Happy birthday to my daughter!

google image

Twenty one years ago, our family was gifted by a perfect little baby girl with a rosebud mouth and golden curls. The only one of the kids born with hair, and it was curled gold. She was the baby girl we had described in our wishes and hopes.

From the beginning, she was soft and sweet and easy to take care of and love. She nursed right away, she quieted at our touch, and she slept through her two and three year old brothers' raucous activity.

I had so many fears during the pregnancy. We had amniocentesis done to make sure she was okay. I had been in a terrible car accident, and had medications and treatment that could have harmed her. I will always remember the tears of joy and relief when I heard the words from the geneticist at the hospital, 'Your baby is a girl, and she's perfect'. And, she is. Perfect.

She has become an elegant, intelligent, independent, beautiful woman poised to set the world on fire. She has compassion, tolerance and the ability to empathize. She is who I would like to be when I grow up.

I have watched as she shouldered the mantle of womanhood this past year, suddenly becoming the strong arms that supported and held me as my tiny dog was euthanized in my arms. She was my support and my guide through the confusing journey these past weeks as my husband struggled for his life. Hers were the cool hands on my flushed tear stained face. She stepped into the role our mothers and grandmothers have been in for as long as there have been people. She became the nurturer, the healer, the medicine woman.

I am honored to know her, blessed to be her mother.

For all you have been to us, for all you are, for all you will become, Emily Anne, we love you. We are excited to share the next decades with you.

Happy birthday, my sweet daughter! Thank you for being mine!

Love,

Momma

Happy Birthday to Me

Today, I turn 55. I am the speed limit in Oregon. I am eligible for senior discounts at Burger King and Ross (on Tuesday). I am seven years from the US age for Social Security. Hmmm.

I don't feel any age at all. I am often surprised when I catch a glimpse at myself in a window or mirror, surprised at my, well, maturity. I know I look older, I just don't feel it. Age is a number. I think I quit feeling any age at all around 35 or 38. Forty didn't even really dent my dissociation with my age.

However, I react, often quite badly, when my sister, who is a year and a half older than I, reaches a landmark age. I hated when she turned 55. I kept calling her up to process my new view of her until she got mad. She really didn't feel inclined to counsel me through her aging process. The thing is, by the time I reach the same age eighteen months later, I breeze through it, it feels familiar and I am okay with it. I'm sure she appreciates her role in my coping... Right.

Well, I don't mind 55 at this point. It is what it is. I feel good, I look okay, I have a great family, many friends, and a job I love. I miss the admiring glances from men, true, but, at least I had them at one time. And what a future I have; travel nursing, being a grandma, retiring with my life love, learning Spanish, meeting more wonderful animals, and getting more and more comfortable with myself and my God.

I'll keep you posted on the ride!

Happy birthday, Jennie May

Happy birthday, Mom. This is the day I will celebrate your birth, eighty seven years ago today. You got to see your sixty-third birthday, and three days more. You got to see your children grown, and some of their children grown. You got to see what a big beautiful family you had created. You expressed pride and contentment at the family reunion in your honor that last birthday weekend.

In the chaos that was our family life, you taught me love. To love a child or a handicapped person or an old person or an animal. To love a man who is flawed. To 'have a little talk with God' when things crashed in around me.

I miss you, Mom. You are always in my heart, and often on my mind. Your voice is the voice I hear when I need strength and guidance at a patient's bedside. Your hands guide mine as I soothe the sick and vulnerable. Your dedication and uncompromising standards of patient care helped set my own standards. You are never forgotten and always with me.

I only wish you could have been here to see my kids. They are awesome. I know you are with us, I know you can see and feel them from where you are now. I have tried to bring you to life for them through stories and favorite objects of yours. But, I just wish you were here, for them, for us, for me.

Thank you for being my mom, my friend, my example. Happy birthday, Momma.

My husband's birthday

Today, my husband is sixty four years old.  Sixty four.  Whoa.  I met him when he was twenty-eight, all sinewy tight muscles, full beard and gleaming smile.  He laughed at life, knowingly enjoying the privileges of being a well educated, beautiful, physically fit young man with a trust fund.

He had a devilish quality that made efforts to be serious with him seem futile.  He was, generally, the most frustrating and the most interesting man I'd ever met.  But, I was more than a decade younger, so what did I know of men?  I was a teenager.  Ten years later, we married.  He was still just as frustrating and interesting, but not as devilish or cavalier.  He was growing up, becoming more serious.

Today, he is quite serious about many things, his ability to laugh at whatever life throws at him diminished by his concern about finances, the future, our health, his work, and his elderly widowed mother.  Life has a way of getting your attention and keeping you on task.

But, away from work and duties, he becomes, sometimes for just a little while, the fun loving carefree person I knew.  He still loves baiting me, making me feel silly, catching me in non sequiturs, laughing at my lack of physical coordination, and generally being a burr under my saddle.  He challenges me to be better than I otherwise might be and to keep up with his blazing intellect.  In return, I interpret the feelings and emotions that he is unable to comprehend in himself and others.  I urge him to listen with his heart to babies and old people and animals.  

He has changed physically from the young man I fell in love with, but I have changed, too.  He still thinks I am beautiful.  I ask him what happened to him; when I met him, he had money, muscles and a Corvette.  He replies that the only consistent factor has been me.  Probably real close to the truth.

To George:  still funny, still too smart for my own good, still strong, still beautiful, still loved by this clumsy emotional gal. Happy birthday, my friend, my partner, my love.  Many more to ya!  Many more to us...

Happy Birthday, Florence Nighingale.

Today marks the 189th year since Florence Nightingale was born in Florence, Italy.  Her life and professional endeavors serve as guidance and inspiration to nurses even today.  Her writings are still relevant.  She was a mathematician, an architectural planner, an expert on health care and hospital planning, and a compassionate human.

She devoted her life to a calling from God to improve the care and outcomes of the sick and injured patients that died in the thousands daily in England.  She put her own life on the line to care for wounded and ill soldiers in the appalling conditions of the Crimean War.  She advocated for good, clean, evidence-base health care for everyone, not just the wealthy.    She opened the first nursing school in London in 1860.  (see Google Images) 

Florence Nighingale was the consummate professional nurse, one I am inspired by and aspire to emulate.  She is a rare female hero in a well-populated boys club.  I raise my lamp to you, Flo.