Well that was awkward Wednesday, Nov 4 2009

A few weeks ago I signed up for the “Aqua Action” class at the local YMCA. I haven’t been able to go for a variety of reasons, but finally made it there tonight. Since I had back surgery in June, I’m not cleared to lift weights, jog, or do any exercise much more strenuous than walking or stretching for now. I’ve also been working to lose weight (11 pounds so far!) and am ready to tone up. When I signed up for the class I figured I would be the youngest. Indeed! I was the only person in the class not getting Medicare and Social Security benefits. I paused for a moment and came very close to turning around and leaving, but I decided to be a good sport and suck it up. To make matters worse, the instructor was a 20-something guy. He and the other women had that young guy-senior adult mutual flirty-joking-around-thing going on. Ugh. The class itself was okay and would have possibly been fun with people my own age in the crowd. I tried to be friendly even though the whole time I was feeling like the most unathletic loser around.

Although the class was out of my comfort zone, that wasn’t the awkward part. Now we get to the dressing room. Obviously to participate in a water class one has to wear a bathing suit. Fortunately I had the forethought to get out of my work clothes, into my swimsuit, and then put on sweats before I went to the class. I changed in a totally private restroom at work. I go into the locker room and leave my bag of clothes and my coat, scarf, etc. in a locker. The locker room is filled with quite a lot of girls about 8-11 years old. I think they had just finished swimming lessons or swim team. They are all stripping down without a care in the world. At that age I would have NEVER, in a million years, changed clothes in front of someone else, much less have stripped down to my birthday suit. My own mother and sister never saw me anything other than fully clothed past the age of 8. It didn’t phase these kids. Whatever.

You have to go through the locker room and showers to get to the pool. I quickly went to the pool. After the class, I was faced with what I knew would be awkward…changing back into dry clothes. Guys do locker rooms. They snap each other with towels, shower in front of each other, and walk around without a stitch on. Chicks don’t do this. We find it weird. I don’t do this. I don’t do public nudity of any sort. Period. I got over my severe modesty of childhood, giving birth with an audience and breastfeeding for two years tend to do that to a woman, but I still don’t get into my altogether in front of complete strangers. Changing clothes and keeping on my…umm “foundation garments” is no biggie. That doesn’t phase me. Butt nekkidness is a whole different story. So I am cold and wearing a wet bathing suit and dog-gone-it, there are quite a few people in the women’s locker room. As I am contemplating how best to get my bathing suit off and my dry clothes on with the minimum amount of skin exposure I am struck by a horrible realization. The locker that I nonchalantly threw my bag in and “staked my claim” is right by the door to get into the locker room. There is a wall blocking the locker room from view when the door is opened, but I am the first person you’ll see when you enter. It gets worse. About 5 feet to my left is another one of those elementary-aged girls and to my right is a full length mirror. This means that no matter which way I turn, this poor unsuspecting girl (and anyone else who enters from that direction) can see me in all my glory from EVERY angle. To further complicate matters, she is unashamedly staring at me. Not in a perverted way, but in a curious “how will my body change during puberty?” kind of way. Alarming and nerve-racking at any rate.

Since I figure she can and will see me no matter what I do, I turn away at a forty five degree angle. Have you ever noticed how difficult it is to put on a bra when you are freezing cold, being watched, wanting to do it quickly, and you are slightly damp? I thought so. Anyway, mission accomplished. Now I have to get out of the rest of my bathing while trying to hold a soaking wet towel around me and prevent total exposure. Stepping into my underwear while wet and balancing on one foot was even more difficult. It’s a miracle I didn’t slip and fall on the floor. Now that I have some clothes on my body I am not as traumatized. I get dressed the rest of the way, get on my shoes, and prepare to hightail it out of there, but not before I encounter most of my little exercise class buddies in all their glory. All I’ll say about that is that the ravages of gravity is a terrible thing.

I will not and cannot make eye contact with anyone and I am out of there.

Not so sure I can ever go back.

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This and That Sunday, Aug 30 2009

1. The boys start school on Tuesday. They will both be in new schools–junior high (7th grade) for Noah and senior high (10th grade) for Adam. We bought school supplies today and it was the first time in 10 years of buying school supplies that I didn’t have to buy crayons or glue sticks. That made me very sad and I almost cried in Target.

2. A friend at church told us that her friend’s family has a tradition that when the kids outgrow the parents they have to take the parent(s) out to dinner. Seeing as that I am 5′8″ish and Adam is now 6′1″ish I have decided that it is a wonderful tradition. As soon as Adam can scrape up a few bucks, he’s taking me out to dinner. Noah will probably be taking me out next summer.

3. We have had the windows open for the past couple of weeks. It has been a VERY cool summer in Wisconsin this year for some strange reason. I’ll bet we have only gotten above 80 degrees on 7-10 days this summer. Yesterday our high was 61. Tonight the low is expected to be 33 degrees. I don’t think we’ll sleep with the windows open tonight.

4. I am predicting a really hot weeklong Indian summer in October.

5. Since it has been cooler, Robert wore a sweater vest to church tonight. I think he looks really cute in his jeans with his Converse sneakers, white button down, sweater vest and a tie.

6. Yesterday we went back-to-school clothes shopping at Fox River Mall in Appleton. I have to go to stores like Hot Topic, Pacsun, and Aeropostale. I think I should get a gold medal for this. After we got their stuff and ate lunch I ditched them for 30 minutes so I could shop for ME in peace without hearing “Are you almost done?” “Do you have to try on that?” In the 30 minutes without them they called me twice. The first call was Noah asking if he could buy a back to school video game instead of clothes. Yes, he was serious. The second call was Adam. He said that he and Noah had walked through New York and Company (where 77.82% of my clothes come from) twice and couldn’t find me. I told him that was because I was in the fitting room.

7. Today I bought an Ann Taylor skirt at a consignment shop for $8.50. It probably retailed for $65.

8. I just ordered some Space Bags today. I am very excited about that and it kind of worries me.

9. I had the carpets cleaned about 4 months ago and you can’t even tell. I am forbidding any drinks other than water in the family room, excommunicating the dogs, and shaving the cats.

10. Adam gets braces tomorrow. I will have to write out a down payment check that is equal to what we’ve always put down for earnest money on a home. That’s no fun at all! As soon as Adam’s braces are paid for, Noah will be getting them, then Adam will be starting college. I figure we’ll be broke for the next 10 years, but then they’ll have flown the coop and be paying for themselves.

11. That is all for now. Good night!

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Getting Back in the Groove Tuesday, Aug 25 2009

I started back to work this week. The week before classes start is usually pretty laid back. We have a lot of meetings, but it’s kind of fun catching up with everyone and it’s nice to prepare for a fresh start. This semester is going to be pretty crazy though with a lot of changes in the clinic, our furlough days, and one of our co-workers just had major emergency surgery and won’t be back most of the semester, if at all this semester. We are scrambling to cover her three classes. I work with a great group of people and they all pitched in and covered for me when I was out. It’s just what we do. Here’s the kicker though…I may be helping to team teach a course in Speech and Hearing Science. For those of you (everyone?) who reads this blog, that may sound like no big deal. Here’s the thing though–most speech pathologists hate this course. It is very difficult and very dry. Basically it is a course in physics and acoustics and relates to machines like spectrographs and oscilloscopes. Speechies like to deal with people, not machines. It’s one of those senior level courses that everyone has to take because you have to understand all of the theory behind sound and speech production at its most basic level, but very few people enjoy it. I haven’t read a spectrogram since I was in grad school 19 years ago and now I’m going to help teach it? Yikes! It’s going to be an interesting semester.

I’m also exceptionally exhausted since going back to work. It’s a process getting used to early mornings and long days after 2 weeks of no schedule. Hopefully I’ll be back in the groove next week when the students return and the boys start school. I do love the feeling of new school supplies, new syllabi, and a fresh group of students. There’s a fun excitement to the year as the students moved back into the dorms and then return to the classroom. I’ve had fun buying Adam and Noah new backpacks, followed by folders, pens, and notebooks this weekend. Here’s hoping it’s a smooth year for all of us!

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Winding Up Summer Thursday, Aug 20 2009

After arguably the worst, most stressful, least restful summer of my life, I am enjoying the last (only?) real week of vacation just hanging around the house with my family. There’s not much going on and we are enjoying a few wonderful thunderstorms. We don’t get them in Wisconsin as often as we did in the south so Robert and I both kind of stop to enjoy them when we have them. We’ve also had a really bad drought this summer so the rain is welcome and needed. My house still hasn’t been spring or summer-cleaned because of all of the back drama. Maybe fall cleaning will happen. I was going to get the boys down into the basement and bark orders at them today as a means of getting the basement cleaned and organized, but I have had another little hitch with my back. I stood up on Sunday and felt a sharp pain in my lower back (area of the surgery and herniated disc) that quickly went away. My neurosurgeon told me that twinges of pain would happen during the 6-9 month recovery process, so no biggie. However, since Sunday I have had some intermittent nerve pain down my leg, left one as before. It’s not much pain at all; maybe a 1-2 on a pain scale, but since it is shooting stinging nerve pain that worsens when I reposition myself when sitting or when I sneeze or cough, I decided to call my surgeon. After the nurse relayed my message to the Physician’s Assistant they told me that they didn’t want to see me and that they wanted me to go straight to the physiatrist (physical medicine/pain mgmt doctor) for an evaluation. They transferred me to his office and the earliest they could get me in was September 1. I said that was fine. While I had the receptionist on the line I told her that the whole reason for my initial call to the surgeon was to ask if I should continue with walking and my physical therapy home program while I was having these pain twinges. She said she would talk to the physiatrist and call me back. I now have an appointment for this coming Monday, 8/24 and my question about exercising wasn’t answered. So…I have nixed the exercising and am trying to lie down as much as possible until my appointment on Monday. I wasn’t too worried, but both the surgeon’s and the doctor’s responses have me concerned enough to take it easy. Since I have spent a large part of the day lounging about (which is killing me because I am almost finished with a quilt and can’t work on it!!!) and it is no-TV month I am bored out of my mind. I have a huge stack of books to read thankfully, but they are all books about coping with family members with disabilities that I am reading for my counseling class and they are pretty heavy and depressing.

I start back to work in the office with lots of meetings on Monday. Students start back September 2 and Adam and Noah begin on September 1. We went to Adam’s registration yesterday and Noah has registration/orientation on Monday, followed by Adam’s orientation on Wednesday. Lots of new stuff with both of them going to new schools this year. The last week and a half of August will be spent taking Noah to get sealants on his teeth (check–done today), taking Adam to get his very first cavity filled, taking Adam to get his braces put on, taking Adam to get his eyes examined (went to get new contacts and found out he was due for an exam), and now my doctor’s appointment thrown into the mix. At some point we also have to buy school supplies and new school clothes. On the fun side, tomorrow I am getting all of my hair whacked off. I have been growing it for almost 2 years so that I could donate it. It is now long enough so I am cutting off the pony-tail tomorrow and getting my hair highlighted (auburn!) for the first time ever. I’ll post pics of the big event.

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And so it begins Saturday, Aug 15 2009

I’ve always wanted to write my one great piece of Southern literature that is both critically and publicly acclaimed. Just one. Think along the lines of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird or Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind. Lofty, idealistic aspiration? Absolutely! But the best things in life are and I’d rather try and fail than not try at all. So tomorrow begins my 100 Days of novel writing. I’ve done National Novel Writing Month once before, but it is too hardcore and November is a really busy month for me with Robert’s birthday, the ASHA Convention, and Thanksgiving. I’ll take the 100 Days approach instead and will document it on this blog. I already have the title, a basic premise and plot, and character names. Here’s the teaser: a generational novel that takes place on a plantation in Louisiana pre-Civil War and told from the perspective of a slave girl.

Tomorrow….I write.

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Noah-Momcation Friday, Aug 14 2009

Noah and I have spent the week together while Robert and Adam have been on a mission trip to Nicaragua. We have had a wonderful time together having fun adventures and just hanging out around the house. Saturday morning we saw Adam and Robert off to Nicaragua and then headed to Green Bay for Packer Family Night. This is an annual event at Lambeau in which there are games, food, festivities, and a scrimmage between the offensive and defensive lines. We got there at 2:30. EVERYONE was tailgating. Since it was just the two of us and we didn’t know about all of the tailgating scene for Family Day, we just walked around and watched random people play ladder golf and beanbag toss. Sad and lame for us, but next year we know better. The stadium finally opened at 4:30 and the stands at 5:30. We were so thankful to have an air-conditioned respite (the atrium) and a place to sit. Kick-off was set for 7:30, so when we had been at the ball field for about 5 hours, a huge lightning storm moved into town. We were evacuated from the stadium and into the concourses. We waited for 1.5 hours for the storm to blow over and I let Noah make the call as to when he wanted to leave. At 8:55 we left Lambeau Field. At 9:05 they officially canceled the event. Quite the bummer!! I hate football and I was even excited about it. We’ll try again next year with the whole family and prepared to tailgate.

On Wednesday Noah and I headed to Milwaukee. We were going to the Milwaukee Public Museum, but I took a wrong turn en route and we passed the zoo. Noah said he’d rather go to the zoo anyway, so we did. We had a good time looking at all of the animals and we did A LOT of walking. We both had blisters. Our favorite thing at the zoo is to create a running dialogue for the animals. Yes, we’re weird that way. Example: Puffed up penguin strutting back and forth: “What son? Were you talking to me? Were YOU talking to me?” Okay, you had to be there…I digress. After the zoo we checked into our hotel (a very nice down town Hilton for $65/night….thank you Priceline) and then drove to Miller Park. What an awesome park!! No worries of lightning storms here since the dome closes, but it was a beautiful warm evening anyway. Noah had nachos, but I had to have hotdog. It’s a rule. We watched an amazing and exciting baseball game, even if the Brewers did lose (6-5) to the Padres. The crowd was standing up for the whole bottom half of the 9th—very fun! I actually had more fun watching Noah watch the game. Baseball is his favorite sport, he knows all the stats and players, and gave me quite an education. He was getting into the cheers, the organ music, the whole thing. After the game he wanted to watch ESPN for awhile at the hotel to see if any of the plays made it on the Top 10. He slept until 9 the next morning—unheard of! We then drove to Madison and got a Papa John’s pizza, which we don’t have at home, and had a picnic at Bear Mound Park. Then we toured the state capitol and headed toward Devil’s Lake State Park. We got there, set up our tent, hiked for a bit and then ventured to town to eat. We ate at a little cafe on the town square and a live band was playing across the street. We then played 18 holed of mini-golf, but it started raining around hole 16 and we had not put the rainfly on the tent because there was 0% chance of rain predicted. It was a short, light shower, but we went to camp and put the rainfly on anyway. We then made a campfire after a few attempts and Noah saying, “Ummm Mom, maybe we should get someone to help us” and me thinking, “I will make fire!” I was finally successful and so we roasted marshmallows and ate smores. We had a back up bag of Cheetos in case of rain. Noah fell asleep pretty quickly. I was not so lucky. We literally picked the hottest day of the year to camp. It’s usually in the 50s-60s at night in the summer and I had been worried about being cold. No worries! We both slept in our shorts with no covers and were sweating. It may have made it to the low 70s by early morning. We did have rain during the night also, so it was pretty humid. There were train tracks going through the campground…and trains…at 11 pm and 3:30 am. Lovely. I think I finally drifted off at about 4:30 am. When we got up this morning, we had camp disassembled and packed into the car in 20 minutes. When we got home I took the best shower of my life.

Fun time with my baby boy!

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Comfort Food Tuesday, Jan 20 2009

I have been cooking a lot during my winter break. Cold weather, extra time, holidays, family at home, fire in the fireplace—they all just lend themselves to food. Hearty, flavorful food. I have baked all kinds of cookies and breads. I have made sauces and casseroles. And I have made soups. Robert and I love soups. Adam and Noah, not so much, However, when it is freezing cold and snowing outside there is no better meal than a rich soup and a crusty loaf of bread. During the Wisconsin winter I make homemade soup every Thursday and maybe more. It’s definitely at least a once a week meal around here. This week we are having it three times.

Saturday I tried making my mom’s beef vegetable soup. I had tried it twice before and it was never quite right. The third time was the charm. Her recipe has no measurements. It’s just one of those “add enough liquid to cover” and “put as much of this as you like” in it sort of recipes. So I made it. I didn’t buy canned or frozen veggies. That would have been easy and convenient, but to me (esp. when I have the time) the process of cooking is as important as the end result. I cut up carrots and chopped broccoli. I sauteed the beef and then made a sort of roux from the drippings. I pureed onions (because we like the flavor but not the texture) and I snapped beans. Every single thing that went in that pot passed through my hands. It was very therapeutic. I told Robert that if that attempt had been yet another veggie soup failure that it certainly wasn’t from a lack of love.

Tonight I had my third attempt at making gumbo. Again, I have tried to make chicken and sausage gumbo from scratch twice before and it has always tasted watery and bland. Gumbo should be rich, thick, and savory. My friend, Sharon, who was born and raised in Indiana and has now lived in Baton Rouge for a long time makes a great gumbo. I finally got her recipe because I thought that only a Louisiana transplant could teach a Louisiana transplant how to make gumbo. The Cajun aborigines just assume that you know things and skip steps of instruction I think. I have now been making gumbo for about 8 hours.

It started with a large raw bird carcass. I do boneless chicken breasts. I don’t do meat with skin or bones. Ick! But this time I did. I bought a turkey breast and baked it at high heat for an hour along with some veggies. Then I put that bird and the veggies in water and simmered for 5 hours to make a rich broth. Yeah. No canned broth or bouillon cubes. I made hardcore stock from scratch for the first time ever. I chopped up the trinity that every good Cajun knows–bell pepper, onion, and celery. I sauteed my veggies in a roux, chopped up sausage, shredded the cooked turkey with my bare hands, and added the broth. It’s still simmering, but I think I have a decent gumbo for the first time. It’s definitely not as good as Sharon’s gumbo, but I think it’s a good enough start that I am willing to try again. It took longer than I thought and it will be dinner tomorrow night instead of tonight, but again it was the process. Chopping, shredding, stirring, touching, and knowing my food. Nothing coming out of cans or boxes. Just real, fresh, whole food. It just feels really right.

And it smell really great too!

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An Attitude of Platitudes Saturday, Jan 10 2009

My friends at Merriam-Webster define platitude as “a banal, trite, or stale remark,” which we all can probably identify with. However, the first definition is “the quality or state of being dull or insipid.” Having dealt with Emily’s funeral today, having been a friend and co-worker of many friends who have had fertility problems and/or multiple miscarriage, and having had personal hurts of my own I have experienced first-hand how trite and insipid platitudes are.

We all know them:
*It’s just God’s will.
*God will give you another baby.
*Only the good die young.
*Time heals all wounds.
*God needed a new angel.
*He/she is in no more pain.

All Most of those statements are true or contain some bit of truth. However, they contain no comfort. I truly believe that every single thing that happens may not necessarily be God’s will, but is something that God allowed to happen for some reason. A reason we may never know this side of heaven. However, if one of my children died, knowing that would not ease the fact that a real. living person who is my own flesh and blood is not an active, daily part of my life. I’ve had friends who have had miscarriages who have been told by other well-meaning friends, “Don’t worry. You’ll be able to have another baby.” Really? It doesn’t always work out that way. Some people—people who love and trust God and take Him at His word—are never able to become pregnant or bring a baby to term. So what did that platitude do? Bring false hope? Give the person something to say?

There’s an old saying that goes, “Better to keep your mouth closed and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.” I think in times of tragedy that it is good advice to remember. Robert and I were talking about this today and he mentioned having heard someone talk about the horrible tsunami in 2005. This minister said that even if he had the answer of why the tsunami happened and why if affected the people that it did that it wouldn’t matter. At that moment the pain is there–raw and provocative, and the whys are irrelevant. So we don’t need to feel compelled to offer explanations or even to try to utter words of comfort other than “I am so, so sorry” or “I’m here for you” or “I love you.” We don’t need to say “I know how much this hurts.” Even if we have had the exact same experience of a loss or tragedy none of us knows precisely what anyone else is feeling. The dynamics, emotions, and personalities are different even if the scenario is the same.

I teach a class called “Counseling for Speech-Language Pathologists.” It’s funny because I never had a class in counseling myself. I learned through the baptism by fire method and have made many, many mistakes along the way. Fortunately I can reflect on them and learn from them. I just taught this class for the second time this past semester. We watched a really great video about listening that was made by the National Stuttering Foundation. The guy in the video, David Luterman, is an audiologist and he talks about having to tell parents that their child is deaf. The news is uttered, the parents are numb (even if in their heart of heart they knew), and the tendency we have as professionals is to plow ahead and explain why, treatment options, etc. Dr. Luterman said that the reason we do this is that if we can make the task of giving bad news a cognitive task by vomiting forth information, then we don’t have to deal with the emotion that’s hanging in the room. I know this. This is no huge epiphany for me intellectually, but practically it has rocked my world. He also said that one parent chastised him for “making her cry.” He replied with, “No, I didn’t make you cry. I gave you permission to cry.” Lovely.

I did an exercise with my class that Dr. Luterman had done with his workshop participants. Let me preface it by saying that this is the quietest class I have ever had. So, for the one 50 minute class period we arranged the chairs in a circle so we could face each other with no desks or tables in between. Open. Vulnerable. I said that there were two topics that people could speak on: (1) What is the significance of your name? (2) What is going on in your life right now? There were also two rules:
1) No one would be called on to speak.
2) No one could respond verbally to anything that was uttered.
If we sat in silence for 45 minutes, then we would sit in silence for 45 minutes.

It took about 30 seconds of silence before someone had to talk. The silence was too uncomfortable. There would be lulls here and there. You’d hear chairs squeak, see legs being crossed and uncrossed, and hear some throat clearing. One by one most, but not all, of them spoke. And then about 30 minutes into the silence one of my students shared something very personal and very painful. She cried. (I won’t tell what she shared, because another rule that what was spoken in that room would not leave that room.) Silence gave her the means to open up. The class debriefed after the exercise. All of the students expressed discomfort at not being able to respond to the student who shared. They all wanted to hug or comfort her. Totally understandable, as I felt that way too. However…get this…she shared because she knew that we couldn’t respond. We were actually listening. We weren’t going to offer a platitude. We weren’t going to tell her it would all be okay. We weren’t going to judge her and tell her she shouldn’t feel that way. We were just going to listen. That was one of my more powerful learning moments. My class taught me a lot that day. I also think it was one of my more powerful teaching moments…and other than giving the initial instructions, I didn’t say a word. It was scary. What if they didn’t talk? What if we sat in silence for 45 minutes? What if everyone cried? I gave up my control and it was frightening. It was also powerful.

As if this post weren’t long enough already…
I remember fondly our farewell service at First Baptist, Carthage, MO. Different people came up and talked about Robert’s ministry there and the impact that it had on them. One of our friends shared a story that I didn’t even know about. He was at his wife’s bedside in the hospital. She had just had a D & C after a miscarriage. They were grieving. Phillip said that Robert went in, prayed with them, and hugged them and sobbed. That was Robert’s ministry in that moment…to cry with them when no words are appropriate to the palpable pain.

So that’s a lesson I’ve been learning in times of pain. Shut up. Listen. Be vulnerable. Give people permission to cry. Hurt with them. Cry with them. Shut up. Listen.

There are no words of comfort. Fortunately, there is a Comforter.

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Not-so-Happy New Year Thursday, Jan 1 2009

I’ve been in tears off and on through most of the day. We did stay up until midnight last night and welcome in the new year. We even had the requisite bottle of sparkling cider and said “Cheers!” at midnight. However, resolutions like reading more books, getting in better shape, or spending money more wisely this year seem silly…unimportant…and frankly, downright stupid.

My 8 1/2 year old neighbor lost her battle with cancer today shortly after noon.

Emily had acute myeloid leukemia which is a more rare and more difficult to treat type of leukemia than the kind that we typically hear of and that has a high cure rate. She had been in remission for 3 1/2 years when a mysterious lesion appeared on her leg this summer and her parents’ worst fears were confirmed. Emily’s family and mine weren’t best friends. More like friends in the making. We’ve only been neighbors less than a year and a half and a third of that they have been away in the hospital. However, they heartily welcomed us to the neighborhood and had a Welcome to Wisconsin bonfire for us with our other neighbors, The Rs. Also, all three of our families cooked out and spend July 4 together this year. We’ve talked back and forth in the yard, I bought Girl Scout cookies from Emily and her sister, and we settled into a nice neighborly existence.

I feel like I know her family so much better now. I have checked her Caring Bridge site daily. I have helped feed and pet her cats and clean the guinea pig cage while the family has spent long weeks in Madison for treatment. I helped clean the house from top to bottom–removing and cleaning light fixtures, scrubbing the bathroom with a toothbrush, cleaning windows, etc. preparing for Emily to come home after her cord blood transplant. Robert and I, along with some Tapestry members, put up a Christmas tree and decorated it with their ornaments, put lights and greenery on the outside, and tried to bring some Christmas cheer into the house for their other daughter. We felt like voyeurs and invaders rifling through their personal Christmas stuff that was so carefully labeled with each daughter’s name and the year she made or was given the ornament. However, Emily’s dad said that when he came home with big sister Megan that she was thrilled to see the decorations. Robert told him that we would un-decorate as well, but he said that wanted to keep them up until Emily came home. Emily’s not coming home.

Mrs. R and I went over today and cleaned out litter boxes and guinea pig cages, petted the cats, and took down the tree. While we were over at their house Emily passed away.

Things have been bad for the past few weeks, but it was yesterday, New Year’s Eve, that the R’s got a call that it was down to a matter of days. The R’s daughter, Maddie, is Emily’s best friend. They are the same age and love each other to death. It was a common noise of summer to hear the shrieks of those 2 girls and Em’s big sister as they played outside. Emily’s parents wanted Maddie to come and tell Emily goodbye. Maddie has been praying fervently for Emily daily and missing her terribly. She was terrified to go see her though, as you can well imagine. She was unsure what to do or say and Emily was so heavily medicated that she was unresponsive. Brave, sweet Maddie went and held Em’s hand, stroked her arm, and her bald head and talked to her of pets, funny things, and all of the stuff that 8 year old little girls care about. Mrs. R said that Maddie was so strong. The most amazing thing of all is that shy, sweet Maddie prayed out loud on her own for her best friend in a hospital room full of people. She prayed for freedom from pain and for a new strong body for Emily. Maddie left at peace and had great closure with her soulmate. When I saw Maddie today I told her that she was the bravest girl I knew. Without missing a beat she responded that Emily was the bravest. So, we decided that Maddie could be the second bravest.

Emily’s mom wrote on the Caring Bridge site that Emily had wanted to be a teacher when she grew up and that indeed she did end up teaching all those who knew her many important lessons about how to fight, when to find peace, and what is really important in life.

Emily is no longer in pain. She has a new, glorified body without a single cancer cell in it. She is finding complete and perfect rest now in the arms of her loving Savior. However, Emily’s family has a huge hole in their hearts. They have to come home to an empty house with one less family member. Emily’s sister is now an only child. They have a funeral to plan and bills to pay. They have jobs to return to and obligations to meet. They have to figure out what to do now and how to simply get out of bed and put one foot in front of the other each day. Please keep them all in your prayers.

And as for me, my New Year’s resolution is simple. Love deeply. Love well.

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Ahhh, the Power of Cheese Monday, Dec 1 2008

pic (of Jill) courtesy of Jim

I’m blogging like a mad woman because I’ve had a few days at home to rest and relax. Except for one trip to the grocery store and the craft store, I have been a homebody in sweats, lounging about on the sofa or recliner (or baking like a mad woman). It has been a glorious and much needed break! I didn’t do any big shopping on Friday because most of my shopping will be over the internet. However, I did need to get cheese so I ventured out.

I can’t remember is I have written about this before, so if I have then skip this post…or just consider it a subject that bears repeating. Since moving to Wisconsin we have become cheese fanatics. I’ve always like cheese, but now it is an obsession. I go once a month to the cheese factory that it is about 15 miles up the road to buy cheese for the month. Once you’ve tasted fresh, delicious Wisconsin cheese, the shredded junk that you buy at the grocery store just won’t do. Yes, we’ve become cheese snobs. So, on Black Friday Adam and I head out for the cheese factory. It was some rare teenaged son/mom time, so what if I had to bribe him with the promise of ice cream (which they also have at the cheese factory…it is the dairy state!).

We pull up to the Wisconsin Dairy State Cheese Factory and the parking lot is full and there are even cars parked on the highway. There were no doorbuster sales, no specials, but the cheese factory was a zoo nonetheless. It was shocking! I bought pepper jack, parmesan, provolone, Co-Jack (Colby Jack), smoked cheddar with bacon spread, and some butter. I still have some swiss, asiago, and some hot wing jack from my last trip. I also have plenty of mozzarella from my student who gave me a 5 pound bag. Her dad is a dairy farmer and was apparently thrilled when I asked if I could buy some cheese made from the milk of their cows that he gave me a whole huge bag. It is delicious! After surviving the mob scene in the cheese factory Adam and I got our ice cream…chocolate mint avalanche for him and chocolate raspberry truffle for me. I love eating ice cream on a cold day! I’ll head back to the cheese store before we head down south after Christmas so I can share the wealth. I hear cheese is a pretty popular Christmas gift this year.

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