Forever 32

It is this man's birthday today.

I have loved my big brother a lifetime

and missed him for 34 years.

I also still love denim.

Dear Daddy...

October 3rd is my dad's Deathday. October is full of anniversaries, his death, my dead brother's birthday, my own. I was thinking how I could easily get drawn down into at least melancholy, at worst depression. Its been 13 years but I've feeling so close to dad as I finish up mother's things following her death in April. I have been so quiet. Living slowly and with purpose. There has been loneliness too.

Its pretty easy to live a life of gratitude when there are good days. It is easy to be grateful for beauty but what about pain? Ugliness?  Death? It is far more challenging to, say, look at the beaten, bloody body on the cross and feel grateful. Its easier to feel shame. Recently, God told me pretty clearly 'gratitude transforms pain into joy.'

Looking directly at today I am thinking about my father's influence in my life and wanted to say a few things about daddy and feel grateful...

He adored me. I was his beloved. I knew it, everyone knew it and I loved it. Everyone should be adored by someone and he was mine. The last day I saw him, 2 days before he died, he patted me sweetly on the shoulder, cooed to me and called me "sisto." God how grateful I am for that.

He was a feminist. He taught me I could do anything. He worked for the city of Oklahoma City in the 1960s as department head over Personnel Services under Mayor Patience Latting. He loved Patience Latting. She was the first female American mayor of a city greater than 250,000. Dad spoke so highly of her, always calling her by her full name. I grew up with Patience Latting as an icon in our home. I am deeply grateful for that. Turns out she was at the same facility mother lived. I was too intimidated to introduce myself to her.

I grew up going to flea markets with dad. The old school grungy, dusty kind. He had a booth of mostly military related items. I spent Saturdays roaming trash and treasures while he maned his stall. One day I saw this book in his booth, I was about 14, I guess, The Influence of Women and Its Cure from 1936 by John Erskine. Its filled with suggestions about how to keep women and their ideas from spreading around. Dad said he figured a feminist would come by and get all over that book. I told him "one just did," snatching it up.

I am so grateful my father was a feminist. Some of you may have to look that word up. Let me tell you, it changed everything.

He told me I had a good brain. There were no limits on my brain. He told me to look around in class and know I would make the A if anybody could. I do believe in my ability to think and learn. I had such crappy self esteem otherwise but my belief in my brain was the great grappling hook that kept me alive and kept me going.

I am so grateful he gave in confidence in my intelligence. That is a profound thing as the younger sibling of a brother with such severe disabily from retardation.

I am a Sooner. I was raised on Sooner football. There was Jesus and Barry Switzer and some days not in that order. I am a second generation Sooner, we have 5 OU degrees between the two of us.

Thank you for OU, dad. I still love college. And the Sooners...

Daddy gave me my first Nikon when I turned 16. It was a very expensive Nikon F2 SB he bought second hand from a local family owned camera shop. I remember my photography teacher being miffed about this great camera in my hands. I don't know how dad knew but he made sure I had the tool that became a life long passion. The Nikon I use now came from the same shop, the same Epperson's from which I bought my daughters first Nikon last Christmas.

I am so grateful dad helped me find photography early in life.

It may have been the dead birds I collected, but he knew I needed to study science. He started early on telling me to major in a hard (not soft) science and to complete my terminal degree before I got married. I did get my BS in Zoology and MS in Microbiology and another from the Physician Assistant program. Part of the failure of my first marriage is quitting my PhD program ABD (all but dissertation). Shoulda' listened.

Thank you dad for recognizing the biologist in me. I have such a passion for it.

Dad left work for the city and became a college professor which was his profession the majority of the time I grew up. When I became an adjunct professor of biology he sent me a card that said Bravo! and Congratulations! and he wrote inside "on the occasion of your first faculty position."

Thank you for paving the way to academia and teaching. It is one of the constants in my life.

Dad knew me so well. He pointed my in my own direction. Thank you daddy, I am so grateful for that. I miss you so much.

First They Are Sour...

I really do not want to seem too needy regarding this care-giving-for-my-mother job. But I am needy and this is my journal and I will cry if I want to. I have been realizing some very definite stages occurring and it isn't all bad. {Images from Scottsdale, 2003}

Mother was discharged from the hospital on December 24, 2009 and my husband and I brought her here. I really had no time to prepare for her to stay. I didn't realize she would even survive her hospitaliztion. We did, however, anticipate that one of our mothers may need to live with us when we built this house 3 years ago. We have a guest bedroom with widened doorways. The bathroom walls are reinforced for the possible addition of grab bars and such. I am a Physican Associate and worked in a rehabilitation facility for 10 years, so I did see assistive equipment as a possiblity. In fact, working in rehab I saw all kinds of family situations that were inspiring and horrifying. Both of those words describe my own family situation.

So we are on the highway in a blizzard with my very frail 83 year old mother. No one knows what tomorrow holds but that was a moment bloated with the unknown. This whole thing has been a confrontation with the unknown. Oh and Miss Planner has issues with the unknown. I mean I have a plan for everything, even prision.

Seriously. I have a plan for prison. Another post...

I wanted to bring mother home and care for her. I was happy to do it and I still am. But while doing so I was and am overwhelmed with emotions. My first real phase was resistance and resentment. I meet most challenges with resistance and usually resentment. I am a planner (see above) and not at all spontaneous. These are character flaws and trust me I actively work on them. But that doesn't make them just go away. Like arm flab. You do all you can but there it is.

I resisted the full time care-giving because it interupted my life. I have a child living with me still. Said child had just turned 16 and all that implies. It was already a whole thing dealing with that.  Also, I was going to start teaching again, a class I had not taught for 5 years so I had to completely start my prep from scratch. I mean no Power Point used last time. Its a lot.

Also, it is lots of work to care give. And I hadn't slept much in the emotionally and physcially exhausting week of mother's hospitalization. So resistance...

Also resentment. A pity party by put-upon poor Robin. I mean why did mother not move out of her house and into assisted living already? I had been discussing it with her for a longtime. Her house was sitting over there. I know she would not return to it. I knew it would be my job to empty it and also take care of her and my family and my job. What about me? Who would help me? My husband is phenomenol and wants to help me, no, not even help me, but shoulder this with me. He thinks of mother as OUR mother and WE take care of OUR mother. The thing is, I do have a sibiling who lives nearby. We don't see her much. I cannot count on her. In fact she brings far more drama than help. And I resent it.

Some abandonment issues stirred. Deep, dark and yucky. But that really is all fine. I need to process these feelings. And that never happens when you feel good and have time, right? You are confronted with the demons when it is dark.

After a pricky month, mother stabilized and so did I. Mostly. She is very ill but not getting rapidly worse and she is ambulatory which is HUGE.

Fortunately I found myself starting to emerge. Acceptance was nigh. How much more pleasant for everyone I live with.

That lasted a couple of weeks. Then I got sick. What a big set back. When your reserve is low it takes so long to bounce back. Then my cousin, mother's nephew, died. That was very emotional. Also there was drama surrounding my sibling, still, again, of course. Energy sucking again. Two steps forward and one step back.

Now, oh wonderful now, I am a bit beyond acceptance and in some sort of loving place. I look at mother and think she is so darling. She is so cute to me. Not pathetic. Not sad to me. I just feel very loving toward her. Sitting next to her and watching a tv show is so simple. I see how lovely it is.

I am seeing the beauty in the ugly right now. March is here. The weather is warming. Tender shoots are emerging. And so am I. I am depressed but that shell is cracking. Fresh air is blowing in. Oh thank you, God, for it. I need the strength love brings and that depression takes. I need that strength to deal with the next phase.

Thank you for reading this. I really am receiving so much love. There is still more gnashing of teeth than pink fluffy clouds. But they do float by...

Girlfriends Are Essential

Lots of blogs I follow...wait, I follow lots of blogs. I am a collector, ney, hoarder of blogs. I often compulsively collect things. The nice thing about collecting blogs is they are free and take up little space. Except from an anxiety standpoint. I have actually had to start treating my blog list like I treat my closet. One in. one out. At a certain point many years ago I felt like my closet was choking me. It had become that big Venus fly trap, Audrey II, in the musical. So I went through all the clothes with a machete so to speak and pruned. Honestly, this takes a few times to get it all clean. There are unnatural attachments to clothes. I also have a cure for that. If there is something in your closet that you just can't get rid of, but also do not wear, try this: put it on and wear it. Trust me, a day at work in a sweater with shoulder pads and beading will make it quite it easy to part with that garment.

This was not the point of this post initially, but I will get around to the point. Or not. I am under a great amount of stress and have a hard time staying on topic.

The rule for my closet is 'one in one out' and you probably can understand it immediately. For each new garment entering, one garment must leave my closet. They do not have to be equal, two new sweaters may push out a purse and a pair of sandals. It helps maintain a constant number of garments. I really like to challenge myself to 'one in, two out' but frankly that second item may just be a pair of socks or a tank top. Don't forget about underwear. Please realize it is time to let go of the pair of period panties with hippos on them.

So I am a blog collector and when that list of blogs I follow hit 100, I instigated the 'one in one, out rule.' It is really hard to cut a blog. What if they only have 8 followers? They will know I have abandoned them. Number of followers is a bit like a grade, right? It is important to know if your grade is an F. Either step it up or drop out. Currently with 25 Blogspot followers I have a grade of D. I feel like I have stepped it up, and maybe I am also a D blogger. I still get so much out of this blog. I just hope my followers don't cut me. I also hope I don't cut myself.

So I started this post by saying 'lots of blogs I follow' then went on about following. That really is my point. I am a follower here on the internet. I have a whole life here. Blog friends. I also have some real friends. Quite a few. I do not however, collect real friends. I develop real friends. Real friendships are an entity like a marriage and almost all that implies. Commitment, intimacy, gifts, surprises, cards, looks, dirty looks, rolling eyeballs, snarky comebacks, fights, rage, tears, disappointments, ad nausem.

I have always felt friendships are so important. Really I have always put friendships first in my life. I am extremely loyal, to a fault, as they say. I was always far more hurt at a break up with a friend than with a boyfriend.

No idea why I developed this. I think as a little kid I realized I couldn't really count on siblings so I turned with a near obsession to my friends.

All that compulsion and obsession has really paid off. I have unbelievable, really, epic friendships. I also have some neofriendships here in Blogville that are amazing, an otherwise over used word that fits here well.

My original sentence was about many of the blogs I follow...well, many of the blogs I follow are defining a word or phrase for the year. I have been thinking about this and realized with my aforementioned low slope learning curve, I need far more than a year. I worked on forgiveness and shame for, uh, decades, but quite intensely for about four years.

I will not name a word for the year but for the horizon, the new frontier. I have rip roaring rage. Do I really want to chose RAGE as my word? I don't have to, it chooses me. It explodes out and holds me over the edge of a cliff. It erupts and lava floes form burning and scalding loved ones in their wake.

What I realize is, of course, rage is just a symptom. It is a childish, impulsive, reaction to a deep fear. That fear is probably, most of the time, the fear of feeling alone. Ergo my intense need for deep connections with people. Oh look, I am human.



I love my time alone. I need loads of it. But feeling alone is different. I have felt alone my whole life. Alone. Also, I have always felt loved. Paradox? Hmmmmmm. It is not enough to be loved. For me is about bonding. I have a bonding issue. I never realized that until this recent stress of my mother's illness, frailty and end of her life, which I am watching in my own home.

However, I really do not feel alone. For the first time.

So having close friendships and a wonderfully loyal husband wasn't enough. I needed to open myself a little further and receive that love and connection. Wanting it, and having it is not the same thing as receiving it.

So there. My new thing, my defining word, the new frontier is...receive. I will honor not just friendships, but the essential, powerful, quality of friendships in 2010 like never before.

Girlfriends are essential.

Noting the Presents

So, my birthday was last week and I wanted to share three fabulous gifts I received. I don't want to talk about the cake my husband ordered for me. Not yet. I haven't sewn nor knitted enough to be able to talk about it. I will throw one word out there...orange. Okay, that is enough.

My dear friend Penny sent a bouquet of flowers. She sent it early in the week which is so wise, so I could enjoy them all week.

Jemellia's gift is so pretty I have to start with the exterior and reveal in layers.

It is delicious when someone knows you so well.

Earrings from Elizabeth Williams. I had just finished complimenting Jemellia on her earrings which were EliWill of course.

And a coveted tote from One Hundred Wishes.

Without a doubt one of the best gifts I have ever received was this tribute in Angela's blog. I do not know what to say about it. I love it and am overwhelmed by it and it rendered me speechless regarding it for a whole day. That speaks volumes.

I feel the love.