We had already dyed our hairs before the official stay home policy was put into affect.
Last night we had the official notice that as of today our state is on the “stay home stay safe” protocol. We thought that we heard that on Friday, but then I guess it was just a strong suggestion, or as my DIL said it’s just a “wait ’til your dad gets home” kind of finger wag. I saw through many news outlets that people thought that weekend announcement meant “head to the beach.” Oof that started a firestorm of controversy.
So now we face a misdemeanor violation if we choose to break this policy. I’m not sure if that will detour people. I did appreciate the reminder that we need to be good citizens and police ourselves so the Police can do their job. We are nowhere near the level of an outbreak that we see in other parts of the country, and hopefully, our better nature will shine as we try to “flatten the curve.” And save human beings.
I’m not good with strict boundaries. I’m good with deadlines given to me by other people where I can wiggle around as much as possible within the guidelines. But me saying “I’m going to do this by this time” without it ultimately affecting another person isn’t the best motivation for me. Today I did eventually get dressed and coifed. I’m trying to reach that 10K steps even though I’m home, and I’ve made a short to-do list. Of that list, I’m still avoiding the most important one which is cleaning the bathroom. Insert Sigh.
I am domestically challenged. I am an enneagram 7. I am an artist. We’ll see how those three things work with the “stay home stay safe” policy in affect.
There’s a lot to process right now. The low hum of despair seems to rumble against the collective air of positive postings coming from social media. Communities rejoice when friends find toilet paper or hand sanitizer at the store. The latest death toll from Italy comes out and things grow a little quiet. I’m not sure how I feel, but for now I’m taking in this day of sun before it begins a week of rain.
#lifejournalramblings Lessons from a bramble, that’s what I unexpectedly encountered this morning. I knew I would find some great blackberries, but the words I heard as I searched for fruit while avoiding thorns is what this excursion was all about. Sometimes we see the low lying fruit, the easy pick and we miss the the ripe and luscious fruit that is just one vine back. How often do we do that with people? How many times have I missed a potentially life changing moment because I wasn’t willing to take a chance on something that may take a little more effort to get to? I have to work on this thought a little more. #weinkaufsummer19
I also learned that I really needed to wear long pants and a long tshirt. The best berries were way back in the brambles. How many seasons pass where those berries in the middle dry up on the vine? I’m guessing that not too many of my neighbors have dove into the center of that blackberry patch.
Or as I like to call it Dad’s 10 Days In Heaven On Earth. I’ve been compiling a photo album from my instagram posts on Dad’s Parkinson’s journey. While it was a 14 year journey the last 16 months leading up to his death were the most impactful. I’ve decided to dissect those days a little more, especially those last 10 days.
My Dad was a photographer and a journalist. While he vocation was chemistry, his avocation was storytelling. As we went through boxes of memorabilia after his death, it really became apparent that he loved telling stories since he was born. He learned at an early age to keep newspaper articles and to write notes on the back of photos. He wanted to keep the memories alive and fresh.
He started journaling special events in his live, especially his trips. He used a theme in his title; “Ten Days.” The first one I remember was when we visited my brother and his wife in the Peace Corps. It was titled, “10 Days in Guatemala.” He didn’t always travel for 10 days, but he always got away with sharing the phrase. He and mom traveled to visit my family while we lived across the ocean. He titled the journal “10 Days in Hawaii minus 1.” This is why I think it’s so appropriate that those finals days between when the hospice nurse said Dad had only a few days left to when he passed was 10 days. Even in his death he left us with a great story title, “The Last 10 Days.”
So here is where I begin this story. It starts with this picture and this first entry from June 6th.
Priorities. Jeopardy and chocolate for dinner, not much food or fluid intake today. And Mom showed me this book that a friend, who recently lost her husband, gave her to read. Heavy stuff but good to read as we head toward the inevitable. #lifewithparkinsons #schlewitzmindset #weinkaufspring19
I got the call Thursday afternoon. Mom was in distress. She came home from her sub job for the school district, where she was usually assigned to a student with special needs, to hear the hospice nurse say that Dad only had a few days left. She asked me to contact my siblings. She needed to know what to do about my sister Robyn. She needed to get Robyn to Dad before it was too late.
My hubs dropped everything to help me get up to see Mom and Dad. As I contacted the sibs I packed my bag. I had a ton of questions going through my mind. How long was I going to be there? What should I bring? This hospice process can be quick or move into days or weeks or even months. The past year was filled with many moments where Dad was winding down but ended up rallying. Is this another rally point? What would I see when I got to him? It had been a week. Would he still be able to speak?
By the time I got there the caregiver had finished her shift. It was just Mom with Dad. He had a sponge bath and a dry shampoo. He was watching the news. He wasn’t very hungry, but wanted a bite of chocolate. These days he could have icecream and pie for every meal if it meant that he was eating. Chocolate was par for the course. He greeted me with a smile and said, “Hey, you came.” I said, “Yes Dad. I’m here to stay for a while,” and smiled back. He didn’t have enough strength to wrap his arms around me so I just leaned in and rested my head on his shoulder for a bit.
Later that evening during one of Dad’s naps Mom shared that she and Dad had a good cry after the caregiver left. The realization that death was iminent came to rest hard on both of them. I can’t imagine how scared Dad was. He was such a planner. He even scheduled shower time for the family reunions as our family had tripled in size. My Dad didn’t know what life would be like after death. We read about heaven. We heard it preached. But when it comes down to it we don’t know the physical state of the after life. I sat there wondering how to respond, how to encourage someone who would come face to face with it in 10 days.
A big part of this next chapter is my focus as a student. A week ago I started my cert to Teach English as a Foreign Language or TEFL. It’s been 27 years since I took my last test for a class. I spent years homeschooling my children, but I had an answer book to aid in grading quizes and tests. I was a little nervous when it came time to take my first quiz. I got a 10/10. Phew. My renewed life as a professional learner is off to a good start.
The first two modules for the certification have been about the history of the English language and the philosphy of what makes a teacher successful. It was encouraging to see the pages of information detailing why this organization puts such an emphasis on the importance of using a wholistic approach to teaching English to learners from other countries. I’m excited to see how this training will combine with my Danceability teaching intensive that begins in a little over a week. I’ll share more about that as it’s happening. Here’s a link to Danceability’s site so you have a better undertstanding of what it is.
I don’t think it a coincidence that TEFL cert and the Danceability Method are building blocks on my journey to an MA in Theater. It’ll be exciting to see how they all fit together as I develop my thesis. I know that I really want to focus on storytelling. I know some of you think, “DUH, isn’t theater all about story telling?” Yes, it is. BUT, I would like to develop a method of helping people share their personal stories in creative ways. In a way it might follow the philosophy of Moment Work throught the Tectonic Theater. My daughter, a theater major, introduced this to me as she experienced a moment workshop. Their “core values are courage and risk taking, innovation, theatricality, social & political change, and egalitarianism: everyone has a voice in the creation of new work.” Everyone has a voice. There are those out there who cannot speak for themselves or who do not have the mobility to create a dance or theater piece on their own. Think of all of the God stories we might see, hear, engulf ourselves in if we opened up the possibilties for those who have been pigeon-holed by someone’s bias.
It’s all just part of my dream that I’m trying to take from the liquid state and move into the jello phase.
My last post was in 2014. A lot has happened since then. We moved back from the islands. It was mostly to be back near our family. At that time my Dad was in year 11 of his Parkinson’s journey and I found it difficult to navigate supporting my mom through phone calls and the occasional visit to the Mainland.
Two months ago today my dad passed. I’m so thankful that I was there. He was literally surrounded by family. How we all ended up around his death bed is a story of hope and forgiveness. I’m still amazed by that moment. Experiencing my Dad’s peaceful last breath of life as our voices called out our love to him is a memory I will never forget.
Three weeks later my sister died. She was a big part of the hope and forgiveness story. She was estranged from us. Choices she made throughout her life kept her at a distance. Dad’s hope to see her one last time won over the pride and she arrived for those last 10 days. Stories came out from her last few months before arriving at the house. She almost died twice.When i picked her up from the train station she was recovering from a recent dog bite to the face. She was fighting fatigue and sickness her entire visit but was still present with all of us. Her last words to me when we dropped her back off at the train station were the same words we shared as Dad was dying, “No matter what happens it’s going to be okay.” We continued to text over the next few weeks. I knew something was wrong when I had texted her an old picture of us by the oak tree and didn’t get a response. Years of abuse took a toll and her body finally gave out. She coded on a lifeflight to the hospital. All the years of not knowing if my sister were alive have faded as I hold on to those last days with her; those last days with her making our family whole.
The late Toni Morrison used to ask herself, “What do I have to do that is so important that I would die if I didn’t do it?” I’m asking myself the same thing. The deaths of my father and sister have made it clear that life is too short to not follow a dream. So I’m stepping away from paid ministry life and into the life of a student. Same Dreamer. New Chapter.
A few months ago 270 Nigerian girls were kidnapped by Boko Haram. Lately, as groups like Isis take the forefront in the news, I’ve wondered what happened to these girls, many near my daughters age, and hope that they will not be forgetten. Here is a piece from The Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/14/nigeria-girls-kidnapped-5-months_n_5791622.html
We’ve spent the last week or so hanging out in our old stomping grounds. It’s an old feeling to have been gone for a year. Some of the landscape has changed, but the familiar is still here. A fave coffee shop, a fave grocery store, dear friends with wonderful smiles all make it easy to pick up where we left off before we packed up our life and flew across the ocean.
On one of the first days back we had the team from Hawaii over to our in-laws house for a BBQ. It was odd to see these peeps sitting in my MIL’s back yard, but that was only for a moment. My family joined in with our Hawaii family (ohana) and it seemed pretty natural. We served them that family’s staple of the summer: sucking chicken, flook potato salad, tuna mac salad, and fresh fruit. After dinner they loaded up the brownies and ice cream with gummy bears and devoured it on the back patio. It was a such a blessing to have these two worlds diverge for a few hours. Our Hawaii ohana saw where we came from, and our Oregon family saw why we left.
It will be bittersweet in a week when I wake up in my new home of the last year. I have to put that aside so that I can savor every moment left here. I have a grand-nephew to hold, family-n-friends to hug and laugh with, and long-n-lazy Pac NW summer days to enjoy as they melt into the light of the moon and stars. I live between two pieces of paradise. How did that happen?
I’ve been working through a book titled “Decisive.” It is a great book on making better decisions in life and work. It’s also more like doing work than just relaxing, so yesterday, at the library, I checked out what I consider to be a decadent read, “Eat, Pray, Love.”
I enjoyed the movie. The idea of traveling the world is a life long dream of mine. Seeking a deeper understanding of how I fit into the larger cosmos is for me a constant. I have no issues with eating really good food.
As I started reading the book I found two things that I don’t relate to. The first is that I’m not looking for a way out of my marriage. I made the mistake of mentioning this part of the book to my husband by saying, “You know there is a part in the book where the author says that she doesn’t want to be married anymore…” The look on his face said that I needed to quickly make my point. I said, “Don’t worry Honey. I was going to finish by saying that I don’t want out of my marriage.” Make sure you preface statements like that better than I did. The second is that I call myself a Christian because I am a follower of Jesus Christ. This is a statement I have complete faith in saying, and I hope that it doesn’t mean I can’t engage in a meaningful conversation with a person who doesn’t share my faith. That last statement is a whole other blog post.
Anyway, I am looking forward to reading the rest of the book. Any good reads that you want to share?
Currently working through these books:
Decisive: How To Make Better Choices In Life And Work by Chip and Dan Heath
Lost Kingdom: Hawaii’s last queen, The Sugar Kings, and America’s First Imperial Adventure by Julia Flynn Siler
Every Body Matters: Strengthening Your Body to Strengthen Your Soul by Gary Thomas
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
Freefall to Fly: A Breathtaking Journey Toward a Life of Meaning by Rebekah Lyons
Solacegirl 