Growing with gratitude for life's challenges
“We only test the front line workers.” This from Public Health. My daughter has been sick for days with cough. Via video chat, her family doctor says she likely has COVID-19. She prescribed inhalers and cough medicine. It didn’t really help. So she called the doctor again. “I can’t see you in my office if […]
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An orange flash dipped in front of the truck, with no time to veer. We arrived at our destination to find a Baltimore oriole embedded in the front grill. I was heartbroken. At any other time, the appearance of an oriole would be auspicious. Usually showing up in pairs, these birds arrive in summer and […]
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Fear is insidious; it creeps into the psyche and buries itself deep without any conscious effort. It manifests in anxiety, stalls progress, and threatens to define its host. Today, I did something I haven’t done in well over four years; I went for a walk in the woods, unattended. I took my camera and my […]
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“I sat in the waiting room, naked from the waist up save for the hospital green awkwardly tied in front. This was a call back: not the kind you pray for after an audition. “In nine out of ten times, it’s nothing,” the voice had said over the phone. She added they wanted to do […]
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“Don’t you get scared?” Yes and no, I think. Many things frighten me: a decline in my health, the loss of my spouse, something happening to one of my family members while I’m so far away from home. This is not what my mother is referring to, though. At 90, her view of the States […]
Read More“What’s the worst that can happen?” Mom likes to muse. “If you can handle that, you can handle anything.” When a marriage of seventeen years fell apart, Mom said: “There is always Welfare.” I didn’t want to accept the ‘worst’ for my life, and so I fought to stay afloat, and rather than succumb to […]
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Originally posted on One Woman's Quest:
? I fear illness. I grew up in a household where dis-ease was the norm. My mother had her first dance with death as a child, then suffered a broken back in her late thirties, followed by three bouts of cancer. In her elder years, she lives with…
Can’t remember the last time I had the luxury of a full night’s sleep – not blessed with an eight-hour bladder – and when I got up for my nightly trudge to the bathroom I noticed a light under the closed bedroom door. As I approached, the light went out and my heart stopped. My […]
Read More“Have nothing to eat or drink after midnight,” the woman told me on the phone. “They are going to put me out,” I tell my daughter, “I’ll need someone to drive me and be with me the rest of the day.” “It’s only a tooth, Mom!” says my eight-month-pregnant middle child. “I’m happy to stay […]
Read MorePreoccupation with my own woes blinded me to my husband’s suffering, which culminated in a heart attack on Saturday night. We are shell-shocked. “That’s what happens to caregivers,” a callous nurse commented. Am I supposed to feel guilty? Unable to either drive myself, or push my own wheelchair, I am reliant on the goodwill of […]
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One Woman's Quest II 