Being 50 feels like 49 - eeek?
LOL
Thank you for taking the time to visit; enjoy the posts...
Bench Mark
Speaking of projects I have several I wish to complete and a few I have in planning. Maybe I shouldn't mention those in planning until they've been completed. Maybe that will be a new way of doing things for me. FINISHING things begun! Deep breath. Now - to get on with the next 50 years of my life...
...well gotta go!
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MY GIRL...
ALICE IRENE SNOW
My wife Alice is a character. Or should I say, a major player in my life. Just this past April, the 17th we had our 31st wedding Anniversary. Wow, 31. In the last few years we have both seen our share of life altering situations. Yet she more than me.
A few years back she had a major heart attack, died on the table twice and survived a quad-bypass. They took veins from both legs and thighs. The doctor said the veins usually are good for 25+ years, but in her case 10, at the most. Being a fragile Diabetic, with insulin injections three times a day is a hit against her. Her Diabetic retinopathy is slowly making her go blind, and we are trying to keep that Bleak Monster at bay. Having another surgery, and dying twice on the table again she survived a paralyzing stroke; leaving her left arm unusable and left leg barely functional. Long distances require a wheel chair, a quad cane about the house, a shower chair for bathing, an automatic lift chair to assist with getting up and an automatic lift twin-size bed to help there as well.
Amazingly though is how she doesn't complain. The weeping dark depression has not afflicted her in years like it did from the onset of this 'new normal' of hers; yet, there are bouts of it that try to creep in. But the grand-kids and family, dogs and Video Recording of TV shows keeps her mind going. Along with all the games on her Kindle Fire, and reading she's a pretty sharp cookie even now. She cracks me up with that thing.
Alice use to have a scary memory like a still trap!!! I always relied on her way too much. We will watch one of the many shows she likes and then a day or so later half way through a second viewing I smile when she says, "I think we've seen this one before." Her mind is good, trapped in a defeated body, but the memory is beginning to slip more than just getting older. I think it's actually a hold over effect from the stroke. Everything is dated from The Stroke with her.
Little things mean a lot. Something as simple as 'going to the store'. When I'm off from work, shopping is a grand all day adventure. Though once in a great while we go to the Park, movies, or eat out. Shopping is an all day event. She's actually gotten a little better and instead of using the wheelchair to go out to the car she give walking a struggling journey as I tease her happily along. Her Rheumatoid Arthritis is a killing pain in the 'good' hip.
We all have our good days and bad, but when every moment is a challenge a deep breath to face the next makes you a hero.
.
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What do you mean by that any way?
The Crimson Catharsis???
Well what I mean by that title is, I seem to have come full circle in my "spiritual" walk. I've returned to Christianity. Crimson refers to The Blood of Christ. Catharsis refers to my "renewal" of spirit.
I have not yet "formally" joined a Church, though I have somewhat been attending a Pentecostal one. I have really need that type of enthusiastic energy. To be Born Again is a resurgence of the Soul and touching of Deity that can not be a natural thing. The Holy Spirit alters your course in a way that only searching for more of that Spiritual High experience can bring real joy. The downer is expressing that "craziness" to others who think you are odd. LOL I've always been viewed as odd, so I'm not deterred. Emotionalism? I use to think so, but I think it's more than that. We are all emotional creatures, and me personally so.
I see things so clearly now. It almost hurts exactly how clean I do see things now. Honest and clear, and glaringly so. Real things. Google Earth clarity!!! Everything is so small, all our petty emotional selfish desires and politics. It's almost frighteningly amazing how clear I see through to the heart of matters now; maybe that's why I am overwhelmed by wanting to go back to being distracted. Yet the truth of things has always been there pulling my attention to the Center.
Since I accepted THE ONENESS of it - I no longer hear conflicting voices calling me to follow the wind. I no longer wish to kill myself over the ingrained negativity of childhood experiences long ago left in the dust of the past. I no longer desire to drive people off the road or follow them to their homes and kill them in the night, or waste my co-workers under a spray of gun fire.
WHAT I do feel now is an overwhelming sense of peace. A Bliss that passes all understanding. Yes I am an emotional person who cries when I'm sad but not to the brink of desolation and despaired of depression's blackest pit! Sure I get upset but not to the point of insanity's blinded focused rage.
God is good. God has always been there in my life. Regardless if i turned my back on "Him" or not. Where ever I have gone, even in an attempt to escape Deity always met me where I was. No, I am not Deity; just as frail and in error as you my reader. When we put labels on Deity we limit the Universal Creator's unknowableness. Yet for me, I 'envision' my hands cupping a handful of water. I know it is just a handful of water, yet there is something profoundly inspiring to know that it is indeed the very Lake in my hands as well. So too is my personal view of GOD, indwelling in the personal expression of the very human Jesus of Nazareth who encased GOD as the person within. I can see clearly now the rain is gone, it's going to be a bright Sun shiny day!
.
I see things so clearly now. It almost hurts exactly how clean I do see things now. Honest and clear, and glaringly so. Real things. Google Earth clarity!!! Everything is so small, all our petty emotional selfish desires and politics. It's almost frighteningly amazing how clear I see through to the heart of matters now; maybe that's why I am overwhelmed by wanting to go back to being distracted. Yet the truth of things has always been there pulling my attention to the Center.
Since I accepted THE ONENESS of it - I no longer hear conflicting voices calling me to follow the wind. I no longer wish to kill myself over the ingrained negativity of childhood experiences long ago left in the dust of the past. I no longer desire to drive people off the road or follow them to their homes and kill them in the night, or waste my co-workers under a spray of gun fire.
WHAT I do feel now is an overwhelming sense of peace. A Bliss that passes all understanding. Yes I am an emotional person who cries when I'm sad but not to the brink of desolation and despaired of depression's blackest pit! Sure I get upset but not to the point of insanity's blinded focused rage.
God is good. God has always been there in my life. Regardless if i turned my back on "Him" or not. Where ever I have gone, even in an attempt to escape Deity always met me where I was. No, I am not Deity; just as frail and in error as you my reader. When we put labels on Deity we limit the Universal Creator's unknowableness. Yet for me, I 'envision' my hands cupping a handful of water. I know it is just a handful of water, yet there is something profoundly inspiring to know that it is indeed the very Lake in my hands as well. So too is my personal view of GOD, indwelling in the personal expression of the very human Jesus of Nazareth who encased GOD as the person within. I can see clearly now the rain is gone, it's going to be a bright Sun shiny day!
.
FACEBOOK "Offline"...
BUT FOR NOW this was my last "post"...
""Good bye and good night. Collectively and individually I wanted to tell each and everyone of you on my account thank you for sharing and allowing me to share my life, thoughts, and experiences.I am leaving my account open, but will no longer be posting on your wall or mine. You have my email, I check it daily. There are not suicidal or homicidal thoughts going on in my head so be at ease. I have just allowed this social media to be a distraction from home and neglected projects. I will strive to focus on matters that need attention.""
I have been a Facebook junkie. I never got into My Space, but I loved FB!!! I guess I'm waiting for "the next big thang" to come along. A close friend said I liked "drama". Sigh. I suppose I "allow" my personal insecurities to manifest 'dramatic flare'. My "bio-polar"-esk personality seems to go for those high and low mood swings.
.
DEATH AND DYING pain of it all...
Don't know why this suddenly hit me. I just need to write it down.
1989.....
I remember working at Bill Miller Bar-B-Que in Corpus Christi down on Leopard street. One day just before the lunch rush I received a phone call at work. It was my mother-in-law. She never never called me, especially at work. I knew in the instant it was beyond important and scary. The woman had three part time jobs that poorly added to one paycheck. She needed to go to the doctor. On the phone I told her I would be there as soon as I could hang up the phone. My boss over hearing this told me that if I left considered myself terminated; I left anyway and as the events played out I still had a job later.
Betty Scott had gone to the doctor's a month before and no problems noted. We had a great Christmas. They ran test. We were scared. Sigh. She had test Monday. Tuesday she had ovarian cancer. Wednesday she had liver cancer. Thursday she had lymphoma, cancer of the lymph nodes throughout her body. Friday she turned to vomit, went down into her lungs - she aspirated and went into a coma. Saturday found my mother-in-law being pumped with more than four times the dosage needed to keep her heart going as a breathing tube did the work for her and the monitors declared the futility of it all. Frightening and dismay fail to describe the emotions of her family.
I remember scoring the bottom of her expose feet in the ICU. Tickling her toes gave no response. The middle two fingers of both of my mother-in-law's hand had been taped to the raised and locked in place bed rail. Tubes for breathing and urine drainage, wires and monitors of the sterile environment were new to me. My eyes never blinked as their view soaked everything into my very soul. Her chest mechanically rose and fell to the whirling pump's unnerving rhythm. I was numb. How could this decline happen so suddenly to change my view of everything?
I stood beside her bed. She had taken me in like a son and loved me far more than my own mother or step mother and yet she lay dying before me. Why? How?
Suddenly she raised up, arching her back from off the bed dragging her head. This gurgling gush of black oil belched from her mouth out on to the bed on my side. With huge unblinking eyes I took in the horror of my mother-in-law's passing. Just as she lay down again I knew the breathing machine was unless in that moment the blaring alarms rang out and all the monitors announced the end.
I felt this blissful giddy rush of extacy come over me. An unexplainable euphoria. Yet in that same instance time itself blurred to a freeze frame moment. A loving huge black nurse whirled my crying frail white wife about and literally carried her away in a slow moment of sheer bewilderment and joy.
Betty was "gone". I knew "something" left. I "felt" it 'pass' through me but only saw the physical shell shrink with deflation even before the machine was turned off before me. Numb, hollow and cold - I recall that instant now as clear as the moment it occurred.
Death and dying. There are answers somewhere in-between the two. I suppose that's what Life is all about, finding the 'answers'.
1989.....
I remember working at Bill Miller Bar-B-Que in Corpus Christi down on Leopard street. One day just before the lunch rush I received a phone call at work. It was my mother-in-law. She never never called me, especially at work. I knew in the instant it was beyond important and scary. The woman had three part time jobs that poorly added to one paycheck. She needed to go to the doctor. On the phone I told her I would be there as soon as I could hang up the phone. My boss over hearing this told me that if I left considered myself terminated; I left anyway and as the events played out I still had a job later.
Betty Scott had gone to the doctor's a month before and no problems noted. We had a great Christmas. They ran test. We were scared. Sigh. She had test Monday. Tuesday she had ovarian cancer. Wednesday she had liver cancer. Thursday she had lymphoma, cancer of the lymph nodes throughout her body. Friday she turned to vomit, went down into her lungs - she aspirated and went into a coma. Saturday found my mother-in-law being pumped with more than four times the dosage needed to keep her heart going as a breathing tube did the work for her and the monitors declared the futility of it all. Frightening and dismay fail to describe the emotions of her family.
I remember scoring the bottom of her expose feet in the ICU. Tickling her toes gave no response. The middle two fingers of both of my mother-in-law's hand had been taped to the raised and locked in place bed rail. Tubes for breathing and urine drainage, wires and monitors of the sterile environment were new to me. My eyes never blinked as their view soaked everything into my very soul. Her chest mechanically rose and fell to the whirling pump's unnerving rhythm. I was numb. How could this decline happen so suddenly to change my view of everything?
I stood beside her bed. She had taken me in like a son and loved me far more than my own mother or step mother and yet she lay dying before me. Why? How?
Suddenly she raised up, arching her back from off the bed dragging her head. This gurgling gush of black oil belched from her mouth out on to the bed on my side. With huge unblinking eyes I took in the horror of my mother-in-law's passing. Just as she lay down again I knew the breathing machine was unless in that moment the blaring alarms rang out and all the monitors announced the end.
I felt this blissful giddy rush of extacy come over me. An unexplainable euphoria. Yet in that same instance time itself blurred to a freeze frame moment. A loving huge black nurse whirled my crying frail white wife about and literally carried her away in a slow moment of sheer bewilderment and joy.
Betty was "gone". I knew "something" left. I "felt" it 'pass' through me but only saw the physical shell shrink with deflation even before the machine was turned off before me. Numb, hollow and cold - I recall that instant now as clear as the moment it occurred.
Death and dying. There are answers somewhere in-between the two. I suppose that's what Life is all about, finding the 'answers'.
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