Your Dad?

Your Sister?

Your Brother?

Your Priest?

Your Banker?

Your Boss?

My mom told me once that you can consider yourself a lucky person if you can count your TRUE friends on your right hand.  I’ll thought about this over the years.  Especially during the dark times…

It’s a pretty telling task.

Who can you call on?  Who will rescue you?  Who will let you rant?  Who will let you cry?  Who will save you?

and it’s not always the kind of help you thought it would be.

They call us now the “Sandwich” generation…smooshed inbetween our aging ailing parents and our adult children.  Everyone needs my help.  Everyone needs something different every day.  So where am I in all of this?  Where are my needs?  Where is my life?  These are the topics I have been struggling with… and losing that struggle.

Fast-forward to August of 2010.  Two months short of three years that I rented out my beautiful home and moved in with my parents in my old bedroom to help take care of my mother, I end up in emergency at the hospital.  Heart palpitations and pain.  After 24 hours of tests my Doctor tells me that my heart is fine.  I’m in good shape… but perhaps you have too much stress and anxiety in your life.  (insert huge laugh here)  She gives me a prescription for Xanex and tells me to see a therapist and deal better with my stress.

Great.

I’m not a pill popper.  I take the advice and see a therapist who specializes in caregiving for the elderly.  First visit she tells me to get the heck out of my parent’s house!  That there are ways to help without living there.            Really?  Wow.

On December 4th I moved in to my own little two bedroom apartment just one mile down the street from my parents.

All of sudden, I have my power back.  I can help and not have to be right there every minute.  Great sigh of relief and I’m getting my own life together. I’ve never lived alone.  I’ve never even thought “what would I like to do today?”

The other night while visiting my parents and helping, the caregiver said that her husband has passed away and that she ended up caring for her father until he died.  She said “I lost my 50s”.  These are the thoughts I was thinking for the past few years.  I didn’t want to lose my 50s.   Life is fleeting.

This is not a dress rehearsal.

When I was a little kid I collected rocks.  Any rock.  If it looked cool to me – I brought it home.  My folks still have a lot of those rocks in a pile in the front of the house.

When Leo made me watch ‘Cash & Treasures’ with him, I don’t know that he realized he was creating a monster.  I saw that chick digging for rocks & gemstones and thought “HEY… let’s do that!”  Immediately I started googling.  Leo bought books and tools and we planned our first rockhunting trip!

The first trip was planned for the day after Christmas to the Opal Hill Mine outside of Blythe.

You can’t tell but that little sign says “Opal Hill Mine”.

We spent the day in search of treasure.  Even Sparky helped…

The treasure we were searching for is Fire Agate.  Leo1 and Leo 2 and me….none of us had much of a clue about what we looking for – but we pounded away at the rock with the best of them.  Actually found some great fire agates!

That was our first rockhounding trip.

On Tuesday June 9th Karen passed on and left us all behind.  I miss her.

I met her at Ocean Stained Glass on March 4, 2008.  Turns out we were destined to meet – it was like meeting an old friend.  She was happy and sunshiney.  She laughed and she loved – and she was loved.       by many.

It’s bittersweet.  I met the love of my life thru Karen and Karen’s stained glass studio.  She encouraged me when I asked her if I should call this guy in class and ask him out!  I did.  She was happy and me?   Oh, I’m very happy.  He’s everything I dreamed of.

And now my friend is not around to share this blessing with us.   But you are not forgotten my friend because you live in our hearts.  We will think of you and toast to you and talk with you often.

Wherever you are Karen, I know you are laughing and smiling and making the people around you happy too!

Farewell my friend.

Karen & Leo, Harold & Ladonna

It was my first year at the Seal Beach Christmas parade.  Ocean Stained Glass – our alma mater – was holding a Holiday Open House.  Good food.  Good drinks.  Good friends.

What more can you ask for?

I think its just that mark of time, of a season passing us by, and it makes me sad.  It’s a rush of seasonal holidays that is probably the most stressful.

But I’m a winter baby… I love the cold and the snow.  I love being inside on a frosty day and just knowing you are safe and warm…and loved, makes it all good.

Clean out my folks bedroom. 

Clean out the crap under the bed and lower the bed to make it easier for them to get in & out of. 

Measure and install a grab bar in the bedroom. 

Install the Intercom system that I bought over a month ago but my Dad hasn’t done anything with yet!

Oh, then there is the yard.  The tree was removed yesterday but there is plenty to do before (and after) the new Fence is installed.  So gosh… I have like all day Sunday that I could work in the yard.

And the Airstream sits in the driveway.  and my bears remain undone.

Bob got sick.  He was alone.  I was there.  No questions, no decisions.  It’s odd that while I had never given any prior thought to being his caregiver when the situation arose, there was no decision – it was a natural instinct.

My family is very close.  We would never give any serious thought to placing someone in a home to spend the rest of their days…not without trying, not without being there at all times.

My caregiving role ended when Bob passed away.  He suffered only a short while from lung cancer.  I was devastated.  I miss him everyday.

My mother is sick.  She’s not alone, but my 80-year old father isn’t completely up to the task.  I am a Caregiver again.   So this is a role we play in life.  It comes and goes.  You step up or bow out I suppose.  and its not without anguish and stress…

 http://www.4woman.gov/FAQ/caregiver.htm