Traveling

Tomorrow I will be heading for Tacoma. I was going to go today, but that didn't exactly work out. I'm excited to see the West Side kids and grandkids, especially in light of the fact that the Bremerton kids will become San Diego kids in February. Home is where the Navy sends you. My kids joined the military and I get to see the world. Guam, Hawaii, Idaho Falls (Idaho Falls? Yep).

Once a long time ago the Greyhound Bus company had an anywhere in America $50 fare. So my little sis and I got on a bus in Pasco, Washington and headed east. I got off in South Carolina, she got off in Flordia to visit friends and drive back to the real Washington with them. We spent five days and nights on a dozen different buses and a day sight seeing in Washington DC. We took bagles and yogert and if there was a store near the bus stop we resupplied. We had no money to eat out. If we had money we wouldn't have taken the stupid bus. There was an old guy who bought us breakfast. His daughter was going to pick him up from the bus station in Washington DC, and he wanted us to tell his daughter that he married both of us in Utah and he was bringing us home. We thought it was hilarious at the time. We laughed and ate and had a royal good moment. It was an adventure to say the least.

My kids are moving, rearranging their lives, having adventures, tragedies, and excitement. I watch them, pray for them, hope the best for them, and trust that they will eventually figure it out. Maybe without the five day bus trip. Smelly proposition to be sure. Kind of how life is. Sometimes stinky, but always interesting.

Choices

Dad talked to some docs in Seattle and they pretty much repeated what his oncologist here said, "there's not a lot more we can do." He's had three different chemos in the last year, and they work for a couple months and then don't work any more. Each time it gets harder and harder on him. His hair is gone -- "I look better than Bruce Willis, don't you think?" was his response after his friend shaved all his scraggly white chemo hair off. He will discuss one more option with a mountain of side effects and then decide if he's going to quit treatment, or die trying the really nasty chemo that's left. We all sat down with him over Christmas to discuss options and outcomes with him, with the understanding that he would listen to our input and then make his own decision. Always his own man. When the question of quality time versus increased quantity of time came up, he said he is choosing to live a quality life, and he has yet to decide if that includes more treatment or not. The Seattle docs said he has maybe 3 to 6 months left. But that's what the oncologist told him a year ago in September. She was wrong that time. He thinks these docs may be wrong this time. How can they quantify his optimistic spirit, his belief in miracles, and his strong soul? They can't. They look at pictures of body parts, they do not look at the whole man who has plans and hopes and dreams.

So it was a season of peace and love around here. What the new year will bring is anyone's guess and really it always has been in God's hands anyway.

Each day is an adventure to be captured, lived, and loved fully. That's what Dad is teaching me.

Happy New Year, Dad.

Question: how do you herd cats?

Answer:
Ya don't

Here's snow

Ok so it started with a few innocent flakes and now, oh baby,
we got some serious snow coming down!

Winter is coming

I am sitting in my house warmed by the fireplace. I brought in some wood to fill the pile on the porch. And it is starting to snow. Gray clouds are cuddling the mountains around my little home, creeping down the hill offering the snow cover to sneak up on us. But snow isn't something that hides easily. Its blanket is more encompassing, colder, more permanent than cloud or fog. No discrimination here, snow covers anything in its way; color, gender, short, tall, ugly or beautiful, not relevant considerations for snow. Hello winter.

I have been banned from dad's because I've had a cold for a week. Tired, coughing, and feeling sorry for myself. I miss being at dad's house, seeing him every night. He is doing well. I'm a pile of snot.

So I'm hiding out.

Happy crappy winter.