Not Comfortable

A wise blogger I once met irl (you can find her blog at: http://yourdailydose-robin.blogspot.com/) and I have talked about the fact that life seems to keep sending you the same message over and over and over until you get it.

Oh yeah, some days can really feel like head to wall experiences if you get caught up in this little hamster wheel of the universe.

found at: commons.wikimedia.org

So right now I'm thinking that I hope this is the last time around for me needing to learn that it's OK to be in uncertainty.  Not that this will be the last time that I'll ever have uncertainty...  Nooo, that's completely unrealistic.  I get that. 

But this should be the last time that I ever have to equate uncertainty with getting all anxiety ridden, overly emotional and just certain that the only thing I could be certain of in a moment like this is that all things negative eventually grow out of uncertainty.  Whew- did you catch your breath after that one?!  (This is where those of you who were raised in households in which you needed to be hyper vigilant to avoid any possible upsets to the ol' family apple cart can rest assured that yes, this is a personal shout out to you.)

This time around I am learning that not only does life go on while we are in uncertainty; it can actually go on in a remarkably positive way.  If you try hard enough to separate yourself from the queasiness that tends to take over in the midst of uncertain moments, those moments of uncertainty can lead to paying attention in sharp detail to every day things that will leave us with memories and appreciation that we might have otherwise missed.

Today, in this moment, that's where I'm at.  I'm stopping to take notice of the little things.  I'm listening with a more open heart.  While it's true that I will probably always be more comfortable when things in my life are fairly 'settled', I am making a concerted effort to allow the positives that always exist- even when life is a bit out of sorts, to come through.  I want to experience the best life has to offer, no matter how unsettled I might be feeling.

Life Lessons From My Weeping Willow Tree

When my husband and I first bought our house, back in the Spring of  2002, our front yard was quite the wet spongy mess.  And we never got any shade, ever.  Even a solar-powered person like me doesn't want to be cooked like a campfire stew meal in tinfoil, in my own house.

So I went to a nursery up north of here and found myself a tiny little start of a thing that they called a weeping willow tree.  It looked like this:

sorry for the poor quality, old digital- it's all I got. 

But you get the idea.

I had read up about what to do and how to plant this tree so that it would one day be the wonderful specimen that I envisioned.  You see, as a kid there had been one house in one year of my life that I had been pretty darn happy in and that memory was quite a driving force for me.  I remembered the long green tendrils that had swayed in the breeze in our side yard that year and how we had even set up a picnic under that tree when my sisters grandparents had visited us that summer before my sister was actually born.  I loved the fact that the tree was able to survive growing in a very wet ditch and that it was beautiful in an effortless sort of way.  I could go out in the yard and sort of disappear under that weeping willow.  It was a magical world underneath that tree.  Smooth swishing sounds under a cool green canopy seemed able to make the world a more peaceful place.

So by the time I got to the nursery to pick up my weeping willow, there was absolutely no deterring me from having this tree in my life.  I listened to the warnings that came with the tree; about how large it could get and what planting it on a regular sized lot could mean in terms of the work it would take to keep this tree under control.  I determined that I could handle this- no problem.

And for the first few years the tree grew up beautifully without much help from me.  I started to wonder what all the fuss had been about.  This weeping willow was doing exactly what I wanted with nary a worry from me at all.  I watered it, and fertilized it, and kept it from growing without too much of a lean from the prevailing winds and that's about it.

In years 2 and 3, the tree looked like this:

In years 4-7, I must have been so blissfully satisfied with what the weeping willow was doing that I have no full shots of it.  But I do remember that this was the time that my friends daughter started her love affair with my willow tree.  She has had her picture taken underneath it on many occasions.  In fact the picture below is of her at age 7, the very same age I was when I first fell in love with that weeping willow in my own yard that summer 30 years ago.

And here's another picture of her with the willow, taken just a few weeks ago:

 She just turned 11 and loves her Irish dancing.

It was also during the time that my weeping willow was growing merrily along that my neighbors really started to comment on how beautiful the tree was becoming.  One particular older lady who lives right across the street told me all about how she had always wanted a weeping willow, but it was too much work for her so she especially enjoyed seeing mine right outside her picture window.  We became known as the people with the big willow tree and others seemed to marvel at how brave we were to commit to such a tree.  

Ignorance really was bliss for quite a while. 

Then suddenly that weeping willow really started to grow, fast!  As of last year, it looked like this:

Suddenly I realized what all that planning about 12 feet of space on each side and all the recommendations of heavy trimming were all about.  And all that advice about how keeping a tree such as this in check would be a bit like keeping a rock star confined to a local venue...

I almost panicked when I realized that this weeping willow was just hitting its stride.  Could I manage this after all?  Would it be a dream or a nightmare?

After a lot more research and some soul searching I decided that I would indeed take on the task of trying to make what had started out so beautifully work for me, in the space that I have to give it.

Just a week and a half ago when my nephew and his Dad came up to visit, they pitched in and helped me do a ton of yard work including some major trimming on that willow tree.  It has grown even more in the last year and we needed to really work to train it to go upward, not outward so it can continue to live in the space that I have for it.  It was scary to watch as big chunks had to go, especially any branches that crossed and touched each other so as to avoid the perils of disease.  Nathans Dad actually climbed the tree to do the work.

I wish I had taken a picture of the tree before we got started, but I found one online that looked very similar to mine- kind of like 'Animal' from the Muppet Show, way too top-heavy and wide.

photo credit: Halsnursery.com

As of now the tree looks like this:

It is quite magnificent!  It has been worth the effort, all 5 hours of it!  That's right, that's how long it took all told in 3 separate sessions so as to be sure that we weren't doing anything too drastic and yet got it to a more slender, less yard hogging sort of form.  Basically, it has to be one central trunk and you want to avoid any sort of wide V shape so as to keep it strong.  After all of the work we did, we should be good to go for at least a couple of years.   I am happy and satisfied for now, enjoying what I have helped to create.

However, as much as I do love this weeping willow tree and what it means to me, there is still a nagging question left over.  Knowing what I know now, would I do this all over again?  I know there are those who say that I never should have attempted it at all.  Weeping willow trees are meant to be large, grand, sweeping beauties without limit.  They really should only be planted where they can grow truly uninhibited, as is their nature.  And in my heart, I agree.  

I really do.

So the answer to my nagging question has to be a resounding 'No'.  I wouldn't plant a weeping willow on a small suburban lot ever again.  While I needed this tree at a particular moment in my life (more emotionally than anything else) and enjoy what it has brought me, I do see that it would have been much better off somewhere else.  A place that was better suited to allow the tree to reach its full potential.  

And that leads me to so many other things that function in this same way.  There is the idea that no matter where we are 'planted' in this life, any one of us can still be quite functional and beautiful human beings.  Would we have benefited from being placed in just the right place?  Of course.  But reality doesn't always follow that way and why dwell on it?  

For me personally, I wonder what would have happened if my family would have been grown in more fertile soil, with more care and less boundaries.  I faced the question of whether or not to try and take custody of my nephew.  At one time, there was a much better chance of me getting him than even his own father.  I could have used my resources to make that happen.  Instead, I got behind his Dad and fought for their relationship.  We all know that was for the best now, but I faced some serious demons over that choice at one time.  

Even just relatively simple things like what career a person ends up in seem to mirror what I have learned from this tree- that choosing carefully is important, but that there are also lots of ways to do things that can end up good in the end.  And just because you wouldn't do something again doesn't mean that it wasn't worth while at least once in this life.

I am looking forward to the day when I have a big ol' piece of property where I can plant a tree just like the one I have now.  And then fertilize it, and be sure that it gets enough water, and then watch it grow, unfettered to whatever potential it has inside.
 

The Truth About My Sister

Some blog posts are just so honest that it can be scary.  This is about to be one of those.  If that turns you off, sorry- this might be one you'd like to skip.  In real life, I am typically a pretty easy going person.  I think I have a pretty good grip on reality and I don't see my life as any better or worse than most.  However, this blog is a place where it feels safe to share what are sometimes not so pleasant aspects of my pretty normal life, so here goes...

Over the past couple of months, my nephew who I have written of many, many times before has been seeing a psychologist because of some behavioral issues that he has.  Over time it had become obvious that he is not quite up to the average for his age group in many ways.  Thankfully none of these ways involve a lack of IQ or mental capacity, but it is still quite important that he learn how to relate to the world in a relatively 'normal' way.  So on good recommendation from his teacher and councilor, off to the psychologist he went.

Now I will admit that I am a bit skeptical of the tendency to over diagnose.  It seems that almost everyone in this world is diagnosed with something these days.  Plus with the history that I have witnessed of way too many people in my family going to councilors and psyche doctors for years & years and never having improvement, you could say my expectations are never high for this kind of thing.  Still, I thought it would be worth a try.  And it turned out that right away I could tell that this psychologist was the real deal.  Once I got past her silly squeaky voice, I could tell that she meant well and wasn't there to just find a diagnosis.

My nephew did go through a bunch of testing and the psychologist met with several different family members several times before she gave us her opinion.  I have to admit I was very curious to see what she had to say and I have had a burning question in my mind about my nephew for the past few years so I was anxious to see what would come of this.

The question that I have never really faced is this:  Does my nephew have some sort of issue like ADHD, Aspergers, OCD- or is it purely an issue of the way that he was raised?

I think I know now why I never really wanted to face this question.

My nephew has been diagnosed with PTSD.  He is nine.  I am sad for him beyond words.

I am sad for the fact that he has been so traumatized that it has affected who he is and how he relates in everyday life.  I am sad that he is just another casualty in a family that just doesn't seem able to function at even a relatively normal level.  I am sad that the abuse that runs deep in my family couldn't have stopped with my sister and I.

How in the world does anybody have a crappy childhood and then turn around and do the same garbage to their own kids?  I know, I am one to talk.  I don't have any kids.

But I did have my sister- that I seriously pretty much raised from the time she was born when I was 8.  (I used to drop her off at daycare down the street on my way to 3rd grade.  My mother would call and wake me up and then I would get myself and my baby sister ready for the day.)  And at one time I thought that the love and values that I had shared with her would be enough to keep her from ever turning out like so many women in my family have.

There is my great grandmother who allowed a soldier who was staying in her home to rape her daughter, my grandmother.  My grandmother became a mother at 14 as a result of this.  And then went on to have 4 kids by the age of 19.  4 kids that she did absolutely horrendous things to.  Things like tying them to their bunk beds and whipping them with extension chords.  One of those kids was my mother, who once had a high heel shoe put through her skull.  My mother who ended up with Munchhausen by proxy and gained attention for having such 'sick' children.  One of those children, my sister, became a cutter and a drug addict and is also abusive. 

It seems that the women in my family are just truly sick and evil in so many ways.  Ways that petrified me growing up and made me wonder who and what I would turn out to be.  They were all addicts and abusers in turn.  Now my nephew is the latest in the line of victims.  Seeing him and how he is affected is very difficult.  It is like looking in a mirror in some ways.  In other ways, it is empowering.  I can see the results of this long line of abuse and I can see that there is a chance to change things.

While I am disgusted by the fact that this experience with my nephew seeing a psychologist has made me look at a hard truth about my sister and who she really is, I am grateful for the opportunity to grow and be a better person who is available to my nephew in a very special way.  I know that when the day comes that he just might share his deepest feelings with me, I will be there as a healthy and supportive person who can show him what life can be- no matter how it started out. 

I have a good friend who has told me that she is amazed at the transformation in me over the past couple of years.  She has declared that I am a whole new person.  She is religious and has declared me a person who has broken generational sin.  She tells me how inspiring this has been for her to see.  I have learned to take her compliments and use them for good instead of denying them.  I will use my experiences for the positive.  I will be someone that my nephew can always count on. 

a picture taken at the Newport, OR aquarium during one of my nephew and I's many wonderful adventures!

 

I will NOT allow my sadness that my sisters life is not what I had dreamed of for her to affect my nephews possibilities.  I am not 8 years old any more, trying to get a colicky baby to calm down while watching an after school special.  I did the best I could then and this life is not about the past.  Facing the truth doesn't have to be an exercise in futility.  I will always love my sister, though I doubt very much that I will ever fully understand her.  I may be sad that she will never really share the gift that she was meant to give of herself to the world.  But I promise to my nephew, Nathan, that I will not let my sadness take away from what I have to offer.  I will love him and comfort him and help him to grow, right where he's planted.  And one day I will tell him all about how I helped to transplant him to the spot where he's at.  I will share how much it meant to me to be a part of making his life a positive and how much helping him has absolutely changed my soul and allowed me to grow in ways I never could have imagined.

The Thing That Changed Everything

**WARNING, EXPLICIT MEDICAL DETAILS, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK**

-may be disturbing to some readers

**Secondarily, this post has become extraordinarily long.  I have tried to edit things down, but decided that I wanted to post this as is.  It is important to me, but I understand if it goes beyond what you are willing to endure for a story.   What a day to post THE longest and most difficult post I've ever had, only to have it lost! (for a while)  Do I have timing or what?!**

About 7 years back I made some really difficult choices.  These choices are hard to explain and even harder to justify in some cases, but they were necessary.  I won't go into that right now.  I just wanted to find a place to start that seems to offer some sort of background as to what was going on in my world before I got to the moment that really did change everything...

So there I was, thinking that I was doing a pretty decent job of taking charge of my life and starting to actually live in a meaningful way.  After a couple of years of sort of readjusting my world, and over a period of about 5 years I went through a process that included clearing out that last level of clutter.  You know, the level you think you might never get down to.  The one that goes beyond any comfort level.  The one that includes not just physical junk, but a manner of cleaning out all types of psychological trash along the way.  I got rid of those 'friends' that weren't really true.  Let things that I thought were a comfort, but really just had me stuck in the past, go.  I started replacing those 'tapes' that rolled in my head with newer more positive messages.  I forced myself to try new things that I thought would never be 'me'.  (Not all of those things worked out so well!)  Overall, I decided that anything that was more of a negative than a positive in my life just simply had to go.  I was ready to admit to the life that I had really always wanted, no matter what anybody else thought, no matter how much outside of the norm I would be.  (Who the heck are those average Americans everybody is always polling anyway?  Nobody ever interviews me.)

It had been a beautiful sunny day.  My husband and I were in New York City.  New York has never been my favorite place, but we were showing 2 friends who had never even been away from the West Coast a thrilling time in the Big Apple.  We were on a trip that had been planned for months and we were going to see my husbands best friends brand new baby.  As we neared the home of the new parents we got a call from them asking if any of us had been sick lately.  Typical worried new parents!  But it was then that my husband admitted that he had not been feeling quite right all day.  In fact, he had been a little nauseous and bloated.  He thought maybe he had food poisoning or something.  His friend didn't want to take any chances so we ended up at a Walgreen's picking up an instant-read thermometer.  Everybody took their turn and we all checked out with normal body temperatures.  After all that, my husband decided that he was feeling better and the stomach pains had passed.  We had a lovely visit with the sweet new baby and it was so special to see such a proud Papa. 

After that, it was more sightseeing.  Experiencing nightlife in the Big Apple for the first time was so exciting for our friends.  Time passes fast in the 'City That Never Sleeps' and before we knew it we were about to miss the last bus out to get back to our hotel.  We barely made it back to the bus station and I noticed that my husband wasn't really keeping up with us.  That was just not like him.  It turns out they send more than one bus back for each line at the end of the night, so we waited for the second one rather than crowd onto the first bus.  As we sat waiting on a bench I realized that maybe there was something more than indigestion going on with my husband.  I asked him if he thought he should see a doctor.  He said he wasn't sure.  I immediately pulled out our medical card and got on the phone.  I found out that since we were traveling out of state, we should just go straight to an ER rather than try to find a clinic of some kind.  By the time the bus came, I was antsy to get back to suburbia so we could get to a hospital near our hotel room.

Our friends wanted to go with us to the ER, but I wanted them to get a decent nights sleep as we would be driving out to Connecticut to see my husbands sister early the next morning so they returned to the hotel while my husband and I went to the nearest hospital.  It turned out that there was a blue H sign right next to our hotel and we set out following a series of these.  After about 20 minutes of driving around, I realized that I was beginning to recognize the same landmarks all over again.  By this time we were both tired and I asked my husband if he thought we should just go back to the hotel and get some sleep before trying for the hospital again in the morning.  He said that he thought we could find it if we just tried a little bit more.  I knew then that something must really be wrong.  Just after that, we did find the hospital.  Somehow, it was right there in front of us with an empty spot right at the door to the ER.

I expected a long wait inside, but there was hardly anyone there.  The nice guy at the front desk noticed my panicked look and reassured me that if anything was really bad my husband would be 'doubled over in pain'.  He felt sure that we would be in and out in no time.  Next we were put into a large holding area type room with curtains drawn between patients.  It turns out we were not in the best part of town and there was actually a guy handcuffed to a bed with two police officers at his bedside and another that kept wandering around exposing himself to people.  After a little while, we got a little more relaxed and sort of enjoyed the people watching.  My husband went through the usual tests- blood, urine, physical exam and nothing came up abnormal, other than some loose stools.  His temp was normal just as it had been earlier in the day.  The doctor was pretty certain that he did indeed have a case of food poisoning or 'travelers diarrhea'.  My husband was given fluids as he was a bit dehydrated and was just about to be released when the doctor decided to do an x-ray of his abdomen, just to be sure since we were traveling and all.

The moment that x-ray was put up in front of the light on the wall, I didn't need any instruction to be able to see that something was very wrong.  The intestines were all distended and there was clearly something blocking the digestive tract.  Suddenly there was an immense urgency in the room.  Several doctors all stared at the x-ray as if they could not believe what they were seeing.  Then they began prepping my husband for an emergency CT scan and told me he would be going straight to surgery after that.  They also shoved NG tubes into his nose and started pumping out this awful fluid.  I couldn't even think.  The nurses told me to take any valuables as they had a way of disappearing around here and took me through a maze of doors so that I could see my husband just prior to his surgery. 

After the CT scan, my husband was wheeled into the room where I was waiting.  There was an anesthesiologist with him who was explaining that there was no time to wait for his stomach to empty and that they would have to intubate him.  We were told that this was very serious and that there was a mass in my husbands abdomen that was preventing the passage of normal digestion and that it could kill him if they did not remove it.  They were able to see that the mass was not moveable by any other manner via the CT scan and the intestines were so distended that they could rupture at any moment.  Naturally, I thought he must have colon cancer or something, but I did not ask about that.  All I wanted was for him to be O.K. for right now.  I just wanted a little more time with him.  I kept asking God or whoever would listen to my pleas inside my head for this to just NOT be cancer.  In my own selfish thoughts, I didn't think I could take that.  As my husband was moved into the operating room they let me stay with him until after they put him under.  I thought this was strange and heard one of the nurses tell the other to let me stay and have my goodbyes.  Then another piped up and said this was not goodbye.  She told me that the doctor they called in was the best and that if anyone could save my husband, he would.  I could not believe this.  How did I go from a bright day as a tourist to this?

I was led back out and left in a row of chairs in a daze.  I didn't know anything except that I was so glad that I was not alone.  I could call my friends.  They were just a short distance away.  During the planning of the trip there had been a time when we were going to be going to New York on our own, but fatefully our friends had decided to join us.  They came to be with me in a flash and didn't ask questions.  Somehow they both knew just what I needed in that moment.   After 4 long hours, a doctor came through the double doors.  He was a tiny East Indian man with such a gentle demeanor.  By this time I really had it in my head that I just wanted to hear that this was NOT cancer.  Sometimes the mind can get stuck on a stupid detail.  So there I was just begging for him to tell me that.  My wish was somehow granted.  There was no cancer!  But wait, how could he know that so soon?  How could he be so sure?  It turns out that when I got over the initial euphoria of hearing that there was no cancer, there was some other news that was a bit more sobering.  The doctor informed me, in his lilting accent, that "another 12 to 24 hours and I could not save him."  My mind went reeling again as this idea settled in.  What if we had decided to go back to the hotel and rest?  What if we had been back at home and decided to wait until Monday so we could avoid going to the ER?  What had just happened?  How did this happen?  

The doctor would answer the questions that he could in due time, but he wanted me to see that my husband was indeed still alive and much better than he had been only a short time ago.  A short time ago when none of us had realized that this was such a serious thing at all...  So I was taken into recovery and greeted by several doctors and nurses with huge smiles on their faces.  You could feel the relief in the room and we all shared a laugh as my husband started in talking about how it was very important for him to get back to work right away and that he needed to take care of things, in a very drugged out voice.  They told me he had been repeating that over and over.  Then the doctor finally started to explain to me what had happened.  It turns out the diagnosis would be truly unique and complicated.  My husband was found to be the one of a kind man that I know him to be, in every way. 

You really never know just how things in the universe line up as they do.  I just know that if I had ever doubted that there was a purpose and a meaning to this life higher than mere existence, all doubts left me that day.  This doctor had trained in India as an intensivist.  Then he had specialized in gastrointestinal surgery in the U.S. and had done most of his work with the elderly and more recently victims of gunshot wounds.  (In the daylight the neighborhood we were in was much more clearly NOT the good side of town.)  In all of his experience this doctor had never seen anything quite like what had happened here.  But his experience and expertise were just what was needed.  The 12-24 hour comment came from the fact that there were several things going on, any one of which could have killed my husband almost immediately.  He had a baseball sized abscess that was very near rupture within his abdominal cavity but not inside the intestine, he had multiple adhesions that had wrapped themselves all around the abscess and eventually cut off progress of fluids through the small intestine, and peritonitis had set in.  As well as the initial danger from possible rupture of the abscess or intestine, any one of these could have become a life-threatening septic condition.  So how on earth was all this going on without my husbands knowledge?  Well, that part is left to theory.

      Here's what we do know:  1) He has a ridiculously high tolerance for pain that probably grew slowly over time along with the illness.  2) He is one of the very small percentage of the population that does not respond to infection with a fever or a high white blood cell count.  (Some researchers have found that these people are often on the autism scale as well.)  3) He was born without an appendix.  (Since all of his intestines had been outside of his body during the surgery and searched thoroughly we can be sure that my husbands best friend is correct when he guesses that my husband is just a little bit more advanced than the rest of us.  His friend is a biology teacher, after all.)  4) Since the abscess was outside the intestines, the only reasonable guess as to what caused the initial infection is probably E-Coli which comes in many forms and can and will invade the body anywhere.  (Several other doctors expressed this guess to us as well when we got back home.)  And finally- 5) There is no way to know when or where this E-Coli would have infected him as people can live for years with an abscess that has been encapsulated inside adhesive scar tissue and is like a ticking time bomb that can burst at any time.

My  husband spent 3 days in ICU and another 5 in the hospital being pumped full of every type of antimicrobial agent you can imagine since we really had no way of knowing for sure what it was that had invaded his body.  Once we knew that he would be strong enough to fly back home, he left the hospital with 20 staples and 3 retention sutures in his gut.  The physical effects that ended up following my husband for months (and now years) after this were nothing compared to what this did to our souls.  This absolutely rocked my world.  It shook me to the core. And it made my husband believe that maybe he should not expect to live a long, normal life even though we had been assured that this whole thing really shouldn't affect his life expectancy at all.  It was so hard to see the person who had been there for me and provided me with the strength that I had so badly needed in such a place of uncertainty.  I was suddenly very aware of what it must be like to be told that a loved one has been hit by bus, but has survived.  Only to be told later that the person will never be quite the same ever again.  Over that summer, I watched my husband go through some of the most difficult emotional times.  Things that I simply never could have imagined.  His body had betrayed him.  (This person that everyone had always described as the neatest, cleanest guy that they ever knew had been compromised by bacteria.)  Neither one of us knew what to trust, where to turn.  Life, that had been moving along on an expected plane, had just moved to a whole new universe.  Nothing was certain and nerves were so raw and exposed.  We both had grown up with very uncertain home lives and had come to expect that as adults we would be able to control our surroundings and live in relative stability.  This had shattered our senses and left both of us searching for a new normal.

For myself, I found that it really was time to grow up.  For all the time that I had spent being a 'little adult' when I was a kid, I had somehow thought that I would be able to make up for that in my own life on my own terms.  But really I had just ended up leaning heavily on my husband for the stability that I had so badly needed.  This had left him empty of the ability to really feel his own emotions.  It was never safe for him to be a little off, even for a day, because I had needed so much from him.  My guilt was immense and yet I was a little scared of this new emotional man in my life.  The truth is that as much as I had needed him to be the one solid thing in my life, he had needed me to be there to take care of him and to feel, when he was not ready to do that yet.

Over time, we both have grown stronger in this new life that has been thrust upon us.  Individually, we have learned how to do the things that we had leaned on one another for, for over a decade.  I, who have always been so independent anyway have learned that if I needed to I could make it all on my own.  And my husband who has never let anything ever get to him seems to be more comfortable with the idea that sometimes you have to embrace and feel the fact that the world can be a scary place.  We have seen that our individual weaknesses can be dealt with best with the unconditional love we share for one another.  We have each grown grateful for the gift that is knowing that you never really do know what tomorrow brings and that any one of us can be gone from this earth at any time. 

My husband will require more surgery to deal with some residual issues left from such invasive initial emergency surgery and we have been putting that off.  There have been so many opportunities to get past this time in our lives and come out stronger- we have pursued things that we never thought possible and made life decisions that we once only discussed in passing and had put off for 'someday'.  During this process there was a song that had come out that summer of 2009 that my husband gravitated towards.   I can remember him stopping whatever he was doing to sing along every time he saw the video played on TV.  If you've made it this far into this ultra-long post, then you owe it to yourself to share in a little bit more of our lives by clicking on the link below:  Oh and thanks for reading, this post is very important to me.

I'm Alive/ Kenny Chesney and Dave Matthews 

Keepin' It Real

After a couple of months of living in a bit of la la land, some realities have come home to roost. 
What am I referring to?
Well, last December I got the wonderful news that my nephew would be going to live with his Dad.  This was something that desperately needed to happen.  Life was getting really complicated for this little guy and we were all overjoyed at the idea that he would be getting a real second chance.
I still could not possibly be any happier with the new living arrangements for my nephew.  He is definitely right where he is supposed to be.
However, a bit of reality has set in.  Don't get me wrong.  I am not ungrateful.  Just taking in some things on a deeper level.
So after the initial euphoria, the new reality is this:  My nephew is 9 years old.  Although he is an immature 9 socially, he is highly intelligent.  I cannot thank God above enough for that fact.  However, it turns out his social issues are pretty complicated.  This is going to require a lot of work.  9 is not an age that it is easy to learn things that should have been taken in at age 3 or 4.  And this guy has anger to spare, that's for sure.  And totally understandable.  The indicators are all there that this is going to be a 2 steps forward, 1 step back process.  Even things we know and accept rationally are not all that easy to accept emotionally. 
He has wonderful counselors and understanding teachers and relatives.  We are all in this together and we will love him through it.  And we will all learn a lot by going through this process.  For me, personally, it is hard to trust that everything will work out for the best.  I know I can be a bit of a control freak, but I continue to work on that.  In the end, this will be good for all of us.  We couldn't possibly be working together toward any greater goal.

Know Better, Do Better

Lately there have been numerous discussions between my nephew Nathan's Dad and I about his progress.  (To get some back story on Nathan, read this, this or this.)  He has only lived with his father for about 2 and a half months now.  It has been a wonderful time of much healing and love for both my nephew and his father.  We all expected to see changes in Nathan, but never realized just how quickly they would come.  He already speaks noticeably more clearly, even through the phone.  His confidence is much improved.  I think we are all surprised by how much having his son living with him has changed my nephew's father as well.  There is new hope surrounding both of them.

Picture from the last time I took Nathan to the Newport Aquarium on the Oregon Coast

There are also signs that this is going to be a long haul.  It is apparent that Nathan has never had anyone sit down and do homework with him.  Heck, he doesn't even remember to use utensils to eat his food all the time.  (He prefers his hands.  He is nine.)  He has acted out aggressively at school on several occasions.  He has verbalized that he is worried about having to go back to live with his mother.  He says, "I never wanted to be there."

But Dad is working diligently with the school and a really good councilor who sees how intelligent Nathan is and knows that his real issues are all personal and social.  (She called to get more family history on my sister, Nathan's mother, and I could tell she really gets the situation.)  Dad has been volunteering in Nathan's classroom every week.  He makes sure Nathan gets plenty of exercise and sleep.  Nathan has been taken for full check-ups at the doctor, optometrist and dentist.  The dentist said it was obvious that Nathan had never had his teeth cleaned before.  The poor kid had to have deep cleaning with the gas over several days.  (Nathan's mother had him on state medical and could have had this done for free.)    He got a couple of cavities filled too.

Even as Nathan's Dad and I have discussed the progress and how amazing it has been, we have both been plagued by guilt.  How could things have gotten this bad without any of us really noticing?  There are several behaviors that Nathan displayed over the years that were never normal for his age.  Somehow we just bought the idea that he was 'a little behind'.  Nathan's Dad and I are both ashamed of ourselves.  Loving him and hoping that things would change were just not enough.  Fear and drama got in the way of what this boy really needed.  

By the time we realized all of this, it took nearly 2 years to get him out of the hell he was living in.  Anyone who has read any of the other stuff I have written about Nathan knows how much I really do love this kid.  I won't beat up on myself too harshly, but I will say that I am sorry and really mean it.  Now that I know better, I will do better.  I promise. 

When I'm Bad I'm So So Bad

Today's post is brought to you by a little exchange that I had with Candance over at Crazy Texas Mommy.  She was cookin' up a storm during the recent snow in Texas and I saw a recipe of hers that I needed and offered her one of mine in return. 
That brought up some interesting memories, which brought me to this post.  Somehow everything reminds me of something else...

When I was a kid, I moved a lot.  One of the places I lived in was at the end of a block, on the corner.  At the other end of the block there was another little girl who it turned out I had something in common with.  Both of our mothers had just given birth to our first siblings when we were both 8 years old.  And, coincidentally, it turns out our moms both had better things to do with their time than raise said siblings so this girl and I were the only 8-year-olds raisin' babies around.  Of course, we became quite close.
It turns out that there is one problem with this whole scenario.  (Besides, the obvious one.)  When you meet someone who is doing something that you are doing that is fairly rare, it seems you inevitably find out that there's not a whole lot else that you do really have in common.
Over the years I did try quite valiantly to keep my ties with this girl in tact.  Way more than I should have, it turns out.  Way after I figured out that the things we did not have in common were so much more important than the things we did.  Anyway, I kept in touch with her off and on for about 25 years.  She ended up living in B.C. Canada.  I guess it was a good thing she wasn't closer as many of the phone calls we shared were when she was in a mental hospital.  Or times she should have been but wasn't. 
I look at this situation now knowing that the things I learned were priceless, but the price of learning them was a little too much.  There were good things that I got out of this whole scene, but I'm not sure I couldn't have obtained them in some other fashion.  Sometimes the price to play is just too high.
So, to pass along to you one small thing that I got from this that I feel kind of embodies the whole shebang within the confines of a very tasty treat, I give you this:

Nanaimo Bars (pronounced Na-Ni-Mo, named after a place in B.C. Canada)

Yield 2 dozen (you will so regret that it doesn't make more) 

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 5 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups graham cracker crumbs
• 1 cup shredded coconut
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
• 1/4 cup butter
• 2 cups confectioners' sugar
• 2 tablespoons instant vanilla pudding mix
• 3 tablespoons milk
• 4 (1 ounce) squares semisweet chocolate, chopped
• 1 tablespoon butter

Directions

1.     Mix 1/2 cup butter, white sugar, cocoa, egg and vanilla in a heavy sauce pan or double boiler. Stir over low heat until mixture is of custard like consistency.

2.     Combine graham crackers, coconut and walnuts and add to the melted mixture. Mix well and pack into buttered 9 inch square cake pan.

3.     Cream 1/4 cup butter, confectioners' sugar, vanilla custard powder and milk. Beat until creamy and spread over melted base.

4.     Refrigerate till hardened.

5.     Melt semi-sweet chocolate with 1 tablespoon butter and drizzle over custard icing. Refrigerate. When totally hard cut into square bars.

These suckers are so good that they will haunt you.  Kind of like that friendship did for me.  I really only make them for Christmas, but my husband actually asked me just the other day if somehow there were not some still left over in the back of the refrigerator somewhere.   After I had first tried these up north of the border I had always wanted to find a good recipe for them.  Now that I have, it is oh so dangerous.