Author Archives: Janell

Mother’s Day

09 Saturday May 2009

Posted by in Life at Home, Prayer

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I’m not one to send out Mother’s Day cards. 

Oh, I have and have had the best of intentions.  But even when Mom was alive, I’d expressed my sentiments with flowers rather than Hallmark.  I’d buy a card and forget to send it.  Then it’d keep company with others in my large stockpile of forgotten and unsent cards.  Just the like the one I hold for my dear friend Ann.  I ran across ‘Ann’s’ card a few months ago when selecting a card for another and well… fell in love with it all over again and full of hope and new resolve I thought, this year I’ll get it sent.  But rats, I’ve missed the magical deadline again.  Perhaps next year?  Or maybe next week — with a sheepish smile?

You’d think a CPA who practiced in the tax field for twenty-some years would be able to meet a pesky deadline.  But no, that’s just not who I am, which may be why management took me out of compliance and assigned me to special projects.  I’m rarely on time to any event, even when I give myself cushion and a range.  Just last week I told my brother I’d pick him up between 2:15 and 2:30 and didn’t make it until 2:40 p.m.  Is this a sign of thoughtlessness, or to rob words from St. Paul, “not regarding others as better than myself?”  Perhaps.  Though much of  my lateness and inability to meet deadlines occurs while robbing ‘Peter’ to pay ‘Paul’. 

The way I best manage my flighty behavior is to avoid definite commitments – and by not setting precedents I know I can’t keep up with – like sending out Mother’s Day cards.  I’m helping my daughter Kara today so she and her husband Joe can go to Tulsa and ‘wine and dine’ his mom for Mother’s Day, without worrying about their dogs they needed to leave behind.  Last night, she asked me what time I’d be by for care and feed.  I offered up a big range – 4:00 to 6:00 pm I said – thinking surely, even I can fit into this spacious gap of time.  But what if I’m a little late?  Will the dogs tattle on me?  Will the dogs care?  No, dogs are so doggone forgiving; they never hold a grudge, even when you’ve not met their expectations.

So like the dog I am, I hold no expectations of Mother’s Day dinners or lunches or even cards, though by the grace of God, I’ve been invited to eat brunch with Kara tomorrow morning at my most favorite restaurant in all of OKC – Paseo Grill – which sits just a few blocks north of my Mesta Park home.  Kara is coming to pick me up, and I just love to be chauffeured around.  And if I don’t hear from my other three children…well, let’s just say I understand.  All too well…

Picking up the phone or sending flowers or a card is a lovely thing to do.  But really, can we just banish the official day, for those of us who beat to a different drum, who like to be spontaneous and not hemmed in by a single day?  I know my kids love me, whether or not they acknowledge their love tomorrow.  And I hope the four women in my life who sent me a card know how much I love them too.

To them, and to others like them, I say my heartfelt thanks and cheer you on from the sidelines.  I wish I could be more like you.  At one time, I pretended to be.  And maybe that’s what that card stockpile is all about.  But alas, I am who I am.  Not a thoughtless slug exactly.  But more like one who thinks too much, who expresses herself best in silence and unsent words and thoughts of love, who loves to pick up cards that express words that are true to her spirit, like these that rest on a Patience Brewster card hiding in my stack of unsent cards, but then forgets to send it:

“Through the Silence, I Send a Thousand Prayers…”

Survivor

08 Friday May 2009

Posted by in Life at Home

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My Thursday night dose of reality television was interrupted by real life when my sister called worried about Dad.        

Christi was debating with herself — should she call an ambulance?  Or with the help of our aunt and uncle, pray  she could get Dad safely into bed, and that a new day would bring if not a new Dad, at least something closer to Dad’s old self.

Last night his watery eyes were vacant – to where had Dad’s spirit run away, leaving behind Dad’s poor old shell of a body?  Dad did not respond to words.  He had not eaten supper and it was so unlike Dad not to have his morning coffee in the middle of the afternoon.  To pull Dad together, Christi tried to stand Daddy on his own two feet with the help of my uncle.  But Daddy was too weak — or maybe too divided to stand. 

But just as she did with me, Christi found just the right words to grab Dad’s undivided attention.  Did he need to go to the hospital?  Urgently, Dad shook his head ‘no.’ Daddy may not be in his ‘right’ mind, but even in this worst of times, he had enough wisdom to decline the need.  

So now Christi was calling me for a reality check, probably knowing what I would say, but needing to hear it all the same.  And forty miles safely out of sight of Dad’s pleading eyes, I said all I could think to say.  What choice do we have, sis?  Our family has had more than a few emergency hospital visits.  We know the ER as a scary place of dread and dead, but especially for fragile elderly souls like Dad who do their darned best to hang on to everyday reality.  So, just to make triply sure, we went opinion shopping at Kate’s, before calling the ambulance.   

While Dad was outnumbered three to one, he remained undefeated — even as the ER team was getting Dad ready for his nine o’clock express ride, he was gripping Christi’s hand, pleading for a fourth chance.  I wonder if he feared he would not return home.  Tonight or ever, take your pick.  Both thoughts crossed my own mind.  If only we could save him from this ordeal.  If only Dad’s legs had shown signs of life, we might have let him crawl into bed, just to keep him safe from the pricks and the prods and the questions that he had no hope of answering without my sister’s voice.

But then we had our own fears to calm.  What if Dad had suffered a ‘minor’ stroke?  Would we be doing right by Daddy to keep him from treatment?  Against his wishes, and even our own, we sent him off to the hospital ‘for his own good.’  Of course, we didn’t add insult to injury by speaking these words.  But poor Daddy read our actions loud and clear, and even understood that while love was all behind and running through it, that nothing good would be coming  from this ambulance trip, at least in the short-term.  

Reality is so hard to discern, especially when you’re up to your eyeballs in it, even when it stares you in the face with vacant watery eyes.  But its easier to see where the good and bad calls are in reality television.   And while I may not like the final result of Survivor in a few weeks, I was happy at this morning’s outcome.  Not because I’m sure the ER staff made the right calls, but because I believe we did.   And I like any story where the good guy wins.  And even if its not happily ever after, at least Dad has survived this ER visit to live another day and to sleep another night in his own bed.  And for Daddy, right now, this everyday comfort is better than whatever’s showing on televison.  

The Garden Club

06 Wednesday May 2009

Posted by in In the Garden, Life at Home, Soul Care

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In the gentle rain of yesterday, I was in my sister’s cottage garden.  Laughing at ourselves for still playing in the mud at our age, we were digging up Fever Few, Larkspur and French Hollyhocks.  And in this morning’s soft mist, still dressed in my jammies and robe, I was out puttering in my own cottage garden, planting flowers — those from my sister’s as well as some delphinium bedding plants I grew from seed — and preparing other plants to give away to my sister and others.  Give and take is a way of life in the gardening world.

Before my sister called Sunday morning, I had planned to go set up the Master Gardener’s plant sale and take advantage of early bird shopping.  It’s the club’s biggest fundraiser of the year and the plants sold by gardeners are always different from what can be bought at local garden centers.   But when I heard from Christi that Daddy was not having a good week, I decided plant sales could wait.  This too was a form of give and take.

Of course, life is the biggest give and take of them all.  The Bible compares  mortals to the flowers of the field that flourish until the wind passes over them and then they are gone.  And the place knows them no more.  This last part always breaks my heart, as I know just how true it is.  Until a few months ago, I didn’t even know my Granny’s mother’s name.  And there are only a few left in the world who still do.  As Job said himself, ” The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away.”   

In many respects, dementia has already taken much of Daddy away.  But I am thankful Daddy still knows us when we walk through the door even though he can’t keep track of our comings and goings.  Real sweetly yesterday, in what’s left of his whispery voice, he struggled to ask me “Where did Christi go?”  With a gardener’s patience, I told him that Christi was at work, and reminded him of her work schedule.  Rather than shaking his head in acknowledgement, my response left Daddy a little confused.  Only a month ago, daddy knew this.  So is this too give and take? 

Today I was able to shop the dregs of the plant sale, picking up a few plants for my sister’s garden and mine.  I was also able to find a home for my remaining tomato seedlings that have grown strong and tall with the help of the Oklahoma wind.  I’m tickled my friend Wanda took the tomato plants and I know Christi will be happy to take in a few new plants as well.  Gardeners are happy no matter whether its give or take. 

Not so with the taking of human beings.  But perhaps I’ll take comfort else where.  I now recall one Gospel’s reurrection account where Mary Magdalene confused the risen Jesus with a gardener.  I like to think Mary wasn’t confused at all, just as I like to think that Jesus is the true master gardener, as he transplants people from one garden to the next.  After all, give and take is a way of life in the gardening world.