"How beautiful a day can be when kindness touches it."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I made a promise to myself at Thanksgiving that this holiday season, possibly our last together, would be one of our best, something for John to brighten his days, something to cherish for the rest of my life. I made lists of possible activities, moments that could qualify as special, places we enjoy, meals I'd prepare - and I don't like to cook. That weekend I took extra care to create festive touches in every room, even the bathrooms. I spent an entire day just on the Christmas tree. And crossed my fingers, hoping that my vision would become reality in the following weeks. Hoping I'd hear him say that this was the best holiday ever.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Then, unexpectedly, unplanned, the telephone call from old friends, friends of three-plus decades. Friends whose wedding we stood up for 32 years ago, friends whose conversations pick up where they left off even if months go by without contact. Could they come out for a visit? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">They arrived last week. And we did what old friends do - got caught up on each other's lives, shared wine, ate out, gossiped, laughed, reminisced, offered help without being asked for it, wished we lived closer. And each of the three nights they were here, John commented to me, "This was such a nice day." </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Each day was a nice day, but I will cherish one in particular. The two men went off for the day, a special treat for John, a day to spend with this man who in many ways has been as much a younger brother as a friend. A chance to say things he might not say to me for wanting to protect me. A chance to say what each needed to say in case this would be the last time they saw each other.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And they did just that. When I asked John what they had talked about, at first he answered simply, "Love." And then, "Of our love for one another and our special bond and how much I have touched his life." And then, "I cannot tell you what that meant to me. To know I made such a difference to such a good man." </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There are other memories to create this holiday, but we have already had our Christmas. John's days are brighter, I will always remember our conversation and cherish the man whose kindness and support made it possible. A very good day, indeed.</span><br />
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Angiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05754244704171281174noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3677955308548864718.post-5771702813427381392017-12-04T07:20:00.000-08:002017-12-04T07:20:21.079-08:00Reflections on Christmas Past<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: helvetica neue, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I woke the other day with the sudden realization that this is my 76th Christmas and a flood of childhood Christmas memories washed over me. For no apparent reason. No dreams that I could recall. No family traditions binding me to the past.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Then again, I have been decorating with a vengeance and friends have called to say they will be visiting. And I have indulged in more than a few Hallmark holiday movies. You know the ones, filled with romance and fantasy, ideal families and happy endings. Simple plots and enough good cheer to last all year.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: helvetica neue, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Our family was not filled with good cheer. Money was tight. Relations could be strained. But, somehow, we were at our best at Christmas. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: helvetica neue, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I loved watching my mother bake cookies for weeks starting right after Thanksgiving. Enough chocolate chips and pecan snowballs, Spritz and sugar cookies, pinwheels and ladyfingers to fill the turkey roasting pan and several large bowls. All made with real butter and leaving an aroma that filled the house for weeks. Enough to give packages to all the family who came to visit. And they came - all six brothers of my dad, and the two brothers and a sister of my mom, and their children. They flowed in and out for days.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: helvetica neue, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I loved decorating the real tree, purchased only a week or so before the holidays and laden with family heirlooms and silver tinsel that had to be layered a string at a time - I remember feeling so grown up when I was finally allowed to do so. And the cards, checking the mail every day to see if we received a card from someone Mom had sent one to, her cards signed in red ink for the season. She would read them, looking for a message, and then tape them to the archway to the living room. And count them, every year.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: helvetica neue, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">The other sure sign of the season - the music. Not only did Mom enjoy the traditional Christmas carols, (well, I think Rudolph was tolerated), but once we attended Catholic school, I sang in the church choir. And Midnight Mass was the second time Dad could be dragged to church, Easter being the other. Such a treat to get "dressed up" and sing before my parents.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: helvetica neue, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">And of course, the food. Both Mom and Nonna were great cooks. We celebrated Christmas Eve with Nonna who made pizza, from scratch naturally, and fried the leftover dough and rolled it in sugar, a treat for the grandkids. Then, returned for Christmas Day to a feast that took days to prepare and almost as long to clean up after.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: helvetica neue, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Gifts were simple - coloring books and crayons, puzzles, roller skates, a game. And always pajamas and for me, and later my baby sister, a dress that Mom sewed. Gifts that appeared while we were at Nonna's. Gifts that I discovered Mom and Dad had bought when I finally noticed that Santa's name was always signed in red ink. Gifts that were given and received with love and appreciation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: helvetica neue, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">We were at our best at Christmas. I think I'll bake cookies this year.</span></div>
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Angiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05754244704171281174noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3677955308548864718.post-20086114173402614802017-11-19T22:32:00.001-08:002017-11-19T22:32:26.762-08:00My Hero<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"You must bear losses like a soldier, a voice told me, bravely and without complaint, and just when the day seems lost, grab your shield for another stand, another thrust forward. That is the juncture that separates heroes from the merely strong."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; text-align: left;">I admit it, I'm addicted to quotes. I can spend hours trolling quote sites whenever I get interested in a topic, but especially when preparing to blog. And I did so when I decided to post this week on the topic of loss. Because loss is ever present in our lives these days. Not just the constant presence of the Ghost of Christmas Future, but the onslaught of loss that John has been experiencing of late. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; text-align: left;">I set out to find a quote that might capture the feelings I have experienced as I watch him. My concern as I see him walk more slowly, tire more easily, require still another transfusion. The sorrow I felt when he recently divested himself of his business, his "baby" that he nurtured for almost 30 years. The heartbreak of watching him sell his car, accepting that the progression of his macular degeneration necessitates my chauffering. The loss of stamina and energy, the loss of a piece of his identity, the loss of freedom and independence. Loss upon loss. I hate this for him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; text-align: left;">And then I came upon the above quote and literally, in the moment, realized that this is how John thinks about loss and that the feelings I need to hold onto are my profound respect and gratitude for how he is managing his. For he doesn't complain, doesn't even see complaining as a choice. He takes life a day at a time, reorganizes quickly, and moves forward as best he can with amazing agility and dignity. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; text-align: left;">I have often described my husband as resilient or persistent. Strong. But now, heroic. My hero - and he will never lose that.</span></div>
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Angiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05754244704171281174noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3677955308548864718.post-72472272125883208702017-11-05T06:53:00.001-08:002017-11-05T06:53:25.624-08:00Cherish Is the Word <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The word cherish is in my reading vocabulary, but not much in my speaking or writing. Oh, I had promised it would be 15 years ago when I fought breast cancer and realized how many people cared about me. When I noticed how much I hadn't noticed. When I vowed I would be more present, more attentive, more grateful. When I realized how much I had to not only be grateful for, but to cherish and cherish deeply. </span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> For, to be grateful for a red rose or a pretty sunset, to be glad a friend called can become an intellectual exercise, a momentary acknowledgment, a good habit, but a habit nonetheless. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My intention was confirmed and reaffirmed when, two years later, John was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins, and he received his stem cell transplant. And survived.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'd like to say I've lived the dozen or so years since then having kept my promise to myself, but I haven't. I became distracted, caught up with retirement, and moving, and planning and preparing, more everyday tasks and chores. I didn't even catch myself up short when John was diagnosed again a year ago. After all, more tasks to get our "house in order." More planning and preparation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Then, last weekend a series of sweet, small events gave me pause. Telephone calls from old and new friends to see how we are holding up. To remind me they are here for us. A visit with dear friends who were about to move. And another from friends we left behind when we moved. Hugs and words of endearment and encouragement. And tears that flowed for days - with sadness and gratitude. So much, so many to cherish. How could I have forgotten?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Why does it take a crisis for some of us to remember? To cherish what we have now. To cherish deeply what we have now.</span></div>
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Angiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05754244704171281174noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3677955308548864718.post-28982005102034735532017-10-18T21:49:00.000-07:002018-02-16T16:41:43.638-08:00Standing in a Hammock<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"So, how was Houston? What did you learn?" "How is John?" "How are you holding up?"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Today, three weeks since our trip to MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, I would answer these questions somewhat differently than when we first returned, having the advantage of hindsight. First, Houston was in better shape as a city than we had anticipated, remaining water viewed more from the air than in the area of the Center. The Center itself as busy, as challenging to navigate as ever. The sight of so many folks in distress as difficult to handle. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But for us, the fact that they could not get a sufficient bone marrow sample added stress and uncertainty as we had traveled there specifically to check the progress of John's disease. </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What we did learn was that currently there were no clinical trials available to pursue. And that we would have to wait another week for whatever further information could be retrieved from the sample. The best advice we received was to resume monthly chemotherapy treatments.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I would have said on the morning we left Houston that nothing much had changed as a result of the trip. And then, in the airport, waiting for our departure, I heard John tell a friendly stranger that he has an incurable cancer and is not sure he will survive another year. Something I had never heard him acknowledge before, even at times seemed unable to acknowledge. It broke my heart - and it was such a relief.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For, it has been very challenging for me to hold the reality of this prognosis without impacting his optimism, his conviction that he could endure this long enough for a cure to be found. That, at least there might be a clinical trial that would provide a better treatment plan. After all, he beat cancer before. That optimism, however, has been an obstacle to getting our "ducks in a row" should he or before he loses this battle.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Oddly enough, admitting this is a possibility, even a probability has decreased our stress and anxiety. Rather than be depressed, it has brought us both a sense of calm relief and purpose. And subsequently, we have adjusted our expectations and aligned behind a commitment we can manage. We are focusing on three months at a time and a laundry list of to do's that keeps us grounded, energized and in tandem. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So, how am I doing? I told someone recently that I'm learning to ride the waves. "No," she said, "you're learning to stand in a hammock."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And John, well, he recently reminded me that doctors could be wrong.</span><br />
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Angiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05754244704171281174noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3677955308548864718.post-26818912429737820192017-10-04T17:33:00.000-07:002017-10-05T17:01:08.332-07:00When You Need Somebody - Part II<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWjWeHRocAA0BvpzANL6ibd-7xuonEATApgkzlAFK8dG2GWq68JPPYfIh9etLJa-5V1IaJMylBG1cT0cLtiE1bvSXomGavd4taXYN6oPWH2sE-knqx3UsAL1pYcxqCobcs7Q4waoPTUTU/s1600/kindness.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="401" data-original-width="500" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWjWeHRocAA0BvpzANL6ibd-7xuonEATApgkzlAFK8dG2GWq68JPPYfIh9etLJa-5V1IaJMylBG1cT0cLtiE1bvSXomGavd4taXYN6oPWH2sE-knqx3UsAL1pYcxqCobcs7Q4waoPTUTU/s200/kindness.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It's been a few days since we've returned from MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Although we've made this trip many times, this was especially draining - physically, mentally and emotionally. Not just because we're older or that this cancer John is fighting is currently incurable, but also because we're more sensitive to the pain and grief around us. And as this center is the foremost of its kind in the country, perhaps in the world, the presence of pain and grief is profound and palpable. Not only do they deal with the most severe and rarest cases of cancer, but the patients they see are younger and younger. It's not unusual to meet someone who is caring for a young son or daughter with leukemia or to turn a corner and see a toddler with a bald head, wearing a mask and pulling a tiny chemo caddy. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But the trip was also draining emotionally because I was so much more sensitive to the small, spontaneous acts of kindness from strangers that I hadn't thought of before now as a form of support. Small moments of generosity and consideration when I least expected it -the two women who came up behind me to push John's wheelchair when they saw me pause, concerned it would get away from me down a ramp. Women I didn't know, didn't ask. Or the people who came out of nowhere to hold open the elevator for us or just smile when we passed. The shuttle drivers who remembered our names, the various service people who exhibited remarkable patience and compassion as we, and others, fumbled for change, or couldn't find what we were looking for. </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The nurse practitioner who double checked her answers to reassure us that she had provided the right information (even calling us at 10 p.m. with additional information to allay some of my concerns). </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Most of all, however, it was the conversations we had with other patients and their caregivers as we waited for tests and doctors' appointments. Intimate, honest conversations about diagnosis, prognosis, resources, fears, worries, frustrations. Conversations too painful, too frightening for many folks, but for those of us in the midst of these challenges a strange relief. We are not alone. We are not weak because we are afraid. We are not demanding when we fight for those we love. It is not too much to ask for dignity and respect.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And it never ceases to take my breath away when someone who is already fighting for their life or the life of a loved one, someone we've just met offers to include us in their prayers.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So to the list I started in my previous post, I will add these lessons I am learning about support ~</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><br /></span></span></span> <span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>~ Support comes in many different packages.</b> Physical help can be the easiest to find, especially if you have the financial resources, or can provide it yourself. Intellectual support is as important, maybe more so for some people. Then there's emotional support, the people who can provide </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">compassion</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> and care, who know how to listen and just be there with and for you, with whom you can cry, but equally with whom you can laugh. And -</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>~Support can come from the most unexpected places and in the smallest acts of kindness</b>. </span>Angiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05754244704171281174noreply@blogger.com1