Some are Silver and others are Gold

Remember the song we sang in Sunday School?  Make new friends, but keep the old....one is silver and the other is gold....

I looked up to see who was given credit for the song, and apparently no one was given credit.  I always believed in the make new friends and keep the old.  I think that all of my friends throughout my life have also had that same phlosphy in that I have friends from the first months I was born to friends I have made quite recently.  Friends, my favorite way to feel wealthy in your life.  To feel happy and amazing about myself because of the wonderful friends I have in my life.

And even if I do not see my friends, my precious loved ones as often as I would like, they are still my friends.  They are still as amazing as ever, and after a few words to catch up, I feel like I am right there with them like we see each other everyday.

One of these friends is married to a guy, a friend, I graduated from high school.  We were able to catch up at the High School reunion and now on FaceBook.  I just loved this text she sent me the other day and I wanted to share it.  So here it is with approval from Susan (aka Bird) ...........

·         Our paths only crossed briefly, jumping over that dam vaulting box in high school PE, living in the same small town, class reunions...brief in terms of time. I have always been drawn to the light that shines out from you and know that you touch many lives with your humor and joy. Since I can't do as our southern mothers and send a casserole or a homemade cake I'm sending words. You write so beautifully and your post was so moving and honest. This writing is my personal note to my son, nieces and nephews. Sending my love, thoughts and prayers with the words.

People die. Some, for no reason apparent, go out in the boat one evening wrap the anchor line around their waist and slip quietly over the side. Others fight the good fight, armed with chemicals, knives and magic ray guns. Some ride their motorcycles right up to the pearly gates. Everyone dies. Rest assured, the last physical contact your body will have on this planet will be with the undertaker. Life - death. It's everywhere. Adds in the paper today listed under the banner MERCHANDISE: "Crypt. Rare. Desirable location. Asking $7500 or OBO. " Yup, that was the actual add. The next one read. " One rare eye-level crypt." That one was only $5000 so I assume the location was not quite as desirable, even given the fact that you didn't have to bend over or stand on tip-toe to visit with Aunt Betty. So what follows death in the Thursday newspaper? Four tickets to a Queen Latifa concert and two tickets for the Red Sox/Pirates game next Wednesday. That is if you're still alive. Or if your prime location crypt is on eye-level with the stadium. It's all fun and games 'till the ump calls you out. Everyone dies. Some do it a little at a time. Some all at once. Let the air out of the balloon slowly or all at once with the pop of a pin. Either way you have an empty balloon. Like Eyore, Piglet and Pooh you can put it in a clay jar and save it. Place it in a crypt. Either way the balloon is empty. That which made it a "balloon" is gone. All you have left is the shell of a balloon. The memory of a balloon. The memory of Aunt Betty. Everyone dies. Fast or slow. Early or late. We all end up letting the air out of our balloons. We drift away. Blow away. Pop away. We leave. We die. The shell of the balloon is not the balloon. It is not us. The body in the crypt is not us. We all die. But we don't stop being us. The air in the balloon is still air. It is still there. Can't see air. Never could. Never will. The air surrounds us. We breath in and out the air that may once have been in a toy balloon. The miracle escapes us. Souls surround us. They are not gone. Any more than the air is gone when a balloon pops. The air is set free. So too the souls. Everyone dies. Everyone is transformed. Set free. Beautiful. So when I die. (Yes Dear One, I will die. See sentence one.) So when I die please have lots of balloons. Pass them out. Blow them up. Pull the funny rolled necks apart in your hands and make rude farting sounds that make everyone socially uncomfortable at a funeral, that is, until someone laughs. Blow them up and let the air out. Let them fly around the room. That is my sermon. Everyone dies. I died. Someone let the air out of my balloon. I'm free. Don't focus on the left over carcass of a deflated balloon. Open up a window. Blow up a balloon. Life/death. It's just a breath away.

Susan Hunt

See, what a sweet funny writer she is?  And she is as sweet and funny and wonderful a person in real life as she is a writer.  And she and her honey are as in love today as when they married 30 something years ago.  Just love them to death.

I have started taking the neuropathy drugs again to try and get my left leg to work.  It has helped considerably with my leg, but the jumping in my hands and arms are back, so trying to hand write anything, or to hold a book to read or work on the computer are extremely difficult.  I have chosen to cut back on the meds myself, but I do not notice much improvement yet.  This is also the drug that makes me feel sick, but again, still not feeling any better. 

You know I don't know if I feel sick because of a flu, the drugs, or is this how you feel when you have cancer?  I have never died from cancer before, so maybe this is how you are supposed to feel.  But I just keep trying to do my best.  I am sleeping a bit better in that I have gotten used to sleeping by myself upstairs in the guest room.  Bug sleeps better at night not having to listen to me getting sick, and I sleep better while he cries out in pain in his sleep.  Oh yeah, this is quite a "happy" place, not.  But at least we are still laughing at each other, or with each other.  Well, we are still laughing.

I had the most wonderful treat yesterday.  Ms Moon came by to read to me.  She had asked a couple of days earlier and I knew immediately what I wanted to hear.  Reading is hard lately.  Writing is hard, I don't know if my brain is not working or what, but letters and words and my eyes and mind do not seem to all be working in the right sequence.  I don't know how to describe it.  I have headaches and my eyes, brain, hands, mind seem to be misfiring.  Is this a flu?  Is this cancer invading my brain?  Is this simply being tired?  I have no idea, and honestly what difference does it matter?

When I was a child I loved when the teachers or librarians or travelling performers would do flannel boards, or puppets or play the auto harp or read to us.  When I was still fairly young, Lauri Jo's Mother read us all the classics, Winnie the Pooh, Little Bear, The Cowboy, Mary Poppins, Pollyanna, The Five little Peppers and on and on.  That was my favorite time of day.  I would sit so very quiet and just take it all in.  Ms Moon read an essay by Loren Eiseley, The Flow of the River.  It is my favorite essasy from The Immense Journey a collection of some of his essays.  My friend Sarah introduced me to Loren Eiseley.

We talked for a little while and she did not stay long because I grew tired so quickly, but it was as wonderful as I had imagined over the past few days.  I tried to tell her about another one of my favorite writers.  He is a physicist by the name of Richard Feynman.  I could not remember his name to save me yesterday.  His essays on physics are extraordinary.  His life is overflowing, but that is mostly because he lived it to the fullest.  When he was growing up he and his Dad were stamp collectors.  His Dad had received a stamp from Tuva and it became a sort of crusade to find the country this stamp had come from.  To learn more about Richard Feynman  click on that link.  He was also a beat nick and co wrote the music for a ballet only using bongo drums.  We also talked about chickens and her children and grandchildren, and here I include all her children and grandchildren including to name a few, Billy, Shayla and Waylon.  It was a lovely visit and again reminded me how very very lucky/gifted/blessed I am for all the amazing people in my life.

I was first introduced to Feynman by a PBS show.

My honey does so much for me.  I walk across the room and I am winded.  Will I get better?  I have know idea.  Am I heading downhill?  I don't know.  I sit and crochet, read as I can, talk with friends when I can.  I wake each morning sick to my stomach, out of breath and generally feeling crummy.  But by the time I have gotten some food and meds in my tummy I am ready to live my day.  Forgive myself a little more for the crimes blaring in my mind, celebrate those friends that pop into my mind, sit and try not to be too much for my honey.  I try and crochet so I feel like I accomplish something.  This is not what I would really call what I do living, but it is what I am able to do, so it is as much life as I have to give.  I try and take a nap during the day so that I can spend some time in the evening with my honey before I go back to bed.  As I lay down in my little nest I try and count my blessings.  For a life that fills so little lived, I still have so many blessings/gifts/joy.

I had written a please let me rest, but it came out more as a good by, I am dying.  That was not my intention, but I notice I am not quite in tuned with how everyday people thinking.  I will include it here at some point, or parts of it.  Maybe when I need a good by, but not yet.

This is my life now. 

No complaints, just never what I thought it would be.

But I am still here, and when my time is done, I shall smile and leave with a "no regrets" and with nothing by thank you for a happy life.