When You Come Home

When you come home I will shout. I will scream. I will cry my eyes out. I will laugh. I will dance.

I will be ever so grateful.

You WILL come home. When I see you afar off I will throw a party and celebrate! I will kill the fatted calf! I will put my ring on your finger and the finest robe on your back.

I will give you the best of everything because this son of mine who is dead will be alive again. He was lost and will be found.

I can't wait.

My Dear Sweet Stefanie

My Dear Sweet Stefanie,

I wish you were here to celebrate today with us. 

I have so many feelings happening right now… 

Sadness for you that you had to let go of the best thing that ever happened to you 39 years ago…

Gratefulness for the gift of motherhood that you gave me in Ali Rose… 

Sorrow that we didn’t get to spend more time together over the years…. 

Anger that your life was gone from us much too early. So much mystery there and my heart aches.

Proud of you for so many things you did in your life that YOU believed in even though others did not. 

I see where Ali gets it… such a passion for justice! So much happening in your head and heart. Truly, I have never met such strength and courage… and it passed down to our daughter.

39 years ago on a Sunday morning…. I waited…. You waited. We didn’t know it was going to be today, but at 9:00pm little Miss Ali decided to make her entrance.

The next day, you had to walk out of that hospital with empty arms and a broken heart. I cried for you and still do. 

I walked out of that hospital with a heart full of love and joy for you and this precious little girl. 

You lived for many years with an empty hole where our daughter had been. 

I lived with so much joy and wanted to share her life with you. When I found you again after years of not knowing where and how to look - you were so happy to know about her life. 

I so looked forward…

There was so much about you that both Ali and I wanted to know...there are mysteries that will never be known and questions that will never be answered. 

I feel like God blessed us all when she and her beloved were able to visit you before you left this earth. You were feeling better and we could not wait for you to come to the engagement party and be part of the future wedding. 

You never had any idea how much we loved you. And you were taken from us before we got to express it…. 

Well, maybe there was a divine plan but I’m not so sure I like it… 

You had some very rough years however, and I am glad you are out of pain and heartache.

The daughter that you bore was…like you… a force to be reckoned with. Let me tell you about her again.

This girl with thick dark brown hair and brown eyes with the longest lashes I had ever seen, came into my life..... miraculously.

One day I was not a mother and the next day I was.

We loved each other from the moment we laid eyes on each other.

This little powerhouse of a baby, child, girl, teenager and adult.... how could I have ever lived without her?

She rarely cried. Really. 

She loved shoes before she could walk. Really.

Determined! I'm pretty sure if you look the word up in the dictionary - her picture is there.

She never crawled. It was just not her style. At 8 months she stood up and started walking and there was no stopping her.... and she is still going!

Opinionated…. she informed her pre-school principal that she was wearing the wrong color of lipstick! That's just how she rolled.

Her heart is big, sincere and loyal...

She always loved her friends - even if they didn't love her back. She truly wanted to know everyone. Today, I think she DOES know everyone...

She loves her family and still mothers  her siblings when they let her.

This Girl....

She decided that junior high was boring, so she lobbied to start high school in her 7th grade year. She graduated from High School at 16 with honors! Then at 20 graduated from college with a BA.

She never had a curfew. She didn't need it but policed herself. She knew that my ear was ALWAYS ready to listen - and listen I did and do....

This teenage girl would invite all of her gobs of friends over.... we were "the house" and I was "the mom." I should have counted all of the chocolate chip cookies I made for these kids. Some of her friends would come over for cookies, milk and conversation even when she wasn't home! She sure loved her friends.

Ali has had brushes with death & tragedy...but THIS GIRL is a force to be reckoned with!

This precious baby girl has done more than many people at her age. She has traveled and had great jobs that have put in the most interesting places with interesting people.

This girl decided she wanted to live in New York and made it happen!

She decided she wanted to live in French Canada and learn to speak the language. She made it happen! 

This Girl has turned into my best friend. She has loved, supported and encouraged me through some very difficult times. 

This mighty little girl is another year older today and I wish I could read her a story and rock her to sleep just one more time. I would kiss the bridge of her nose and softly stroke her eyebrows until she fell asleep.

I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always - as long as I'm living, my baby you'll be.

I love this girl "infinity and a googol.”

I think I will go sit in the rocking chair that I bought right before she was born...

We did a good job, Steff.  See you when we get there.

She Lay There Dying... Victoria

Thursday, September 26, 2024

She just lay there dying. 

My little British friend, Victoria. She was very vital a couple of years ago. 

Now she can barely breathe, cannot sit up, and has fallen so many times that her thin crepey skin has gashes, cuts, and bruises everywhere. I love her spunk because her fingernails are a beautiful pink and manicured, even though the rest of her body is ravaged by her falls and illness. 

But she’s just lying there barely breathing …and dying. I fed her water bit by bit through a little straw because she couldn’t even sit up to drink. She was grateful. 

Classical music is playing in the background while she lies on her back barely breathing closer to death. Somehow the music is fitting.

I’m hunting through her papers to find what I can for her relative who lives far away in England. They realize she is close to death. I don’t think they understand how close she really is. 

I heroically find a lot of important papers for them so they can have enough to pay for her hospice and burial expenses when that happens. I run across two little cards with her shot records in the papers I am respectfully rifling through. 

Six shots… Six death jabs. I do not respect those. They have brought her to this place.

When I first met her, she had just had her first shot and was fairly energetic… Now all these poison darts later she lay there dying. 

I’ve watched her slowly lose her well-traveled, and well-read life over the last three years. She has no one but me nearby to watch over her and now the caregivers who are assigned to her. 

But she is all alone and she lay there dying, I touch her face. I feed her water. I take a picture of her hand. I’m fascinated by her hand with a 3-inch gash and bruises but beautiful pink fingernails. Such a dichotomy. 

Two dead husbands, a dead dog, and no children. Lots of books she loves books and she loves to read. 

Everyone thought she stopped smoking but she reserved and savored her two secret pleasures of cigarettes and Chardonnay. I would never tattle on such a secret!

All I ask her to leave me is her lovely British accent. I’m not sure how that can transfer… But I dream I will wake up someday with a lovely British accent. She certainly has one. Although right now, she doesn’t talk. It won’t be long now. Hospice is giving her comfort medication. 

Once she passes, I will go over to clean out her stuff, there will be very little because everything was left behind when she moved out of her long-time home that was full of the life that she lived. The only thing of value is that little tiny lady with a big spirit who lay there dying. 

I had to leave and go about my business today, so I left her in the care of a caregiver, but not before I prayed for her, brushed her face with my hand, kissed her on the forehead, and told her I loved her and I would see her soon. 

Sunday, September 28, 2024: 

My sweet and sassy little British friend left this world today. I only wish I had known her longer. 

I’m still hoping for the British accent.

Tears in a Bottle

When do they stop? …the tears I mean… and the bigger question is: Do I want them to? He was born for me in 1987 on this day. He was a gift from a beautiful young woman who could not give him what he needed in his life at the time. He has made me laugh and cry more than any other human being ever has and ever will. He is lost in a sea of add*ction. 

I still hope. the Proverbs say, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick…” by that measure, my heart is nearly stopped by now. 

What shall I do with all of the tears? The Psalm says, “You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.” 

So today I will celebrate the joy of my boy’s birth. I will count on my mourning being turned into dancing.

GRATEFUL AGAIN....

 Grateful again….

Today, February 6th, is my birthday. One year ago I was freshly out of two long and painful weeks in the hospital only after two long months of unexplained pain and “suffering in silence”. I had embarked on one of the strangest “adventures” I had ever been on. The year has gone fast in slow motion… I felt like I no longer had any control over my life and health.

Truth is, what I did and do still have control of is my ATTITUDE. I know I have quoted him before, but among my all-time favorites is from Viktor Frankl in his book Man’s Search for Meaning, he says “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

It hasn’t been easy - and still is not an everyday victory…. But all in all, I am so very grateful that God lets us choose how we want to live. When we make the choice for Joy and Healing, the very act of moving towards and through it is strengthening in and of itself.

Just because I live by my mantra “Choose Joy” - doesn’t mean I wake up joyful every morning. It doesn’t mean everyone I come into contact with walks away saying, “She sure is a joyful person” - not by a long shot. It just means that I have the choice and each time I choose it, it makes that muscle just that much stronger.

I have also chosen healing. Now, some of you think that you are not “healed” if you don’t wake up in the morning and magically feel better and ready to dance a jig. But even when Jesus did His miraculous healings while He walked the earth, he often asked something of the recipient of the miracle. For instance, the guy who couldn’t walk... He told him to pick up his bed and walk (John 5:8). This guy was used to laying on his bed and begging for help from people who walked by. Jesus told him to help himself by picking up his bed and changing the position of his body and my guess is that it also changed the position of his heart. It was by his intentional and obedient action of picking up his bed that healed him.

For me, this last year has been a change of many things including: diet, toxins in my body, environment, spiritual life and de-stressing my home and work life.

Detoxing my diet, body, and environment, de-stressing my home, work, and spiritual life.

Now THAT is a tall order! But by eating that “elephant” one bite at a time, it is getting there!

Those “good choice muscles” had gotten lazy and flabby. So I have embarked on a journey of healing that has made me “pick up my bed and walk.”

1. Change of diet. No, I’m not ON a diet - I have had to change the way I eat if I want to remain healthy. Yes, I have joined the “juicing” crowd. I am NOT a cook. In fact, I somewhat despise cooking food to just eat. (But that’s another conversation.) I studied up on what is GOOD for me from people who have gone through similar experiences (especially Chris Wark). I no longer trust what “experts” tell me. (That’s also another conversation). I simply buy or grow REAL whole, organic foods and juice them and make smoothies and take supplements and homemade herbal remedies NOT made by big pharma. I do not take any medication, just supplements. (CYA: I'm not telling you what to do... just what I am doing.) It takes a lot of effort and intentionality but every time I go back to eating certain “bad for me” things - my body gets pretty mad at me.

2. Detoxing: my body - also means “moving” more. I have been slow to pick up that bed and I have a million excuses. However, as I am flexing that muscle, I am feeling like my body may actually live for a few more years! This whole last year of illness and recovery has made me pretty lazy. It’s a work in progress! (Just to clarify - I do not and will never “go to the gym” - there are other ways.)

3. Detoxing: my environment - silly things like decluttering the shyte that I spent my younger years collecting. These are decisions that only I can make - and making them I am! It’s tough to decide which plaster of paris handprint or kindergarten self-portrait to keep….) It’s really slow because I still have to work and make money. I have even renovated my bathrooms and bedrooms with a cleaner, newer environment.

4. De-stressing: This should have probably been #1 on the list. I breathe a sigh of relief even as I write this. I won’t go into all of the details, but suffice it to say, my stress level (see this long ago post for more reference) was off the charts. I’m working on a more peaceful work and home life. I have a room that I call my “Peace Room”, and don’t allow myself to “work” in there. I can write, read, paint, dream, and pray. To be fair, I haven’t completely left politics out of my life - I feel it is so current that I don’t want to miss out on something important. However, as a rule, I am not engaging in social media conversation about it - but just keeping up. I’ve had to distance myself from those people (don’t worry - it’s not you….) who have been poisonous to my spirit. There is a LOT in that statement that I will not discuss in this writing.

5. Saving the best for last - God has been ever present with me. At the beginning of this all I asked Him for strategies to cross this raging river of illness. He presented me with all of the above and topped it off by reminding me that prayer is THE most important part of this. I am learning to flex those prayer muscles more and getting stronger. (I just read: "Draw the Circle" by Mark Batterson - highly recommend.)

Just know this: Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Now you have NO excuses why God heals others and not you.

Pick up your bed and walk.

What I have learned about cancer…. So far

 

As you may or may not know – I have been visited by the “c” word this past year. And I am definitely learning a thing or two…

 

1.     Cancer surrounds & envelopes you. It becomes who you are for a time. You wake and think about it, you try to sleep and it infuses your mind and thoughts. If not checked, it insidiously can become your identity – taking the place of who God says you are.

• Strategies I am using: Music to start my day and remember that “Today is the day that the Lord has made – I will rejoice and be glad in it…” My favorite for this one is an older one but it gets me going every time: “Today is the Day” by Lincoln Brewster. I have a few standards that helped me through the heartache of divorce and prodigal kids.

2.     Cancer is lonely. Even if you have love and support there is a certain part of your life that just hides away. Sometimes I get to feeling sorry for myself.

• Strategies I am using: Embrace the loneliness but remember those who love and support you. Don’t hide away and let that feeling sorry for yourself last no longer than 5 minutes!

3.     Cancer is not the end. The Bible says “for to me to live is Christ and to die is gain.” So either way I win! If I live – I get to continue loving my family and friends – but if my body dies, I GET to go to heaven! 

• Strategies I am using: Reminding myself through the word that I know the end of my story.

4.     Cancer = Fear. That is - if you let it. Don’t let it! It can actually make you physically worse!

• Strategies I am using: I still quote this scripture often to my kids: God has not given us the spirit of fear but of power and love and of a sound mind. Now I quote it to myself.

5.     Cancer creates a sort of chaos in your very being. Chaos and negativity makes everything worse.

• Strategies I am using: I have changed my environment to a healthier one. People who don’t respect you need to take a back seat to your healing. Those who take without giving need to be somewhere else besides where you are.

 

What I have learned about myself in this process …. So far

1.     I am not a particularly compassionate person when it comes to illness. I consider myself Kathy Bates-like (in the movie “Misery”). 

2.     I’m pretty sure I am beginning to understand illness better. I’ve always thought to myself: just brush it off and it will be all better. That’s because I have not been ill much, and when I have been, I tend to brush it off until….

3.     I am not particularly fond of western medicine and the cancer industry, nor do I have much faith or respect. I can’t say that has changed a whole lot yet, but as I am passing through this all, I am adding some well-advised natural medicine to this cocktail to cure this disease. I am also realizing that those who are in the industry – by and large – are wonderful humans.

4.     I swore I would NEVER, EVER get chemo! Ask everyone in my family – I made it a point to look them square in the eye and say that to them. But I guess God had other plans.

 

God is good. He has never and will never change. That is why I know the end of the story. 

Today is the Day That I am Still

Well…an update huh? I’m feeling pretty good. Not as energetic as I am used to being, but I am heading that way. (Quick reminder: uterine c***er leading to 3 major surgeries in June and January leaving me with depleted strength and a friend ”Petunia” that I wear on the front of me.) (Not spelling the *c word because of ALL of the ads that I am getting!) (If you need further explanations - you can private message me.)

So, I am working toward a lifestyle change (healthy foods, less stress, exercise…)

But first... I am going to go through a series of radiation and low-dose chemo. Why am I doing something I stomped my feet and said I would NEVER do? …I don’t know… it just seems right at this time.

I have been asking God for peace and wisdom to make the right choices and although I can’t say I’ve had an epiphany about any of this, I am not sure there is a right or wrong choice right now. I’m a little disappointed that something wasn’t written in the sky or there was no note in a bottle for direction, but God continues to reinforce His love for me in many ways and at every turn.

Be assured: I am still unafraid.

“Be still and know that I am God.” The Hebrew meaning for “Be still” in that verse means to “Drop it.” What he was saying, was to drop your weapons to drop the things that you’re trying to use to win a battle that only God can win and to take refuge in God and watch Him go to war for you.

Be still: to be weak, to let go, to release.” Essentially, it means surrender. Surrender – in order that you may know…”

Today is the day that I stop trying to fix it in my strength, I will drop it so that He can pick it up and win the battle with His hands. Today is the day that I surrender and trust that God can do what He said He can do and all I have to do is take refuge in Him.

[partly from a reel by Candace Harmony Rivers]

So, here I am….taking refuge.