Random Thoughts

“I guess life is like that – beautiful, and sad at the same time.” Words of wisdom spoken over the phone across the miles from my sweetheart, David, in response to the story I told him through tears as I sat in the nursing home parking lot. I had popped into the home, which is only for “memory care” patients, just to quickly deliver some bird food to Evelyn, my dad’s 2 nd wife.   He married her after my mom died, and just a few hours before Dad died, Evelyn was moved into the home.   She had a rough go of it in the beginning – confused where she was, why she was there, where my dad was, when she would go home, who would get the mail, etc.   But it has been exactly a year now and she has settled in much better than I ever imagined. When I walked in tonight at 6:00 PM, right after dinner was finished at the home, I saw about 15 women sitting around in the main room.   The TV was on but there was no sound.   As soon as one of them saw me, she asked ...

November 17, 2018.   The day my dad died. It’s been exactly 12 months.   It’s still fresh.   And SO much else has happened in the same year.   Dad driving our boat, The Shansu, circa 1983.  This is how I remember him from summers growing up - at the wheel of the boat. I know that “time heals”.   I know that, at some point, I will feel November 17 th creeping up on the calendar and it won’t bring as much malaise and sadness as I am experiencing now.   I know that some time – years or maybe a decade later – I will be able to take time out of “real life” to celebrate Johnny Day just like I celebrate Mary Day every October 20 th .   But this year it all still feels quite raw and painful.   I still have flashbacks to this time last year.   I am currently living in a basement bedroom – the same set up I was in when the hospital called in the middle of the night to tell us Dad had coded.   Last night I decided to confr...

I am the “far away aunt” – the one that has to take an airplane to come visit.   The one that mails presents at birthdays and Christmas, and cards other times throughout the year.   I come to town a couple of times a year – visit a week or so – then disappear again.   Sometimes my nieces and nephews and I talk on the phone or video chat, but mostly, I am the aunt that is sort of unknown. Until now. I am living in Omaha with my nephew, his wife, and their two boys, Ryker (age 4) and Keegan (age 2).   They set up a great room for me in the basement, and I share the boys’ bathroom and shower upstairs.   Being here has given me such an amazing opportunity to get to hang out with them and know them better.   Ryker, Keegan and I have become pals.   When Keegan comes home from daycare, he sometimes stands at the top of the basement stairs and yells, “Aunt Suuusiiin, Aunt Suuusiiin, Aunt Suuuusinnnn” until I pop my head around the corner and say...

Shhh, my sisters are asleep and snoring.   It’s only me still awake in this little Airbnb cottage by the sea. We are here on a little escape – some sister time.   It’s happy, it’s scary, it’s sad.   Life changes when someone you love is seriously ill.   Priorities change.   Needs change.   But love stays solid.   We had planned on going on a cruise.   Tried to plan it around treatments and doctor appointments.   But my sister Annette is weaker, and we weren’t sure being out in open water was a smart idea.   If she got sick on the boat, we would probably be tossed off in a port and hospitalized who knows where.   So, we scraped the idea of a cruise.   Then we went to a medium, who “spoke to our parents” from “the other side”, and they said (I paraphrase only slightly here): “ TAKE THE DAMN CRUISE, GIRLS! ”.   (The quotes above about “the other side” are by no means meant to belittle the messages we receiv...

What would you do if tomorrow was your last day… Your very last .  And you knew it. Would you lie in bed and cry?  Hug all of your family members?  Take a walk on the beach?  Eat a huge steak? I can bet I know some things you wouldn’t do…  Wouldn’t check your work email.  Wouldn’t clean the bathtub.  Wouldn’t watch a mindless tv show… It sounds hypothetical.  But it’s not.  One day, tomorrow will be your last day.  I guess if you are lucky you might know that in advance.  And knowing would allow you to make conscious choices about how to use those last few moments of time. But most of us won’t know when our time is almost up.  The end may just sneak up on us.  Or maybe death will be long and dragged out, leaving us in bed unable to make choices. So, here’s an idea.  What IF…  What if we lived each day as if tomorrow was our last??  What if we made decisions each day on how to sp...

Sometimes, if you are lucky, life puts things in your path that are unexpected.   Things that you would not normally choose to do. Life did that to me today. My sister Annette has wanted to go see a psychic for several years.   The first I knew of it was when both sisters were visiting us in DC, and we drove by a psychic on the main street near us, her neon sign glowing in an otherwise dark window.   “Wouldn’t that COOL to do??   Wouldn’t it be FUN to see a PSYCHIC??” Annette said from the back seat.     Ummm, no…   No, it wouldn’t be “cool” or “fun”.   It would (I jadedly thought) be one or a combination of these things:   hokey, scary, fake, terrifying, and utterly depressing if she told us something awful that was going to happen in the future.   “WHYYY would I want to know the trials and tribulations future me was going to have to suffer?” I thought.   “Can’t we just wait until the bad stuff hits and deal with it then...

I wrote a couple of years ago about being a person who STOPS. Stops for lemonade stands.   Stops for mariachi bands practicing unexpectedly in parking lots.   Stops for wicker love seats left on the side of the road that just need a little tender loving care and a new home. I am happy to be a person who stops.   It feels like who I AM.   It is an integral part of what makes me me . And look, I am not staying that ME is any better than anyone else .   It is just that I have been reminded all day today how the rest of the world, at least the people who pass the Big Yellow House, are not like me.   And I find it so strange. It has been months since I did a “front gate project” – a term I coined for “events” I plan and put up on our front gate.   (And it is literally now GATE and not gate S , because we still only have one front gate since the unfortunate “car runs into house” episode that happened last October…) Anyway, I h...