Food Stories

            At lunch, Mom spreads her slice of Western Hazelnut bread with the egg salad I prepared.  Seeing a deli container on the table, she decides to spread its contents on her bread, too.  This may be a history-making moment:  an egg salad and pistachio salad sandwich.  It certainly is colorful.

            Another day, at dinner, I serve the boxed brand of tomato soup we love so much along with celery sticks and cheese and garlic French bread.  Except for the soup, it looks like a finger food meal to me, so I only set out soup spoons.  Mom determinedly saws into her strip of cheesy bread with her spoon, refusing my offer of a knife and fork.

            The package of kitty treats disappears overnight. 

            Mom prefers half and half in her coffee and on her cereal.  I prefer French Vanilla creamer in my coffee.  I assume that the cat prefers neither.  This morning I discover the new creamer opened, missing more than a coffee cup would call for, and a bowlful of creamer on the bathroom floor for the cat, who evidently does not care for French Vanilla.

           

Simple and Rich

            The rest of my fatigue floated away as we played our flute music, and I’ve spent an entire afternoon feeling good.  The sense of well-being is so easy to take for granted until you lose it for a time.   

I didn’t take it for granted today, enjoying fellowship hour after the worship service and taking my time at the grocery store, glad to be able to do the week’s shopping without a problem.  Delighting in the autumn sunshine, I continued on to Freeland to pick up a prescription for my brother’s cougar, Eiger.  Seeing that the senior thrift store was open, I went in and browsed to my heart’s content.  My heart still singing, I came home, put away the groceries, took out some trash, brushed my calico cat Melody, and started a load of laundry. 

            That was quite a bit for one afternoon, so I’m relaxing in my recliner.  Mom and John will be home in about an hour from today’s electric car show on Mercer Island.  Pretty soon I’ll prepare our evening meal.   After we eat, John will go back over to his house.  Mom and I will watch the news and 60 Minutes.  She will wonder why she is so tired, and I will remind her she just spent a marvelous day at the car show with John. 

            My life is simple and rich, and I am grateful.

The Little Things

            It’s 10:13 a.m. on 10-13, but that is not what I want to write about. 

            This week I have had a refresher course in the same lesson I’ve been reviewing for fifteen years:  little things add up.

            It is the convergence of the negligible that creates the obvious.  (Boy, does that sound fancy!)  Over the past few weeks I spent several hours taking notes by hand, ignoring the pain signals in my right arm.  I went for a delightful long walk, ignoring the muscle strain in my leg.  I ate too much junk food.  I skipped some naps.  And then the fall weather with its fluctuating barometric pressure blew in, and with it came a really bad fibro flare.

            My leisurely pace slowed to a stop.  The daily symptoms, which usually retreat to the background of my life, raged to the forefront:  unbelievable exhaustion and pain that seemed to squeeze out of every cell. 

Since retiring three years ago, I have spent my share of fruitless time during the “good days” feeling guilty about how little I actually do.  (My version of “busy” is having one outside activity scheduled each day.)  I’ve chosen those activities carefully: they are things I love that energize instead of drain.  And that slower pace has resulted in many more “feeling good” days than “feeling bad” days.  Until this week, that is.

            Which leads me to the second part of the lesson:  some things are beyond my control.  Perhaps that is the hardest and most important lesson of any chronic condition.  Yes, I can usually manage my symptoms, but sometimes a storm blows in that blows me over.  It sure isn’t convenient.  I sure don’t like it.  But it reminds me on Whom I depend.  It reminds me to never take for granted all the “feeling good” days I have. 

            Thus, I am not going to feel guilty about lying down for a little rest before lunch to prepare myself for my afternoon nap. 

A Wonderful Life

            It’s a wonderful life.  I love living on Whidbey Island.

            That’s not to disparage Colby, Kansas; or Independence, Missouri; or Lorain, Ohio; or Freiburg, Germany; or Grinnell, Iowa; or Douglas or Grandville or Grand Rapids or Charlotte, Michigan.  Every place I have lived there have been truly wonderful people.

            But here on the island is where God has given me the opportunity to live my dreams.

            Ah, sometimes the dream life has its hard doses of reality, like watching Mom’s mind ebb away:  hearing the same story for what seems like the hundred millionth time or repeating the answer to a question asked and answered ten times in ten minutes.  But, of course, my dream life is my real life, so valleys and rough spots are part of the terrain.

            So are the mountain tops:  worshipping with my church family at Whidbey Presbyterian, singing in the choir, playing my flutes, leading a life group, assisting with worship.  There is the daily discipline that brings so much joy:  practicing my flutes, writing at my computer, reading and praying at bedtime. There are lunches with Helen, walks with Bethany, plays and concerts with Debra.  There are flute lessons, flute choir, Tradewinds, practices with Sandy.  There is the beauty all around: the tall evergreen woods of home, the winding drive to church with the distant Olympics to the west and the Cascades to the east.  There are beaches and coffee shops and concerts and plays and artwork and thrift stores galore. 

            And most of all, there is time.  Time to pursue writing and music.  Time to travel back eastward to see my family.  Time to go on beach walks.  Time for those midday naps that keep me going.  Time to prepare nutritious meals.  Time to appreciate the moment and live fully in it.

            What a wonderful life!

            The five p.m. life group leaders’ meeting was followed by Tradewinds and choir.  At nine p.m. as I drove the windy, rainy miles home to Greenbank, the old leaden ache--accompanied by occasional knife-like stabs--crept back into my body.  Though the cool, wet weather of autumn is unkind to my joints and muscles, music rehearsals work the miracle of temporary pain relief.  My endorphins must be dancing in praise to their Creator.

Two Years

October 1, 2011

Dear Anne,

            Two years.  How can it be two years already?  By dates, it is not two years until the third.  But by days it is two years today.

            I still picture you in that prison called Kindred Hospital, head tilted to the right, holding the emesis basin in your hand as you slept.  I still remember your dark eyes that opened up your depths to me.  I still hear your sigh of relief as I stretched your ankles.  And your screams of raw pain during wound dressing changes still echo in my memory.

            I remember your wonderful co-workers, the joy and comfort they brought with their almost-daily visits that first month in UNC hospital where you received such excellent care.  I remember their grief and the comfort they extended to Bob and me through the memorial reception three days after you died.

            I remember how you would grip my hand, look into my eyes, and say “thank you” with all your being at the end of each day.  I remember how you made friends with everyone and exercised your acerbic wit right up to the last week.

            I remember the desperation I felt when your wound dressing leaked and the wait for the nursing staff was endless.   I remember when you greeted me with “Happy Birthday!” almost a month after the date, and I remember your consternation that you had somehow lost a big chunk of time.  I remember your bravery and determination.  I remember your thirst; oh, I remember your thirst.  (I still have the water pictures Lyn gave you.)  And I remember watching you chew in your dreams—you told me later it was a cheeseburger.

            Anne, I remember you.  Being with you those last two months of your life was the hardest and purest experience of my life—filled with a deep sense of God’s love and a painful empathy with you in your suffering.  I felt a fierce and tender love for you.  All that mattered was being there for you.

            And, of course, I still miss you.  Always will.  You are my reminder to live, really live, in the present—not stuck in the past, not wasting away for the future, but embracing the “now.”  (I can never forget your urgent words—“Don’t wait.  Do it now.”  Even though at that moment you were telling me to splurge and buy a memory foam bed, I understood the essential message about not putting things off.) 

            When we celebrate Communion at church tomorrow, I’ll think of you and of that great and wonderful day when we will sit together at the table of our Lord.  (You know, that dead guy on the cross who didn’t stay dead—the very One that set you free into your new life.)  Heaven is more real to me now because I know you are there, fully Anne and fully forgiven. 

Love,

Your little sister Janis