Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We had a wonderful three days and two nights away, despite meltdowns, crying, the furnace being finicky and other facets of a family gathering.  We cooked, watched babies, endured Finding Dory repeats and enjoyed the ocean and park and aquarium.  The jellyfish were a favorite as were the big red octopus and the delicate tiny white octopus.  We sang Christmas carols.  We played Boggle and Uno.  Now we're back for the last couple of days of our daughter's and granddaughter's visit, and I will fly back with them to assist.  My daughter is much better, so the infusions are working, and she has been able to stop the painkillers completely.  I won't need to do much there except drive and cook and grocery shop.  Hey, that's my forte.  I feel more hopeful each day and am so pleased she has quality time in the new year.  Last night both my daughters, my granddaughter and I saw "Little Women" and we cried and sighed and agreed it was a terrific version of a book dear to all of us.  We came home fortified and firm in our believe in family love and support.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I'm feeling very blessed, with all my kids and grandkids around me.  We had a noisy, lovely Christmas Eve, with only one bloody nose and a few screams.  Today everyone was thrilled with their stockings, and the children with their presents.  We finally got breakfast on the table, then the entire herd went to a nearby park to get some of the squiggles out.  We're having crab for early dinner, because three of the four kids have early bedtime.
My cousin and my Buddhist swim buddy wrote me such heartfelt notes and their words sustain me through the joy and sorrow of my daughter's cancer.  She is transcendent.  Engaged, loving, funny, and so observant.  She's attuned to the universe now.  My heart bleeds inside, but my love grows and grows. 
Let there be peace in the world and kindness and the gift of really seeing every sentient being.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Part of our family went to a nursery to look at the plants, the Christmas decorations, and let the children pick out an ornament for their trees.  We got a baby's-first-Christmas for the youngest, and our granddaughter picked out a taco truck ornament and our older daughter a beautiful, sparkly glass ornament.  I bought crackers for the Christmas Eve meal, and then my daughter pointed out an ornament that I loved:  narcissus in a vase, which was perfect because that is the flower I set around the house at this time of year.  I love the smell, and adore white flowers.  We all headed home for turkey sandwiches, and it felt relaxed.  Tonight we're going to an area, just two blocks, with shops, lights and music and Santa.  It's cold and crisp and clear, and perfect holiday weather.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My mother loved Christmas.  She was as excited as a child.  She loved the music, though she couldn't sing a note, the tree, the food, the stockings, and the gifts.  She made fudge and bourbon balls and divinity.  She had a big Christmas Eve dinner and then we opened one gift.  The next morning we rushed in to the living room, opened our stockings and then our gifts.  She hadn't really had Christmas as a child, her family was too poor, and one year she was given coal in her stocking for some mysterious misbehavior, and I think she wanted to make Christmas what she had dreamed of as a child of the depression.  So she was the light of the holiday, but also the dark.  When we were older and then as adults she drank too much and ruined every Christmas.  She would fight with my father, his gift was always a disappointment, whatever it was, and when she was drunk she could and did say cruel things.  Christmas is complicated.  For most of us.
This time I am acutely aware that this may be my daughter's last Christmas.  I want it perfect, but there is much sorrow in all of our hearts.  We will make it happy for the kids, but a shadow is over us adults.  I can't bear to think of how this affects our daughter.  Bless her, and let there be a miracle. 

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Our family is rallying around our daughter to help her as she fights to live as long as she can.  She visits tomorrow for a few days and we will have a confab about how best to support her and her granddaughter.  A dear friend once told me I was "tribal" and I was baffled, because I had assumed all people thought like me, but she was right.  My tribe is where the majority of my energy has gone and goes to now.  I'm proud of our daughter who is so brave and proud of her siblings and their spouses.  We are surrounding her with love.
Yesterday, my husband and I took our three year old grandson to a vivarium, where he was in heaven among the turtles, tortoises, frogs, lizards, snakes and other critters that many children fear.  He was fascinated.  He especially liked Lemon Drop, an enormous boa bright yellow, that looked longer than a boat.  Lemon Drop's roommate is Cupcake.  The monitor lizards were lively, and there were critters not for sale, because the owners and staff have such a soft spot for them.  I found myself enchanted by them all, though I usually think of myself as squeamish.  Perhaps my grandson gave me courage.  The world is a marvelous place and its creatures extraordinary.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I am living with uncertainty, and it is disorienting.  Luckily, I know nothing is ever certain anyway, and plans dissolve in an instant.  We only have the illusion of control.  Our daughter's health has been a lesson in the roller coaster ride of life.  She's brave and determined and surrounded by friends who love her and help all they can.  Her family is praying and searching for treatments and ready to do whatever on a moment's notice.  We're all stressed and trying to balance our concern with staying in the moment and not projecting.  It's hard.  She is amazing:  clear sighted, able to ask for what she needs, and hopeful.  That is the blessing:  being a witness to her love of her life, her ability to enjoy whatever she can, and nurture herself and her daughter. 

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I saw in the newspaper this morning a report on two experimental treatments for breast cancer that looked very promising and sent the information on to be my daughter.  I don't want to interfere, and she's in charge of her health, but this report seemed hopeful.  She is tolerating the infusion well, but still has a lot of pain from her bones.  My friend who is a doctor had a couple of good ideas about the pain.  The first is that bad spots could be irradiated to ease the pain.  The second is she talked to a woman whose daughter was undergoing chemo without an end date, and that was keeping her alive and relatively herself, with a good life.  So there is hope all around, and I feel encouraged. 
Don't know is taking each moment as it comes without projecting into the future or living in fear.  We will live in each moment and feel it fully, pain and joy, the whole bag of tricks that is living.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My daughter has begun her chemo today and we hope for the best.  Her best friend is with her for support, and we await news of whether she will be able to come here for Christmas or I will go up there.  In the meantime I've received an outpouring of love and prayers, and feel fully supported.  I cry frequently, but also am attempting to enjoy each moment as it comes, and engage with the people (mainly grandkids) I'm spending time with.  Life is precious, and each moment is a snowflake unique and beautiful, and all are equal.  I'm trying not to add on to my sadness by attachment or aversion, which is suffering I inflict upon myself.  This is not about me.  My daughter is being brave and fully herself while she experiences horrible pain, and her situation reminds me of the Brad Pitt zombie movie where he tells the young female Israeli soldier to "gut up".  My daughter has been gutting up for six years, and is a fierce warrior.  Bless her and I'm still hoping for her to be saved. 

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My daughter has had some bad news, and we are all concerned for her health and treatment.  We are rallying around her, and I will shortly go to stay with her and help out.  It's a shock and upsetting, but I am holding on to "Don't Know" and one day at a time.  Many are praying for her, and her courage and nobility are shining through.  She's a fighter and fierce, in the best sense of the word.  I love her and my heart beats with hers no matter if we're together or apart.  I hope she responds well to the new treatment and can continue her life of writing, parenting, being with friends and family. 

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I got home from a day with my fussy baby grandson to make dinner, put ornaments on the tree and address Christmas cards.  What a day!  I have to do enough this week that I can concentrate on the holiday party my son and I are having next week.  Crazy, but in a good way.  Keeping a seven month old from a Christmas tree is quite challenging, I have discovered.  Luckily, he's distractible.  Almost anything intrigues him.  Today my bookmark riveted him, until he stuffed it in his mouth and I had to pry his jaws open to remove the soggy mess.  Risky business, as he has four teeth now.  Both his parents are sick, so this week is challenging.  I try to help, but today I couldn't take over for my son, who had promised to babysit for my daughter and her husband, because I'm already babysitting the three year old Thursday night, and I'm stretched beyond my limits.  The holidays have that elastic quality to them, but at my age, the pliability is not so great.  Ah, well.  One day at a time.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I went with a friend to see the film "Waves" last night.  It is extraordinary!  Visually it's stunning, the acting is amazing, and the story fresh and profound.  It transcends race and class, even though it's centered on a black middle class family.  I was sucked in from the beginning, and really cared about these people.  They were flawed but sympathetic, and so deeply human.  I saw my own confusion as a teenager and as a parent.  I was left shattered in a good way.  It's not an easy film to see, but it's an important film to see. 

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

This is shaping up to be an Edgar Allen Poe kind of day, with wind, dark skies, and drizzle.  I'm hoping my grandson will be here later.  He's been sick and his parents have stayed home with him.  I have enjoyed breaking the routine, but now I miss him.  It's amazing how attached I've gotten to all the grandchildren.  It's as if I carry them with me everywhere.  My friend and I went out to lunch yesterday, then I followed her around like a puppy while she bought a covering for a window, then talked to a business about new french doors.  We also wandered in a crazy dress shop I like, very seventies and hippie oriented,  but found nothing for our short bodies.  Every jacket and top was too much, too much material, too much embroidery, too much sleeve.  I love flamboyance but look better in severely tailored clothes.  Same with my friend.  And our partners are both a foot taller.  I told her how we didn't "match" with them, but she dismissed my theory.  We're friends like that - we say what we think.  No persona anymore, just the unvarnished us as we are.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My Zen teacher's husband died two days ago.  I was deeply fond of him, and he occasionally gave dharma talks himself at retreats.  He also was an expert on the origin of words, and fascinated us with how exciting and powerful words can be.  He was a gallant man, devastated when his wife, our teacher, deteriorated with Alzeimer's, and he lost his confidant and intellectual partner.  Without him she will have to sell their property in a beautiful valley, and move in with our daughter and her partner, or be in a facility.  Though I found a new teacher as she deteriorated, I felt overwhelming gratitude to her, the place they retired, and my many profound experiences there.  Her lessons:  Things Change, Don't Know, and It Takes as Long as it Takes, among others, guide my life.  They had fourteen years retired before he died, and I know he loved it there, made lots of friends, and adored swimming in his pool, with the dogs racing around and barking.  The lesson is dying.  He had a sudden and fast death, which is a blessing for him, but hard for the survivors.  He was brave and loyal and loving to his wife, and his suffering watching her disease advance is at an end.  Even the best of us die, and we must remember to be ever so grateful for the lives we are given.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Our three year old grandson had his birthday party today, and we helped set up and clean up, so we were there the entire three hours.  My daughter called me yesterday asking for suggestions and I promptly answered:  number one, lots of balloons, number two, don't bother about cake, it's all about the ice cream for toddlers.  I was mighty gratified, because the balloons were the biggest hit, and the majority of the play was catching them, pulling them around by their strings, and choosing colors.  The tiny ice cream cones, toddler sized, were perfect for the kids, and every single kid had one and ate the whole thing.  My daughter wisely had healthy snacks, sandwiches of pbj, and apple slices.  The kids ate this food without trauma or mess.  Nothing got broken, no one stepped on a baby brother or sister, and most stayed the entire time.  Our grandson was pleased, and sent us home with a green balloon.  We didn't get the playdough favor though.  He knows us well.