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The Blue Bird of Happiness

This is all Steve Goodier, a wonderful story, and a little spin at the end, that would be me. :^)

BLUEBIRD OF HAPPINESS

A sign in a pet store read, “If anybody has seen the Bluebird of Happiness, would you please notify this pet store?”

Happiness seems to be in short supply for many people. If the results of recent surveys can be trusted, there is a general decline of happiness in today’s world. And people were not all that cheerful a few years back! It was Oliver Wendell Holmes who stated, “I might have been a minister for aught I know, if a certain clergyman had not looked and talked like an undertaker.” (I have to say, though, that some clergy and undertakers I’ve known could teach the rest of us something about joy.)

Joy and happiness are not always the same things. Happiness can be thought of as more of a temporary, emotional condition, often based on outside circumstances. Joy, on the other hand, is deeper. It is often contentment in spite of the unsettling present. We can be basically joyful, regardless of a particular unhappy situation that we may be enduring. It is sometimes just a matter of keeping perspective on our troubles, and especially when those troubles seem to be in long supply.

You may know the story of the man who had a marvelous way of keeping joy in his life. He was a carpenter. He followed the same ritual every day when he came home from the job. He stopped by a small tree in his front yard and placed his hand on a couple of branches. Then, when he walked into his home, it was as if a magical transformation had occurred. All of a sudden, the stress was lifted from him. He became energetic and joyful, able to fully interact with his children and his wife.

He explained it this way: “That tree is my trouble tree. When I come home I stop by the tree and, just like I leave my tools in the truck, I leave my troubles outside of my home. I hang them on that tree before greeting my family. Anything that does not have to come in my house stays outside. Anything that I do not have to deal with at home, I leave on that tree. And in the morning, I stop by the tree and pick up the troubles I left there in the evening.”

Then he adds, “It’s a funny thing, though. Every morning I always find fewer troubles remaining than I hung the night before.”

Here is a man who has no doubt seen the Bluebird of Happiness. Chances are, it is nesting in a tree just outside his home.

There is wisdom in knowing that some problems can wait until tomorrow. And more wisdom in knowing what to hang on the tree and what to bring in. Managing daily problems well is vital to maintaining joy.

– Steve Goodier

That is exactly what we struggle with every day. Understanding what is the little problem of the day and what is the big one. And understanding which is which. We all face so many issues and problems every day that it is hard to tell which to tackle first. Steve points out a formula that we can all use every day while deciding what to do next. Always choose the thing that troubles you most. Work on that, feed on that, fix that, and the rest of your issues will fall into place, waiting their turn. Nothing can defeat you, but you. Never forget that. :^) gene

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The Last Mimzy

This isn’t new, but rather a repeat, that will for reasons of your own become obvious as to why. Not the best thing I’ve written, but it makes me feel so much better about life. And today I need that. :^) gene

I don’t rent many movies, most genre’s that at one time appealed to me, do no longer. What I mean by that, is over the years I have lost interest in many things that at one time I had a lot of interest in. I think of that as growth, change certainly, but growth as well. For instance, I used to enjoy thriller-type movies, we all love, or many of us do given the success of such movies, the sensation of being safely scared out of our wits as with the “Jason” or “Michael Meyer” type movies. Actually I lost interest in those a long time ago, but I used to enjoy action movies too of the “Arnold” variety, the summer of 1997 found me unable to be in the presence of all that killing, the only one of that genre that I can still stomach, even enjoy, is the original Highlander – I so love the soundtrack, Queen, Freddy Mercury‘s heavenly voice, and the ultimate outcome which though arrived at violently, is ultimately about hope.

So, you can understand, that what is available now that I can enjoy is a rather limited selection. I have some favorites but they all tend to be now movies that demonstrate something good, even wonderful about us, we spirits here having this human experience. I just love the American President, Contact, Regarding Henry, the Kid with Bruce Willis in an interesting role, a handful of others, all movies that I find hope in, that I find what I consider to be the best part of us in. So, though there aren’t really all that many movies, I do find interest in these days, still sometimes, Jenna will take me to Hollywood Video and lead me through the place, I’ll look at lots of things, most of which I have no interest whatsoever in, but what will eventually happen is I’ll find myself standing in front of something which does, that she wants me to see. For instance, City of Angels, lol, which they have but one copy of and which is not new, but which she actually had me ask for by name a few months ago and which she has since asked me to watch once again – that is the movie in which I first heard Sarah McLachlan, by the way. I’ve come to some very out of the way movies this way as I am wandering and she just sort of stops me, or I stop somehow, right in front of what she wants me to say – not at all unlike the way Book 1 came to me.

This past week, I was up that way on another errand and she asked me to go in, so I did, this guidance works in what I’m sure some will think an odd way, she doesn’t tell me WHAT to do, but urges me toward something she wants me to do, or see. We do have very specific conversations, long ones sometimes, about a lot of things, but when it comes to choices, those are always mine and mine alone. Again, because this is my experience not hers, and there are no scripts. Free will here really does mean exactly that. So as I wandered the store, looking at the new things, nothing really struck my eye, until I came to the Last Mimzy, a kids movie really, or so I thought upon first glance. But she said, THIS, is what I’d like you to see, gene. So I picked it up. It is a sci-fi movie, really, and though I love sci-fi, I don’t watch a lot of those movies, because, well, again, they are too violent for my taste.

I want to tell a little story here about how that came to be. I think it was a gradual sort of weaning process that began in me long before Brandon died. I used to be just a voracious reader, we are talking many books a week growing, mostly mysteries as those were what my mother, the only other reader in my family, liked. I found a couple people at my work who shared that interest and we began exchanging Robert Ludlum and Dick Francis books, but sometime 15 years or so ago, my taste just began to change, I was troubled by the violence in fiction, I think I started to see our “fantasies” as affecting our lives. I know there are no studies that prove television, or movie, violence begets physical violence, but I think the more one sees that, the more one becomes inured to other people’s suffering, the more one comes to believe that the end justifies the means. And I don’t. Believe that. This was, of course, Jenna’s gentle influence in me that caused this gradual turn away from that genre of print and screen media. It is a rare show I will watch that has much violence in it. For instance, in its first season, I really liked Criminal Minds, because of the thoughtful, insightful way they were able to characterize human behavior, but they had to come up with a new serial killer, ever more horrible, every single week to keep the show going. And that is NOT what our world is, it is NOT what our country is. There are people here who do evil things, yes, (don’t worry we’ll talk about judging another time, what that means for us as human beings I mean) but we do not have new serial killers every week. They are, blessedly, rare, few and far between. So Criminal Minds lost me. I could not live with the horrors they dreamt up no matter how brilliantly acted and presented they were.

When the movie part of this first became obvious to me was the summer after Brandon died. I tried to go see a new “Arnold” movie, xxxxx, and I found myself so overcome by the violence in it, that I left after less than 15 minutes, I was literally panic-stricken by it, I felt like I could die right there in the theater and I just couldn’t stay. I thought maybe it was ALL movies, but it wasn’t, Contact came out that summer and I made my oldest, my remaining, son, go with me – just in case. But it was wondrous, not horrifying – I was already a Carl Sagan fan and had read his only novel, but still, I wasn’t sure if it was movies, the crowd, or the dark, or the genre that had terrified me so. I learned watching Contact that it wasn’t the theater, the crowd, it was the violence. The next summer, on the CWG list, people were extolling the virtues of Saving Private Ryan, what great lessons it taught. My question to the group was, given its subject matter, was, was it bloody and violent? Yes, was the answer, but the overarching lesson was not. I knew I could not see it, so I listened to the discussion and said that if I ever did see it, it would have to be when it came out on video, so I could watch it on a small screen, in a place where I could shut it off for periods and watch it in chunks if I needed too. I have seen it now. About a year ago. And, yes, the idea that drove it was a noble one, and I was able to deal with the violence of it – I’m stronger now than I was back then, but I am as horrified by movie violence as ever. Even more so by the real violence taking place all over our world, but so graphically depicted in what happens in the middle east every day. There is no greater blasphemy, in my opinion, than killing in the name of God.

Back to science fiction. :^). I said I loved it, but that isn’t completely true, I really have only read two authors, and all of their work, I own, most I have read so many times, I could write them from memory, lol. I don’t agree with all of what they wrote, by any means, but there is so much eternal truth in their work, and so much good, that for the most part, I can excuse any excesses I found. And I really only found those in Robert Heinlein‘s work, he has SO much right, so beautifully, but I cannot abide the way he has characters treat each, beginning with Stranger in a Strange Land, a wonderful book in many ways, his characters, grew ever more rude personally, sort of in the way people who know each other well are teasingly insulting to each other? I can’t stand that. It is passive-aggressive cruelty in my opinion. We ought be more loving to those closest to us than to anyone else, in my judgment, not less. A cruel comment is a cruel comment no matter how much you love the person to whom it is made. Those of you who have been to my main site, know this is what brought on, or accelerated my awakening, interpersonal communication of less than a polite nature. I have bought, read, and thrown away one of Robert’s books at least three times over this issue. His early work was directed toward teens and young adults, I still have those and I love them, this issue was there too just not to the degree that it appeared later. I just find that unfortunate, because he was SO far ahead of his time in SO many other ways. The other sci-fi author I read, though I came to him as an adult, was Isaac Asimov, I have nothing to criticize about him. I loved everything he wrote, I think it was prescient and compelling. And coming.

So, the last Mimzy, we come full circle, though a “young” movie, Jenna wanted me to see it. When she does this, wants me to see something in particular, whenever we get to that point in the movie, or book for that matter, she tells me clearly, THIS is what I brought you here to see, gene. And in this case, though the whole movie is wonderful, what she wanted me to see was at the very end. A little speech that, really, ends the movie. I paused and copied down what was said. “But Emma’s tears were the instruction’s for an awakening. Our precious quality of humanity had been turned off. And it spread like wild flowers. People shed their protective suits and over time humanity blossomed again.”.

In my opinion, humanity has YET to blossom. We have NEVER been all that we can be on this planet. THAT is what I think is coming, an age, not an era, but an age, where we will become a true civilization, one people – one world. Where will be able to lay down our weapons and build a little bit of heaven right here on this beautiful blue oasis of love given us by our Creator for this very purpose. That humanity is due for an awakening to the truth of ourselves, to remember who we really are, and to begin to live THAT experience here on Earth. And then, we may take ourselves to the stars, where experience of all manner can be had, where what has happened here may well be forgotten, until sometime in the millennia to come, Emma’s tears are remembered and humanity blossoms again wherever it has taken root. It requires will and strength and sometimes violence to gain a foothold on a planet, to become the dominant species on a planet, and in that doing, the truth of us can be lost as we become immersed in the experience of simply living. Robert talks about this beautifully in one of his very best books, Time Enough For Love (the story of darling dora), but the experience of forgetting who we are only to eventually re-member, is how we ourselves evolve, from creatures, back into the love we are. The last Mimzy is worth seeing, dear ones. much love, :^) gene

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Man’s best friend, My bff, My Cisco

This week I lost the best friend I have ever had in this life. Cisco, born 11/14/1995, died 08/07/2009.

I want to just talk a little about this furry wonder who came into my life when he was 7 weeks old weighing 7 pounds, 7 ounces and full of spunk already. He was a Lab/Shepherd cross, though he looked all Lab but he held his ears like a Shepherd, which made a lot of people think he was a wolf, because he was so big, and jet black, but for the tips of his toes and a splash of white on his chest. But there was nothing wolf-like in his being, he was just a huge bundle of love.

I consider him to be my furry grandchild, my Cisco. He originally belonged to my youngest son, Brandon. All Brandon wanted for his 20th birthday was a dog. So we went to the local Humane Society, Anoka County, USA, and as we walked in, there was this little guy in a HUGE cage all by himself out front. They said he was too little to be back with the others. I don’t really understand that because all of the others were also in cages. I think it was so we would see him first. We looked at all of the beautiful animals they had back there and Brandon couldn’t make up his mind, so I said, let’s look at that little guy out front again. I stuck my finger in his cage to touch him and he bit me. Then sat down and smirked. I told Brandon I think he’ll be fine, he said okay, dad. After I wrote the check, they said you might notice he’s a little noisy. He was the last of a litter of 7, 7 pounds 7 ounces and 7 weeks old. What could go wrong?

That first night we had him in a big box next to Brandon’s bed, his room adjoined mine. Cisco cried all night long. He’d cry and cry until his voice got hoarse and would give out, he’d be quiet 30 seconds and start again. The next morning Brandon said, Dad, I don’t think I can handle another night like that. I said, I don’t think I can either. From that night on, Cisco slept with Brandon, that was all he wanted, companionship. They told us he’d get to be about 60 pounds, but he stopped growing at 7 months and 115 rock solid pounds, tall and strong as a bull.

Brandon got caught up in a horrible drug, crystal meth, over that next year and a month after his 21st birthday he committed suicide. He’d had Cisco for 13 months, though all but a few weeks of that time he was with me in my home. Cisco is how I got through that. There were so many days I didn’t want to get out of bed at all but I did because he needed me.

Labs have horrible separation anxiety. I thought it funny that when Brandon was out, Cisco would chew his shoes. But when Brandon died, he shifted his love to me. I’d leave for work and as I got in the car, I’d hear him cry as if the world was ending. And while I was gone, he’d chew. Walls, floors, furniture, woodwork, I couldn’t believe he could get his teeth into some of those things, but he did. They say dogs can’t remember what they’ve done wrong so they have to be corrected immediately, in the act, or they won’t know why they are being chastised. Bull.

I have two ways into my house, through the garage door and the front door. A couple of times I left through the front door to go across the street to a convenience store and came back in through the garage door. Cisco would be sitting at the front door watching it. So I’d say, what are you looking for? And he’d jump like I had scalded him, I only got away with that a couple of times, from then on and to this day, when I leave one door, he goes to a spot where he can see both doors and greets me from there.

For 11 years he did that every time I left and came back. Unless he’d done something he knew I wouldn’t like, if he had, he’d be on the other side of the dining room table, where he could still see both doors but be hidden, and I’d find him peering at me from under the table. Some times I never did find out what he’d done. Others were obvious and some as I looked around I found. But he could not help himself, he busted himself every time. So those who say dogs don’t remember are full of it. Cisco was living proof.

We were so fortunate he and I. Both had good health, he used to run with me until knee surgery stopped my running. But we explored the world together as much as we could. And then two years ago, he began to age. Since then there have been many good days but also many where we had to be content to just be together. And truthfully, that was enough for both of us. As I told him often, we were just two guys who lived together, loved each other and took care of each other. Believe me, I have had many moments where he alone has kept me grounded and sane, when I was lost and through his love, he found me and brought me back to life, through my grieving, through the travails of life, he always stood firm against anything that wasn’t pure love.

But a year ago he got arthritis in his hindquarters and had been on pain/anti inflammatory medication since, and we couldn’t take those long middle of the night walks anymore. He started coughing about two months ago, a month after his annual checkup, I thought it might be allergenic, those darn cottonwood seeds that float through the air. But it didn’t pass and I took him back to his doctor. It turned out he had an enormously enlarged heart and the larynx in dogs passes right over it, that pressure is what is caused his cough. He knows that disturbs me, because he sounded as if he was hacking up his lungs, and I’d ask him, are you okay buddy? So somehow, he managed to suppress that while I was downstairs with him, but when I go to bed, I’d hear him start and he not stop all night long.

He’d been falling, since this past winter. I have a screen door, with a lift-up glass pane for the winter, and when I’d take him out sometimes my hand would slip off the handle and the door didn’t open, it is full of dents from him hitting it at full speed, which is the way he has always exited our home. He suddenly couldn’t do that anymore. This past winter when he’d try, he’d slip and fall, never before did he do that, he always navigated the snow and ice as if they were nothing.

In the past month, he has begun falling in the grass outside, wasn’t always able to get up from the linoleum in front of the door, his preferred spot. I’ve had to lift him up and once on his feet he’s been okay. He lost 25 pounds over the last year, which still left him a very big dog at 90, but in the past two weeks he’d been increasingly unable to stay up at all. His doctor added two heart disease medications and another pain reliever over the past two weeks but none of them helped.

Two weeks ago one evening when I got home and took him out, he stumbled like a drunk, his head and legs moved one way and his hindquarters another. He had bone spurs throughout his hindquarters. Were that me, I wouldn’t even try to walk. But he did. He didn’t want me to know he hurt. But when he’d fall, and that particular day he fell 10 times, he looked at me with the clearest communication we’ve ever had. His eyes said “help me”. So I did. He’d squat and fall into his stool, so I wiped his butt and brought him back in telling him what a good boy he was.

When his doctor told me, last week, that there wasn’t anything more we could do for him, I knew I had to let him go. He was suffering, though he tried SO hard to hide that, I couldn’t let that just and so the day I’ve dreaded for years finally arrived. It is his time, I know, but somehow I always hoped he’d outlive me and yet in another part of me, I’ve had this vision for years of him passing quietly in my arms. And that’s what was. That little bundle of love who gave me reason to get out of bed each day when Brandon died because he needed me, well, I determined to give him the love and respect he deserves. He’s the background on my phone and the reason I’m still here – love that knows no bounds. If he can, I can. We all can. God made no mistake in creating dogs, and it is no coincidence the dog spelled the other way is God. We could learn so much from them, I have, unconditional love, unconditional forgiveness, no matter what you do to them or let be done to them, they love you without reservation anyway. We humans could take a lesson from that. If Cisco has a legacy, let that be it. I love you no matter what, no matter why, and forever. That’s his answer. And my own commitment to the dear ones in my life. I want to thank all who have been, and are, so important a part of my life. If you have need, call me. I WILL be there. Cisco taught me that.

I still, a day later, can’t believe we have had our last everything. Thursday afternoon I took the afternoon off and we visited places we used to go all the time, that was HARD, partly because he hasn’t the strength to get in the car and I have to lift him and he doesn’t like that and partly because it was the last time we’d ever be there together again. But we did it, we walked where we walked when he was a baby, we looked at the bank of the river that he flung himself into when he was 6 months old. I have to tell that story here, we were walking in a nearby wooded area through which runs a creek, I had him off leash so he could sniff as he pleased. We came upon two boys at a bend in the creek, they were on the other side swinging on a rope out over the creek and dropping into it. He looked me right in the eyes and as was so often the case, I could read his mind, he was asking, can I? I smiled and said go ahead, buddy. He started running AWAY from me but turned into a tight circle and headed for the bank. It was at least a six foot drop to the creek and he sailed out to the middle where he landed with a huge splash, the two boys on the other side shocked as all get out and laughing so hard I thought they’d fall over too, he came up sputtering, looked at me as if to say, WHAT did I just do, swam back, clambered back up the bank and did it again, at 6 months his Lab instincts were very much there. He loved water in any form, snow included. So on this past Thursday we walked slowly and he snoofed as much as he pleased, and then I cooked him a very rare steak. He can’t manage the stairs anymore, so Thursday night I slept on the couch downstairs near him, as for most of his life, he slept upstairs next to me, I didn’t mind the coughing, not at all.

I’ve seen several stories about this experience, one of my favorites is the one where a man dies and meets his dog and won’t enter any place that won’t allow his beloved friend in too. And as someone, maybe Will Rogers, said, if dogs aren’t allowed in heaven, then I want to go where they go. But the story I like best is the Rainbow Bridge. There one day I hope to re-unite with Cisco, and a few others of his loving kind who have been important too, in my life, though none more than he. Along with many humans who have been too. But this is not about them, it is about him.

I will never stop missing him, I will never stop loving him. I will be 60 in a few weeks and he is the last dog I will ever have and he wasn’t even mine. I’m his grandpa, not his dad, though as has been pointed out to me, he IS my dog. Which I do know. And I love him with all my heart still. 12 1/2 years alone together, and 13 1/2 years of life is not nearly enough. I am NOT done loving him and he is NOT done loving me. He has been my rock, strong when I’ve been weak. And had I the power I would have spared him this weakness. He has been a monster, strong as any truck all of his life, that he cannot be what he has always been was killing him. And me. I know it is his time, but I feel a Judas nonetheless. I pray he will forgive me for what I have done. I WILL never stop missing him. My furry grandchild, my beloved Cisco.

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An update and a few words

For those of you following my son’s story on CaringBridge, you’ll know that is where I’ve done most of my writing the past, nearly three months now. His accident and his slow recovery, now beginning a long and painful rehabilitation process, has consumed my time and attention pretty much completely since April 23.

But he is recovering, his last surgery, we hope – there is some question yet as to whether he suffered an injury to his left shoulder that will need more than rehabilitation, was three weeks ago to perform plastic surgery, a skin graft, on his left foot and heel. That was successful and in another week he should be able to bear weight on that leg, for now they are just working his right leg, having him stand, last week that required assistance, this week, yesterday, he got up himself and stood on his right leg for a full minute. That doesn’t sound like much but considering he came within an eyelash of dying April 23rd, that it took 12 hours to stabilize him enough for surgery his doctors weren’t sure he’d survive, that coming out of that surgery they thought they would have to amputate his left foot about halfway up to the knee and that he then spent the next 5 weeks unconscious, tethered and sedated. Tethered because when he’d come up a bit out of the sedation, he’d buck like a bronco trying to get out of that bed, he did NOT like being tied at the wrists, though that was only to prevent him pulling tubes out of himself, tubes that were keeping him alive, and sedated because when he wasn’t he’d buck like a bronco. Yes, circular, but the truth nonetheless.

There were periods during those five weeks I thought he was gone, his eyes would open look blankly at the ceiling, no light in them at all, no recognition of anything, then close again, but we were assured there had been no deprivation of oxygen so no anoxia and no brain damage, which in itself is a bit of a miracle. I’ve told him, we all have, that he definitely had an angel sitting on his shoulder that night, because in the interim, I’ve seen many stories (in the way that once you get a different car, you suddenly notice them everywhere, when before you hadn’t noticed them at all?) of people having the sort of accident he did and virtually none of those people lived. He has no memory of the accident at all, a blessing that.

But at 5 weeks he came back to us, got moved to a long term acute care facility, got pneumonia and went back to the original hospital, North Memorial, got that cured and went back to Bethesda where he is still. His real rehabilitation only began last week. He still has a lot of pain in his right thigh, understandable considering they cut a tunnel from mid calf up over his knee a few more inches to insert the rod into his femur, then cut another six inch slice in the side of that thigh so they could repair the femur and attach the rod. There’s a lot of scar tissue there, cut muscles take a long time to heal, I recall from a long time ago when I had my appendix out the old way when I was 15. But it has begun, it will be a full year before he is really back to normal again, or as close to it as he’ll ever get. No idea how long he’ll be in a facility, but his medical bills are over $120,000 as of 7/20, a small portion paid by his auto insurance, we are a no fault state and they can’t look to the driver because he lied about having insurance when in fact he had none.

And so many people think we do not need single payor national health care. I’d like to prescribe some medicine for every legislator, every lobbyist, every lawyer, every health insurance official myself and that would be to sit down and watch Michael Moore’s wonderful documentary, Sicko. We brag so much about our health care but our statistics are dismal compared to other countries in virtually every category. Oh, sure, the RICH have wonderful health care, but no one else, and many have none at all. Single payor works in every country Michael visited, CUBA has better health care than we do, Americans go THERE to have procedures done they can’t get done here and at virtually no cost. Yet we have this cowboy mentality that says if it is American it is the best. The real truth is: That ain’t true no more. Not by a long way. We need to get there sooner rather than later and if that means a few HMO exec’s stop making 7 figure salaries, well so be it. We could do this for a fraction of what we are spending in Iraq. Yet lobbyists are screaming as if the world would end should this wonderful thing come to be, the AMA, which represents about 20% of American doctors is dead set against it, we hear a LOT about them, but not the other 80%, many of whom DO support the idea as in the best interest of their patients. We could DO preventative health care rather than emergency medicine which is SO much more expensive. It WILL happen, even if in increments. Because it makes so much sense spiritually, humanly and fiscally, though all the arguments use those three things as a basis to deny this need to the American people. Lest anyone think, I became an aficionado of this idea after Evan’s accident, well dig through the archives a bit, lol. And believe me when I tell you I gave copies of Sicko away as Christmas gifts last year. It is an idea whose time has come, my son’s desperate situation notwithstanding. So anyone reading this, I’ll debate it with you, I’ll send you a copy of Sicko, and I’ll ask you to ask your Representative and Senators to support it. It is time, this is right, and we need act. I hope to be here more often, but time still is constrained, though it is in me that will not be so for much longer. We’ll see what happens then. much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

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Dark night turned into a bright new day

I’ve not been here for a bit and while doing some housecleaning thought to check back in here and noticed my last post. I thought I’d best update things!

Evan spent a month in the Critical Care Unit of the ICU but last Thursday was moved to the “normal” ICU. He had us all very worried for much of the month and I’ve spent most of my non-working hours there with him. He was mostly comatose, kept that way, for three weeks. On the rare occasion his eyes would open, they were a blank, vacant stare. No sign of him at all. But last week, he suddenly began improving again.

They had begun weaning him off the respirator last weekend, until then he had been unable to sustain breathing on his own at all. I think the problem was, not only the severity of his asthma, but the smallness of the passenger seat compartment in the vehicle he was riding. He had severe bruising on both sides and I think his sides were hammered by the center console and the caving in of the passenger door multiple times during the accident, severely bruising his lungs. Once THEY healed, he was able to be weaned off the respirator, by the end of last weekend, he was breathing on his own entirely, and Monday night when I got there to visit him, the first thing I noticed was the room seemed empty – that was because the respirator had been removed. He was breathing entirely on his own, through the tracheotomy site, receiving slightly moistened air, but initiating breaths on his own. His improvement since then has been remarkable.

Friday evening when I arrived, they had installed an ingenious little device that allowed him to talk, on his own, hands still tethered, but when I came into the room, he looked at me and said, “hi, pop”. My son was back in his body, mind lucid, no memory of the accident but fully conscious and hardly able to believe he had missed a whole month. His wounds are healing well, he still has a lot of pain with the right leg and hip fracture and the left ankle is being kept going by another device, a wound vac, that is usually used with burn victims, which flushes the area 24/7 with fluids and nutrients. The sole of his foot was reattached with staples, which were removed this past week, as the reattachment “took” and there is healing going on there. It is still likely he will need a graft of some kind as he lost so much tissue, but he will keep his foot and a plastic surgeon will make it functional. He will be moving from the hospital to a care center in two to three weeks, where he will begin rehabilitation, to learn to walk all over again and regain the strength in his body. He has virtually none now, they removed the tethers from his wrists yesterday, but after over a month in one position, everything is sort of locked in one place and it is excruciating to move, even though vocational rehabilitation has already begun to help him regain range of motion and strength in his arms and shoulders. Anyone who had seen him bucking like a bronco as the medications would wear off over the past three weeks, trying to get out of bed, would find it hard to believe that he is now this week. Drugs are powerful fuel though and the enforced position has left him weak as a kitten. But the news is all good and he will again regain the strength of a lion, it will just take some time. And more time with him is what we have now, thanks to the angels of mercy, they call RN’s, who work 12 hour shifts with just two patients in the Critical Care Unit and whose professionalism, kindness, expertise and optimism kept our whole group of family and friends going these past four weeks. They are selfless and dedicated and marvelous human beings. And their ranks are being cut by 100 thanks to the skinflint we have as a Governor, Tim Pawlenty, Mr. No Taxes on the rich, who is preparing to end any sort of medical care for single adults, employed or not, able to care for themselves or not, so his rich friends aren’t inconvenienced in any way. For a party, Republican, that bills itself as Christian they seem to know little of how Christ treated the poor and infirm. That will be another post. This one I will end with a small prayer of gratitude to my Jenna and the angels who work with her for giving me back my only child. Thank you. Much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

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What dark night is this?

So, my third post of the year. Why? Well, the year has been taken with concern for and dealing with my only remaining child. He has been dark and depressed for most of the past three years as he separated from his wife, I will not go into why here, that is his and hers, and this isn’t about fault, for none of us are perfect. Still, it has been a long and contentious process and they are not yet divorced. He has taken more than his share of that weight on his shoulders. Much more. He has hated himself and the world. He has lived only for his children. He has struggled with alcohol. He decided six weeks ago to cleanse himself of that addiction, found and entered a treatment program. But he was too smart for his own good. Those of you who have come here from my main site know that I lost my youngest son a bit over 12 years ago. I have cherished my remaining son, my eldest, in the years since, though he too, as well as his mother, has suffered from the loss of our littlest one. Each of us in our own have absorbed blame we did not, perhaps, deserve for Brandon’s final act. He chose for himself. I wrote at length about my own part in the post about complicated bereavement. Knowing what happened to me within has not changed how I feel within. My oldest is a very smart man, he’s got an IQ of 157 and is as smart a man as you will ever run across. But he has a demon following him, a demon that follows many and has strewn many of our family, on both sides, across the fields of life and death.

Evan decided to enter a treatment program, found one and did. He attended two and a half weeks. After his Tuesday session in the third week, when I picked him up, he talked all the way home about how the evening had gone. His group leader had made some statements, categorically, which Evan knew to be wrong. And he spoke up, proved the truth he knew, and changed the dynamic of the group. From that point on, people asked his advice on issues, his take on their situation, the group leader as she threw out new questions to the group would say, what do you think about that, Evan? In his fourth meeting, he was running the group. That was a huge mistake, not his, he was being himself, but the group leader who allowed it to happen. It isn’t a new thing, Evan has been a leader all his life, people are drawn to him, and they want to do what he wants to do. When I would take him out to play at 5, before that I kept him inside, and he’d meet with other children, within minutes whatever they were doing stopped and they were doing what he wanted to do. He never commanded, or threatened, or did anything but be himself, they just wanted to do what he wanted to do. This has not always served him well. For to be a true leader, one needs the wisdom that comes with age and experience, to lead without that, can have dire consequences. All his life he has led whatever group he associated with. He is a dynamic but not domineering presence. And he has great compassion. But his choices have not always been wise. They’ve been his and he’s been successful with them, he only ever got in trouble when he relied on others to do their part and they couldn’t be him. I worried that night and the next day over how that last session had gone. He was feeling his oats, cocky, and in control. But that is NOT the point of treatment. The point of treatment is to recognize that something has power over you that you cannot control, and to learn mechanism’s to take back that control. In this case, his demon was alcohol.

I went to bed Wednesday night at 10, he sat downstairs fighting the urge to drink, and lost the battle, he took a cab to a bar, met a young man who had been of legal age for 2 days, celebrated with him and let him take him home rather than taking a cab as usual. I don’t know all of this yet, though it happened on April 23rd. The reason I don’t know is that at 2:23 that morning, that young man, on a residential street with a speed limit of 30 mph, was driving 80 mph, 30 feet from a stop sign at an intersection that ended that street. There was a gentle curve leading to that intersection, he couldn’t navigate it, and they drove through the curve into a yard and hit a large mature tree head on. The driver was thrown through the windshield and was up making calls in a couple minutes. Evan was trapped in the passenger seat as the car wound around the tree, the engine flew into another yard, part of the firewall came back into the passenger compartment and sheared off the sole of Evan’s left foot, leaving a gaping wound 7 inches long exposing the bone and cartilage of his left foot. The passenger door caved in and broke his right femur, shattered his right hip, and the dash crashed into and cracked his sternum. His scalp was lacerated and had to be reattached. He obviously saw it coming because he threw his arms up in front of him and his arms looked like he’d been in a fight with a mountain lion, and lost. He has been unconscious, in critical condition, in the critical care unit of a level one trauma hospital since that night.

It took 7 1/2 hours of surgery that night to repair his right femur and hip. It took the rest of the morning and day to save his life, THEN the surgery. I wasn’t contacted until 12 hours after the accident. When the investigating detective went to the hospital that morning, she asked if the family had been contacted, the staff said no, they had been busy trying to keep him alive. They can be proud, they did. Angels of mercy are they, who work 12 hour shifts, 7 days a week, without regard to holidays, secular or religious, because lives depend on their care. They are modern day living angels.

So. He’s been unconscious most of the time since, under heavy sedation and pain medication. Only one night was he lucid enough to react to my talking to him. Currently only three people are allowed to see him, at his express wish that night he was semi-lucid. He doesn’t want anyone to see him as he is. I don’t blame him. That he has been unconscious is merciful. That machines can tell when he is in pain and relieve that pain is a modern miracle. That I cannot hold and hug and tell my son that everything is going to be alright and he’ll be whole again is hell on earth. Twice now this experience. Am I blessed or cursed?

At least this time, my son is breathing, albeit via respirator, but his left ankle is so badly damaged that if they can save his foot, and that is far from certain, it will be always deformed. Was there a divine purpose in this horror? Obviously the group he was in for treatment was NOT right for him, group members are there to learn, not control. Did he need a lesson to learn that? Did he need to be humbled so that despite his intellect he could finally understand that intelligence alone is not enough to survive in this world? That we need each other to do that? His angels. Those who care about him? Those who are devastated by what has happened to him. Will he emerge from this a stronger, better man? Will he survive at all? All questions I cannot answer. He has had various procedures done unto him these past days, each has caused its own trauma. His asthma is so severe that it complicates everything the medical people are doing, he goes into respiratory distress during procedures. Today his blood pressure went over 200 and his heart rate over 150 as they LOOKED at his ankle and performed a tracheotomy so the intubation tube could come out of his throat after 9 days. His eyes never even fluttered while I stood by him, though he grimaced with pain in his drugged slumber.

The sole of his foot MUST reattach, or he will lose it completely, it is a horrible wound. If the sole finds his soul and reunites, a skin graft can be done to cover the gaping hole left by the tissue torn away during the accident. He will always have a deformed foot, but he will be able to walk, if. It will be a 6 to 9 month rehabilitation process, 4-8 weeks in the hospital and then a care facility, at the moment the high end in the hospital is looking most likely because they are treating his trauma and his asthma is getting palliative care and THAT is what is causing his respiratory distress. He has has asthma since he was 5 I know what respiratory distress looks like and this is worse. I have twice given the trauma station people his asthma specialists name and number, they MUST coordinate care with him, because what they are doing now for his asthma is palliative and that isn’t enough. Two weeks ago he began a regimen of three injections every two weeks, each series costs $7000.00. He’s had one, the next is due on Monday 5/4, and he won’t get it.

I am dealing with his business, I’ve a list of 13 things that have to be done, people that need to know things, that have to be informed, insurance, police, agencies. There is an SSI appeal going on because we filed a claim last fall and though the specialist the SS administration sent him to, showed 17% lung function in the lower half of his lungs and 40% in the upper half, they denied his claim. Why? Because the fact that he had been able to work for 8 of the previous 10 years proved he could work. Completely ignoring the fact that because his asthma has gotten so bad the last 2 years he hasn’t been able to work at all. His lawyers are sure we’ll win that. So am I. But then there is also the divorce, the consequences of his alcohol induced errors, his car, his recovery and rehabilitation. And so much more. I’ve had a headache for 4 months, I find myself hoping it is a tumor because I will not seek nor accept treatment for it. I’ve not really slept since Brandon died and watching Evan in this state is even worse. Brandon was one night, Evan is so strong he is holding on and fighting, but I feel like Chief Joseph, I wish to lay down my weapons and fight no more forever.

For any who wish to verify, or visit, or see, or understand. I have a web page set up for him, he could use your prayers and good thoughts. http://www.caringbridge.com/visit/evanj731

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The Beautiful You

From Steve Goodier’s wonderful newsletter:

We place great emphasis on a narrow idea of physical beauty.

In an American history discussion group, the professor was trying to explain how, throughout history, the concept of “beauty” changes with time. “For example,” he said, “take the 1921 Miss America. She stood
five-foot-one inch tall, weighed 108 pounds and sported a 30-inch bust, a 25-inch waist and 32-inch hips. How do you think she’d do in today’s version of the contest?”

The class fell silent for a moment. Then one student piped up, “Not very well.”

“Why is that?” asked the professor.

“For one thing,” the student pointed out, “she’d be way too old.”

Good point — she’d be way too old. But beauty is a peculiar thing, for it means something a little different to each of us. And it isn’t always about appearance. Sometimes beauty is a quality that softly shines from inner depths. And you may actually radiate more inner beauty than you realize.

An elderly woman noticed that her granddaughter felt embarrassed by her freckles. “I love your freckles,” she said, kneeling beside the girl and admiring her face.

“Not me,” the child replied.

“Well, when I was a little girl I always wanted freckles,” the grandmother said, tracing her finger across the child’s cheek. “Freckles are beautiful.”

The girl looked up. “Really?”

“Of course,” said her grandmother. “Why just name one thing that’s prettier than freckles.”

The little girl peered into the old woman’s smiling face, aglow with kindness and love. “Wrinkles,” she answered softly.

The physical beauty of youth will fade. But the beauty of a spirit, when nurtured, can grow forever.

– Steve Goodier

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

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A God Too Small

From Steve Goodier:

A GOD TOO SMALL

I enjoy a story about baseball great Joe Garagiola. He once stepped to the plate when his turn came to bat. Before assuming his stance, however, fervent Roman Catholic Joe took his bat and made the sign of the cross in the dirt in front of home plate. Catcher Yogi Berra, also a devout Catholic, walked over and erased Garagiola’s cross. Turning to the astonished batter, Berra smiled and said, “Let’s let God watch this inning.”

If I were God (and thank goodness I’m not), I think I would have wanted to simply watch the inning.

I likewise appreciate the story about an old Quaker who stood during the church meeting and told his fellow Friends about a young man who was not a Quaker and who lived an undisciplined life. This young man invited a pious Quaker friend to go sailing one day. A sudden storm came up and the wild young man was drowned. Having made his point, the old Quaker sat down.

Silence returned to the meeting until the old man once again arose.  This time he said, “Friends, for the honor of the truth, I think I ought to add that the Quaker also drowned.”

And if I were God (and again, thank goodness I’m not), I think I would have felt sadness for both losses. Neither was a greater tragedy than the other.

I know that religious piety can be a wondrous and beautiful thing. But it disturbs me the prominent role religions have historically played in wars and brutality over the ages. If I imagine a god so small as to favor those who think like me, worship like me and act like me, then I know very little of life and less of faith. I can’t help but think this world would be in better shape if the gods most of us believed in were a little bigger.

– Steve Goodier

I love these little synchrhonicities that pop up along the path.  I was thinking about this very thing this weekend past.  Wanting to bring the conversation here back to the books I started this blog with.  And the thought that kept running through my mind, is how we humans have crafted God to be as small as we.  Each side, no matter what the debate, claims to have the support of God.  People, virtually always men, but increasingly, in the middle east anyway, women too, are willing kill innocents because they believe their particular book, or their interpretation of it, means they must either convert others to their brand of piety, or kill them.

We humans in our forever religious fervor try to make God as small as we feel.  When the truth is so much greater than that.  We may, or  may not, have been created in His image, although that does seem to leave the female population out in the cold, so to speak, but what we have done with that idea over the centuries is use it to write books in which we condemn all who believe in other books to death and damnation eternal.

When I think along those lines, I always wonder how people can take them seriously.  What sort of God would allow the creation of 6000 religions and then expect each of His or Her children to FIND that ONE true religion, even if born in a part of the world that has never heard of it, and then condemn to eternal torment all others?  Well, I have an answer to that question!  No sort of God would do that.  No sort of parent would do that.  Which brings me then to the idea that it isn’t God who wrote those books, nor came up with those ideas, it was men, for the purpose of exerting power over other men, and women and children too.  How?  By causing them to live in fear.  Our creator is not fearful.  Look to my main site for descriptions of what it feels like to be, even for a few seconds, in the presence of God, because that is what I believe I experienced, and why that site exists, to speak to that truth.  God is love.  Humans are fearful.  And the last thing God wants is for us to fear Him/Her.  Our creator is so much more than we puny humans with our never-ending bloodthirsty will to kill everything and everyone who dare have a different idea, or believe in a different book.  I tell you all those books are lies, concocted by humans for human purposes, not divine.  The closest words of truth that you will find about our Creator are contained in Conversations With God, Books 1 and 2, by Neale Donald Walsch.  And in my next post, soon, I am going to talk about what God says there and the truth of those words.  Until then, much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

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Breaking the Silence

Which will be welcome news to some. I think. I’m still not sure how much I will be writing, but I will again be writing. While on my hiatus from this blog, I’ve been fully engaged in life, struggles, issues, day to day things that have, and continue, to consume my time. However, one of the things I’ve done is consult with a family therapist, no, not related to the complicated bereavement issue I wrote about before, but, yes, in a way that was, is, part of it. It is shocking, really, how deeply the loss of a child affects an entire family. I don’t mean for a few moments or months, either, the echo’s of a suicide reverberate through time, it seems endlessly. While time itself makes the wound bearable, it leaves scar tissue that is exceedingly tender and which can be cut, again and again. Sometimes in completely unexpected ways, others in more predictable ways, but it isn’t just me who has been affected by Brandon’s choice to leave the earthly plane, but our entire family, in ways both obvious and not so much. It’s hard to decide what issues that have arisen since that horrible event are attributable or had their beginnings with that event and which did not.

So, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I have my remaining son living with me, since August, 2008, for the first time since he was 21. It has taken time to get to know each other again, for me to get used to having someone else in the house where I’ve lived alone, but for Cisco, for 12 years. There have been and are frictions, most not caused by our living together, but by issues in his own life that have caused him, justifiably, enormous pain and stress. Those issues continue, which is why I saw a family therapist, to try to find ways for me to cope with this situation. He has his own ways and needs, our interests don’t really coincide, except in a handful of areas, and that in and of itself causes friction, sometimes more. It has not and is not, easy. For either of us. I have faith though that we both will be okay. One of the ways I’ll be okay is to write again. That was the suggestion of my therapist, there were others but they aren’t relevant here as this is my blog, not True Confessions, lol. So, I am going to start making time for my own interests again, things I’ve ceded or given up entirely, this blog being one of those things.

I’m not going to begin by going back to the books, though that IS where I will be going, today, I just wanted to reintroduce myself, talk a little about why I’ve been gone, and then talk a bit about a discussion I had following President Obama’s inauguration. I was on a message board where someone said he was confused about why the world cared about this event, that the President is President of the United States adding somewhat ominously, yet, and that this one in particular was little more than an empty suit. So I responded with what I see as reasons for the world to join the American people in celebrating this event in the following way.

“I don’t doubt your confusion. But what the world sees in the ability of an overwhelmingly white country to elect a man of color, is hope. Hope that if we can set aside racial differences, trust our leadership to a man of color, that their own lives might be bettered. Perhaps that the rest of the world too might be able to achieve a peaceful transition of leadership every few years. But mostly I think they feel hope that a new America is emerging. An America that can lead the world to a place of peace and prosperity globally.

I share that faith and as a veteran of the Viet Nam conflict and a white male, I applaud what this country did last November. So does the rest of the world. President Obama is far from an empty suit, he will lead us through the challenges we face with courage, integrity and honor. The world is a better, safer place for what America has just done. And the world, though perhaps not you, recognizes that.”

What some Americans fail to recognize is that although our nation is overwhelming white, the rest of the world is not. That a man whose father, as he said in his speech, would not be served in some restaurants, to say the least, 60 years ago, could rise from poverty to the highest office in our country, supported by millions of white voters, IS an event of global significance. There were parties and celebrations around the world as the inauguration took place. Every person of color in our own country can hold their head a bit higher today. It is no longer acceptable for persons of color to allow hopelessness to dominate their thinking, to believe that the way things were is the way they will always be. Every child of color in this country will grow up KNOWING there is no more glass ceiling, that cannot be used as an excuse for bad behavior, for lack of effort, for giving up before getting started. Hope is the one thing the world cannot live without.

Hope is what this election brings to the world. Hope for a new way to live, a new path to follow, a new experience to have, hope for an America interested in and committed to, the well-being of every citizen of this wonderful planet. I think that is a wonderful thing and as much as I believe we need a female head of state too, I believe we first needed to prove to the world that we are not a nation of racist cowboys, that we as a country, repudiate the events of the last 8 years, indeed also the events of the early years of country when we counted people of color as less than fully human and unworthy of freedom and a place at our table. I believe this election proves and demonstrates that we are committed to amending what wrongs we have done and that we will support the cause of freedom for all the people of our planet.

I think Barack Obama is the perfect choice at the perfect moment in history to lead this challenging country, indeed, the planet, though he is not, as the original writer pointed out, President of anything but America, it is still true that America leads the free world. I think a substantial percentage of the world will enjoy increasing freedom and prosperity through the efforts President Obama will undertake and, I believe, successfully bring into the light. He was right about one thing, more than any other, in his speech when he said: “And those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account — to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day — because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.” It has long been my own position that the business of the public, if it cannot be conducted in the open, cannot withstand public scrutiny, probablly should not be conducted at all. Closed door meetings during which decisions are made, without the consent of the American people, are wrong. If you can’t say it in public, then you probably should not say it, let alone do it. I can’t begin to tell you the excitement and pride I feel at this new juncture in American history, indeed, Earth history. This President has my full confidence and abiding faith that he can bring the world to one table of thanksgiving. May it be so. Much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

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A goodbye

I am shutting down writing for a while. This blog was never the main point of my buying this website name in the first place. My main site One People – One World was, and is, the reason. I’ve been told this should be about the light, well, there is very little of that in my life these days for many reasons. It is hard to see the light in the midst of a very dark tunnel and that is where I find myself of late. So, I’m going to just stop. For a while or forever, I don’t yet know. But for now certainly as I find myself afloat, a ship without an anchor, so I leave for some period of time with this song:

Goodbye Stranger

It was an early morning yesterday
I was up before the dawn
And I really have enjoyed my stay
But I must be moving on

Like a king without a castle
Like a queen without a throne
I’m an early morning lover
And I must be moving on

Now I believe in what you say
Is the undisputed truth
But I have to have things my own way
To keep me in my youth

Like a ship without an anchor
Like a slave without a chain
Just the thought of those sweet ladies
Sends a shiver through my veins

And I will go on shining
Shining like brand new
I’ll never look behind me
My troubles will be few

Goodbye stranger it’s been nice
Hope you find your paradise
Tried to see your point of view
Hope your dreams will all come true

Goodbye mary, goodbye jane
Will we ever meet again
Feel no sorrow, feel no shame
Come tomorrow, feel no pain

Now some they do and some they don’t
And some you just can’t tell
And some they will and some they won’t
With some it’s just as well

You can laugh at my behavior
That’ll never bother me
Say the devil is my savior
But I don’t pay no heed

And I will go on shining
Shining like brand new
I’ll never look behind me
My troubles will be few

Chorus, repeat

Remember, please, if today brings even one choice your way choose to be a bringer of the light. Mayhaps, I’ll see it and we will share a cup of coffee and talk it through. :^) gene

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