Monday, May 13, 2019

    I got up and walked Elsa. I experienced a new discomfort/pain in my hip.  I thought, “Is this it? Has my hip reached the end of its rope?”  I have severe arthritis in my left hip, along with a large bone spur.  Those who look at my X-rays wonder how I even manage to walk. Therefore, I’m always on the alert for the possibility that I have taken my little experiment as far as I can. 

    When I got home, I did my oil rinse, washed the dishes, drank my two cups of water, and boiled one kettle for the weeds.  I got an email from Raymond James telling me what my monthly income is so far and suggesting that the Affidavit and the Trust Fund documentation had arrived and were with the legal team.  There will be more money coming in once social security and NJ pension fund work out the paperwork.  Hopefully, they get that done before I die.

    After worrying that the leg may have reached its end and thinking of changing the surgery appointment so I could do it either in August or October so I could travel in September, I revised my opinion again. I saw more flexion in my left hip as I did my yoga. Bikram, which is the exact same asanas in the exact same order every day, provides an excellent opportunity to evaluate what is going on in my hip.  If I hadn’t been doing yoga, I would never have noticed the improvement. 

    At the end of the class, Yvette dumped her yoga stuff and mine in my car for me to wash when I got home. So glad to have someone else to do something for. I rinsed off and headed to my chiropractic appointment. I had her do work on my body above my armpits both in front and back, and a lot of work on my neck. This work on my upper body is making a massive difference to my spinal curvature.  Who knew?

     I texted Mike Glaser, my second cousin at some remove,  asking him to inform me when he ships the paintings. I had lent three paintings done by my great aunt, and his great-great-aunt,  to the community in Teltow, Germany, for an exhibit of Jewish painters who lived there before the Nazis came.  I have one wonderful painting of a little boy at a petting zoo that I’ve had since I was a young child. Another was done when she lived on the east coast, a painting of Central Park.  The third was done when she lived in Florida; it’s a picture of a scrub pine tree.  

     I stopped off at Home Depot to buy carpet gliders for my dining room chairs; the old ones have worn out or fallen off. I  bought three and a regular Hersey’s Milk Chocolate with whole Almonds.  Okay, I was hungry.  When I got home, I only found two packages of the carpet gliders.  I must have dropped one in the parking lot.

    I made my morning soup and sat down to work on the blog.  Judy called on the house phone. She was in her car coming home from Waimea, where she had her regular blood test as part of the chemo treatment.  She told me that her husband is having some worrying symptoms that may be nothing.  He is going to get it checked. I told her to stop by and see if there was anything she could use from what was left in the pantry.  

    She couldn’t believe all the Chinese sauces Mike had.  She could only use a few of them. When we looked at the second shelf in the pantry, we found a lot of grains that had already gone bad.  One package was completely broken down, reduced to the flour from which it came. Judy left with two shopping bags, and the shelves still looked full. Remember, this is the second clearing. The first was my clearing out all unopened, unexpired cans and bottles, which I gave to a charity. 

    The items in the pantry must have been there long before Mike got sick. While I cleaned the refrigerator regularly,  I never thought to clean the pantry. I figured he’d say something if he thought it was a problem.  Of course, cleaning wasn’t all my responsibility.  I did everything with water: washing floors, carpets, windows, the screens, the counters, the laundry, anything that required a liquid application. It was the only division of labor we had for cleaning. Either he never saw the destroyed food, or he didn’t feel comfortable asking me to do the cleaning.  He usually didn’t do that type of cleaning.  Cleaning out the pantry was going to be a messy job; I put off washing the kitchen floor for another day.

    After Judy left, I did some work on the blog. Then I decided to go out and do some work in the garden.  The vine on the fence between our property and our neighbor’s was getting out of hand.  More seriously, the fruit on that vine was maturing, meaning more vines would be planted. I got out there and started ripping it off the fence.  When I came across fruit, I grabbed it and threw it on the cement driveway.  The fruit gets run over. I dare it to plant its seed there.

    Since I was all hot and sticky and in need of a shower anyway, I figured I’d go down to the bottom of the property to pick more limes.  As I walked down there, I pulled some miscellaneous weeds.  The gardeners usually do this, but I haven’t been up to asking them to return on their regular monthly schedule.  It’s not the money; for some reason, it triggers sad feelings about Mike.  It was Mike who hired the gardener when he came in touch with the reality that he would never be comfortable digging in the dirt himself. I find it energizing.  Well, I find ripping things out energizing; planting, that’s another matter. I think I’m the world’s worst gardener. I have had some luck recently.  I planted a bush that has survived and seems to be thriving. When I lived in Princeton, I couldn’t get a forsythia plant to grow and thrive.

    When I was down at the bottom of the driveway, I saw our neighbor, Ronen, on the other side of the fence. He texted me about a week ago telling me that he was smelling sewage coming from my property every afternoon.  Did we have a septic tank or a cesspool? While cesspools will probably be outlawed soon, everyone here has one.  Our contractor told us that if we hadn’t had problems with it so far, we probably would be good forever. We actually have two cesspools on the property, one for the main house and one for the shed where B lives.  I had asked Ronen to call me the next time he smelled it. I said he should come over then, and we’d work together to locate the source of the problem.  I hadn’t heard from him.  I was thinking there was one of three causes:1) the smell disappeared; 2) he hadn’t been home, or 3) he never received my text.  Number one was the best option, and that’s what it was.  I think B had left garbage lying around when he left for the mainland for a couple of weeks. When he got back, he took care of it. Voila! No more smell. 

    I carried a bucket with 32 limes up the hill to the house, put them in the sink, and filled the pail with water to kill off all the wildlife I had brought in the house with them.  When I took the limes out of the bucket, I sorted them into the ones I had to squeeze before they went bad and the ones that could wait a while.

    When I checked the clock, I saw it was 2:24. Oh, dear.  My student was arriving any minute, and I could not meet her smelling as I did.  I jumped in the shower and got dressed as quickly as I could. I did not do MELT or use the Tiger Tail today. No time.

    I actually had a few minutes before she arrived. I organized my materials and found a story I wanted to work with on the computer that was at a 2nd-grade level.  When she arrived, I showed her the five books I got for her yesterday.  I picked books I thought she might be interested in. She had said that she wanted the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. I got two of those and picked up some A to Z Mystery Books, too.  The Diary books are on a 5th-grade level, which is the grade she is in, but well below the grade level, she tests on. The A to Z books are on a 3rd to 5th-grade level.  She picked one of the Diary Books.  She has seen other kids in her class, reading them. She said she has seen first graders reading one of the books. That is some good first-grade reader. The book is hard for her, but if this is what she enjoys reading, that’s what she should be reading, whatever her motivation may be.  If she’s not feeling frustrated but challenged, it will keep her nose in the book.  Good enough.  

    On the second grade passage, she only made one mistake that she didn’t self-correct. She read we for he.  Problems with these level- one sight words is so common for kids who had issues when they first started to read.  We also did some work on math. She was showing me how she was dividing fractions and subtracting decimals,  but then she didn’t know how to do subtraction with regrouping.  Over the summer, I want to go through the whole 5th-grade math curriculum. When she doesn’t understand or can’t do something, I can trace where the breakdown comes in and teach that before we go on.

    After she left, I got to work on the blog.  As I was typing, I heard the distinct sound of rain.  I rushed outside to save my Bikram clothes hanging on the line so they will be dry for tomorrow.  After living here for 5 years, I have developed a sensitivity to the sound of rain when I have clothes on the line comparable to a mother’s sensitivity to her child waking up while she’s in a dead sleep.

    I walked Elsa and came more work on the blog. I had dinner, watched TV and cataloged some books.   I walked Elsa again, washed my face, brushed my teeth, and went to bed. Good night, Elsa, Goodnight, Mike.

Sunday, May 12, 2019

    I woke up at 5:30 am, but I managed to stay in bed until 6:30. I walked Elsa around the whole block because I wasn’t doing Bikram today.  I took a brown paper bag with me to pick up garbage.  Good thing I did; I found two bottles along the way. The rest was just the usual small stuff. When I got home, I did my oil rinse, washed the dishes, and drank two cups of water, and ate some pretzels.  I haven’t mentioned the pretzels before,  but I eat a handful every morning.  I worked on the blog; I got one sent out.  Then I dressed for church. 

    I had to go to the 9 o’clock mass today at St. Michael’s, not the 10 o’clock at Holy Rosary as I usually do because Judy’s grandkids were being baptized.  The baptism was magical.  There were five children baptized this morning. It was part of the service, not something that occurred after the mass for just the family and friends.  Mike did many of those baptisms.  Judy was beside herself with joy.  Jazzy, who is not a Catholic, was very moved by it.

    I saw Melissa singing in the choir. I didn’t know she was back.  Melissa travels all over the world with some organizations like Doctors without Borders to provide free medical services to those in need. I spoke to her about getting together.

    When I got home, Yvette greeted me with her breakfast in her hand. She was eating with me for Mother’s Day.  We had some plans for going to the beach, but I needed a nap first. Damon called while I was napping, but I wasn’t up for answering. I just lay there and smiled as I listened to his voice mail.  I called him back when I go up.  I asked him to ask August for the name of the blog site he recommended.  Damon told me how well August was doing in school and how he does all his work on his own and gets good grades. Damie says they ask him regularly if he needs help, but he doesn’t.  The kid is so independent, so reliable, so self-directed. These folks did something right.

    Damon and I had a long talk about using physical therapy versus surgery to fix specific problems.  Damon had many knee surgeries, including a meniscus cadaver transplant.  He still has some issues with his knee but is committed to dealing with it without surgery.  I talked about changing the way he moved in daily life.  He said it was too much work to do that.  I’ve heard that before.  Mike would complain that a change I recommended was uncomfortable. Duh! If it’s different from what you usually do, it’s not going to be comfortable.  The rule is. “It can be very uncomfortable, but it shouldn’t hurt, particularly no sharp pains.” In my years of dance training, I learned the difference between good pain and bad pain.  People who haven’t had some form of athletic training are probably unfamiliar with the concept and consider all discomfort a warning of physical danger.  Unfortunately, if we are going to make an improvement, some discomfort is going to be inevitable. 

    I talked about tricks I use to incorporate changes in my movement patterns.  I will think of just focusing on the different move for the count of ten or for the number of steps it takes to get from my chair to the bathroom.  If I’m walking around the block, I try to count to 10 or 20 as I emphasize one side and then the next 10 or 20 while I focus on the other side.  However, I also become distracted.  When I remember, I “Start again!” The more difficult the change is for me, the more quickly I become distracted, and the longer it takes me to remember to “Start again!”      The biggie I’m working on now is how I use my abdominal muscles differently to breathe.  I have always expanded my abdominal muscles to inhale and contracted them to exhale.  Now, JJ showed me that I’m supposed to suck my abdominal muscles in and up to inhale and just relax a little to exhale.  I find when I do it this way, I create more space between the top of my hips and the bottom of my ribs.  In other words, besides giving my spine a good stretch with each breath, I’m getting a waist. This is a huge change for me, and it is not comfortable.  If I remember to do it 5 times a day for 10 breathes each, that’s good.  Over time, a long time, it will become automatic, and I won’t have to think about it at all ever again unless I want to modify more.

    I’ve discussed this before: change can be used for good or bad. Some people use it to grow; some people use it to escape themselves.  So sorry! That doesn’t work. “Wherever you go, there you are.”

    Yvette came upstairs again, and we decided it was just too windy to go to the beach. I love it when I go to the beach, but it is hard as hell getting me out of the house. Good thing I have a great view.  Yvette came up and asked if I would like to go to the movie. Nah. I’d have to leave the house and spend money.  

    I did some work on the blog while Yvette sat on the sofa doing something on her phone.  This is something I miss with Mike, someone to sit within companionable silence.  I remember that it was one of the things that made me interested in Mike from the beginning.  He joined Dorothy and me on an excursion to the Brooklyn Botanical Garden.  We all sat together quietly.  I had already experienced that companionable comfortable silence with him once before.

      I was struck by our ability to be comfortable with each other in silence immediately. It was on our second date. We went to the movies to see “The Way We Were.” I remember feeling comfortable standing on line with him saying nothing, just being with him. The things I miss most: loving him and being loved by him, his smile of delight when he looked at me, his continuing feeling that he was unbelievably lucky to have me in his life, and our companionable silence, our total comfort with each other.

    Dorothy had called earlier, and I called her back.  We chatted about the weather and family. Karin and David are planning to travel to the east coast later in the spring.  They checked with their doctor about exposing Sam, their newborn, to the measles.  I don’t think I would take a kid that young outside the house.  Wow! This is scary.  Dorothy and I had most of those childhood diseases since we were born in the 1940s before vaccinations became available except for the one for smallpox. We were lucky.  I have a college friend who lost hearing in one ear due to the measles. I remember my parents talking about children who fell into permanent commas or died. 

    I walked Elsa and came more work on the blog. I had dinner, watched TV and cataloged some books.   I walked Elsa again, washed my face, brushed my teeth, and went to bed. Good night, Elsa, Goodnight, Mike.

Saturday, May 11, 2019

    I had set the alarm for 7 because on Saturday’s the Bikram class is at 8:30. I woke up at 6:30 am, a little later than usual, walked Elsa, did my oil rinse washed my dishes from last night, and drank my two cups of water.  I left for Bikram.

    After the class, as I drove down the street away from the studio, I heard this horrible sound.  It took me a few minutes to figure out it was coming from the front of my car, very possibly the tire. I would be passing Costco on the way home; I would just stop off there to get it checked.

    First, I stopped off at Kona Bay Books, our local used bookstore, which is right around the corner from the studio.  The store is the size of a grocery store with rows and rows of books.  I was looking for books for my student to read, not me to use with her but for her own enjoyment. While there are a few remaining problems, phonics rules she forgets, and easy sight words that reverse on her, with the use of context clues she should be able to function pretty close to grade level by the end of the summer – if she continues to demand that the sentences she reads make sense.  The need to use context clues to figure out how to pronounce a word in English is true for all of us, even the most competent reader.  

    While I was there, I checked the left front of the car to see where that sound was coming from.  A saw something black hanging down from the inside fender and striking the tire.  It was just a piece of plastic, but I thought it would do damage to the brand new tire. 

    I went to Safeway next.  I picked up a Marie Callender’s chicken pot pie, a whole wheat baguette and a package of salad.

    As planned, I stopped off at the Costco Tire Center.  I went directly to the bays and spoke to one of the mechanics.  He was busy and had another man check out my problem. He said the plastic flap was something that covers the inside of the fender, preventing water from getting in.  He just snapped it back into place. There was still a little piece hanging out, but I didn’t have to deal with that sound anymore.

    At first, I thought the mechanic at Costco had caused the problem when he installed the four new tires the other day. But as I drove home and made a right turn, I heard a familiar sound, one I heard months ago. Ah, so that was the problem.  I thought it had something to do with the shocks and had asked my regular mechanic to check on them.  He said they were fine. But that left me wondering what the problem was. Now, I know. Costco is definitely not responsible.

    Driving home, I dealt with more grief.  It feels like the flaking off of the outer shell is over.  Now, patches are being ripped off from my innards.  It’s not as bad as it sounds.  It’s just that the grief is in a deeper place in me.

    When I got home, I unloaded the car and made my Juice Plus smoothie, which I hadn’t had time to do this morning because I realized too late that it needed to be done.  I boiled 2 kettles for the weeds, played a lot of FreeCell, and sent out Sunday’s blog.  I took my shower, did MELT for my feet, and used the Tiger Tail. Then I did some more work on the blog.

    I had that thick feeling in my head that makes me tired.  Since I was told that I suffer from silent migraines, as my mother did, I’m more aware of them. What are silent migraines? That was my question when my mother told me about them.  I thought, “How can a migraine be silent?  The people I know who have them have splitting headaches, nausea, and can hardly function.” But no. There is such a thing as migraines that have none of those symptoms.   I did a little research. These migraines are rare and occur in women more than men. They are without headaches, but they usually are accompanied by visual distortions and nausea.  Now, I only experience visual distortion once. I saw a pattern, I think it’s called an aura, and the pattern blocked my vision. I have periodically experienced mild nausea.  I use to joke with Mike that I thought I was pregnant.  Since I was well beyond menopause, that would have been a good trick, but then my name is Elizabeth.

    I did more work on the blog while I listened to my Saturday NPR shows.  I was inspired to start reading Mike’s book. It was exciting to read his words.  His book is about the diaconate. One way or another, I’m going to make sure this book gets out there. 

      I have no idea why he didn’t ask me to read his work.  I always gave him what I wrote for the book I’m writing for him to evaluate for clarity and edit for grammar.  He gave great feedback, and it allowed him to get to know my thinking better. He even told me that he got a deeper understanding of my work by editing the chapters. I never asked to read what he wrote.  He never asked to read what I wrote.  

    When we first got together, he was definitely the better writer. He had had more individual instruction due to professors who took an interest in him.  He helped me to become a better writer, a much clearer writer, one who became considerate of my readers. 

    On the other hand, he may have been afraid to have me read what he wrote because I didn’t like his homilies and refused to go to his bible study classes. My problem wasn’t with what he said, it was having my’ husband,’ who was inclined to lecture, lecturing me from the pulpit, especially since our conversational skills were not well developed. 

    It makes me so sad to read his book. I have so many questions. There is so much more that we had to learn about each other.  I’m pretty open. Mike also knew that I was interested in other people.  A conversation is a form of improvisation. Mike wasn’t good at that in an unstructured context.  We were working toward it. On my part, becoming more accepting that this was a difficult skill for him instead of allowing my buttons to be pushed; on his part, trying more. We were still in the early stages.  I do hope that he knew I was interested in what he thought.  

    I have mentioned before the line from TS Elliott’s play, The Cocktail Party, in which he says something on the order of, “Always greet your loved ones as strangers every day.”  I know that I feel that way about myself. I discover hidden parts, despite being with myself 24/7. I find the human condition fascinating. There is always more to learn.  I can’t imagine why people become bored with relationships.  

    I can imagine why people feel trapped.  If I had married a man who didn’t like affection, I would have been in some version of hell.  On the other hand, a partner who had no tolerance for affection would have considered me his vision of hell.  Each to his own.  Mike and I had enough overlap of needs and likes and dislikes to build a satisfying relationship.  While Mike didn’t share my interest in exploring the human condition with everyone he met, he had his own way of pursuing that interest: through books and the counseling he offered to others.  He served me well at times in that capacity.  God, I loved him. It hurts my heart that he’s not here smiling at me in delight in his love for me and mine for him.  It’s only taken me two months and 9 days to get to this point.  Let’s see where we go from here.  

    I did my evening routine, dinner, TV, cataloging.  Then   I walked Elsa, washed my face, brushed my teeth, and went to bed. Good night, Elsa, Goodnight, Mike.

Friday, May 10, 2019

     I woke up right before the alarm went off.  I checked Scott’s towels and bathing suit hanging on the outdoor clothing line that I hand washed yesterday. The towels were almost dry, but his pants were still wet.

    As I walked Elsa this morning, my leg was continually bothering me.  Then in the Bikram class, I started doing a different kind of a stretch. While standing and bending over, I put all the weight on the outside of my left foot, forcing a realignment of my whole leg.  I felt a stretch that relieved all existing discomfort.  What a find!  How many times have I hit this juncture when I think I’m at the end of the road? I have been told every doctor that someday I will not have a choice;  I will need a hip replacement if I ever want to be pain-free.  So far, every time I have hit the point that makes me think ‘this is it,’ I experience a significant breakthrough. Meantime, I have a rolling appointment for surgery, which is pushed forward every six months. After the class, I remembered to asked JJ how many people were in the express class: 16.

    Driving home, the tumblers on my psyche lined up. I realized that I would never see Mike again. I didn’t like it.  I loved being his life partner.  He was a delight.  I will never see his smiling face; I will never again see his delight on his face when he looked at me; I will never be able to look over as  I sit quietly by myself reading or writing and see Mike in his chair reading or do the NY Times crossword puzzle on his tablet which he bought some time this year under the guidance of his grandson, August. 

    So far, I have mostly been suffering, remembering how Mike suffered for the past year, mainly since November, when he started dialysis. The worst was that drive to the dialysis center three times a week when I had to deliver him to that torture; some of it was unnecessary as they struggled with his defective fistula. We knew the fistula was a problem, but we had been told that it would get better over time. Mike was as cheerful as he could be. He didn’t swamp me with his suffering.  I was okay with it because it was temporary, but the fistula proved faulty and had to be replaced with a port.  And when the end result was death, it all seemed unnecessary torture. Before his pancreatitis attack, he slept a lot, but so did I.  He had to cut back on his activities, but age makes that necessary anyway. He still was able to enjoy what he could do and appreciate me. Can I ask for anything more? He was my hero. 

    I find that I’m feeling his presence in my life is peeling off, the way dead skin flakes away.  He isn’t here to renew the part of me that was conjoined with him, the part of him that was part of me. His presence was getting thinner every day. I experience it on the left side of my being. That’s supposed to be the feminine side. That makes sense because while he loved me as a person, he also loved me as a woman. My identity as a woman, as defined in relationship to him, is going.  It’s not gone yet. Maybe it never will be gone. But it is getting thinner.  I don’t know that I need that part of my identity to survive as a person as Mike’s mother did, but I miss it as I miss him. I don’t know which one I miss more, loving him or be loved by him.  How lucky was I?

    I tried to take a nap.  I didn’t have that lovely deep rest, which I so often get.  I read a little of the book the Yvette gave me “Happiness is an Inside Job.”  It is a repeat of the ideas behind mindfulness meditation developed by Buddha.  A refresher is always good; I need to be reminded. Each author has a different point of view, a new lens to look through the same subject.

    Ace called and said that the burial he had to officiate ended early could he come over right away instead of at two.  I had contacted him and asked him to load the CollectorZ scanning program onto my phone.  John and Ace loaded it on their phones a month ago.  They went through about half the shelves, scanning the books with bar codes and putting the ones they couldn’t on their spines when they put them back on the shelf.  That way, I would know which books had been entered through scanning and which had to be entered manually.  I have been doing the manual entries.  I have added at least 500 books already just doing a little each night.     

    I told Ace that I was also having problems with the automatic online contribution to the church.   He told me I would have to ask Susan or Brenda from the parish office for help with that.  Minutes after he left, Sue called to say Ace called saying I needed help with the online giving. She told me the name of the woman who would help me with it.  Within half an hour, the woman called me. I went through the procedure. I have no idea why I had a problem in the first place.  And then I hit a block again.  I will have to call again. I went back to working on the blog.

    I got the Bikram stuff for Yvette, Scott, and me that had washed off the line and went to work on the blog. Three o’clock, I had a healing client, and then back to working on the blog.

    I walked Elsa, had dinner, watched TV Silent Witness, and cataloged some books.  The CollectionZ program is set up, so the books I enter are automatically downloaded to the cloud and the cumulative list.   

    I walked Elsa, washed my face, brushed my teeth, and went to bed. Good night, Elsa, Goodnight, Mike.

Thursday, May 9, 2019

     I woke up, as usual, walked Elsa, did my oil rinse, washed the dishes from last night, and made the Juice Plus smoothie. I sat down to drink my two cups of water and played a few games of FreeCell – which made me leave a bit later than I usually do. 

    I was the first to arrive at the Bikram studio even though I was on the late side; there was only one other student in the class.  When the class started, there were only three students. JJ said that the Bikram Express class, which was coming up next and is an hour-long instead of the standard 90 minutes, would probably be packed. 

    After class, I stopped off at The Club to clean out Mike’s locker. I was told to ask for Jason.  He was at the front desk.  I told him I was Mike Ross’s wife. At first, he didn’t hear what I said; I had to repeat it. Then he stood up to hug me. It’s Hawaii; thank God. I thought he would just direct me to the locker and let me clean it out. As I think about it, the locker was probably in the men’s locker room, and no one would be too happy to see me wandering around in there. Because I was parked in a handicapped parking spot, I sat in the car waiting.  Jason took much longer than I expected.  When he came out, he had a 13 gal garbage bag full of stuff. Was I going to find any surprises? 

    When I got home, I emptied the bag.  I found 4 clean polo shirts that were too ripped to wear anywhere else, two towels, swimming goggles, and a brand new pair of athletic shoes. Mike had to buy shoes two sizes larger than his usual size because of the fluid retention caused by his kidney disease.  I threw the shirts out; couldn’t possibly give those to a charity. No one is that desperate. 

    I showered, boiled 2 pots for weeds, played FreeCell, sent one blog out, and made notes for the day.  In case you’re wondering how I can remember what I did a week ago. I cheat. I write down notes and whole paragraphs for each day as it occurs.  My memory is not that good.

    I set the alarm for 2:30 because I was expecting my student at 3. I woke up at 2. Good thing because she arrived at 2:30 instead of 3.  She did remarkably well. I am seeing a significant improvement in her reading, even though her word recognition skills are not consistent yet. She still makes mistakes on words that are in the first sight word list.   

    I did some work on the blog.  Yvette’s friend, Steve, stopped by to drop off Scott’s sweaty mat, towel, and shorts from Bikram for Yvette.  Scott has regularly been coming to class but has a few obstacles to overcome.  He doesn’t have a car and lives in Holualoa.   He doesn’t have a washer or dryer, and he lives at a height were it rains a lot. Clothes don’t dry on an outdoor line, if anywhere.   Therefore, Yvette picks him up for class and washes the stuff he needs, and often drives him home again.  He can get to the studio by bike because it’s all downhill.  But, on the way back home, it’s all uphill.  That’s a little too much.

    I did some work on the blog. Yvette called to tell me that the friend who was supposed to stay here last night but didn’t,  would be staying tonight.  She was on her way over. Yvette was at the beach and would be home shortly.  Besides being a good friend to many people, Yvette is a one-woman social service provider, glad to be behind the scenes back up as she puts people up in my part of the house.  I have much more room than she and Josh do downstairs.

    The woman arrived and was immediately approached by Elsa. “How cute!” Elsa brought her balls to throw.  At first, she was delicate in her throwing.  I told her to bounce the ball off the walls and throw it down the 20-foot hallway.  Boy, had she underestimated Elsa.  When Yvette came home, she came in the greet her friend.  Elsa immediately put her feet up on her leg, asking for attention. Yvette said, “Yes, Elsa. I understand,” in a somewhat worn-out voice.  The difference between her friend’s reaction and Yvette was a scream.  Elsa will ask for attention 24/7 if you don’t make it clear you’re not available to serve her 24/7. I can do that, and then she sits quietly near me or actually on the chair with me. She is a good girl.  She’s not needy so much as she knows what she enjoys and is persistent.

    I walked Elsa, ate a dinner of salad, a slice of buttered bread, and a vegetarian soup along with my nightly freshly squeezed limeade.  I have a lime tree in my garden, which supplies me for most of the year. The rest of the time, I buy lemons from Costco.  For dessert I had the chocolate cake I rescued from Fr. Joe celebration and some of Judy’s lilikoi squares. 

    I watched Silent Witness.  This program has 17 seasons. The first season was in 1996, but it is has a contemporary point of view.  I did a little research on women leads in detective shows. 1996 is late already. The earliest one I remember was with Diana Rigg, in The Avengers, which was filmed in the 1960s.  

    I walked Elsa, washed my face, brushed my teeth, and went to bed. Good night, Elsa, Goodnight, Mike.

Wednesday, May 8, 2019

    I got up as usual on weekdays when I plan to attend Bikram.  I contacted Ace, the seminarian at St. Michael's, for help in scanning the books. I need him to set up the CollectionZ.com program on my phone, so I can also scan books, using the bar code on the book covers. I am almost done with shelves that John and Ace worked on the weekend of Mike's funeral. They got about 800 books scanned and put those that couldn't be on their spines.  Those are the ones I have been entering manually. Some books are not already in CollectionZ; those cannot be scanned in, and I will have to enter them from scratch. I will need someone with better eyes than I have to do those. 

    After I spoke to Ace, I walked Elsa. When I got home,  I did my oil rinse as I washed the dishes from last night, did two pots of boiling water for my weeds, and drank my two cups of water in preparation for Bikram.

    Yvette was at Bikram, and I asked her if I could borrow her height later in the day to help me clean out that cabinet I emptied yesterday.  She, in turn, assured me that she would take care of everything for her house guest. I had forgotten. She had a friend in need and asked if she could stay upstairs with me. Yvette's friends are always welcome in my house if I have the room.  

    For the second day, I didn't do much after the first half of the Bikram class except hold myself in traction as I did savasana to correct my spinal curvature. I went to the church after yoga to drop off the cooking equipment and 4 bags of unopened jars and cans of unexpired food that Mike had accumulated that I will never use in a million years; I wouldn't even know how to use all those food items.  I was going to stop off at the Club, an exercise gym, to pick up whatever Mike had left in his locker there, but decided I didn't have time.  I had to get home, shower, and change and be at Crista's house for lunch at 11.

    When I got home, I called Tracey at the Josephinum to see if the tech guy there had any information about Mike's computer.  I know they were storing his data and were the active administrator of his computer.  He was very nice but couldn't help. He said that Mike had switched to his own equipment, and it was no longer serviced by the Josephinum. He suggested I call Mike Berstene, who Mike worked with on the long-distance learning program set up by the seminary. Ace texted me to say that he would be available on Friday to help me set up the scanning program. I called the lawyer's office to give them the fax number and email address for my financial advisor so they could send the revised Affidavit of Collection and the complete Trust document that included the information that the surviving spouse became the holder of the Trust.

    Wednesday is garbage day.  I took the garbage out to the trash container.  On the way, I pick up all the bags of Elsa poop off the ground. 

    I boiled several pots of water for weeds. One of my readers asked about the size of my gas bill because of all the water I boil.  I use an 8 cup electric water kettle. There's no gas harmed in this process. Also, I have solar panels. Once the sun is out, it doesn't cost me anything to boil some water using electricity.  No, no one else in the neighborhood uses this process. 

    I showered, did MELT, used the Tiger Tail, dressed in something a little nicer than my usual outfits, which are just expected to cover my nakedness. 

    I still hadn't heard from Crista. I texted her and asked if we were still on and to say that it was okay if we weren't. If we were, I would need her address. She texted me immediately, saying she must have sent it to the wrong person originally. 

    She sent me an address in Holualoa, a beautiful little town higher up the mountain than we are that offers breathtaking views of the ocean overlooking the town of Kona. It also provides a breathtaking drive along a snaking country road. 

    Lady Gaga told me to make a turn – I thought. Sure didn't look right.  I called Crista. She told me to go back to the curvy road, continue south, and make the next left. I wound up on a private road. That's the way it is around here. These country lanes are going off the main roadway.  

    Crista and Miles, Crista's three-year-old son, came out to the driveway to greet me. Miles is a gecko hunter.  He was showing me where they were. Crista and I ate lunch on the open covered lanai in front of their house. What is a covered open area for them is probably a large balcony for the folks who live upstairs.  

    Our main lanai is screened in. I am grateful to have a bug free environment, except for the spiders who find the meaty parts of my body so delicious and the little black flies that have their season during which I go to bed early, so I'm not plagued by them flying into my food and onto everything I'm reading. No, those little blacks flies are not biters. 

    Mike and I had been talking about creating an open porch (lanai) area for ourselves off the screened-in lanai. It would provide more living space for the kids downstairs and an open access area for me with an even more fantastic view of the ocean than I have already. 

    For those who don't know, besides the ocean views, the view of the stars here on the Big Island is one of the best in the world. That's why there are observatories from 11 different countries sitting on top of Mauna Kea.  The street lights in Kona are yellow, sometimes to be confused with the warning light on the traffic lights. Yellow doesn't create light pollution. Even when the street lights are on, you can see the stars. When Damon and Cylin arrived for Mike's funeral, they spent time in the driveway admiring our nighttime show. 

    But back to the open-air lanai/covered lanai: Don and Brenda had a friend build them an extended overhang.  It is huge and much less expensive than I thought it would be.  I mentioned it to Yvette, and she said she and Josh would still be open to the idea. It will have to wait until that financial matters are all settled before I commit to any significant expenses.

    Lunch with Crista and Miles was a relaxing pleasure.  Our conversation was light and chatty.  Miles was amazing. He mostly played by himself. Has anyone ever seen a 3year old leave his mom alone to talk to someone for more than 5 minutes at a time if that much?  While we talked, we watched him play. 

    When I got home, I did a little work on the blog but was too tired to do much.  I went down for my nap, but first, I started the book Yvette lent me "Happiness is an Inside Job." It is a book about the effects of Buddhist meditation written for Westerners.  Since I have made 20 10-day Vipassana meditation retreats, I am quite familiar with the basic ideas.  I can attest to the benefits of making these retreats. If Mike were still alive, he would tell you how I became a calmer person as a result of the mediation.  Besides the healing effect of the sits, I learned to be patient with my progress.  

    I sat the form of meditation, of what is now known as mindfulness meditation with SN Goenka.  He is an Asian Indian, and his program is very different for the retreat programs set up by two American boys who learned it in Thailand and brought it here. As I understand it, in their ashrams, each teacher designs their own program. Goenka's is highly structured and regulated. Goenka's recorded voice is heard at the start of every mediation session. While there are local 'teachers who lead every session. They are there to observe the students to make sure that no one is running into trouble and answer students' questions.  They are not allowed to vary the teachings with their own insights.  They have to stick to the script, literally.  It reminds me of both the Catholic Church.  These are all highly structured activities that allow for individual variation.  No one can prevent individual variation. That's just the way it works.  No matter how much anyone tries to follow a model, they are doomed to put their own stamp on it. 

    Goenka speaks with an Indian accent. As a result, there is one particular mispronunciation that makes me chuckle. When he says at the beginning of each meditation session," Watch your respiration." It can sound like," Watch your desperation." Which is the exact opposite of what you're supposed to do; you're supposed to stay calm in the face of all discomfort, not be desperate.

    I took a deep three-hour nap. When I got up, I was still too tired to work on the blog. Yvette came up to help me clean out the cabinet. Now Yvette is 5'10," and even she had to get up on the counter on her knees to reach it because it is in a peculiar position, remove the shelf covering and clean the shelves properly.  I brought the garbage pail over to her. She lifted the shelf covering with the container and its spilled contents and dumped it. No way I was going to do that. I am so lucky to have help I can rely on. Josh and Yvette have been such a comfort. 

    Judy arrived, delivering a container of her lilikoi squares, a special eternal prayer card from the Association of the Miraculous Medal for Mike, and a third thing that I can't remember.  We talked briefly, and she went home. She lives right down the street.  Am I lucky or what?

    After I did some more work on the blog, I walked Elsa.  I always pick up the mail on my way back from our before dinner walked. Mike's book arrived.  I have a title: "ICON:  A Theology of the Diaconate," but no bibliography.   While I found something like 3 chapters on his computer, the book is 10 chapters long.   Once I knew what I was looking at, I realized that there was a hard copy of the book on his desk. I had seen the binder, opened it, but I thought it was a manual when I read the title. 

    I ate dinner, watched TV, and cataloged some books. I walked Elsa, washed my face, brushed my teeth, and went to bed. Good night, Elsa, Goodnight, Mike.

Tuesday, May 7, 2019

    I was up at 6. I changed my iPhone alarm to the Early Riser sound from something more raucous. I heard something on the radio that it is better to wake up to music than a shrill sound.  Of course, these days, I’m up before the alarm goes off because the sun is already up.  I walked Elsa, did my oil rinse. I actually did have a few dishes to wash even though I had dinner out last night.  I made my Juice Plus smoothie, had my two cups of water, and made some notes for a blog entry.

    After the Bikram class, I rinsed off and got dressed in the clothes I brought to class and went to Costco to get my 4 new tires. The car service area opens early. I got here before the store itself opened. As early as I got there, there still was one person before me.  It took at least 5 minutes before I got served, and the clerk was helping the previous customer before I entered.  By the time the clerk waited on me, there were 4 more people in line.  In my experience, each encounter with the clerk takes 10 to 15 minutes, and I had already paid for my tires.  That meant that the fourth person who came in after me would have to wait forty minutes to an hour before he even got to speak to the clerk. 

     I got a cone to put on top of my car, #1. They told me I should expect it to take 2 ½ hours.  They would call me when the car was finished.  I had brought my computer and planned to sit in the food area and type away.  I did. I had to take a break because I had to go to the bathroom so badly.  When I came out of the store,  I got a phone call telling me that the car was ready.  I didn’t note the exact time, but it was something like 11.  It took an hour at most. But I got some work done. 

    Before I got my car, I went back inside the store to do some shopping. I bought salad. Orgain, a non-soy all veggie health drink mix, that was on sale.  I use that with my Juice Plus, which is soy-based. I bought the maximum number, 6, and saved $30.  

    When I got home, I started cleaning out another cabinet.  Yikes!  I found half a dozen small cans of tomato sauce that had black gunk oozing out.  I keep wondering how Mike felt about having some much more than he needed.  Was this a gift he gave himself, the luxury of excess because, in his memory, his parents fought about money none stop?  His father was an architect who worked for the state.  He didn’t make a fantastic amount of money.  His wife, Mike’s mother, tried to push him to earn more money. Or, did Mike feel about all the excess as I did?  Did every unused item accuse him?  

    I put everything in the pantry that was unopened and unexpired into shopping bags to drop off at the church the next day.   At the back of the second shelf of a cabinet, I found a container of chocolate or coffee that had been successfully penetrated by some creatures that left the shelf littered with something brown. I couldn’t reach the shelves to clean them. The cabinet is an awkward place. It was good for Mike, but I have to climb up on the counter to reach into it. I’m both too short and no longer agile enough to trust myself to get into that precarious position.  

    My student did wonderful work today. I have no idea why there was that angry period for me, but it’s over – that’s all I care about.  The teacher had told me that she was reading on the first-grade level.  I prepared material that is on a first-grade level as well as the fifth-grade text I’ve been working with. While her word recognition skills are not good enough on the fifth-grade level, they provide opportunities to decode longer words, and exposure to higher-level sentence structures and vocabulary. I find she is still missing -ar family even though we have covered it repeatedly.  I always start from scratch.  It is almost as if she has never seen it before.  I must ask if she even remembers that we talked about already.  Not that she should remember, I just want to know what I’m working with. Also, her teacher says she doesn’t know her division facts so she can successfully work on the division of fractions.  

    I walked Elsa. When I got home, I finally vacuumed the love seat sofa. I do for self-protection. I always get up from my nap with a new welt.  I think spiders are living in it – small ones.  Vacuuming seems to help. I also took the opportunity to clean the space between the ceilings and the walls where spider webs collect.  Dorothy taught me to look up and see.  I washed the rug in front of the love seat sofa by dumping water on it and vacuuming it up with that wonderful furniture attachment on my Rainbow vacuum cleaner. 

    I did more work on the blog before I ate dinner.  Then I watched TV and cataloged more books. I walked Elsa, washed my face, brushed my teeth, and went to bed. Good night, Elsa, Goodnight, Mike.

Monday, May 6, 2019

  

    I woke up a 5 but forced myself to stay in bed until 6 am.  I walked Elsa, did my oil rinse, washed my dishes which I hadn’t soaked the night before, squeezed some of the remaining limes I picked the other day, drank my two cups of water and left for Bikram.  

    I continued to apply JJ’s suggestions.  They create such a huge change in my body that I was quickly exhausted and felt a need for an endless savasana.  My body said, “Lie still,”; I did.  I fell asleep. Periodically, I would wake up with a snort. I would hear Mark say something about sleeping during class.  This is not discouraged.  The  teachers regularly say, “Listen to your body.” And boy, do I do that.  The Bikram classes are always the same. Love it. This allows me to put all my focus on my body instead of the asana, the postures. I can spend the whole class concentrating on the relationship of my shin bone to the arch in my left foot. Doing that limits the depth of any particular asana, but it changes my body and means that in the long run, I’m ahead of the game.

    As I worked on the blog once I got home, I could hear the chickens next door clucking away. They don’t usually do that for prolonged periods.  They’re all hens which make noise when they are laying their eggs. My line is, “They’re not the only females to scream while giving birth.”     I didn’t work long before I needed sleep. I slept from 12 to 3.  

    My student’s teacher called around 2. She didn’t have much to tell me that I didn’t know already, except that she was grateful I was on board because there was no way she could give the girl all the time she needed to catch up. The girl is reading on a  mid-first grade level and will be entering 6th grade next year.  Her birth parents, while loving, weren’t into fulfilling parental responsibilities, like getting their kids to school regularly.  This girl is behind because she missed a lot. I went right back to sleep after the call.  Boy, I must have been tired.

    As I woke up at 3, Clarence called. He’s the head of the diaconate program for all of Hawaii.  He and his wife were present when Mike was taken off life support. More importantly, they were there the day before when his wife, Vi, asked Mike if he wanted to go to Jesus, and he enthusiastically banged his arm. Clarence and Vi were on the island for the celebration mass for the 50th anniversary of his priesthood and took the occasion to call.

    I called Yvette and asked if she could take Elsa downstairs with her around dinner time.  I was leaving at 5  to attend a mass. I figured I would be home around 7. She said she’d be back around the same time and couldn’t take care of Elsa earlier; she would check on her when she arrived. I did some more work on the blog. Then I took Elsa for a quick walk, just to be on the safe side.

    I drove to church with Paulette. She sang in the choir. I looked for someone I knew to sit with.  I was always comfortable sitting alone when Mike was on the altar. I’m not quite as comfortable now that I’m alone. I found a couple who were friends with Mike and me.  We socialized together. They have been wonderfully there for me when I came home after Mike died. When the Mass was over, the wife spoke to a couple in front of them to make arrangements to sit together.  When I located them, they told me, accurately, that there was no more room at their table.  In the past, I would have been wandering around, looking for Mike.  I did okay with this situation; I wasn’t devastated, but it left me thinking that they are not interested in me as a person, just as a responsibility to Mike.  There are situations where this is more than acceptable.  I don’t know if this is true, but I am considering it.

    The Mass was lovely. Fr. Joe Badding is a profoundly spiritual and religious man; it was a treat to be there for the celebration of his 50th anniversary as a priest. His homily was on the subject of love. (The subject is coming at me from all sides.) He compared Eros to agape. The definition I came across for Eros is a self-centered love, one that asks what the other person can do for me or what I can get out of this relationship. It is also considered the romantic type of love marked by elation. 

    In doing a little research on the definitions, I came across a fourth kind of love: storage.  This is marked by duty; you just do what you are supposed to do.  I’m thinking that most people experience some of all four of these types of love.  Moreover, different people value different kinds of love.  I have an image of a bar graph with four colors representing the four types of love.  Each person’s graph looks different.  I think I’m going to try to fill one out for myself.  It sounds like a confusing activity. How do I distinguish one from the other? It’s like all the colors get mixed together.

    Each form of love has a positive way of manifesting and a negative. Romantic love can be when your life partner of 45 years endlessly delights you. Or is that agape?  It does get confusing.  Agape love, also referred to as unconditional love, can turn into codependent love, where people think they are virtuous because they suffer abuse or don’t set limits for their children.

      The members of the diaconate and their wives have a continued commitment to both the men who became deacons and the women who allowed them to join the diaconate and supported them in their work. I accept that in this context, for most of the deacons, I am just Mike’s wife.  However, there are people who I consider friends; I have to consider maybe not. Some people were so impressed with Mike’s intelligence and that he was an ordained member of the church, that I don’t know if they were even really his friends versus his admirers. Although we all could enjoy each other’s company.  I need to avoid people who only put up with me because I was Mike’s wife, except for the diaconate commitment.  It’s not good for me.  I think I’m an interesting and enjoyable person in my own right. If I hang out with people who see me as someone to be tolerated because of their admiration for Mike, it will be damaging for me.

    I have been making additional changes in my foot and knee alignment.  I thought that Yvette’s knee looked hyperextended from the back but not the side.  She checked with JJ, and he said she was okay.  I have revised my own opinion.  When I looked at her leg alignment directly from the front or back, her knees looked a little buckled out to the side. I pushed my knee out a little. The test is when I bend the knee, does the knee go over the second toe leaving the big toe visible?  It does.  Now, this is something new.  It means that I don’t just change my foot strike, making sure it starts on the outside edge and allow the hip to drop, but I also have to think of the knee going slightly toward the outer foot. (None of this is advice on what to do with your own body.  If anyone is going to think of this as a tutorial, think of it as a tutorial on attitude and intent, not on precisely what to do.  It is different for every person.)

    One piece of JJ’s advice during the small group class has made a significant difference already.  He told me to think of pressing my biceps together when twisting my arms in the eagle pose.  Now I have had my palms together with my pinkies facing the mirror and my thumbs facing me for a while.  But I haven’t thought of actively pressing my biceps together. What a difference!  Knowing what I  pay attention to in an exercise makes all the difference.  Besides activating muscles differently, there is the possibility that blood flow is increased to that area simply by mentally targeting it.  

`    When I came back from church, the outside light was on, and there was a light on inside the house.  Yvette had come home and put them on for me.  I walked into the house, wondering if she had taken Elsa downstairs with her or left her upstairs.  Elsa came toward me, ball in mouth.  I was so relieved. I would prefer not to think about how I would be feeling if I had no living creature to greet me when I come home.  I’m pretty sure that Elsa’s only form of love for me is Eros; she wants to know what I can do for her.  Can I rub her belly? Can I give her a treat? Can I throw a ball?  She doesn’t ask for food or water. Too boring. Her needs are limited.  She also respects my needs at times.  If I go limp, she gets the idea that I don’t want to serve her needs right now, and she settles down.  She sits near me and sleeps on top of me when I nap, rising and falling with my breath.  I’m glad she’s here.

    While I had hope of bringing home enough food from the reception at church to feed me for several days, there wasn’t even enough to serve all the people who were there. However, members of the church had supplied the desserts, and there were tons of those. I didn’t come home empty-handed.

    I spent the rest of the evening watching TV.  Then I walked Elsa, washed my face, brushed my teeth, and went to bed. Good night, Elsa, Goodnight, Mike.

Sunday, May 5, 2019

    I  woke up in the middle of the night.  One of the deacon candidates came to mind.  He is an absolutely lovely man who Mike convinced to apply for the training program.  Mike told me that he was struggling with the decision to go through and be ordained.  He never told me what his considerations were, but I did hear the man speak and say that he thought Mike asked everyone to apply.  OMG, was he ever wrong!  Mike had a great deal of confidence in this man's ability.  Mike was like a talent scout with a good eye. I'm sure he approached other men to apply, but he didn't do it indiscriminately.  I finally fell asleep thinking I had to write this man in the morning to communicate what I knew about Mike's thoughts.

    I had gone to bed at 11.  I enjoyed the latest episode of DCI, thanks to Carolyn Catz's character.  I woke up at 8 am when my alarm went off.  I walked Elsa, did my oil rinse, and washed my dishes. I filled my cup with 2 cups of water and sat down to play FreeCell. Then I showered, did MELT, and used the Tiger Tail.  I got dressed and cleaned the water out of my Rainbow vacuum cleaner.  Mike used to do that for me.  If I leave it standing too long, it acts as a petri dish for some pretty disgusting bacteria.  

    Judy and Paulette picked me up for church.  When we arrived, the parking lot was empty. We had to arrive early because Paulette leads the singing and has to make some preparations.  

    Judy and I sat on a bench in front of the church. She told me that her nausea was better; she figured out how to clear it on her own using the healing protocol I showed her.  When I worked with her the other day, it didn't feel right to clear that nausea.  While I have protocols I can use for any number of situations, I don't apply them unless it 'feels right.' Sometimes that leaves me pretty helpless. I'll be working with a client and have to tell them that I know things I can do that might help, but it doesn't feel okay to apply them now.  I sit there and pray for guidance.  When I saw her the other day, we did some work on the way she felt about her nausea but nothing on the nausea herself.  I thought we would be able to finish it off later that day on the phone.  However, Judy didn't want to do the work on the phone, and due to one thing or another, we didn't see each other.  Then early Sunday morning, she just did the work of releasing the nausea herself.  I was thrilled for two reasons.  One, Judy was feeling better. Two, the method I have devised is so simple and obvious that once someone gets the basic idea, they can use it themselves.

    Today she complained that she was suffering from stomach pain.  This was new. It's understandable. The chemotherapy is stripping her bowel. I did some straight energy work with her while we sat there.  It was already better than it had been that morning; with the energy work, it disappeared – for now.

    The church filled up because there were whole families who were here as tourists.  There was one family of 6, the parents and their 4 adult daughters.  

    Fr. Lio served the mass.  The gospel for the Mass was John 21:16, where Christ asks Peter if he loves him three times. Peter's answer in English is always, "You know I love you." Fr. Lio said that in the Greek version of the bible, there are two words for love, phileo and agape.  If I remember correctly, Peter always answers using 'phileo' instead of 'agape' to express his love for Jesus.  Lio spoke about the difference between the two types of love. References to these various types of love are popping up around me about as much as news about deaths. 

    Here are my thoughts on the subject to add to the pot.  Agape love is considered more giving than phileo love; it involves sacrificing oneself. But what does that mean? Does it mean that, like Peter, we should be prepared to die for the object of our love? How many people get an opportunity to do that?

    I found a blog that defines phileo love the way I would. He says we love the other because they are like us and like us. They are familiar to us and affirm our sense of self.  Family members can do that. We extend phileo love to those who support our sense of self.  They are our 'brothers'; they are part of the same family as we are, whether that family is genetic, tribal, or ideological. 

    Agape love is defined as a willingness to sacrifice oneself.  Okay, here are my thoughts on what that means on a day to day basis.  To do that, I have to define the self.  I think of self as my self-image.  Who am I?  If someone contradicts me, they challenge that self-image. If someone makes me angry, my self-image as a good patient compassionate person is being challenged. 

    We can sacrifice ourselves physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.  Some think that my devotion to Mike for the last 5 weeks of his life is an example of agape love.  Physically, I suppose I made a sacrifice.  I sat in his hospital 7 to 8 hours a day. Would Mike have slept on the floor of my hospital room? Would Mike have slept on three chairs pushed together in the bathroom?  I doubt it. I can't imagine it. But it wasn't the same order of sacrifice for me as it was for him. I'm a kid who was sent to camp.  When we went camping, we didn't have air mattresses.  I slept on the ground, shifting my body around rocks.  This was my idea of a fun challenge. My body is generally more flexible than Mike's.  If he had done what I did, it would have been a much higher order of physical sacrifice than it was for me.

    There are two ways to define mental sacrifice.  One is giving up mental stimulation.  A new mother does that; "Now, what was adult conversation?" I was spared that in several ways.  My discussions with doctors sometimes involved an overload of information.  I learned a great deal about how hospitals work, the effects of kidney disease, and pancreatitis. I also had the updates. I was not deprived of intellectual stimulation.  The second aspect of mental sacrifice is my concept of myself.  My self-concept included being by Mike's side if he got ill.  I would have felt terrible about myself if I had not been there.  Which would have been the greater sacrifice, being there or not being there? I clearly would have suffered more if I hadn't been there. 

    Now we're up to an emotional sacrifice: Where else could I have possibly been better off?  I consider myself so lucky that I was unable to go to my home because our house is on another island.  All conflict of interest was erased. My daily life didn't  pull on my emotions.  I loved being by his side. There was no sacrifice.  

    Spiritual sacrifice is the last category. I'm not sure what that would look like. I can't conceive of anything spiritual that I sacrificed by being there for those 5 weeks.  Nothing.

    It has occurred to me that the principles of self-sacrifice are the same as the principles of dealing with suffering that Mike taught Judy: acceptance, cooperation, humility, and docility.

    Acceptance of the other person and the possibly validating their point of view, or elements of their point of view. Cooperation means a willingness to engage in discussion or maybe to do the work on your own thinking about the other person's point of view.  I know I have done that a lot in my life.  I wound up in arguments with people in my head until they get through to me. Humility means never assuming I am a better person than the other person.  That the other person ceases to have value because they contradict me.  My mom couldn't tolerate any contradiction to her point of view.  When I was a child, we would have a conversation that ran like this: My mom would say, "No one thinks what you do." I would say, "I do." She would yell, "You're nobody. You're nobody." This went on until I was thirty when I finally found the words to stop her.  Before you judge my mom, she really felt if someone disagreed with her, it meant she was nobody. I was never able to help her get over this wound.

    The fourth element of the response is docility.  That means a willingness to learn from other people, to allow yourself to become a new person because of the impact of another person on you.  The people in our lives serve as our teachers. We select those with whom we have enough in common to feel comfortable, and then the fun starts. No two people are without differences.  I thought that in choosing Mike as my partner, I was determining the path of my life and my growth.  I still feel that way. Despite his arrogance, he was a wonderful teacher because he also had great respect for me.  The conflict between arrogance and respect was mostly his problem.  I knew I could always count his respect for me winning out.

    Now, being open to change has a downside. It depends upon what it is used for.  People use change as a way of escaping who they are. They change selves as they change outfits.  As Cylin said in response to one person, "Wherever you go, there you are." Those folks always become dissatisfied with the old self and then look for a new self to become. Sad.

    Self-sacrifice is sometimes the most selfish and destructive thing a person can do.  Many years ago, I met a family in a tutoring center.  I worked with this boy who had been badly abused by his birth families and was adopted by his current family while he was still in the crib.  His adoptive mother looked heroic. However, her husband and her adopted daughter looked clinically depressed.  I did a healing session with this woman.  

    When that baby boy came to her home, he was covered with bruises.  She had to work hard to help him recover.  I realized, and she agreed, that the person she was during that period of her life was her ideal. It was the person who she always wanted to be.  Problem: to be that person, she needed a damaged son. I got that she was suffering from a form of Munchausen's.  She was unconsciously making sure that the boy remained a problem so she could sacrifice for him. I had a chance to speak to the principal of the school the boy attended.  It was clear she thought the mother should be up for sainthood instead of losing custody of the boy.  I can only hope she was right. "By their fruits, you shall know them."

    When I got home, I made my miso soup and worked on the Affidavit of Collection, writing in the information that Raymond James wanted to complete the transfer of Mike's funds to my account. Once this last account is done, that phase of the financial work will be done. The next step is getting all my accounts into the Trust.  This is something Mike and I were supposed to do but didn't. Because most of our accounts were joint or I was the beneficiary of his funds, I didn't have too much trouble.  But, when I die, the transfer of funds won't be so simple if they aren't all in the Trust. This certainly hasn't been a stress-free experience.

    I made a special trip into town to drop off the Affidavit in the lawyer's mailbox.  That woman does not know how to give directions. I was left to figure out where this mailbox might be.  Since it is an office complex, I assumed there might be a bank of mailboxes.  When I couldn't see a bank, I walked up to the office door, hoping I would find a box there.  I did. 

    I went to Safeway next to buy a salad kit, cut carrots, and 2 Mrs. Meyer's lemon verbena soap.  They use the soap at the chiropractor's office. The scent permeates the place; it's delicious. 

    I went to Office Max while I was in town to Xerox the tax document from Ohio retirement.  When I got home, I worked on the blog and played FreeCell.  I texted Adam and Josh to please park the car on the street instead of the spot where Mike always parked it because it triggers me, leaving me thinking, "Mike's home.".

    I tried to nap but felt a need to check Mike's computer to see if I could find his book. Oh, boy. I found a few chapters.   I didn't find a title page or a bibliography, but he did cite his references at the bottom of each page, so the bibliography it shouldn't be too hard to construct. However, I have no idea how many chapters there are or what I'm looking for.  I emailed Dave Kane, one of the deacons Mike sent the book to for feedback, asking him if he would send me his hard copy.  I checked my email every two minutes looking for a response. When I didn't hear from him, I was afraid he had thrown the book out after finishing it.   I must like driving myself crazy. 

    I had called Damon earlier, and he called me back.  I told him that the person who had counseled Joanna at Damon and Cylin's wedding into not breaking up with her Mike was Jean.  Jean had coincidentally told me the story when I told her a story about one of Damon's other friends and his wife.  Joanna had been frustrated because Mike wasn't popping the question. Jean told her to hang on. Mike and Joanna have been happily married for years and have three beautiful children. It was a good move, waiting on Joanna's part and asking her to marry him on Mike's part.

    I told Damon about the research on the placebo effect of surgery, particularly on knees.  Damon has had 5 (five) knee surgeries.  The first one was when he was in college.  He was playing soccer, and his knee locked.  I remember him sitting with his leg sticking straight out and being at the surgery center when he had the operation.  It was a little outpatient job. He regrets the next 4 surgeries. I may have said something to him at some point, never being an advocate of surgical solutions unless absolutely necessary, but  I doubt he listened to me any more than his dad did.  Mike loved board-certified experts.  Logic, when it came to medical practice, was not his thing, despite living with me for all those years. Each to his own.  

    Josh came up to fix my Square access.  He knew what to do when it called for doing something to attach a microphone. Huh?  While he was up here, I gave him copies of documents from Genworth, my long-term health care insurer.   Since I don't have to pay premiums anymore, there would be no paperwork around to indicate that I had that insurance at the point I might need home care.   Besides giving Josh a copy to file away, I am sending copies to Damon and Karin. 

    I did some more work on the blog and sent out two entries. Yeah, for me.

    Elsa finally lost that lovely pink and orange flower the groomer put in her hair.  I tried to put it back in, but she wouldn't have it. I walked Elsa, played some FreeCell, had a dinner of salad, and another serving of the chicken and broccoli prepared dish. I finished off dinner with a Hersey's Milk Chocolate bar with whole almonds. 

    I watched TV, cataloged some books, and sent Genworth paperwork to Damon.  When I looked up Karin's address, I found some extra numbers that didn't make sense.  I needed to check Karin's address tomorrow. 

    I walked Elsa, washed my face, brushed my teeth, and went to bed. Good night, Elsa, Goodnight, Mike.