The Lake Place has a Foundation!

It's been a while since I've updated our progress at the lake place...

And that would be because Life at the Lake moves SLOW!!!!  Agonizingly slow!

We have bulldozed and cleared land, laid a driveway, drilled for water, dug a septic system and plugged into the sun... all the while dreaming of the day we could break ground for our log home.

Hallelujah!  That day is here!

(The dream might have given us a gray hair or two, just sayin')

To get you up to speed, here's a rundown of the last few months.  After choosing Satterwhite Log Homes as our builder we got busy working on log home plans...

and then got ourselves a Building Permit (or Development Certificate as it is called here in backwoods country!)...

and finally we were ready to break ground and get that foundation in!   I might have a few pics... (or twenty)...

Ready for concrete!!

Right about here the concrete guys gave me an old nail and said

"Time to sign it."

  I was unprepared for the moment... Should it be a handprint?  Just our initials?  Definitely the date... Maybe our favorite verse?  

And the concrete wasn't waiting!  So, here goes...

It's official... We have a foundation!

And the plan, per our concrete team, was to come back the following week to finish the porches and carport foundation.

That was the plan...

And then it rained.

And rained.

And rained some more. In Texas. In the summer.

Wrong. Very Wrong...

And then, just when we thought things were drying out, a tiny dark cloud formed over our place.  The radar shows that little dot of rain and mayhem popping up out of nowhere... it dumped an inch of rain before the weatherman even knew it was there!

What we learned about patience this summer could fill a book.

I might not want to mention that our concrete team took another (BIG) job in a drier locale and found themselves tied up until this week past.

Eventually, though, the plan seemed to come together 

( I may not want to mention that we got a wee-bit ugly with our concrete team,

truly, waiting 10 weeks to pour porches seemed a little excessive...)

From June 29th to September 11th...

Not exactly the timetable we planned,

but the foundation is in!

Sometimes (almost always) the dream is worth the wait!

If you are stuck in the rain and mayhem of the unexpected,

don't let it drown out the dream,

it really is worth all the hair-pulling, teeth-grinding, stomach-knotting moments...

Keep moving forward.  The sun is bound to come out sooner or later!

Now let's have us a log-raising!!

Forget? Who Me?

I need your tender reminders for appointments and meds and meals,
my mind has been somewhere else lately.

One of the things mom prided herself on (pre-cancer that is) was her ability to multi-task and stay organized.  I guess it goes to reason, she was a cardiac care nurse in a crazy busy hospital for over 30 years...

... there was a lot of multi-tasking going on in a 12-hour shift!

So it came as quite a shock to not only mom, but to all of us when her memory got hazy and the bouts of forgetfulness hit.

We began to realize that the cost of this cancer was taking more than just a physical toll on mom, it was muffling her down in a subtle but relentless way that was almost more frightening than the cancer itself.  There were many moments in this journey that we felt like we were losing the fight as mom struggled to recall what day it was, if she had taken her meds, or even who had just called to visit...

 

If you or a loved one is walking this cancer road, then perhaps you can relate.  Many of the medical journals call this chemotherapy-induced cognitive impairment.  We just call it Chemo Brain.

It's real.  And it's so very hard.

{ sigh }

No one ever said cancer was easy.

So... We learn to cope.  We cry a little (or a lot).  Then we get down to business and manage the moments.

For mom, it was a notebook and a pen.

She kept it with her everywhere.  She wrote down meals, appointments, meds, visits, favorite songs, books she wanted to read, the day's date at the top of each page... 

That notebook was her touch-stone in the middle of the scary and uncertain.  It worked.  And gave peace to the organizing, multi-tasking part of her that needed grounding.

I will always remember the day her agonized eyes met mine after bungling a doctor's appointment and she pleaded, "Don't let me forget."

The mishap was small, this one forgotten appointment easily remedied, but the unspoken plea was so much bigger.  It was the names, the loves, the lives she needed to hold on to... this fear that lived in the dark and refused to be named.

A promise grew fierce in our hearts... and from that moment on, we walked the road of remembering together.

As we read on in mom's Letter from the Battlefield it comes as no surprise that one of the greatest gifts we can offer each other is patience when the mind gets muddled, and tender reminders of all that is important.

That's the Hard Grace of Love in Action... and it's a Gift that returns the Blessing over and over again...

For His Grace is Rich Indeed,
                                                        Jane

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The Right Place at the Right Time doing the Right Thing

Earlier this month in our 31 Day Challenge, we were privileged to "meet" Phyllis Greene and listen as she shared her perspective on being the "Cared-For."  She admitted her struggles and frustrations with aging and coping with a terminal illness, yet her story was one of uplifting encouragement as she graciously blessed her daughter for the gift of being her Caregiver.

Today I would love to share her Daughter's Perspective:

I am the Caregiver

by D.G. Fulford

 

The other day, I was thinking about William Butler Yeats, which was a shock because I'm usually thinking about The Real Housewives of Orange County.  A line from his poem "Easter 1916" kept running through my head:

 

 "All changed, changed utterly:

A terrible beauty is born."

 

All has changed utterly in the past 12 years for my mother, my daughter and me.  What a terrible, beautiful limbo we're in, this intimate and temporary time, glimmering between Before and After.

 

For years, I lived in California, then in a ghost town in Nevada.  Twelve years ago, I picked up my life and moved it back to Ohio, leaving my daughter, Maggie, who was well on her own, way out west.  I became my mother's compatriot, then caregiver after my father died.

 

At first, I didn't understand what my mother meant when she called and said she needed me during Dad's illness.  If you needed help around the house, the last person you'd call would be me.  I am more bohemian than bountiful; not a cooker, not a cleaner.  "Why would she possibly need me?"  I asked a friend.  "Fresh air," my friend said.

 

Being a writer allowed me to stay with my parents during the long winter of Dad's death.  When it came time to leave, I didn't want to.  By then, I needed Mom as much as she needed me.  Having been through a divorce, a failed business and the usual frenetic life of a single working mother, being home felt safe and right.

 

Mom's health was fine for the first few years, but time took its toll.  By her side, I steadied an arm as we went to lunch and brunch and errands.  Slowly our outings turned into a mash-up of waiting rooms, doctors' appointments and hospitals.  Soon we were picking out canes, then a walker, and finally a folding wheelchair.  Now Mom is bedridden.  She suffers from congestive heart failure and her legs don't work like they did.  She is a hospice patient.

 

In her pink bed, in her pink bedroom, you'd swear that if she had a suit on instead of a nightgown, she could be presiding over a meeting with the Franklin University Board of Trustees.  When you see her hunched over her walker, though, attempting to wheel to the bathroom, the truth cannot be denied.  "I hate being an old woman," she says.  And who can blame her?

 

We keep up our routine, Mom and I.  I call her every morning at 9:30, then run out to her house to start the day.  She has 24-hour care now, which eases my hyper-vigilance.  Most of the time, we are free to just sit and talk.  Even at this hardest time, we have had a blast.  We laugh more than we cry as we face the unfaceable together.

 

She is ready.

 

I am not.

 

Over the past 12 years, I have not had a thought that did not contain my mother.  Her life so fills my own that I cannot even think about other relationships.  I doubt that this is healthy, and sometimes weigh the wisdom of my decision.  But as the years go by, I am more and more convinced that I have been at the right place at the right time doing the right thing.  How often in a life do we get to acknowledge that?

 

My friends keep me sane - and I am surrounded by great ones.  They hear when my voice sounds crazy and come to my rescue.  We meet and we laugh, and I feel my dark clouds dissipate.  I spend a lot of time alone, too, which soothes and sustains me.  At night, I put myself away for the day, nesting with my cuddly dog, a bunch of books, my laptop and good old Mr. Television.  The next morning when I speak to Mom, I am ready to go again.

 

In the years that I have been here, my daughter has gotten married and had two glorious sons - Zachary,6, and Nate, 3.  I cannot visit them as often as I like, which is hard - the push and pull of going and staying.  I am always conscious of what could happen, while never believing in a million years that it will.

 

For 12 years, like an anticipatory survivalist, I have been steeping in my mother's sun, absorbing all the light I can.  When our last day together comes, I will be lonely; I will be rocked and knocked to me knees.  When I am ready, I will get up.  My mother's light will guide me.  The terrible part will come to an end.  The beautiful will live on within.

 

 

 

D.G. Fulford and her mom, Phyllis Greene, have written a book about their experiences.

It is called Designated Daughter: The Bonus Years 

 

How Do I Choose to be Remembered?

Count to 10 . . . . . . . . .

Good advice when you're losing you patience...for some people.  I guess I'm weird.  Counting to 10 just really gets me aggravated.  And I never could figure out why.

Until I took a part-time job during college...at a daycare.

Turns out that while I was counting to 10, the children were continuing their mini-meltdowns unabated.  Sweet children, really, just, you know, having some issues now and then.  And, I, being of the adult persuasion at that time (college-age counts right?), assumed that I should act more mature, and like, well, I had it all together.  (Our secret...I did not have it together.  But let a room full of 2-years old know that and you're dead meat!) 

So, when my patience was tried, I started counting to 10. 

Did. Not. Work.

When I got to ten I still had to figure out a way to deal with the situation that was trying my patience when I started counting.

Maybe I didn't do it right.  Like I probably should have been taking deep, cleansing breaths or something.  Or perhaps coming up with a workable plan while I was counting... regardless, I was not a good counter.  And the children seemed to relish the fact.

One day, I watched the owner of the daycare get down at eye-level and calmly talk a hysterical 3-year old off the ledge.  Ok, it wasn't that dramatic.  She was just on top of the itty-bitty toy box, but... it could have ended badly.

Anyway, while I was counting to 10 and all, Connie looked that little diva in the eye and in a heartbeat had her playing dress-up with the other little girls across the room, resolving the toy box hostage situation with ease.

A-Mazing!  I had to know more...

Connie said it's not that difficult.  You have to choose how you want to be remembered?

Huh?!

She explained.  I could have yelled at her and sent her to time-out.  She would have remembered me as a tyrant. 

Or...

I could have sympathesized with her plight and found something else more intriguing for her to do.  She will remember me with fondness not bitterness.  And when she has calmed down, then I can talk with her about her behavior...

Ah... I'm liking this plan.  (Child psychologists might call this redirection, I call it brilliant.)

I began putting her method into practice and found it worked every time.  Not just the redirection, although that was a major part of it.  But asking the question How do I choose to be remembered in this situation?

So much better than counting to 10! (For me anyway!)

Whenever I found myself in a circumstance that was trying my patience.  I stopped and reordered my thoughts.  Put the focus on the other person in the equation and asked How do I choose to be remembered by this person right now, in this situation?

The situation might involve a distracted doctor... or a harried receptionist... or an overworked lab technician... or a distraught loved one.

As a Caregiver we find ourselves in so many situations like these.  We have the choice in how we respond. 

There were days that mom just could not eat.  As the pancreatic cancer progressed, we tried everything.  Soups, smoothies, favorite dishes, new dishes... and there were times we all found ourselves frustrated and impatient with the situation... Mom the most.  I know she agonized over causing us distress.  And that just pained us all the more.  Such a vicious dilemma the cancer caused.  The last thing mom needed was for us to lose our patience...And more than anything our deepest desire was to communicate our love for her, irregardless of the situation.

We chose over and over again to respond in love.  That is how we all wanted her to remember us. 

Tom Barber shares a similar experience as he faced losing his mother:

"I recall my father asking me how I wanted my mother to remember me just before I stepped into her ICU room to say goodbye. It was gently instructive and made me gather my courage and put a loving and peaceful look on my face as I approached my dear mother for the last time.

It has given me peace many times that she saw me filled with love for her and positive in my countenance to the end.

 

As my journey has taught me, you get to pick the memory and vision for your loved one. What you project is what your loved one or patient will wear that day or week or month. So, go into your loved one's ICU - whatever or wherever it may be -- prepared and strong.

No matter how bad circumstances might be during treatment, there is always a way to express love, hope, sympathy, admiration for courage, thankfulness for each moment and the possibility of life, if not in this world, then life everlasting."

So well said... We get to pick the memory and vision for our loved one.  What we project is what our loved one will wear that day or week or month...

There is a humble sweetness in this.  For we have the power to offer Grace always.  By our actions, by our words, by our expression, by our very presence...

Let us Always Choose to be Remembered with Love...

The Mighty Acorn...

I want to be more patient...and I want it right now!

We might laugh, but it's just really hard to wait for the virtue of patience to be matured in us.  Something, or someone, always seems to be "trying our patience."  True? 

Mothers, is it not a hard thing sometimes to listen to Sponge Bob Squarepants for the thirteenth time, or to play Chutes and Ladders...over and over again?  Or referee one more squabble between siblings... Or how about potty training trips to the bathroom every 30 minutes...just to try?

Patience.  We need it every day, all day, for all the little things that make us wait...  Even when we love those little ones to pieces.  It. Takes. Patience.

And so it is with Caregiving.  How many times have we struggled with Patience?

Patience as we wait for the doctor to call back.

Patience as we wait for the lab test results.

Patience as we file yet another insurance claim.

Patience as we run interference with nosy, rude or otherwise irritating neighbors.

Patience as we figure out the plethora of new medicines, dosages and timing.

Patience as we keep encouraging our loved one through the ravages of chemo and radiation.

Patience as we clean the bathroom floor...again.

Patience as we gently wait for our loved one to decide a course of treatment when we think we alone know what's best.

Patience as we make 5 different dishes and turn the kitchen into a shambles trying to tempt them to eat something, anything.

Patience as the disease devastates and we can no longer deny the journeys end, nor change one painful minute of it.

Patience as our anger at the unfairness erupts, overflowing bitter.

Patience as we learn to let go and trust a Sovereign God when all around is grief and sorrow.

Patience.

How I have struggled with Patience.

Our pastor shared the story of the farmer who went to town to buy seed for his fields.  On the way home, 2 seeds fell out of his sack onto fertile soil.  Within days, one of the seeds sprouted and began growing, but not the other.  As the days passed, the one seed grew and grew, sprouting leaves and curling tendrils, but not the other.  Soon the one seed had large leaves and tiny yellow blossoms, the other had not even cracked open its shell.  Finally, the one seed matured and produced beautiful squash, which the farmer harvested and gladly shared with his family.  The other seed remained in the ground, alone and forgotten.

Over time, the forgotten seed softened and ripened, splitting the tough outer coat and began its journey toward the sun.  Over days and months and years, the seed grew and grew, but so very, very slowly.  After many years, the farmer was finally able to walk under its broad and mighty limbs, and relish the cool shade the tree provided and marvel at all the birds and animals that called its lush canopy home.  He gathered his family under the comforting shelter and together they admired the beauty and faith of the Mighty Oak Tree.

Patience.

Would that I could remember the patience of that little acorn.  For Mighty Oaks from Little Acorns Grow... It takes time.  It takes endurance.  It takes faith. 

It takes Patience.

Never forget that the work we do as Caregivers so often travels the course of the little acorn.  Perhaps we feel alone in the burden, or forgotten by others.  Maybe the work seems never-ending with no possible good in sight.

Let Grace weave Patience into the story.  Each small task you do for the sake of your loved one bears much fruit as you trust in His Hand to bless the offering.   It is a sacrificial ministry born out of love.  We may not see the answer we pray for in this life, but know that, as with the little acorn, God promises to see us through until we stand in Faith before Him .  He will see that our work accomplishes His purposes, offering Hope, Encouragement and Comfort to all gathered under the shelter of our Love and Care.

"And let us not be weary in well doing:

for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not."

                                                                ~ Galatians 6:9

 

You, my friend, are a Mighty Acorn... just wait and see what Patience and Faith grow you into!