One of my dearest friend has just passed away

She was diagnosed with ALS in May, 2018, at the age of 58.

We were both registered nurses. We knew the sequelae. She had just planned her daughters wedding and successfully waved her off to her new life.

My friend was one of the funniest people I have ever known.

She had a rough childhood – some of her trauma was a shared story we commiserated over, but never let it stop us.

She was the room mom. Then the sports mom. The band mom. She was ever the fun, gregarious friend. The choir member. The event planner.

She was the full time RN with a beautiful home, and she still managed to plan lots of fun trips for us to go on to Disney World and Dresden, Ohio when she was a Longaberger consultant.

She loved God, her family, her friends, and America.

She loved to laugh, and we did a lot of laughing. My happiest memories with her involve a lot of laughing – the kind you can’t remember got you started, but left you with tears of joy running down your face.

I have a lot of memories – from the many years we worked together as RN’s. From the times we went fun places, because she included me in so many fun trips. From the decade of luncheons she planned and we worked on with our friends to raise money for breast cancer research.

Since her diagnosis, things went downhill quick. She was able to see the birth of her daughters son this fall, and his recent baptism. I know these events meant a lot to her.

I’m not so selfish to wish her here still, at least not with that wicked ALS. I can’t envision a crueler disease. I’ve prayed every day that she would not suffer.

She’s not suffering today.

I miss you, beloved friend.

I’ll forever be grateful for the twenty years you were in my life.

We’ve become a very loud culture.

Recently my husband and I went to a new restaurant downtown.

It was a nice, yet casual, spot.

We sat on a high top table near a window, and proceeded to endure ear damaging decibels.

A local band? The juke box turned up loud?

Nope. Just the patrons. Talking. Very loudly!!

My nerd husband pulled out his decibel gauge on his phone, and immediately got reading of 80-90 decibels.

80 decibels is equivalent to: Garbage disposal, dishwasher, average factory, freight train (at 15 meters). Car wash at 20 ft (89 dB); propeller plane flyover at 1000 ft (88 dB); diesel truck 40 mph at 50 ft (84 dB); diesel train at 45 mph at 100 ft (83 dB). Food blender (88 dB); milling machine (85 dB); garbage disposal (80 dB).

90 decibels is equivalent to: Boeing 737 or DC-9 aircraft at one nautical mile (6080 ft) before landing (97 dB); power mower (96 dB); motorcycle at 25 ft (90 dB). Newspaper press (97 dB).

(Source: https://www.industrialnoisecontrol.com/comparative-noise-examples.htm)

It doesn’t get better at “nice” restaurants. Gone are the days of quiet, romantic dinners. Instead, I get to enjoy all the conversations around me.

Add a cell phone, and it’s worse. I know that by watching what is going on around me, most people think it’s okay to initiate or answer phone calls, and then talk and guffaw loudly, any time and anywhere.

Wrong.

Cell phones have brought the downfall to a lot of things, and common sense and manners are near the top of the list.

Gone are the days of going to a concert and listening to the musicians.

Now I get to pay $149 a ticket to listen to a millennial shout her inane opinions and describe her sad life. (This happened. And when we asked her to please keep it down, she got confrontational with my husband – a man old enough to be her father).

I would love to see phones banned from restaurants, and concert venues. It was a breath of fresh air to see one of the top comics recently – afraid of people taping the show, they forbid any phone use.

We actually got to enjoy the show.

I used to talk a lot when I was a child. My nickname was “mouth”! I knew when to be quiet, though. I understood the inside voice concept.

As I get older and want to enjoy good food, good company, and sometimes just the great outdoors, I miss the days of quiet.

I hope some how, some way, they can be brought back.

Weary, exhausted, and otherwise frazzled, I returned from a month long trip to Nebraska on Sunday.

I had been helping care for three grandsons under the age of 2. I undertook the journey north eagerly, glad for the opportunity to be there for them while their father was away working for a month.

The youngest, a newborn, started exhibiting colic symptoms almost immediately. I spent many days and nights rocking, patting, and swinging him in my arms, singing songs in hopes to soothe him.

The 22 month old twins and I fully enjoyed fall. We played in the yard, exploring the leaves – ripping them, tossing them in the air, crunching through them. I carved a pumpkin, and they peered inside the fibrous opening over and over, tentatively reaching in with an index finger to explore the slimy, seedy contents.

I also was the catcher of many tackles, giver of endless hugs, and reader of bedtime stories.

It was precious time, over much quicker than I could imagine.

A sixteen hour drive loomed ahead of me Friday, and I was grateful my husband flew up to help me drive home.

Monday arrived after the whirlwind of emotions that came with leaving my midwestern family behind. My heart was more than a little tender, and I missed my grandsons fiercely.

My nine month old grandson here in my home state greeted me with smiles on Monday morning. I was there when he was born, and have watched him every week since, two days a week, since he was born. I missed a whole month with him.

As my afternoon with him neared a close, he finished his bottle, rolling completely around on me, until his head was nestled under my chin, and his arms encircled me in a hug.

For a full fifteen minutes, he hugged me, laying still and quiet. Once or twice, he lifted his head to smile at me, and then resumed his embrace.

Next, he sat in my lap and I made funny faces at him, and we laughed for a full 15 minutes.

It was absolutely therapeutic.

It seemed purposeful, and I don’t know if he missed me, or if he knew how much I needed that sweet baby hug, and his infectious laughter.

I left yesterday afternoon with the balm of sweet innocent baby pure love healing my tender, hurting heart.

I am a blessed Nana, indeed.

Last night I went to a large farm in Omaha, famous for its fall festivities, food, and pumpkins.

My daughter and I had a couple of hours to get some one-on-one time. With her three children under two, our hours are concentrated on parenting, and being Nana.

It was a cool day that grew colder as the sun set. We ate our pulled pork sandwiches, made s’mores, and began to traipse around through all the barns on the property.

I had a chance to see, smell, or taste a lot of missed fall favorites. Fresh, hot apple cider donuts, hot cocoa, fresh pumpkin pie (made from real pumpkin!), kettle corn, caramel apples. We ran from shop to shop, filling our eyes and nostrils with the sights and scents.

As we headed for the pie barn, we decided to take a hayride out to the pumpkin patch.

A John Deere tractor pulled the wagon out through the acreage to the lit up pumpkin patch. As we bumped down the dusty dirt road, I breathed deep the smells of fresh turned soil. Manure. Distant wood smoke. The wagon pulled us through the dark, and the night sky began to light up with stars, previously hidden by the city lights.

As we came to a stop, a huge floodlight illuminated the pumpkins in the fields. Large and small, green and orange, smooth and covered in warts, I admired the varieties, and I wandered through the field, stopping to take pictures, and savoring the country experience.

After a few minutes, I got back on to the wagon. Suddenly, I had that clarion moment where I realized I was perfectly happy. My daughter and I were having a good night, and I was in the country, which I love and miss deeply. I was experiencing an Autumn night, with all the wonder that goes with it for me.

My daughter snapped a picture of me while I was in the field, and when she showed it to me, I wept happy tears.

She asked me why I was happy, and I told her it was because I realized how perfectly happy I was. In a pumpkin field. In Omaha.

She’s lost in the heavy baby season – days filled with start to finish with babies, diapers, feedings, and trying to get some sleep.

When I had young children, I was a single mom, working and going to school.

I have large swaths of time where I remember very little, if anything.

I was so busy trying to survive I didn’t get to really live.

Now I’m not working full time – I am a full time wife and Nana.

I can purpose to be grateful, to seize the day, to appreciate the little things.

In that moment last night, I was physically aware of how very blessed I am.

I wept from the joy of it.

A few months ago, I started watching my baby grandson a couple of days a week.

As he grew, I wanted him to explore his world. I’d spread out a quilt, and lay him on it, then I would get down on the floor with him, so we could interact.

Though I’m young at heart and appearance, I’m not as young as I used to be. While I got down there easily enough, getting back up was, well, a challenge.

The knee that has never been the same since a fall at work joins the back and joints that are not as flexible and nimble, and have slowed my ascent.

I walk regularly. I do yoga and tai chi. I’m not overweight…I’m just older!

The more important thing for me is getting down there on baby level. Now he crawls, so I crawl around with him.

Today I was with my 22 month old twin sons. As I have since I’ve been here the last couple of weeks, I get down on their level. We play. Wrestle. Laugh!!

Nana just doesn’t jump right back up like she used to.

I always get back up, though.

There are times life has brought me low- either by my poor choices, or just the path I was on.

I’ve struggled with major depressive disorder for almost thirty years.

There are down days – but I know I’ve got to keep moving. Get back up!!

November is the most loaded month of the year for me.

I’m exercising more regularly now, and have started my half marathon training again. Diabetes knocked me down – but I’m getting back up.

I’ll be as prepared as I can be for next month. Praying. Going to church. Loving my family. Being healthy.

I know I may still get down…but I’m not afraid to ask for a hand if I need it, to get back up again, and move forward, one step at a time.

So, friends, I’m up. But there is a perspective and depth to my life I can only get when I’m down.

I just refuse to stay there.

I’ve been taking daily walks as I visit my daughter and her three children in the Midwest.

I don’t know where anything is here, and she lives on a very steep hilly street, so I make my way down her street to the cemetery for my walks.

I remember when I was in elementary school we took a field trip to an old cemetery.

We were given large pieces of paper, and we looked for the most interesting tombstone.

Once we found one, we’d take black chalk and make a rubbing of the engraving on the tombstone.

My active imagination tried to envision what it would be like to live 100 years ago…or more.

In high school, the cemetery was the stuff of urban legend. If you drove around the statue three times in a row, it would come to life and point at you.

I skipped that activity.

I am not spooked by cemeteries, but I don’t choose to go there at night.

During the day, the cemetery here is a peaceful place with wide cement drives throughout.

It’s moderately hilly, and I’ve chosen different paths each time I’ve gone there.

Most of the people I know talk of how they want to be cremated instead of buried. I understand that sentiment.

They don’t want the fuss and expense.

As I walk, I look at the names set in or above the ground. Once in a while, a monument will catch my eye.

The people who chose cemeteries must want to be remembered. Or maybe it’s their loved ones wanting a tangible place to go and visit them in memory.

I have little experience with cemeteries.

The first gravesite ceremony I went to was for the father of my son, killed suddenly in car accident when he was 20.

It was a grey, cold November day when he was laid to rest. The wind cut bitterly against my skin, peppering me with abrasive snow whipped up from the high desert mountain slope that would be his final resting place.

I didn’t return to that small family cemetery for a couple of years. When I did, it was warm and sunny, and the grass covered his grave. I lay on his gravesite, somehow trying to get closer. To remember.

I returned to that small cemetery after his mother died of breast cancer. I couldn’t go to the gravesite service because of a heavy snowfall, and I had to fly home the next day.

Instead, I came back during the warm days again, and once more felt a longing to see her.

March of this year was the next time I was at a cemetery. My beloved mother in law had passed away, and I was there moments after her death, through the funeral, and to the gravesite service. Again it was cold out, but it was the day before spring. I was moved by the fact we laid her to rest just as the earth began to awaken again with new life.

I think of those I have lost as I walk through the cemetery here. I wonder what I will do when my time comes.

I like the thought of having a final place of rest. Of being remembered. Of flowers brought, prayers sent. A peaceful, lovely place with trees.

We all face that decision one day.

Walking through the cemetery, I say names out loud of those buried there. How long has it been since someone said their name?

The wind carries their names off, and I walk home.

This morning as I drank my coffee at my daughters house, I looked out the kitchen window at the robins just outside.

Several robins were foraging for food, and I realized I hadn’t seen a robin since spring.

I live in the South, and a robin sighting heralds the coming of spring. Before it gets too hot, they head north again.

I’m in the Midwest now, and the robins are getting ready to head south.

It’s full circle.

I miss having all four seasons where I live. Most of all, I miss autumn.

We just had a cold snap here, and I know that will brighten the leaves that are starting to turn. I’m looking forward to seeing the leaves glow bright before they release from their host to gently float to the ground.

At home, live oak leaves fall, brittle and green, year-round. Acorns cover my driveway, but most of them are still green, knocked down by the herd of squirrels that patrols my yard.

At my daughters house, the squirrels feeding alongside the robins are big red squirrels. They dwarf the eastern grey squirrels that patrol my yard. I even spotted a black squirrel in the back yard here.

At home the weather goes from temperate to hot, to hurricane season, to hot, to pleasant.

Nothing to indicate seasons changing, cycles of life, dormancy to new life again.

Just relentless heat, with a few breaks of nice weather.

So why do I live there? My parents, brothers, and three of my children call it home. My husbands job keeps us there for the foreseeable future.

In the mean time, I’m grateful I can travel. I fly to the Midwest to see Autumn, to bundle up on cold nights, sleep soundly without A/C blasting.

In winter I’ve gone to Europe and slept in feather beds in the alps. I go home to the Wasatch Front, reveling in the powdery snow and bright blue skies.

In November I’ll return home, and the weather should be pleasant. I’ll walk the coast and appreciate the most beautiful beach on the planet.

I’m counting my blessings, and my family is on top, so I’ll remember how far we’ve come, and tolerate the heat when it comes.

I’m driving to see my child and grandsons, and I stopped for the night in the town where my husband grew up – in Kentucky.

Kentucky will always mean home for me now.

In March when his mother passed away in Indiana, we were there moments after she stepped into eternity.

Mom was born and raised in Kentucky. She grew up on a farm here.

After a couple of other moves, Mom and Dad landed in this small town. They built a house and owned a farm, and raised their children here in Kentucky.

My husband lived here in that home they built from the age of 18 months until he graduated from high school…and it continued to symbolize home until it was suddenly auctioned off eight years ago, abruptly closing that chapter of life.

Mom was Kentucky, through and through. She loved living in the country, in this small town.

For years, we came to the farm every Christmas, and every Fourth of July. We sat on the porch and watched her beloved cardinals. We ate wonderful meals she made, with jams and jellies homemade from fruits of her garden. We cheered with her for the UK basketball team – she was a fanatic, and had her own television in the kitchen, so she could watch every game.

She loved her kids, and adored her grandkids – all of them. This was comfort for my kids and I, who married in to her wonderful love. She would grasp my hands and sincerely thank me for loving her son, for she knew the destruction he had endured. Every single time she saw me, she thanked me. I would respond to her “thank you for raising such a wonderful son!”

When we came to Indiana after she died, it felt like Indiana feels to us…surreal. Like we are interlopers. Not quite right.

Mom had people who loved her in Indiana, but they moved her there from Kentucky when her memory was starting to fray around the edges. It was obvious living down a long driveway, miles from help or neighbors, just wasn’t safe for her anymore.

They got a nice house in a nice neighborhood in Indiana, close to her daughters.

That home wasn’t associated with Mom for us. The longer she lived there, the more she incrementally disappeared. We visited her a year before she died – she was still herself during the day, but at night she sundowned, retreating to the Kentucky of her girlhood.

She was buried in Indiana. Our grief has been stunted, and delayed. We miss her every day, but at her funeral, we left more troubled than settled.

This afternoon, I drove to the old Kentucky home of my husband’s childhood. I stood next to the massive magnolia at the end of the driveway, staring up at the house where Mom lived. The house she decorated with angels and Christmas trees year round. The home that welcomed us all, year after year.

I stood, shaking, and looked at the trees Dad had planted, having gathered them from the riverbank decades ago. They towered over me as they circled the drive.

I wanted to go to the back yard, to see the porch Mom spent so much time on…but another family lives there now. I sat at the end of the long driveway, taking it all in.

I cried all the way back to the hotel – I feel Mom here. We have so many years of happy memories with her here.

Everywhere I went today reminded me of a happy memory with her. Today was a bittersweet gift, a release that has been looking to escape.

I know she’s in heaven, and that comforts me.

Kentucky always will mean Mom to me.

Thank you for that, Mom.

Today we are jetting south.

After a month and a half of drought, I was thrilled to see clouds above me as we took off.

As we ascended and curved, the mountainous billows of clouds soon surrounded our small plane.

At least it seems like a very small plane from up here, above it all.

Down below, so much is going on. It’s been a rough week. Unseasonably hot, humid days. Health challenges.

Above it all up here, though, there is just a deep blue sky, from a deep, endless clear pure blue, fading to a pale white-blue as it met land. The giant cloud formation was like a mountain outside my window – massive, tumbling down the sky, and ever near to me.

We climbed higher still, and the summer hot haze differentiated the sky from the horizon. If I squinted, I could imagine a vast ocean below me, the haze smooth and blue grey.

Up here, it’s severe clear. There are no troubles. No stress – for me at least, as I love the miracle of flying.

My goal for the next ten days is to relax. I’m unplugging from the Internet and all social media. I’m going to read books, laying under the shaded ledges I can find. I’m going to walk, explore, enjoy.

And as always, I will be counting my blessings.

I’m starting now, above it all.

It’s been an interesting year.

I quit my office job last June after struggling with my type 1 diabetes diagnosis, as well as a bout with the flu. I couldn’t get my health stabilized, so my husband and I decided I would stop full time, bedside nursing.

I spent 21 years working in hospitals, and capped it off with a whimper.

Since I entered the stay at home wife phase, I have spent a lot of time being Nana.

Best. Thing. Ever!

I have flown north four times to be with my twin grandsons, and will be there again next month to help my daughter with her new son.

I have been able to be the birth assistant to my daughter in love as grandson number five made his appearance in January. Since then, I spend Monday mornings and Tuesday afternoons with him.

It’s positively rejuvenating!!

I’ve been minimizing my house, one room at a time. I’ve taken out bags of clothing, finally removing all the clothes I never wear, so I could donate them to someone who could.

The house is also getting cleaned, from baseboard to ceiling. When I worked 40hr weeks and commuted 8-10 hours weekly, my exhausted self just did what had to be done.

Since I’ve been home, we’ve torn up the carpet, and put down vinyl plank flooring.

We continue to purge the hideous decor of regimes past, replacing it with comfortable, cozy warmth.

I’m still exhausted – all the time. It’s been difficult to deal with. I’m going to begin training for my next half marathon soon, and I’ve got to get some energy to get moving.

In the mean time, we are going on a cruise, visiting Miami for a couple of days, and I’ll be spending a month hopefully getting some autumn therapy with three of my grandsons.

Will I work as a travel nurse again? Definitely not this calendar year.

With the holidays coming up, my focus is on family.

We will see what the new year brings.