Journal

Sunday November 22

I have been reading again.  For a long while I could not concentrate enough to read.  I love Stephen King, (not so much latest, but his pre accident books), Dean Koontz and John Saul. 

I just finished Odd Hours by Dean Koontz.  He had a paragraph in the book that just reached out and touched my heart.

Odd Thomas was speaking to an old woman who had lost her husband of many many years.  She was trying to explain to him how she had gotten through her loss and become a better person and could not find the right words, so he said:  "Grief can destroy you-or focus you.  You can decide a relationship was all for nothing if it had to end in death, and you alone.  Or you can realize that every moment of it had more meaning than you dared to recognize at the time, so much meaning it scared you, so you just lived, just took for granted the love and laughter of each day, and didn't allow yourself to consider the sacredness of it.  But when it's over and you're alone, you begin to see it wasn't just a movie and a dinner together.  Not just watching sunsets together, not just scrubbing a floor or doing the dishes together or worrying over a high electric bill.  It was everything, it was the why of life, every event and precious moment of it.  The answer to the mystery of existence is the love you shared sometimes so imperfectly, and when the loss wakes you to the deeper beauty of it, to the sanctity of it, you can't get off your knees for a long time.  You're driven to your knees not by the weight of the loss but by gratitude for what preceeded the loss.  And the ache is always there, but one day not the emptiness, because to nurture the emptiness, to take solace in it, is to disrespect the gift of life".

Sometimes you find just what you need to find in the strangest of places.  I think I will have a good day today.

Wednesday Nov 18

Shirley is home again.  She sounds better than she did the last time, but the infection is still raging and I can't believe they keep sending her home before she is well enough.  The insurance company refuses to allow her to stay any longer. 

I told her another joke:

This old cowboy was sitting at the bar drinking a beer.  The customer sitting next to him asked him if he was a real cowboy and the old gentleman said, "well, I spend my days herding cows, breaking ponies and pulling calves, so I guess that makes me a cowboy".  The customer thanked him and left the bar and a woman sat down next to him.  She eventually asked him the same question and got the same response, then she said, "I spend my days thinking about naked women.  I wake up in the morning thinking about naked woman and go to bed at night thinking of naked women.  So I guess that makes me a lesbian".  Eventually she also left and a young man sat next to the cowboy.  He asked him if he was a real cowboy and the old man answered "Well I used to think I was but today I found out that I am a lesbian".

Sunday Nov 16

Thanks to all the prayers for her, Shirley sounded much better and seems to be in less pain.  They of course are giving her pain meds, but she still sounded better than the last time I spoke to her before she went to the hospital.  They say she is doing better today.  I want this to be over for her.  She has been through so much.  She lost Yolanda also and her son committed suicide two days before the atrocity of 9/11.

She is not out of the woods by a long run, but at least she made it through this last thing.  She has always been so strong.  I hate seeing her like this.

Thank you so much for being my tower of strength, I don't know what I would do without you.