I haven’t had much to say. Grieving and sadness has been my natural state for a while now.
Mostly I use Facebook these days to keep in touch.. not on FB yet.. it’s easy to sign up and you don’t need to give out any info you don’t want. But once you sign up ‘we’ can be ‘friends’ and you can access my profile page. (Bobbi Kensler Wisby)
Don’t know if this will work for a non-facebooker, but here’s a :
link to my profile.
Kaya our loved kitty was laid to rest August 28, 2009. She was my best friend and constant companion for 15 years. She was ‘our kid’. A good kind gentle soul and wonderful kitty. She will be missed more than she will ever know.
Kaya is dying of cancer. This all happened in 2 weeks from noticing anything was wrong. I am devastated. I don’t want her to go. She is uncomfortable at best.
I wonder when if ever I will learn to deal gracefully with loss, cuz right now i am crying and wanting to blame. And there isn’t much I can do to make her more comfortable.
This just totally sucks.
(Ages since last post.)
I have been working on a new install of WordPress as a CMS.
I remember when I installed MT here for this blog, took some time, but was relatively easy.
The MT forums at the time (2003) were active with friendly people who wanted to help..not just point you to an outdated Codex file.
Word Press, for all its popularity, doesn’t do some very simple things well at all. I started the dev 2 months ago, at version 2.8 since then there have been 4 major upgrades of the software!
Because I hand code, I know how to do everything I am asking WP to do for me, but trying to get WP to do it, well is another thing.
The reason I chose WP, was the client wanted to be able to ‘write their own info’ (post) and upload photos and such, so i needed to give them a back end that was user friendly.
I don’t know how that will work out in the long run, but it’s been a summer of WP learning curve and frustration. And it doesn’t look like this site will ‘go live’ for at least another month!
[the site did go live HumCPR]
[I have continued working with WP and learning constantly..)
(life)
We did get away for our anniversary July 27, just a short trip to Ruth Lake, some swimming and a bit of fishing.
We also did Reggae on the River, the one day event now at Benbow State Park, very irie and fun.
Russel is really making some progress on some of the homesteading projects we have, so that is good. School starts soon and time will be short.
I talk with Dad’s widow, Sue a lot. I miss the Michigan family, after being there for so long, I got used to being able to see everyone.
Not to good about keeping in touch, but making an effort.
Facebook as become my hang out, lots of my cousins and nieces are on there so I can keep in touch that way. And many locals who I don’t see all that often, so now we can at least play a game of Lexulous (scrabble) every now and then. I have also ‘friended’ with lots of Bruce Cockburn Humans, some old friends, and even made some new ones.
I guess the neatest Facebook story I have so far is this one:
Background:
I went to high school and was friends with a group of brothers (4), D,G,J,R. Both D and R have passed. I have pictures of us from 1966 to 1971.
Well my cousin on FB, had a friend with the same last name as the 4 above, he ‘friended’ me and said, “hey won’t J & G be surprised by who I found on FB!”
So I connected with him, I vaguely remember him, as he is the youngest brother of the 4 I mentioned. Come to find out that J (who I was friends all through school) has some kids with girl I went to school with. (who also has passed on)
So they fb’d me..and they wanted the stories, because they had never met their uncles.. dying so young and all. And they didn’t have pictures.
So I spent a weekend digging though old photo albums and year books, scanned a bunch of photos into FB and told them some stories about their uncles, even the youngest brother didn’t know a lot of this stuff and had never seen most of these pictures.
The gratitude and thankfulness I felt from them for doing this little thing lifted me up, when I was very down and still grieving heavily for my Dad.
So when you wonder if you should pitch all those old photos, well, maybe not. Maybe find the persons who will treasure them and pass them on.
Anyway to me it was the neatest FB connection so far.
Summer Arts 2009
Well I missed both Summer and Winter Arts fairs in 2008 .. my head space just wasn’t open to much of anything.
Dad’s passing has been a heart drama even though I knew he was going.
This year I mark Summer Arts as the first of many, I hope, revivals of my spirit. It was a warm and (finally) sunny day. So many friends and folks I only see once or twice a year where there. Good connections many.
Especially great to see Joellen who has migrated to Brooklyn, NY for the last years or so.
And so many people I know have lost a parent just recently, friends Sharon, Charlie, and Rob lost their mothers (all with in the past month). And there are more. I guess it is our age, and the ages of our parents, that this is to be. As Charlie said to me, “We are now the old ones..!” I guess I wasn’t really ready to accept that..even though it is true.
I have been back home now since May 21. The first 2 weeks, I was so ‘not grounded here’ at all. It is getting better now. The garden is doing great and I will have some photos soon. Russel only has 2 school classes left until fall, and he leaves for Aikido summer camp next Sunday. I am trying to pull myself ‘out of the funk’ of grief and to enjoy the life we have, but I still wake with lots of anxiety and do wonder why. Also, attempting to ‘reconnect’ and solidify the relationships I have with friends.
When I was in Michigan with Dad and Sue, and all my Dad’s brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, cousins and second cousins, nieces and nephews and friends and neighbors.. it was constant visits … there was hospice and home health care nurses, and people stopping by really one after another all day and evening. There was always someone to do anything Sue needed done.. and there still is.
Family, living close to one another and family being true friends, that is what Dad had there. I have that there as well, but I am here and although I have friends … the ‘net’ doesn’t feel as strong as what I experienced in Michigan. So perhaps that is a bit of my anxiety, the reality of aging, and wondering all of the ‘what ifs?’.
Dad took his last breathe Sunday evening May 10 at 8:10pm.
Wave on wave of life
Like the great wide ocean’s roll
Haunting hands of memory
Pluck silver strands of soul
The damage and the dying done
The clarity of light
Gentle bows and glasses raised
To the charity of night
~~~Bruce Cockburn
***************************************************
Do not stand at my grave and weep;
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there, I did not die.
I have been in Michigan since April 26th now.
Dad’s fall on Easter eve (April 11) that landed him in the hospital with broken bones in his neck was the real start of the decline, being confined to a bed.
He was able to talk to me and the dozens of family and friends who have been visiting here. He even got all his brothers and sisters together last Saturday and declared that the day was “a great day”.
But that took a lot of energy and it’s been down hill since then.
Now he is in his last days. No eating, drinking barely a couple of ounces of water. Started morphine on Monday 4th.
I will be staying here now until he passes and the memorial is over.
Don’t really know how long a time that will be.
And I need to get Russel here, but he doesn’t have weeks he can spend just waiting here.
So Waiting is… and i am learning that lesson yet again.
Here’s a photo of Dad, Sue and her new puppy. Dad finally relented and let her have a dog.
There is so much going on that I am not writing here, maybe one day I will put more of it on paper.
