and so is the email interview with Mayor candidate Jim O'Neal
I've enjoyed taking a little break today.
I worked a lot in the yard. Pruning stalks which should have been pruned last fall but were neglected; weeding and loosening the ground around my seven happy, healthy, red rhubarb plants; and other general yard maintenance. I'm no where near finished and plan to do a lot of work in the yard this summer.
Tomorrow, I'll be back at it with a posting of the answers to my emailed interview questions from Mayoral candidate Jim O'Neal.
And, I plan to try to capture a smile from Wes at the City Council luncheon tomorrow.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Showing posts with label Life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Life. Show all posts
Monday, March 30, 2009
Sunday, March 08, 2009
Not Getting Away from my Mother
I received a Seasons Hospice flyer in the mail yesterday. I get mailings from Hospice periodically and I appreciate, nearly a year after the death of my Mother, they are still sending gentle reminders that they are there if I need them or if another member of my family needs them. I don't pass along the information to my family like I should, and I think I am the only one in the family who receives these mailers. They know I get them but maybe I should work harder in getting the information to them.
Hospice remembered an important date is coming up in early April. It will be the first anniversary of my Mother's death. April 4, a date which is that much easier to remember because, it is also my youngest step-son Patrick's birthday.
Remembering my Mother is easy. I do it every day. Lately, I've even been seeing her when I see myself in the mirror, a funny thing since, I never used to think I looked very much like her. Sometimes, when I laugh it is like she is right here in the room with me.
The other day, I got a box of beads out, all different sorts of beads and started playing around with them. I made what could have been a really neat key chain but, I hadn't planned for how to attach it to a key ring and there was no way to put keys on it. I laughed so hard when I realized this was the sort of thing my Mother might have done. She and I used to shop for those beads together. Make things together. Make things apart, and then show them to each other. I have her keys now, attached to two long strands of beads she strung years ago. She strung them on leather and managed to actually attach them to a KEY RING. They are hanging in my kitchen. Mom and I would have had such a good laugh over my stupidity at stringing those beads for no purpose, for no good reason.
My Mother was my best friend for most of my life. I was like a moth, circling the bright light of her being. There was really nothing I wouldn't do for my Mother. Sure, I'd deny her once in a while, maybe just to prove I could, like when I had to take over all of her shopping and laid down the law that there would be no more going to 3 or 4 different grocery stores to pick up a bargain here and a bargain there but, for the most part I simply couldn't resist pleasing her. She was the boss and she knew it, even when I would tell her, "you're not the boss of me," we knew they were just hollow words, just a joke, just a silly little girl pretending. My Mom was the boss of me and she knew it full well.
I don't call on Hospice. Sometimes I wonder if I might some day but, the day never comes. Instead, I write her little poems on scraps of paper.
I see her mouth when I look at my mouth. I see her little forehead in the mirror when I pull my hair back to wash my face. I hear her laughing when Scooter does something silly in play. I cannot get away from my Mother and I am happy not getting away from my Mother.
The Hospice flyer said rituals can help with the observance of a special anniversary, such as the anniversary of your loved one's death. They list a few ideas for family and they sound very special. I don't know what my ritual will be on the day of her death, or if I will even observe one. I appreciate, most, their little reminder that I should not let this day sneak up on me, that I should prepare myself for it.
I just don't know how. I don't know how to prepare for the anniversary of her death but, I know, every single day, I know how to celebrate her life.
It's right here.
It's still right here.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hospice remembered an important date is coming up in early April. It will be the first anniversary of my Mother's death. April 4, a date which is that much easier to remember because, it is also my youngest step-son Patrick's birthday.
Remembering my Mother is easy. I do it every day. Lately, I've even been seeing her when I see myself in the mirror, a funny thing since, I never used to think I looked very much like her. Sometimes, when I laugh it is like she is right here in the room with me.
The other day, I got a box of beads out, all different sorts of beads and started playing around with them. I made what could have been a really neat key chain but, I hadn't planned for how to attach it to a key ring and there was no way to put keys on it. I laughed so hard when I realized this was the sort of thing my Mother might have done. She and I used to shop for those beads together. Make things together. Make things apart, and then show them to each other. I have her keys now, attached to two long strands of beads she strung years ago. She strung them on leather and managed to actually attach them to a KEY RING. They are hanging in my kitchen. Mom and I would have had such a good laugh over my stupidity at stringing those beads for no purpose, for no good reason.
My Mother was my best friend for most of my life. I was like a moth, circling the bright light of her being. There was really nothing I wouldn't do for my Mother. Sure, I'd deny her once in a while, maybe just to prove I could, like when I had to take over all of her shopping and laid down the law that there would be no more going to 3 or 4 different grocery stores to pick up a bargain here and a bargain there but, for the most part I simply couldn't resist pleasing her. She was the boss and she knew it, even when I would tell her, "you're not the boss of me," we knew they were just hollow words, just a joke, just a silly little girl pretending. My Mom was the boss of me and she knew it full well.
I don't call on Hospice. Sometimes I wonder if I might some day but, the day never comes. Instead, I write her little poems on scraps of paper.
I see her mouth when I look at my mouth. I see her little forehead in the mirror when I pull my hair back to wash my face. I hear her laughing when Scooter does something silly in play. I cannot get away from my Mother and I am happy not getting away from my Mother.
The Hospice flyer said rituals can help with the observance of a special anniversary, such as the anniversary of your loved one's death. They list a few ideas for family and they sound very special. I don't know what my ritual will be on the day of her death, or if I will even observe one. I appreciate, most, their little reminder that I should not let this day sneak up on me, that I should prepare myself for it.
I just don't know how. I don't know how to prepare for the anniversary of her death but, I know, every single day, I know how to celebrate her life.
It's right here.
It's still right here.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Death of a parent
I don't like to get too personal at the blog anymore. Call it self protection, if you want.
People who read the comment section know that my Mom passed away in early April. I'm not bringing it up because I want a lot of people to respond with their condolences but rather to share that an old chapter has closed and a new chapter has begun.
It's a rather touchy subject, moving on from the death of someone so close, someone I saw every day, someone I considered my best friend from about the time I was seventeen and up until the time I met my husband, which is how it should be, isn't it?
Now I'm finding and quickly losing extra time. I still think of my Mother every single day and the last couple of days, I've been thinking about how I still think of her every day. I sort of hope I always will but I do hope that, at some point, instead of remembering her last days, days I worried so about her, days that were so bitter sweet, that I'll spend all my time remembering what a vibrant and full life she led before she got so sick. She really relished life, and she was so fully and completely in love with my step-dad and they had a zest for life that anyone would envy.
There are a lot of emotions that go along with losing a parent and I think maybe it would be healthy for others to see how somebody else deals with it.
First of all, it was horrendous going through those last days. Needing and wanting to see her and yet hardly being able to bear seeing her. The time I went to see her became later and later each day because I hated to see her like that, I hated to see her dying, I hated knowing she was dying, yet, on the other hand, by her own choice of going on hospice and deciding to leave life as comfortably as possible she gave us a great gift of time.
The other choice was a surgery that she likely wouldn't have survived. We could have lost her more quickly if she had chosen the surgery. So, we ended up with 7 1/2 days to say goodbye and I believe the family used those days well. It was a gift to all of us to have those extra days and those extra moments.
Now I am trying to remember her zest for life, the love she showed the people she cared about and her giving nature and I'm reminding myself that she would want nothing less for me, reminding myself she'd want me to live life to the fullest, just as she did.
I loved my Mother, I can't imagine loving anyone more than I loved my Mother, as my husband says, I loved her "hard," very hard.
Then there are feelings of guilt.
Because I have looked forward to having more time to write for CFP and now I do, I feel a bit guilty that I have that time and am enjoying it so much. I couldn't do it while I needed to be spending so much time caring for her.
I also worry about, and have worried about, what people might think of my being able to move on so quickly. I know that seems silly, but I do think about what other people think. You see, when someone loses someone close to them after a long, debilitating disease they see that person's death coming for a long time. I've seen my Mom's death coming for a long time. I didn't think it was going to happen the way it happened but I had known it could happen at any time for the last couple of years. I was braced for it, but I was braced for it to happen differently than it happened. I wasn't braced for her losing her leg. I wasn't braced for taking her to the hospital with an upset stomach one day and her never getting to go home again. I didn't think the day I called the ambulance to take her to the hospital was going to be the day that marked the last day she would ever wake up in her own home. Those things were very difficult to accept for her and for me. We wanted our life back. We wanted the life back we knew. Even though it wasn't the best quality of life, we liked our little routine. We liked our brunches and our time together every day. We liked sitting at the kitchen table watching the birds at the feeder outside the window and we liked being together. We weren't ready to let go of that. I thought I'd walk into her house one morning and she would have gone out suddenly, with no suffering. She would have had a heart attack, or just stopped breathing and I would walk in and call out to her and she wouldn't answer me. I can't tell you how many mornings I prepared myself for that scenario.
I never prepared myself for what we faced, for the road we traveled for the last 6 months of her life.
I've learned a lot about the value of life and I want to make her proud of what I do with the rest of mine. I want to take her spirit of making family, each member, feel special, feel loved, feel worth the time spent with them. There are many things I can learn from the way she lived her life. She had both a childlike naivette and a firm shrewdness. She could be so loving but when she was through, let me tell you, she was through. She was strong and soft hearted, sweet and yet no one's doormat. People are amazingly complicated, aren't they? She was a perfect example of that.
Anyway, I love my Mom, yeah, I still love her in the present tense because I know that I'll never truly be without her. I can think of her every day. I can return to moments of joy and sharing over and over and I can do it anytime I want. She'll never truly be gone.
I don't know if any of this will be helpful to anyone else or not. I've never been one to think my thoughts are any better than anyone else's thoughts, I've often thought they are worse, but not better. Maybe this has just been an exercise for myself, who knows? If it is, though, I'd have just as soon kept it to myself and not laid it out on this blog. I'm a private person. I really don't like to share my personal thoughts that much any more and since I have been practicing, pretty much, straight reporting for CFP for a while, I find sharing my own opinion about things less and less appealing all the time. I'd rather just report what someone else thinks, usually, in my opinion, other people are much more interesting than I am.
Regardless, here's an old, oft repeated piece of advice that no one ever takes seriously (at least I seldom have): Make every moment count with the people you love in your life. Your children will grow up and you'll only have memories of when they were young, your parents will grow old and you'll only have memories of when they were in their prime, you're friends are not invincible, they are very mortal and who knows what can happen? This could also be your own last day. Look at what happened with one of my favorite arguing buddies; John Stone was out taking pictures at Park Central Square one day, the next thing we know we're reading about his death in the paper and I still haven't had the heart to remove his blog from my, personal, list of favorites. Make every moment count. I think I did that, for the most part, with my Mother. I know I'll never regret it and I know that anyone who practices that with the people they love in their lives won't regret it either.
A friend of mine used to paint signs to sell, she's an exceptional artist, who, unfortunately, doesn't really enjoy painting, instead spending most of her time crafting. Anyway, she used to paint a sign, it wasn't her original thought but I loved the thought and I used to have one of her "scrolls" that said it, while seeming simple and cliche, it really says it all:
"Live well, Laugh often, Love much"
We could do worse than to live life that way.
People who read the comment section know that my Mom passed away in early April. I'm not bringing it up because I want a lot of people to respond with their condolences but rather to share that an old chapter has closed and a new chapter has begun.
It's a rather touchy subject, moving on from the death of someone so close, someone I saw every day, someone I considered my best friend from about the time I was seventeen and up until the time I met my husband, which is how it should be, isn't it?
Now I'm finding and quickly losing extra time. I still think of my Mother every single day and the last couple of days, I've been thinking about how I still think of her every day. I sort of hope I always will but I do hope that, at some point, instead of remembering her last days, days I worried so about her, days that were so bitter sweet, that I'll spend all my time remembering what a vibrant and full life she led before she got so sick. She really relished life, and she was so fully and completely in love with my step-dad and they had a zest for life that anyone would envy.
There are a lot of emotions that go along with losing a parent and I think maybe it would be healthy for others to see how somebody else deals with it.
First of all, it was horrendous going through those last days. Needing and wanting to see her and yet hardly being able to bear seeing her. The time I went to see her became later and later each day because I hated to see her like that, I hated to see her dying, I hated knowing she was dying, yet, on the other hand, by her own choice of going on hospice and deciding to leave life as comfortably as possible she gave us a great gift of time.
The other choice was a surgery that she likely wouldn't have survived. We could have lost her more quickly if she had chosen the surgery. So, we ended up with 7 1/2 days to say goodbye and I believe the family used those days well. It was a gift to all of us to have those extra days and those extra moments.
Now I am trying to remember her zest for life, the love she showed the people she cared about and her giving nature and I'm reminding myself that she would want nothing less for me, reminding myself she'd want me to live life to the fullest, just as she did.
I loved my Mother, I can't imagine loving anyone more than I loved my Mother, as my husband says, I loved her "hard," very hard.
Then there are feelings of guilt.
Because I have looked forward to having more time to write for CFP and now I do, I feel a bit guilty that I have that time and am enjoying it so much. I couldn't do it while I needed to be spending so much time caring for her.
I also worry about, and have worried about, what people might think of my being able to move on so quickly. I know that seems silly, but I do think about what other people think. You see, when someone loses someone close to them after a long, debilitating disease they see that person's death coming for a long time. I've seen my Mom's death coming for a long time. I didn't think it was going to happen the way it happened but I had known it could happen at any time for the last couple of years. I was braced for it, but I was braced for it to happen differently than it happened. I wasn't braced for her losing her leg. I wasn't braced for taking her to the hospital with an upset stomach one day and her never getting to go home again. I didn't think the day I called the ambulance to take her to the hospital was going to be the day that marked the last day she would ever wake up in her own home. Those things were very difficult to accept for her and for me. We wanted our life back. We wanted the life back we knew. Even though it wasn't the best quality of life, we liked our little routine. We liked our brunches and our time together every day. We liked sitting at the kitchen table watching the birds at the feeder outside the window and we liked being together. We weren't ready to let go of that. I thought I'd walk into her house one morning and she would have gone out suddenly, with no suffering. She would have had a heart attack, or just stopped breathing and I would walk in and call out to her and she wouldn't answer me. I can't tell you how many mornings I prepared myself for that scenario.
I never prepared myself for what we faced, for the road we traveled for the last 6 months of her life.
I've learned a lot about the value of life and I want to make her proud of what I do with the rest of mine. I want to take her spirit of making family, each member, feel special, feel loved, feel worth the time spent with them. There are many things I can learn from the way she lived her life. She had both a childlike naivette and a firm shrewdness. She could be so loving but when she was through, let me tell you, she was through. She was strong and soft hearted, sweet and yet no one's doormat. People are amazingly complicated, aren't they? She was a perfect example of that.
Anyway, I love my Mom, yeah, I still love her in the present tense because I know that I'll never truly be without her. I can think of her every day. I can return to moments of joy and sharing over and over and I can do it anytime I want. She'll never truly be gone.
I don't know if any of this will be helpful to anyone else or not. I've never been one to think my thoughts are any better than anyone else's thoughts, I've often thought they are worse, but not better. Maybe this has just been an exercise for myself, who knows? If it is, though, I'd have just as soon kept it to myself and not laid it out on this blog. I'm a private person. I really don't like to share my personal thoughts that much any more and since I have been practicing, pretty much, straight reporting for CFP for a while, I find sharing my own opinion about things less and less appealing all the time. I'd rather just report what someone else thinks, usually, in my opinion, other people are much more interesting than I am.
Regardless, here's an old, oft repeated piece of advice that no one ever takes seriously (at least I seldom have): Make every moment count with the people you love in your life. Your children will grow up and you'll only have memories of when they were young, your parents will grow old and you'll only have memories of when they were in their prime, you're friends are not invincible, they are very mortal and who knows what can happen? This could also be your own last day. Look at what happened with one of my favorite arguing buddies; John Stone was out taking pictures at Park Central Square one day, the next thing we know we're reading about his death in the paper and I still haven't had the heart to remove his blog from my, personal, list of favorites. Make every moment count. I think I did that, for the most part, with my Mother. I know I'll never regret it and I know that anyone who practices that with the people they love in their lives won't regret it either.
A friend of mine used to paint signs to sell, she's an exceptional artist, who, unfortunately, doesn't really enjoy painting, instead spending most of her time crafting. Anyway, she used to paint a sign, it wasn't her original thought but I loved the thought and I used to have one of her "scrolls" that said it, while seeming simple and cliche, it really says it all:
"Live well, Laugh often, Love much"
We could do worse than to live life that way.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
If you must know...
I understand that what I am writing about these days may not suit some of my regular readers. I'm sorry if I disappoint some of you. I have a lot on my plate right now and beyond obligations that I have with family, church and the writings I do beyond this blog I may not have a lot of time to keep this blog updated as much as usual and it may be lighter fare because honestly, that's about all I have the time or energy for.
For the benefit of my good friend, Momma Twoop, let me just say: "This too shall pass."
I've been very interested in the discussions about good and evil going on at KSGF in the mornings with Vincent David Jericho and had started working on something for the Christmas season before Vince started that discussion that I hope to finish when I have the time. I really wish I had the time and energy to put my two cents in on Vince's discussion right now but I just don't.
For the moment, it sucks being me.
I've never understood why anyone cares what I think in the first place but lately there's been too much thinking to process and I'm doing what I can to keep myself informed and carry out my responsibilities. If you could see what's going on in my head right now it'd scare ya. Believe me, you really don't want to know, it'd be way too much information.
The State Auditor's report on the audit of the City of Springfield is coming up. It's open to the public. Attend it. It will be in Council Chambers at 830 Boonville Avenue, December 6, 7:00 p.m.
Merry CHRISTmas everyone!
For the benefit of my good friend, Momma Twoop, let me just say: "This too shall pass."
I've been very interested in the discussions about good and evil going on at KSGF in the mornings with Vincent David Jericho and had started working on something for the Christmas season before Vince started that discussion that I hope to finish when I have the time. I really wish I had the time and energy to put my two cents in on Vince's discussion right now but I just don't.
For the moment, it sucks being me.
I've never understood why anyone cares what I think in the first place but lately there's been too much thinking to process and I'm doing what I can to keep myself informed and carry out my responsibilities. If you could see what's going on in my head right now it'd scare ya. Believe me, you really don't want to know, it'd be way too much information.
The State Auditor's report on the audit of the City of Springfield is coming up. It's open to the public. Attend it. It will be in Council Chambers at 830 Boonville Avenue, December 6, 7:00 p.m.
Merry CHRISTmas everyone!
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