Gone

Esther, Good night.

Sweetly, serenely, Aunt Esther slipped into that Great Good Night on Wednesday, November 21, 2012.  We were contacted Wednesday night by email just an hour before our family began to arrive from out-of-town for the annual Thanksgiving gathering of the clans.

Comings and goings.

Tears of joy; tears of loss.

**************************************************************

The five day feast here was cozy and included our first-ever official sleep-over with our granddaughter sans mama and papa. Solo sleepovers of grand children may not seem like a big deal to most. To us it does. The fact that THREE adults - my husband and I, and our younger daughter, who is auntie to the three-and-a-half-year-old-cutie-pie, Miss D - were totally exhausted in the wake of the actual solo-with-us-time - made us appreciate immensely how elegantly Miss D's mama navigates as a single mom. She has earned our renewed respect, awe and wonder. How DOES she do it?

Let's see: After D's mom left about 7:30 a.m., Saturday, Miss D and we three adults made breakfast, played games, danced, ran around the house, went in the hot tub, took turns supervising and taking baths and hair washes, and had lunch. My husband and I continued with laundry and putting the house back in order (after 30 folk converged Thursday for turkey, communion and song), while Auntie and Niece had a nap. Then we piled into the car headed for Sportsman's Lodge - an old standby place to see swans. We delighted in finding a few ducks and watching D run around on the bridges over un-troubled - apart from the chlorine - water. Then we drove to Topanga for a continuation of over-eating and over-indulging of sweets at yet another relative's home. Miss D said out loud, to everyone's D-light at the table, "I like everything on my plate and I'm going to eat it all." Them's is words of HIGH PRAISE from a three-and-a-half-year-old!

With P-Js on and brushing of teeth accomplished, we drove home listening via iPod to Hans Conried reading selections from Dr. Seuss. (My husband's idea.) D was intrigued. She slept through the entire night and did not need to follow the trail of stuffed turtles (also my husband's idea) leading from her bedroom to ours. We slept well (if not long enough) and were reluctant to say good bye Sunday morning. Miss D's dad picked her up and they drove off for the wilds of the north listening to Dr. Seuss all the way home. (They arrived safely.)

Younger daughter Megan left a little later Sunday, affording us an opportunity for sweet sharing.

We enjoyed a good cry as we completed the moving of beds, final loads of laundry and consolidating of left-overs. Comings and goings go better with tears flowing.

We went to a screening of Lincoln, which we thought exquisitely done. 

NOW, can we sleep?

Sweet dreams Miss D...

Great Good Night, Aunt Esther...

... And Good Night, Mrs. Calabash - where EVER you are.

In The Shadow Of...

Kids whose sibs are sick live in the shadows. Mom and Dad are preoccupied with the health and welfare of the child who is struggling with treatments, hospital stays and feeling awful. There’s no formula for getting through tough times that threaten to undermine families, only cobbled together plans. Neighbors, friends, and extended family members step up to the plate as best they can to care for the “healthy” siblings.

At Camp Ronald McDonald for Good Times, they used to show a video to the new counselors, during orientation, to help us understand the sibling’s experience. It was filmed thirty years ago and, though it is dated, it graphically shows the toll exacted from these “lost in the shadows” kids. They suffer losses of love and protection, self-esteem, direction in life and, in some cases, end up with PTSD themselves - just from the vicarious trauma of witnessing their sibling’s grueling medicalized journeys. Sometimes, understandably, they feel totally neglected. 

CRMfGT is a year round cost free camp for children with cancer and their families.

Another camp where we volunteer gives a slide show of the photos taken during family camps to each family participating, and to each counselor. The Painted Turtle camp offers sessions for various diagnoses - including liver transplant, kidney, asthma, PIDD, arthritis, diabetes, hemophelia, skeletal displasia and Crohn’s and colitis. When my husband and I watch the DVD, we see the family portraits taken Friday night followed by snapshots of everyone involved in various camp activities - such as: archery, ropes course and zip-line, horseback riding, woodshop, arts and crafts, carnival, stage night, dancing, making music and campfire.

Watching the evolution of comfort that increases exponentially from Friday evening through Sunday afternoon is nothing short of hypnotizing. I’m particularly ingrigued by the softening I see in the faces of siblings who feel the enveloping safety in this place where mom and dad don’t have to work so hard at jobs, nor do the cooking, driving, cleaning and extra care of the child with the diagnosis all by themselves, but rather have a little free attention and TIME to play with them - the “who-am-I, chopped-liver?” kids!

As families leave, many people are crying out-right: They do not want to leave this magical and sacred place.

Counselors, too, are moved to tears - not only because of the transformative quality of camp, but also because so much healing happens at camp that we have tears of joy to be able to witness it. The families are not the only ones to benefit - not by a long-shot. Our camp family - the bigger family that includes medical, maintenance and kitchen staff, volunteers, and, of course, the families who come to camp - is a crucible where our rough edges are melted off and our true gold has a place to shine and to reflect the beauty of every person who passes through the gates.

As Thanksgiving is just around the corner, I’m drawn to give a BIG shout out to Camp Ronald McDonald for Good Times, The Painted Turtle and all the Serious Fun Network camps, Camp del Corazon and all the camps in the world that offer FUN for families struggling with an illness that's grabbed one of their children, while normalizing being a KID - not just a patient. I’m especially thankful to the camps that include the siblings of patients. Let’s bring them out of the shadows.

Happy Thanksgiving.

For more info on these camps please visit:

www.campronaldmcdonald.org/

www.thepaintedturtle.org/

www.campdelcorazon.org

www.seriousfunnetwork.org/

Each and every one of these camps runs on private donations. If, in the season of giving thanks, you feel moved to include one of those camps listed above, tell 'em "Pun and Moose sent me."

Babs at the Dance

Last year, sitting in her room while Mama Barbara slept, I observed her stroke-ravaged body in motion in the November light and imagined her as a healthy young woman at a barn dance...

Dozy Babs; dreamy afternoon
Leaves dancing outside the window
Darting shadows and light take her into a 
Dream of hands reaching for hands; 
Dark encircling light; light grabbing hold of 
Darkness - glad handing it with a fierce smile and 
A force field a mile wide.
The square dance begins

The barn is filled with swirling skirts of turquoise, 
Browns, yellows and red
Sounds of boots to boot
Allemande left allemande right 
Perpetually falling in love hand over hand.

Night is sweaty. 
Barn feels too close
Out she goes into the cooler openness under 
Stars laughing 
Holding the hand of the most potentially perfect 
Partner, Bob.
Babs and Bob laughing together heads thrown
To the half moon- 
It and they 
On their way 
To being whole 

Oh, to be forever rising in love with this moment– 
Each and every moment 
Babs notes in the dream, I must remember this –     
That every moment is 
Infused with love if only we have ears to hear 
The music, and eyes to see beyond the Veil.
Is this dream a remembered moment from her 
Real life? It is now.

The dream continues with swirling skirts 
Flaring out and floating down 
To smaller vertical, cylindrical encirclings of 
Waists, hips and thighs 
Boots to boot bang emphatically on dusty wood as 
Sweat circles enlarge beneath muscular arms 
Encased in black, white, yellow and crimson 
Western shirt sleeves. 
White piping points - 
Exclamation points to the 
Perfect pectorals and bulging biceps

Babs has always loved the dance, has thrived on it 
More than food ‘til the stroke took half her body 
Into stillness...

Ah, but the parts that still move affirm life daily 
Knocking out the familiar rhythm that banged her 
And everyone else into existence.
In the dream, too, she remembers the dance and 
Begins to moan softly

She wakes to the sound of her own breathing, her 
Own heart beating in her ears. 
She opens her eyes 
Snorts. Smiles shyly. Sighs. Sees again 
Flickering shadow dance of leaves. 
Hand-shaped leaves waving to her  
Outside the window. 
Wisps of the dream paste smiling faces-
Glistening and fading around
One face 
Bob’s face 
Onto the window where they evaporate like 
Sweat stains fade when the heat has passed - as if 
Nothing happened. 
Only the salt lets us know there was passionate Movement. 

The Glorious, Passionate Movement of Life.

Generosity of Gaia

The elm next door drops confetti in october

Perfect green circles

Pods pouring promise

Of new life

Thousands of them 

Blow ‘round the neighborhood

Generous Mama Nature

Ever envisioning a world

Completely covered in green 

Growing gourgeousness

She plans accordingly

Lobster eggs by the millions

Human eggs by the thousands

‘Though we two-leggeds try 

To thwart her at ever turn, in every city

Paving over fields and concretizing

Our will over Hers with bridges,

Buildings and butt-ugly parking lots,

She persists and perseveres with

Her Project and Progeny

Every blade of grass coming 

Through the cracks - a triumph

Over our denseness

I cannot blame corporate asses

For the thoughtless squelching

Of Gaia’s divine plan

Nor is it the ASS-FAULT (asphalt)

It is I who have allowed it;

Not stopped it from the Git-Go

My heroes - Chief Seattle among them

Warned that Man’s heart, away

From the softening influence

Of The Mother becomes hard

Victor Schauberger, the Austrian forester

Knew the vitality of the Water Course Way

Flying over our US of A in 1930 

He welled-up with tears

Shaking his head, 

He pronounced us a doomed country

For we had the audacity to

Straighten the rivers and 

Dam them up

It’s the wildness that keeps the balance

It’s the wildness that will redeem us

It’s the wildness to which we must return

Embracing wildness is our salvation. 

http://www.utne.com/politics/climate-change-zm0z12ndzlin.aspx?newsletter=1&utm_content=10.29.12+Environment&utm_campaign=2012+ENEWS&utm_source=iPost&utm_medium=email