Light, Love, Hope

Spring is here, finally, after Winter seemed to drag on forever!  With Spring comes a renewed love for life and nature.  Pretty shades of green begins to emerge on plants that were dormant during the cold months.  New buds appear on flowers, and we pray that there’s no “cold snap” before Easter that will kill the new life that has been breathed into these flowering plants.

It’s a time for new beginnings!

In this past month since I’ve written, my mom has definitely had a new beginning.  She had severe back pain for over a year and a half due to pinched nerves in her spine.  Two weeks after surgery, she was finally released from the hospital after several different complications that occurred.  The surgery on her back was a success, and she was not in any pain with that, thankfully.  It was other matters that prolonged her hospital stay.  She ended up going home with physical therapy on order and a variety of other things to deal with.  After using the walker for a good while, she then progressed to the point where she only needed a cane.  Imagine my delight when my parents drove up to my house last Saturday.  This was the first time she felt like going any where after six weeks.  The door sprung open, and my mother proceeded to get out of the vehicle, walk to the edge of the steps and then start climbing the nine steps in order to make it inside of my house.  It did my heart so much good to see her getting around like that!

There has been a new beginning taking place in my life as well.  We moved!  After 25 years of living in the same place, we decided it was time for a change.  My husband actually called it a “fresh start” and a “new beginning” for us.  A lot of people wait until they retire to go on trips or buy that vacation house.  Sadly, too many fall ill right after retirement and are not able to enjoy the fruits of their labor after all of those years of working.  So, we decided to go for it now and enjoy life.  You can’t take it with you, that’s for sure, so you might as well enjoy while you’re alive.

We moved on the complete opposite side of town and have more acreage now for us to ride our horses on!  There’s a pond for us to enjoy fishing in as a family, and we will still be able to enjoy Summertime in our pool.  While we didn’t “need” this house or any of the extras that came with it, it was something we felt we wanted to do as a family.  My youngest daughter fell in love with the house when she first saw it, and for a month after, she asked every single day, “Have you heard anything on the house?”  She was so anxious to finally move in that when we did, she would not leave the house for the entire first weekend we were there!  She honestly LOVES the new house, and honestly, I am quite fond of it myself!  It’s more than I could have ever imagined.  After all of the years of my husband being so humble and not wanting to be too “showy,” we are now enjoying the hard work both of us have put in for all of these years.

My oldest daughter is now living in my old house.  It was full of so many memories of my children growing up that it was hard to even think of selling it!  Every corner had a special memory!  I’ll never forget the time my oldest daughter was in her little walker.  She was so cute and looked as innocent as ever, until she looked right at me and heard me say, “No … don’t you do that …” and disregarded everything I just said as she snatched the peace lily leaves and ran down the hall as fast as she could in that walker!  She left a trail of dirt behind her as she had a death grip on that peace lily.  I can laugh about it now!  But it’s moments like those that are forever etched in my memory.  How could I possibly sell that house?  It’s the house that both of my babies grew up in.  It was also the same home that my niece knew throughout her childhood when I was allowed to have her visit with us.  I rocked all three babies in my wooden rocking chair in the living room as I patted their little diapered bottoms while singing “Jesus Loves Me.”   My oldest daughter teases me now that my niece is expecting a baby of her own.  My daughter mimics me rocking and humming or either singing my special tune that I sang with all three of them.

Memories!!

I could not let them go.  So the house had to stay, and my heart is so full knowing that my daughter will live in this house where she will make memories of her very own there.  (She and her boyfriend are talking about future plans to marry, and my heart leaps and does flips over this!)  And if she ever tires of calling this “home,” then my youngest daughter has already said she wishes to live there one day, too.  How wonderful to know that this house full of memories will remain in our family for years and years to come!

My niece will be 33 weeks pregnant this weekend, and we’re having a baby shower for her!  Little Oliver will be here in just a few short weeks.  I’ll actually be surprised if she goes to her due date of May 12th.  We’re excited, yet nervous, but we’re expecting great things.  God is so good … and we know that no matter what we will face with this special needs child, HE will see us through it all!

Yes, new beginnings … for everyone!

I had every intention of joining in the 28 day writing challenge that started February 1st.  As my blogger friends geared up for this, life got in the way on my end.  Fourteen days have gone by, and we wonder how that is even possible.  We were just celebrating New Years, then we blinked and have fast forwarded to Valentine’s Day!

Life has a way of doing that, you know.

I have the option of starting right now – today – with this writing challenge.  Some would think it’s no use since we’re already halfway through the month.  But that is the beauty of things.  You get to choose when you start, and you know what?  You can always begin again if you fall behind.

The point is that you always have a choice in the matter.  Yes, there are things outside of your control … but take the items you can do something about and pour your energy into them.

You can do the same with your relationships.  Whether a romantic interest or a friendship … even with family members … you can begin again with them at any moment.  Disagreements happen from time to time.  If you live long enough, each and every one will encounter not so happy moments with people they love.  Girlfriends and boyfriends have spats, just like people that have been married for 53 years.  Families have little squabbles, too.  I don’t know of a single perfect family.  Do you?  And friendships … there can be misunderstandings there, too, or falling outs that happen.  It’s so sad when that does happen, especially if you’ve been friends for many years.  You lose touch, life just gets busy or in the way, and the next thing you know, you’ve lost that special friend you were so close to for all of those years.

Choose to begin again, if they are willing.

That has just recently happened in my life.

It’s no secret that marriage is hard.  It’s two individual people meshing their lives together.  It can get sticky at times with their own strong wills coming forth, and discontent develops at the other’s poor choices.  Other times, it’s smooth sailing.  We shouldn’t fool ourselves into believing that it will always be like walking along in the rose garden.  Oh no, you’re bound to get snagged by the thorns at some point.

The same thing happens with friendships.  Feelings get hurt, one feels they care more than the other or are putting more energy into the friendship, and pretty soon they stop trying.  What they don’t realize is that maybe the other party has something going on that they just haven’t been able to bring themselves to talk about just yet.  And now, they won’t because the one they once confided in has distanced themselves.

Often times, it is a misconception that occurs.  One “thinks” so it must “be” …

WRONG!

And a person’s perception is their reality.

That was a hard one to grasp for me.  Just because someone perceives me as a snotty Missy Goody Two Shoes does not make it so.  I don’t stick my nose in the air or look down at any one.  Imagine my surprise when people have spoken such words about me.  But it was all in their perception of me, which I have no control over.  When they got to know me, they realized how wrong they truly were.

Has that ever happened to you?  I know it has with me.

The shy, quiet type … maybe they aren’t insecure.  Maybe they just prefer to listen because they learn so much more than someone yapping all day long.  But they are often judged harshly or viewed in a negative manner.  Truth be told, they are probably smarter than all of us put together!

I, for one, am thankful for new beginnings.  And the one that honestly shouldn’t still be here after EVERY thing that has happened in life … is right here rooting for me, just as I am rooting for them.  They understand that there is no perfect person on the face of the earth.  If one strives to do better, why not put your best foot forward as well?

And that’s what we’ve done.

Spring time will soon be here, with daylight savings among us once more.  What a PERFECT time to breathe new life into your relationships and start over … take it one day at a time … and choose to begin again.

What a hard week this has been for my family.  My mother is still in the hospital a week later after back surgery due to complications.  She scared us completely when she wouldn’t wake up the day after surgery, and they referred to her as “unresponsive.”  Thankfully, it was just the combination of her age, the anesthesia and the pain medicine they were giving her that caused this reaction, according to the nurse and doctor.  What’s been so great about all of this is that when she did wake up, she indicated she was not in pain from the actual surgery.  They went in and put rods and pins in her back to relieve the pressure on nerves that were causing her extreme pain for a year and a half.  The doctor told her that if she did not have the surgery, she would end up in a wheelchair.  She felt she had no choice but to go through with the surgery then.  In light of our fear and her hesitation to begin with when surgery was mentioned, it is wonderful that she has not experienced any pain from the actual surgery itself.  With her being able to tell the staff that on Wednesday, they weaned her off of the pain medicine and were just giving her Tylenol if needed.

Sadly, complications seemed to come at us completely blindsiding us completely.  We did not expect any problems, as the doctor was talking about her going home the day after surgery.  However, a week later, my mom is still in the hospital.  They did, thankfully, stepped her down from ICU and into a regular room Saturday evening when I was sitting with her.  This would allow my parents a little more privacy, and, hopefully, the ability to rest more while in the hospital.

If they could just get my mom’s fever to go away, but it is still bouncing around as they try to determine what else is causing it.  They knew about the pneumonia, despite having the pneumonia shot, but now they are treating her with two different antibiotics as they try to determine what else is causing the fever.

We’ve relieved my dad as much as possible over the weekend, but he does not wish to have her unattended for very long while in the hospital.  He is very protective of her, but I have tried to explain, although he’s worn out and just plain tired, that she is in the best place at the moment.  She can’t go home with an elevated heart rate, blood pressure, and blood sugar numbers.  Honestly, with the fever, she needs to be there until it is completely gone and she’s healed from whatever it is that is causing the problem.  Realistically, we know this.  But when someone has been away from their home for a week, it gets old fast.  My strong willed mother has even tried to get up in the middle of the night to go home.  There have been a few times she has dreamed she was at home making coffee, but alas, in the hospital she sits until the complications go away completely.

As far as the actual surgery, they have gotten my mom up and moving around with a walker.  She was able to walk the halls Sunday, so she’s proven how strong she is in all of this.  She has the will inside of her, whereas at the beginning, we were wondering if she was going to pull all of her strength together to beat this.  Her fear of moving around after the surgery had her where she would not do a whole lot on her own.  However, after the rehabilitation staff came around to present literature on their facility to my parents, my dad had to really talk to my mother to let her know that ultimately it was up to her to have the will to get herself moving after surgery.  The other option was the rehab facility, which none of us wanted since it was more like a nursing home.  After hearing this, my mother started doing more for herself, which was a great relief to us all.

Prayer is a wonderful thing, and we appreciate everyone that has taken the time to pray for my mom.  Please continue, as we want her restored to health and able to return home to watching her “shows” and drinking her caffeine free diet coke.