Card from mom's hospice folks...

Card from mom's hospice folks...  From the moment mom arrived out here in Utah, we were impressed with the quality of the care her hospice team delivered.  Even more we were impressed by the genuine caring that they repeatedly demonstrated.  While all of their folks were great, the nurse assigned to mom – Logan A. – was particularly good.  When mom died, Logan was the one who called me (in the middle of the night) to let me know, and she did so in a sweet and caring way.  In a conversation a little later that same day I found out this was the worst part of the job for her.  After mom died, Logan went out of her way to reach out to me, to make sure that Scott and I were doing all right.

Yesterday we got an envelope from Rocky Mountain Care, the hospice organization, and it was obviously a card.  From the outside (above), it looked like a standard generic corporate card.  Inside was something else altogether (click to embiggen):

That was the last thing in the world that I expected.  Some of those people I never even met.  Some, like Logan, were an important part of mom's care.  I cannot even imagine doing the job these fine folks do every day.  Even if I somehow managed to make myself do it, I can't imagine maintaining that degree of caring for people – strangers to them – that they know are going to die soon.  That's the very definition of their work.  But these folks do it, and they do it very well.

Kudos to them all.  Now pardon me while I wipe a tear or three away...

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  Yesterday Debbie's new office furniture was delivered: a long table (with the top in two pieces for shipment), a large hutch for storage, and a desk.  All of this furniture was custom-made by the same craftsman who made our dresser and a few other pieces.  We ordered it back in February, and only now did it arrive.  It's made of massive black locust slabs with trunks for table legs.  It's stunning stuff, the kind of thing we'd only seen in glossy magazine photos before.

“Delivered” is a bit of an ambiguous term, however :)  The delivery company knew they had some heavy pieces (the hutch is over 400 pounds), so they promised to send some muscle along.  The driver, a very nice fellow named Preston, stopped in Wellsville and picked up a few relatives: his brothers and their wives and children, and his parents.  We had the whole family clan along for the effort!  My brother Scott and I were the muscle on our end.

While the delivery folks wanted to be very helpful, in fact they were completely unprepared to make this delivery.  They didn't even have knives to remove the packing material, much less any hand trucks, skids, etc.  Worse yet, they had no experience at all moving furniture.  I am vastly more experienced than they are, simply from having moved my own household a few times.

Except for the hutch, the clan and us managed to get everything upstairs.  There was a bit of damage to the desk in the process (we're working on resolving that), and the house suffered a ding or two (nothing serious).  The hutch, though, was simply too large to get upstairs.  That's my bad; I measured the hutch to fit the space and didn't even think about what it would take to get it into the upstairs office.  It was too big to fit in the front door!

So the delivery folks left, and it was just Scott and I left.  After some thinking, we realized we were going to have to partially disassemble the hutch.  A couple hours later, our front yard was littered with beautiful furniture components, and the remaining hutch framework was just small enough to fit through the door.  However ... it was too long to make the turn required to go through the front door and up the main stairway.  What to do?

After considerable thought, measurement, and plotting, I came up with a way.  We put the hutch on a pallet, and used my tractor to get it to the back door, which opens into our kitchen.  We then skidded it on a piece of cardboard through the kitchen, rotated it (with about 1" of clearance!), and skidded it into our dining room.  From there we could easily get it to our second staircase that leads up into the TV room.  I'm not quite sure how Scott and I did it, but we managed to get that monster up the staircase without dinging either it or the walls – despite having less than 1" of clearance on the width.  Once in the TV room, skidding it into the office was a piece of cake.  The hutch was upstairs – we did it!

That ended our efforts for the day.  We were both exhausted.

Today is assembly day.  The furniture is all upstairs now, but partially disassembled and not in the right place.  So far this morning I've assembled the table (though all the screws are not yet in place).  The two pieces of the table top weigh over 100 pounds each; they were quite tricky to get into place by myself.  Ingenuity was required, along with a tolerance for smashed toes :)  Next up: the desk, which will have to be disassembled to get it through the office door, then reassembled once it's inside.

It promises to be a long, long day...

The chair...

The chair...  A few weeks ago I bought a fancy electric reclining chair for my mom to use here in Utah.  With a simple hand-held control, the chair's back could be moved anywhere from lying almost flat to sitting up straight.  Likewise, a footrest could be placed at any desired angle.  On top of all that, the seat would rise high enough to stand you right up, and then go back down to normal chair height.

Mom never had a chance to use that chair.  The day after we set it up, she was admitted to the hospital, and she never returned to her independent living apartment.  After she died, we owned this very useful chair - but nobody in the family had any need of it.  What to do?

After some thought, I decided that mom would want us to find someone who could use it - preferably someone local, or a veteran ... or both.  I've come to know my predominantly LDS community well enough to know there's a good way to search for someone in need of particular help: the bishop of the ward we live in (Paradise ward 2).  

So I called our bishop and explained the situation to him.  A few days later he called back to tell me that he couldn't find anyone in ward 2 - but the bishop of ward 3 had a great candidate: Roy and Maxine M., whose house is less than a mile from ours.

Last night my brother Scott and I picked up the chair from mom's apartment and delivered it to Roy and Maxine.  We had the pleasure of getting to know them a bit - mom would have called them "salt of the earth", and she'd have liked them.  Roy has a number of physical challenges, and that chair will be a big boon to him.  Furthermore he has back surgery scheduled for next week, and he'll be unable to bend his back for a few weeks - making the chair a very timely gift for him.

Roy is local, and he's also a veteran.  Mom would have loved it that we found someone like him to give her chair to.  On the short drive home from Roy and Maxine's place I had a big smile on my face - it felt so right for mom's chair to be there for Roy...

Slo-mo puppies!

Slo-mo puppies!  Just go enjoy...

Obituary...

Obituary...  My sister Holly and I collaborated to write an obituary for mom, one that we hoped she'd approve of.  But when I called the Trenton Times (the paper she read every day for over 50 years, even after leaving New Jersey) I got quite a shock: the cost for published her short obituary would be well over $500.  Even more shocking: the tiny little newspaper in Lincoln, Maine would charge over $300!

My mom would never forgive us for wasting perfectly good money on something stupid like that.  I can almost hear her hollering at me for even considering it.  So instead, I'm going to self-publish it right here, where anyone searching the Internet for her name will find it:

Elinor Bernice Dilatush, 83, died peacefully in Logan, Utah early in the morning of June 8, 2016. She was the daughter of Donald and Mable MacLaughlin of Red Bank and Locust, New Jersey. For most of her life, for reasons that nobody really understands, Elinor lived voluntarily in New Jersey. Almost 50 years of that time was with her husband Thomas Jobes Dilatush on the Dilatush Nursery, along U.S. 130 just south of Robbinsville. Her only escape was the many summers she spent at Long Pond, Maine and camping all across the country with her family. She is survived by her four children: Mark, Holly, Scott, and Tom. While Elinor thought her children and their progeny were all extraordinary and superlative examples of humankind, an objective observer would almost certainly be less charitable – but she loved them all anyway, warts, questionable characters, and all.

Elinor loved flowers, ornamental plants, weeding, watering, birds, four-letter words, playing cards (almost any kind would do), and talking about creative ways to eliminate liberal politicians, ignorant voters, and religious fanatics with violent tendencies. She owned a .357 revolver and knew how to use it; allegedly she even occasionally hit a target when practicing. Elinor was a talented crafter: painting, sewing, and creative decorations were all in her repertoire. Her teasel Santa Clauses and gingerbread villages were famous; articles about them were published in the Trenton Times. Her cooking was legendary amongst friends and family; anyone lucky enough to eat at her table would remember the experience the rest of their lives. Her willpower was extraordinary; amongst her feats of self-control were her instant cold-turkey smoking cessation when the Surgeon General's report came out in 1964, and control of her diabetes through diet alone.

Elinor's favorite place on Earth was Long Pond, just north of Lincoln, Maine. She had much to cherish there: many friends, the natural beauty of the pond and its surrounds, and most of all the good times to be had fishing, paddling on the pond, and playing cards with the delightful cast of characters who frequented her cabin on the pond. Per her wishes, Elinor's ashes will be scattered in Long Pond so that she can look at the fishes, the loons, the people, and the pond she so cherished.

Elinor asked that no service or ceremony be held at the time of her death – she had an aversion to the very notion of formal mourning. Instead, she asked that family and close friends gather at Long Pond at an appropriate time to scatter her ashes and celebrate her life, and this is exactly what we are going to do.

We miss you, mom...

Long Pond...

Long Pond...  North of the town of Lincoln, Maine there is a body of water named “Long Pond” (Google Maps satellite view at right).  Maine has a lot of bodies of water, some quite large – so what they call a “pond” in most places would be called a fairly large lake.  Out here in Utah, Long Pond would probably be a national park :)

My grandfather – my mother's father – bought a few acres of land along the side of that pond back in the 1940s.  It was located on the western leg of Long Pond, on the south shore, accessed via Sweet Road.  My grandfather had a slew of fishing buddies up there, and they had a grand time each summer when he went up there for his vacation.  They fished, drank (lots of) beer, played cards, cussed, told stories, and played outrageous pranks on one another.  Adding to the charm was the presence of a good many “characters” who lived up there year-round.

My mother grew up amongst this joy and carousing, and for her it was some of the very best that life could deliver.  Of course she came to associate that with the place – the beautiful country that Long Pond was a part of.  The people there were also a major part of what made that place special to her, just as the people here are a big part of what makes Paradise, Utah special to Debbie and I.  Mom had a million stories about Long Pond, and every one that I can remember now involved someone there.  That's very different than the stories I remember about my dad, as often those stories involved wild places and plants – but not people.  I suspect my introversion was inherited from my dad; certainly my mom's genes did not contribute to that at all :)

Long Pond was my mom's favorite place on the planet.  Her explicit wish is to have her ashes scattered over Long Pond, so that she can “look up” to see the fish and the loons – and her son, Mark, fishing there just like her father did.  We will be honoring those wishes when we can arrange a time that works for everyone who wants to be there; tentatively that's going to be in June 2017.

Mark now owns that land alongside the lake, and he's in the process of building a new “camp” for his family to use.  His children grew up enjoying and loving Maine much as my mom did, and I suspect his grandchildren will do the same.

That is just how my mom would have wanted it...

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  Cabo and Mako, our two field spaniel puppies, continue to delight us.  Click the video at right to see why.

Yesterday afternoon, Debbie and I took a drive up to one of our favorite local spots: Hardware Ranch and the road to Ant Flats.  Debbie felt ready to try an outing, and while it made her knee a bit sore (with the bouncing), she pronounced it well worth it.

We saw a few wildflowers along the way (below).  The first one we're familiar with from San Diego, but I don't know it's name.  The second is a particularly nice Indian Paintbrush.  The third is unfamiliar to me, and is interestingly weird.  First, the flower's aroma resembles skunk cabbage – most unexpected!  Second, the stem is hairy and fairly tacky – but doesn't leave your fingers sticky.  It grows in low-lying, wet areas, usually in bunches of wild onions.

Even better than the wildlife, though, was the birding!  We had beautiful close-up views of a cedar waxwing, a banded kingfisher, and (we think) a juvenile black-headed grosbeak.

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  While I was setting out sprinklers for our lawn this morning, the glorious rainbow at right suddenly lit up right in front of me.  The conditions were nearly perfect: a rain squall passing to our west (headed north), and the early morning sun shining through a hole in the clouds from the east.  If you embiggen that photo and look closely, you'll see that there are two additional (much dimmer) rainbows besides the primary one.  One is just below the primary; the other is about twice the radius of the primary.  Both were clearly visible to the naked eye; the camera didn't do a great job of capturing them.

As I was drinking my tea this morning, I spotted Tim D. walking toward his hand line (irrigation pipe), getting ready to move them.  I pulled on my boots and went out to help, and the two of us spent a very companionable hour moving his three strings of hand line.  For each cycle of irrigation, we move those pipes six times, in 30' increments, so that the entire field gets watered.  Generally he irrigates about once every 10 to 15 days, so about a third to half of summer mornings we need to move hand line.  This morning, we mostly we shared our thoughts about the beauty around us, and it truly was a gorgeous morning.  The skies were mostly cloudy, but the occasional holes in the clouds led to bright sunlight playing over the hills and mountains around us.  Every piece of land in sight is a beautiful green right now, and washed clean by yesterday's rainstorm.  Everywhere we looked we saw life: crops, pastures, cattle, sheep, horses, and more.

I love this place, and the people in it!

Willpower and the 1964 Surgeon-General's report...

Willpower and the 1964 Surgeon-General's report...  My mom was a 3-to-4 pack a day cigarette smoker for about 12 years, from age 17 to 29.  U.S. citizens younger than about 60 would likely be surprised by just how normal that was.  In 1955, about 56% of adult men (and about half that percentage of women) were smokers.  Mom's smoking habit wasn't at all unusual back in those days.

I have some memories of her smoking, but even more memories of an errand she often had me do: running into the pharmacy with some change to buy her a pack or two of Kent menthol cigarettes.  It seems very odd, these days, to think that a pharmacy would be the place to buy cigarettes, but that's where she usually bought them.  I found that little errand exciting, as it seemed like a very grown-up thing to do for someone my age (I did this for a few years starting at about age 8 or 9). 

On January 11, 1964, my mom quit smoking.  Cold turkey, immediately upon hearing the news reports of the Surgeon General's report on the health hazards of smoking – and his recommendation that all smokers immediately quit.  I remember her searching out and throwing away all the packs of cigarettes she had squirreled away in convenient places.  All the ash trays in the house were cleaned and put away.  I was just 11 at the time, so I didn't understand that she was doing something that most people find difficult; she never showed any sign that quitting was hard for her at all.  I remember her urging her father to quit (he did not, and emphysema claimed him not many years later), along with several siblings.  To the best of my knowledge, she was the only smoker in her family to quit at the time.  I never saw her waver in her determination to quit smoking: she heard the report, made up her mind, and just quit.  Right then.  Just one attempt.  No nicotine patches or gum.  No furtive tokes when she thought nobody was looking.  She made quitting look effortless.

This is one example of an important element of mom's character: her amazing willpower.  It manifested in quite a few ways, some of which will be the subject of other posts.  Her willpower is legendary in our family, with good reason.  This is the earliest example I know of, though I'm sure it didn't spring up fully formed on that day.

To this day I have never heard of another person who quit smoking, cold turkey, on the day the Surgeon General issued that report...

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...   As I write this post, it's raining outside – a nice, steady, moderate rain.  The forecast says we're to expect about 0.15 inches, but I'd guess we've already got that much, and the storm is only about half over.  The storm is coming from due south of us, and on the radar snapshot at right you can see that we're about to get slammed with some harder rain.

The farmers around us have started to cut and bale hay.  My neighbor to the north, Tim D., just had his baled on Wednesday.  Yesterday I picked up 21 bales of around a half ton each from the 3.5 acres he's raising alfalfa on.  That's up substantially from the yield last year, much to his satisfaction.  He'll get three cutting this year, and probably between 25 and 30 tons of hay total.  On our own field to the south of our house, we have 11 acres in alfalfa (it's leased out to Scott N., a local hay farmer who mostly uses leased land).  Scott hasn't cut that field yet, but he likely will within a day or two.  All this cutting, hay drying, and baling means that the air around here is full of the delicious aroma of alfalfa and grass hay.  The farmers who are caught with hay cut and drying right now are not going to be happy about this rain...

The puppies continue to be a joy for Debbie and I.  The video at right shows Cabo enjoying a delicious stick, until Mako comes along and tries to steal it.  Yesterday I took the two of them in to see our vet for their second round of puppy inoculations.  In the waiting area they were a big hit with the staff, the dogs waiting, and their owners.  Lots of people asked what breed the dogs were, and several of them were writing it down.  The vet (Dr. Watkins) gave them a good exam, then pronounced them beautiful and perfect.  After he gave them their vaccines, he just sat back and watched them for a few minutes, a happy smile upon his face.  He told me that I had made his day by bringing these two in – and that I should be charging him, rather than the other way around :)  There are now a couple hundred puppy videos uploaded to YouTube, most of them around one minute long.  Any of them will make you smile (and if you don't smile, please schedule an appointment with a psychologist posthaste!).  The photos below capture a few kinetic puppy moments, and the joy of Debbie at last able to hold a puppy.

Meanwhile, our five foster kittens are thriving.  They've had their first round of inoculations, and they're old enough now to be rambunctious and naughty.  Very naughty!  The photo at right shows their room after they apparently held a party in it on a recent night.  Some of those objects are heavier than you'd imagine a kitten could move, and yet there the mess was.  Shortly the kittens will all be neutered and get a second round of inoculations, then we'll be returning them to the Four Paws organization for adoption.  One of them will likely be staying with us, though: the little calico kitten has captured not only Debbie's heart, but also our friend Michelle's.  I think I'd suffer terribly if I didn't cave in to their desire to keep her.  Not that I'll get any credit for caving, of course :)

A few days ago I somehow found an hour to talk my beloved morning walk.  It was overcast and cool, and the dogs and I had a lovely time exploring all the life around us.  The lowest field we walked by was planted in alfalfa, and it was in bloom.  There was a leaker riser that provided great entertainment for Race, who loves to bite streams of water.  He went sort of bonkers for about five minutes, apparently thinking he was defeating the water.  He wasn't, of course :)  Our neighbor now has four horses and two mules pastured, so we stopped for a while to chat with them.  Then there were large patches of a beautiful yellow weed.  I'm sure the farmers would do their best to eradicate these, but when the show up in great masses (as they are right now), these tiny yellow flowers can be quite beautiful...

Of friends and raspberry pie...

Of friends and raspberry pie...  The first friends we made up here, just over two years ago, were Bruce and June N.  They were the realtors who helped us find our home here, and since then have become good friends.

Yesterday Bruce was driving home (they live just south of us, in Avon) from Ogden, a route that takes him past Maddox Restaurant.  Knowing that we love fruit pies, he stopped in and got a raspberry cream pie for us.  Usually fruit pies from restaurants are ... less than spectacularly good, but Maddox is a standout exception.  Many of their fruit pies are made only when the local fruit is in season, and that's the case with their raspberry cream pie.

Last night we'd already eaten when Bruce showed up with the pie, so it went into the refrigerator.  Today we just ate our lunch, and we each had a nice slice of that pie for our dessert.  Heaven in our mouths, it was.  I don't know how one could get more intense raspberry flavor than that pie.  The cream filling and whipped cream on top just added to the overall decadence.

Oh, man, that was good!

When my mom first got to Utah a couple of weeks ago, Bruce and June were the first local friends of ours to visit with her.  Mom greatly enjoyed meeting them, and experiencing a heavy dose of Utahan niceness; Bruce and June likewise enjoyed meeting this character from New Jersey.  Bruce told me afterward that he was really looking forward to getting to know mom better.

Bruce didn't know that mom had died, so yesterday afternoon when we told him, he was quite shocked.  When he and June visited mom, just 10 days ago, she was energetic and brimming with vitality; there was no indication of someone near the end of their days.  After he recovered his own composure, he was full of compassion and sympathy for us.  We had a warm conversation about mom, losses of loved ones, the trials and tribulations of life, and more.  It was one more manifestation of the reasons why Debbie and I feel so very lucky to have joined the community here...

The story of “Mildred”...

The story of “Mildred”...  An astute reader noted that the filtered view (link at right) for my mom uses the tag “Mildred”, and she wondered why.  After all, my mom's name is Elinor, not Mildred.  So what gives?

I don't remember how it got started, but in her later life “Mildred” was my mom's favorite nickname for herself.  It was used by both family and friends, and she often asked people to call her Mildred.  I do remember that at one point, when I was a child (this would be back in the '60s), we'd tease her by calling her Mildred – and she reacted just as you hope someone will react when you're teasing them.  We'd say things like “What a Mildred!”  Sounds quite silly now, but my mom didn't appreciate it.  She certainly didn't embrace the nickname as her own back then!

Her given name is actually Elinor, a slightly unusual variant of the name that's usually spelled Eleanor.  I've no idea why her parents chose the spelling they did, but I will note that the name Eleanor was very common for girls in the year she was born, and that spelling variations (including Elinor), while not as common as Eleanor, were certainly not rare.  I've only run into two much younger people who spelled their name as Elinor: one a young woman of perhaps 25 years, born in England; the other the baby girl of an employee of mine, adopted from a Chinese orphanage and named in honor of a grandparent.  I suspect it's pretty unusual these days, even if it wasn't in 1935.

Mom's memorial...

Mom's memorial...  For the past year or so, mom was actively engaged in making sure that her worldly possessions would go to people who cherished them (for either material or sentimental reasons) or who needed them.  For example, her paintings will be distributed amongst family members as a remembrance of her.  A table made of holly tree wood will be in my sister's house, beautiful on its own and a remembrance of her.  Her car has been donated to a (very appreciative!) veteran.  Scott will have a favorite stuffed armchair.  Debbie and I will have some cut glass and glass paperweights.  There were far too many of these arrangements to list here, but they are all of the same spirit.  Settling the disposition of her possessions brought her much joy and satisfaction.

Some of her possessions were left undesignated, though – especially things that were very recently acquired.  We're distributing them in the same spirit that she would have.  For instance, she owed an electric reclining chair for her room in Williamsburg, and the bishop of our local LDS ward is helping us find someone who could really make good use of that.  A beautiful bouquet and vase that was in her nursing home room has been given to a patient there, someone all alone in the world and in need of some cheer.  Her glasses will be donated to an organization that sends them to Africa.

These gifts, collectively, are a kind of memorial for mom.  They epitomize her generosity and kindness.  She wanted her passing to bring some light to others ... and it already has.

Mom left us very simple, explicit instructions about services and ceremonies after she died: there shall be none.  She didn't want us to mourn (sorry, mom), and didn't want us to hold any sort of service or ceremony at all (we're honoring this).  She wanted to be cremated, and at a time of our choosing when the immediate family and some close friends could get together alongside Long Pond just north of Lincoln, Maine, have her ashes scattered over the pond.  We're going to do that as well.  It may take a while to organize that gathering, but we will do it...

The manifestations of grief...

The manifestations of grief...  Years ago I took a management course, one segment of which dealt with handling the grief of employees who had had some tragic experience.  Probably the most important thing they taught us was this: that everyone has their own way of dealing with grief, and that you might find some of those ways surprising, odd, out-of-character, or even inappropriate.

I had a small experience of this myself earlier today, of the out of character kind.

This morning I visited our favorite grocery store to pick up a few items we needed.  As I was loading fruity sparkling water into my cart, a woman I didn't know came up to me and asked, very gently, “Are you ok?”

I had no idea why she was asking me this, so I asked her.  She said “Because you’re crying, and you look so sad.”  Only then did it dawn on me that I was crying; tears were streaming down my cheeks and into my beard.  Until that moment, I had had no idea at all.

So I told this kind woman about my mom's death yesterday, which was why I was crying.  She gave me a big hug, talked with my a bit about her own experience losing a brother (to a drunk driver), and left me feeling better.

The world has lost a character, and a cherished mom...

The world has lost a character, and a cherished mom...  My mom – Elinor Bernice Dilatush – died early Wednesday morning.  She was free of pain and fear, comfortably in bed.  Up until just the past few days she was active, happy (oh, so happy!), and excited about her new situation here in Northern Utah.  My brothers and sister and I are thankful that her last days were as good as they were, and that she didn't have a long, miserable time at the end.  We're also thankful that she was able to see my brother Scott and Debbie (my wife) once again; these were high on her bucket list.  If we could ask her what regrets she had, I suspect her answer would have been something like “That the 2016 election has Trump and Clinton as candidates!”  As regrets go, that's not so bad...

I will be writing more about her when some time has passed and the emotions aren't so raw.  I'm expecting that writing about her will be much more challenging than writing about my dad was, as my memories about her are less about stories and more about feelings...

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  It is so good to have Debbie home!  As I write this, she is perched in a recliner in our dining room, pillow under her feet and a blanket over them, with a view out to our bird feeders through a bay window.  Her iPad is in hand, and she's smiling and good for a bit while I work out in my shed office.  We fed the puppies together this morning, and she got to pet Miki and Race.  Jahar is curled up alongside her at night (or whenever she's in bed).  A home physical therapy guy showed up yesterday for her first session, and he was very impressed with how well she was maneuvering, considering the surgery was just 12 days ago.  Her experience helps here, even thought the fact that both her knees are locked is new and different.

Not much to report on my mom.  She's still in the hospital, and still having some confusion.  I'm headed up this morning, hoping to catch her doctor on his rounds.  At this point we can't help worrying that she won't get past this confused mental state, and will have to be admitted to a nursing home instead of the independent living setup she moved into out here.  Despite all that's happened, she is still happy – sunny, even.

A friend sent me an email on Friday that I've reread it about ten times.  I'm not going to share it (as I'd be embarrassed by his compliments), but I'll tell you that it was exactly what I needed at that moment.  I had a very emotional reaction to reading it that took me completely by surprise.  Good therapy, friends are...

Debbie's home!

Debbie's home!  There was lots of last minute scrambling, but around noon she was in her truck and I was driving her home.  Yay!  She got to greet the dogs, hold a couple of puppies, and get reacquainted with Jahar (her Savannah cat).  Major smiles :). From my perspective, it's just wonderful to have her home.

We're both a bit tired tonight for some reason :). But happy...

Debbie and mom update...

Debbie and mom update...  Got the word late yesterday that if we could buy/rent/borrow/beg/steal the right kind of wheelchair for Debbie, she could be discharged today (Friday)!  So ... I found a place that had what she needs, and it's now in her room.  We're not sure what time of day she'll be discharged, but it looks like it's going to be today.  Yippee!

Not much news on my mom.  She's comfortable, not in any pain, and a couple of things the doctors saw that they didn't like (sodium level and swelling in her legs) are slowly getting better.  I'm hoping to get with her doctor today (he's a busy guy, and hard to meet up with) to get a better idea of their plan of action and an estimate for the duration of her stay.

My sister Holly and her husband Warren packed a “pod” full of stuff for mom yesterday.  It's going to be picked up for shipment to Salt Lake City today.  Yesterday I received my mother's computer, also packed by Warren.  That was one studly packing job he did on that thing: built an inner box out of Masonite and packed that big old iMac screen inside it exactly the way it needs to be.  UPS did their level best to destroy the computer, but their efforts were puny compared to the manliness of that inner box.  After I unpacked it, I used the Masonite inner box and the packing material to build a small shrine to Warren.  It will stay in our living room for a few days, to pay the proper respects to the master of packing.  I suspect I'll need to do this again after I see the pod.  Holly warned me that it's packed very tightly and intricately, and must be disassembled with great care to avoid injury and explosions.  I can hardly wait to see this :)

Debbie and mom update...

Debbie and mom update...  That beautiful smiling lady at right is Debbie, yesterday, when I managed to sneak in a kitten for her to pamper for a little while.  She's doing great – lots of progress on the physical therapy.  Today she walked about 30' on a walker, hopping on her one weight-bearing leg.  Then she wheeled herself in a wheelchair about 200' to visit another patient – and then back to her room again.  Later, she made that same trip again.  That's an amazing increment of progress since her surgery 9 days ago...

Mom's not doing quite so well.  She fell early this morning and was discovered by aides on the floor.  She wasn't injured at all, but she also wasn't responding and had not pressed her emergency button.  Yesterday she'd had some confusion and memory issues that already had us concerned.  The staff at Williamsburg called for paramedics, and they were able to get her up and talking, but she was still confused.  So they transported her to the local hospital, and now she's been admitted for observation and treatment of anything they find.  So far they haven't found anything at all.  Mom is on the same floor as Debbie, about 200' away – and if you haven't guessed, she's the other patient who Debbie went to visit :)

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  It's Memorial Day, and I'm remembering the two people I knew who were killed in Vietnam, the one I knew who was killed in Afghanistan, and the fallen I didn't know whose names are inscribed all over this country on monuments to WWI, WWII, the Korean War, and even the Civil War (especially in the South).  I – we – owe so much to them.  Some of them I remember often, though less often than I should.  It's good to have a day set aside to remember and honor these men and women.

When we lived in San Diego, this day was mostly about hot dogs, hamburgers, and the social occasion.  Rarely did I run into anyone there for whom the day had deeper meaning.  Most knew why we mark this day, but I met quite a few – mostly younger people at work – who had no idea why the day was set aside.  For them it was strictly a day of fun and food.  When I ran into that, it always made me sad.

Here in rural northern Utah, where I've lived for over two years now, I'm still startled by the difference.  It's impossible to live here without knowing why Memorial Day exists – there are news stories, placards, posters, and other reminders everywhere.  The hospital where Debbie is staying has a poster and display in the lobby.  McDonald's has a kiosk, very nicely done.  Our grocery store has a table with remembrances of fallen locals.  Organizations like the scouts, schools, and 4-H all hold events designed to help the kids understand.  More than a few parents take their kids to the local memorials, services, and cemeteries.  I could go on and on, but the real point is the pervasiveness of the honoring of the spirit of this day – something basically completely absent in San Diego.

One other manifestation of that honoring I particularly love: the display of American flags.  Every town and city has flags hanging from lampposts and buildings.  Many homes have special flags planted in the front, in public view, like the one planted in front of our home in the photo above (taken just this morning).  These flags are courtesy of the local Boy Scout troops, who put them up on every patriotic holiday.  Those who can afford it contribute $35 a year for the service, but I know that the homes of several locals who would like to have the flags, but who cannot afford it, are similarly festooned without cost to them.  The result is that our local roads have dozens and dozens of flags on them – rarely can you go even a quarter mile in rural country without seeing one.  Then of course there are many, many folks who (like us) permanently display a flag on their own flagpoles.

I love this patriotic display.

But it is a bit disturbing to me in a way – the presence of it here underlines the absence of it in our cities.  It's the “two Americas” notion, and my own experience tells me it's very real.  The urbanization of America is leading us to a culture I find frightening and ... un-American, and that makes me very sad for a reason totally unrelated to the sadness I always feel on this special day...