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An Update on My Writing and Life in General


I crossed the 25,000 word threshold. It is the half-way mark for NaNoWriMo but not my ultimate goal now. I am still convinced I have 79,000 words in me, and so the memoir will take me into December which means revising some of my writing plans for the end of the year. Not the worst thing which could happen to me.

I have been prolific over at 50 Something Moms. Check out this, this and this. Sadly, however, Moms Speak Up is being held hostage by a server that is refusing to renew our domain name.  Subsequently, the site is in blogosphere limbo. I am a bit choked about this because I stupidly didn’t make back ups of my work there and fear it is now basically lost forever.

No new publishing opportunities to report but I am hopeful. It’s been about six months since I revised my sci-fi short and sent it back for the requested second look at On Spec. Perhaps the length of time is a good sign? I choose to think so.

I am past ready for my child to go back to school. She has asks daily when she will be able to back to school. Monday is still a long way off.

My mom is okay. That is simply how it is as a widow or anyone grieving a loss really. Things are okay or fine until they are not. My aunt came to stay this past week and all things financial are now in order. Auntie is a wunderkind of organization.

CB has been a bit “fussy”, but I talked with him Wednesday evening and he sounded better than he had in a while.

DNOS and Nephew2 caught the same flu we had. Nephew2 is mended but my sister has a horrible cough. I worry about her. She’s had the cough in some version or another since last spring. We went to Walmart to get Halloween costumes and rode in Dad’s old car. I drove that same car in June to take Dad to the garage downtown and didn’t really notice any smoke odor. But DNOS has been using the car on and off all summer and my eyes started watering as soon as I got inside. It was like sitting in an ashtray. Even opening the windows didn’t help. I worry about her health.

On a sad note, Shelley’s biological father has kidney cancer that has spread to the ribs and hip. He had lost one kidney years ago because of a tumor, so this cancer ridden one was it for him. As I understand it, he was not a good father. A morose alcoholic, his relationship with his children and grandchildren was distant at best.

Rob took the girls to see him Wednesday night. They were ambivalent. Rob was rocked a bit by walking the same halls he’d traveled during Shelley’s treatments.

Death continues to dog us, but I am reminded of a conversation I had with BabyD when I mentioned that Daddy would be going into town to visit with Shelley’s dad.

“God must need him, Mom.”

“And why do you think that?”

“Well, if you are old or too sick to fix that means God needs you.”

Simple universal truths. When do we get too old to remember these things?

The Dance is Song Lyric Thursday


Been listening to Garth Brooks lately. Forgot how much I liked him. The Dance is one of my favorite songs but Brooks didn’t write it, a guy named Tony Arata did and here he is singing it.

 

 

Looking back on the memory of 
The dance we shared beneath the stars above 
For a moment all the world was right 
How could I have known you’d ever say goodbye 
And now I’m glad I didn’t know 
The way it all would end the way it all would go 
Our lives are better left to chance I could have missed the pain 
But I’d of had to miss the dance 
Holding you I held everything 
For a moment wasn’t I the king 
But if I’d only known how the king would fall 
Hey who’s to say you know I might have changed it all 
And now I’m glad I didn’t know 
The way it all would end the way it all would go 
Our lives are better left to chance I could have missed the pain 
But I’d of had to miss the dance 
Yes my life is better left to chance 
I could have missed the pain but I’d of had to miss the dance

November is National Hospice Month


My parents had to be coerced into accepting hospice care during the last months of Dad’s illness. My father especially was not receptive and only agreed to try hospice for Mom’s sake.

“We’ll give it a week,” he told his nurse, Ann, who had to enter into intensive negoations with him to be allowed to come for more than a weekly check of his vitals.

In the end, both my parents were pleased with the level of care and compassion. Charming rascal that he was, Dad had the nurses and aides wrapped around his little finger and even tried to convert the organizations minister, Rev. Melissa, to Catholicism during his short time in their care.

Like most families, my parents waited far too long to call in hospice. They believed, falsely, that palliative care is for the bitter end – the last days or hours – and not something that is meant to ease the transition for patient and families and can be sought up to six months or more of a projected end.

Hospice is not about death. It is about living well in the end times.

My first husband was in hospice the last three months of his life. Many people can spend up to the last year or more in hospice care, depending on their illness. Hospice is about symptom management but it is also about spiritual and emotional care. I can’t say enough good things about the people who dedicate their time and talent to hospice or about how important an organization this is, especially in the current mind-set that exhorts people to live as long as they can without quality.