Dying is for the living

Every now and then my job really gets to me. It is always heart tendering to comfort someone at the end of their lives and their families but some of my patients get under my skin more than others.
Last weekend I cared for two families that touched me, whose experience stayed with me long after I went home at the end of my shift. They were both Hispanic families, big families. The love they had for the person fading away was so clear and bright one almost had to shade their eyes from it. They were not only immensely supportive of their loved one, but of each other. It was a lovely thing to watch and I was honored to be a part of that.
Almost unconditionally, by the time someone has chosen to enter Hospice, they have come to terms with their mortality and are ready to travel that road. Not always so for their families. I have had only one patient in nearly 2 years that has expressed fear of dying, but I have had a family nearly every day that is struggling to find peace with the end of a loved ones life. I, of course, completely understand this and do my very best to give them the support and comfort they need to both accept the inevitable and find the courage to move on. This is the hardest part of my job. Because even now I have days where I struggle with dad's loss, the desire for one more day, or hour, to say what I want to say.
That is the grace of hospice. We strive to allow people to stop focusing on the disease and start focusing on the person. It is a chance for a daughter to stop nursing her mother and just be her beloved little girl, for a son to let go of past troubles with their father and hold his hand in quiet understanding. It is a peaceful time for most, believe it or not, and I have been honored to witness many a "good death".
One of the families that touched me last weekend put up old pictures of the patient all over the room: his wedding, standing in his armed services uniform, laying in a raft in a pool. They had a slideshow set up on their laptop of this person holding his babies and cradling his grandchildren. His death became a celebration of his life. It is the way we should all be lucky enough to go.

I have told people this before but I'll put it here for posterity. I used to be one of those people afraid of dying. It is a natural thing, the living are hungry for life. But when my time comes I want to find peace in the surrounding of those I love, and I want them to find peace in knowing I have had a truly blessed life and am only sorry to leave them behind, not afraid of the next journey. I wish to be cremated and buried so the kids have a place to go if they need that sort of thing. I want "The Circle of Life" (from Disney's The Lion King) played exhuberantly at my funeral. And I want everyone to know that I wouldn't have changed a thing. I am lucky, and I know it.

My patients are ready to pass onto something new. I am more there for their loved ones, because letting go is hard. I should know. I've been trying to do it for 7 years.

New family picture at bottom of blog page...

At some point (the next time my brother Joe comes to visit) I will figure out how to post new pictures at the base of each entry. For now, please don't miss the great photo of our family on Christmas day last year. It was a treasure to for once have EVERYONE together.

Thinking of Dad

My Dad has been on my mind alot lately. I mean, he's always on my mind just out of my actual concious, but I have been actively thinking of him the last few days. Maybe it's the Key West trip that we're planning, or the fact that I put an "In Loving Memory" decal on my car's back window that I see every time I look in the rear view mirror. Regardless, he's wandering around.
I was always daddy's little girl and much to my brothers' chagrin, I knew it. When he died I had spent a lifetime with that identity and suddenly I didn't know who I was. Turns out I'm still daddy's little girl, even though he's gone. Growing up he was pretty easy on me, and I worked very hard to make him proud. Mom was easier...she was proud of me for just being. Dad thrilled in accomplishments. It was his nature. I wonder if my brothers resented that A's school came so easily for me. If they got a little satisfaction when Dad didn't come to my high school graduation (a thing I knew he regretted almost as soon as he did it). I wouldn't have blamed them. I never meant to shadow over them, I just wanted to please. I spent most of my childhood seeking out my dad's approval and he readily gave it. I expected alot of myself because he did and for better or for worse in many ways we were very alike.
I had a great childhood, a happy one even if in the midst of it I didn't know it. I hated the moving then, but now I wouldn't trade those memories. I especially loved New Orleans and the house on Nyetimber in Coraopolis is the one in my head when I think of what our perfect house would be.
I enjoyed my parents' company and never recall going through a stage like so many of my friends where my parents were uncool or that I hated their very existence. I was lucky. My parents WERE cool, and fun, and I hads plenty of extended family that were as well. There weren't many people whose company I preferred, and that holds true even now.

*I remember the BI bag. When we lived in Punta Gorda we would pack stuff in that bag-it was black nylon and in yellow letters had BIBIBI on it. Joe and I played house in the gigantic banyan behind the house in Punta Gorda and mom let us go hang out at the green shelter with a bunch of old war vets who sat around smoking and playing cards. (my kids will not round the corner...a perfect testament to how things have changed). I also remember horseshoe crab spawning season when they would hit the beach by the tons. And I recall a clever note Mark put on his bedroom door that forbid Joe and I enterance under penalty of hanging by our nose hairs.
*I fondly remember going to Station Square in Pittsburgh with mom and dad and having fried ice cream at the Mexican place there. Patrik and I ate there on our honeymoon. And nothing before or since has ever compared to the fireworks at the point on the 4th of July.
*Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and Fantasy fest in Key West. These things brought out the best in dad, who always knew how to have fun. He was a natural host as well, and sincerely loved when family came to visit. It absolutely put him in his element.
*Dad was so worried about having our wedding reception at the La Concha. He was afraid that something would go wrong, that he wouldn't enjoy himself because it was his workplace. But I am pretty sure it was as close to perfect as it could get and I had a ball at my own wedding. Patrik did too, what he can remember of it (he said he was so nervous standing in front of the church he sweat through his tux before I even walked dwon the aisle). Not me, not this time. I had a blast and loved that so many of my family could be there...it was indeed the last great time dad would be able to host.

I miss dad. All the time, and some moments the sorrow of his loss hits harder than others. He absolutely unconditionally loved his grandsons. And so many years after Chris was born he was so very pleased to be getting a granddaughter. I remember sitting on the back porch of the house in Key West and having him tentively place his hand on my big belly, the look on his face when Laura gave him a swift kick. He was robbed of all the things he would have loved in watching a granddaughter grow ("I can't wait to bounce her on my knee," he had said.). And my girls have been completely cheated of a grandfather, a "Pops", who wanted to fly kites and give ice cream and explore the world with them. He not being here to get to know these lovely daugheters of mine, and they missing out on all he had to offer, is my absolute greatest regret in losing him so soon. I had him for 31 years. The girls never had him at all. I keep him alive in my home as much as I can, with picutes and old home movies and mentioning him often. Truly often. Julia swears she knew him but he was gone long before she was born. Still, that she feels like she knows him makes me glad.

Not as glad as if he were here.
Except he is, sort of. In my heart, always. He is a part of our history.
And our present, too.

Random thoughts

My wandering mind is having a hard time settling, as I said in my earlier post...so I thought I'd ramble a little on my blog today. I try to stick to a theme in my posts but not this one, and not the ones that follow with the title "random thoughts". Sometimes a girl's just gotta "talk".

Why won't Emma potty train? When we have the potty conversation she looks at me with such disdain I can already see how she'll look at 15 when I hand down a curfew. Of the 5 kids, she is the only one still in diapers at this age and the only one who has no interest whatsoever in getting out of said diapers. I try to be quite liberal about this..I pushed Chase and we struggled then right after he turned 3 it was like a switch was flipped and that was that. I swore after that that I'd let the kids clue me as to when they're ready to get out of diapers and it hasn't failed me...until now. I know I know...no one has ever gone to college in diaper (with a binky, holding a bottle) but still...I'VE had enough of diapers so I wish she'd catch up with me here...
I co-signed for a bike for Chase. In bike I mean motorcycle. In motorcycle I mean a street legal dirt bike (1 cylinder, max speed of 80mph) and even though my mommy sensors are screaming, I was so pleased to be able to do this for him. After his car was totalled in an accident (another of his 9 lives...) he was completely at the whim of his dad and paternal grandparents, who have been wonderful at getting him around but I know at 20 that lack of independence was killing him. So I did it...He is so gloriously happy...I can't do alot for him but this I could do. It's very pretty as dirt bikes go and he is required to wear a helmet (by me and by law until 21) and he's fully insured (my law), and I just believe in him with this. I don't know why, I just do. It's HIS, he loves it, he's proud of it. It is so nice to see him so pleased...
I have lost 25 pounds since New Year's and I am shocked by this. I never get on the scale because it is so enormously depressing...I have never weighed as much as I did at Christmastime...then I started taking Chantix again to quit the dabbling in smoking I was doing and it not only wrecks my craving to smoke but it curbs my appetite. I noticed a change in the way my clothes fit so got warily on the scale and was so happy at the number I saw. I have quite a ways to go but it's a good start. I don't want to be skinny...it's too much work. I want to be healthy.
I have two people in my life dealing with major health issues. They run around in my mind all the time so I want them to know that they are there-in my thoughts. It is such an impotent rage I carry when someone I love is ill. I want to be able to fix it, and know I can't do a thing but pray and love them....and so I do...
Laura lost my engagement ring. I am being very diplomatic about it, but I am terribly disappointed. She saw it in my jewelry box when I was letting her look at my earrings a few months back and a week later I realized it was missing. At first she denied it (way too quickly, if you know what I mean)( but after some pressure she admitted to "throwing it under my bed" because she didn't want to get in trouble. Well, it's no where. I'm sure the vacuum has taken care of it long ago. It was such a pretty, nearly perfect, heart shaped diamond that sat so nicely above my wedding ring. But I have let this go. What am I going to do? Rage at the 7 year old? To what end? She knows we're upset. It's enough. But I still miss it.
We are going to Key West for spring break at the bneginning of April. We will stay at Patrik's sisters SECOND house. I haven't been to Key West since dad died and am looking forward to this trip with a mix of dread and pleasure. I know feelings will be triggered (yes, mom, I will go see Nara), but I think it'll be fun. I want to take the kids to sunset and for a ride on the glass bottomed boat. I want to eat at Blue Heaven while the chickens run around under the table. And I want to go to the house on Bougainvaillea, the last place my dad lived, and remember.

There. I feel better.
*wink*

72 degrees, sunny and cloudless in South Florida...

The speed of life

I am so easily distracted lately. I have a hard time sitting through a movie and I yawn through every story I read the girls. I think there's just so much going ON that in order to move forward my brain does a disconnect.
Last Thursday Patrik and I took the girls to the South Florida Fair. And despite the fact that I had a stomach ache, we had a grand time. This is the second time Emma, 3, has been but the first time she was old enough to do anything. The first thing we did is all pile on the ferris wheel and boy oh boy was that something! After that all she wanted to do was ride the rides...this can get pricey. So we distracted her with the alligator show.
She didn't move through the entire show. She sat on my lap and kept whispering in my ear, "That man has to be careful. Alligator will bite him..." God, she is so endearing. When we left she announced that the alligator show was the best part. A future environmentalist, maybe? Or maybe just a nutty chick that runs an alligator farm...time will tell.
Julia ,5, rode those swings. You know the ones that go in a circle and fly waaay out...I couldn't even watch her, I was so nervous for her. But she's so brave...she got off, informed me she wasn't going on THAT ride ever again, and moved on to the roller coaster.
Laura, 7, will do almost anything once and LOVED going down the big slide with her dad. They did it a couple of times. And she also has no problem going on the kiddie rides with Emma...she is the mother hen of the 3.
We spent $18 on 3 hot dogs and 3 small sodas, another $130 on admission and rides and a big thing of cotton candy. The hell with the budget. This is once a year. We never do anything together because Patrik and I work seperate schedules so we don't have to put Emma in day care. I never second guess spending money on family time. It is too precious and too rare. In October we are going to Disney World and we're staying at the Nick hotel. I cannot praise the hotel enough...the pools alone are worth the cost. And running into Blue or Spongebob in the hall on your way to lunch?..priceless. So I won't give money a second thought there either. We lay out what we can afford and if we go over we sweat it LATER. Because life is short and so is childhood.
I can't keep up with everyday. This morning I fed 3 faces, packed two lunches and a snack for Julia's class trip to the zoo, and hopped on here with my cappuccino at my side to leave my mark. I may fall behind in the day to day, but for family time I slow down. I virtually stop...because I don't want to miss it.

Shelter them

The other day I saw the second of two Pedigree dog food commercials that literally brought me to tears. The first one came out at the end of last year and had a dog in a shelter cage with the narrator speaking for him-"I don't know why I'm here...I am a good dog..." Every single time I saw that ad I was saddened. The most recent one shows this happy shaggy dog again in a shelter who gets all excited as a couple of people pause in front of his crate, then gets real still when these people move on...It is actually so touching but sad too.
Every dog I have ever had as an adult has come from a shelter. Hailey that we had to give away when Brian and I split up. Then there was our beloved Red who was nuts but you couldn't not adore him despite his psychosis. Now I have Lucky. Patrik and I were tossing around the idea of getting another dog about a year and a half after we gave Red to some people with wide open spaces for him to roam in. So I packed up Julia and Emma and we went to the shelter. I WAS JUST GOING TO LOOK. I swear. But those shelters just break my heart, all those dogs left behind. Not knowing why, what they did that was so bad to earn them a cage all alone. Lucky was the only younger dog at the shelter that day. We took her out and played with her a little and because Patrik and I had not totally agreed to get a dog, we left without her. And her face haunted me all night. I couldn't get her off my mind. I kept going on the website to see if she'd been adopted that day and wondered if she was scared, if she was cold....
The next morning the girls and I were back at the shelter the minute they opened and adopted this goofy dog. Julia named her Lucky and she is now a beloved part of our family. When I called Patrik after we got home with her I said, "So I have this dog..." and he said "I thought you were just looking!" But we all love her. She is a good fit for us, not too big, playful, protective, smart and loving, and doesn't mind being crated.
I appreciate pure bred dogs. Some of them are beautiful and if I could have afforded one we probably would have ended up with a golden lab. But fate is a funny thing...if we had a lab what would have become of little Lucky? I encourage people to adopt when they are looking for pets. If not for the girls I would have liked to adopt an older dog because I feel most badly for them...like infant children, puppies are more easily adopted. But I had to be sure of a limited history because I didn't want something to trigger something in an older dog to make having one around small grabby kids unsafe. I can't imagine an older dog who has spent his faithful life with someone being dumped off to end his life at a shelter.
Thousands and thousands of dogs and cats are euthanized every year. They are tossing around a mandatory spay and neuter ordinance here and I'm all for it. There is no reason to add more heartache to an animal's life.
Lucky will be with us until her time comes. And when she is gone I already know our next dog will again be a shelter dog.
Because I feel they need us and the love we have to offer more.

Then and now-boys and girls

I have become one of those parents that is a little paranoid. I wasn't always like this. I certainly didn't grow up to be like this. When I was a kid Joe and I would roam about, free, and I'm pretty sure my parents weren't worried that we'd be abducted and never heard from again. We stayed out past dark and as long as they had a relative idea of where we were, we had alot of freedom. When we lived in Coraopolis we had a house near some fantastic woods. There were caves and hills and streams...we'd wandered around for hours. These days I won't let the girls out of my sight. Literally. There is no biking around the corner, no sleeping in cool weather with the windows open, no sleep overs.
I wasn't like this with the boys which makes me wonder if I'm like this BECAUSE the girls are girls or if the world has changed so much in the last decade that it's my only wise choice. I let the boys do their thing quite often, walking or biking to and from school as young as 7 years old, playing outside after dark, staying entire weekends at some friend's house. In comparison the girls are positively smothered.
I'm so afraid that something unspeakable will happen to them if I am not completely vigilant. My husband is the same way. In fact, he is the one who placed a moratorium on sleep-overs. I am saddened by this, because in doing what we think is keeping them safe, we are also robbing them of some of the best parts of childhood.
So what is the middle ground here? I can't find it. If I let them wander and something, anything, happens, I won't be able to live with myself. If I hold them too close when they are older they may buck the system so hard I could lose them anyway. Every time I hear about another crime against a child, most especially a little girl, my stomach tightens. That little Madeline missing from a hotel room in Portugal, Polly Klaas, on and on. It is not a safe world for our children...but at what cost comes the reassurance that they are within reach?
If they were little boys I wonder if I would feel differently. I wanted the boys to be safe, but I was never afraid that letting them PLAY would bring them harm. Not so with my three daughters. The big bad wolf could be anywhere...and in sheep's clothing to boot.
Maybe as they grow older I won't be so worried. But older girls just seem to have a whole new set of threats, and these days they seem to reach that age of adolescent peril younger than ever.
Looks like I may never rest easy. I am so honored to be a mother to daughters. And I'm also a nervous wreck.
For now my girls are small enough not to balk too hard at my grip. But I know the day will come sooner than I'd like when I have to reason why I am the way I am with them. And I expect a fight. If I don't learn to loosen this parenting noose a little, they won't be able to go out into the world with any sort of confidence. But when is the time right for that? When they're 10? 13? 45?

Everyday is a new lesson. I hope I am learning the right ones.