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.