My mother the flicker

OK, now, let me first say, that I am a person of faith and none of this has any Biblical background. But I believe what I've seen!

I got an e-mail from the daughter of one of my folks' business partners--her dad died earlier this year (I knew him) and her mom died several years ago (but I don't remember her). We're dealing with her while we're settling Mom's estate. She wrote: "I hope she [your mom] 'visits' you. My mom shows up in the form of birds and other animals usually when I am getting too serious about something and I need to take time to smell the roses."

I just about fell off my chair. Because I do believe my mom--and my dad--have 'visited' me!

Right before Thanksgiving, on a very cold, quite windy and rainy day, I heard a little "tap-tap!" on the window here in the kitchen by my computer--and there were TWO HUMMINGBIRDS at the window, looking in! I said outloud, "Hi Mom & Dad!" and even gave them a little wave because any normal hummingbird would not be out in that weather and it seemed very reasonable to me at that moment that it was my folks. And then they flitted off together.... Also, this summer, a flicker started hanging around our house--and I'd never seen one in this neighborhood before. My mom's camp name when we were in Girl Scouts was "Flicker."

We started thinking about this theory when my dad died in 2000. We were at his graveside service, and I was thinking to myself that I was doing OK, and not completely losing it, when I looked over at my (normally very strong) husband who was just weeping. When I asked him what was the matter, he pointed to a black Labrador Retriever. There was no human with it--it was just trotting around the cemetery. Now, if you knew my dad at all, you'd know that he always had at least one Labrador at his side for the past 40 years. And we both knew that Lab that day was him. After the service, it just sort of vanished....

We kept looking for "mom" at her service, but no animals really stood out. But between the flicker and the hummingbirds, I feel very comforted.

Wouldn't it just be SO COOL if God said, "Hey! Jerald & Susie! Ann needs a little pick-me-up! What would you like to be?" I'm certain my dad's first choice would be the Labrador, and my mom would KNOW I'd get it if she came to me as a flicker, or even a hummingbird.

Snow Dogs

No school today, again. The kids are in heaven. I had the whole Costanza gang over for a really nice "cold weather" dinner: Steak, roasted potatoes, warm mushroom salad with Stilton. It was a great success, if I do say so myself.

I was just so happy to be able to stay home yesterday, and cook. Kind of giddy, actually. I feel me coming back. I'm excited about Christmas, and decorating and getting a tree. I was afraid that I'd be dreading the holidays this year--but instead, I feel alive again. What a relief. I feared I might be lost for good. I'm starting to see myself in the mirror again.

SO glad I don't need to drive anywhere today: road conditions are even worse than yesterday, with ice just everywhere.

This is Coal's first snow, Mocha's second. The Snow Dogs love it!

Snow Day!

We were laughing all the way through Monday Night Football last night, about how everyone would think it was actually SNOWING in Seattle. It wasn't snowing where we are, but the game looked brutal in the beginning. (Snow AND the way the Seahawks were playing!) Then, in the second half, when the Seahawks came to their senses and the snow stopped...it started in earnest down here. Lots of snow, high winds, even lightning. And it KEPT snowing.

Usually, school districts wait until morning to cancel classes...but last night, the cancellations began around 9:30. Amazing! It's just a little snow, isn't it? Well, the snow turned to ice. And a lot of those people at the football game last night? They were on the news THIS MORNING, because they NEVER MADE IT HOME FROM THE GAME. That's how bad it was! You have to ask yourself, though, where in the world were the salt & sand trucks? WHY are our DOT folks caught so off guard, when the rest of us see what's happening? Maybe the DOT folks just kept laughing through MNF and never bothered to LOOK OUT THE WINDOW.

Anyway...no school today, and it looks so beautiful out!

I really like this photo

It has so many great uses!

Guinness. It's what's for dinner.

Triumphant in Dublin

So there you have the proof. We walked the Dublin City Marathon, all 26.2 miles of it in 7 hours, 58 minutes, and 46 seconds. Kari is sauntering. I am just hoping to hit the timing mat before keeling over. And beautiful Laura, the true hero and true athlete of the three of us, lifts her hands triumphantly.

Laura was off work most of last year, dealing with cancer, doctors, chemo, hair loss, being sick, getting weak, getting weaker, fighting for life. At one point in our marathon trek, she said with a quiet amazement, "I was just thinking that a year ago, I could barely even walk to the corner."

I went to Ireland for her really, and found something for myself as well. Laura needed to walk the marathon--it was her way of saying, in the midst of chemo hell, "I will get out of this alive." It gave her something to shoot for, a bright ray of life and living at the end of a dark and scary tunnel.

I was just a tagger-on in the beginning. "Sure, I'll walk your little walk!" Now, I do know something about grueling walks. I completed the first Avon 3-Day ever held in Seattle, in 2001. I had trained for 10 months. I had raised the $3000. And I was motivated. I did it in honor of my friend Susann, who'd died early in her 30's to breast cancer.

So when the question of walking the Dublin City Marathon came up, I thought to myself with more than a little superiority, "Sheesh! Only ONE day of walking 20+ miles? Pfft! A baby could do that!" But I'm five years older than the last time I attempted a feat like this, and he last two years have been probably the hardest of my life, and as our training progressed, I could see that the pain and the mourning had taken a mental as well physical toll on my heart, brain and body.

So deep down inside, I had a sinking feeling that maybe I would not be able to walk 26.2 miles in a day. Maybe I was past the point in my life where I could pull that off. Maybe....I was too old, too out of shape and, well, just too screwed up.

From almost the very beginning of race day, it felt like I'd forgotten how to walk. I had to concentrate with virtually every step. In my mind, it sounded like this: "Left foot now, ok, right foot, good going, keep it up, left foot...." For eight hours. The shin splint kicked in around mile 15. The right foot cramped up, and stayed cramped up from mile 18-to the end. I swallowed a bug at mile 22. Oh, and they ran out of Gatorade after mile 12. I kept trying to come up with a song in my head that I could keep cadence with, and none would come. My brain had become jello, only capable of, "right foot...don't trip, pick up the left foot, way to go...."

The last 1.2 miles was just the worst. We came around a corner, and there it was! (Insert heavenly choir singing here.) The finish line! It was in reach! But wait! Cruelly, it was not! We had to make this big loop around a couple of city blocks, and it seemed like that we could only move in slow motion and it was taking f o r e v e r. No matter how fast we limped, we seemed to be making no progress. There was yet another corner to turn. And we'd look hopefully up the street-"Surely, we'll see the finish line again now!" No. Another turn. No. Next turn, again, No. It was excruciating.

But before the final turn, we did see a lovely sight. Our families. Running out in the street to meet us. Cheering us! Wildly proud of us! The kids had to trot to keep up with us, even now, at mile 26. Seeing them gave us a final burst of energy.

We turned the final corner and saw that the finish line actually was there and the clock was still running, there were a bunch of firemen urging us on with, "Way to go girls! You can do it! You've almost made it!"

And we ran across the finish line.

We're back

I'm finally feeling like writing again. After floundering for months in the dark pools of grief, I'm starting to feel like ME again. It's been a tough year and I'm so glad that Bill still loves me.

We’re just back from a week in Ireland, and didn’t wake up at 4 a.m. this morning for once. That’s been our only ‘jetlag’ incident; going over was no problem at all…coming home, we just went to bed really early and therefore woke up really early. Piece of cake!

We loved Ireland. We stayed about half an hour south of Dublin in County Wicklow. We’d drive up to the DART station in Greystones and take the train whenever we wanted to get to Dublin—yes, we rented cars and DROVE on the wrong side of the street for a week—but not into the city. Well, “street” is a strong word, now isn’t it. More like “lane.” Their “two lane” roads are little more than a path barely wide enough for a single car. And when you are sitting on the side of the car where traffic whizzes past at nary a few inches to your right…it felt like death was just a sideswipe away. But we lived, and Bill & I only yelled at each other a couple of times.

We even drove over to see the Bunratty castle and the cliffs of Moher one day. Very beautiful. We passed, somewhere near Limerick, what we decided was the pub with the best name in all of Ireland: Tipsy McStaggers. Jack thinks we should name our next dog Tipsy. We did a lot of the tourist-y things—the Guinness factory, the hop on/hop off bus tour of Dublin, dinner in Temple Bar—but we decided not to go to kiss the Blarney Stone after learning the locals “christen” it nightly because they hate the tourists.

The real reason we were there: the Dublin City Marathon. Race day was incredible. Great weather—light breeze & sunshine. 12,000 people packed onto the streets around Trinity College—every one in a great mood and wanting to GO. The guy who won the race did it in 2:11—shattering the previous record. We were walkers for most of this marathon—my best friend Kari and I and our friend Laura, who battled uterine cancer last year. Laura, a lovely Irish-American lass, decided during chemo last year that if she made it through the illness, she wanted to do the Dublin Marathon—and would we like to join her? She was the real hero, the real athlete: last November, she couldn’t even walk to the grocery store a few blocks from her house. This year—she was walking 26.2 miles in one day. We were so proud of her!

The next day, the newspaper said a man died of a heart attack at mile 16. Yikes! After we finished, we limped back to the hotel, where we celebrated with Champagne, cheese & crackers—and a long visit to the hot tub.

I just now feel like I’m starting to get back to normal (whatever THAT is!) in the healing process from my Mom’s death. My brother seems to have this uncanny ability to make everything about 30-times more difficult than it needs to be, and we’re not quite through with the “who gets what” phase of things, so I think that part is going to get a little worse before it gets better. But we’ve paid the taxes (ugh) and thanks to my mom and dad’s incredible foresight and caring, I’m now able to stay home. No More Work. At least, until I want there to be work. I’ve retired—yeehaw! And it’s been pretty groovy—and at the right time. Jack is now in this incredibly tough school and we spend hours and hours on homework everyday. I’m finally learning Algebra! What made absolutely no sense to me as a kid, is sort of making sense now.

I thought I’d have all this free time when I stopped working, but I’ve been amazed at how busy I am! I also imagined taking a nap every day—I love naps!—but that hasn’t happened even once. Ha!