Mike's death; Betty's life...: 10/04/26

Sunday, October 4, 2026

Monday, January 27, 2025

I went to bed shortly after 9 last night, anticipating an early rise. I was so anxious about the day ahead; the only thing I was good for that evening was binge-watching Elementary and playing Free Cell. I had to catch the 7 amflight to Honolulu to get to the Kaiser hospital for medical testing in Honolulu, specifically heart-related tests: a stress test and an echocardiogram. I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed by 2. I got up to pee several times but forced myself to stay in bed. Why, I have no idea. I had the alarm set for 4:45. I got up then, walked, and fed Elsa. I had packed everything except for electronics and their chargers before I went to bed. I had asked Darby to pick me up at 5:50. She was in the driveway by 5:40.

It only takes 10 minutes to get to the airport. This time, the reservation number worked. TSA wasn’t a problem. The airport has been reconfigured since I flew last in 2019 when I returned from my five weeks in Honolulu while Mike lay dying. The waiting area was familiar. The plane started loading at 6:30, as I thought it would.

I had an appointment for these tests at an earlier date. I made it to the airport by 6:30 for my 7 am flight. I didn’t have the complete reservation number and had to speak to a clerk. The guy told me I had missed my flight. The door closed at 6:30. Everyone I told about this was shocked. Our small local airport was recently converted to a small International airport. Half an hour before flight time is all you needed. It was still all I needed. The flight this morning didn’t start boarding until 6:30. The clerk lied to me.

Today, I arrived safely in Honolulu and then went to the shuttle area to wait. I arrived shortly before 8. I asked some airport workers when I could expect the shuttle. They didn’t know. I set my alarm for 9. If it didn’t arrive by then, I would take a taxi. After 45 minutes, another worker walked by. I asked about the Kaiser shuttle. He said the shuttle pick up/ drop off was moved to the other end of the airport. I walked down there. The next shuffle would be too late for me. I got a cab for a mere $25. Whatever, I got there on time.

Check-in at admissions went smoothly. I had to go to Room 345. I found a sign for ‘stress test’ but no room number. Someone asked me what I was waiting for and directed me to room 345, a large waiting area with check-in.

My next stop was nuclear imaging. A lovely Asian man, Hong, took me to a side room, inserted an intravenous needle, washed it out with a saline solution, and then put in the dye for the imaging.

I asked him why the saline. It’s a test to determine if the needle has been properly placed in the vein. If not, there would be a bulge under my skin. If it’s the saline, no worries. It would quickly be absorbed. If it’s the medication, there are two problems. First, my body wouldn’t consider it as friendly as the saline. Second, an expensive medication has been wasted. Clever. No bulge: we were good to go. I had to wait 45 minutes before the imagining to let the dye do its work.

For the imagining, I had to lie on a hard table, curved to cradle my body, with my arms over my head for 15 minutes. When that was through, it was back to the waiting room until I was called for my stress test.

I had a chemical stress test rather than a treadmill one. The chemical stresses the heart, duplicating a challenging run that I didn’t think I was capable of. I was hooked up to a special ECG monitor and administered the drug. It set my heart racing. They monitored my heart rate and blood pressure. It took all of 10 minutes. The medication that set my heart racing was working itself out of my system. Nurse Tim told me to bend my knees and keep bouncing my toes. When I did this chemical stress test in 2018 as part of my test to qualify as Mike’s kidney donor, I had no adverse reaction. This time, I was nauseous. It wasn’t terrible. I was worried I’d throw up all over myself and whatever else was in my way. Tim gave me a shot of caffeine, which counteracted the impact of the heart-racing drug. Hmmm! Isn’t that what caffeine does to our hearts, causing them to race? Tim explained that’s why I couldn’t eat any caffeine for 24 hours before the test; it was an antidote to the medication.

Then, I was off to get my echocardiogram. Seeing my heart pulsing on that monitor was awesome. I loved my heart; what a fantastic organ. It works so hard to keep me alive. I am so grateful for what it does for me. I read recently that people find fire and water fascinating. I think watching the heart do its thing on a sonogram is right up there with the other two.

I asked the tech why she got into this field. It’s always interesting to discover a person’s history. Each one is different. The tech had been in the military. When she left, she had to find another profession. I don’t remember why she chose sonogram work, but I do remember why she decided on cardiology instead of OB/GYN.

She did an OB rotation at a high-risk clinic. She couldn’t take it when the sonogram showed the baby wasn’t viable. She reported one incident where the fetus was missing both kidneys. The parents refused to accept the baby couldn’t survive; it was doing well in utero. The parents couldn’t understand the baby was being served by the mom’s kidneys. Once born, that support would be gone.

As for my heart, the tech told me my heart looked better than most of the 40-year-olds she examined. Of course, she doesn’t see a random sample. Most of the people who come to her know they’re in trouble. I’m the outlier. My doctor was being super cautious, as the results attest.

I returned to the nuclear medicine area, where I had the imaging work done. Tim removed my intravenous and handed me a printed copy of my results. He said it was all good. I read, “74% calculated left ventricular injection fraction,” Tim said that was a good number. The echocardiogram tech told me the healthy range was between 55 and 65; 70% indicated a problem. Anything higher or lower was not good. Unfortunately, I said something to Tim, revealing I had that information from the other tech. I tried to cover my tracks and say I had found the information online. When I got home, I checked what the Internet had to offer. It said a high of 75% is normal.

The Kaiser travel bureau had scheduled me for an 8 pm flight. I thought it was because earlier ones were booked. Nope. I had to wait until the results of the stress test were back. They were in before I was through with the echocardiogram; I was free to go home. I was told I had to go to the airport and get Hawaiian Airlines to change the flight. I had to wait for the airport shuttle from the hospital. I had just missed one. I had an hour’s wait. Changing the flight time was easy. The clerk got me on a 4:45 flight, three hours earlier than the one I had.

The hour-long flight was smooth, with only one dip and dive. I engaged in conversation with the person sitting next to me, a lovely young woman. She lived on the Big Island and wasn’t a tourist. She worked for the University of Nations, an evangelically oriented religious institution. Everyone I meet from that school looks amazingly beautiful, with remarkably clear eyes and glowing skin, a picture of good physical and mental health, and a testimony to whatever they do. The school doesn’t have the best reputation among the people I know; I’m not quite sure why. But it’s obviously an outlier.

Mary worked in HR. Her job was to travel to a site where groups of missionaries were sent. She was returning from South Africa, where she went to evaluate the work of the group sent there. She listed a good half dozen other countries she had been sent to. She had been traveling for two days. The first flight was 12 hours, the second 9. This 1-hour flight was the last leg of her trip home.

Darby picked me up and dropped me off where she parked my car. When she picked me up in the morning, I left my car in the driveway. I got a call and a text from Nina. She and Dean walked past my house and heard Elsa barking like mad. They went in to check if everything was okay. Elsa knew them well and greeted them warmly. Then, I got a text from Yvette saying she had Elsa down with her. I should let her know when I get home. She only does that when Elsa is on a barking jag, and she’s only on a barking jag when I leave the house without driving away.

I asked Darby to move my car. I told her where my car key was. She didn’t just leave it outside my property; she drove down the block far away from the house, afraid Elsa would smell the car on the other side of the fence. She also checked on her several times during the day. I am so lucky, and so is Elsa.

When I walked into the house, she allowed me to pet her and then ran around like a maniac, releasing the tension of the day.

I finally got to eat. I wasn’t very hungry anymore. That’s what a day of fasting does for you. Then, I got a phone call from the woman who was running the Grief Recovery Group. She wanted me to drop out. She framed it as she was doing it for my sake because I couldn’t benefit from it, given my disagreements with the work. I made it plain I valued the work we were doing now, the homework, the small groups with their behavioral rules, and the grief histogram. There was only one aspect of the program I disagreed with. She still insisted I didn’t value what the program had to offer. She offered to work with me individually to help me with my deep sorrow over the generational grief that haunted me. Holy smokes! I don’t think so.

She finally went on and on about a group she had where people couldn’t follow the small group rules: one person talks at a time, that person reports on what they wrote in the homework, no discussion, no verbal responses at all, only nodding and smiling, no touching, don’t even hand the speaker a tissue. The group in question kept falling into discussions, making suggestions, and engaging in ways contradictory to the formula. I finally said, “Why are you telling me this?” She said, “This is what happened to me.” That group had to be disbanded. She offered to work with people individually. Only one person accepted her offer. At the end, that person said, “You have to understand. All the participants had been in a different grief recovery group based on Kubler-Ross’s work. There, participants are encouraged to comment.” Again, I asked, “What is your purpose in saying this to me?” She finally said, “You’ve participated in another grief training group and refuse to adapt to this one.” I told her for the second time that I had never participated in another grief recovery group. She accused me of that after the second session. I told her then I hadn’t. She couldn’t hear it. She has trouble imagining that I came to my conclusions on my own. I don’t think she does. She’s prepared to accept the menu and do the best she can. I voiced objection to certain didactic statements. The program says no one can tell you what you think and feel, and then it tells you what’s right and wrong. One member mumbled, “I did what my culture told me to do.” I argued that her presentation suggests that everything we’ve done up to this approach is wrong.

I also told her while I in no way would let her get away with saying she thought I should leave for my sake, I was concerned about the other members of the group and her. If their discomfort with me was great enough, they would not feel safe doing the work. I had considered leaving after the second session. I said so to one of my small group members after she said she was so glad I was in her group. Her reaction to me came as a total surprise. She said she would make me keep coming. Another group member echoed my opinion of the narrow-minded approach to certain concepts. It’s not just me. It’s just I’m the only one prepared to take on the leader and face what did happen, expulsion.

In the end, she finally heard what I said repeatedly: I thought the process was brilliant, except for some of the beliefs. She heard what I had said over and over that I valued the structure. She then asked me not to speak out in class but to speak to her privately if she had any objections or questions. I agreed. Kudos! To this woman. She’s an army brat. People who come from career military families have a tough time with dialogue. She hung in with me for an hour. She didn’t slam down the phone or threaten me. She did much better than most of the therapists I’ve worked with in my life, with less training and experience. I have great admiration for her.

Monday, January 27, 2025

My next stop was nuclear imaging. A lovely Asian man, Hong, took me to a side room, inserted an intravenous needle, washed it out with a saline solution, and then put in the dye for the imaging.

When I walked into the house, she allowed me to pet her and then ran around like a maniac, releasing the tension of the day.

Sunday, January 26, 2025

Yesterday, I mowed the large backyard area. Today, I mowed the strip running parallel to the street. There's not much grass growing now; it's our dry season. Grass, as I remember it from the East Coast, does not exist in my yard. The only blades that grow long are the seed spikes. I never heard of them when I had a full lawn. This lawn looks like a scruffy beard. I mow it because I like mowing, which gives the lawn a neater look.

Fourth-grade MH's parents texted me shortly before 2 pm asking if I could meet with her at 2. At the time, I was on the phone with my friend, Jean, doing our daily water meditation. I got off and worked with her. She continues to have trouble repeating the words as dictated. I don't consider this a problem when students delete a word here and there, but her deletions frequently alter the sentence's meaning. I will make mistakes like that, trusting too much in my ability to correctly glean the meaning of the words with a quick scan. When I write, which I do a lot, I often leave out the word not more frequently than I would like to admit. In me, it's a sign of hurrying; in MH, I'm afraid it's a sign of something else.

In reading about the polyvagal theory, I'm learning more about fear responses. I am familiar with the list. Traditionally, it was just fight and flight. The freeze response to a threat was included in the lists later. Wiki lists research on the response as early as 1975. I don't know when it was included in the list of survival responses. It is described as the response of prey animals. It's a protection when death is inevitable. It also has a positive survival response, like not moving when a hunter searches for you. Movement is a dead giveaway. However, if the freeze response becomes chronic, it can cause anxiety. My best guess is if any of the defensive responses become chronic, it can produce anxiety.

I heard a story about a school bus full of children who were kidnapped for ransom. They were placed in an underground bunker equipped with air and water. The bunker started to collapse. The driver and an older child went to work digging their way out. They freed everyone.

A psychiatrist was interviewed. How many children did he think would be traumatized by the event? He said, "Oh, one or two. The rest should be fine." The only one who had a successful life was the boy who worked with the driver to dig them out. The feeling of helplessness is deadly.

I would say surrender is always deadly. I heard that continued fighting in the face of sure defeat is also deadly. I can imagine. It is literally deadly in the face of malicious captors, or it's a path to madness.

Saturday, January 25, 2025

It was Dean and Nina's day. Elsa and I said, "Yay!" They brought me a dozen eggs. In the last four days, their hens have laid 12 eggs a day. They delivered a dozen to Darby and then Xui on their morning walk. First, I wanted to respond to Dean's comment about Nina last time.

Dean, Nina, and I see the same dentist. When Dean recently had his teeth cleaned, Roxy discovered we were friends. She asked Dean why we were friends. He said I was a good intellectual companion. Then he looked at Nina and said, "Unlike her. " Oh, boy.

The first thing I did was tell Nina that Mike and I never had intellectual conversations. Our mental styles were very different, and so were our ideas of how to conduct a conversation. When I met Mike, his idea of conversation was he talked for thirty-five minutes, and then I got to ask appropriate questions. As far as Mike was concerned when I met him, someone should only speak about subjects they are experts in. I never presented or considered myself an expert on anything; I didn't have a Ph. D. in anything, no less two, as he had. However, I did feel I had the right to express my thoughts on a subject. Someone could disagree with what I had to say and present conflicting ideas or information. I think Mike agreed with that last part. It took me close to twenty years to get Mike to change. I told him the purpose of the conversation was to learn more about the person, not some abstract subject. His response was, "Oh!" he changed after that.

I mowed the large lower lawn, pruned and weeded, and picked up a small bucket of nuts from the Bismark tree, which littered my front yard and left me feeling like I was walking on an unstable platform.

I started reading The Pocket Guide to The Polyvagal Theory. In the traditional view of the autonomic nervous system, it is divided into the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems. The polyvagal theory divides the parasympathetic nerve into the frontal and dorsal vagus nerves. While the sympathetic nervous system triggers fight and flight responses to danger, the dorsal vagus nerve triggers inaction, as in surrender to death and playing dead to escape the attack, and the frontal vagus nerve for positive social interaction.

The book's subtitle is "The Transformative Power of Feeling Safe." Sounds lovely. I find many of the students' problems result from a fear being perceived as unacceptable. As those who read my updates know, I believe feeling safe is rare, sometimes even in our homes, where there is no physical threat, active disapproval, or exaggerated approval. Extremes of approval or disapproval don't correspond to reality. We understand excessive disapproval amounts to gaslighting. In either case, excessive approval or disapproval, someone is trying to convince us not to trust our perceptions of reality. When a parent does that, they are damaging their child's ability to function in the world as it is. We lose our footing in the real world.

When Darby came over at 5:30 to do the evening walk with Elsa and me, she told me the last load of green waste was too much for Patrick. It wasn't the quantity; it was the weight. Those Bismarck fronds are enormous and heavy. Patrick had no idea how I got them into the trash barrel and then rolled it down the street. Answer: I did what women do: I used leverage instead of strength. I braced the trash barrel against the fence. It would have tipped over with the first frond if I hadn't. I have to check with Darby: would Patrick prefer I not pass the Bismarck fronds on to him or just fewer of them in one load?

Friday, January 24, 2025

Yesterday, the contractor installing my neighbor's ten-foot rock wall 'accidentally' dropped a rock while I was working in that area. I was in no physical danger. The rock wall was a good 15 feet away and behind a chain link fence. I believe it was meant to frighten me. I thwarted that man from getting a job worth thousands of dollars. While his product is good, he intimidates people into hiring him. I'm not sure if this is what my neighbor asked for or if this contractor bullied him into getting it. The perpetrator was more successful than he anticipated. I was fresh from dealing with the realization of how much my parents' traumas, particularly my mom's, impacted me. She didn't recover from her traumas and passed it on to me and probably my sister, both epigenetically and through her treatment of us. Also, my sister and I carried the grief from my mother's loss of her dog when she was nine. My mother was sick for two weeks when her father had Lord put down.

I had Hula class today. before I went, I used the chain saw to cut the large branches from the Bismarck palm. Three fell the other day. if I had been under the tree at the time, I would have been injured. I planned to load them in the trash barrel and roll them down to Darby's when I got home.

I did better in the Hula class than I had done before the break, which started right before Thanksgiving. My arm was stronger than I expected. However, I was developing problems with my legs. I wasn't sure if these problems predicted greater mobility down the road or serious issues that would limit my mobility. My left leg started buckling on me. I'm sure it has to do with my efforts to straighten out my spine. We'll see. My leg didn't give me any problems during the Hula class, and my left arm lasted much longer than it had before it gave out.

Afterward, I went to the bank, deposited two checks, and exchanged two hundred dollar bills for fives and tens. When I got home, I thought I would rest. I didn't. Elsa and I went to visit Paulette and get Kangen water refills. I don't know if the water works. Melissa, my doctor friend, doesn't approve of any form of filtered water. She's a big fan of tap water, saying it provides the best supply of minerals.

Paulette and I sit on the open lanai and talk while she throws a stuffed toy mouse to Elsa. It's really so healing to sit comfortably with a friend and chat. Our relationship becomes more and more delightful. I felt great afterward.

The Grief Workshop brought difficult feelings to the surface. That feels risky. When they come up, I fear they will dominate me. However, I find they're easily dissolved by a positive moment. It's easy for me to be distracted from them and enjoy what is before me.

I have always believed that the only way to deal with a problem is to face it head-on. I have been in therapy most of my adult life, which doesn't mean I always have the courage to do it. Unfortunately, most of the therapists I worked with did damage. I don't know if there were any good ones out there or if I just found those who didn't know how to relate to me. Most of them laid trips on me. While they added to my burden, I managed to get something out of each situation. Perhaps I just got to act out my repetition compulsion. They certainly reminded me of my mother, who never had anything positive to say about me. However, my mother, while tragically misguided, really adored me. The therapists didn't- not that they should have. In interacting with them, I could limit the time I spent acting out with the people in my life who counted.

I tried to load the three huge Bismarck fronds that fell the other day. The wind made it impossible. The fronds were over three feet long and across. I decided to wait for a calmer day.

I spoke to Yvette yesterday about the ten-foot rock wall my neighbor put up. It's an unusually high wall. At its lowest point, it's about four feet, and at its highest ten. While I think it's weird, Yvette is grateful for it. It blocks her view of the room the neighbor built in the middle of his yard. I noticed it the other day. My neighbor left the lights on at night. Yvette said the light was visible in their bedroom before the wall went up. Typically, Yvette and Josh see no artificial light from their bedroom at night. I can see a few distant yellow streetlamps from my bedroom. I consider them my nightlights. They don't bother me when I sleep. My blanket blocks the view.

When people make an effort to define love, several definitions come up. there is the behavior of love: commitment, obligation, duty, and sacrifice. These are valuable traits to have in a relationship, but they don't include the pleasure and joy of being in that person's company. What makes for that? The dictionary defines love as intense feelings of deep affection.

I'm viewing it from a neurological point of view. We feel connected and joyful when our brains synchronize in harmony. That's what heaven is about. Pictures depict angels playing harps. Music is the metaphor for harmony. The harmony I am referring to is in the brain. It doesn't require music. It can respond to speech, movement, or a common understanding.

Neuroscience shows how the brain activity of a group of unrelated people will synchronize when watching the same presenter or movie, particularly if they respond to the presentation in the same way. That lovely mutual humming feeling is incredible.

But that resonance can happen at any frequency. I suppose we all have our preferences. Harmony, like oxytocin, is not always peaceful. While a mother and child can generate oxytocin, so can a marauding band out the kill. Perhaps we should say there are limits to the frequency. Hm! I can think of an exception even to that. people bonded in military combat develop that closeness, that deep affection which is present even when they're not engaged in an effort to kill others.

Thursday, January 23, 2025

I worked in the lower garden, watering the 42 shrubs and blowing the green waste on the driveway from when I trimmed the plumbago. I blew as much as I could between the branches. It will break down and serve as fertilizer.

My neighbor had hired a team to replace a rock wall that was right up against a chain link fence that bordered my property. My neighbor's property is five feet higher than mine at the lower end. A rock wall had been built there when the houses in this development were built. They hadn't been cemented into place. The rocks were tumbling, held in place by the chain link fence. I expected my neighbor to replace the old rocks and build the rock wall to the level of his property or the level with the top of the chain link fence. Yesterday, I discovered he was building that rock wall ten feet high at the bottom point. My neighbor's property must have been filled in to make it level from front to back. My property was leveled out at the top. The rest is the original slope created by the lava flow. My neighbor's undeveloped property was never modified one way or another. Where it abuts my property, a 10-foot rock wall holds the soil in place.

The contractor building the wall on my neighbor's property did other work for him. He is an aggressive salesman, close to a con man who bullies people into buying his services. My neighbor's rock wall could cost in the neighborhood of $75,000. Building a rock wall over 6 feet without a special permit is illegal. My neighbor does a lot of work on his property without a permit. Some of it will be grandfathered in when the crack-down comes. Most homes will be dismantled if the county office decides that all unpermitted work must be taken down. The country made getting a permit a long, complicated, expensive process. People avoided it. Mike and I had work done that we never permitted.

My neighbors are immigrants. They're here legally, but all immigrants are concerned now. I heard Trump was planning to include children born in the USA to immigrants for deportation. Then I heard it was only the children of illegal immigrants. But hey, we're halfway there; why not go further. I'm reminded of "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson. The message: if you live in a world where it's okay to do bad things to others, never assume you won't be next.

Darby thought my neighbors might have had this massive, expensive rock wall built to enhance their chances of getting green cards. If you provide employment for others or spend enough money, your chances are better. I don't know all the details, but it is a challenging course. I know the story of my parents' naturalization. They applied as soon as they could. My mom arrived here a year and a half after my dad did, and she got her citizenship before he did. When he applied, the waiting period was five years. When she applied, it had changed; it was only three. A quick check on the Internet showed that the US government first issued Permanent Resident cards in 1978. These cards later became known as Green Cards. My parents arrived in the US in the 1930s. They would never have been issued those cards. It's a scary time for all immigrants these days.

I only had 4th grade GV today. Our last session focused on GV's irritation with his five-year-old brother. I recommended he initiate a positive activity with him. He had. His brother spurned him. GV was devastated. I asked if he did this with anyone else. No, just him. This was hard for me since I had a similar experience with my younger sister as an adult.

My family has a pattern of younger siblings rejecting the old one. I didn't resent her at her birth. My problem had been with my parents before she was born. I hoped she would be a solution to the problem. She wasn't. The realization that my situation would never improve was hard. But I didn't blame her. In my husband's case, he resented his sister when she was born. Since Mike's defense was arrogance, ( I called him an equal opportunity arrogator.), there was a long term impact on his sister. In my sister's case, she had to deal with my hysteria and willingness to take on our mom. It didn't make for a peaceful home life. Both our sisters disliked us. Then, it went on to the next generation. My sister-in-law's younger daughter is angry at her older sister for a slew of things. I'm not saying Mike and I didn't add to the bad family situation, but we weren't the cause of it.

But back to GV's problem. Younger siblings would usually give their eye teeth to have the older sibling's attention. Older siblings often blow off the younger ones as an annoying pest. While GV experiences his younger brother that way, he is also sensitive to his baby brother's rejection of him. I think GV is a delight, but does he have friends his own age? Does he have a crew to hang with that confirms his value? I'm almost afraid to ask. What if he's more comfortable with adults than children his age? I'm concerned about how to handle it. His mom says it's just brother issues, but it doesn't have to be that way. I watch children down the street with a large age gap, six years, and the older brother does play with his younger brother. There's a severely handicapped brother of seven in the mix. Even that brother gets attention from his siblings. I imagine this situation is an unusual one.

When Joseph, my tenant, got home from work, I told him I heard he was a good teacher. He teaches the religious education class for the 5th graders on Sundays after Mass. I can imagine he's a good teacher. He's interested in ideas and loves to learn from others. Being questioned and asking questions isn't seen as a challenge to his point of view but as an opportunity to expand his understanding of the topic. He's one of the few people I've ever met who feels this way. Mike didn't even operate this way. He wasn't intimidated by a question that challenged his thinking, but he didn't welcome it either.

Wednesday, January 22, 2025

On my morning walk, I called Jean, my Hanai sister. Her husband, John, answered and we spoke for a while. Jean came in as we talked. She reminded me it was her birthday. I had noted it and forgotten it. in my defense, I forget my birthday. Jean said, no, to my offer to sing Happy Birthday to her. She hummed a few bars herself. She had good news. Her physical therapy was helping with the pain in her legs.

My alarm went off at 8:20. Good thing I set it. Otherwise, I would have forgotten to leave in time for Elsa’s grooming appointment at Petco. Needless to say, Elsa wasn’t thrilled to be there. The moment we pull into the parking lot, she starts panting. I’ve learned to give her a chance to do her business before we go in. I asked the groomer if they could have her ready by 11:30. The Grief Recovery class would be over by 11.

When I arrived at the church for the class, I told the instructor I was expecting a return call from Kaiser. I thought I might have another UTI. I just wanted to test it to make sure. I’ve learned that older women no longer have the distinctive symptoms we had when we were younger. If we let the infection go on too long, it can affect our kidneys and then we’re in real trouble. At the first sign of a possible infection, I request a test.

I had worked hard on controlling my emotions in response to the class. The first part spent a lot of time telling us how we felt in response to grief. We were doing what we were told to do by our parents and our cultures. Now, we would be doing it the right way with this program. Basically, the program tells us that everything we did before was wrong. This program was going to set us right.

Today, the work took a different turn. We were going to tell our story. We were going to make a time line of our losses, grading them by the depth of their impact on us. I said the greatest source of my grief were things that impacted my parents. When I meditated on a source of grief the things that came to mind were a surprise to me. the specific story I remember hadn’t profoundly affected at the time. That it came to mind now was a surprise.

My mother had seen a man being dragged behind a motorcycle through the streets of Berlin. I remember when I first heard the story, I didn’t realize he was going to die. Today, as I told the story I broke out into deep wracking sobs that left me doubled over. Everyone took it in. I can’t imagine it was well received. It must have been pretty frightening. I also announced my folks were refugees from Nazi Germany. There are possibly a few anti-Semites in the room, to boot.

The leader handled it surprisingly well. I was afraid of her response. But she was good. She gave me a hug. She calmly said this was beyond the scope of the course. I suffered from Complex PTSD. She had worked with vets on PTSD. Just saying that to me and not being afraid of my fear was a great source of relief. I can’t tell you how many therapists I worked with who dismissed my distress because it was my parents’ experience and not mine or judged my parents as being abnormal because they hadn’t fully recovered from the events of their life. Hello! I have known forever that a learned trauma is still mine. Therapists argued my parents taught me those fears and they weren’t mine. I told them they also taught me English. I consider the language to be mine. What I learn becomes mine. The concept of generational trauma is common place now. Thank God.

When I got home I needed a nap. I was drained from the crying. The grief isn’t just because of what happened to my family. My family was lucky. Most got out without any physical damage. My father’s family had been wealthy and lost everything. They picked up the pieces a went on without complaint. The horror is the knowledge of what man is capable of doing to his fellow man. In Nazi Germany, my family became hunted animals, criminals not because of what any of them had done but because of who they were.

I had a session with the Twins. I worked with Twin E first. She was lying in bed. Her mom and brother were arguing in the background. We couldn’t get started until they moved away or stopped the fight. I only dictated three words, rocks and stone. She consistently leaves off the -s suffix. Many students have this problem. They either don’t hear the -s, or they’re so focused on the base word, they ignore it.

She spelled stone as stown. I was thrilled. Ow makes the long/o/ sound in snow, blow, flow, etc. while I praised the thoughtful spelling, I told her it was wrong and to think of another was to spell the long /o/. I referred to the VCe syllable pattern. She had no idea what I was talking about. We spent the rest of the session reviewing VCe versus VC syllables patterns. We’ve done that before. We will probably have to do it again. We got through one sentence when we hit the word easily, which she spelled easyly. We spent the rest of the lesson on that spelling pattern. I love teaching to the problem instead of a prescribed objective. The students mind is more open if not completely open.

At 3:30, I had fourth grade GV. In our last lesson, we worked on his problem with his younger brother, who has a family wide reputation for being loud and annoying. I worked with GV to help him be less reactive. Today, he made a diagram to show me his improvement. He drew a pink circle covered three quarters by a black overlay. That was how much his brother bothered him before the exercise. He erased most of it, leaving less than a quarter still cover to illustrate how it was now. I asked if his brother’s behavior was also better. I suggested he look for ways to enjoy his brother, and to make sure he tells him if it went well. If he just ignores him and doesn’t give him some positive feedback, the poor kid will escalate his efforts

We did some work on the spelling. I bumped him up to working with fourth grade material because he needs more practice with multisyllable words. The first word in the paragraph was hippopotamus. He groaned. ‘remember the procedure. Figure out how many syllables and then focus on spelling each syllable one-at-a-time. My kids have more trouble figuring out the sound of the individual syllables than they do the phonemes. Any idea why? I don’t know.

Lastly, I had fourth grade LG. According to his iReady work, he still reads at an upper second grade level. That’s a huge improvement. he has problems with comprehension. I switch back to sentence analysis. As he read the sentence, he came across the word several. He threw in the towel. “Oh, no. you don’t.” I took him through the steps. “What are the vowel letters? Which letters represent sounds? How many syllables?(Determine by the number of vowel sounds.) Divide the word into syllable. Pronounce them as best you can.) He divided it up as se/ve/ral.Good for him. That is a phonetically possible division. Following phonics rules won’t always produce an accurate pronunciation of the word- but it gets close enough for the reader to figure out the word- if is in his vocabulary. It was and LG did. I teach this procedure over and over. It’s not that they don’t know how to do it. It’s that they freak out when they see a big word. I suppose you could call it the freak-out disability.

Tuesday, January 21, 2025

I slept a lot during the day yesterday. I was overwhelmed by the fear generated by my experiences with the Grief Recovery work. I don't know how much of my problem is caused by the program versus the presenter. The program was designed to free people from societal dictates on the appropriate responses to loss and grief. As it is presented by this woman, it is more dictatorial than any of the myths people throw at us in an attempt to give us the courage to face life after loss or to avoid having to deal with our negative feelings, like sorrow. The myths are based on what 'well-meaning' people might say to us: #1 Don't feel Bad! #2 You can replace the lost one. #3 – grieve alone; no one wants to see a sad face. #4 Grief takes time, or time heals; #5 Be strong for others; #6 Keep busy. Another condemned comment is, "I know how you feel. I lost . . . ." The presenter has strong negative feelings about these comments. My guess is she drowned in them when her mom died in a car accident when she was eleven. I can believe she felt like she was being buried alive. They delivered a clear message of 'Do Not Grieve!" Unfortunately, her rigidity triggers me. Those comments are not designed to support grief; they encourage us to get on with life. Facing grief requires moving beyond 'getting on with life.

I am aware that my response is as inappropriate as hers. So far, my behavior is just statements that disagree with the leader's dictates, including telling her how I feel. So much for caring about what I or anyone else feels that differs from the dictates.

The grief recovery program was developed by a man who was utterly brainwashed. He had swallowed the myths hook, line, and sinker when he faced the loss of an infant son. But that was in 1977, light years ago, by today's standard of societal tolerance for psychological conditions and responses to events. We send in teams of therapists whenever there is a disaster.

The old myths are valuable when not designed to shut down the griever. It isn't black or white. In response to the Academy Award for telling everyone," I'm fine," one of the participants said, "It depends upon whom I'm speaking to." Some friends are right there where you need them to be; others would prefer you throw up on them rather than share sorrow. It depends. The presenter literally turned her back on the woman.

I have a tough time with mental rigidity. That's on me. Shelly, my therapist/life coach, advised me to drop out of the sessions. She had a point. My blood pressure was way up. I decided to hang in for two reasons. I was hoping I get a grip on this outsized fear, and one of the participants said she was glad I was there and hoped I wouldn't quit.

I know at least one other participant sees the program as rigid as I do. I think several others feel alienated. The leader is saying that everything we did before entering her class was wrong. She presents everything as absolutes.

I often feel like I'm dragging myself around, heart-heavy, concerned it isn't just grief but 'broken-heart syndrome," which can cause physical problems. I suffered with that for most of today. Then, as is frequently the case, I had a burst of energy in the late evening. I cleaned the stovetop and the stainless-steel refrigerator door, sorting and rearranging the pictures and documents held onto it with magnets. I slept like a baby when I went to bed close to 11. Doing something productive that had been nagging at me probably helped.

I got up too late to do my morning exercises before my walk. I felt like I was hauling myself around the block. What a drag!

As I was about to head out to water my 42 shrubs, Mama K called. She was sorry she hadn't gotten back to me. She had left her phone in a friend's car and had just gotten it back. Yes, the girls were home from school today. It must be an in-service day for the teachers in that area. The day wasn't off for all of Hawaii's public schools.

I hate Microsoft. I am constantly losing documents. One Drive disappears them. I couldn't find the documents I was working on with either of the girls. Maddening but not insurmountable. I just opened new documents. I basically knew where we were.

Twin E went first. I had been working with her on third-grade material. Since I had to start fresh, I decided to bump her to the low fourth-grade level, which is basically high third-grade. She spelled hippopotamuses correctly when I pushed her to spell the word ONE SYLLABLE AT A TIME. This is hard for the kids, harder than hearing the individual phonemes. They want to say the whole word and hope that will work. It doesn't.

My students' other problem is hearing the phonemes in connected speech, particularly discerning the difference between the /m/ and /n/ sounds and the final sound of a base word when a suffix -s is required. That blurs the sound of the final phoneme in the base word. It worked to get E to identify the base word. I said we say "two cats, but one cat, etc. I gave several examples. E got stuck on the word caps. I asked, "If we say two caps, how would we say one?" She said a hat after I had given her the example of two cats versus one cat again. Then, she finally got it. Neither of the girls sees patterns easily, a key to what we considerintelligence. I can't imagine they will ever be regarded as brilliant, but Twin A is already doing much better, seeing patterns independently.

Many of the kids I work with have problems seeing patterns and figuring things out on their own. Somehow, they have learned they're supposed to 'know' everything. The answer should just be remembered. Oh, boy. What's interesting is seeing the school's response to these kids. Kids who come from white, well-to-do families or are articulate are considered intelligent with a learning disability. The kids from local families are considered not quite as bright. Two of Mama K's kids have already been placed in Honors classes. Her firstborn was the top student at the end of his freshman year. He was shocked. I'm sure some of his teachers were, too.

It was a Ulu Wini day. I didn't drive the car yesterday, but I charged it. When I got in the car, it announced the charge had failed. Instead of 24 miles of available electric charge, it showed it had only charged to the 4-mile mark. Oh, oh. It looks like the garage's fix didn't work. Incomplete charging is the problem with this car. I'd better check to see what the laws are. The car would be functional without the electric motor, but it would not be very powerful. It will be reduced to a four-cylinder car.

It was a Ulu Wini day. Since I introduced slime, they're lining up. I made it clear to everyone that they have to work to get at the slime. Interestingly, some actually are more interested in the work than the slime. The slime made me a friendly part of their environment as I had never been before. I'll take it.

First up was 2nd grade KJ. I hadn't worked with her since the end of the last school year. I asked her what she wanted to work on, reading or math? She said, "Reading math." I'm unsure what that meant, but I pushed her to choose between reading and math. I had her read the graded samples. Her word calling was good through 3rd grade. However, her comprehension was very poor. She had no idea what was going on. I concentrated on the Up the Tree story about a cat who ran up a tree to escape a dog. She read each sentence as if it bore no relation to the preceding ones. Amazing! Words that don't relate to her immediate experience in familiar language have no meaning for her. She doesn't know how to use language to communicate beyond the most basic social communication. She speaks any language at the level I did at age four. This is a cultural problem, not one related to intellect.

Besides pushing her to see the relationship of each sentence to each other sentence, I used the words problem and solution when discussing the plot. She didn't understand the problem in this context. "What's the problem?" "Someone isn't getting what they want or getting something they don't want." Jeff wanted the cat to come down from the tree. What was the solution? In this case, Jeff tried three solutions. The first two didn't work. The third one did. KJ listened and thought. She looked like she understood something she had never understood before. We'll see.

Next, I had second-grade MK. I had her once before. She had no automatic recall of sight words. She decoded every word on the sight word list. I showed her how to use automatic processing with the BrainManagement Skills. She went from decoding each word to zipping through words 1 through 200. She missed only a few words.

Then, it was third-grade TC. Last I worked with her, she was struggling with the first fifty sight words on the Fry list. Today, she zoomed through 200. That doesn't quite put her on grade level, but I didn't have #201-300. I'll have to try it next time.

Third-grade PL was the only one who wanted to play with the slime today. She has focusing problems big time. Playing with the slime keeps her calm and focused. I'm happy to accommodate her. She ran into problems with the second word, confusing orwith of. Confusing r and f is a common problem. I did a height discerning exercise with her, categorizing the letters as uppies ( b, d, f, et.), downies (g, j, etc.) and normal (a,c, e, etc.) She was confused the first time we went through the alphabet. The second time, she was all in and did a good job. We'll see if that makes a difference.

I had a few minutes with 2nd grade NV, who is still struggling with remembering the first 25 sight words on the Fry list. I tried writing some letters on her forehead. She couldn't discern the difference between m and w. Maybe this is a lead.

I had to leave because I had a four-thirty with seventh-grade RC. As usual, she says she has no idea if she is improving. The only thing she learned today is the spelling of the final stable suffix -tion. I showed her it made the sound of -shun. Okay. That's nuts.

I spoke to RC's mom after the session. I think she's doing fine. Her mom is still concerned she has dyslexia. I haven't seen evidence of it. I see evidence of insecurity and perfectionism. Then, her mom told me she misspelled common words when she made out a list of desired presents. I asked the mother to make a list of the words with her misspellings. As I think of it, maybe that was before I started using Phase III in my work with her.