Here is a thing I wrote about twenty years ago: Your interpretation of it is the right one: No matter what..
The compassionates
As though entities, the memories are clutched close.
Like talismen,they are drug along the paths that are trudged.
Occasionally, briefly, ... sat aside...while intentions are renewed.
They are burdens, quickly scooped up if approached too closely.
Social identities lost with the death set adrift and
attachments diminish reluctantly as recognition decreases.
Grief, carried deep in the heartland, decomposes the image
and unwilling detachment occurs.....till
the unrecognizable pain is abandoned.
MORE TO COME AS I GO THROUGH OLD JOURNALS ETC.,
Friday, April 9, 2010
Thursday, April 8, 2010
The Last picture show
My friend and I met two days in a row to see Alice in Wonderland. The times for the matinee started with the first showing at 12:00 noon. Both days, we found the theater did not open until 3:30. Now we don't want to see it anyway...? Went to macaroni house and had a non-American pizza that was sure good, better because my friend let me have the lion's share and then paid the bill.
While I was out today, the School for the Deaf and Blind called and asked me to work on Saturday for 6 hours. I agreed because all the meds will be passed by 9 AM and there are no tube feeders on campus that day....so a little money in my pocket and I still have the job that I really like. Other than being a little slower, Tired from the radiation, there is no reason I can't do that...
This week I finished the whole-brain radiation treatment and I have to say I really haven't noticed any side effects, other than the fact that my forehead is like sunburned. Today the nurse gave me a gel dressing to put on it and it sure feels better already. I am a sight to see. The bald part of my head is very white, the forehead is pretty rusty looking, my face is has the roundness of a steroid patient, and if I take my partial out,that does it! My friend is making me knit hats on a wheel thing. I have a blue and a white for dress up now. What would I do without friends? Another friend called to day to invite me to go walking on the trail with our dogs. I'm not sure I am up to that, but I am up to trying someday when the wind is not blowing 70 miles an hour. Today was gloomy, windy and just kind depressing so I spent most of it cat napping in the recliner...Felt good.
Yesterday I started the concentrated brain tumor radiation. Five to Seven zaps from different angles. Will do that until the 20th of April. Then we'll see what's next.
I constantly am looking for here after stories and signs and proof. Been thinking about the light switch in our rooms. You push the switch off and all the light is gone, but push it on and it comes back....Is it the same light? Where was it? What was it doing? Is it a different? Do we all go to a source like that when we die? One big electrical/magnetic bit of energy called God and then when someone needs us, we zip into the wall switch and help? Well,what about the light bulb that won't light anymore? Is that a dead body? What about batteries? Well anyway I wouldn't want the rest of you to stop your pondering.
While I was out today, the School for the Deaf and Blind called and asked me to work on Saturday for 6 hours. I agreed because all the meds will be passed by 9 AM and there are no tube feeders on campus that day....so a little money in my pocket and I still have the job that I really like. Other than being a little slower, Tired from the radiation, there is no reason I can't do that...
This week I finished the whole-brain radiation treatment and I have to say I really haven't noticed any side effects, other than the fact that my forehead is like sunburned. Today the nurse gave me a gel dressing to put on it and it sure feels better already. I am a sight to see. The bald part of my head is very white, the forehead is pretty rusty looking, my face is has the roundness of a steroid patient, and if I take my partial out,that does it! My friend is making me knit hats on a wheel thing. I have a blue and a white for dress up now. What would I do without friends? Another friend called to day to invite me to go walking on the trail with our dogs. I'm not sure I am up to that, but I am up to trying someday when the wind is not blowing 70 miles an hour. Today was gloomy, windy and just kind depressing so I spent most of it cat napping in the recliner...Felt good.
Yesterday I started the concentrated brain tumor radiation. Five to Seven zaps from different angles. Will do that until the 20th of April. Then we'll see what's next.
I constantly am looking for here after stories and signs and proof. Been thinking about the light switch in our rooms. You push the switch off and all the light is gone, but push it on and it comes back....Is it the same light? Where was it? What was it doing? Is it a different? Do we all go to a source like that when we die? One big electrical/magnetic bit of energy called God and then when someone needs us, we zip into the wall switch and help? Well,what about the light bulb that won't light anymore? Is that a dead body? What about batteries? Well anyway I wouldn't want the rest of you to stop your pondering.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Some Days are Diamonds!
Yesterday was the best day since Feb. 28th, Wonders all day...First Syd and I went to take our motor home out of winter storage, which is a springtime celebration anyway you look at it, but I had the dogs in the truck and when Sydney nosed the camper out of the building the dogs both started howling...good times ahead I guess.
Then I stopped at friends house and she had salmon,asparagus,fresh strawberries for supper....spring food!
But best of the day was ahead. I had a book club meeting in Ulm and as I hit the freeway near the airport I was listening to June Carter and Johnny Cash....
"I'll be waiting on the far side of banks of Jordan, sitting drawing pictures in the sand. And when I see you coming I will rise up with a shout and come walking through the shallow water reaching for your hand." By the time June Carter was singing "will the circle be unbroken" I was driving 90 miles an hour. The view was incredible, of course square butte and the other mountains, but they were painted with a blue misty fog and I had such a longing to just keep driving to some place where I would be alone with all my thoughts and questions and no one would ever know that I was not well...
My friend, who lives in a white two story farm house, with a white fence around it, in the middle of the prairie with two beautiful spaniels and horses and a handsome husband with manners, had laid out nuts and crackers with cheese and coffee and cream and some kind of exotic berry cobbler was, as usual, the perfect hostess, and the other ladies....well, I got to say it is the most fun I have had all month...just regular talk and no subject taboo and not pretense.....what a day off. I sure needed that. The trip home was equally satisfying. I think it is the first time I have actually driven the truck and I felt free for awhile.
Grab the good times while you may. Don't overlook any little blessing. Bitch if you want.
Then I stopped at friends house and she had salmon,asparagus,fresh strawberries for supper....spring food!
But best of the day was ahead. I had a book club meeting in Ulm and as I hit the freeway near the airport I was listening to June Carter and Johnny Cash....
"I'll be waiting on the far side of banks of Jordan, sitting drawing pictures in the sand. And when I see you coming I will rise up with a shout and come walking through the shallow water reaching for your hand." By the time June Carter was singing "will the circle be unbroken" I was driving 90 miles an hour. The view was incredible, of course square butte and the other mountains, but they were painted with a blue misty fog and I had such a longing to just keep driving to some place where I would be alone with all my thoughts and questions and no one would ever know that I was not well...
My friend, who lives in a white two story farm house, with a white fence around it, in the middle of the prairie with two beautiful spaniels and horses and a handsome husband with manners, had laid out nuts and crackers with cheese and coffee and cream and some kind of exotic berry cobbler was, as usual, the perfect hostess, and the other ladies....well, I got to say it is the most fun I have had all month...just regular talk and no subject taboo and not pretense.....what a day off. I sure needed that. The trip home was equally satisfying. I think it is the first time I have actually driven the truck and I felt free for awhile.
Grab the good times while you may. Don't overlook any little blessing. Bitch if you want.
Monday, April 5, 2010
The Dream
Here is the dream: Go to Google and look up White Owl legends.
Francis,my son who died 21 years ago is in bed in two different rooms. In the first room he does not respond to any stimuli, appears dead. In the next room when I say his name he opens his eyes and turns his head toward me. I tell him we are going to bring his owl to his bedside. We, I'm not sure who else was there, bring a huge white owl up to his bed and he is talking with the owl and appears alert and well. I woke up at that point.
Much of the legends have to do with the owl signifying death....but there was Francis after 21 years, up and at em.
More later, Carol
Francis,my son who died 21 years ago is in bed in two different rooms. In the first room he does not respond to any stimuli, appears dead. In the next room when I say his name he opens his eyes and turns his head toward me. I tell him we are going to bring his owl to his bedside. We, I'm not sure who else was there, bring a huge white owl up to his bed and he is talking with the owl and appears alert and well. I woke up at that point.
Much of the legends have to do with the owl signifying death....but there was Francis after 21 years, up and at em.
More later, Carol
Sunday, April 4, 2010
EASTER!
He is risen, or so many believe..I think, Mothers especially, mark the years with holiday memories. You know,1961,that was the year that we didn't find the egg under the bathroom plunger and it began to smell in May. Or 1959, the year that Danette was born on Easter Monday. When we went to church on Easter I had nothing that fit so I wore my bathrobe under my coat. There were Easter egg hunts at parks, I have a pic of Pascha 1984 with a basket with ET in it. Francis is in the pic too. We lived in an apartment then....no eggs hidden in the yard. One year I made matching outfits for Francis and Danette and the picture shows Gardner in a white shirt, white tennis shoes and a tie, and Patty is all dressed up in a two piece suit. She must have been about 13. Angela, Danette's girl, wears a wide brim hat at the church in Clear Lake where she and Pascha hunted eggs in 1985, Another Easter,Francis died on Good Friday. I sat on a bench outside the hospital in the rain and said to God, "OK." and when I went into the building they were paging me. I held Francis in my arms and shushed him to death. Not too many Mothers get to hold them first and last in life, if that's something to brag about. Anyway, his memorial was on Easter Sunday at the little Clear Lake Church. I rode to Spokane with Patty and Pascha and Sydney went by train with the huge bunny that took up a seat of its own. Sydney brought that bunny from Great Falls for Francis. Francis was 27 years old and we gave him a teddy bear?
So Easter 2010....That was the year that we went to too much church. We started out at St. Joseph's for the last supper rites,went Blessed Sacrament for Good Friday and over to Holy Family for the Easter vigil.. The ceremony at Holy Family started at 9pm and we didn't get home till almost midnight. Pascha and Sienna left early, although she was very,very good for the long service. I will say, 2010..that's the year that Stephen's family and Pascha and Sienna came home for Easter. We went out to eat at Golden Corral, the Prospectors, and more. I never been so full of food in all my life....what a celebration of good times! Sienna got two easter baskets, the bigger kids went on a shopping spree and egg hunts in our back yard with money in the eggs and Buford got a brown bunny to chew up. Today, Easter, Sydney is baking a ham and the trimmings and our friends Kathy and Cadet will be eating with us and I think that is the last of the feast.
Now, tomorrow when the bunnies, ducks, geese and eggs and candles are put in their box in the basement.....Will there be another Easter? Should I put a note in the box or is that creating scenarios? Seems like a lot of things might be the last, but then they might just be the year that Mom had no hair and wore those silly hats everywhere we went.
I'm beginning to feel the radiation. Everything thing is an effort now. Just laying around seems harder. So I will probably be prone for the next month....then we'll see, I'm glad Easter came before I got too tired. 2010 Will go done in our family as the best ever Easter and yes I believe he rose from dead!
So Easter 2010....That was the year that we went to too much church. We started out at St. Joseph's for the last supper rites,went Blessed Sacrament for Good Friday and over to Holy Family for the Easter vigil.. The ceremony at Holy Family started at 9pm and we didn't get home till almost midnight. Pascha and Sienna left early, although she was very,very good for the long service. I will say, 2010..that's the year that Stephen's family and Pascha and Sienna came home for Easter. We went out to eat at Golden Corral, the Prospectors, and more. I never been so full of food in all my life....what a celebration of good times! Sienna got two easter baskets, the bigger kids went on a shopping spree and egg hunts in our back yard with money in the eggs and Buford got a brown bunny to chew up. Today, Easter, Sydney is baking a ham and the trimmings and our friends Kathy and Cadet will be eating with us and I think that is the last of the feast.
Now, tomorrow when the bunnies, ducks, geese and eggs and candles are put in their box in the basement.....Will there be another Easter? Should I put a note in the box or is that creating scenarios? Seems like a lot of things might be the last, but then they might just be the year that Mom had no hair and wore those silly hats everywhere we went.
I'm beginning to feel the radiation. Everything thing is an effort now. Just laying around seems harder. So I will probably be prone for the next month....then we'll see, I'm glad Easter came before I got too tired. 2010 Will go done in our family as the best ever Easter and yes I believe he rose from dead!
Friday, April 2, 2010
Holy Thursday thoughts
For those of you who are not Catholic and don't know how the ritual is done on that day I want to share a few thoughts with you. I don't mean to elevate my situation to that of the biblical story of Christ's last supper, but I enjoy the process of identification with Jesus as a human. Here he is supposed to know from whence he came and where he is going and yet in the very moments of his deepest thoughts about going through the valley of death he too called out to God and said, "if this cup can pass, I don't want to do it anymore", but if it is your will than let it be done. Well Isn't that where we all are? Another interesting item is that the disciples who were supposed to be supporting Jesus in the Garden that night fell asleep because they exhausted themselves grieving. Grief, I think, is really a kind of selfish thing. I mean who are you crying for but yourself, your loss, your feelings, etc. Well that may not always be true. When Francis died my tears seemed to be for his lost future, but if he was headed to another place, better, or non-existence, he didn't need any tears, there were mind.
The priests come up the aisle at the opening of the services with incense that they spread around the people and the altar etc. I thought about that being like spiritual radiation and said to myself, Waff some of that good stuff right over here.
Then there was the bringing of the oils that had been blessed on the MOnday before. The first of the oils is for the blessing of the sick during the year. I looked at the little bottle of oil and thought, Heck I want a bath in that stuff, there isn't enough there!
On this celebration of the last supper, Jesus washed the feet of his disciples to show them humility and and to show them that they must be servants too. Yesterday, twelve individuals were invited up to the altar to sit in a chair and bare their feet and the bishop and other priests came forward and washed they feet. One of the persons getting their feet washed was my oncologist. My own little catholic doctor.
I have know this doctor for almost 20 years. We worked at Hospice together for 10 years. He is a good man, a good doctor and I feel especially blessed to have him taking care of me.
Today - Good Friday - is all about death - but with a promise of Easter around the corner.
Family is here - egg dying, church, dinner out, etc. HOPE IS IN THE AIR...and proof in the camera.
The priests come up the aisle at the opening of the services with incense that they spread around the people and the altar etc. I thought about that being like spiritual radiation and said to myself, Waff some of that good stuff right over here.
Then there was the bringing of the oils that had been blessed on the MOnday before. The first of the oils is for the blessing of the sick during the year. I looked at the little bottle of oil and thought, Heck I want a bath in that stuff, there isn't enough there!
On this celebration of the last supper, Jesus washed the feet of his disciples to show them humility and and to show them that they must be servants too. Yesterday, twelve individuals were invited up to the altar to sit in a chair and bare their feet and the bishop and other priests came forward and washed they feet. One of the persons getting their feet washed was my oncologist. My own little catholic doctor.
I have know this doctor for almost 20 years. We worked at Hospice together for 10 years. He is a good man, a good doctor and I feel especially blessed to have him taking care of me.
Today - Good Friday - is all about death - but with a promise of Easter around the corner.
Family is here - egg dying, church, dinner out, etc. HOPE IS IN THE AIR...and proof in the camera.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Good days
Yesterday I started the lung radiation. Just a note about that. The big round, looks like a magnifying glass that is rotated over me to dispense the radiation into the just tattooed part of my chest, then rotates under the table and shoots the rest of the beam up through my back...Feels like star wars in the room.
My bandages from the hospital have been removed and I have two Sponge Bob band aides and enjoyed a wonderful shower.
We took Molly to see the dams and then decided to drive to Havre to an Indian Casino. We went through Fort Benton where my parents were married and it is a very historical town...from the highway I could see Square Butte and I enjoyed memories about Geraldine and my cowgirl days. I really enjoyed the landscape...Ugly, brown, dirty, black barked trees that have wintered into ugly branches...muddy Marias river, but all what Montana is. The sky was tremendous.....blue, blue and filled with puffy white clouds that could be imagined into shapes...We had a wonderful slice of pizza and Molly had a glass of wine at the Casino. I won 17 dollars, but then lost but Molly won 56 dollars, so we got off pretty cheap. On the way home there were many different kinds of weather playing out across the sky. One area would be raining and the sun was beaming down the other side. We stopped at Kathy's for coffee and then went to Borries for a steak sandwich. Quite a wonderful day!
Today the Banich's arrive, and tomorrow Sienna, so the girls and I will dye eggs and we will all go to church today, Friday and Saturday and out to the Golden Corral on Saturday and an egg hunt in Gibson Park on Saturday. A busy schedule! Life is good today.
My bandages from the hospital have been removed and I have two Sponge Bob band aides and enjoyed a wonderful shower.
We took Molly to see the dams and then decided to drive to Havre to an Indian Casino. We went through Fort Benton where my parents were married and it is a very historical town...from the highway I could see Square Butte and I enjoyed memories about Geraldine and my cowgirl days. I really enjoyed the landscape...Ugly, brown, dirty, black barked trees that have wintered into ugly branches...muddy Marias river, but all what Montana is. The sky was tremendous.....blue, blue and filled with puffy white clouds that could be imagined into shapes...We had a wonderful slice of pizza and Molly had a glass of wine at the Casino. I won 17 dollars, but then lost but Molly won 56 dollars, so we got off pretty cheap. On the way home there were many different kinds of weather playing out across the sky. One area would be raining and the sun was beaming down the other side. We stopped at Kathy's for coffee and then went to Borries for a steak sandwich. Quite a wonderful day!
Today the Banich's arrive, and tomorrow Sienna, so the girls and I will dye eggs and we will all go to church today, Friday and Saturday and out to the Golden Corral on Saturday and an egg hunt in Gibson Park on Saturday. A busy schedule! Life is good today.
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