Three Years Ago

-
Last night I drove into the city to spend some time with my mother in law. The assisted living facility she lives in had a festive night of music for the residents. My MIL is having memory loss issues. Unfortunately she is at the stage where she is aware of the memory loss and it causes her extreme distress and depression. So, part of the night was affirming her reality and comforting her.

On the drive home I followed an old route that I use to take when my kids were babies, side streets from our house in Chicago to the pediatrician in the suburbs. It has been 16 years since I have been on portions of this route....but I remembered it all.

Curiously enough one section of this route is along a road that I traversed in a snow storm three years ago to assist my friend M2 as she labored to birth her twin girls. (Because my kids saw a pediatrician associated with the hospital the girls were born in...it's also the same hospital where I started and maintained for 9 years a massage therapy volunteer program for parents of sick children)...

Also last night a blog friend of mine was attending the birth of her grand daughter...a night of much to think about and lots of good memories.

Anyway, today my god-daughters are three! Happy birthday, sweet ones!

Comments

revkjarla said…
so hard, the memory loss and elders...we went through it with my mother in law...and now my mother is showing signs. sigh.

happy birthday little twins!!
12/16/2010 4:34 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Bleeding-heart: a poem by Mary Oliver

-
Image
I know a bleeding-heart plant that has thrived for sixty years if not more, and has never missed a spring without rising and spreading itself into a grassy bush, with many small red hearts dangling. Don't you think that deserves a little thought? The woman who planted it has been gone for a long time, and everyone who saw it in that time has also died or moved away and so, like so many stories, this one can't get finished properly. Most things that are important, have you noticed, lack a certain neatness. More delicious, anyway is to remember my grandmother's pleasure when the dissolve of winter was over and the green knobs appeared and began to rise, and to cre- ate their many hearts. One would say she was a simple woman, made happy by simple things. I think this was true. And more than once, in my long life, I have wished to be her.
Read more

A Funeral Sermon: Healed by Love

-
Image
There a few elements of life common to all people. Basically they include living, loving, suffering, and dying. All of us experience these aspects of life. The quality of them we may describe as good or not so good. Regardless these elements of life form who we are in deep and profound ways. Gathered here today we celebrate all of these. We celebrate the life of Lynn, wife, mother, sister, daughter, niece, cousin, friend. We come her today to honor all the ways she lived and you knew her in life. We remember her love. We are relieved that her suffering has ended. And we mourn her death. What I know about you all as a family is that you will do this well. Today and in the days ahead you will celebrate Lynn’s life with funny stories and laughter, with tears and sorrow. You will grieve her loss and you will rejoice that you knew her. In life we all suffer times of great sorrow. Our lives are peculiar. For just when we think everything is great, life is wonderful, something happens. An ill
Read more

Luke: A Mary Oliver Poem

-
Image
I had a dog who loved flowers. Briskly she went through the fields, yet paused for the honeysuckle or the rose, her dark head and her wet nose touching the face of every one with its petals of silk with its fragrance rising into the air where the bees, their bodies heavy with pollen hovered - and easily she adored every blossom not in the serious careful way that we choose this blossom or that blossom the way we praise or don't praise - the way we love or don't love - but the way we long to be - that happy in the heaven of earth - that wild, that loving. poem from "Red Bird" photos from my personal file of my dog and a rose from one of our bushes
Read more