2012-The Year of Yin and Yang

" Don't let the bastards get you down, Lisë!" I can still hear my father's words earlier this year.  He's right, of course, as he is so very often.

Those words fell upon my newly-numb ears. I, along with dozens of my colleagues, had just been told that we were out of work. Jobs that most of us had begun just the year before. Jobs we'd had every reason to believe would be given much more than a twelve month run. Ah, yin. The year had begun so very, well...yang! Too bad it wasn't the only 'yin' moment of the year. But as the (old) song goes, "Accentuate the Positive". So, that's what we do. Because we have to. Or, just watching the news may drag us down into a very deep mental well.

Here's the great part, 'yang' wins this annual story! Goodness and the milk of human kindness always does. Thanks to all of the dear friends and relatives who sent me fun, flavorful gifts and cards to cheer me up; 'mystery' money to help with gas costs; drinks bought, meals cooked, leftovers packed up and sent home with me. All done to help defray the high cost of being unemployed. And then there are strangers; people who sent words of encouragement through social media; shared with me their unexpired parking slips; granted me interviews and made me feel like my career thus far, actually mattered!  Thank you. Thank you to all of you! I can't wait to do something wonderful for each and every one of you in turn. And seriously, as another (old) song goes, "How lucky can one guy be, like a fella' once said, ain't that a kick in the head?"Ain't it , indeed?

 Time now to turn the page. Look forward, not back. And never, ever let the bastards get us down again. Now, doesn't that feel good? Happy New Yang Year to you!

The Music of Her Life.....

This has been the hardest week of my life.

As I work furiously to assemble WWII era songs onto an ipod for my mother, I wonder if I will even make it there on time. 'There' being the hospital where she has existed since September 2010. I wonder if she will even be able to hear them IF I make it there on time. I wonder why I am doing this now when I have had months, weeks and certainly the past several days to do so. The reality of the situation may be just too real now.

It's possible that I don't want to watch her leave this life. The years spent handling her many errands, her desperate and immediate needs and demands, and her numerous doctor and clinic visits wore me out. Nothing was ever right or was ever enough. It just began to make me numb. But, I never stopped loving her. I never stopped hoping that the next time I saw her that we would have an overall positive encounter. She can't speak now, so it's up to me to make this a final positive encounter. As the POA, it is up to me to make the call for hospice and all my siblings are not in agreement about the next inevitable steps. It is ripping my family apart.

I would like to help her leave this life listening to the songs of her youth, her glory days. They are the songs that defined the 'greatest generation'. The generation of so many immigrants who defended our freedom in so many of the most ultimate ways. The generation who may have given us too much because so many of them had grown up with so little due to the Great Depression.

So, I scramble to figure out how to help her exit this world, I realize that writing this blog just made it easier for me to deal with her passing.

Thank you for listening.

Family, Friends and all things important....

I bought a bunch of flowers today. They weren't anything special or exotic. Just a simple bunch of pink tulips. Grocery store flowers. Pretty, but not captivating. Not a 'must-have' item. They weren't on the grocery list. They certainly were not in the budget. It felt a little bit frivolous and unnecessary and like a real waste of money. But, I bought them anyway without even really being sure why.

On the short drive home, I thought about the past two years, twelve months,twelve days, and most of all, twelve hours. A meeting with the admins at the nursing home where my very physically frail but mentally alert mother is currently living, a phone conversation about a very attractive but risky job opportunity and an email from a close childhood friend who had just heard the word one fears the most-cancer.

I slowly unpacked, put away the groceries and arranged the flowers in a vase. One by one, I assigned a blessing or a prayer to each of the twelve (!) flowers in the arrangement. Some were sad, some bittersweet but all tinged with love. A moment in time that I would not have enjoyed had I not 'splurged' on the purchase.

Just one small bunch of flowers and a head and heart full of thoughts, hopes and prayers. Not a bad bargain for $5.99 plus tax.