Reach Out and Touch

These are four of the nicest people I know. The dad, Joel, worked with me at Roy's back in the day. His smile was ever present, his laughter came through even on the most stressful of days, and his love for life was contagious.

Kirsten came to work with us at Roy's later. She is one of the coolest women I have ever known. Smart, funny, kind, and compassionate. And a whole lot of fun. One time I managed to slip out of motherly and wifey routines and escape with Kirsten and another friend to Maui for the weekend where we attended a workshop and stayed at a friend's house.

Great times. Absolutely wonderful memories.

******

Kirsten and Joel became best friends before they became serious. Their relationship started off on solid ground and turned into something huge and enduring.

My son was the ring bearer at their wedding. It goes down in my memory as best wedding ever. Everyone stayed until the end, dancing the night away in a hotel ballroom with a view of Waikiki and Diamond Head.

*****

I left Roy's to teach full time.

Kirsten went on to earn her Master's degree in clinical psychology.

Joel went into management.

Kirsten and Joel moved several times as he managed different restaurants. They ended up in Seattle with two beautiful little boys.



A year ago Joel was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of cancer.

Since then, Kirsten and Joel have been fighting hard for his life. He has been in remission and out and in remission again.

Then last week, the doctors told Kirsten if Joel wanted to come home and spend time with his friends and family, now would be the time. His liver cannot take any more chemo. They have been told that hospice might be the best choice right now.

Joel's come home to Hawaii.

We hope and pray for a miracle.

All prayers, visualizations, good wishes, are needed and welcome.

Joel's friends have set up this website to help the family out. Please visit. Offer them your love and prayers and if you can help them out through this most difficult time,

Thank-you.

And tell a friend.



This will be my photo essay for the Spin Cycle this week.

Walking with a Wet Blanket

I’ve been in a funkity funk funk funk.

In two and a half weeks I’ve lost ten pounds.

I have a nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach nearly all the time.

I just got through reading this inspiring post at Vodka Mom’s.

Logically, I see the perspective and how what is devastating me right now, in the grand scheme of things, and in light of all that can go wrong in the world, my problems, my family’s problems, could be worse.

Still.

As grateful that I am for all I have and as hopeful as I am trying to be…

I feel a rip, a tear in the fabric that holds me together.

Not ever having been a person who cries or wells up, I find myself fighting back tears out of nowhere.

One foot in front of the other.

One moment at a time.

A constant vigil to hope and trust that we are making decisions that will bring us closer to better and not worse.

This too shall pass…



I've updated the sunrise in the sidebar (finally). Head on over for a post much more uplifting.

Love

This week Mr. Pseudo and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary. We did not go out, we did not buy gifts. We had a home cooked meal as a family. When I get my break from work we will do something a bit more. But sometimes you just feel like you need to baton down the hatches and keep everything close. We have a lot of blessings right here in our home.



I'm finally getting around to reading Twilight. Is it just me, or is it a romance novel with a twist? The beautiful, smart girl with a little bit of a temper? The strong, dashingly handsome young man. The electrifying sexual tension. And I thought it was the vampire thing that had all the girls in my class reading it.

The Spin Cycle this week is LOVE.

Living with people you love isn’t always easy. But just when you wonder if it’s all worth it and maybe your life would be simpler and more peaceful if you did a nonalcoholic version of Kerouac and took off with that backpack and headed, say, to a train (and no, Captain, we do not have trains over here I’d have to take a plane first, which does change the whole running away mysticism). What was I saying? Oh yeah. Just when you wonder if all the anxiety and stress is something you can live with FOREVER, it stops. And you feel the love come pouring in, like a calm blanket, and it wraps you up and you know you would lie down in front of that train instead of getting on it if you needed to in order to make your loved ones life better somehow. And I guess that’s what we do metaphorically every time we stick around when it’s not pretty.

I woke up from a dream this morning. My dreams can get fairly bizarre, but this one was so simple, it was like dream interpretation for intuitive idiots. In my dream I was at the movies with my daughter. I was watching the movie, but I was holding a white teddy bear with a red ribbon tied around its neck. We were sitting in the side aisle. Along through the middle aisle, I feel before I see someone approaching. It’s my husband, and he’s making his way over to us. And guess what is in his arms? A bigger-than-mine, white teddy bear and a big cello wrapped bunch of long stemmed red roses. My daughter elbows me and we move down a seat and make room for the hubs. Without saying a word, we both acknowledge we are not angry any more, and shake our heads at the matching make up gifts.

I know it sounds as corny as a carnival dog, but that’s the dream. Very clichéd, yes. But in reality, we have NEVER given each other stuffed animals, so I guess my psyche was telling me we are both a couple of toddlers when it comes to holding a grudge and staying pissy.

So I wake up from this dream and it’s, of course, 3:30 AM (because that is the usual insomniac moment of waking and not being able to go back to sleep for me) and I look over at my sleeping husband and it is like watching a terrible two year old. Remember those days? The wild child by day looks like an angel when sleeping? I see the peacefulness of his sleep rimmed with the worry of work being slow and bills not paid. Instead of wanting to hit him over the head with a blue pillar, I want to lay my hand over his forehead and somehow absorb the anxiety that haunts him.

I go into my son’s room and there is my 6’1” gangly sixteen year old sprawled as only a teenager can when knocked out for the night. He looks totally konked, but as I brush the hair off of his forehead, he smiles in his sleep, opens one eye, and mutters as he falls back to sleep, “love you mom.”

My heart melts and is refueled at the same time.

Punahou Carnival 1994. How's this for a Valentine's photo? The boy is a sweet 19 month old in the arms of his father. Grandma was still with us. She raised my husband and we made a home for her after we bought our house. Daughter is a precious 4 and a half year old looking like a poster girl for cotten candy. The giant balloon baseball bat is a bit of a scary foreshadowing of the bam bam nature of my men, but we are letting that go...

I don't remember my husband having pink shorts...I don't think he'd be able to pull that off these days, not quite sure if he pulled it off then...just saying.

Happy Valentine's week. For more love spins, head on over to Sprite's Keeper.