Wow sometimes it gets pretty emotional around here!

We just kind of cruise along for the most part. Keeping an eye on dad. Taking time to sit with him, talk about things, remark on the birds. It's just kind of slow and easy. Then all the sudden he'll kind of do his little roll over so he's looking at me while leaning into the bed handrail and say, 'boy I miss Betty' and my heart just shatters and I try and hold it together and get him talking. Ouch!

It hit me the other day that all our plans were for dad to leave us first. We had spent time talking about his wished for a funeral, his fears, his thoughts about the life after this. We never even thought about mom's.

I'm taking a Master Gardener class with WSU for 6 weeks. I guess a little prompted by a comment Mirk made about people in the South West having evolved beyond the hunter, gatherer existence after I sent him a pic of the gargantuan salmon and I pulled out of the Samish. Something about extreme gardening and he included a pic of a 25 foot pepper tree and later sent a small jar of pepper powder that we still haven't been able to open due to hazmat restrictions in the area.

As I take these classes and imagine all the flowers etc guess where my mind goes? I know the rest of you do the same thing. We bough two Witchhazel last weekend to plant. One is called Diane and it is the color of Garnet and is in bloom now and garnet is Sally's birthstone and her birthday was this Tuesday I think. Here's a little note I got from Julie -

Hi Steve and family,

I just got back from an evening at the Pacific Inn, the Wallingford neighborhood pub where Sally used to hang out. Lil and Hanna decided that would be the best place to go to remember their Mom's birthday. A bunch of their friends were there, including Emily and Mollie Aylward, and several of Sally's old buddies. One of them brought red roses. We kept the jukebox going, ate some fish and chips, and had a good time. I thought you'd like to know in what spirit we remembered her on this day.

I had a very vivid dream about Sally and your Mom this morning just before I woke up. They came together to see my witch hazel 'Diane' which is in full bloom right now. They looked great! Your Mom gave me a big hug. I pass it on to you...

Love, Julie

A thought from learning about soils today.

Human

Humus
Humble
Do all these words come from the same root?

You remember man comes from the dust
which can with good reason be more correctly read topsoil
one of the most important ingredients for soil is what
our bodies become part of the humus
working with nature does make us humble
which comes from being face down in the ?

You guessed it, topsoil.
Not a bad place to be whether in a garden or before God
Face down

Thank you God for this beautiful place.
Thank you for the beautiful time we've had up here.
We pray that our children would enjoy this place as much as we have.
And we thank you, again and again and again.

We were hanging out with dad last night. We got fish and chips which is something we haven't done since mom left. Remember Friday nights at the condo?

Well dad prayed and as he did I knew I wanted to send it out here. This is my overwhelming picture of dad. He is content, thankful, oh so very thankful. This is what comes out every time he prays. He doesn't like my cold hands or the exhaust fan I turn on when his room needs a quick blast of fresh clean air, wheeeeeeeeeeeew! But overall he is a very thankful man and he wants to pass that on.

It's been quite awhile since Christmas but here are a few pictures from that day.
Godsend was full with 21 here to sit down for dinner!





Yeah, there was a sense of loss with two such hugely important people as Sally and Grandma Betty not here to be involved in all the preparations or the actual sit down to dinner but with so many still to gather, well that sense of loss is definitely tempered. There are so many of us!

It is odd how this sense of loss is just there all the time now but just not quite as painful as it was a month ago. I am reminded of that passage in Ecclesiasties that says there is a time for everything. Here it is:

There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven-- 2 A time to give birth and a time to die; A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted. 3 A time to kill and a time to heal; A time to tear down and a time to build up. 4 A time to weep and a time to laugh; A time to mourn and a time to dance. 5 A time to throw stones and a time to gather stones; A time to embrace and a time to shun embracing. 6 A time to search and a time to give up as lost; A time to keep and a time to throw away. 7 A time to tear apart and a time to sew together; A time to be silent and a time to speak. 8 A time to love and a time to hate; A time for war and a time for peace

Hiram and Mary Clark

All these pictures are from around 1918.
The picture in the canoe is on the Samamish Slough.

Clark Family reunited

It was Friday after our big snow and temperatures were around 25 when the sisters decided they would make an attempt to drive up to Bow.

What a reunion! Here is the entire Clark family, offspring of Mary and Hiram together again here at Godsend. That's Lee on the left then Virginia from Michigan, Dad (Ray) and Ilene.

We had a sweet time with them all. Enjoying just listening to them and especially watching the girls all be so sweet on dad. They really feel blessed to get to spend time with him and it shows when they are here.

Thanks again God!

Stormy day

It's an incredibly stormy day.

We've had strong winds all day which means all the bird food gets blown off dad's bird feeder but it also means he gets to watch the bird feeder bend backwards on it's post as gusts of various strengths blast it. Nice for him to have a change! he also likes to tell me that the bird feeder is going to blow down. We have a sort of competition going. Will it go or will it stay!

About an hour ago we were hit by a squall that came in from the West that brought sheets of rain mixed with hail and we completely lost our view of the valley in the brief deluge that followed. Then the wind switched to the West and the sky began to peal back so that we were treated to 30 minutes of sun lighting up the flats with clouds piled up and pink thousands of feet above Blanchard.

I used this as an excuse to encourage dad to get up into the reclining wheelchair and wheeled him out to the front room. Now he sits there and I can hear him say to Suzie and Adele who are doing crafts in the same room, "wow, I can't get over this view".

Thanks God!

New Post for the New Year

We're three days into this new year and blogging here for the rest of you is one thing I want to do more!

Seems like I lost the last two months. Everything just kind of took off after that day when I drove mom in to have her knee replacement surgery..... Well, I'll likely have pictures and writing and a whole lot more of that in days to come. I am working on getting her memorial onto a dvd to send to all of you who weren't able to come.....

Today I just want to write about dad and how great he is doing. Yesterday I heaved him up into the reclining wheelchair we've had but haven't been using the past three months, or longer! It was a case of the hospice nurse telling me we either use it or lose it. So up we went and dad not only did well, he loved it! He sat out in the front room for a while and enjoyed the view then went back to bed.

I didn't tell him but that was a preparatory run for today when we had a plan to work on his toes! I can hear Sally and Mom laughing and asking, "what other impossible task do you have planned?"

Well today I gave dad a little lorazepam at the nurses instructions (it did nothing) to try and manage possible anxiety when they started working on his toes, Ha! Ha! Ha! Then I got him up and soaked his toes for 15 minutes before the gals showed up. I had dad over looking out of the window at the chickens cleaning up under the bird feeder when they arrived.

Well he wasn't happy, accused me of tricking him but with a whole lot of cajoling, force and distraction Stephanie got all ten toes trimmed and ended up with about 1/3 of a cup of trimmed nails on the floor when she was done. Bravo!! I took several pictures of the procedure and will post them when developed. Do you know how long it's been since we first talked about dad needing to have his toes worked on???

Later I took him out to the living room and as the sun was playing hopscotch across the Samish flats and farmland all the way over to Chuckanut he just sat and loved the view for an hour.

Extra special was Jake, Leigh and Ian Sloan surprising us with a visit. They just drove Leigh's sister out and thought they'd drop by for a visit. Ian's a great little kid with a ready laugh. Fun to see dad with yet another one of his great-grandkids.