Even Grace Grumbles

Brothers, Sisters and Miracles

Holy crap!  It's already spring!  Didn't I just sit down and write my last post?  Oh, wait . . . that was last fall, wasn't it?  It has been forever since I had the urge to write, but lately, it has been following me around like a bad hair day.  There is so much I need to write about that I am to the point of being overwhelmed:

• My 9 year old bonus son now resides primarily with us as of January 1;
• In February I started a new part-time career as a home stager;
• Last month my 19 year old birdie was sick;
• I recently found out there is a new doggie park a few miles from our home;
• This winter my 80 year old mother has started cross country skiing again;
• A little over a month ago, in prepration for a big ice climb, my big brother Dan (that's Dan and my big sister Susanna in the pic) went in to the doctor to find out why his lower back was hurting  and found out he has stage 4 lung cancer;
• My sisters have been nothing less than amazing with coordinating care for our brother, not to mention all of our other family members who continue to provide love, prayer, support and advice;
• Said brother and his only daughter have been in the same room with one another without wanting to strangle one another for the first time in, what, a couple of decades?

Strange how life works.  There are big bold miracles happening all around us, all the time, even if life is whizzing past us at lightening speed.  Every one of those bullet points above is a miracle, from the doggie park to my brother's condition.

When the oncologist came in to tell Dan the full outcome of his tests, he said, "Mr. Belmore, the bad news is that you have cancer and will always have cancer.  The good news is that it is 2012."  He went on to explain that one of the tests they were going to do anaylizes his DNA from a biopsy of his cancer and looks for a mutation . . . the mutation would be the cancer.   The beauty of this is that instead of treating the cancer with chemo via IV (which attacks all cells in the body), it can be treated with a specific drug tageted directly at the cancer cells only.  This is a brand new advancement in the treatment of cancer.

And yes, they found a mutation:) 

And what would have happened if Dan didn't have this back pain (which by the way, is cancer in his L2 which caused it to fracture and therefore pinch his nerve)?  He had no other symptoms, no cough, no shortness of breath, nothing.  This is a 60 year old athlete who works out several times a week at the gym, rides bike races like one called "The Triple By-Pass" over the Colorado Rockies, rock climbs for fun, owns a $5,000+ mountain bike, and has climbed several "14ers."  His cancer is his miracle.  It told him his body needed help.

Go figure.

And his cancer may just be the reconnecting factor between he and his daughter, as well as creating a stronger bond between her and her little bro.  Cancer has a way of making everyone involved understand the importance of NOW, the importance of "there may not be a tomorrow," the importance of forgiveness, of acceptance, of "getting" what is important in life.

And then there is the doggie park.  Wow.  Here we are with 3 large dogs, all labs, all strays, all under 2 years old, all in our house, all in the backyard, all eating and chewing on everything possible because they need more exercise.  I looked for doggie parks in the KC metro area last fall and the closest one was at least a 30 minute drive across town.   Not being the athlete that my brother is, I was not going to take up jogging to get this feat accomplished, so I just kept buying chew toys and stuffed animals at the thrift store for them to rip up (Daisy Duck's leg looked great in Fred's mouth!).   And then "Walaa!"  I find out that a new 3-4 acre dog park was installed just a few miles from our house here in Liberty!  What I've found is that it is not only an outlet for the three of them, but for me too, and for our whole family.  What fun it is to see brother and sister (Fred and Baby Girl) run together at full speed, or Saydie fulfilling her OCD with fetching tennis balls.

Suddenly it is much quieter around the house.

That is, until Ben, my bonus boy, gets home, and then it is all Nerf and Buzzbee guns.  What a miracle he is.   Everyday he learns something new . . . how to cook his own breakfast, butter toast, solve problems with friends, discovers reading is fun, buys his very own first knife, makes healthy food choices, learns how to save and manage money, deepens his relationship with his sister.  I could write a whole book on just the two of them!

And sisters . . . holy crap.  I am so very blessed to have these two beautiful, caring, organized, don't take no crap, let's have a vodka, sweet  souls as my sisters.  All I can say right now without crying is you are truly angels.

And whew!  I am exhausted.

Miracles.  All the time.  All around you.  In your brothers.  In your sisters.  In you.

 

It's a Day

It is one of those days.  You know, the one where you wake up from a nice, warm sleep and even before you stretch, you discover for some reason or another (like two of your dogs got out because somehow for the second day in a row the front gate which nobody has gone out of in a week was open) so you have to jump up, grab whatever clothes are nearby, put on your shoes while running through the house so you can get in the cold car and go do whatever it was that caused you to get up so abruptly (like go and find the two dogs).  

AND . . . I not only did not brush my teeth before exiting the house but I forgot to pee.

Now you know what I'm talking about?  Yea, that kind of day.

Then the hubby called while I am out looking for them, with my window down so I can hear them if they bark (and it is 45 degrees out and the heater makes too much noise to have it on so I'm really cold), to let me know he has to call off his search and rescue to get back to the house to get the daughter's 1988 Mercury Marquis station wagon running so she can get to school on time, and he has to get ready for work.

AND . . . I still have to pee.

A few minutes later my phone rings again.  It's hubby, saying the daughter found the dogs just a few blocks from the house on her way to school in the now running Marquis.  Whew!  I dash home, run to the bathroom, and tell myself, as I am finally peeing, "NO!  Please!  It's not too late!  I don't want to be crabby!!"

But I am.

Poop.

I tell myself, "Get out of it!  Quick!  You don't have to stay here!  It's a beautiful sunny fall day!"

That's it!  I'll take the good doggie, the one that did not escape for the umpteenth time, for a walk.  She needs it.  I need it.   She has a skittish, nervous, curious, excited personality, so it is a challenge to walk her, but finally, after 30 minutes of a brisk north wind hitting our faces, we achieve success and she prances easily by my side.

But it didn't work.  I get back to the house and am still crabby.  Even worse, I'm feeling pitiful.  I look at the dogs, they look at me, and I say, "Yea.  Don't run away when the gate is open.  Damn it.   YOU are my best friends.  No body calls me any more.  Poor me."  Holy crap I'm REALLY pitiful AND I know it!

Just then a call comes over on Skype.  It's my Auntie Bonnie and Uncle Bruce.  I almost cry I am so happy to see and hear them.  We chit chat about family, discover that Madison (my bonus daughter) and Tonya (their daughter) share the same birthday (today), and laugh about the antics of the younger kids who we are blessed to have in our family.  Then their phone rings, Auntie Bonnie answers it, and Uncle Bruce looks over towards where she is.  I can't see or hear her, but I can tell something is up with the phone call.  Uncle Bruce asks me if he can call me back.  I say, "Sure."

A few minutes late Skype rings and it's Uncle Bruce.  He looks concerned.  He says, "That was your mother.   Aunt Pat just called her and her granddaughter Ashley, Nadine's girl, I think she is 20 something, is in the hospital being operated on right now.  She has leukemia."

Ahem.

Pity party gone.  Evaporated.  Poof. 

You know, it is okay to feel down in the dumps once in a while.  If we all were flying high all the time, well, we wouldn't know it now, would we?  We'd have nothing to gauge anything by. 

Please say a prayer for my second cousin, Ashley, to be whole and healthy.  I know I am.

 

On Taking Wrong Turns

My husband called me this morning at around 9:10 and asked in his oops-I-forgot-something-voice, "What are you plans for the day?"  At first I sighed, then thought, let's see what it is.  He had forgotten a piece of equipment which he required for his work in the afternoon and wanted to see if I would drive it up to him - about an 80 mile round trip.

I took a deep breath and realized that that was exactly what I needed - a drive in the country so I could wrap my head around some unease I was experiencing.  Just before he called I was fussing with finances and had fallen into my old pattern of worrying and focusing on lack.  In the middle of my pity party, I had this tiny bright thought:  "What a challenge!  I am going to make this work this week!  I know I can make all the bills even though it appears there is not enough to cover them!"  And I smiled.  It made me feel good.  I liked the fact that I could have another perspective, the perspective that I had been working on to replace my old pattern.  But I knew that the old pattern, the old road, was still looming nearby.

I told my hubby I needed to wrap some things up I was working on and would be there in about an hour.  When he apologized for the inconvenience, I smiled again, letting him know that he was providing me with exactly what I needed.  I made a monster cup of my hot chai, put on some comfy clothing, and jumped in my little green CRV.  The sun was shining, it was chilly outside, and I knew the perfect back road to take on the first leg of the journey.

The town where he was, Gower, Missouri, is very rural, so no matter what route I took it would be out in the country.  There is this one road that is a beautiful alternate back road route, and I turned north onto it about 5 miles outside of Liberty, where we live.   There are beautiful country estates dotting the sides of the roads, all surrounded with white fencing, along with tiny old farm houses, new barns, old faded barns, horses, cows, one lane bridges over creeks.  The road is curvy a little bumpy and is in need of repair.  All in all, perfect for the mood I was in.

But something was off.  It just didn't look right.  About 5 miles on the road I realized I was on the wrong road.  Although the terrain of rolling hills and clusters of trees looked familiar, it just wasn't quite right.  I thought maybe it was because I usually only drive south on the road instead of going north on it.  Or maybe I just was not remembering it right.  But I thought for sure that it was the right road.  I mean, I had driven south bound on it a couple of dozen times over the years and I just knew I had come out at the same intersection that I had just turned on to from the main road. 

I decided to just keep going.  I knew I would be okay.   Afterall, I knew that the road had to run north/south between two heavier trafficked county roads that ran east/west, so sooner or later I'd have to come out on the one to the north.  Besides, I was sure I was on the right road even if my senses and memory said otherwise.  I must be remembering wrong.

Before I knew it, I emerged onto the east/west road I thought I would.  I thought, "Gee, I must have really been thinking because I don't even remember going past that little country church, Mt. Olivet!"  Then I looked up at the street sign . . . I was not on the road I thought I was on. 

Oh well.  On I went, enjoying the rest of my drive to Gower to deliver the part to my hubby.  I would solve my mystery on my drive home.

The part safely delivered, I started back and took the turn south onto the road I had though I was on earlier.  Heading south, I soon passed the little church, then along came the familiar ranches and horse farms, the creek at the bottom of the gully, etc.  Yup, this was the right road.  Now where in the devil does it come out at?  I just couldn't picture any other intersection but the one I had originally turned on to.  I was very perplexed.

In about 15 minutes I discovered what had happened, why I had taken the wrong road:  Where the road comes out onto the east/west road at it's southern end, a new housing development had gone up and it altered the place the road intersected with the larger road!  It, the entrance, had simply been moved about 200 yards further west from the old intersection!

Hmmm.  What a nice metaphor for my thoughts that day.  The turn had been moved.  That's all.  I wasn't crazy.  I didn't need to get upset because I wasn't sure where I was.  It had simply been moved.  Not only was the path I thought I was on still there, but I discovered that there was an alternate path, a parallel path, that I had  not even thought existed.  And not only did it exist, but it was a good experience; I enjoyed it.

The next time you take a wrong turn, literally or in any other part of your life, remember it just might not be a wrong turn.  Maybe the entrance to the path has just been moved, that's all.  Remember to trust your memory, your confidence, your sense of direction.  Most importantly, remember to enjoy what you are experiencing right now.  On this path.  There are no wrong turns.

 

 

On Coming to a Halt

I don't know about you, but I have a hard time doing nothing.  It's taken me years to perfect my skills at multi-tasking, which culminated in 2009 with the end of my real estate career, my 20 year marriage to my first love, and a bankruptcy.  At the time, I was on 5 boards, 2 of which I was president; belonged to 4 other business organizations; was in charge of umpteen committees, and wondered why I didn't feel compelled to write or play with my oil paints.  Since then I have been on a mission to wean myself of "doing" and learn how to do nothing.

When I started this journey, I had no idea it would take 2 years, more actually, to get to nothing;  to get to feeling comfortable with no plans for every minute of every day, no matter what the doing was.  In April of 2009 when I went AWOL from my life, I began my recovery from an addiction to the cell phone, to the calendar, to emails, to voice mails and to "shoulding" on myself.  I gave up the losing battle of worrying about money, lost the sensation of feeling that my value as a person was equal to my paycheck, and started breathing deeply, slowly, like soft slow waves resting on the shores of Lake Superior in the quiet of the morning.  Instead of having to go to a movie to relax by myself I learned how to cuddle up with our doggies on our couch and watch a pick on NetFlix in the middle of the day, eating all the popcorn I want.  Or sit on the front porch and do nothing but read a book for hours and hours.

Last Wednesday I was at the Northland Exposure Art Gallery in Parkville, Missouri where I volunteer a few days a month and have some artwork for sale.  The town is located just a quarter mile or so away from the Missouri River, which is expected to flood soon due to water upriver being released from a damn to the tune of 150,000 cubic feet per second for a month or so.  There were volunteers lined up and down the road waiting in line for their turn to fill and place sandbags to help curb the flood when it came, and hopefully safe the old town from damage.  I sat there on the steps of the gallery, watching, waiting, observing how people come together to build this temporary dike, one bag at a time, to try to stop Mother Nature's power of water.  It reminded me of my journey, of how for years I tried to stop the flow, building up my own dikes, filling my own sandbags full of what I had thought was important, placing them all in a line around myself to keep out what I was really thinking, my ego in control, protecting me all the while.

In the end though, Mother Nature won and my natural flow started seeping in, if even one or two drops at a time.  The drops showed up as doubts about who was actually making my decisions:  me or the me I thought I should be for others, for the greater good, for praise, for love, for attention, for acceptance.  Soon my dike was breached, crested by the pressure called freedom, taking me up in its arms to float somewhere down river with the flow. 

I honestly believe that I died in that flood and my resulting actions to stay afloat.  I believe that I have been resuscitated from that death and have been since coming to a halt so that I can begin to build again.  The current that carries me is strong and deep, and my little boat I've built is rolling gently along with a beam of sunshine and a cool breeze on it.  I believe that I can and do rest in my boat, knowing comfortably that all is good, that I am good, that there is always enough time, always enough of everything, that the world exists because of me and without me at the same time, and that's okay because that means I don't have to be in charge of every thing.

Hmmm.  It's interesting.  The last time the Missouri River flooded like this was in 1993, the year my first husband and I moved here.  In fact, we sat at a restaurant just a few doors down from the very steps I sat on to watch the sandbagging efforts last Wednesday.   I remember asking the waiter why there was a street sign in the middle of the river as we thought that was where the river normally flowed, not realizing it was about 20 feet above flood level.  Maybe, just maybe, that is where the River is supposed to be, up right next to and into the town. Maybe the street signs are in the wrong place and we don't realize it.  Maybe, just maybe, it is us who put ourselves into the flood instead of just letting what happens happen.   After all, that is what boats are for, right?

 

On Notes, Cards and Letters

Since I was a child, I've always enjoyed receiving and giving notes, cards and letters, many of which I have kept.   Every time my first husband and I moved, which was a lot, he would comment on having to move my boxes of letters, asking me why I didn't just throw them away.  "Because, they are a part of me," I would explain.  After the 5th or 6th move, he quit asking and kindly toted them around for me. 

When I was in 3rd grade, I had a pen pal, Karen, who lived in Alaska.  We wrote to each other for at least 5 years, learning about our families, friends, where we lived, what we did, sending photographs of our gangly selves standing in parkas, bathing suits, knock-kneed shorts.  I wonder, do kids today have pen pals, or do they have text pals? 

During middle school, I would visit my aunts and uncles in the big city - Chicago and surrounding area.  From there I would write letters and send postcards of the incredible buildings and sites.  It was such an exotic, foreign setting:  so many roads, so much concrete and steel, so many people, so much sound, so many cars, trucks, semi's, and of course the L.   My pen could not write fast enough.

My Junior year in high school was spent in Salina, Kansas, armpit of the country.  I lived with my big brother Dan, his fiance Steph, and his two kids Jessie and Robbie.  From there I wrote furiously to my best friends back in green, hilly, watery, forested, Michigan, as well as to my mom, dad, sisters and brother.  I was desperately lonely, and there were no such things as cell phones, email, texting, Facebook, instant chatting, to ease my homesickness.  There was the telephone, but I was banned from using it after my 2nd $300+ bill.  I wrote of how flat it was, how you could see for miles and miles in all directions.  I wrote about the giant grasshoppers, their deafening noise and how I could not walk in the grass on side of the road because it totally grossed me out as they blindly jumped all over me and stuck on me.  I wrote about my school, Salina Central, and what it was like to go to a school where I was the minority.  I wrote about how I spent most of my time in my dingy room in the basement, staying up all night drawing, drinking diet pepsi and eating peanut M&Ms and then sleeping through geometry the next day.  I wrote about my jobs at Elmore's Cafeteria where I accidentally poured boiling hot water from the giant coffee machine all down my left arm, and Taco Tico, where I learned how to make and eat fast food Mexican burritos and tacos.

And I received letters.  I would check the mail daily, hounding the mailman, pouncing on that mail box, to see who I would hear from.  My friend Sue wrote the most.  She had the best penmanship.  I would read, re-read, and memorize those letters, placing them in a special box in order of author name.  Whenever I felt bad, I would take them all out spread them on my bed, and read them again.  When I moved back to Michigan the next year, I packed them tenderly up, placed them in my duffel bag, and they rode back to the hometown in the belly of the Greyhound.

In my 20s and 30s, I moved away again: once to Colorado for a short stay, and then to New Mexico, Texas and Missouri, all with my first husband Paul.  My sister Susanna and I wrote a lot to each other during this time.  She would send me cards from her kids, photographs of "birthday weekend" in May, and bits and pieces of news about Marquette.  Mom send a lot to, including recipes, newpaper clippings, etc.  It took me years to learn how to read her letters as often they were encripted with words that would push my buttons as if I were a little kid again.

When my dad, and then years later my step dad, were dying of cancer, I would send them a card a day for months at a time.  Chuck's, my step dad, favorite card was one that had a little red truck on the front.  On the inside it said, "Thought you could use a little pick up."

During my real estate career and 15 years of holding elected office at local, state and national levels, I sent and received hundreds of notes, thank you's, congratulations, PANs (personal acknowledgement notes).  The onces I received came from clients, co-workers, people I didn't even know.  I have just about everyone I received.  Again, when I would come home from a board meeting where I had just had to beat down the "good 'ol boys" or take knives out of my back placed there by wolves dressed as little old ladies and men at the church's annual meeting, I would take out my box of notes I'd received, spread them out and read them over.

In my 40's, I didn't write much any more.  I didn't have time, didn't make time.  I'd drop a card to mom once in a while, but never wrote to my sisters.  Now we had the internet, and phone rates were cheap and easy.  Recently, texting and Facebook have added to the ease of communicating.  But . . . yesterday when I went to our mailbox, my heart smiled as I saw, wedged between the junk mail and the bills,  a hand-written note card addressed to me.  It was from my Auntie Bonnie and Uncle Bruce.  It was a thank you card stuffed with 2 additional sheets of paper, filled with gratitude and love for my, and other's, efforts with the fundraiser that was put on for their benefit a few months ago.  As I read it, standing in my kitchen in my pjs, tears streamed down my face, blurring my vision, I felt as if they were right there with me, hugging me with their gianormous hugs.

The power.  The power of the written word.  Of ink on paper.  Nope.  It can not be replaced.  It is different than pixels on a monitor transmitted through space.  It is different.  It is tangible and can be held in your hands while your tears drop onto it, smearing the letters that make the words.  Oh!  Don't get me wrong, I love how technology has bridged the homesickness/thank you/what are you doing right now/I need support gap, bringing us closer together.  But nothing beats receiving or sending penned thoughts and feelings and facts on paper.  Yup.  This letter is a keeper.  Thank you Auntie Bonnie and Uncle Bruce for lightening my heart, for the prayer you said to help you convey your thoughts and love onto paper, for your continued guidance on how to be a person of value. 

This letter will stay out for a while before it gets gently placed in my box.  I think I will write them one back.

Just About Here

Today I woke up a little melancholy.  It has to do with the fact that my step son, 8, is to spend the next two weeks with his momma.  It got me thinking about what I was going to fill my time with as when he is here, our world moves a little faster.  Before I knew it, my melancholy moody mind quickly moved from thoughts like, "wow I have a whole two weeks to do anything how cool is that?" to  "omg I will never have enough time to do everything I have to do!"  Instead of following that rabbit down the hole, I decided to take a chill pill, make a cup of chai tea, and check in on Facebook before waking the boy up to get him ready and off to summer school.  The first thing I saw when I logged in was this:

The more you think 'you HAVE to do'....the more there is to do. Take time to enjoy
The more you think 'you HAVE to do'....the more there is to do. Take time to enjoy
The more you think 'you HAVE to do'....the more there is to do. Take time to enjoy
Repeat as necessary.

My friend Wendy, who I have not seen since we graduated 30 years ago, posted it.  I just laughed.

I don't know why things like this amaze me, things that appear just when you need them, even though you don't even know you need them.   I like to think that they are personal messages to me from God; or my guardian angel responding to my unasked question, my unformed thought, my formed thought.  It doesn't matter, just as long as I am open to receiving them.  I also find that the more open I am to receiving these messages, the more they appear, like looking for a four leaf clover:  you can't find one if you don't look at the clover patch.

Taking a deep breath, I relaxed and made the conscious decision to let the day unfold as it would instead of how I thought it should and continued checking in with my FB peeps.   As I looked at the monitor, up popped a photo, the one of the canoe above, a post from another high school friend, John.  The caption he put with it was "Here."  Just looking at the photo, a serenity washed over me.  Of course.  Another personal message reminding me that at any time I can transport myself to "here." 

John and Wendy don't know it, but I am hanging with them today.  Today I am enjoying being "here."  In fact, I am so "here" that I think I just got a mosquito bite or two.  I can feel the buzz of the quietness that blankets the forest and the water of Upper Michigan.  I can hear what I am really thinking, not what I think I am thinking.  I am the enjoyment.  I am in joy.

Here.

What a lovely place this is.

 

 

 

 

doing. 

Windows

If someone would have told me a little over a year ago that I would be living in a beautiful old white house perched on a corner, complete with a picket fence, picnic table on the lawn and a front porch swing, I would not have believed them.  And I would not have believed that I would be a step mom to two incredible, intelligent, imaginative kids, be "penning" for a living, not have a cell phone, not watch television, and be in a relationship with a man who writes me poetry.  And yet, here I am today, looking through our office (actually, parlor) window at the white flowering dogwood tree in the front yard, typing away. 

This week marks my first "re-birthday."  A year ago, I was walking up the gravel driveway early in the morning at my sister Tricia's where I had stayed the night.  It was the day after I had told the man I loved for 25 years that I wanted a divorce.  Back then I still had a cell phone and it buzzed in my pocket letting me know I had a text.  This is what the text said:

"Anita, welcome to the first day of your new life."

My legs crumbled underneath me as I collapsed in tears of relief on the hard rocks.  I felt so free, so happy, so sad, so calm, so right. 

That moment is burned into my memory like the dive I took into Lake Superior in late May over a decade ago. 

It is truly amazing that you really do get what you want in life, whether you know what it is or not.  Sometimes we really have to take a hard look out the window, or should I say, in through the window from the outside, and delve into our soul.  Or both.  We need to take a hard look at what we are seeing out of the shell we think is our self, look at what is around us, what we have attracted into our view, and how those things have shaped us, molded us, hidden us.  We need to look into the window and see what we have truly become and ask some hard questions:  Who is this person I see?  Am I happy?  What am I doing?  Do I really love?  Am I really loved?  Do I even like myself as this person I've become?  Sounds like David Byrne singing, "Once in a Lifetime." 

You could say that a year ago I made the decision to change the view out of my window because when I looked into and out of my existing window, I did not like at all what I was seeing.  It was not real.  I was not real.  I had no clue who I was anymore.  Some call it a mid-life crisis.  Maybe it was, all I know is that something had to change and the only thing that I had control over changing was myself.

So here's what I did:  I picked up the nearest object that I could find and with all my strength, I threw it at the window.  The window shattered into hundreds, thousands, of broken, fragments and the cool fresh spring air gushed in and resuscitated my soul.  Slowly, the window repaired itself with a new view, one that is real, one that is connected to my soul.

It's ironic that the house we live in is full of windows, at least 25 that I can think of.  The house isn't all thatbig either.  Our bedroom alone has 5 windows covering two walls and the room is only 10 x 11.  There's a giant oak tree outside of it and the bedroom is above the garage to it is raised up, so it's like sleeping in a tree house.  All but a few of the windows in the house are the original from when the house was built in 1918, so they are pieces of artwork in and of themselves, full of air bubbles, swirls and imperfections. 

Yup, happy re-birthday to me.  I love the new, old windows I gave myself.  Who said breaking windows was a bad thing to do?