I was just thinking about a Halloween tradition I used to have with my dogs. I dressed them up in costumes every year. Now before you go calling PETA, I'll have you know that they loved getting dressed up. My husband used to tell me that it scared him that it would even occur to me to do such a thing (yet he married me anyway. WHAT was he thinking?)

What is so wrong with this? Don't they look like they're having a good time?



Sadly, Missy died last year after a long illness and I gave Cleo to another family because she was making Missy miserable.

I guess I won't be scaring my husband at Halloween anymore.

My third child/husband's (boy) best friend is here. They're playing x-box golf. I'm on the computer reading blogs and such. Suddenly I find myself in a mushy mood. "Go home husband's best boy friend", is what I'm thinking! ha ha.

Anyway, I had a 2.5 hour commute to work yesterday. I decided that I was getting a bit too stressed out over being late, so popped in a CD that I haven't listened to since the early dating time with my husband and me. The time before I knew that *this* was real and was really going to happen. Wow. It made me smile the rest of the way to work. It was Bryan Adams. I think I played that CD every time I went to his house when we were dating. I was totally into the Bryan Adams compilation CD I'd made at the time. The lyrics just spoke to me.

So, as I fought that 2.5 hour commute, I remembered how much I internalized some of the lyrics in the songs in those early days.

1. I'm ready To me, that symbolized how I really was ready to give up the "I'm never going to love anyone ever again" stage in my live
2. I will always return The lyrics are so about long distance relationships (at least to me!). Beautiful music and lyrics.
3. Nothing I've ever known Pretty much sums it up.

I dunno... I really thought I was done with love and all that stuff. Even when I felt things for my husband in the beginning, I fought it. I didn't want to get hurt; I've had a lifetime of that. He fought it too. He's not had the greatest of experiences either. Boy, did he fight it and was very honest with me about it. The thing is, I took him at face value. Was I surprised when he proposed. I honestly didn't expect it to happen. I certainly NEVER pushed it.

Yet, here we are. We've been living together for 13 months, married for 5 of of those months. I still get giddy about seeing him. I get butterflies when I hear his car pull up in the gravel driveway. We still have those "I can't believe that this is STILL this wonderful" conversations with each other frequently. I'm not kidding when I say we tell each other this at least weekly. At least twice a month we sit on the couch for a couple of hours and tell each other how much this relationship means to us. Who knew? I sure didn't. When I'd see couples who seemed to adore each other, I thought it was fake. Now I know better. We just click. It's SO easy. I wish I'd known how easy it could be and had the strength to give up on those awful relationships I'd had in the past. I'd of saved myself a heck of a lot of heartache. But then again, I have to think that I wouldn't fully appreciate what I have now. Catch 22 I guess.

So, a 2.5 hour commute turned into something really wonderful. I was able to go back in time and look at myself back then and smile at all the worries I had about getting too close. I was able to look at the actions that my future husband showed me (vs- the words that said he would never get to this place), and nod my head. I was able to tell that scared person I was, "ya know, it'll be ok- everything is really going to work out. You just wait and see..." I'm smiling now thinking about that . Too bad we can't all have a crystal ball, huh?

That same night, I had a night class for Hospice. I got home at 9pm. He heard me drive up the gravel driveway and greeted me at the door. He held me for a while and then kissed me and told me to go get comfy. So I did. I came out to find a plate of dinner that he made for me sitting on the table. It almost broke my heart to tell him that I already ate. He just took my plate, put it all away and cleaned up the kitchen. What a sweet man, huh?

I just kissed and held him when I saw that. Especially after the experience I'd had that morning. I told him over and over again how lucky and blessed I felt that we were together. That lead to another one of those hours long talks about us. He loves to gush too. How cool is that? Sigh....

So, this is what it's like. I had no idea that *this* really existed. I'm starting to settle into the fact that I can expect this to be wonderful for many years to come. I sure must have done something right to be this lucky, ya know?

Yep, I'm madly in love with my husband. How wonderful is that?

Tonight was the second Hospice training session. A nurse came in and talked to the class about what dying looks like. As she discussed the different steps, I would think about some of my past patients and how they were in that particular place in their journey. I could tell by some of the questions that people asked in the class that a lot were afraid that someone would die while they were alone with them. That never happened to me, and I'm glad.

At the end of the class we did an exercise, a very enlightening one. We were given four sets of five small pieces of paper. On the first set of five we were to write down possessions we have that we like; the second set was supposed to be things we value in ourselves; the third was supposed to be hobbies or things we do that we enjoy; and the last set of five were relationships.

Mine were (in no particular order):
Possessions- car, piano, espresso maker, wedding ring, music collection
Things I value in me- my independent nature, I'm happy, I like to serve others, I easily show love, my intelligence
Hobbies/things I enjoy doing- graphic work, internet research, hiking, my job (yes, really!), music
People- My husband, my sister, son #1, son#2, and my brother

Then soft music came on and the lights were dimmed. We were asked to listen to a story, and asked to place ourselves as the main character of the story. We followed this character as she found a lump that shouldn't be there; found out the lump was cancer; went through treatments; treatments stopping because they were not working; started actively dying; and finally the people with her when she died.

As we were told this story, we'd be told during certain phases to give up random numbers of those slips of paper. We were not given a category that we had to choose from. Just take the number of slips that we were instructed to pick and crumple them and throw them in the middle of the floor. This was to represent how the person feels as she's dying and starts losing things important to her. Of course, my last five were the people in my life. The two other things I had a hard time giving up were my independence and my ability to love.

It was difficult to not be absorbed by this exercise; to not think about the "what if's".

My last two slips of paper were my sister and my husband. Then I had to choose. Believe it or not, I chose my sister. I am not going to defend my decision, even though I know that my husband is supposed to come first. Or should, anyway. I couldn't love or adore my husband any more than I do, and it has nothing to do with any sort of relationship problems; because frankly I think we're pretty perfect. It has more to do with the trust and deep bond I have with my sister. She knows me like no other, and I feel that she accepts every piece of me just as I am - just as I do with her. I really do believe that she and I are soul mates. My husband knows the bond with my sister, and I think he'd understand. Thankfully, it's a choice I'll never have to make.

Lastly, we were asked to imagine our body laying in the bed after we die. We're looking down on it and we're asked to imagine who is in the room with us. It was my husband, my sons, Ranger Mike and my sister.

Seeing all of the crumpled papers on the floor really had quite an impact. There are 20 people in my class, and those are a lot of dreams and passions crumpled up on the floor. We were told to stand in a circle around those things we "lost" and hold hands and think about those that we are about to serve. It was a great exercise.

The exercise reminded me of my first hospice patient. She held tight to the same things I hold dear. Family, independence and service to others. I met her while she was still able to get up and around. She didn't have a lot of energy, so she used me as her conduit to do things for her family. She'd have me cook dinner for her husband EXACTLY the way she cooked for him. It was important to her. She supervised me cleaning up her kitchen and putting things away EXACTLY like she would have. Eventually, she didn't have the energy to even do that and she started giving up those things; just like those crumpled up pieces of paper. She did it with grace and I hope that I'll be able to do the same when my time comes.

Not very risible tonight, eh?

I was really concentrating on a project at work today and wasn't paying attention to the time. This is a dangerous thing to do because I am tied to a train schedule. Doesn't make a bit of difference if you're one minute late for the train or two hours late. When it's gone, it's gone.

I looked at the time on my computer and panicked a bit. I know that I need to leave my office at least 15 minutes before the train departs. I could get very lucky and do it in 11 minutes, but that's cutting it a little close and is exactly what happened. Apparently I wasn't the only one who was cutting it close.

I have to catch a bus to get to the train. There is one stop between where I get on the bus and the train. The bus seemed to stop an extraordinary amount of time at this stop. That's when I noticed the man sitting across from me. He was getting very irritable. He was muttering under his breath about how he's going to miss the train and how it's all his wife's fault because she didn't get off the phone so he could leave the office. I worried about his anger management skills. Then he said the most absurd thing I've ever heard.

Apparently the bus was stopped for so long because there was a wheelchaired person getting on the bus. That requires a lift to go down, the wheelchair to get on the lift, lift goes back up and then the wheelchair has to be strapped down before the bus can proceed.

This man actually said OUT LOUD, "Great, it's a G--damned wheelchair". I'm sure the look on my face showed exactly what I was thinking. What an idiot. Too bad that my thought bubble didn't pop.

Today was the first day of Hospice training. Even though I've done this before, I have to go through training all over again. That's OK, it never hurts to get a refresher. Prior to getting into the whole training piece, we were asked to think of a person who's spirit you'd like to have with you today. He said that that person could be alive or have passed on. The trainer lit a candle and turned off the lights and played a beautiful piece of music. My immediate thoughts went to my friend with cancer. I decided that I wanted to have her spirit with me today.

I did call her yesterday, but it was really difficult for me to pick up the phone. I'm glad that I called her, but the voice on the other end wasn't the voice I was used to hearing. I could hear that she was exhausted. I knew it wouldn't be one of those laughing types of conversations that I'm used to having with her. I'm glad that she didn't even try to pretend to have energy for me. She hasn't been able to eat for almost three weeks, so has a feeding tube. I kept the conversation brief, told her that I was thinking about her and wanted her to know that. She said she'd call me when she's back to work so we can reschedule that lunch date. I dunno.... I got a sinking feeling that this time she wouldn't be back to work. I don't know how she's made it this far. People generally don't survive ovarian cancer, especially if it's metastisized. I don't have that much of a survival instinct. I couldn't do that many years of chemo. That phone call made me very sad. But I'm glad that I did it.

So, back to the epiphany. I was sitting in the dark thinking about my friend. I kept wondering to myself why on earth it was so hard for me to reach out to her, when I'm perfectly able to do it with strangers. I'm not afraid of death or people who are dying. That's why I joined Hospice in the first place. This is something that I can do, that not many people can. When I'm with a Hospice family, I give them everything I have. It comes very easily to me. When I made my living as a singer, I wasn't nervous singing in front of perfect strangers. Didn't matter how many people were in the audience. People I know ask me to sing for them, and I flat out won't do it. The very idea petrifies me.

So, there's the pattern. It's all about making it personal. Now what?