Showing up for Life

Last week, my dear, sweet, husband had a "warning stroke" formally called a transient ischemic attack or TIA for short. In the space of a few minutes our normal daily life changed.
The not so quick version is he had had what he calls "squiggles " (kinda like floaters but elongated) in his eyes that afternoon and usually a nap will make it go away. We have always attributed it to eye strain. So instead of a nap he decided to drive an hour and pick up some things to continue working on our living room. We had just had our new wooden floors put in and Edmund was doing the finishing work.  First stop was the flooring place just 30 minutes away. Stopping there to pay for the great job they did. He walked in sat down and as he was trying to talk to the guy at the desk, edmund realized that what he was trying to say wasn't coming out of his mouth it was he says as if he was "speaking in tongues". Edmund thinks the guy thought he was mentally challenged and was very patient and kind to him.  Finally got the transaction done and edmund left, got in the car and drove home to me frustrated because he could not think remember things and peoples names.
I wasn't expecting him for another 3.5 hours so I was shocked as he walked in the door...but more was the look on his face...I asked him who died and he said "No one yet. " That concerned me.  He took off his shoes and came into the living room. He asked me to come talk to him and not freak out. That heightened the concern. Then he told me his little story. wow.
I said we're going to the hospital. He said no he would take a nap. I said "No you are going to go to the hospital."
" No that is ridiculous. I am going to take a nap. "
So I asked him who his brothers and sisters were...he couldn't name them or their spouses. I asked him my kids names he could only remember one, I have 7 kids. I asked him his parents names...a very long pause and he  finally was able to do that. He was concerned cause he couldn't say the Gettysburg address which he proudly can do any other time. So I called his nephew who is an ER doctor in Philadelphia and talked to him.  We are in Colorado. He agreed we should go to the hospital. He talked to Edmund and a few minutes later we were on our way to the hospital 15 minutes away.
He had test after test each coming back with relevant, but not so good news. They found a small aneurysm in his brain and Bigeminy which is an irratic heart beat...and his triglycerides were higher than they would like and the PFO which is the small hole in the wall of the atrium of the heart that usually closes day after we are born, had never closed. 2% of people have that problem and it allows unoxygenated blood to flow into the left atrium from the right without going through the ventricles  and out to the brain/body...so that is not good.
Concern continuing to build in my mind, the decision was made for Edmund to stay in the hospital for the night under observation. That night his breathing was so irratic that he had to be on oxygen.
All of this was happening and all of our surroundings were new to us.  We didn't have our own Dr. We didn't know the hospital. We didn't have family close by and we were just beginning to make friends in the area having moved here to Divide, Colorado in September.
I had contacted one of my kids and started an email thread and called my husband's older daughter and spoke to her. So we were connected...and they reached out all our kids that night...it was good to feel surrounded by their loving concern.
One of our new neighbors called me out of the blue and said she was on the way home from work would I like her to stop and get anything. I told her no thanks we are actually in the hospital and she came to check on us and brought us something healthy to eat. So so thoughtful.
The next day more tests and following two dr consults we were released with prescriptions and appointments for follow ups  in the next few weeks. Taking the medicine.  Rested for a day. Back to regular routines.  Being retired that is easy. Fielding calls and so grateful for family reaching out to us and caring how we were doing. Still four days later and last night what had happened hit me like a ton of bricks. I had a total panic attack. Edmund was a gem. He cared for me, calmed me down staying up beside me late into the night until I finally was able to sleep.
This experience and our families ability to keep showing up for us brought the power of love and family right to the forefront of our lives.  We are so grateful for this warning and the ability to more fully care for ourselves. Keep showing up for one another. It is a beautiful thing from this vantage point. I am so grateful for and blessed by all of you in our lives.
                   

Musings from The Mountain House

Much has happened since I last posted here on my blog.

We sold Rhodeside, our home in Costa Rica, in May of 2016.  It is worth noting that we were both ready to leave Costa Rica. This plays out in life much differently for my husband and myself and I suppose that is the topic of my post this morning. 

Edmund said he was ready. He talked about it for two years before the day that he finally said, "Ok Gwen, I am done with Costa Rica and want to go home to the United States of America."  He doesn't seem to "attach" so much emotion to the place as I do. Even though he worked day in and day out for 17 years on our property. His name, Edmund, means protector of property! quite fitting I would say. And a fine job he did of it as well.  He loved it while he was there. In a sense, he is more in the moment than I am. He is always looking forward...what comes next? I used to catch him looking at planes as they flew over head...he would say to me..." sometimes I just want to be on one...going somewhere else...seeing the world."
He explained all the necessary information regarding the water lines, tanks and pump house to our neighbors who would now be in charge. He paid all the bills. Did all the necessary things to accomplish the legalities of the sale. Then like the cowboy he is, saddled up his horse Rain and took a  long, farewell ride on her up the mountain and down into the pasture lands watching the sunset on horseback on last time.  The next day we went for a long ride together on Lucky and Rain. In fact we rode every morning that week racing around the pastures and mountainsides having the time of our lives on horseback before we left Rhodeside. He walked the line of the property. He walked up the ridge at sunset having private time with his emotions as he is want to do. He experienced the sad emotions of leaving some of his long time Costa Rican "Tico" friends when they came to say Adios...those last hugs were heart wrenching for me to watch as he let them know he would forever be grateful for their friendships.  The last morning he put our luggage in the car and one last time called out to me "Come on girl...get your shoes and socks on! and 'git in the truck' off we went...a bittersweet ending...Edmund smiling and winking at me... Ciao Costa Rica! Hello USA! 

I had packed 8 suitcases and in the course of two trips to Philadelphia from Costa Rica during that spring had everything we wanted ready, knowing we could buy what we didn't have and might need in the USA, the rest we donated to the needy in surrounding communities or left for the new owners of our home.

Leaving my dear, faithful horse, Lucky was quite heartbreaking.  Edmund always tries to tell me that Lucky just loved me because I fed him...but it is much more than that...he knows me. He trusts me. Raising him from birth, no matter how much time goes by between our visits, he knows my voice and comes immediately. Lucky nudges his nose into the crease of my neck and shoulders and licks my face and my shoulder...he lets me wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him...he licks my arms (i know he loves the salt he finds there) and I always bring his favorite snack,  cut up watermelon. I gave Lucky to our horse coach, Mel who has always coveted my noble horse. He loves him almost as much as I do. 

The heaviness in my heart that morning was not just leaving Lucky, we were leaving the place I had worked tirelessly along side of my husband for 11 years encouraging beautiful gardens from the earth, fruit from our trees, flowers and plants to transform our property, eggs from our chickens, some neighbors into friends and a retreat for weary travelers. 

Do not get me wrong. I really wanted to leave Costa Rica. It was beautiful but so isolating.  Being closer to family, grandchildren and friends was our goal and a move to the US was just the ticket to accomplishing that goal. So here we are...in our Mountain House, as my grandson dubbed it, in Divide, Colorado...where I wrote this post looking out my window at Pikes Peak. 

Mother's Day

Having seven children I qualify to celebrate Mother's Day. Mother's Day is a day set aside by the commercial industry and fed by media blitz' once a year to make money. Incredibly beautiful sentimental cards abound on line and in stores. Personally, I like the ones children make themselves. Each year teachers in most elementary schools spend time helping the children make little gifts or cards for their mothers. The subtle message of these  projects are recognition and gratitude. One hopes that children are taught recognition, affirmation and gratitude daily at home as well.   Some schools have special events put on for the mothers inviting them to the school for the morning.  Recognition is really all mother's day is about. Recognition for the daily work that being a mother entails.

I have mixed feelings about mother's day. I wish sometimes that it had never become the commercial holiday it is today. Don't get me wrong, I like the recognition, my heart feels full when my children say wonderful things about what they feel about me and my influence in their lives, however, I like it even more when it comes on its own without the pressure of having to do so because it is a holiday.

Children of their own accord at some point in life,without any help from the media, most likely will acknowledge the work their mothers do to help make their lives function they way in which they do.    I pull out favorite cards that were made years ago for me treasuring the little notes and illustrations. My heart swells and ok my eyes tear up.

On being planted

One of the things that Edmund and I found early on that we had in common was an interest in graveyards. We both enjoy meandering through the old graveyards, reading the history embedded on the stones.  Often on a road trip when we spot an oldish looking graveyard we will stop. As we stroll along the paths around the aging marble monuments to lives well or short lived we read them aloud to one another. So enlightening.
We spend a lot of time with our "parents" his mother and my aunt.  They often ask us to take them down to our community graveyard. There we walk or drive(depending on their energy that day) them around the gravel roadways as they read aloud, the familar names, sharing with us, memories that are inevitably jogged as they pass certain stones of friends long gone or family plots. When they tire of this activity they sit side by side on the cool granite bench facing the graveyard, hands folded, listening to the sounds of silence, and anything nature has to offer, birds, crickets, squirrels and such. They seem at peace there in the quiet of these afternoons.  I sometimes think they sense how close they are to joining all these people that have gone before them.
I had the thought as they wandered around through the gravesites, it must be something akin to looking at new houses and deciding where you want to live. sorta. The other day Aunt Dor figured out that there really isn't any room for her, near "mother, Joyce or Miss Wilde" and she wondered aloud where she would be "planted", perhaps up there on the hill with Dad and Auntie Phyl? she questioned? I guess I better find out.”
This reminds me of a story about Aunt Joyce who had it all planned out before she died. She wanted wedding music, since she never had married and she wanted us to sing O precious sign...got to tell you it was hard getting through that song. She made me promise to spread her ashes with a lot of forget me not seeds and some other perennial flowers...no problem. Consider it done I said confidently.
After she died and we were talking about the service I mentioned this request to my uncles who absolutely forbade it. We had the traditional service and Aunt Joyce’s ashes were buried in this box they came in, beside Grandma Cooper and Miss Wilde. The next morning bright and early...my sister Ginny and I went down to the grave yard and dug up the box....mixed the forget me not seeds into the ashes....and sprinkled Aunt Joyces ashes all around that particular plot where they had buried the box the day before.  After fulfilling her final wish...we left feeling quite pleased with ourselves.
Funerals, services and such are for the living that much is obvious. If I had my druthers I would want to be surrounded by love as I depart this world and as Aunt Dor so aptly put it, as I am planted. I haven't really noticed my thoughts about this until today. I suppose I have assumed I would be buried in the Bryn Athyn Cemetary someday where family and friends could easily walk down there to contemplate their lives on this planet and "visit" me. Me? Will I be there in some parallel world?  To me there is an odd feeling of community in the weirdest sense of the word in this cemetary for me. A connectedness to the past and even a peak into the future, perhaps.
Funny how I have spent so much time there tending to the gardens I planted at the graves of those I have loved and miss in this life. And yet I wonder? Why do I do this if it no longer matters to them. They won't know if I do the upkeep or not. What do they know now that I don't know yet? They finally know the secret. Where are they? Is there a place? Are they all somewhere? or is it the beating of my heart that keeps them alive in my mind still able to make a difference in my life.

Numbers and power.

 Already I can guarantee that my children are rolling their eyes as they read the title of this musing. What can I say? We do it all the time. Give away our power I mean. I am forever telling my kids not to give away their power.  I posed the question on my FB status today, why is it that numbers have so much power? Numbers of age, numbers of degrees (on many levels) number of lbs, number of children, numbers of books, cars, homes, whatever it is, it seems that we associate so much power to them.
It happens all the time in our lives. I woke up refreshed this morning. I started my day learning a new skill on my sewing machine. Something I thought was going to be so difficult was actually so easy. She taught me a few little tricks  The woman teaching me is someone I haven't visited with in a long time. We had a nice chat. It was so enjoyable. I felt energized.
Then later this morning, I went for a routine check up.  I walked into the doctor's office  feeling full of  life. Part of the exam is weighing the patient. I stepped on the scale and some of the sweetness of life was sucked right out the window.  I had to get on the scale. Since being anorexic for most of my life climbing onto the scale has been a difficult thing for me to do. In fact for years I didn't own a scale. I didn't want that little machine to determine how I felt about me. I didn't want to give it so much power. I had no power over that. It was just the way it was.
Over the years I have tended to judge myself by the number I see. I spent years telling myself messages according to that number. Immediately I take off my shoes, trying to calculate how much my clothes actually weigh so I can subtract it from the number I see on the scale. I have given the scale so much power over the years. In an instant it can make me feel unworthy, unlovable, ugly, fat, and a host of unforgiving adjectives fill my mind as I seek to redefine myself in that moment. I came into the room feeling great, stepped on the scale and realized how little control I actually have over my body or mind. In that moment my day is changed ...by a number. It just comes over me. I can and do work on changing the power that it holds over me. Letting go of that notion that the number is important is daily work...it is not a rational thing. It just is what it is and I recognize once again how little control I actually have over my life.

 Then the doctor took my blood pressure. It was 112/62 low blood pressure. A smile returned to my face. I have been working at lowering stress in my life. I eat healthfully, do yoga, walk every day, drink lots of water, and spend time with those I love. I have low blood pressure again. That means that all the work I have been doing to rid my body of stress is probably working. This is "good". Some of that saucy life force came back in through the open window. Such a roller coaster. Numbers determining my demeanor once again, but it feels differently because it is positive. None the less it has control over how I feel about what I do for my body.

I don't have a magic cure for this problem.  I know many face it. There are some 12 step programs out there for those of us that need to learn we have no control for the most part, over what happens in our lives.  We are in a process of daily readjustment. Each day is a letting go of old beliefs and habits that  are sucking our life force from us.  These unhealthy habits are not working.
I want to participate in finding ways to bring breath and freshness  back into my life.  I want to be sharing the space with others on this planet in a sweetness that is full and energetically clear so we can move through our days here with joy.  That is my plan.


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Aging Gracefully

The effects of the wear and tear of life are becoming more noticable in my now aging body. These are changes I never thought would actually happen. It seems like one thing after another is falling short of my expectations about feeling forever young
The first thing that went "wrong" in my body happened slowly over a few years in the 1960's I developed warts all over my fingers and toes. For a young girl this was devastingly embarrassing. Finally, when I was 15 my grandfather took me to a homeopathic specialist, who thankfully got rid of the embarrassing growths. Throughout my childhood I also had a dibilitating disease called Raynauds. It attacks the  blood vessels and constricts the blood flow to the extremities when your body goes below a certain temperature. It is quite painful. The earliest age I remember this is 12 and finally after years of suffering through winters or even walking into an air conditioned room, my husband and I took a trip to an Aryavedic Hospital in India when I was 51. There they cured me of that disease. Totally. The doctor told me then that my arthritic hands were probably worse, due to the Raynauds affecting them for so long. My form of arthritis, wear and tear osteo arthritis is something I have come to accept.  Oh well...aging it happens to us all right?

When I was 16 I tore a ligament in my knee and had an operation to fix it. After months of physical therapy my knee was "good as new". I was allowed to run again and it wasn't long before I took up my love of jogging again. The doctor said, "it might bother you when you get older" but I didn't understand the impact of those words. I am older now and when it rains, which it often does in the Rainy Season of Costa Rica, my knee aches and keeps me awake. Hence I am sitting here at my computer at 1am instead of sleeping. Ah...so this is what "bother me later in life" is like! 

I get tendonitis in my right elbow and wrist from all outside physical work I do around our property. This year I went back to the knee doctor for the first time in 41 yrs. Same doctor! only for my tendonitis now. He came into the office and introduced himself to me. He didn't remember me but I sure remembered him. When I told him he fixed my knee years ago, he was all a flutter, so happy that I had come back to him for these annoying tendon problems in my wrist. A shot of cortizone later and out I went. " Got to be more careful as I age and not do so much. Hire someone to do the heavy work and just sit back and relax in my retirement " said the doctor.

Next to go was my eyesight. Reading glasses in my late teens fixed that problem. I thought I looked studious with the glasses on and since I didn't have a problem unless I was reading I didn't have to wear them all the time. The doctor said, "you may experience more problems when you get older" but for now this should solve the problem." In my early forties the perscription for my reading glasses changed. I was doing that trombone playing motion moving the book further away trying to find a focus! and suddenly bifocals were the order of the day. Then in my late forties I "got older" and the prescription changed again now trifocals are my constant companion. 

I have always had thick, healthy,naturally curly, light- brown hair. Well it was light brown many years ago. I have always taken really good care of my hair and never mistreated it.  My hairdresser always said that eventually, when I got older, I would "turn gray gracefully" due to my natural blonde highlights. Well that is true, those subtle highlights eased me into my fifties camouflaging the gray, gracefully. 

Weight has always been an issue for me. I struggled through 29 years of being a secretive restrictive anorexic with bulimic tendancies. People were always marvelling at how good I looked!  I suppose many mothers of six don't maintain a size six dress as well.  I worked hard keeping my figure. It was my secret life. Until my middle forties when a electrocardiogram noted bundle branches and I was outed. I signed into an out patient hospital program and faced my anorexia. Finally I didn't have to keep that awful secret. I learned to eat. The doctor in the program informed me that I would gain some weight and needed to maintain it. Fourteen pounds later I worked hard to maintain it but I still didn't accept my self emotionally. And for the record I am really not heavy at all. I only think I am.

 Now in my late 50's I still struggle to accept my body. After years of jogging I no longer run for exercise. Instead I stretch and walk my miles. I attend yoga classes.  At night and each morning I lovingly work cream into my dry, aging skin and pay particular care to my hands and feet using all the reflexology and massage skills I know to ease the pain of arthritis growing there. 

Recently I heard about Bee Venom Therapy and its wonders. So now three times aweek I get a beekeeper friend to sting my arthritic fingers with the hopes that the swelling will begin to dissipate. 

 And today as I combed through the naturally gray curls with my arthritic fingers, I saw in the mirror, the woman who my grand-daughters see.  I noticed softening curves that make sitting in my lap a haven as I read their favorite books to them. I was reminded of the feel of their little hands as they grab my strong arthritic ones and we brave the ocean's waves. I experience the delight in their eyes as they run into my open arms hugging my neck tightly each time they come to visit. These thoughts and feelings wash over me and for a fleeting moment I am able to accept with grace and gratitude my care-worn body.

Pulling weeds out of the new grass I am trying to transplant on our property I thought, " Is this it? "
I mean really. I know the EST definition, that each moment is "it". I spent over half my life as a mother. Now they are all gone. They don't need me. Not in the same ways that I felt so useful in before. They are busy. They are happy. They are involved in daily routines,jobs and families that keep them going.
Now my life consists of watering my property, weeding my gardens, making coffee for travellers, the occasional breakfast for a guest, marketing and running the B&B and travelling to take care of my aging aunt.  I am grateful for the technology that keeps me current on what is happening in the world and in the lives of my kids. These connections are so useful and important to me. 
  I recently spent time with a woman my age whose parents and kids all live very close to or in the same town as she and her husband. She has contact with her children all the time. Daily she talks to them, she babysits for them, she has them in for dinners. They go on excursions together. She was anxious to get back to them all. She missed them and the contact she so enjoys with them.
In this day and age when children grow up and fly the coop so to speak, many spread out so far and wide due to jobs and that continual contact is almost impossible. Technological gadgets do help to bridge the space. I know there is a positive to this separation and exploration. I know they need to feel they are growing on their own. I am excited for them as they move forward with their lives
. AND I miss them. and today I had these thoughts...now what?  Somehow in the last little while I feel lost.