Day 27 Gratitude: Ridwell

Every other Monday is Ridwell day for us. Ridwell is a subscription-based service that collects hard-to-recycle items from a box on your front porch. There are regular categories–plastic film, batteries, light bulbs, multi-layer plastic, and threads (clean clothing, rags, and shoes)–as well as a featured category, such as hand tools, jewelry, or holiday lights.

I have been unloading all sorts of random “stuff” around the home, but I especially appreciate the option to recycle clean clothes or textiles that have holes or are stained. Instead of throwing such items in the landfill, I’ve been holding on to those because I didn’t want to add to the landfill if there were some reusable purpose. Ridwell takes care of these items, partnering with organizations that have creative ways of repurposing materials. For example, outerwear has been recycled into bags, with the notions (zippers, snaps, etc.) retained for reuse.

I have always recycled with my local trash company and have donated reusable items to local charities, but have been stumped when my items don’t fit a recycling category or aren’t in good enough condition to be reused in the same manner again. I feel so much relief knowing there are innovative organizations out there who reimagine items that have outlived their original purpose. 

I am grateful that someone created Ridwell and that I live in one the cities where Ridwell operates.

Day 26 Gratitude: Light in the Midst of Darkness

We are not big on decorating for Christmas these days. With AD/HD, it’s hard to keep up with everything. I want to decorate more, but it just doesn’t seem to happen without a larger resident team–something we don’t have anymore. 

However, we never skip the lights. Because, who doesn’t need light in the darkest month of the year? And . . . we’re just about to that month.

Thanks to our daughter, we have lights this year–and we have these specific lights on our current Christmas tree. 

I asked someone to come set up our Christmas tree because looking at flashing lights is a great activity for someone recovering from surgery. Or for his wife who can stand to chill out a bit.

The toughest part of the job seemed to be getting the combination lock to work so that our daughter and her fiance could get the tree from the garage attic and get it out and working. But the three of us finally succeeded with that lock.

Now the tree has all its 3,200 LED lights working. Why so many, you ask? Back to my daughter–she got me to purchase a National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation branded tree when I found it for 90% off. And I have never regretted it. We don’t even have to decorate it if we don’t get around to it (back to that AD/HD thing). 

Excuse us while we just sit here in the dark and stare at the lights. I am so grateful for light in the midst of darkness.

Day 25 Gratitude: Vegging Out

Furgus watching TV in 2011.

We have spent the last few decades as Luddites. In fact, we’ve never bought a TV. First, our friends and family gave us a TV for a wedding present. Then they hid the remote, which we didn’t even try to find because we weren’t using one previously. Finally, my brother-in-law got it out for us, exasperated that we didn’t care.

And we never got into cable–which was always hard for my brother and family when they’d come for Thanksgiving. But they did get us an upgraded TV–which was analog. That meant we ended up having to use a converter box to get any channels.

So you can imagine we haven’t watched a lot of TV programs over the last few years. We didn’t even watch anything during the heart of the pandemic–no tigers, chess, or whatever else was happening. We were just happy to cast some of our Zoom fitness classes to a bigger screen.

My daughter had finally had it with us–when her fiance got a new TV, they gave us his and set us up. We have only watched a few movies and fewer series–but we have watched some shows.

The problem now is that we do not have a TV upstairs. And now is not the time for my husband to go downstairs and sit on that basement couch. Luckily, the kids came through again–her fiance moved up the TV for the current time when my husband is supposed to keep his right leg straight in the recliner.

I don’t think we’ve ever had as much non-phone/computer screen time as we did today. So far we’ve watched two movies and three episodes. Yikes! Don’t worry–he’s made his laps around the room and done his exercises. He also napped and read.

I actually slipped out for a walk after the sun came out and we reached a balmy 24 degrees. Thank goodness, because vegging out is not my usual style. But it’s good to have the option with our so-far-sleepless nights. Today I am grateful we had the option to veg out. 

Day 24 Gratitude: Naps

I still haven’t recovered from only getting four and half hours of sleep two nights ago. And I’m not even the patient who had the surgery! In the two nights since his surgery, my husband has had to get up several times to go to the bathroom. I sleep through a lot of those trips, but not all of them–the walker sounds a bit like Jacob Marley (of Dickens’ Christmas Carol) and his chains clunking down the hall.

And it’s not just recovering from lack of sleep. Yesterday–because it was Thanksgiving–we did venture out. I suppose the patient will stay inside going forward until we leave for his physical therapy appointment on Tuesday. Loading the car was a lot–had to bring the gates for him, his props for positioning, all the Thanksgiving food, and the dogs. Only then could I supervise his trips out and in of our houses. At least it hadn’t turned icy yet when we did that.

So right now it’s not just the patient who is napping during the day. He’s in the recliner and I have graduated (finally!) to the couch. Today I was so out of it that when Puddintane kept jumping on and off me, I didn’t even wake up fully. 

Yes, I am grateful to be able to nap. This too shall pass–but for now, it’s just the right way to pass some of the time while he is in the initial stages of healing.

Day 23 Gratitude: Family

This year our kids hosted Thanksgiving. All my husband had to do was use his walker to get into the recliner at their house. And then he could stay attached to his recirculating ice machine and eat his meals on a TV tray.

I am grateful for our family, as always. But last night our daughter stopped by to bring over things like pudding and jello–and helped me go get some supplies (including ice cream!) and to pick up pizza. Our son came over to make certain his dad was okay.

Today our daughter’s fiance coordinated the meal and made all the side dishes. I brought the ham we bought–and my husband, of course. We had a nice, calm day together (although I can’t speak for how calm the preparations were!).

On Thanksgiving, it’s hard not to remember the times that came before–and all those who are no longer with us. I remember playing hard with my cousins while being with my grandparents, parents, aunts, and uncles. As I grew up, I was able to attend as a guest at the family celebrations of others. And then came all the times with my own parents and my brother’s family or with Sherman’s parents and family. I miss so many people from those Thanksgivings, especially those loved ones who left too soon.

Those memories make me all the more grateful for the people gathered together today at our subdued celebration (if you can call a celebration where five dogs bounced around subdued–and, yes, we put up gates to protect my husband from their chaos). At my age, every person at every Thanksgiving celebration matters.

Day 20 Gratitude: Baths

I am grateful for baths. Just had my first bath in a while because I have to be careful getting out of a bathtub. But I use baths for both physical comfort and emotional comfort. Today I needed to go there to pout. While listening to a book (I am definitely not up for the kind of twisting I do to keep a physical book dry).

So the bad news: my fractures are still healing. And the slow healing has probably been exacerbated by overworking the area with PT exercises. At the end of August, the doctor said the fractures were healed and I could begin PT. A month later, after my 2-month appointment, his prescription said there were no restrictions. The PTs made their plans of treatment based on the doctor’s orders. And I did the prescribed exercises as directed. 

I could go on and on–but this is a gratitude post (I might write a different post that is NOT part of this series, though).

I love having a 1940s bathtub that is deep enough so that it is easy to soak and relax in warmth. My husband likes to call me “bubbles” when I’m in the tub, but I’m not a person who makes my baths into spas. I really just want to sit in warm water and get into a zone. 

That bathtub has been there for me on those rare occasions when I got to hide out from toddler/preschooler twins, when I had a bulging disc, when I’ve gotten chilled outside in the cold, when I would do “happy hour” (no booze) on Fridays after I came home from work, and when I just want to do my reading while sitting in water. 

Thank goodness for that bath–now I am better prepared to get back to pursuing the next steps.

Day 7 Gratitude: Clotheslines

Due to the crazy warm weather we have been having lately, I got to hang my kitchen curtains out to dry on the clothesline today. So excited to have one more time to do so. Just last week, despite sunshine, there was too much snow and mud under the line. And, alas, come next week or so, the sun will have shifted enough so that the neighbor’s house is in its way. Today was the clothesline’s last hurrah!

Like my grandmother and mom before me, I am committed to hanging my clothes on the line whenever possible. But, unlike my grandma, I do not have a competition with a next door neighbor to see who can get her laundry out earliest in the day. Not that I’d do that, but my neighbors have also never had clotheslines in the 35 years I have been living here. I felt lucky, though, to marry into the clothesline–I was so over hanging so much on a drying rack during the sunny months.

However, this year I had to do just that. After I broke my left arm mid-July, I could no longer lift the arm up high enough to attach a clothespin to the left side of the clothes. I gave in and just used the indoor drying rack. But I was seriously sad to miss out on my usual solar power from mid-July through mid-September. As soon as I could, I started using my right hand to help my left hand pin the clothes to the line. So much better! And now, I don’t even need that help.

I just love being outside in the sunshine while working at the clothesline. It turns a common chore into a pleasant activity–one that’s better for our clothing, too!

I am grateful I have a clothesline–and that I got to finish out this drying season by returning to using it again. Besides, sunlight exposure is helpful for healing fractures–I guess I can consider hanging clothes on the line as part of my recovery plan, too!

Day 5 Gratitude: Living in an Older Neighborhood

On yet another sunny day, I was able to get out in my neighborhood and go for my almost daily walk. I am grateful that I live in an older neighborhood. Of course, some of the older homes are being scraped for rebuilds, but we still have plenty of homes that were built between 1910 and the early 1960s. I love that the houses are all so different. Sometimes I will see three or four bungalows together and think that’s what counts as a “development” in my neighborhood–and even those similar homes will have unique features.

Though I live in a larger town that is part of metropolitan Denver, the houses surrounding mine remind me of homes from my early days when I lived in a town of 600 or when I visited my grandparents in a town of 250. Sure, my local streets are all paved–unlike the ones in my youth. Plus, there are fast-moving cars everywhere almost all the time–which is also not like what I knew growing up. But . . . these roads feel familiar because they remind me of what I used to call home. 

I feel at ease in a grid layout filled with homes that don’t match one another. Even though my town IS a suburb, it grew up alongside Denver’s early growth. What it definitely is NOT is a master-planned community. I like to look at the various structures and imagine how they came to be. Is that small home so close to another home because someone added it when their daughter got married? Was that house a farmhouse? And what’s the story of that home that seems to have been a store?

My mind just works better in the older way homes were plotted out. I get so lost in real suburban communities with their street names that can include Street, Way, Place, Court, etc.—and so many curves. Just give me a grid and alphabetical street names–and homes that all seem distinct.

Yes, I am grateful this “mature” person lives in a mature neighborhood.

Journey Home

My Aunt Liz/Elizabeth went home last week. But where was home for her? She didn’t grow up with the certainty of home. I think that when she joined our family, she found that home, even if it wasn’t the picture-perfect home of her childhood dreams.

For those of us who grow up knowing only a home and parents who put us first, it’s hard to understand what it must be like for people whose lives begin differently. Home is both people and a safe space—and for far too many, it is not a given.

I like to think it was Liz’s destiny to find that space in our larger family. That when she was randomly assigned to room with my mom at college, that she was finally walking on that path toward what she craved.

Soon the babies—my cousins—came. And they didn’t stop until she had six within around 15 years. Her house was full. By the time I came into this world, she and most of her children were a big part of what I knew of as family. Their family home buzzed with a whole lot of activity, and was yet a place where a kid like me—who only had one brother—still encountered an aunt who kept a twinkle in her eyes—even when her eyes didn’t always work as well as they should have.

Growing up, I had my own home and family—but I also grew up feeling like my grandparents’ house, where our larger family gathered together, was also home—especially when all the people in our circle, like my aunt, joined us there.

I am sure this house was home to my aunt, too. When a person grows up moving around, it’s hard to know who to trust. Who really has your back? When she joined my mom’s family, she found that safe space. She had family—a big extended family that kept growing over the years.

In our family—despite the differences—we are home to one another. And Liz was a big part of why that is true—she knew in a way that the rest of us didn’t that family and home shouldn’t have to be aspirational.

As so, as many of us who were able came home to send her on to her next home. Rest, dear one—you are home, yet again.

Walk On

Almost 40 years ago, I received a gift of shoes from a grieving mother—shoes I never had the heart to wear. The thought that kept running through my head at the time was “I can’t fill Jenne’s shoes.” No, but I know now that her mom wanted me to honor her by walking in her shoes. Not to be her, but to show my love for her by wearing something she, too, had worn.

I’m much older now and have said goodbye to many significant people since then—but Jenne was one of my first goodbyes, and I didn’t yet understand much about grieving.

When my father died, I brought home his hiking boots—the ones he thought he needed for his new life in the mountains. But as he was rather the same person in the mountains as he had been on the plains, those boots didn’t get much use. From him that is. I, on the other hand, wore them out. By then, I realized that wearing someone’s shoes was a way to keep someone walking with me just a little longer. It was my goal to take my father to all sorts of summits and vistas and show him what you can’t really see from a car. I liked to think about him when I hiked in those boots that are long gone—though not so long gone as he is after these almost 20 years.

My mom’s feet were smaller than mine are, so I shared her shoes (including her hiking boots, which she did use on a few trails) with others. From her, I ended up with socks I bought for her to wear in her care center. If you’ve had a loved one living in such a place, you know the drill—you have to mark the name on all their clothes and shoes. So, after 11 years now, I’m down to a pair or two of dark socks with “Elda” painted on the bottoms (in Wite-Out) that still make me smile.

And, when I got a text last summer from my nephew’s wife asking whether I had shared a shoe size with my late sister-in-law, I remembered all those trips together to the outlet mall when we could never find size 9 ½ shoes—for either one of us. Yes—I shared her size.

Oh, did she have shoes—and I couldn’t even fit in all her shoes. These are good quality shoes, the kinds you can wear for working on your feet or walking while shopping. The first trip I took her on was up to Estes Park, CO, where we used to meet when my parents lived there. And just like back in those days, we ended up in the grocery store gathering picnic supplies so we could eat outside, and we walked around town shopping and shopping—just like she would have done. Then when day was almost done, I walked her beside the lakeshore where we left behind part of her and her son. What a hard walk that was.

But for much of this winter I have practically lived in her Bearpaw boots. It’s hard not to think of her as I go about my life—knowing that I get to walk while she is done with that journey.

It’s that thought that has inspired me to keep wearing my mask when so many are done with them. I consider my masks a way to honor her—by protecting others who might be vulnerable as she was. I don’t know when I will stop with the masks—even though the CDC today said I am pretty much free to do so. What I know is that I have so many shoes to walk in—because she didn’t get to do so. And not only did she die, but she did so in a protracted, horrible way. So, I hesitate to change my habits yet.

Here we are a year later—a year after that morning when my brother’s phone call came way too early to be good news. She’s still gone. Every time my brother sends me a card with only his name on the address label, my breath catches.

The world is emptier for her absence. It’s cliché to say, but she was one in a million—and one in 947,417 of those lost to Covid-19 in the U.S. (according to Johns Hopkins, as of today, February 25, 2022). I carry my memories of her in my heart—and right on down to my feet.

Walk on.