Tag: life

Low/high

When I wrote this post in the wee hours of Monday morning, I had no idea what new highs and lows the next twenty-four hours would bring…

At 9:00 AM, Nana and I met with her primary care physician, Dr. T. What began as a discussion of her recent symptoms that had prompted us to be there quickly segued into a discussion of how her numerous health conditions and our treatment plan were not succeeding as we had all hoped, how the trajectory while there were ups and downs was trending downward, and how we needed to discuss and prepare for end-of-life planning.

I cried.

As I am sure you can imagine, or, perhaps, know from your own experience, the discussion was painful and emotional, but I am grateful for Dr. T’s honesty, care, and concern that made it possible for us to consider our options and get the help that Nana and all of us need. Barring a sudden event like a stroke, we are likely to have some unknown number of months with Nana, which we want to make as comfortable and peaceful as possible, as filled with family and friends as her strength allows.

We are starting with getting home care recommenced, but the new goal will be to have therapists and aides to help care for her so that she can conserve energy for fun things, instead of wasting it on mundane things. For example, while a goal of her physical therapy had been to be able to walk down to the dining room at their retirement community for dinner, a new goal will be to get a wheelchair so she can ride to the dining room and have energy to eat and visit with friends.

We expect that there will continue to be some days that are better than others, but we hope to have enough support to keep Nana at home in the apartment she shares with Paco. They have been married for 63 years and belong together!

I spent much of Monday afternoon communicating with family members that needed to know what was going on and wrapping my head around our next steps. E and L took over dinner preparations and we settled in for an evening together watching television. E wanted to watch the Stanley Cup (ice hockey) game and was ensconced on the couch with L, when, a bit before 8:00 PM, she startled all of us with the news that her water had broken.

In short order, there was a call to the obstetrician’s office, the message saying to head to the hospital, the hurried assembling of some supplies, and the four of us driving off to the hospital where we arrived at about 8:30.

E and L headed into the delivery suite while B and I set up in the waiting room, thinking that, given that E had not been having noticeable contractions, they might send us home while she rested for the night and waited for labor to begin in earnest. The reason we thought this might be the scenario is that, when I was pregnant with E, my water broke at 36.5 weeks and it took 26 hours for her to arrive.

And E was also at 36.5 weeks.

This was a different labor-and-delivery story.

Baby arrived before 1:00 AM Tuesday, on the sixth of the month.

E was also born on the sixth of the month.

Baby weighed five pounds, five ounces (2.4 kg) and was eighteen inches (46 cm) long.

E was born at that exact weight and length.

Baby has a full head of hair, as did E, although E was strawberry blond (later changing to golden blond) and Baby has dark hair, like L’s.

E and L named their new daughter Ada. Henceforth, I will likely refer to her here on the blog as ABC, which are her initials, but I did want to share her lovely name with you in honor of her birth.

B and I got to share a little time with the new little family before heading home to catch a few winks before the sun rose. We each got to hold our precious first grandchild and reflect on the parallels between E and little Ada.

One more: Ada, like E, is the first grandchild on both sides of the family.

L was able to stay at the hospital with E and ABC until they came home on Wednesday. On Thursday, they went up to meet Nana and Paco.

Nana and Ada 6/8/17
(Great) Nana and Ada meet for the first time

Maybe Ada was in a hurry to arrive so that she could meet Nana as soon as possible.

I’m sure she will bring us all much-needed joy in the coming months.

the privilege of (private) mistakes

We all make mistakes.

After the problem at the Oscars last night, mistakes are in the news, so I have been thinking about mistakes a lot today.

Most of us lead our lives in a small, mostly private sphere. When I make a mistake, it is usually straightforward to correct it and move on.

I’d hate to think of what my posts would look like if I couldn’t correct my mistakes…

A simple mistake of handing someone the wrong envelope last night led to a few minutes of confusion before the situation was corrected, but having millions of people viewing that mistake must have made it very difficult for those involved.

Still, the solution was fast and there was no lasting damage.

Other mistakes are not so easy to rectify.

Last night, 60 Minutes was re-showing a segment on people who have been exonerated after long prison sentences. Such grievously mistaken convictions are not so easy to rectify. Some states try to award money to the person, while others don’t even do that. Still, no amount of money can replace decades of lost life with family and friends, a chance for a career or for building a family, being able to choose what to eat and where to travel, to have contact with others on a regular basis, all the stuff that we take for granted as we build our adult lives.

One man, exonerated by ballistics testing after thirty years in prison, made his first stop after being released his mother’s grave. Nothing could ever replace the precious time he lost, locked away from her.

One of my current worries is mistakes from the White House, which can have massive consequences.

For example, mistakes with the executive order on immigrants and refugees sent some people back to dangerous situations. A mistake made in international relations could even lead to armed conflict.

People who are in positions of public authority don’t share the luxury that I have of making – and correcting – mistakes in private. Therefore, they must be particularly diligent to be thoughtful and considered in everything they say and do.

The new administration is not there yet.

One-Liner Wednesday: living well

“The secret to living well and longer is:
eat half, walk double, laugh triple
and love without measure.”
– Tibetan proverb

Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday! Find out how here:  https://lindaghill.com/2017/02/15/one-liner-wednesday-a-momentary-lapse-of-reason/

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One-Liner Wednesday: Jung quote

“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”
 – Carl G. Jung

*****
Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday! Find out how here:  https://lindaghill.com/2017/01/04/one-liner-wednesday-jusjojan-417-prompt-pro-tip/

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This is also part of Linda’s Just Jot It January. Join us for that fun feature, too! Find out more at the link above. It’s a double dip!

One-Liner Wednesday: Love

“Our challenge today is to trust the power of love at the heart of life, to let ourselves be seized by love, to create and invent ways for love to evolve into a global wholeness of unity, compassion, justice, and peacemaking.”
~~~ Ilia Delio

Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday! Find out how here:  https://lindaghill.com/2016/08/03/one-liner-wednesday-it-was-the-beginning-of-the-end/

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SoCS: If x, then y

If x, then y.

I’ve been telling myself some version of that for years. It usually involves getting through some major project/issue/development – the “if” – so that “then” things will calm down and be organized and predictable and under control.

It almost never works out that way.

I am finally wising up and getting to the point where I don’t promise anyone, even myself, some future goal.

Too much can happen that was unforeseen or that results in a totally different chain of events than anticipated.

The only constant is change and all that…

A lot of things that I might have seen as if/then are morphing into hopes, rather than promises or commitments.

It’s a way to retain some level of sanity/calm/integrity.

People who read my blog know that the past few months have been difficult for me, beginning with the unexpected death of my mother-in-law in March. I had to pull back from a lot of my usual activities, including blogging practice, and I thought I had an idea of when and how I would work my way back to what I had been used to.

Then, a string of other things unfolded and I have had to acknowledge that I really don’t have a clue when I will resume or even if it is possible.

I will just do the best that I can.

My if/thens will be confined to simple straightforward statements, such as “If I schedule this post now, then it will appear on Saturday.”
*****
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is if/then. Come join the fun! Find out how here:   https://lindaghill.com/2016/07/15/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-july-1616/ 

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Wounded

Sharing this thought-provoking, heart-breaking post from Nancy of Marginalia.

It is hard not to lead with our wounds. We all have them. Some are personal. Some are from childhood. Many are cultural. Every day we step out into the world

Source: Wounded

April 19

As everyone from Massachusetts knows, April 19th is the traditional date of Patriots’ Day. The date should also be familiar to everyone who had to memorize the opening of Longfellow’s “Paul Revere’s Ride” as the date of the Battle of Lexington and Concord, which began the American Revolutionary War.

April 19th is also the date of my parents’ wedding anniversary.

This year was their 62nd!

Patriots’ Day was part of the reason they married on April 19th. They thought that my father would always get their anniversary off from work. They had not anticipated the Monday Holiday Bill, which moved many of the holidays from their traditional dates to the closest Monday, giving a long weekend from work, but obscuring the original meaning of the date.

The other reason they married on April 19 was that it was Easter Monday that year. In the Catholic tradition, weddings are not usually celebrated during Lent, so Easter Monday/Patriots’ Day seemed the perfect date to begin their life together.

Of course, given the complexities of life, no marriage could be perfect, but theirs has been a wonderful witness to what a marriage can be when each partner loves and looks out for the other.

Next month, B and I will celebrate our 34th anniversary. I hope and pray that we will be granted the longevity and love that has blessed my parents.

Maybe it will help that I take (mental) notes…

 

bubbles

Note:  I wrote most of this post last Tuesday, but just got back to finish it in the wee hours of Sunday morning.

It’s a week today since Grandma died. The shock is diminishing and we have carved out a few bubbles of not really normalcy but times when we could focus on something else.

Saturday was my dad’s 91st birthday. B and I took Nana and Paco downtown to meet their youngest grandchild, our niece S, at the bus station. It is only a short jaunt down Interstate 81 from the campus where she is a first-year. We went to lunch at one of our favorite restaurants, then back to Nana and Paco’s apartment to visit for a bit before we had to bring S to catch her bus back to campus. Paco’s three other grandchildren called during that time, including a skype call from our daughters E and T. It was our first time doing a group call with them. When Paco was growing up, if someone had told him that one day he would be able to communicate with his grandchildren in Syracuse and Honolulu at the same time, he would not have believed it.

Of course, we had not forgotten about Grandma during this time of focusing on Paco’s birthday. After we finished all visiting together on the skype call, B and I went into another room to talk with E and T about how things are going with them as we continue to deal with Grandma’s death. We also discussed trying to schedule a time for the burial later in the spring, which involves trying to work around several commencement dates and long-distance travel.

Another bubble of focusing on something else was Easter vigil on Saturday night. Although the liturgy deals with death and resurrection, it was a way to focus on belief and faith, rather than on my own little recent experience of death.

The third bubble has been the time spent trying to complete my first week of the MOOC I am taking. I was a good student back in the day and apparently my inability to skip out on assignments is still there. I honestly don’t know if I will be able to keep up, but I managed to complete the first week on time.

 

One-Liner Wednesday: live like the river

“I would love to live like a river flows….carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.”
~ John O’Donohue

Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday! Find out how here:  http://lindaghill.com/2016/02/10/one-liner-wednesday-a-disco/