Latest posts
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50 Years
My parents celebrated their semicentennial anniversary last weekend. What a cause for celebration! All my siblings, and two of the spouses, flew down from their far-flung homes around the nation. Here we are (with no young children in sight!) enjoying a wonderful celebratory meal together. (Thanks, Dad!) If you’d like to read a little more about their…
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Evaluation
I’ve wanted to write about our initial transplant evaluation, but for the past few days, whenever I talked about it, I started crying. I guess I’d held on to a lot of hope for months, while sadness had stayed inside of me, not allowed to take form until after this specific date, at a highly anticipated meeting where…
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Art Night
It was a very long day…one of those days where nothing comes together as you’d hoped. Driving home tonight, Maki could tell I was tired and disappointed. “Art night?” he asked. “I have to do a bunch of other stuff. I haven’t really been home all day.” “I think we should just make some art. Do the other…
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Valentine’s Day Shenanigans
Our time with Vernon this Sunday was as special as any other. It was just the three of us, the family. Vernon was happy to see us, and chomping at the bit to get outside. We brought art supplies. Because after all, nothing says love like bringing out the art supplies when we sit around…
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Cupid
My wonderful friend Barbara Mitchner, who frequently sits with Vernon during dialysis, has been playing cupid this week. The other day, after her visit, she texted me a note to look in his bag for valentines. I pulled them out this morning, and was incredibly touched. She had brought large heart-shaped doilies and little red…
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Cruising
I find it interesting that whenever I stop to ‘work through’ some personal stuff and do it as honestly as I can, the next day will most likely be better. I saw some great breakthroughs today with Vernon (and Joe too) but they would just as likely have happened if I hadn’t taken on my anxiety yesterday. It…
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Kryptonite! (All That’s Hidden is Not Lost)
“Man is not worried by real problems so much as by his imagined anxieties about real problems” ―Epictetus The other day, I opened an envelope from Covered California, informing me that it was time to reinstate our family’s Medi Cal benefits. There was no accompanying forms, so I panicked (just a little bit), assuming I’d missed the…
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Joe in Hospital
When we visited Mesa Verde yesterday, Joe was glaringly absent. This was strange as he had been talking with Vernon for weeks about watching the Super Bowl together. Just before we tucked Vernon back into his room to watch the show alone, we got the news that Joe was in the hospital and had been…
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Memory
How much do we define ourselves by our memories? In order to be yourself, must you remember who you are? I enjoyed spending the last couple of weeks with an old friend I hadn’t seen in years. I felt like we were able to remind each other who we once were (at least through the other’s eyes) and…
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A Walk in the Park
The news of the swallow test hit me harder than I’d hoped. Though I’d tried not to get my expectations up too much, it had been a few weeks since I felt any real disappointment in Vernon’s journey. I hadn’t become too used to disappointment, or perhaps I wouldn’t have held up such hope for yesterday. It just…