Thanksgiving is more than just a holiday; it is a place in the heart. In order to show love and establish peace, the feeling (and expression of) gratitude is essential. I have much to be thankful for this year, even though my precious mother is no longer here to share in this amazing holiday anymore.

Thanksgiving was always about FAMILY when I grew up. Sure, it was about food too, of course, but the food was just a symbol of the bounty we felt from being part of a family. It was a tremendous day for celebrating all that Heavenly Father had blessed us with.

In Eastern Idaho, where I grew up, winters were cold. Dad set the apple cider (in the gallon sized glass jugs) out in the snow. By the time we ate that afternoon, the cider was slushy, cold, crisp, and delicious. Additionally, each year our parents came to each child (all eight of us) and asked what special food we wanted included in the feast. One year, all I wanted was REAL whipped cream; and it was there!

I miss my Mom. She was the sparkle, the glow, the ba-da-boom in our family. She was funny, smart, loving, and energetic. Since she is gone, the family traditions must be altered a bit to accommodate the huge space she left behind.

There will never be another holiday the same.

Yet, my gratitude for her life, and my life, and her example affecting my life is bounteous.

Happy Thanksgiving, Mom.

gratitude and attitude

Joey dislocated and broke his kneecap on a camp-out 2 weeks ago. It's been a little difficult for me to focus on the gift and nevermind the gripes. The gripes are coming from me...not Joey. He is happy, in good spirits, and smiling all the time. He remains positive in the face of diversity. Such a great son; he teaches his mother lessons in gratitude and positive attitude. The recovery will be slow, 2 months, and physical therapy consists of a month more. The costs will be high even after insurance pays their part. Nevertheless, I have enjoyed hanging with my son and helping him. He is a wonderful joy.

Plugging Along

On April 15, 2010, my Mom left this world and went to the next. The past few months have been devastating and horrible as we all try to restructure our lives without her.

The grieving process for my Mom began quite some time ago, however, when she started chemo/rad and began to go quickly downhill.

Life moves forward, however, and I am still quite unsure how I manage to live every day without her. I have decided that nothing else in my life is hard, because that one thing has shown me what HARD really is.

The waves keep coming, and life keeps moving on. School is still in session for me, since I decided to take a summer class. Fall semester is rapidly approaching. I'm inviting as many people as I can to my graduation in may of '11, because I know my Mom won't be there smiling and crying and bustin' at the seams with pride and joy over her little girl finally graduating from college.

It just about kills me to consider that she won't be there.

I'm my Mama's girl, and she raised me to just keep on plugging away. So this is me...still plugging along.

True Love

While reading about intimacy in relationships for my homework, I found myself thinking constantly about my mother and father. They’ve been married for forty-six years. Six years ago, my mother was diagnosed with oral cancer. It was devastating news (she’d never smoked/drank/chewed). She endured two surgeries which cut away half of her tongue, all of the soft tissue inside her mouth, and three of her teeth on the right hand side. After the second surgery, the doctors prescribed her a special pill that suppressed the cancer at the cellular level. Although incredibly draining on her system, the medication worked, and the cancer went into remission. Unfortunately, as is often the case with cancer, it returned with a vengeance in May of 2009. Six months of chemotherapy and daily radiation treatments failed to eradicate the tumor. As a last resort, my Dad took her to Huntsman Cancer Institute in Salt Lake City, Utah.

A world-renowned surgeon at the Institute, Jon Hunt, gave my Mom two options: radical surgery or awaiting death. My Mom and Dad chose the radical surgery. It was performed in January of 2010. For weeks and weeks, my vibrant, bouncy, AMAZING mother has been confined to Huntsman Institute Room #5506. Week after agonizing week, my dear, devoted father has not left her side. Patiently, with great care, he has learned to nurse her around the clock. A calm and patient man, he dislikes conflict and avoids it when possible. In defending and advocating for his bride, however, he was a giant in rendering her the best care available from every staff member. He stood by her bedside and refused to let anyone bully her. He slept on the small couch in her room, ate his meals in a chair beside her bed, and did his laundry in a small washroom just down the hall.

Intimacy in relationships doesn’t just mean physical gratification. It is love so deep that it transcends even cancer. My Dad left everything else behind; the care of their home, livestock, fields; his job; his friends, activities, hobbies. Caring for my Mom was all that mattered.

My mother is finally well enough to leave Huntsman Cancer Institute today. My father is driving her to a skilled nursing facility near their home to finish her recovery. He will be able to return home, finally, only twenty minutes from her location. She will be in the facility, near several of her children and a multitude of friends, for only a little while until her wound completely heals. The wound was a gaping hole encompassing her entire left cheek and part of her neck but has now healed to just a small hole needing temporary care.

Intimacy requires devotion, commitment, and emotional depth. During this ordeal, I have watched my Dad. I realized that everything in his life--all of the learning, skills, and knowledge he has gained--has been for this moment in their lives. There is an 80% chance that the cancer will come back sooner or later in the next five years. Regardless, the level of intimacy between the two of them has been altered forever. And we children have learned life lessons while watching this perfect example of intimacy play out before our eyes. How blessed I am to have such noble parents to set the example.

Pet Therapy Pleasures

As many of you know, I am involved with the Pet Therapy program at West Valley Medical Center in Caldwell. Three years ago, I went through the training with our black lab, Smokey. Last year, however, I retired her because she got liver disease from toxic trash dumped on the canal bank. We thought she was going to die. She didn't, but she is unable to visit at the hospital anymore since her stamina is diminished. This year, I decided that I really missed volunteering with Pet Therapy, and so I took my pug dog, Sally, through the program. She got her first introduction to it when we visited my Mom at the Huntsman Cancer Institute in Salt Lake City, Utah. That was in January. Since then, we have traveled a rewarding journey. Thursday March 25, we graduate from our training and, as soon as I get our Therapy Dogs, Inc. registration cards, we will be visiting patients and creating smiles. Last week during observed visits, we went into the ICU waiting room. It was full of people. When we walked in, I felt like the stress was so thick it could be cut with a knife. People were in tears and pain was etched on their faces and evident in their wringing hands. As the group of Therapy Dogs made their rounds, faces softened, hands petted dogs, and stress was relieved. In particular, one little girl of about 6 or 7 years was petting Sally. Then she stood up and started talking to Sally about visiting the hospital. Sally tipped her head back and forth as the little girl chatted. When the little girl saw Sally's tilted head, she clapped her hands to her cheeks and exclaimed, "She's listening to me!" It made her day to see that a little pug dog was listening to her.

As I mentioned earlier, my Mom is at Huntsman Cancer Center. She had surgery to remove the tumor in her throat that had not responded to chemo/rad. A few times, she nearly died. And I mean...she really was at the edge. At one point, I thought, as I left the hospital, that she would be gone when I went back in the morning. She has defied all odds, however, and is healing even after such a radical surgery. She cannot speak or eat, but she is spunky, sparkly, and still kicking around. The doctors are hopeful to release her to go home in a couple more weeks.

The gripe is that cancer and illness exist. The gift is that there is Pet Therapy to ease the pain and worry, and modern medical miracles which can oft times give us a little more time with our loved ones.

Fuzzy Furball Fits

Today we took our three indoor-only kitties and black lab to the vaccination clinic at Zamzow's. As we loaded the kitties into their carriers, two of the three began to yowl before we even left the house. Cutie, Joey's Maine Coon mix tabby cat, curled up in the bottom of the carrier and went to sleep. She had plenty of room in the biggest carrier (since she is the fattest of the three).

We hauled all three out to the minivan (Wayne asked Joey if he wanted a wheelbarrow to take Cutie out because she's heavy hahaha) and put them in the back. Then we loaded the black lab, Smokey, into the van as well, since she was due for her yearly booster. As I got into the front seat, I could hear those 2 cats hollering like the dickens in the back. I looked back and saw poor old Smokey huddled up as far as she could get into the front. It was almost as if she was saying, "I am NOT staying back there with those mad kitties!!" The look on her face was so funny!

All 4 pets were successfully vaccinated and given the all-clear for health. It's a relief to have it done. Both teenage boys were very protective of their feline friends and responsibly carried, and cared for, their own fuzzy furballs during the entire experience. They are such excellent young men. I think it's admirable for them to be able to care for small, helpless animals with such dignity and tenderness.

Since this is my blog, I'll step up onto my soapbox for a minute! Indoor cats enjoy much more safety and are exposed to fewer dangers than outdoor cats. The life span for an indoor cat is 20-25 years while an outdoor cat's life span is about 7. Vaccinations for indoor cats come around every 2-3 years versus every year for outdoor. We always had outdoor cats when I was a kid, and those poor babies usually lived about 2-3 years at most. I've personally seen cats run over, bleeding from baseball bats to the head, swollen and infected with bites from fighting, huddled in the freezing cold, and crying from hunger.

Additionally, spaying/neutering your cat is doing him/her a HUGE favor! Please be responsible and see that it is done before 5 months of age. A female cat can get pregnant at 6 months of age, and she can get pregnant while still nursing kittens. If you knew how painful and horrible it was for a female cat to become pregnant, you would RUSH to the vet immediately for spaying as soon as possible. Please educate yourself and be a responsible pet owner. Okay, I'm putting the soapbox away now. =)

Being a huge animal lover, I count it as a wonderful blessing to be able to care properly for our pets.

Remembering the gripe/gift aspect that I am trying to promote in my entries this year, the gripe in this story is that the cost of caring for pets properly is high--and climbing. Last year, our vet's rates almost doubled, and so we chose the vaccination clinics in an attempt to save money. The gift is that our beloved pets are safe from disease and illness for several years.

Gripes with Gifts

Over the course of the last semester in college, I have come to the realization that I can really complain a lot. Based on the example of a very positive person that I interviewed for my internship, I have begun to look for the gift in the gripe.

You see, gripes are an inevitable part of life. It's what we DO with that gripe that counts. What is the gift? What are the blessings? If I choose to look at only the gripe, then happiness will always elude me. However, if I choose to look at the gifts, I will feel happy even though life isn't perfect.

Actually, I usually feel pretty happy inside, and so I decided to express that with my words. I love to write, and I feel good about life when I can write creatively and passionately.

I'm challenging myself this year to write more often on my blog and to look for and write down my gifts in the gripes.

Gift: my two sons are amazing because they both are faithful in our religion, and they are loving to their mother.

Gripe: oh they are growing up so quickly! =)