Katie and her family wish you and yours a wonderful Christmas!
Does this hat make my head look big?
And she’d like you to know she hopes to never wear that hat again. Lights are more her style.
Merry Christmas to all!
Happy Holidays!!
Dad’s favorite place to be — on a boat.
I wasn’t going to write about this. That today is another anniversary of the semitruck crash that took our remaining parent.
Big brother
But today I seem to be blocked and unable to write about anything else.
One of my favorites of his childhood pictures.
And so I will mark the day so that I can move forward. Not move on, because that implies that I leave him behind, but forward.
Young man growing up to be a dad.
Today I am moving forward with him, and mom, always with me.
Merry Christmas you two.
Visiting her at the nursing home we talked about how difficult it is for her to adjust to her new life. Rules and roommates, the shared bathroom, the shower room down the hall.
“Sounds like you’re back in college and living in a dorm.” I laughed. “You just need to find some boys and a keg of beer and you’re good to go.”
She laughed too, but then her smile faded.
“It’s hard” she said. “There’s so much to learn here and that’s not easy when you’re a hundred and one!”
“You can do it,” I replied. “And I expect by next week you’ll be learning Italian.”
She laughed again. And then she said it. “Change is hard.”
I nodded in agreement. Yes, it certainly is.
Her bird, Charlie, aka Buddy, died this week, while in the care of a friend back at the apartment building. Maybe he died of a broken heart. Maybe he just got old. Regardless, it is another loss for her to absorb.
Loss after loss. She is strong, has been for 101 years. But this is a lot, would be a lot for anyone.
She says it best. “It’s hell to get old.”
RIP Buddy.
Dad at my wedding in 1990
Many of you already know this organization because of all my posts about Dad who was killed by a tired trucker December 23, 2004. We’re coming up on the anniversary again, and though it’s twelve years now, it seems like yesterday that my family’s world was turned upside down.
Back then we weren’t sure what had happened to us, or why, but we knew it wasn’t right. And the more we learned, about the long hours truck drivers work, the conditions they work under, the more we realized it was something we wanted to help fix.
Just like Dad always fixed stuff for us.
TSC is the only organization singularly devoted to supporting victims of truck crashes as well as the families and friends who have lost a loved one in a truck crash. I encourage you to go to their website to learn more about all the supportive programs and advocacy in which the Truck Safety Coalition is involved.
Please donate to TSC this Giving Tuesday by clicking here (http://trucksafety.org/get-involved/donate/) to help make a difference in the lives of people dealing with tragic crashes and to help save lives by improving highway safety for everyone, including those driving commercial trucks.
If you were to talk to any of the families volunteering for TSC they’d tell you that they work for safety to honor their loved ones and to keep other families from suffering the same tragedy they cope with every day.
Please join us as we stand for safety.
And thank you very much for all the emotional support you’ve provided my own family over the years. We couldn’t have made it through without all of you.
Grew up to be my Dad.
Katie here. I’d like to take this opportunity while my mama is away to thank all of you for reading my blog. Well, it’s actually her blog, but I know for sure that your favorite posts are mine!
She and I have loved meeting so many of you in person, and we hope to meet even more of you someday soon! In the meantime I hope you have a wonderful day and a fantastic weekend with family and friends.
Thank you everybody!!
Mama will be home soon. I’m pretty sure she won’t be mad that I hijacked her blog cause I did it just to say thank you to all our readers!
Happy Thanksgiving everybody!
Anyway…Mama and I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!
Hope she brings me some turkey!
“There is a plan and a purpose, a value to every life, no matter what its location, age, gender, or disability. — Sharron Angle
I’ve been nominated by Carol at Wanderings of an Illusive Mind. (For a smile and a look at something beautiful, go check out her blog header…she paints with alcohol inks and the horse you’ll find there is stunning!)
Life here is pretty busy at the moment, though I suppose it’s busy everywhere now that the holidays are upon us. Here in the US the combination of politics and holidays don’t seem to go together very well, especially this year.
But I don’t want to talk about that.
I’d rather talk about the value of a life, regardless of the age or location of a person. Especially because of the age and location of a person.
Our elderly family member is settling into a new home, one she wishes she didn’t have to accept. She lived in her own apartment until she was 101 ; that’s longer than most of us will ever live alone. But her legs and her heart just aren’t strong enough for her to live alone any longer.
She knew that someday she’d have to move into a nursing home. Still, now that the time has come, it’s hard.
It’s hard on those of us watching her struggle with emotions as we struggle with ours. It’s hard telling her over and over that she can’t go home again. It’s hard to listen to her voicing her objections to her new location. And it’s hard to leave her there after each visit.
It’s hard to tell her the sky is a brilliant blue and the air is warm and see her sad eyes at the realization she can’t see out the window on the other side of her shared room. It’s hard to listen to her talk about the noises made by other residents at night without having an acceptable resolution. To think about her never having her favorite cinnamon raisin toast again because there’s nowhere to toast it for her. To realize that her space is too small to give her fresh flowers, that she never gets fresh fruits with a meal, that she can no longer enjoy the company of her bird. That she enjoys no privacy at all.
Mostly it’s hard for her.
I believe her life still has value, regardless of the age she has attained and regardless of where she now finds her physical self. And I believe that somehow we need to find a way to make her feel valuable again. Because right now she’s not feeling like she matters to much of anyone at all.
And that’s not right.
Change is hard.
Charlie misses his mom.
Autumn light catches color.
I suppose the future is uncertain for everyone, after all tomorrow is not promised. But when you’re 101 the future is even less certain.
I wonder what that feels like.
We grow up looking forward into forever. When we’re five we can’t wait until we’re 10, excited by those double digits. And then we want to be sixteen so that we can drive a car and eighteen so we can vote, and twenty-one so we can legally celebrate with a beer.
Golden glow tinged with red.
And the future stretches out forever into the horizon.
Then suddenly you’re closing in on one hundred, then a hundred and one, and you’ve outlived most of your siblings, many of your friends. Your only child. And you remember the smallest details about the century just past, the events, the places you’ve lived, the places you’ve left. So many people that are now gone.
Purple focus.
You don’t see so well now, you’re uncertain who is entering your space, and family and friends announce themselves and you smile and nod, glad of the company, the time to talk, to tell some of the stories, some of the things you have stored in your mind.
You know time is passing, that your body is becoming more frail, that a fall will likely cause you to lose the last bits of independence you enjoy now. You’re careful. Still, it is inevitable.
Early morning light shimmers.
And when you fall you hesitate to push the button for help. You know it will mean leaving your home behind, perhaps for the last time. You’ll be leaving all that is familiar and under your control.
You know you’ll no longer be able to make all the decisions, that you’ll have to live somewhere else. Somewhere different and less private with less privileges and fewer friends near.
Lonely.
But you push the button.
And now things are being sorted out and you wish you could go home but that’s probably not an option. And the future looks different than you wished it could be but maybe that doesn’t matter so much anymore.
Maybe you’ll be fine for the time you have left no matter where you end up, as long as your friends and family still come to visit and you all get to tell the stories of the old days and remember the good times.
Standing proud.
Maybe you’ll be fine. Because no mater the length of time allotted your future still stretches into the horizon.
Note: Many of you have read and care about Aunt V. She’s in a rehab center now and things are being sorted out.
She’s being brave, but change is hard.
Pink. A favorite color.
Headed to the oven.
I’ve had successes and failures. Sometimes both in the same meal, because, of course, there are two of us here, each with our own opinion, our own likes and dislikes.
For example, this week alone we struggled with the mushroom, brown rice, refried bean burritos and the baked falafel pita with green sauce sandwiches. I loved the burritos, but husband thought the canned enchilada sauce I used over the top was too spicy. On the other hand, he liked the baked falafels, but I thought they were dry, and the raw garlic in the green sauce topping was way too much for me to handle.
But I’m learning. I’m learning that raw garlic is not my thing, though cooked is fine. And that I can stretch my assumptions about what my husband will try.
We’re not truly vegans, nor even vegetarians. We’re just trying to make meat less important in our diet. So once a week or so I cook a meat and potato meal, though never red meat. I enjoy the simplicity of those meals, the feeling of familiarity while preparing them. I enjoy not having to look at the recipe eight or nine times, of just throwing something together.
I guess someday the vegetarian and vegan meals I make will be the same. Familiar. Easy. Tasty. Predictable. But I hope not right away….not the predictable part anyway. It’s a challenge right now, and on good days I’m happy to be puttering in the kitchen. Especially when it works. When it doesn’t, and I’m still hungry after a meal, I long for a simple burger that doesn’t require chopping and sauteing and toasting stuff.
Some people have told me they are amazed at the things I’ve attempted to do. I guess I just don’t know any better. I’m following the recipes, asking people what ingredients are when I don’t recognize them, looking stuff up online. I feel like I’m gaining skills.
It is true, however, that most of the recipes take me a long time to complete. And some of them do seem complicated. There are often recipes inside of recipes. Somewhere within each seems to be a reference to a sauce or toasted something or other that requires another pan and process, the result to be included in the original recipe as an ingredient.
And please. Always have cooked brown rice available in your fridge or you have to start there and add half an hour to the whole event.
But all in all I think we’re doing pretty OK with this change to our diet. I have to say, though, that my hands smell like garlic. All the time.
It’s becoming sort of familiar.
Falafel beginnings
Point Betsie Lighthouse stands in for my folks.
And so, over the years, it has become one of my favorite places too. I visit when I’m up in that part of the country, sometimes for only a minute or two, sometimes for a longer walk.
Before kids.
I stopped on my way home from Northport last week. It was a pretty day with blue skies and high white clouds. The waves lapped peacefully, the sun made the red roof glow. As always I spent a few moments imaging my parents there, years before I was born, enjoying each other and the beautiful lake.
I thought about how young they were, how they had no idea they’d have four children or that they’d run a small business. They didn’t know that someday they’d move away from the lakes and the state they loved, far from their family, and that they’d settle on another pretty lake in a faraway state and enjoy it almost as much. Way back then they never dreamed they’d live in the South or that most of their children would follow them there.
But I know they hoped they would live happy, contented and fulfilled lives.
Empty nesters back at their favorite lake.
And they did.
Today is their 64th wedding anniversary. I like to think they’re enjoying each other and a beautiful view — maybe even a gorgeous lake with a lighthouse standing tall behind them.
And I like to think they are happy with the way things turned out even though their lives were shorter than any of us wished. I know they are proud of us and happiest when we are happy. So I guess the best anniversary gift we can give them is to enjoy and be content with the lives we are living today.
And to make every day count. Because you just never know.
Happy 64th anniversary Mom and Dad.
We miss you.
Always there.
Change Is Hard 