MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL!

     Isn’t it funny how we are glad to see a year end and a new one begin?  What is it about starting over?  It is the one thing that our society invites us to do all the time.  Every morning is a new day.  Every 1st of the month is a new beginning.  Every new year is a chance to start over.  

     Six years ago when I was grieving the loss of Pat, my best friend and husband of 45 years,  I mentioned how I felt a bit overwhelmed at the thought that I alone was now totally responsible for every decision in my life.  No more sharing…no more compromise.  Just make a decision and move on…only wrapped in the fear of making a mistake.  Then one day while driving using my GPS, I made a turn different from what the GPS wanted me to do and the GPS calmly announced. ”Recalculating.”  It was then that I realized making a decision that didn’t work out was not a life-threatening moment…if something does not turn out, you just change direction and keep moving.  Letting go of the fear of “what if” is step one and recalculating a new direction is step two.  

     Miranda and I had the joy of hearing Michelle Obama speak on her new book this past week.  She said to all of us to embrace fear, for it can become the one roadblock that will bring failure and disappointment…and fear will come into and out of our life until our very last breath.  “So learn early to see fear as a healthy step to change,” she said.  “Embrace it,” she said.

     Discovering love the second time around is sweet, kind and especially a surprise.  While traveling on our 17,000-mile road trip, Dave and I met an 87-year-old woman who had recently lost her husband.  For her whole life she wanted to camp…and so she was.  In her car.  We watched her set up a table with a cook stove, and prepare her evening meal.  No tent…no camper…just her car and her little table.  We saw her end her day by snuggling down into the car seat and sleep for the night.  The next day we shared a meal with her and learned that she wanted to camp before she died.  She didn’t want to leave anything on her wish list.  In fact, on a recent cruise she had met a man who she fell in love with and when she returns to Vancouver, Canada, her home, he is going to join her and they are planning to be married.  I walked away feeling her life lesson…that life isn’t over until you cannot breathe anymore!  Embrace it, continue to make plans, dream and live it to the fullest!  That is how I would describe this year.  

     I have had a chance to fulfill many of my wish-list items and even discover some wonderful moments that I didn’t know would make me feel so happy!  The road trip with Dave was just that and more.  We left the end of June and returned in October.  We had no plans, no commitments, and every day was filled with spontaneous decisions.  It was a joy to experience, yet when we both landed back home…H-O-M-E…it was a sweet moment.  To walk in the familiar,  feel the loving kind embrace of family and friends who missed us…to not feel lost or turned around, was a joy too.  The trip Dave and I took together, made me appreciate my home and at the same time filled me with the knowledge that home is wherever your heart lands.  

     I cannot tell you what the new year will bring for me.  The fact is I don’t care.  During this past couple of years, I have learned to just embrace each day as a new beginning, a new adventure, and a new understanding of myself and what is important to me.  I have also learned that you cannot make people love you if they choose not to, and you cannot force yourself into others lives if they won’t let you in and I have decided that is okay too.  I will keep my myself open to all possibilities no matter where it takes me, or how it ends…for at the end, when my last breath leaves me, I know, at this moment, I have had the joy and privilege of experiencing the best of what life has to offer.

     My happiness comes to me in my time with Dave, my family, friends, and especially my grandchildren.  The joy of watching them grow into beautiful young adults, full of compassion and empathy for the world around them…sassy and spirited and with the connection to the family brings me more joy than I can possibly measure.  Hearing my text buzz with a reach out that says, “Hi Gram.  How are you?” fills my day with sunshine.  Having the privilege of finding love the second time around with Dave is the sweet surprise of my life.  And attending the wonderful events my children and grandchildren participate in allows me to celebrate life with them and I thank them for wanting me to be a part of it.

I wish for you all, the peace, joy, and celebration that fills your life with sweet surprises.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

TRANSITION

I follow a site called “Begin with Yes”…today the following posting showed up.  “The transition to evening reminds us that life is about transitions too. When we understand that this is just part of the natural unfolding, we resist less and become less fearful. Everything will be OK”

How many times have I written about my own personal transition from wife to widow to single and the challenges it has presented, yet feeling lucky to understand and accept the idea that everything will be OK.  That does not make the pain go away.  I know I sometimes have to wear a mask of “everything is ok” just to get through the day, and so do many other widows I meet and talk with.  

When I talk about my reactions to leaving a wonderful event with family or friends and sometimes find myself breaking into tears heading home alone in the car…they nod and understand…for them too, they tell me.  There is always that moment that you leave the group, get into your car and as I have said before when you close that door that sound of the door slams you into a reality of your aloneness. 

I gave a talk a while back and was in conversation with someone who said, “I pretend to be okay because everyone expects me to be.”  She went on to say, “In pretending, I can often get through the day, but it is not real.”  

How that struck me.  We all wear masks of sorts.  Most of us present to others that which we think they want to see and too often it leaves us wanting inside and nowhere to share the voice we really want to be heard.  

Yet, I know it is up to me at this stage to find my own way, to create a new life.  I often feel like I have each foot in a different world.  One where I want to run and explore and start over…even sometimes thinking it would be wonderful to run away and begin life over.  The other foot stays planted in a need to be around the family.  But I am experiencing more that the family is so busy, and their need for me, is gone, and due to time, distance and busy lives getting together is harder.  And it is not unique to me, it is a common theme.  In the community in which I live, the last census taken by the Homeowners Association showed 52% of the people living here are single-home dwellers.  The quiet that permeates this place sometimes kills the soul!

I remember when I first moved here the first thing I missed was the sound of kids playing on the street.  Halloween doorbells ringing with “trick or treat” sounds.  Noise.  Now don’t get me wrong…quiet is good.  But too much quiet is deafening to the spirit.  I need people.  I need life.  I need to move and dance and play and sing.  So I am preparing for a new transition.  I have decided to sell my home and with my daughter-in-law and son’s invitation am moving into a mother-in-law suite they are building into their home.  Privacy when I want it, yet family when I need it.  

This will allow me to have the funds I need to travel.  This will put me in a place where life is still being lived robustly, yet when I need to step in and be in quiet…it will be there (we are soundproofing the place!)  For the first time in a long while I am looking forward with joy in my heart.  This feels good.  I am lucky.  At 69 I am healthy, mobile, still have my wits about me, and have a few years to get in as much as I can before my time comes to leave this place and by damn I am going to give it all I got and see where it goes.  

The next challenge? Thinning out the “stuff”.

IT WAS GOOD WHILE IT LASTED!

Joe Hart, best man, Lucyann Eyre, Maid of Honor, Me and Pat
at the home on Cressman Road where we held our reception.

As some of you have recognized from my last few writings I have been on a melancholy journey lately.  It is because for many in this stage of life this would be a journey of celebration…fifty years of anything would be worth celebrating, but I’ll miss the joy of celebrating those 50 years with my best friend. This would have been the year. 

It all happened so fast.  Our first date in June.  Engaged in August.  Met the new in-laws in September.  Moved to Pennsylvania in October.  Married in November.  So this time of year is finding me looking back and remembering the good times and feeling amazed at how fast the time has passed.  

Today I took a road trip to all the places I have lived since moving to Pennsylvania in 1966.  My first stop was on Cressman Road in Harleysville.    We left Illinois, pulling a U-haul trailer behind my 1966 VW (yes I said pull a fully loaded trailer behind the VW).  We could not travel faster than 40 MPH and that was downhill.  Driving from Ingleside to Harleysville at that speed made for a long slow trip.  Being a new convert to my faith, when Pat asked if we could stop at a hotel about half way there, I asked if he could promise to be “good”.  “I can’t promise that,” he said.  “Keep on driving then,” I said, and we did, 23 total hours from Ingleside to Harleysville.  When we pulled into the driveway, Pat got out, walked through the door with me following close behind, and he turned to his Mom and said, “Take care of Marlene Mom, I am tired and going to bed.”  There I was standing in the doorway, with my new family that I had just met 3 weeks earlier.

I shared Lucyann’s bedroom until our marriage on Thanksgiving Day.  We were perfect roommates.  We both were good at hiding our dirty laundry under our bed.  It was also the place where I began to learn about unconditional love and it’s true meaning.  I was a young woman with not a lot of female guidance from my own mother, so I entered this family like a waif from the wrong side of the tracks.  I learned this when my husband’s grandmother who lived with my widowed mother-in-law, did my laundry and discovered my less than perfect lingerie.  Shocked that I would become a bride with such garments, she grabbed everything out of my drawers and threw it all away.  By the time she thought of what she had done the trash man had come and emptied the trash cans.  

When I returned from work, I was met at the door by a nervous grandmother who guided me to her room and explained what she had done while slipping some money into my hands telling me I needed to go out that night and replace what had been discarded for all I had left was what I was wearing.  

I slipped up to my bedroom and burying my face into the pillow crying with embarrassment, wanting to run away but couldn’t because I had nowhere to go.  This turned out to be a good thing in the end.  When Pat came in from his job, he was told what had happened and finding me crying up in my room, explained for the first of many times to me that when someone does something out of love, I could not get mad.  “If she did not love you,” he said, “she would not have cared.”

Our first apartment was at Pennbrooke Apartments in Lansdale.  I remembered when we got the apartment Nov 1st.  We had less than three weeks to gather the things we needed to set up our first home.  Garage sales and auctions allowed for some good finds.  An old bed from the house, a table from Uncles Bob and Ed set us up for a good start.  We didn’t have much, but we didn’t need much.  We had each other and it was fun.  I remember one night we had gone over to the apartment to set up the kitchen.  After awhile, the apartment manager came knocking on the door with a message from Pat’s mother.  She thought we were there just a little bit too long and thought it time we return to the house.  This made for a good story on more than one occasion during our lifetime.

A year later we found a cheap, $55 a month apartment on Morwood Road in Telford.  A downstairs, one bedroom apartment in the country.  We could have a dog.  It was a small place, yet we had Damian while there and became pregnant with our second son, Justin.  Pat and I actually argued about moving.  Pat wanted to stay…after all who wanted to give up $55 a month?

Our third home was on Trumbauersville Road in Quakertown.  A 3 bedroom rental house allowed us to grow our family that at this time included Joliene.  It was here that we took in our first house guests.  Fresh Air Children from the city for two weeks.  This turned out to cause trouble with our landlord.  They were  black.  He did not like that.  Although we enjoyed having Keven and Michael in our family for two weeks, when the next summer came we were asked by the landlord to not bring the kids out again.  He felt that he was being blamed for having the first blacks in the area and he said if we respected him we would not do it.  It was an awful time for us, for we loved the family we grew to know and wanted them to return to our house.  So we left there and bought our first home on Portzer Road in Quakertown and our first guests were the whole Edwards family.

We lived on Portzer Road for 13 years.  Our family grew by one more, Aaron.  Family picnics, holiday parties, yard sales, and great neighbors made this a hard place to move from.  But when your oldest son could not stand up straight in their bedroom on the second floor (we lived in a cape cod style home with a slanted room upstairs) it was time to move.

We soon found ourselves on East Market Street in Perkasie.  Pat and I knew from the moment we crossed the threshold of this house that this was home.  It took awhile for the kids to adjust to the new school and neighborhood, but the family time at this place was perfect in many ways.  We always seem to find room for those needing a bed and place to stay  until they got  back up on their feet.  In fact, one time we found the kids had put a sign up on our bedroom door, “Boarding House Managers Sleep Here.”  

In the 18 years we lived there we had the following people live with us at one time or another:  Oko (a Japanese exchange student), Little Rich, Big Rich, Penny, Brandon, Tyler, my Dad, my mother-in-law,  Denise,  and Dawn (a woman of many personalities).  The first summer we moved into the house,  Damian’s friend Carl, lived with us all summer causing us to explain to the neighbors that all the kids did not belong to us.  It was a sad moment when I recognized due to Pat’s illness that we could no longer stay in this home of many memories, and we moved to where I am now, a 55 plus community in Buckingham.  

This last move was a bittersweet move.  It was good to downsize.  Taking care of a large home and yard by myself was beginning to weigh on me.  Moving here was a form of relief even when it did also mean that Pat was ill and could no longer do steps.  I knew when I moved in here that this would not be my last home but it has been a great place to be, especially with the outreach during Pat’s illness and eventual death.  

But it is time for me to move on.  I can look back at each one of the homes I have lived and remember the good moments and happy memories.  For this I am grateful.  But, as I once said to one of my sons, "I am not dead yet."  I do have a life to live and I am working to make the best of it. Even when my thoughts fill me with what once was, I know that I am grateful for all that it has been.  

My life with Pat was more than I ever imagined it could be.  And because of our life, I know that if I remain open to all possibilities, it could happen again.  I just have to get in touch with that spirit within me that directed me to take a chance all those years ago and not be afraid.

But damn…it sure was good while it lasted!

AUGUST

One always thinks of spring as the time for renewal and change.  Leaving the dark of winter behind and opening up to the new possibilities   But with August sending off the next generation to their new lives through college, work or marriage, we recognize that this too is a time for a change and new opportunities.  

I’ve been seeing postings from those who are facing the “empty nest” as children go off into their new lives and I whisper under my breath….wait…it gets more so as time moves on.  

In conversations with fellow neighbors, who as a group find ourselves in similar settings, watching our grandchildren go off to school, and remembering our own like it was yesterday…many from a distance feeling more and more out of touch with what is going on in their daily lives.

You are a part of their life as they see it…but not as we see it.  We sit in a corner, distant from their everyday. I remember the shock when Grammy Ford thanked me for inviting her and Uncles Bob and Ed into their lives.  I was stunned by the comment.  We always felt their presence even when we were not together.  I didn’t get it then.  I do now.  For it is true.  Children once grown and gone either invite you into their life or keep you at bay…inviting you only when it is time to celebrate one thing or another.  

Poolside conversation by fellow neighbors (a 55 plus community) find many of us feeling the same distance and not sure how we feel about it all.

Loneliness is the theme of many here.  What does it take for someone to step outside of one's door and develop a life not associated with family.  Making new friends takes hard work, and not having the comfort of familiarity and history adds to the loneliness and feelings of being disconnected.  Even the couples here in the community express similar feelings.  Add the loss of a spouse and those feelings get magnified.   These are normal passages I am sure.  There are too many around me that I see expressing the same kind of feelings for it not to be.  

There is one woman in our community who is very sensitive to these wails in the night and sets up all kinds of activities and gets frustrated when those she hears cry out for friendship and family not take advantage of what is presented…but then depression can do that to you.  Make you feel that you don’t have the energy to step outside and face the world and work at making new relationships.  

There is a song written by John Prine and made famous by Bette Midler, called “Hello in There” and the chorus goes:  

“Ya' know that old trees just grow stronger

And old rivers grow wilder ev'ry day

Old people just grow lonesome

Waiting for someone to say, "Hello in there, hello”

IT IS THE SEASON OF HOLIDAYS!

Grandson Leighton at the Dog Train Party!

 I am going to just put it out there.  I am a kid during this time of year!  From the time, the first leaves start displaying their brilliant colors through the first snow fall my adrenaline flows fast and free!

Life, and I mean my adult life…started for me October 7, 1966.  Driving cross country through the mountains with the brilliant glow of the reds, yellows and golds of the trees welcoming me to Pennsylvania, I entered into a family that was grounded in unconditional love and I could feel the change and I embraced it’s every core!  

A holiday has never been just the day for me.  There is such joy in the planning, the preparation and the day….well the day for me is sitting back and watching all those I love and care for enjoy themselves.  

Halloween presents itself with a chance for me to dress up with the kids and go trick-or-treating.  As they got older and didn’t hang with “M-O-M”, I would dress up anyway and greet the kids at the door.  One year I dressed in an old black witches outfit, with a big hat.  I sat on our porch with a large bowl of goodies, head down and still, and when I would see their feet I would pop my head up with a scary “Happy Halloween”.  Those who came to my door grew to know that Mrs. Ford would be doing something silly.  

The pumpkins and fall decorations would hang around through Thanksgiving.  Joined by the pilgrims and the great planning for our Thanksgiving meal.  The Ford family gathered either at Grammy Ford’s or my house.  We are a foodie family which always creates such great excitement amongst us.  The joy for me as I watched the Ford family gather was how, no matter how much time had passed between visits with one another, there was always such a great presence of celebration (and without the drunk fighting).  The tradition carries on today at my son and daughter-in-law’s home.  

Christmas….ah Christmas.  I feel sorry for those who put all their effort into just THE day.  For me, from the moment Thanksgiving is done until I am forced to take the holiday decorations down, it is Christmas.  When my kids were young we would do the advent wreath.  It was such a joy to stop the day's hectic schedule, light a candle, pray and read a Christmas story to them.  Letting each one take a turn to open the advent calendar door or window.  One year to add the spirit of love and the spirit of giving to the lesson I began the tradition of a “secret Santa”.  They had to draw each other’s name, keep it a secret and at least once a week do something nice for that person and not tell them.  It was only at the end that they were allowed to share who they were.  

Along with the normal prep for the holiday I would have the kids make things to give as presents, instead of buy them.  One year we created a calendar and they had to pick a date at least once a month and write a promise to that person.  During the year, we had to keep track and fulfill that promise.  It could be a car wash, a visit to the grandma’s, or bring a dinner to them.  Grammy Ford told me once this was her favorite!  

Our neighborhood after a storm!

One year I drew a picture of Grammy Ford’s house and we had notecards made up.  The kids helped me find the right little basket, and we wrapped them and put ribbons around them.  I can still remember how excited they were. 

There was always the homemade Christmas decorations for the tree.  I loved teaching them the lessons of giving.  

New Year celebrations would round out the season.  They were always fun, yet not rowdy or crazy.  A small gathering of friends, or a dinner.  But a round-robin of phone calls to the family not there always came at midnight.  

When the older generation passed, it took a couple of years for new traditions to take hold.  In my life since losing Pat, I take great comfort in the fact that I know what we are doing for these family gatherings.  Life is so busy the rest of the year, and there can be many lonely moments, but not the holidays.  It is a time for us to come together and celebrate each other, catch up, and be reminded of what is truly important to our life, and that is the love we hold for each other. 

HOW CAN IT BE THAT YOU ARE GONE?

Forty-nine years ago this month a broken winged bird was carried half way across these States to a new life where unconditional love and healing allowed me to grow into the woman I am.  At moments, the energy consumes me like it was yesterday,

So how can you be gone?

How can you be gone when the morning sun invades my room, I still find myself reaching out to feel the warmth of your body and can at times still catch the smell of your sweet skin?

Standing by the shores of a lake I see you cast a shadow on the lake from your fishing boat, as I wait by the shore for the signal to bring in the trailer to load the boat.  How can this be when you are gone?

When doubt fills me, I am suddenly embraced by your voice letting me know all will be okay.  Oh, how can you be gone?

I see and hear you in our children, the way they live, love and play, so tell me how can you be gone?

Watching them live their lives is like watching reruns of ours.  How can it be that you are gone?

At moments when I do something dumb I still hear your voice call out, “Marlena!!”

Life has gone on since you passed.  But fall fills me with the memories of both the beginning and end of the time we had together.  The vibrant colors of fall take me back to that trip East through the Pennsylvania mountains a bloom with the brilliant red, yellow and gold of autumn and to that Thanksgiving Day with the last of the fall colors fading from the trees and the sun warming us through our sweet wedding day.  I ask again, how can you be gone?

It all went so fast.  This Thanksgiving brings our 49th wedding anniversary, along with the 4th year that you entered Hospice Care and I still ask, how can you be gone when I feel you around me so strong.

And again I ask how can you be gone?

Because you are.  And I thank you for the sweet memories that continue to fill me and remind me of our love.

A BRUISED APPLE IS STILL GOOD ENOUGH TO EAT!

This summer has found me in a nostalgic mood as I have been sorting and organizing all the family history, photos, and stories that I have gathered these past 49 years.  At my age, I realize time is running short and one day this lifetime of work will be a challenge for any of my kids to deal with if I don’t finish off this project.

To add to this, I received a call from a first cousin of mine that I had not seen since I was about 7 years old.  She and her husband were traveling East to visit Atlantic City and since I lived close wanted to stop by and visit with me.  I was very excited to receive them.  

For those first seven years of our life, we were close as first cousins could be because our families lived in the same area.  One month older than I am, we were constant playmates, along with her older brother and my two younger brothers.  Then her parents separated and divorced and except for a brief meeting at our grandmother’s funeral in 1993, we had not seen each other.  I had not heard a lot about her or her life.  My younger brother had a bit more contact with these cousins after I left home, but I had none.  For me, a life of abuse caused me to be isolated and I kept to myself until the day I left home and started a new life with Pat here in Pennsylvania.  For my cousin, life turns out to not have dealt her a good deal at first, but for both of us, life did eventually bless us with love and the ability to create our own loving families.

My cousin, once she was gone with her mother and the life forged anew, was mostly separated from her father’s side of the family.  We both spent a life separated physically but as it turns out, not emotionally.  For her, memories of a family filled with the craziness made one cautious in wanting to make that initial contact.  Lucky for me, that caution did not stop the curiousness about a long-lost cousin.

When she and her husband planned a trip East they decided to give a visit to me, yet, there was a concern that maybe, I was the continuum of what we both knew at those young tender moments of our life.  So, with a bit of cautiousness, a brief visit was planned.

For the first couple of hours, it was catch up time.  Sharing what life had brought to the both of us, introducing each other to our own families through pictures and stories.  And memories of a childhood surrounded by adults behaving badly.  Not one of us, cousin or sibling, were left untouched by the pain caused by the behavior of those who surrounded us.

We talked non-stop.  My cousin’s husband could only sit and shake his head at the craziness of some of our memories.  “Remember the time we both sat huddled under the table in Grandma’s kitchen with beer bottles flying overhead breaking against the wall?”  “How about the Santa that gave us french kisses…ewe…”  “Remember how badly Donnie was treated?”

The fights…the fear…the drinking that always surrounded every gathering left its mark on our souls.  Photo’s shared of times and places hard to recall, but through them showed us how we were connected.

I invited them to let me show them my home area, and by the end of the evening, over a dinner by the Delaware, we spoke of how much we liked each other and sorry that so much time had passed between us.  Stories and memories left me a bit ruffled, yet at peace with not only the opportunity for each of us to recognize how fortunate we are that we had the courage to make better choices in our own lives.  

“You know what I hate?” I said to my cousin.  “I hate the saying ‘the apple does not fall far from the tree.’  Our apple rolled down hill a ways, a bit battered and bruised from the trip, but still good enough to enjoy!”

As we ended our evening together with a hug and a promise that we would see each other again, I was proud of the fact that some of us survived the family craziness and by the example of our lives, teach our own children that you have choices and the most important one you can make is how you choose to live your life.  

CUSTOMER SERVICE IS WORTH THE CALL

Pat and I  worked hard for our money as most of us do.  From early on in my life, I would get annoyed that a product purchased would not live up to the advertised promise.  Especially items I purchased for my children.  

Pat and I had four children in 4 1/2 years.  Money was tight, and Pat especially worked hard for what we did have, so that made me all the more frugal when it came to spending it.  I took great care at Christmas to pick out one “good” toy for each of the four, which meant I looked for the best quality I could afford.  Nothing got me riled up as much as a toy, built for a kid, not holding up to the normal play that kids do.

So early on, if a product did not hold up, I would call customer care and complain, or write a letter and before I knew it, a new item to replace the one broken was very often sent on its way.  This was a privilege I never abused, but when I did have to call, I also never felt bad about calling.

The biggest return came once when twisting a bottle cap off a coke bottle, the metal tore in such a way that I cut my thumb.  I called customer service to just let them know about the issue, more as a curtesy call than a complaint.  Before I knew it, they sent me a couple of coupons for some additional coke product.  Then one day I got a call from a service representative from Coke.  Was asking if he could come for a visit regarding my call to them.  

Upon arriving, we sat down and talked, he looked at the scar now formed on my thumb and we talked about the how and why’s of what could have happened.  Before he left, I was gifted with a couple of rubber bottle openers, some more coupons and a whole case of bottled coke.

This 4th of July weekend I found myself in another disappointing product moment.  I had bought four 1-pound packages of Dietz and Watson Hotdogs.  A product I buy all the time with great satisfaction.  But on this day, when we cooked them on the grill, it was obvious something was wrong when a slime appeared on the cooked dog.  No one would eat them.  There was one additional package left in the freezer.  I decided to call customer service and let them know something was wrong with this batch as the expiration date was not to be until July 18, 2015.  After a short conversation, some code numbers exchanged, they offered to send me coupons to replace those that I bought.  A thank you both ways, and we hung up.

Once again, I say to you all…if you are not satisfied with a product, call or write.  Contacting customer service is worth the call!

LAKE WALLENPAUPACK MEMORIES

Wallenpaupack on a cloudy day in April

As I traveled the winding road along the Delaware River, heading up to Wallenpaupack to help a friend prepare for her husband’s memorial, I was surrounded by memories of a lifetime of visits to the area with Pat and the kids to fish and camp on the Lake.  

I found myself smiling as I remembered the time we camped in Wilsonville 150 campfires downwind, setting our tent on a rock which did not bode well for a good nights sleep and my son Aaron, who, during the night, upon hitting his head on the tent thought he was in the bathroom and proceeded to spray us all with his night time pee.  Pat jumped up, simultaneously, grabbing Aaron around his neck while unzipping the tent throwing him outside.  Aaron, who was still in a sleep state, woke up crying asking why we were throwing him out of the tent.  It may not have been funny at 3 a.m. but for years we got a great laugh at telling the story.  

Pat was serious about his fishing, yet carried the burden well of our different approaches.  My idea of fishing was putting a bobber at the end of the pole, reading a good book while glancing occasionally at the bobber looking for any sign of fish activity.  He on the other hand, worked very hard at the leisure art of fishing.  Before he put a foot in the boat, he knew the weather conditions, what color lure would/could be used to draw in the the fish, what temperature the water was, what the feeding pattern of the fish should be, how deep they should be and where they would be hiding by the contour of the waterways.  I was exhausted just waiting for him to finally get into the boat and make our way out in the water.  We did, just as the light of dawn filled the morning sky.

One time while he and I took our different approaches out to the lake, we motored along searching for the perfect cove to anchor the boat.  My job was to lower the anchor, bait my hook, drop it into the water, settle back, pick up my book and wait for the action.  While I did my part, Pat was at the other end of the boat tossing out his line, reeling it back in, tossing it out, reeling it back in….when at the moment I would finally settle in he would announce that he wanted to try a different spot.  So huffing, I would put down my book, reel in my line, pull up the anchor and settle back until we landed in the next “perfect” spot.

Once again, I would lower the anchor, bait my line with a worm (yes I used the real thing while he used artificial), settle into my chair, pick up my book while at the front of the boat, Pat would be casting out, reeling in, casting out, reeling in and again, just as I was settling down to enjoy my surroundings he would announce he wanted to move.  HUFFING…I would once again, reverse my actions until I settled back and waited until we arrived at the next “perfect” spot he would choose and once again the same routine.

This went on for about five times before we landed in a spot where my patience was running out with all the doing and undoing going on, and Pat was losing his patience with my impatience.  I threw out my line, got a hit on my lure, pulled up the line and lost a very big fish.  “Damn”, I shouted while slamming my foot on the floor of the boat causing a vibration that rang through the water.  

“Are you kidding me?” Pat shouted with frustration.  “You just scared all the fish away!”  With that we pulled up everything and headed home for the day recognizing that for Pat, I was better off on the shoreline with my bobber, chair, and good book while he went about his work searching for the perfect fishing spot in the boat.

As I drove by Fairview Lake (which is right next to Lake Wallenpaupack), I remembered the time Pat and I went fishing and this time all I took was a book and a lounge chair, allowing him to do all the work.  Soon, the slapping sounds of the water along the boat, and the gentle rocking of the boat lured me to sleep.  Pat, busy with his fishing, didn’t notice that I had fallen asleep in the sun and just when the fishing started to get good, he turned and saw that I had developed what turned out to be the worse sunburn I ever had.  Torn between just one more throw and getting me to shore out of the the sun, we went in and headed home.  Always loving yet filled with disappointment because he knew it was just about to get good, our trips together always provided fodder for the storytelling that would follow for years!

Wandering the roads around the lakes reminded me of a life lived fully, lovingly, if not perfect…but always forgiving.  I am lucky for these memories.  They are what carry me when I feel lost or lonely in my day, as I am reminded that I once had it all, which is a lot more than I can say for many I know.  Because through it all, there was not one moment…not even in the anger and frustration of living and lost expectations, that I did not feel loved and for that I am forever grateful.

WELCOME TO MY NEIGHBORHOOD

As a child, I was surrounded by language that was demeaning and often ugly toward those who were different than “us”, especially if you were black, Catholic, Jewish, or gay.  By the time I was seven years old, I experienced enough to know to challenge this language, both in thought, word and deed.  

We lived in Waukegan, Illinois, and our home was located in the city where school was diverse.  I was a minority in my class.  Top this off with the fact that our home life was not the ideal and often surrounded with alcoholic chaos.  

For me, kindness and generosity, was often felt first outside my home…not from within.  So as a kid, when I would hear my parents and the adults with them, discuss people of color using derogatory terms, in my head I would be thinking, “but so-and-so is not like that, she/he is nice.”  The truth is, my experiences most always were the polar opposite of the language I was surrounded in.

So at an early age, I learned to not trust the adults in my life.  The seed was planted to not only challenge but to base my opinions on my own experiences.

This has brought great joy in my life.  By being open and accepting of differences, (even political ones), I have been blessed to make friends with very interesting and kind people.  

At my age, I have watched society grow more open and tolerant of one another.  I can remember the day when marrying outside one’s religious believes would bring condemnation from family, and often the member who dared to love outside the circle would face living outside the circle forever.  This behavior would bring about great sadness and turmoil to those involved.  

Although it is better today, than how we lived in my early life, it is obvious that we still have a long way to go by the headlines and activities I see today in states where laws are being passed that say, my religious beliefs give me a right to not treat you the same as I expect to be treated.  I don’t get it.  We live in a country that cherishes the right to practice our own faith without harassment or interference.  That government is separate from our faith and is to be allowed to govern the whole, not just the parts.  

Historically, all faiths have a history of challenge to it’s existence.  But we live in America.  We live in a country where we ALL have rights to be who we are, follow our own faith without harassment, and exist in peace.  

My own conversion to becoming a Catholic came about, not by someone trying to convert me, but by experiencing first hand from the Leuthe family of Milwaukee, the joy and binding love of a family unit, that just happened to be Catholic.  I was drawn to them all by their welcoming and outreach.  I have carried them in my heart since those days of long ago.  I have often thought, if they had been another religion I most likely would of converted to that, it was the joy of their existence that I longed for.  Making the decision to follow the Catholic faith, brought me first hand to the prejudice of such an act.  I didn’t convert because I was marrying a Catholic.  My conversion was personal.  Something my family didn’t understand.

I hold with honor, the distinction of being kicked out of my Grandmother Curnes’s funeral gathering, because I had the audacity to challenge the family support of George Wallace and his run for President under the umbrella of segregation. 

Our own existence cannot come without the acceptance of those around us, no matter who they are or what they believe.  For if I want the freedom to believe as I wish—and I do—then I must grant it to all those around me.  I have friends who are Buddhist, Jewish, Protestant, Catholic, Muslim, Agnostic, black, hispanic, foreign born, American, politically Republican, Democrat, Independent, gay and straight …all people who hold a special place in my heart.  I don’t love them because we all think alike, I love them because we accept each other for who we are.  Out of these relationships come wonderful conversations that broaden my own understanding of what it means to be human.  

I was given a writing assignment once, that asked me to describe how a tossed salad was like life.  It was easy.  One vegetable in the bowl alone would be boring and dull to eat, but mixed together with an assortment of fresh and tasty vegetables, bound together by a dressing makes for a satisfying edible experience.  

I believe in us.  I believe in the U.S.  I believe that goodness will prevail.  I welcome you to my neighborhood where diversity brings a richness in life that can only be measured by how I make you feel.  

STORYCORP.ME

I am the gatherer of stories—the memoirist, the family historian.  My favorite past time is asking people about their life and listening to their story.  We all have one you know.  We may not be rich and famous, but we still have the life we lived, filled with our own personal challenges, successes, and our own observations on how to do it better. 

There is something beautiful about the ordinary.  The simplicity of living.  The ability to find happiness where we stand.  Peel back all the material things in life and what do you find?  Us…all of us…the same in so many ways.  Which is why I find the project by the American Folklife Center interesting.  StoryCorp.me is a beta application released to enable anyone to interview others on their life story, asking questions like “What are your dreams for me?” (assuming here it is a child asking a parent or grandparent).  “What person influenced you the most in your life?”  “What is your earliest memory?”  

StoryCorp through the American Folklife Center is archiving these interviews at the Library of Congress to enable sharing of the human experience for generations to come.

There is a browse section on the application where you can listen to the latest uploaded interviews and I found the conversations fascinating between child and parent or grandparent.  Just the fact that so many young people are taking up this activity, tells me that our youth, who we too often perceive as not caring or are uninterested, are truly interested in the stories we have to tell.  So often through the interview you hear the young person say, “I didn’t know that.  Wow that is cool, or Wow that is interesting.”  And most often it is followed by, “I am so glad you shared that with me.”

One daughter and father were taping their interview at 4 in the morning!  But listening to them banter back and forth told me that this moment would be a precious memory in the life of the young women interviewing her father.  

Another interview was a young man interviewing his 94 year old neighbor.  You could hear through the conversations how the young man and his family had bonded with this 94 year old man and how important they had become to each other’s well being.  Simple lives, led in simple ways but providing profound outcomes for each.

Yes, I love to hear the stories of how others have lived, loved, and faced their challenges.  It lets me know that what I am thinking, feeling, and doing, may be ordinary, but it is my ordinary…and that is good.

So tell me, what is your earliest memory?

Post Script:  StoryCorp.me is a free application that you can load on your phone, IPad, or computer.  Do yourself a favor, download it and hand it off to your kids and see what conversations you can start.  I promise, you will be glad you did!

POPULAR SENIOR PAST TIMES? FUNERALS OF COURSE

Spring is sprung

The grass is rizzzz

I’m heading out 

To where all the bodies is….

My way of saying it is funeral time again in the ok corral.  Yes, the 2nd most popular past time of seniors—the first being going to the doctor’s office—is attending funerals.  And I must say the last couple I have been to have turned out to be enjoyable in a macabre sort of way.  

Two funerals ago, it happened in a snow storm.  It wasn’t so much the funeral that was fun, but the people I went with.  Retired hospice nurses all, (well I can’t forget Jim, our lone man of the group) and neither snow, nor sleet, nor hail, or storm could keep these gals from their final destination.  Once the somber event of the viewing and mass was behind us, it was off to a bakery, then Tony Lukes for lunch.  Hardly any cars on the road due to the storm conditions but there we were!  Yes, we were heading home, and we did not make any changes in that direction, as they were just stops on the way.  But imagine the surprise of the owners of the bakery and the workers in the restaurant when they saw four old farts strolling in to their place of business….and just as old people do, said to the bakery owner, “Since we are your only customers are you going to give us a discount?”

And she did, so we cleared out a few items before she shut up shop and gave us free coffee to boot!  Due to her kindness and jovial nature, you know we will be back there again!

Once again I was traveling with the same group plus Jim…only this time it was one of us that lost someone.  In this case it was an ex.  Let me saying losing an ex is not the same as losing a husband.  I don’t know from personal experience, but watching those around me…well let me just say the murmurings  were funny to listen to.  What made this funeral noteworthy, was knowing the background to the family, the stories of how the man lived and especially what he left behind when he died—tie that into the fact that the priest was a boyhood friend of the ex-wife’s family—well, let us just say to hear the priest dance with his words about how this good man is going to heaven, but ever so gently remind us all that we all have sins on us that need to be forgiven.  

I found myself thinking, “be gentle Marlene, for one day you too will die, and when people are sitting mourning or rejoicing your loss, you better hope someone is praying for your sinful soul so that the door to our heavenly father will be opened for you.”

CHILDHOOD FRIENDSHIPS NEVER DIE

Tom, Pat and a friend from work 1966

Most all of us have walked through our life carrying the memory of an old friend within us.  That someone who lived through a portion of our life, leaving an impact and burning that special soft spot in our heart.  I have not had the experience, but I lived it through my late husband, Pat.  He had three friends through his childhood that he carried in his heart with great affection until the moment he died.

John, Tom, and Joe were the first three friends of Pat’s that I met.  I loved to see them together. They had a history, a connection…something, that in my life could only be imagined, never experienced.  I often told Pat how lucky he was, because he could not travel up or down the 309 corridor without bumping into someone who knew him from his childhood.  

John and Pat were close like brothers.  Their love and acceptance of each other was a beautiful thing to watch.  Of course it helped that John married Pat’s sister, but even so, they always carried each other close to the heart and being with John and Lucyann was always such a happy time.  Even distance did not put a wedge in their relationship.  

But Joe and Tom eventually drifted away physically, yet never in Pat’s memory, thoughts or feelings.  Right before he died he made me promise to try and find the two of them and give the message to them that they were never forgotten and how he carried them in his heart always as his best friends and with great affection. It was important to him that they all knew that he loved them.   I promised I would try.

I first found what happened to Joe.  Joe was the Best Man at our wedding.  We quickly bonded as a couple as he too was married.  Through the first four years of our marriage, we spent most all our social time hanging out with Joe and his wife.  Sometime after my first pregnancy, Joe and his wife separated and divorced and our friendship drifted apart.  Life, family and work filled the time available for both Joe and Pat.  Over the years we did get in contact with him once, but Joe was embarrassed about how his wife left him (he was a man of great pride) and we did not stay in contact.  But that did not mean he was forgotten by Pat.  As I went on a hunt for him I decided to search the obituaries and I was saddened to discover he died in 2004.  I called John to share the news of my discovery and you could hear the breath leave him for a moment as he processed the news.

I first met Tom thru Pat at the Navy Hospital at the Great Lakes Navy Base where I worked.  Tom and Pat went into the Navy during the Viet Nam days on the buddy system.  Pat never cared what he did as long as he could do it with Tom.  In boot camp where they filled in their dream sheet of what they wanted to do in the Navy, Pat chose to put down what Tom wanted to do…dental tech.  In the end, Pat was the one who was selected to go to A school for Dental Tech, while Tom ended up in Corp school to become a Medic and eventually off to Viet Nam.  Pat never made it to his school because on the obstacle course he broke his foot which left him unfit for duty and back home to await discharge.  Tom’s schooling was at Great Lakes which allowed for me to get to know Tom through Pat while Pat was in the hospital awaiting orders to return home.  Tom went off to Viet Nam, returned home, attended college and went off to live his life.  Our first born son carries Thomas as part of his name in honor of the love Pat held for Tom.  

I was recently lucky to have come in contact with a cousin of Tom’s who shared contact information for him allowing me to fulfill that last wish for Pat.  When I called John to share the good news of finding Tom, he too was overjoyed, as he had spent part of last year searching for Tom without success.  

We promised to meet up soon and catch up on the life lived between visits…and when we do, I know Pat will be there too with a big smile on his face.

I AM NOT UNIQUE, OR DIFFERENT, OR SPECIAL

As a young mother I took a workshop on how to best communicate with my children.  During the course of the workshop I was presented with the idea that no matter how unique you think you are, or how special, if your eyes are open and you look around you will see, even in the dark, you are not alone where you stand.

To prove the point, the instructor shared the story about how he decided to order these very special red glasses.  He desired to stand out…be different…a one-of-a-kind man.  “How many times do you see red eye glasses on anyone?” he said.  He searched and searched until he found just the right ones.  Spending good money for these one and only kind of glasses they finally arrived.  To his amazement after a couple of weeks he began to notice others had the same red pair of glasses.  How come he didn’t see this before?

I equate this same phenomenon with cars.  I cannot tell one new car from another.  Not like the old days when a Mustang or Corvette looked like a one and only.  Or my favorite, a Thunderbird.

So you go out and buy that one car that calls your name.  What happens?  Suddenly you notice that car everywhere.  You see them in all colors, on every street.  Yet before purchasing it myself I could not see my car anywhere….that I noticed.

So here I am today…a widow.  Looking back on life we had family members die.  But as a young person you grieved and then quickly got back into the rhythm of living.  Gone but not forgotten are those that had passed on.  

Today, I feel like I am living a cascading event of people passing away all around me.  Yes, I do live in an “active adult community”.  But I have noticed since I became “one”…a widow…that it is not unique, or different, or special…and even in the dark, I am not alone in this journey.  I am one of many and a continuing growing community.  

I am not sure how I am suppose to feel about all this.  I know the world pushes me to say, “get on with it”, but no matter what we think we know about “getting on with it”, when it is our turn we each have to find our own way through the loss, grief, and new growth that will eventually follow.  

I know one thing, I am more keenly aware of those around me.  In a crowd, I watch couples and find myself even wanting to go up to them and say, “hold tight to each other, for these moments are as fleeting as it was when raising your family.”  When I hear a couple bicker, I want to ask them, “Is this really worth the pain you are causing each other?”

But I know this is just life…just as the life I lived and took for granted.   The good thing about this realization, is accepting the fact, that I do not stand alone in the dark as I once thought I did.  And this is a good thing.

LIFE LIES DEAD AT MY DOOR

I am coming up on year three of widowhood.  What a journey this has been!  Our youth allows death to appear remote to us unless it touches us close to home.  Preparing for this time I believe is impossible, and I believe surviving this time period is a test of one’s core.  We are all born into a family, never alone until for many, we reach this time of life only to find all those that started out with us are, one by one, leaving this earth, allowing for us to stand more and more alone.

Life today is a yo-yo for me.  I enjoy being with family and friends—really enjoy it. It is easy today for me to laugh and have a good time.  Then the moment comes when it is time to go home.  Oh how I miss those moments of conversation that carries the good times on the journey home…”remember so-and-so and how funny?” or “Wasn’t it a great night, boy it was so good to…”

In life as a single, the moment lies dead as soon as you walk through a door.  You go home in silence.  Once inside your own place, there is just you.  You close the door and all you hear are your own footsteps making your way through the house.  

When you have that someone to share those moments with, it extends the good feelings.  You get to travel in the air of good times.  There is a contentment that fills you.  

Finding ways to embrace this stage of my life is my biggest challenge today and the one hardest for me to overcome.  I must learn to live alone and be okay with it. I cannot spend the rest of my life running from the silence. I must find ways to explore it’s existence for it is with me everyday now.  I must seize this moment to find my creative soul.  I must make it a positive in my life.  I have to in order to survive….no not survive, but live.  Complete, with joy in my heart and wings on my feet.  That is my goal.

But not today…for today, life lies dead at my door.  

MORE MEMORIES FROM MY BEST FALL

We were so young!

Forty-eight years ago this fall was the beginning of a dream life with my new husband-to-be and a family who was built on love and kindness.  A six week whirlwind of activity and learning before getting married on Thanksgiving Day 1966.  

Navigating the winding roads of Montgomery County in Pennsylvania was my first challenge.  I came from Illinois where blocks were just that.  A square and easy to navigate.  Not here.  The name Cowpath Road should be your first clue.  I quickly learned that cows do not walk in a straight line because there were no straight roads anywhere in this state.  

Pat would give me directions on finding my way to the main highway to my new job.  “Just go straight to the first stop sign, turn right, follow that road straight to when the road ends, turn left and follow straight to the stop sign and turn right.”

The word “straight” should not have been used.  I would find myself driving down a road that contained 90 degree right angle turns and it would not take long for me to stop, pull over and forget where in his directions I was.  Did I turn?  Didn’t I?  Some turns were so tight I found myself turning on the turn signals.  

I have come a long way since those days.  Today I am a back road driver to anywhere I want to go and love the adventure of seeing where the road takes me!

Another moment I remember about this time period was when Pat and I found our first apartment.  November 1st we signed a lease for our first apartment in Lansdale, near the jobs we both had found.  When I tell you that Pat and I had nothing when we got married, believe it.  We not only had nothing, we had such a small wedding we even had nothing after the ceremony.  I would not have changed a thing.  We shopped at garage sales, auctions, and thrift shops.  It was fun.  One day while Pat and I were at the apartment that was soon to be our new home, preparing the kitchen for our move in time in a couple of weeks, a knock came at the door.  It was the apartment manager coming to tell us that Pat’s mother had called and wanted us to come home because she thought we had been there too long….alone.

I still laugh today as I did then, knowing that poor Mom, who was a widow of a couple of years at that time, trying to send off her oldest son in his new life without the love of her life by her side  and only today recognizing how difficult a time this was for her.  

Yes, that first fall of the rest of my life was a whirl wind of navigating, finding a job, setting up an apartment, preparing for a wedding, meeting members of my new family and learning that with love and kindness anything was possible.  

Fall will always remain a special time for me.  Surrounded by the signs of a dying summer and glorious displays of color and warmth to remind me that with every ending there is a glorious new beginning!

MISSING WHAT I HAVE LOST

I have gotten some calls with concerns because of some of my recent posts about loneliness and depression.  I believe our subconscious  often sends us messages when we are unable to recognize it any other way.  

As I sit and analyze what I had posted I acknowledge that I am in a tender spot these past couple of weeks.  I miss my old life and know that it can never be…and I don’t like it.

Fall was always a most happy time for me. As Christmas for me is a season and not just the day, so it is when Fall sets in, blessing us with the canopy of color and warmth.   It was 48 years ago this month that I moved from Illinois to Pennsylvania to start my new life.  From the first week of October until Thanksgiving Day, my memories are filled with the most joyous time of my life.

Pulling a 4 x 6 U-Haul trailer with my 66 VW from Ingleside to Harleysville was a most joyous ride.  We couldn’t travel more than 40 miles an hour as the U-Haul contained all my worldly processions.  Half way through the trip Pat asked me if we could spend the night at a hotel as he was getting tired.  “Can you promise to behave yourself?” I asked.

“I can’t promise that,” he said.

“Then keep on trucking!”, I replied. 

 And he did…for a total travel time of 23 hours.  When he pulled into his mother’s driveway, he backed in, walked in the front door with me tagging behind, and said, “Mom, take care of Marlene, I am tired and I am going to bed.”

And he did, leaving me to deal with the greetings to my new family to be.  So began a whirlwind six weeks of meeting and getting to know what life is like when it is surrounded by love.

My first introduction to this family were the family meals.  Every meal found the family hanging at the table after we finished eating, talking about the day and all that it brought.  I met new family members around that table and learned to laugh with abandon and joy at the teasing and camaraderie.  It was a tradition that got carried on through our own family.  No matter how busy we were, we spent many dinners at the dining room table in our home.  It was always special to me.

There were embarrassing moments too during that six weeks.  My husband’s grandmother, Muddy, lived with the family.  A proper Irish women with high standards who, although crippled with arthritis, was always doing what she could to help with the household duties.  

One day, after coming home from my new job, I found Muddy pacing back and forth in the living room waiting for me to return.  When I walked into the house, she grabbed my hand and took me up to her room.  I could not imagine what I had done wrong as she was visibly upset.  It turns out that she had found, in doing my laundry, that I was not in procession of the appropriate undergarments for a young women about to get married.  So bad. she thought, that she went up to the room I shared with Pat’s sister and went into my drawers and threw out all my underwear.  

Once she got them outside into the trash, she began to have second thoughts about her decision but before she could retrieve them from the trash the trash man had come and emptied the can.  There I was, standing before her with the only pair of underwear I owned on my body and Muddy slipping some money into my hands, apologizing for what she had done.

I wanted to run and hide I was so embarrassed.  What is worse I did not know my way around enough to know where to go that evening to shop for new ones.  I had to wait for Pat to return from work and ask him to take me shopping.  If I could have run away that very moment and never show my face again, I would of, but I could not find my way out of a paper bag at that time.  I was forced to stand and deal with the experience and process it all the best I could.  

It was the first time I learned the first lesson from my new husband to be…and that was, “when someone does something to you out of love, you cannot be mad at them. She only wanted the best for you and wanted you to be able to give your best to me.”  

My first taste of unconditional love…something that would take a few more lessons for me to learn, but learn I did.  He showed me over and over again, how to look at life with love in my heart.  With Pat gone from me, and this Fall season flooding me with memories of my early days in this incredible journey called life, I do find myself fluctuating in emotions.  

I miss my cheerleader and friend…

MY THOUGHTS ON DEATH WITH DIGNITY

I have been following the Brittany Maynard story.  In case you have not heard, she is the women who diagnosed with a brain tumor and no hope of a cure, moved to Oregon so she could take advantage of their Death with Dignity Law.  I have been aware that Oregon had this law for a few years now.  In 2011, a documentary titled, “How to Die in Oregon”, won the 2011 Sundance Film Festival award.  

I remember the impact that documentary had on me at the time as I was in year 12 of a 13 year battle of my husband’s illness which came after caring for my father, my husband’s grandmother, uncle, and mother-in-law through their dying days.  Some have floated off willingly and some, like my mother, went the hard way.  Death is never easy, the loss can be unbearable, and I believe on some level watching someone suffer is a gift to the survivor to be able to let go.  

But having walked this walk with others I have loved, what about me?   What do I want when it is my turn. If my death were as peaceful as my husband’s or my husband’s grandmother, then let it go “naturally”.  I believe none of us knows for sure how we will think or behave when we sit across from the doctor and he/she tells us that our time has come.  I have told my children that I want no heroic measures…let me go when that moment comes.  

But if my end would knowingly come with some major hardships and pain for me and for the family being asked to care for me, I think I would want the option to end it sooner...or not.  When I have had this conversation with others, they say, “but it should be God who decides when you should die, not you.  Just let God and nature take it’s course.”

I find myself thinking that because we have allowed medicine to take us into a realm of being, that if “nature had been allowed from the beginning to take it’s own path” we would have not reached, then why not allow medicine to stop the artificial lane we reached as a result of that choice.  

I don’t have the answers.  I know faith, fear, and hopelessness guides many decisions in each of us.  But having the right, when faced with an awful end, such as Brittany Maynard faces, then why not bless her with the peace and allow her to choose her own death with dignity.

All of us fear the end that is filled with pain and loss of dignity as those around us try and care for us.  Is this living or existing and then existing on what level?  I know I pray that when it is my turn, take me quickly and “please dear God, don’t let me die while on the toilet!”

TAKE CARE CARETAKERS

As I traveled these past couple of weeks I once again met some incredible people whose positive attitude and outlook on life can only impress once you hear what life has dealt them.  Each of us has a story to tell and in them all, the life’s lesson is that it is not what happens in life, but what you do with life once the hardship has passed.  

Possessing a positive spirit does not come without some pain in the background.  I easily see that those who carry a happy spirit make a personal choice to do so.  Being around people who choose this is nothing, if not a motivation for each of us to figure out the secret of living with a happy spirit.

One of the common threads of discussion this past week was caretaking our loved ones through illness and eventually their death.  Until someone walks this walk with a loved one, it is hard to think about what it is like.  Most will respond with, “Oh, I don’t think I can handle that.”  The truth is, that we often find ourselves in the middle of what we think we can handle before we realize it.  

Listening to the sharing that went on this past couple of weeks I am reminded of the lessons I learned in my own journey of taking care of my family through their end days on this earth.  The last 13 years was the hardest for me.  First, my Dad was with me the last 3 1/2 years of his life when my husband became ill a year before my Dad died.  

I too thought I could not handle what eventually I became good at.  The hardest part was caring for my Dad’s personal hygiene.  Quickly though, it became “doing what needs to be done” without thought of how I felt or how he felt.  The blessing for him was that by the time it reached that point his mental  faculties were lost and he did not realize who was taking care of him.  A blessing for both of us.

Caring for Pat for the years he was ill was the toughest yet most tender part of our life together.    Not because of how the fun things in life took a back seat to the caretaking, but because there is so many other issues wrapped up in the days spent by the side of a loved one who has entered the dying process.  There is the preparation of the loss.  Each day I found myself trying to give my best, because I knew how much I would miss him when he was gone.  I tried to soak in every good moment I could, yet there were the days when fatigue and depression would set upon me and I was unable to give him my best.  That would often be followed by guilt, which he would never let me own because he recognized how hard this was.  That would only be followed by more guilt because his kindness and love toward me was so complete and unconditional.  

As the years went on, and I became more and more teathered to the house, standing at the door watching the world go on while feeling trapped became the most challenging moment for me.  Pat deserved the best of me during this time, because i always knew that if it were me in that bed he would of given the best of himself.  But how to do that on a day in and day out basis?

People would offer up their help, but we believed in the commitment of “for better or for worse, in sickness and in health”.  This was our journey and we did not want to impose on anyone, especially our children until our need for them was required. As caretakers when we think of help, we don’t think of ourselves as much as we should.  When someone offers up their services to us, we immediately think of what can be done for the person who is ill.  The truth is, we should be asking what do I need so I can continue to do my best.  That is when I concluded that I needed to find every small way I could to refresh my soul.  

I bought a convertible so that when heading out on errands, I could put my top down and enjoy the ride on a back road to the grocery store, listening to music or just the sounds of the wind blowing in and the birds singing their songs.

I decided to bring in someone to clean the house at least once a month.  Seems silly on many levels to do this,  as my place is small and hearing my mother’s voice in my ear, “anyone can clean this in a minute.”  But the truth is when we are bogged down in the chores of everyday, it can get hard and be downright depressing.  Having someone come in and clean the corners lifted my spirit.

I needed a challenge not connected with death and dying. I decided to try something totally out of my comfort zone.  I took up oil painting.  Now I never have considered myself an artist, but I needed something so alien to me, that it challenged me and kept me engaged.  I bought videos, books, watched how to you tube videos and began to play.  I loved it (and still do) even though I still don’t consider myself an artist I just love to play.

These are just a couple of things I did to keep me engaged, challenged, and inspired by the world.  Instead of standing by a window watching the world live, go and do, I brought what I could into the house.  I was inspired and it brought a level of comfort to me as I was tethered to the house doing my best for Pat.  

By working to stay positive, even in the face of his death, we had happy times…laughing moments…and tender sharing moments.  All possible because I was in a better frame of mind…not a bitter one.

So caretakers….take care.  When you stand before someone who says to you, “if you need anything call me”, put yourself on that list of needs.  If you take care of yourself then you will have all you need to care for the ones you love.

Are you listening Dee?