Connecting

What a world we live in...I really do love it, warts and all, but it still catches me off-guard when I realize I'm having a true connection with someone in a blog or a text. Or a facebook post. People say it's shallow and "what happened to face-to-face? what happened to letters?" Yeah, I miss letters and would much rather make someone a cup of tea and show them my poppy bushes

while we're catching up, but the truth is, without all the techno options, I would lose touch very quickly. That became vivid a few minutes ago when I read two meaningful comments to my most recent post. Blog-writing is, for most people, a writing exercise....we tell ourselves that it doesn't "matter if no-one else is reading it, that the act of writing is what really counts." Hah! How many times I've said that and then get depressed when months go by without a peep. No wonder I quit blogging for so long. Faint-hearted I am.

Bernie, it meant a lot to read that you procrastinate too, and that when I write it helps you somehow. In turn, that helps me. Maybe that can be a new definition of 'connection': you help me when i help you. Kind of like namaste: I honor the part of you that is the same as that which is in me.

And Rick...I bow to the way you transformed our meager shared window of time into something poetic. One experiences the hurricane, the other experiences the outcome of the hurricane and yet we're the same.

Many thanks to both of you.

And now for a little news from our neck of the woods. Dan's left leg is the new rock star. It regained mobility without Dan even knowing it. The other day Dan was shifting position in bed and his right leg unbent and shimmied to the center like a good scout, but we were pretty used to that. Then I smiled and told his left leg to move, too. (I pretend I'm the one responsible for training the feet and toes to start moving.) When it did I was completely shocked, my mouth fell open and I almost cried. I looked up at Dan and asked "Do you realize what you just did???" He smiled a little and said he actually didn't know. I took a picture of his two legs, now perfectly parallel, to prove to him what he'd accomplished. It was such a surprise to both of us that he could do something and not know it. The doctor explained later that sensation often returns after function has been present for a while. Huh.

As most of you know, Dan has been a ray of sunshine with the staff in his unit. They say he's funny...bubbly...refreshing. Well, in the last few days he just doesn't care if he's bubbly or not! He's getting cranky more, and it's about time, too. He's been here a long time and things haven't gotten easier yet. I'm the same way...used to have lots of cheery energy but not now. Now we're back on earth, no longer in the clouds, dreaming our way back to the old ways. Reality is in our face, big time. This kind of mood actually makes us more productive so I'm thankful we got to this place.

Speaking of thankful. We have so many, many friends, family and medical folk to be thankful for that I couldn't list them all. Phone calls with dear people who listen and then listen some more. People who've made some meals so I don't live on Coke and chocolate. All the angels who push Dan to greater heights and who then make him more comfortable. But of all of them, I really have to give Lara a big special public hug for being here so often for both Dan and for me. On his last day of radiation she brought us a chocolate shake and a salted caramel chocolate and bergamot sundae from Molly Moon's. Only she would think of that! Some days she comes in and just starts massaging Dan so he can relax. Yesterday she and I had a day of pampering....in between getting her car fixed and going to the bank, etc., we managed to get a pedicure at Frenchy's, a massage at Cortiva, and a doughnut at Top Pot. Oh, and dinner at Siam Thai Cuisine. What an amazing partner in life she is. Thank you over and over, Lara.