Time on the Flying Trapese

Has it been over a week since I blogged? Oh, dear. I used to assume that time would somehow slow when people retired. I have longed for time to slow down, but instead it goes faster and faster. Some have told me that time does this for people as they grow older. Certainly I did not calculate how much slower I would be with everything I do as I age. So the same activities fill up more time than in the past. I have heard so many retired people wonder how in the world they used to fit in an eight-hour-a-day work schedule. Life has a way of gobbling up time once someone retires. So that is my excuse for not blogging, and I’m sticking to it.

Katherine had been waiting patiently all summer and filling in aides shift by shift the best she could. She was comforted knowing that even though two of her summer workers were going off to college, she had two other aides coming on her staff who were highly trained and experienced.

As her always difficult life would have it, however, one of the two developed transportation problems that have prevented her from working so far, and yesterday the one who had begun this week somehow had an accident with a hospice patient in a Hoyer life. She ended up in the Emergency Room with three broken ribs! All this has certainly destroyed Katherine’s plans and hopes for consistent scheduling. Yet she keeps coping. It also does not help that Katherine has been quite ill with an infection that is being treated with an antibiotic. It does help that this time the infection is expected to be cured with meds taken only every 12 hours instead of the more frequent kind. Two extra pills a day is not that difficult for someone who takes a huge number already of various kinds for different reasons for a systematic disease like multiple sclerosis.

When David left Katherine to go to the farm today, I arrived at their house to replace him before noon at 11, and I found myself eating supper back here at Woodsong at l0 tonight and taking the eight pills I take daily with that meal. Like many women I will take thyroid pill when I wake up in the early morning hours since it must be taken with lots of water but no food. I know my good health prohibits me from griping, although when I was younger, I always refrained from any kind of pills if at all possible.

Katherine was up and dressed in her chair when I arrived, but she and I were busy for most of the time I was there: repositioning, eating lunch and a little supper and taking those many pills with apple sauce, adjusting ceiling fans and lap blankets as her needs changed, trying to make her more comfortable in that miserable wheelchair by pulling on the draw sheet on top of the seat cushion. Nevertheless, we did have time to watch Neil Simon’s Brighton Beach Memoirs, which she had recorded, and that was fun even though we kept being interupted. She watched a bit more television and napped a tiny bit while I was doing some kitchen clean up.

Sam slept late this morning recovering from the late night high school football game last night. I had taken him Thursday night for their marching band rehearsal, and I wondered how any director could get a band ready to perform in August so soon after the start of school. But he did, and Sam was enjoying every minute of it.

He also was enjoying his plans for today to be picked up by his cousins Trent and Brianna and their friend Sarah. They have all known Sarah for years, but she has just moved into her grandmother’s former home in our village of Crab Orchard, so now they can see her more often. They were headed to Trent and Bri’s new down-here home to watch movies. Their dad Brian was down for the weekend from central Illinois to work on his crops here. Mary Ellen was tied up in Springfield with a real estate responsibility and had told us yesterday she couldn’t come this time.

Gerald was mowing up at the other place when I left the farm this morning, and I left his lunch in the oven. He was already asleep when I returned this evening. But from notes left on my desk, I see he also made time today to do some shopping for a new mattress that the physical therapist has been advising him about. He had just started physical therapy this week, and already he is feeling better.

We communicated by phone a couple of times. It is interesting that families are often spread out over much more geographic territory than in the past, but with cell phones, texting, and Internet, families are more in communication contact than ever before in history. Our son was watching Little League baseball. Jeannie, of course, was riding her bike. Gerry and Vickie’s grandson Aidan in the first grade won his first football game today. Our piano rack holds three photos of three-year-old Maddux on his first day of preschool this week. Gerald copied them off the Internet as he also did the 8 by 10 photo of our beautiful Brianna, which now graces our bookcase.

I not only know about my own family today, but our young friend in the Washington, D.C., area talked to both of her college kids today, and she not only knows they are doing well, but thanks to Facebook, I know it too. I also observed her North Carolina aunt and uncle in a photo they posted showing their outing to a mountain. Another friend was celebrating with a family party tonight for their adult son’s birthday, and I know who attended. A young friend who has spent three weeks with her mother during a serious hospitalization sent me a return message on Facebook as well as posting her mother’s turn-around and great progress. One of Katherine’s classmates now out in Oregon told of problems they once had with their new-born and asked for prayer for another couple going through this same situation. I sent up a prayer for them.

On and on, I learned about various folks I care about and some folks I don’t even know. Maybe the wealth of information is one more reason I stay busier than I would like. Yet I find it happily amazing that I have all this information at my fingertips. This availability makes this century incredibly different than any previous time. Regardless, we must face that fact that time no longer marches on but that it flies with the greatest of ease while we try to keep our balance and embrace the experience.

West Side Story and More

We just finished up our over-full, fun filled, too busy, exhausting, crammed, and sad weekend at Woodsong yesterday when Leslie left mid morning and mid-week to return to Nashville. Newspaper and television kept us aware of the sadness all around us due to the tornado, and we know personal sadnesses also.

When our grandkids learned about their cousin Sam’s spot in the pit orchestra in West Side Story, they plotted how they could be here for the Saturday performance. And despite the distance and parental fearful reluctance about all the travel involved, the younger generation had their way, and all cousins were here to cheer on Sam except the softball cousins, who were tied up elsewhere.

Down in Athens, the University of Georgia continued their winning ways at softball, and Gerald was able to follow part of the games on his computer. Erin’s team at Southern Illinois University Carbondale also won all four games to be the champions at the Coach B Tournament. Gerald and I did make the first game there, and we were glad it ended early with a run-ruled game. I was anxious to get back to the farm to be there when the grandkids arrived. Gerald learned on the way to the game that the young men he had asked to help burn the native grasses were going to do it that very afternoon.

The grandkids arrived after Brianna and Trent’s long trip up to pick up Elijah at Bloomington, where Jeannie brought Cecelie to join them. Five grandkids in the same car necessitated many prayers by parents for their safety. The five arrived in time to go by and pick up Sam to come out to Woodsong with them before they took him back to the Civic Center in town. They had every detail planned, and it was not five minutes after they arrived that they were at the dining room table eating cupcakes and playing a board game someone carried in. They also carried in a cookie cake with “My Little Pony” emblazoned on it as a birthday cake for Trent who had reached 19 the day before—their inside joke for teenage boys who watch the show for a joke. “Bromies” was the term for these guys, I was told.

I felt sorry for Gerald since he had really worked hard all Saturday morning to take off for the game. Meeting the government’s requirements for burning these fields had not been on his day’s planned agenda. But he was back at the farm in time to make the necessary phone calls, and he was thoroughly impressed with Brandon White and Randy Payne’s expertise and equipment for doing this job. He came in tired but pleased in time for a bite of supper and to take us in to West Side Story.

In the meantime, Leslie, who was on spring break from Belmont, also arrived and unloaded before we gave her instructions on parking and acquiring a ticket since when I bought tickets early in the week, I did not know she would be able to come. Mary Ellen and Brian also came downstate to support Sam and arrived shortly before show time. We all found our seats in the beautiful but very crowded civic center as we wanted to be sure to hear the orchestra’s prologue.

Sam’s parents Katherine and David and I had gone to the Friday night performance as well as Saturday’s. The second night I was more prepared to understand the plot even though the sound system was inadequate for actors’ dialogue, so I enjoyed it even more that second night. (It had been much too long since I saw the movie to remember the characters and plot.)

The vocalists’ and orchestra’s music was wonderful, the gymnastic dancing with fighting scenes was fantastic, and the set was spectacular. I cannot remember a high school set of that high caliber before. Scene changes were almost instant and always pleasing. Todd Graham, the high school band director, and parents had built set in the week before the performance. The unexpected day off school on Wednesday due to the electrical outage caused by the tornado did not seem to have hurt the cast’s successful execution of this complicated show.

While Sam was at the after-musical cast party, the rest of us came back to Woodsong to eat sandwiches and enjoy Trent’s two birthday cakes and ice cream. His parents had carried in the second traditional cake.

I don’t know when the kids went to bed that night but sometime after midnight when David brought Sam out. There were ten sleeping here, so couches were full. I do know only Leslie and Cecelie made it up in time to go to Sunday School with Gerald and me. Elijah and Sam came in with Mary Ellen for worship. I was glad when the pastor caught the kids before the service began and asked Leslie and Elijah to sing for us. I’d never heard them sing together before, and it did their grandmother’s heart good.

I’d stuck in a couple of large frozen lasagnas in the oven before I left home, so everyone gathered in for lasagna and salad with left-over birthday cakes for lunch. David brought Katherine and her aide out in the van. People were coming and going with the kids riding the Gator and playing with Jake and going over to see farm buildings that Mary Ellen and Brian were leasing. Too soon it was time for everyone to go back upstate or home to Marion, and only Leslie was left on the farm with Gerald and me. Again with all the upstate driving that Brianna, age 17, was yet to do taking the cousins back to Bloomington, I was grateful no painful phone calls ruined our weekend.

We were very pleased to have this special pre-wedding time with our Leslie. She was busy while she was here shopping, getting a haircut from her cousin Erin’s stylist, and most of all working at her computer and keyboard composing a jingle tune to be used as an introduction for a podcast. This was for her second paying client, and I was fascinated as she explained the process to me.

We still found time over bowls of cereal at late breakfasts and again at evening suppers to talk, and I loved hearing her ideas and plans for her and Mike’s future together. She and Erin had planned dinner together on Tuesday evening, but with SIUC leaving the next morning for their Honolulu tournament, a called team practice prevented it.

Since Lesley had a meeting with a professor Wednesday afternoon, she had to leave us yesterday morning. Gerald and his brother Keith were meeting Garry and Ginger for breakfast at Jonesboro to belatedly celebrate Garry’s Saturday birthday and also celebrate that Garry had gotten out of the hospital the day before his birthday. (In the meantime, Garry had to take Ginger to the hospital in the middle of the night Monday, but after they checked her heart, she was dismissed Tuesday afternoon.) Gerald was able to run by Bill and Mickey’s and see the tornado destruction there before he came home. Bill’s three daughters as well as many friends and other relatives had come and cleaned up as much as possible in the immediate aftermath. Of course, there is still much to do.

Now everyone is back safely at home except for Erin in Hawaii, who is thoroughly enjoying herself, I am sure. Leslie is again at her job decorating cakes at Kroger. While I am proud of her tremendous talent and academic success, I am also very proud that she has worked part time throughout her college career—on campus during the school year until this job at Kroger. I liked what she told me about all the things she has learned about people while working there and her appreciation for those who will continue there while she has hopes of moving on to better and more interesting things.

Today Gerald had a free lunch at a John Deere Day down in Union County, so I had a leisurely morning and was only eating lunch myself when he came in at almost two. Later I picked up Sam from jazz band practice and saw Katherine briefly when I took supper into their house. Tomorrow we are having lunch with Bill and Mickey, and we will be hearing more about their house and barn rebuilding.

As I said at the beginning of this blog, our lives have been overfull and much too busy. I can’t believe that tomorrow it is actually another weekend.