Monday, March 9, 2015

Birthday



Today is my birthday.

Another year has passed, another year of learning, another year of heartbreak, another year of joy, another 57 years in my life path.

Another year.....

I may not have the body of youth but this body is going pretty darn well.  Of course I do keep up on the maintenance but mostly I just keep putting one foot in front of the other, hopefully with a hop and skip thrown in for a smile and a laugh.

Do I feel older?  What does that mean?  Is it that I compare youth and aging?  No.  Let's face it, as the multitude of years fly by our bodies don't feel the lightness of childhood.  Then again children don't have the insight of wisdom and patience that comes with the passage of time.  I'm still working on both of those but feel them setting a natural course of living in my days.

Do I feel older?  I didn't answer that.   Hhhhmmm.   Shedding 25 pounds did not make me feel the lightness of youth but my feet are happier and smoother.  I guess weight causes a lot of stress on the soles of your feet.  I still can't jump as high as Tim but then maybe it's because he is over 6 feet and I'm just 5' 3".  I do get aches and pains from time to time and don't know how or why it happens.  A couple of days  ago I did something and my back decided to spasm and tighten up.  That makes me hurt but not feel old.  It also makes me appreciate life more when I don't have a backache.  But I know it will get better with time and perhaps a trip to the chiropractor.

All my limbs move quite well and I have the added bonus of a titanium plate and screws in the right wrist where I broke it years back.  That dang neck problem that lasted three long years has not caused me a bit of a problem after I decided that enough was enough.  I was tired of driving and paying $70 bucks a visit, and feeling I couldn't do anything without my neck going out.  I joined Kokofit (I know I just gave them free advertising) which put me on the road to wellness with cardio and strength training.  I changed my eating habits and gave up on some truly beloved foods which apparently loved me the wrong way that I didn't appreciate.

But do I feel older?  I feel the passing of time in the passing on of family members who had aged.  I never thought of them as old, maybe older, but not old.  Yet knowing that we can't live forever somehow helped me understand their passing and with that the warm memories of the times spent with them.  I miss them.  I can hear their voices as clear as a bell when I think of them.  I remember their stories and their laughter.

I regard the fact that now I am one of the elders since all my parents are gone.  Tim has his mom as well as an Aunt and Uncle in their golden years.  But for me their are no Grandparents alive and no parents.  For that I feel at odds.  I took for granted that passage of time where we all were well and going about life with gusto.  Gatherings, travel, jobs, pleasure were very much a part of those family members and then like a candle snuffed out, they are gone.  Yet even while they were living, their parents were passing or had passed, and I am sure these very thoughts traveled in their minds from time to time.

Youth has the gift of no worries of living.  They live for today with nary a thought of aging.  And they shouldn't.  So why should I?  And maybe when I do, I'm just thinking too much.  Tim does remind me that I do overthink and that never works out.  So true.  Then again I've accepted my overthinking as the way I work out my brain because if I didn't I might need to be in therapy to figure out why I overthink my life.  Crazy right?  So overthinking allows me to chew and spit out minutia that clogs up the joy in my everyday life.  Uh-huh.

Life has led me on some profound journeys.  Some planned and some unplanned.  The best journeys are surrounded by my Love as he has been with me so many incredible years.  From the teens, to early wedded years when I was a horrible cook, through parenting (and we did parent with kids in the house for over 33 years!), through awful manipulative years with my mom, and in the patient loving times of grief.  We've traveled near and far and many more journeys are in our bucket list.  I've been blessed with this man, my soul-mate.  My children, each as unique, loving, inquisitive, creative, and full of living that sprinkles on me like a fine shower as I continue to grow and continue to learn life's gifts on earth.

Living is about saying "yes".  It's not a time to hesitate.  Getting older is just two words.  What we do will say more than what we won't do.

I don't feel older.

It's my Birthday.  57 years ago my mom, age 25, gave birth to me in Roswell, New Mexico where we lived because my father was stationed at Walker Air Force Base.  Thank you Mom and Dad for bringing me into this amazing world.  Thank you for loving me as well as you could.  If you both could only see and be here with open hearts and arms how much life and love I have, with no regrets, no stone to be left unturned.  That what truly matters in life is to be open and honest to those closest to you and to love with all your heart, to tell those who matter how much they mean to you as often as you can.  To hold and hug tight and mean it.


Friday, January 23, 2015

Tender Heart

Definition:  Heart

1) A hollow muscular organ that pumps the blood through the circulatory system by rhythmic contraction and dilation.  

2)  The center of the total personality, especially with reference to intuition, feeling or emotion. 

3) The center of emotion, especially as contrasted to the head as the center of the intellect.  

4)  Capacity for sympathy or generosity; compassion, Love, affection


Grief's veil is falling over me once again.  I remember this feeling as it visited me not too long ago, not long enough to vanish or to forget as I would wish.  I feel it falling like the lightest of snow flakes on a darkened day, up to my ankles, up to my shins, up to my knees....I want to walk away but I can't.  I stand in the darkened daylight and look up as the flakes keep falling, softly and silently.

My father by marriage passed away just after Christmas.  He fell in November, broke the femur bone and required surgery.  I knew that at his age, 91, this was not good.  He was a tough old bird having already in his golden years had knee replacement surgery, and two heart valve replacements.  This fall was the undoing.  Rehab care seemed like he might get better but the decline came sudden and quick.

Grieving hurts.  My whole body hurts.  My heart hurts, more so for his grown children, his wife and my sister by marriage's children who spent so much time with their grandparents when they were young while their mom worked.  It must have felt like it was their second home.

Grief has no guidebook to help your journey along.  It takes you to places unexpected emotionally where as a comparison to survival you grasp your way out or where you think out is.  Grief can be selfish without intending to be.  Words said burn both to the one who strikes out and to the one the words are given.  Lack of words may do the same.  Some of us walk along without much dwelling of sad lingering thoughts and some of us slog through with uncertainty or questioning.  There is no right or wrong really as long as there is love.

It's the hurting that takes too much time, and I am still wondering where one grieving life became another grieving life as with regards to my mom and now my father by marriage.  My mother by marriage will not be going back home as she has been in assisted care for several years.  The home that was built by him and my husband and brother by marriage, shall be sold.   Saying goodbye to a home that many happy memories as well as sad memories happened in is a death in it's own way.  I know this all to well when the emptying of my parents home was done and that was a year ago.  A mere year ago.  A blip in a lifetime but a mark on my journey in life forever tattooed in remembrance on my heart.

While we heal from the loss of parents the rippling effect transpires to every member of the family. How was our individual relationship with our parents, our brother(s), our sister(s) and so forth?  This fully envelops our healing and grieving.  When my mom passed away and when my brother's family came for the memorial, we had time to be together, to share old times, and to walk through closets, drawers, and rooms.  Each of us felt awkward going through the personal spaces we had never gone.  Doing so was a bonding experience for me.  I hope it was for the rest of the family.  It certainly made it easier to decide what we each would bring back to our homes.

*Photography by Megan

It is never easy to say goodbye.  I know it gets better but really all we do is put our mother and father in a place we can reach out to from time to time, and hopefully the ache goes.  I don't really know if it does.  I'm still on that journey.  Losing my father by marriage, observing and being present for my Love, wondering how the rest of the family was doing, understanding and excepting that peace came for this ailing frail man, moving forward, is a daily wake up call of living.  How do I wish to live my days?

*Photography by Megan

What I do know is the bond between my Love and I is strong.  With each other we can journey through this unknown place.

My deepest wish is that my Love's family's journey stay strong, stay loving and forgiving, deepen, and to be patient with each other.  To be understanding of each ones grief, just as every snow flake that falls is unique and different.

Our hearts are tender...





LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails