Only In My Dreams.

It was such a clear dream. I could feel the breeze blowing through the open French doors as I walked down the narrow hallway to her room.  The room seemed small but ornately decorated and looking out onto a patio with a large old tree adding shade to the patio and garden.  She was distracted and not noticing the beauty around her. She was laying in her hospital bed in the cozy room across from another empty hospital bed. She didn’t look up at me, she was too focused on what she was watching on  t.v. or laptop that was perched on her side table.

Her legs…they were smooth and golden…bronzed and healthy from many days basking in the sun by her pool or on the beach. They were uncovered and outstretched from under her hospital gown, almost on display.

Her hair…it was chestnut again, curled thick and soft to the touch.

Grandmother.

I went to her to kiss her hello and noticed she had a plate stacked with cinnamon raisin bread, toasted with butter. There were several bags of this bread strewn across the bed as well. I asked her who made this all for her…she looked up away from me, almost defiantly, and said she did it all herself. Insulted I should even ask such a question. Then she demanded that I run to the store immediately and get her a loaf of white bread and cheese, she was craving a toasted cheese sandwich…I just stood in the doorway, looking at her beautiful self, feeling very puzzled…a combination of the old and new Grandmother…the forever young and the old woman living a life right now she would never want for herself.

I shake my head yes to her demands, and then feel a presence behind me on the patio…it is a grown man with two small children. He is holding them close, gently gripping their shoulders, almost protectively. I cannot see their faces, the glare of the sun blocks my vision. Grandmother yells to me to quickly go make some of them the delicious toast she is enjoying at that moment.

Somewhere in all my dreamy confusion, I appear instantly with a white and pink china plate stacked high with steamy cinnamon raisin toast.

And then I woke up…it was over but the feelings are still with me as I type this.

My Grandmother has been rapidly declining mentally and physically over the past four years since my Grandfather passed away. She is always happy for the most part, and occasionally knows some or one or all of us. Some days she is feisty, and some days we cannot even wake her to get a greeting out of her.

I say goodbye each and every time I visit her. I just feel like she is kind of already gone, not because of the Alzheimer’s entirely, but I really feel like she is “one foot in/out the door” so to speak…she talks of times and people in her past, as if it were happening now. She sees people who are gone, and when she speaks of our Grandfather, it is as if he is sitting there with her…

I loved my dream last night…

I saw her in all of her beauty and sassiness again. I felt loved and peaceful…I have been having many dreams of my Grandparents lately, and I know they will be together again…someday soon.

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Good Fortune.

Not sure where that title just came from…just started typing it.

So I guess I will blog on about my good fortune. I am alive. I am somewhat healthy. I am married. I have children. I can occasionally muster a smile at myself in the mirror. I am alive.

I am also surrounded by many people who love me and adore me.

Maybe I am thinking all this after visiting with my beautiful 94 year old Grandmother today.

SHE has good fortune. Merely for the fact that she can say she lived 94 years…what a gift.

She has always been beautiful, and fun and silly, and loved to have a good time.

She is in the end stages of dementia or Alzheimer’s…not sure which…neither good.

But since it began to get progressively worse, I repeated these words countless times to anyone who would listen…

My grandmother has even more good fortune than SHE realizes…

Because she is BLISSFULLY UNAWARE.

She has never smiled so much as she has in the last few years. She can doze off or look around the room and gaze up at the same person, and it is as if she never saw this person, but still greets them with a beaming smile and a “come over here and give me a hug” gesture…

She is still her blissfully unaware self, but cannot make sentences and forgets most words…but still always smiling.

I love these visits with her, and pray I am blessed with such good fortune someday…to have produced a small army of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. To have been married only once to the love of her life. To still be stylish, and laugh and hug and say the most important words to her family as she grabs them tight in her arms…“I love you so much”…one of her only full sentences anymore…but that is MY good fortune…that she can tell me this…that she can tell my children this.

I am hopefully in the midst of building a life like Grandma did…

An adoring husband, who works hard and loves his family.

A growing business with more and more success each day.

Children and family that stand by me no matter what, good days and bad. 

This is my good fortune…guess I had to write  it down, to realize this…when and if I am so lucky to sit with my Grandmother again in the near future, I will tell her this…

That I love her and she is the luckiest woman I know…

Nothing better. Selfies with Gram…

Cartwheels.

My eight year old daughter loves to do cartwheels.

I remember loving to do them as well when I was young. We spent countless hours outside riding bikes, making mud pies, doing cartwheels.

My little girl has finally mastered the cartwheel. After years of trying, and falling on her bottom, she can do it with ease…not always gracefully, but with confidence.

On Mother’s Day, I decided to show off to my little girl…and attempt a cartwheel…I have not stood in position to do this in probably thirty years…I was excited…adrenaline pumping!

I did it!

And then did it again!

With my new found healthy outlook, I thought it was something I could do again…or not.

I pulled something in the back of my leg and I am still feeling it today.

I posted something on Facebook about my silly attempt and found words of encouragement…”If a 40 something mom can still do a cartwheel- flip away!!”…  if a woman my age can still do a cartwheel, then that is an accomplishment!

Me being a pessimist, didn’t see it that way…

But things change. I was very wrong. If I can do a cartwheel with my own two legs…If I can be outside in the sunshine and running around with my kids on a beautiful Mother’s Day…If I can break bread with my loved ones and not worry about what I am eating…If I can take the time to sit down and write about trivial things…then I am blessed.

I am lucky to be a Mother…I am fortunate to have found good health again… I am blessed to be able to do a cartwheel.

Many little things and a few BIG things brought me to this moment of clarity…

I take too much for granted.

Even if for just a moment, I can stop and appreciate these little gifts, then it was worth the pulled muscle or indigestion or being frazzled at juggling all the day’s events…

I actually DID a cartwheel again.

Thank you, Marley.

Seeing The Light.

After a tough couple of weeks with a ton up’s and down’s, I needed to see the light.

I did it again. I have been told not to. Over and over again, yet I continue I break the rules.

It is so bad for me, but I had to.

The darkness was creeping in, making me crazy.

I couldn’t bare it anymore, and so I just ignored all good judgment…and decided to find the light again.

My mother helped me…she is my accomplice of sorts.

She knew I shouldn’t either, but said I was in serious need of seeing the light…I never listened to mother…until today.

I opened up a can of worms by doing it…I thought wow I am going to pay the price…I usually literally do pay the price, but in the event of trying to save myself some time and money, I opened up that can…or should I say box.

I boxed it. Yep. Good old boxed hair color.

I did it a few months ago, after years of going to a very trusted salon, but ran out of time before my cousin’s wedding…I was not a happy girl. It was awful and I swore every penny I ever spent at the salon was worth it, to not have to make such a terrible mistake again.

And yet again…I let life take over with one thing after another (all very valid reasons as some of my loyal readers will attest to), and bought another…I needed to see the light…badly.

Man oh man, do those roots show…fast.

They bring with them, my dark mood…I do not like being a brunette…or showing that my hair is getting a little gray here and there…I know I should just let it be free to be what it wants, but I just love being blonde…the lightness brightens my mood…

my day.

Because of how moody I felt when I woke up this morning-even on this beautiful sunny day, after dreading another day of darkness taking over- I said no way.

Nope, not doing this for one more day.

Did I save myself some time? Heck no…did I save some money? Heck yeah..

Did it turn out okay after the last fiasco? Thank goodness…yes!

And now my slightly superficial self will take my glowing blonde locks back out into the world without shame, and  go sit out in the sun on this beautiful Spring day, and enjoy yet another day with the light all around me…

When I’m 57…

My baby boy will eighteen.  My oldest will be going on thirty-three.

My oldest randomly text-ed me this unnerving question the other day, as she lay poolside in warm and sunny Florida on Spring Break…while I was here on  the home front, caring for the little ones and managing the house.

“Have you ever thought how old your gonna be when Chance JUST graduates high school?? Not even college yet!”

I gasped when I first read it…

What on Earth was my beautiful, eighteen year old daughter thinking by asking me this question???

I shared the question on Facebook, only because it was so insane at that moment, I needed some motherly backup…reassuring me that yes indeed my kid was rude and inconsiderate.

How are we to send her off to college in a few months and let her live in the city on her own, when she doesn’t even know one of the basic skills of life...think before you speak…or text.

Later that night, I laughed about it.

Not because I thought it was funny, but because I overreacted.

My daughter was starting to ponder life…the big bad world that lies before her. She was genuinely concerned at how old I may be when my youngest is her current age…maybe because she thought I may be crippled or too fragile by then to help him through his senior prom and graduation.

And help pack up his things and ship him off to college fifteen years from now…

Or maybe even whether I may be alive…maybe she hasn’t yet grasped different stages in life and aging, not realizing that 57 is still pretty young in our world.

When she returns from her mini Spring Break in Florida with her Grandparents, I may have to pull her aside and ask her what provoked such a thought.

Until then, I will take this Forty-something old body that is a little sore at the moment, but healing and getting healthier everyday (all due to my new way of eating and lifestyle so I live to be a hundred), and continue folding mountains of laundry, sort through the explosion of summer clothes that my teenage girls dug through for their last-minute getaway, and wait for my husband to come home from yet another trip to give me a “mommy time-out”…

I am told I will miss these crazy days someday, when all the kiddos have moved on to college/jobs/starting their own lives…

I probably will after my 57 year old body locks the front door, takes my bra off through my sleeve, throws it on the ceiling fan, cracks open a chilled bottle of wine and blasts some Duran Duran like the free spirit I once was…

a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far away…

Sisters.

I have two.  And they are precious to me. If you asked me twenty years ago, or even thirty years ago, I may have said differently. But as I grow older, I realize I truly cannot live without them. They are my best friends, my confidantes, my source of gossip or laughter when I need it most.

I hope they feel the same...

I am pretty certain  they do.  They would agree our younger years we were rough. We clung to each other through the dark days of divorce, dating and remarriage of our parents. We fought, but also played hard. Barbies were our other best friends…as were forts made out of mattresses, bike riding through the woods, mud pies with ink berries, and catching frogs.

I wouldn’t change any of it…for a second.

It made us who we are today.

I have three daughters as well. I honestly thought God was torturing me when I realized this-I am raising three girls that will torture me as we tortured our mother...it was me and my sisters all over again…minus the misery.

But dear oh dear do my girls seek out the drama, and think that it is them against the world. Sometimes…not as often as me and my partners in crime…but I can relate.

My inspiration for this blog tonight was from a beautiful moment I shared with two sisters today.

The way they grabbed each other when they first saw each other, and held hands, and smiled…was just unforgettable.

My ninety-four year old Grandmother and her little sister of ninety-one, came together possibly for the last time today. We have said this before, and these two feisty ladies have proved us all wrong.

But knowing that time is precious for them more so than someone much younger (we all hope), they were determined to see one another. My Grandmother doesn’t remember much these days, but she knew her sister.

I was proud to be a part of this bittersweet reunion…and pray there are more. 

One of my sisters was missing today, but I know she would loved this day as well. When we are together, we get devilish and giggly. We adore family, and love the time we share together, even if it isn’t very often.

We three are in different places in life, with children, relationships, jobs…we kvetch about the little things and big, and look forward to those time together when we can do it some more.

We laugh at our childhood memories and tell each other almost everything…and then worry about the stuff we are not sharing.

This is my wish…

I want to be my Grandma and Aunt someday…I want to sit with my sisters on either side of me(I am the middle sister, so I get the say so) when we are in our nineties, and hold their hands and remember warm summer nights with fireflies, and big wheels, fights and laughter…