Wow!

I am typing to you from the Bull City, Durham, North Carolina.  Had Lori not emailed me, I never would have known that AOL is shutting down hometown.  I'm following the rest of you guys to Blogspot and can be found at  http://chaispice1023.blogspot.com/

It appears we'll all be busy preserving what we can of the last few years and saving it on Blogspot...I hope I don't lose touch with any of you.  I haven't been around much, it's true...but you're all so wonderful.  If you reply here, please leave your new blogspot address so I can bookmark it.

 

:-)

Tomorrow

Tomorrow is the first day of autumn.  The last week has had the feel of the season, with cooler temperatures, and now it's getting chilly at night.  Some of the trees have started to turn the color of sage.  The persimmon trees are full to almost bowing the limbs - will be a good year for the deer and possums, plenty to eat.  I love autumn, but it feels different this year.  Normally, there's a feel to it I've never been able to aptly describe...a beckoning, or perhaps a feeling of expectancy, like something is about to happen or change.  I don't get that this time.

We went to see the baby this weekend.  He has a head full of dark hair and little chubby cheeks.  And he did something I've never seen a week-old baby do.  He turned over on his side!  My daughter-in-law, Jess, tells me that larger babies seem to have more muscle, and that's the reason he could turn that way.  He's doing well now, after an admission to the hospital for tests. Because of Beth's gestational diabetes and due to being a c-section baby, the walls of his heart are a little thicker and he had some fluid in his lungs.  He had a two-day stay, and came home in time for the weekend with a clean bill of health.

Lately, when things like the baby getting sick happen and all turns out well, I know a depth of gratitude I've never felt before.

Small Candle

Yesterday was the anniversary of the attack on the Twin Towers. On our Nation.  Traditionally, I have spent that anniversary reflecting on the great losses our country sustained and the ramifications of that day...the losses keep piling up. And traditionally, I have posted a small poem written on the first commemoration, but this year, I didn't have time.

What an unbelievable and complicated six months it has been.  Steve, Daddy, Mom...my daughter's high risk pregnancy.

She called me last Friday and said, "Mom, I need you to come up here."  And my typical response, as of late, was a series of palpitations and a quick - "What's wrong?"  She responded, "Well, I want you here when the baby comes."

And so, I asked for the day off, and my boss graciously and understandingly granted the request.  Off to Durham I flew to spend Wednesday night.  We were up at 5 a.m. on 09/11/08 and off to the hospital for the scheduled C-section.

"Oh please" I prayed, "Let everything go okay."  And it was a little bumpy - a team of Doctors assembled to stand by because of Beth's POTS syndrome.  They couldn't get a vein for the IV's, and finally found access in her feet.  BUT - Steven McArthur Thompson was born at 09:55 a.m., weighing into the world at 9 pounds 11 ounces on 09/11/08.  He looks like his Mom.

What a strange life this is, finding unfathomable joy and gratitude spiking amidst a chain of loss and solemnity by way of a small bundle of hope, pink and new, and screaming his little lungs out to make himself heard.  I may have to write a new tiny poem to replace

Behind the light of my small candle
many shadows flicker.

 

Home Again

After four days in Durham, it was so good to be home again.  I understand that in my absence, Lacy took to sleeping in the living room. 

My daughter is fine now. I guess all she needed was some company and some home cooking -those have their comfort, don't they?  She has decided I will move to the city to live with or near her - but I don't think so.  A place like Durham is not for me.  Too much gang activity - so much that the gangs have spilled into other counties to commit their crimes.  And every time I read an unnerving article about Durham, I check the streets named to see how close to Beth the incident occurred.  The logical thing is for her to do is move back here.  The pace is slower, salaries are lower - but so is the cost of living and the crime rate.

Dad's doctor wrote an order for morphine a week or two ago.  Dad took the doses for a few days and then stopped.  He says it burned his mouth too much, but I think I know what the problem really was...he slept too much.

He is so thin, now. He looks like a good breeze would blow him over.  His hands are skeletal, look like they're webbed together with bruised skin.  But there is something courageous in his bearing and his refusal, if only for now, to sleep through the pain.  The other day, I caught him on the lawn mower.  "WHAT are you doing?" I asked him.  And he replied in a garbled voice and with a bit of a laugh - "What the __ does it look like I'm doing?"  Occasionally, he drives out to the store to visit the business he built, and to see some of the old customers who have been regulars for years.  Many of them come by the house to see him, and he is the least surprised to find he has a multi-racial, large "family".  Or should that read ..family.

He keeps going, determined not to miss a thing for as long as he doesn't have to, and to me, that is inspiring.

Mysterious Ways...

Well, I'm outta here for the rest of the week, heading to Durham to be with my daughter who needs her Mom.  It's timely.

One of those mornings

Ever had a morning where you just could not get going unless you gave yourself a pep-talk/lecture?  That's me, today.  I'm trying to save vacation time for when it's really needed.  Beth's baby is due in the next few weeks, not sure when Mom and Dad will need me...It's all good.  I have the time when they need it, and am trying hard to just keep going until then.

Good news:  Mom is on to Wanda, and Mike and I are having a chat with her.  It's Tuesday - a short week now! and it promises to be a beautiful day in Carolina.  Feels like it might be an early fall.

Have a great week, everybody.