slow it down hold it cherish it

The boys are growing up just fine
and more and more my time is mine
although i want to slow it down
there is an impulse to do the town

i wonder who i used to be
before these boys created me
i was a person then it's true
when all the world seemed bright and new

and who will i be when mom is over
and they are wandering far from Dover
who will appear when it.s just I
someone who wants to touch the sky

sorry... just a little urge to babble there.... Had a lovely walk this morning w my 16 y/o son. we were in the country by 6 am and walked, with the 2 lovely golden retrievers, 4.5 miles.
We walked up the hill and down the dale. we strolled past the house where we lived until he was ten. we talked and we reminisced, and i would imagine that there is not another lucker mom in the world. I have a lovely son who wants to walk with me, who carries on a conversation, who is light, easy and in whom laughter bubbles up easily. i have an older son who has found his way in this world, is stepping up, taking on more responsibility, planning to get his self back into school at Kent, while maintaining his full time job and who sat on the porch swing with me unitl the lights when down and chatted away.

the years have gone so fast. sometimes i want to stop them, to hold them, to treasure them, to scream that i have not gotten the chance to experience every wonderful minute of every day.

i don't want to go through life asleep at the wheel. to often i have let that happen.

i atteneded a baby shower this afternoon and I wanted to cry out, to stop time for her, to tell her to hold onto and cherish every blessed wonderul minute there is, becasue it all goes to fast.





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connection

if you could go back.... even for a moment.... to the place where you felt totally loved and totally safe.... would you?

I spent a part of today roaming the hills of my grandparents farm. It has become a bit of a ritual - each year during the last week of March, I travel a few short miles and enter another lifetime. I go to honor my dad- who passed away when I was five and who's birthday was in the last week of March. I go because it is, for me, a thin place, a place where I feel connected to God and connected to those people who loved me unconditionally. I go to appreciate the wonderful silence that can only be felt in the country. I go because I can.

Not many people have a place like that to return to. I realize how blessed I am. When I was small I thought the words "over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house we go" had been written just for me. I have only to drive across that bridge and up a wooded hill to begin to feel the connection. When I turn the corner onto the country road I feel whole.

I took my sixteen year old son with me today. It was good to walk the field and the path with him by my side. Good to tell him stories, to try and help him know this piece of myself, this piece of our family. I want nothing more than for my sons to know this part of their history, to understand in some small way the love, the faith and the values of the people who lived on this hill.

If you have a place you can return to - then you are blessed. Go there. Remember- savor and thank God for it. If you don't have a place to go to, close your eyes right now and remember. Let memory and imagination take you back, just for a moment, to that place where your were loved beyond measure. Let the feelings wash over you. Thank God for it.

It will be worth the trip....

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break free

There is pamphlet hanging on our church bulletin board. A sister church is going on a mission trip to Africa. They are looking for volunteers.
It suddenly occured to me that this is within the realm of possibility- not this year I imagine, but within a couple years.
My youngest will graduate from high school
There will be some time before the grandparenting years begin
A window of opportunity?
A chance to change the way I walk in this world.
I've played it pretty safe up until now
Can I break free and make some changes?
Seems like there is a whole lot of world to see before I leave it....
Maybe it's a midlife crisis, maybe it's all the things we have been through in the past couple years... but the world is starting to feel new and unexplored.... I feel like breaking free and kicking up my heels...


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hospice vs technolgy.

I wonder how we remember the why in medicine while changing the how?

I wonder if there is anything that will keep us connected to our calling, to remember the reason we chose this profession at all

"I'm just a robot" my primary doc complained, the last time I was in his office.... and I would have to agree. We are all becoming a slave to the computers or hand held devices that are running the world these days. Difficult to make eye contact when there is a screen between you and the person you are talking to. Difficult to stop and really hear what that person is saying

Medicine is an art, as well as a science.... how do we keep the art without becoming a slave to the technology?

Computers invaded the world of hospice some years ago. Neat little laptops that we can carry into each person's home to find and record all necessary information. Pretty neat trick, if you can do it. I think that all of us -everywhere- were resistant to the idea. People who are drawn to the world of hospice are generally more tuned in to people's emotions, able to hear the heart cry. It is nearly impossible to teach a person who is drowning in grief or rage about the proper medication and treatments without first reaching out a hand into the pit of despair. Most of us have found ways around it..... sitting in homes listening with a pen and paper to jot on, then charting in driveways or on street corners- or at home on our own time in the evenings.

I don't think that anyone wants me sitting in their living room or at their kitchen table (usually covered with piles of bills and boxes of medicine, with food stuffs jammed to the side-evidence of life interrupted) diligently creating and recording plans of care and listing goals and interventions.

Yet, I want to be sure that the goals I am recording are Their goals... Is it more important to them to be pain free or to get to another soccer game?

I've spent the last month learning about our new computer system. Our latest upgrade. Sitting round a table with others, making sure that there is a way to document that will satisfy every regulatory body, will be complete and thorough, will address individualized needs, and will make sure every bodily process and medication has complete and thorough documentation.
The screens are bright and flashy. Different colors mean different things. So many little boxes to fill in and drop downs to check off. More things to pull my eyes from that patient and their family and onto a screen.

Hospice..... the word that originally meant rest and respite. Hospice..... where, if anywhere, one should/could practice the art of presence. Hospice..... where the sum of a person's life is often being recalled Hospice.... where a family is making decisions that will determine how they will go on, how they will honor, how they will mourn, how they will triumph, how they will remember..

Hospice.... and technology.....
I just don't know....



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