live mindfully

I’ve just come home from a visit with my brother. The trip is more than 800 miles and I spend more time driving there and back than actually visiting but it was good to see him. His health is not good. His wife is having to deal with that as well as having her 97-year-old mother in the hospital and with the holidays, (her daughter, now dead, was born on Christmas Day). Throw in their son being both absent and a real jerk and her pain is almost palpable.

And I already know I will wish that I could go every day again. Sigh. Instead I’m writing grants.

I have to continually wrap my mind around this. No sooner do I get comfortable with what is than it changes. Change is the only constant.

Today I helped the residents of the organization where I work make porcelain xmas ornaments as a fund-raiser. These will be offered at the December arts celebration our town holds. I was impressed with the care with which each person worked and the amount of detail they put into each ornament.

These are women with real problems, some of their own making, more thrust upon them, sometimes violently, sometimes from rotten childhoods.

I can complain a lot, I know, but no one ever abused me – not as a child, or as an adult. We may have been poor and I lost my father young but my mother worked hard to support me. I never lived on the street. I never had to hook to feed my kids. I’ve had it good.

Tomorrow I will share a Thanksgiving dinner with these women, who for some reason, still manage to care.

I am mindful that my loved ones and I have faced many changes in recent years and some of us will face new challenges soon. My SO has a biopsy scheduled for the Monday after Thanksgiving and my brother is just hanging on with his heart problems. I really can’t deal with even the idea that I could lose either of them and yet I must deal with it and remain aware that the time we have left is not unlimited.

At the same time, my daughter will make it home for TG and I will get to meet my grandniece.

My dauther and her family will be moving out of my home at the end of the month (if all goes as expected). All in all they will have been with me for about 3 months. It was not all fun and games, though everyone behaved very well, with them respecting the fact that they were in my house and me respecting their privacy and needs. I was well aware, at the times I had to bite my tongue, at the times I chafed under my own lack of privacy, that this was temporary and that when they were gone I would miss them. I think the whole experience has brought us all together.

It is exactly 2 years since Mom died. I realized that my granbeanie has now lived longer without Mom than with her. That will never happen to me. I would have to live to almost 120 to say that. Sigh.
Today I light no candles, place no flowers; I do all the usual things. I will go to the grocery store, do some laundry, work on my pottery. But I will remember Mom. I will always remember Mom.

Made it through the weekend. He yelped climbing up my 3 steps but has quieted down some from last week. He’s weaker, that much is clear, but he’s still with me.

This is the second anniversary of the worst week of my life: my Mom’s last days. It hits me in waves and knocks me for a loop each time. It was so hard. And though I know it is over, recalling it just renews the pain.

I’m tired. Just exhausted from work, worry and grief. I need some studio time but that’s not happening. I have to garden all day tomorrow at work, that and run around getting things we’ll need.

I try to be aware of what I’m doing, how I’m feeling, what’s going on with me, but sometimes I don’t want to be mindful. I just want to turn off my brain.

When I first got Black Jack his mate was with him. She was quite ill and died within days. I buried her out near my studio. Her name was Buttermilk and she was a sweet, sweet dog who deserved a much better life than she led, having puppies with every heat, having to compete for her food with so many other dogs and finally the heart worms that killed her.

Today Black Jack followed me outside and plopped himself down in the dirt outside my studio. I left the door open and he just lay in the shade looking out at the yard. Twice though, he pushed his way through the bamboo to the spot where I buried Buttermilk and sniffed around. He’s never done that before. I know he enjoyed being outside. Finally he signaled that he wanted to come in. So we did.

I’m not great company right now but I told my SO I’d go to a concert with him tonight. I so don’t feel like it.

My younger daughter is gone again – home to Arizona. It was a lovely visit, over too soon, but there it is. My heart aches for my older girl. The house fire thing has stressed her to her breaking point. Her husband’s way of handling this is to organize, work, control. She needs for him to be a little less spot-on organized and a little more arm-around-the-shoulders comforting. The message she gets, (I hear it, too), is “You’re not handling this right.” The message she needs is, “We’re in this together.”

And I don’t want to meddle but it is hard to watch.