my cousin and friend judy slater

in the fall,i went to north dakota to spend more time with john and judy. they have a lovely home in minot. john worked from home and was out on the road for almost a week while i was there.

judy and i were never at a loss for conversation or for something to do. we had lunch with her friends, english tea, at sylvia's and a trip to see her good friend patty. the days flew by and we savored each one.

the night we came home from visiting patty, judy was tired. we both dozed off in our recliners. when she awakened, she stretched back and had an "event" that i had not seen in all my nursing years. it wasn't a seizure. she didn't lose consciosness. it was cardiac related. we went to bismark the next day and reported the behavior to her cardiologist. he was unable to re-create it.

there is a limit on how often you can replace a pacemaker. judy's was failing her. that didn't slow her down. she continued to live life full tilt.
we made and canned salsa and refrigerator raspberry jam. did i mention that we were aunt agnes' personal assistants/chauffeur? we made meals for extended family get togethers. i was so happy to be with her.

my mom always talked about judy in endearing terms. i,too,grew to love this incredible expression of God's love!

at thanksgiving time,she went to abbot-north western in minnesota for a second opinion about the need for a pacemaker replacement. once they did testing, they were amazed that she was able to do all she repoted doing. they thought a transplant was in order. meanwhile,they did a valve replacement and pacemaker replacement. it was on my birthday that she had a stroke to her brain stem. all of sudden,unexpectedly, she was respirator dependent.

after talking things over with her daughter,tracey, john asked that she be removed from life support. she would never have wanted to live like that,
when john texted me that "heaven has another angel", i was stunned. her greatest concern was that she might have a stroke. she did and now she was gone from our sight.

judy slater was my favorite cousin by marriage. she was all that she could be-wife,mother,daughter,friend,neighbor and totally available to all. my life was enriched by her. i'm so grateful for the times we had.

66th birthday

"dress nicely. it's kind of dressey." kath was taking me out for lunch to celebrate my birthday. we'd had our usual morning, extended breakfast and then to planet fitness to exercise. once home,we changed and left for town.\

we parked on fifth avenue and walked to a little tea house. kath spoke to the hostess and then headed for a table. i followed. there were toni and pansie,,,big as life! this was the gift...lunch with friends. lovely! lively conversations and lots of laughter. turning 66 was easy.

thanks-giving

thanksgivng....giving thanks. earlier this week i asked kath what we'd be doing for thanksgiving. she was non-commital. how could we miss celebrating the one day dedicated to being grateful? here we are in florida enjoying a simple but rich life. we are eating well and exercising regularely. we have a friendship that many only wish for. we have loads of reasons to be thank-full. tuesday i bought a turkey and we were on our way to a great meal. we invited pansie,don and jane woodruff. we served a traditional meal and i was most grateful to be celebrating.

our lives are blessed. our friends are a blessing. all reasons to celebrate thanksgiving day. amen!

the test of a friendship

when tom died,kath asked me if i'd go to florida with her for the winter. i said "yes". now we are the brink of that winter. we'll leave next week. the plan is to visit friends and family along the way.
we have been friends for thirty years and more. it will be a test of our friendship.
our plan is eat more healthily and to exercise. resolve is a process. so we'll start with food and work up to exercise. she is my good friend. if i must make this journey, i'm glad it's with her.

north dakota girl

went to n.d. for memorial day. mary,mike,jim,will,grace and i drove there. we stayed in the twin cities the first night and with john and judy the rest of our stay. we went to bottineau via lignite and our oil well visit. judy's brother,ted, works with a rig and he explained the fraking process to us in layman's terms. dangerous.

we drove up to see aunt mary and uncle albert. judy took mary,mike and jim to the peace gardens. will and grace created a fort in the back yard. they spent 2-3 hours in an imaginary world. they were so excited to share it with grandma,grandpa and dad, it was an afternoon to remember. time with aunt mary is never enough.

john and judy gave us the royal treatment with a country breakfast and a grilled ham dinner. we saw maynard and aunt agnes but the time was not enough for me. our time was limited because the kids had to be home for some event with their mom.

i wanted more time with my aunts and cousins. judy and i have so much fun together sooooo i took the train and went back for a three week visit. it was delightful. judy and john made me feel right at home. judy and i spent days visiting her friends, shopping and canning jam and salsa. she took me back to bottineau. we visited aunt mary and uncle al. we took aunt mary to the casino. she was lucky and made 40 bucks. the drive home to minot was in the pitch dark. we made it without a hitch.

i knew judy's heart was compromised but i didn't realize how sick she was. she lived each day to the full and brought me along. one night after visiting her friend in bullah, she had an episode of jerking movements that resembled a seizure without the post ictal phase. i asked her if thaat had happened before- "yes". we went for her scheduled cardiology appt. in bismark the next morning. her pacemaker was failing. there was a frayed wire which might have caused the above episode. the plan is for her to get a second opinion in minnisota. meanwhile she is going to live her life as usual.

judy calls me her good friend and that is true, but i call her my cousin. i could call her my sister because the bond we share is so precious. i look forward to more visits with john and judy in the months ahead. maybe we'll go ice fishing!

wasting time

that's what i'm doing, wasting time. i sleep most of the aftermoon and spend time watching tv. no purpose. no one to care for and i'm certainly not taking care of myself. no motivation. a house full of "to do's" and no intention of getting them done. i don't even know where to start. eating then sleeping then eating and repeat. no wonder i'm finding it difficult to sleep at night.

wellbutrin is not the answer. there's no reason for this apathy. i'm 65 and have the potential to live a long time. not at this pace. my body is failing me because i am failing it. i trip and fall with too much regularity. falling at kath's cottage was the worst. "don't tell her..." and bobbi didn't. i did and it was so humiliating.

where is the "me" who cares. i don't know.

Dorothy

When I moved onto Overlake I aquired a new neighbor, Dorothy Lepine. Over 10 years,we became friends of a sort.When I describe her I say "she is one of God's "simple creatures". I don't think I've ever known someone so trusting. A true example of "blind faith".
Her work involved getting dis-honorable dischares reversed. Her usual clients were gay men from the Vietnam war. Her success rate-60%.
She was a great neighbor! When my Mom was mobile, she came and heated her supper. They visited and Dorothy told me that they laughed. She minded Millie when I was away on vacations. She took my returnable bottles back to the store. She was faithful in "little things".
She had breat cancer 8 years ago and never said anything to me about it. Very private. She had a deep devotion to the blessed Mother. She went to nursing homes to pray the rosary with the residents. She had life-long friends, Margaret and June.
One Sunday, when I got home from work, June was in the driveway. Unable to reach Dorothy for 3 days, she called the police. They came and found her. She'd fallen and was unable to aright herself. She was dehydrated and mildly confused.Once home from the hospital, I began to pay better attention to her comings and goings.
Early this year it became apparent to me that she was failing. She got an emergency call button after the above fall. She used it and then we got her a daily caregiver. The falls increased and then we had 24 hr. in house care for her. In the begining this was hard for her. She was a private person. Vickie Colley became her friend. She trusted her implicity.
In the end, cancer returned. This time it was in her liver. I took care of her on memorial day weekend. She needed to be in the hospital. She asked her neice, Carolyn, to come. Come she did from san miguel, mexico with her partner Norma. Dorothy came home on 6/7/11. I saw her that afternoon when I returned from being with Mom. Early the next morning Caro;yn called. Dorothy had died in her sleep. She was with my Mom,in heaven.
I got to know her neices and Norma as they cleared out her home and completed all the papers that go woth a demise. They offered me Dorothy's condo. "pay in a year". I agreed.
Dorothy is gone from my sight but not from my mind. I still refer to her condo as Dprothy's place. For mr it will always be hers. She was a wonderful neighbor. I miss her

104 years

well, mom will soon be 104 years old. by the grace of God, she'll be celebrating in heaven. i asked my "adrian crowd" to pray for that "gift", and they came through.

mary helen called after memorial day weekend."maybe you should come...you don't want to wish you had." my car was in the shop. would i rent a car or take the train? left kath a message asking for her thoughts. "we'll both go,
in my car. it makes sense." tears followed. she was "with me" in this moment.

it would become my last trip to be with mom. we arrived late tuesday afternoon. mom was alive, but in the process of leaving us. on wednesday and thursday, we gave her some morphine to slow her respirations. her respirations were rapid and shallow. the morpine did allow her to relax a bit.

i sat by her and held her hand. doing what i've admonished others to do. i held her hand and let her know that i was with her. i told her to "go where the willow tree would have been'. i took off the nasal o2 and within 15-20 minutes, she left. she took about 4-5 normal breaths and then closed her mouth in death. i closed her "beautiful brown eyes".

it was difficult for my mom to die. she was always so full of life and mischief. how she managed to deal with 4 years in bed, i'll never know. she was so patient with herself and so grateful for any care she received. in the end, i do believe that she was waiting for me to be there with her as ahe left for the willow tree.

i'm so grateful that mary helen called. i'm grateful that kath came with me. birth and death are the two most intimate times in life. mom was with me and i was with her...both times. how fortunate i was to share this life with her.

change in plans

one minute i was headed for north dakota and the next minute i was driving east on I-94. i was home to see mom and planned to take the train to minot in the morning. i checked my voice mail and found a voice mail from kath. a call late in the night,just after midnight. unable to reach her, i went to bed, but my sleep was fitful. there was something wrong, but what?

an early morning call explained it all. "tom fell and hit his head..."
no need for details. he was gone. his balance finally failed him. he was on coumadin. a huge "brain bleed". "he died this morning, just after five..."

so i forgot about minot and headed home to "be there", for my dear friend, as she returned home. a new chapter faces us. life, without the "love of her life". it is uncharted territory. i don't need to lead her.
i just need to be nearby in case she needs me. that's all i can do in this world without tom.

admission to my "self"

monday night iwas surfing the web. for some unknown reason,(better known as the Holy Spirit) i looked up oa. i located a meeting and tday i went to a meeting. i am powerless over food. the admission " ican do anything for someone else. i just can't do it for my "self". tears of truth and the need to bare my powerlessness...to strangers. annonymity...an opportunity.

time with friends

one of my resons for retiring was to have time with my "older" relatives and friends. after Easter i will take the train to north dakota. my aunt agnes will be 94 this month and my aunt mary will be 92 this summer. my local friends range in ages from mid-twenties to mid-nineties. quite a range! now is the time to reach out and garner all the wisdom those aunts can afford me.

friendships require time and lots of care. in my life i have been enriched a hundredfold by my relationships. men and women who take from 'where i am and lead me to 'new insights and understanding'. i count the time i spend with them as a blessing.

time with mom

i want to take a few moments to talk about my time with mom. i know that as a child she was always at home when i came home from school. one day she wasn't there. i was in 7th or 8th grade. i was filled with panic! where could she be? no note or anything. i was afraid that she was gone. she'd "had enough of it" and had left. how relieved i was as she came across the lawn from our neighbor's home. "just visiting".

now that she's 103 and unable to really know how much i love her, the above memory comes to my mind. she will be leaving sooner or later. i will really be on my own. a motherless child. at my age, most people have lost their moms. i'm the fortunate one.

while with her last week, 2/20-2/27, i was comfortable with our relationship. we sang and prayed and laughed, as i'm sure we did when i was a child. i fed and changed her as she did me years ago. the roles reversed. the love deeper and more honest than ever.

homrless

   homeless or house less? i certainly could be house less without much effort. a fixed income is sobering. it makes one consider purchases, outings, etc.. perhaps that's why i'm now on a fixed income. time for me to think before pulling out the credit card. when i visited sr. anne, in adrian this week, i was draw to her closet and the few clothes she had there. i once had very few possessions and i was the happiest i've ever been. what happened? did i think that "things" would complete me? do i think that i need certain surroundings? it's something to muse upon. now i feel burdened by all the stuff that surrounds me. actually i feel encumbered and find myself with low energy to rid my "self" of these possessions. it's like they posses me. not a not a good way to feel.

tonight i will spend time with some homeless/house less people. i.m sure they have lessons to teach me. my prayer is that i will listen and learn.

habits

they say it takes six weeks to develop a new habit. that being said, i have six weeks minus a day ,to go. weighed in at dr. nanna's office. went to st. clair shores senior center to exercise. thiety minutes of cardio.that was on the recumbent bike and the treadmill. warmed meup and raised my heart rate to 130 bpm. glen is in charge of the exercise room. i'll meet with him tomorrow at 0900. he'll instruct me on the weight resistance equipment.

today i walked .75 of a mile and burned off 75 claories in the walking. helps you see why it's so easy to gain weight. 75 calories is nothing compared to my usual intake. so, today i;ll sart agin to write down what i eat. they say it takes six weeks to develop a new habit. today is the first day. every journy begins with a single step.

winter sights

yesterday was an opportunity to relax and re-group. the snow began to fall and my eyes were drawn to it's randomness. flakes gently falling in all directions. mesmorizing. fronzen bits of water, lasting only moment as "individual" and then suddenly a part of the "whole" blanket that covers the yard. so too, we are individual for the brief time of our lives here and then returned to the whole-God.

if looked at, from a far, my life has taken many directions. all have rought me closer to the whole. love, for example, has taken me here and there. all the time not realizing that there is only one love that endures.one love that is all inclusive. one love that understands and continues to be present. that is the love that will collect us all into an eternal embrace.