May 20, 2013
I paid how much to be able to garden?
Really. I feel that way, sometimes. My entire time here in Oregon City is spent gardening. That's what I do here!
I thought I bought my home for health reasons. To be able to be close to medical resources. But, I'm healthy, lately! I mean, as healthy as my health gets. No emergencies. That's what healthy is to me!
I also thought that Bill and I would fish the Willamette for Springers, but it turned out to be a really odd year, here.
I've been sick lately, actually. I finally got some antibiotics and I'm on my way to being better! My fever has gone down, and I'm feeling a bit better. But, I could have gotten medicine in Tillamook!
Meanwhile, I'm mowing lawns, planting the garden, tilling soil, and watching the strawberries turn color. It's nice to have David around. He does the muscle work, like tilling the soil, etc. I do the planting and the weeding. (and the harvest!)
He helps me with unusual willingness. I don't remember him being so helpful. I'm not complaining! He's fun to have around.
I take Willie to the middle school to run, or to the puppy park. That's where we go to run, run, run. He's so funny. I have taught him to do a flying lead change! We have horse (I mean springer) shows. I tell him to walk, trot, canter. He doesn't always mind me, but we have fun!
I keep thinking if I didn't have this home, I couldn't be as close to David. And, with Andrew gone, being close to David is important to me. Very important. It used to be that I really enjoyed my time away from the kids, but now, when I'm in Tillamook too long, I really miss David's company.
David and I have become increasingly close. You know, I have realized how much attention Andrew always required, with his health needs.
Andrew and I became close through medical appointments that began shortly after birth. He always needed medical care. We'd spend long hours waiting in doctor's offices, together. Laughing, reading children's magazines, together and as he grew up, learning to play "toss things into the waste basket" basketball, while waiting.
I'll never forget how funny he was. Once, he picked up a plastic mold of an eyeball, used to demonstrate eye diagnosis, for people. It had many parts, like a puzzle you put together. He grabbed it and displayed it for me. "This is an eyeball." Then, he mixed up all the parts inside, so they weren't fitted together. Making a loud clatter, he shook it hard, and said, "This is an eyeball on Marfan syndrome."
We had a sadistic sense of humor, together.
Or, how bout the time he had moved to a new school, and he was defensive about his differences. A boy came to sit next to him and he said, "I have marfan syndrome. This means my heart can explode at any minute. Do you really want to get that all over your nice, white shirt?" !!! He was not even 12 when he did that! The teacher called me in, very seriously concerned. I just laughed. You do what you have to do, when you are different. The teachers and the kids came to love him.
David and I don't have marfan syndrome in common. Our time together has always been traditional. Basketball games, soccer games, sleep overs.
Thank God, really... but, it's nice, now, to get to know David, better. I'm slowly and carefully even working on getting him to go fishing with me! Don't tell him, please. I have to do this very, very carefully and with stealth. I think it might work!
When Andrew and David were little, I think I ruined them for fishing by taking them too many times in the pouring down rain. Way to go, Mom!
The other night I was so sick feeling, and he came in, sat by my bedside and said, "Mom, I think you should just close your eyes and go to sleep. In the morning, if you aren't better, I'll take you to the doctor." Oh, what a sweetheart! Did I teach him that!?
He's going to school at ITT and he is doing really well. It has taken him some time to get back on his feet, after his brother passed. I totally understand. We are still (and always?) in process. You go through stages. I'm still stuck in the shock stage, I think. Every once and a while, I realize that it's really true, and it hits my heart really hard.
I almost cry. Almost. I'm getting there.
The other day, I was walking through the neighborhood, noticing that those lovely spring flowers on the rhododendrons were dying, already. Had Spring already come and gone? The once beautiful white flowers were soggy and dead. They had the look of wet toilet paper, on the ground.
The seasons come, and the seasons go, just like always. Things are different, without Andrew. It doesn't matter to the seasons, though! Things just go on, like normal. How could they do that? Just like normal?
There is nothing normal, lately!
Not once this Spring did I hear Andrew exclaim how beautiful things were. He didn't rejoice in how great the air smelled, or how green the lawn was, or how awesome the garden he saw on his walk was, this morning.
Oh, how I used to love hearing him describe things like that. He was always in awe of beauty. From the time he was little, telling Grandma how beautiful her dishes were!
Grandma described Andrew as "Such a winsome child." He was! When I told him that, years later, he laughed. "Yeah. I suppose so." He agreed.
When he was 15, he took some kind of test at school, and he was way ahead of others in the English language.
Like, third year in college level, or something that shocked the teachers and I.
We attributed that to his loss of sight as a child, and how listening, instead of seeing probably enhanced his speech. He always loved and used big, dramatic words. I loved that. I so miss that.
Sometimes at night, David and I will be laying on my bed petting Willy and talking, and all of the sudden, one or the other of us will have an Andrew moment. It happens out of the blue.
We have that loss in common, unfortunately. That's a closeness I'd never wish on any Mother and child. But, it is a gift, regardless.
I guess when God closes a window, he opens a door. That door has lead me to an unusually wonderful closeness with my remaining son.
Life goes on... Flowers fade and streams go dry, and I can't help but wonder why...
Once Pete on ifish told me that often times women grow gardens and treat their little plants like children, when their own children have grown and gone. I do think that's why it's so important to me to garden. I do treat each little plant like a baby, and when it dies, I'm unusually stricken by it's death.
I have a white rhodie in my front yard, and when I saw its dead white flowers beneath it, I shook the leaves hard, to get the remaining ones to fall off. I raked them up and put them in the compost pile.
There. All better. I just couldn't watch that slow death happen, any longer.
There will be another Spring time, where the flowers come, and the flowers go.
May
17, 2013
Bill and I were off to fish, today, but got interrupted
by our kitty, Molly. She was limping last night, and we discovered
a bite wound on her leg. So, it was off to the vet, instead
of the bay. Ho hey.
I have taken to drinking dessert for breakfast. I used to drink
my coffee black. I loved my morning coffee. I really did. I
enjoyed the taste of it just plain black.
Then, they came up with these tasty creamers, and I was having
so much fun tasting them all. It started as innocently as hazelnut,
but then? Ice cream flavors!
Oh! But, then!? Then, some evil gal added whipped cream to my
coffee at one of those coffee drive throughs one day. That was
so good! But, you can go further, yet! Someone drizzled some
caramel over my whipped cream, over my flavored coffee! Oh, my!
There is nothing like that first sip of Carmel and cream. Oh,
my... my.
So, now I walk up to the desk and order a grande- extra hot,
extra shot, three pump toffee nut latte with whip and Carmel
driz. There you have it! Dessert!
And I can do this at home, too! Every morning when I rise, I
have dessert! What a great way to start the day! Not only does
it taste yummy, but it wakes me up! A coffee rush and
a sugar rush! Ho Hey!
Bet I've put on about a dozen pounds since this discovery!
After chemo last year, I thought I could gain no weight nor
wrong. I thought I was home free! I could eat anything I wanted,
and not gain an ounce! I had more fun! Felt awful, but I ate
all the Chex mix I wanted! I added all the goop to my coffee
that my little underweight heart desired! And now? Well? Now,
my pants are tight! Dang!
I had been so cocky about it all, too. I'd laugh while pulling
my pants down, without unzipping them. "Look?! Nothing
fits me any more!"
Well? Nothing fits me now, for sure!
Nothing like tight pants to remind you that these things are
not good for us!
I'll never forget when I was young, and started to gain weight
on my once bony frame. I nearly died when a lady friend of my
Mom's said, "You are getting quite a caboose there, aren't
you?" Who would say that?! Especially to a freshman in
high school, who thought only of her looks at the time? I still
remember that, to this day.
I decided, then and there to never put sugar on my cereal, again.
Believe it or not, it worked and over a year of that, I lost
the weight I needed to.
So, imagine when I lose the whip, the sugar, and the driz? I'll
be skinny again, right? I hope it works! I'll have to just save
dessert for dessert, and have coffee (black) in the morning.
I liked it once, I can like it again!
So, maybe tomorrow we can fish. We were hoping to go today,
because the weather was to be the best of all this week. It
sure didn't turn out that way, though. It's been raining most
of the morning. Tomorrow... The sun will come out, tomorrow!
(Ho hey)
May 14, 2013
This... in my e mail this morning. I watched the youtube, and there they were. Tears. I had to watch it till he talked about Andrew, as this was Andrew and his best friend, Dan's dream. They built the dream while hiking up in the Kilchis Forest, behind the house. (From the park)
Dan and Andrew played music together, and dreamed, together. The day before Andrew passed away, he was trying to form a site to get donations for this dream.
Dan, is carrying the dream...
Tears came heavy about 3:23.
@ifishjennie this is the edit I've submitted to kickstarter. there will be a KS link later youtu.be/_pb3qwhAW1g pic.twitter.com/AOcaSHlM0X
