June 10, 2006
Each morning, at breakfast, we measure out our “meds” into little crystal saltcellars that accompany us to the table. There, between the fruit and the cereal, we begin to swallow the heavy-duty prescription pills, the vitamin supplements and the other items purported to improve our skin, joints, memories, and general well being. My brother says that his pills are of such volume that he has two breakfasts, and I recall entering a doctor’s office where the request was to bring the medications one was presently taking and seeing a woman with a large plastic bag full to the brim. At the time I felt a little smug about my small collection, but now I am beginning to think that soon I will need two “pill pots” to start my day. Since I am convinced that my contemporaries are also consuming great stacks of medications, all quietly and without comment, it doesn’t bother me greatly.
Our summer birds that have come to this place to rear their families are suddenly hitting the feeders with a vengeance. Today, we watched two red-winged blackbirds frenetically grabbing up seeds and carrying them to four fledges lined up in a row on the top of the arbor on the west side of the lawn. The fledges were all wide open beaks, flittering wings, and instant squawks as soon as the parent birds turned around to get more food. There is always a recalling of our own experiences of early parenthood in the sight of this, and we smile. I don’t know whether birds ever are left off the hook on this one, where they can one day just sit on the line and say, “We’re glad that’s over with. . .” I suspect they are compelled to reenact this force of nature year after year until they expire.
How splendid it is to come to the morning and realize that the nightly aches and pains that moved through the body with such creative selection of bone and tissue have greatly diminished. (For a time, I became convinced that several of my teeth were dying because of the throbbing in the jaw). I tell myself, “Remember, oh you must remember now that these things will come to an end” because I still have the sixth round of chemotherapy with its attendant havoc to the body ahead of me. Even as I write these words, countless gallons of the chemicals discovered and created to help defer cancer’s dying are being infused and injected into grateful persons because they are the only known route to healing and remission. These same chemicals carry in them toxicity that is strong enough to put nurses behind huge aprons and into large rubber gloves, and the contents in turn can take out hair, give face spots, cause nausea or have innumerable other side effects. The bottom line that brings us all to “do what we have to do” is the grand possibility of life resumed, or life extended. How thankful we are for that!
Sanctuary is moving away from the new bright colors of spring into dark greens and the rich hues of reproduction. Now there is honeysuckle in the woods, with chokecherries, flea bane, elderberries and wild roses blooming along the paths and on the edges of the wetlands. When Alphie and I walked shortly after dawn, the new sunlight was coming through the cream colored bloomstalks on the head-high grasses that line the path on the west side of the forty acres. It brought to mind the patterns in fine laces and embroideries seen on elegant clothing. Perhaps it all began in some meadow long ago when someone figured out how to use needle and thread to transfer the innate beauty of the humble grass’s offerings into the finest decorations and adornments still cherished today. 
Yesterday the wonderful celebration of Pentecost took place. The gift of the Holy Spirit given in wind and flame is remembered and the reality of the Spirit’s presence within each of us is reinforced. Music written for the day takes us there both with quiet sounds of mystical movement and with huge sounds and fiery tempos that engulf us in the power of this great event. This year, I could run out to meet it feeling better than I have felt for many days. What a blessing is that! The nausea is gone now, and the energy is much better. 
Always, I am so thankful for the encouragement that I receive from so many of you when I begin to sag. Fine words from daughter Janna saying that maybe I mistook the word “Remission” in my understanding. . . that rather than assuming that I would return to the place where I had once been, that perhaps the remission journey was starting out on another road heretofore unknown to me. Now I am no longer in the precarious place of an illness intent on taking my life away, but rather moving toward a new experience, far better than living within the confines of diminishing blood cells but not at all out of the struggle. Within that construct, I am truly doing better, and prayers are indeed answered and thanksgiving is in order. Dancing and loud singing will surely follow! I visited with the oncologist and received a week’s reprieve from the chemotherapy so that I can travel with Charles to a recital in Milwaukee on the first day of summer. This last session in the series is strongly recommended, and I wouldn’t want to stop on third base and not try to get home. 
Meanwhile, I have determined to teach Alphie some manners so that when we take him off his lead, he doesn’t leap straight up and attempt to flatten you out while mouthing your arms and leaving the marks of teeth behind. I studied the book, “Labrador Retrievers for Dummies” figuring that if it applied, I would not flinch. This book is inclined to see all dogs as dear creatures with hearts of gold and overflowing with good intentions. It described the aforementioned leaping up as the dog’s need to see the expression on one’s face, apparently close up and personal. “If it is warm and friendly, then the dog knows all is well.” Since Alphie behaves the same whether it is a gaze “warm and friendly” or a look of frozen horror, I am not sure that this applies. Anyway, the only method strongly recommended for behavior modification is through treats; hot dogs and cheese bits topping the list. All other disciplines, i.e., kneeing the creature in the chest in hopes of deflecting him, or yanking a choke chain are sternly rejected as abusive. I am pleased to report that I am making progress. . . this is based entirely upon the fact that Alphie would sell his soul (if he had one) for cheese and hot dogs. He stands, quivering, desperate to leap and flatten, but there, before his sensitive nose, hidden in my fist is the morsel and my demand that he “SIT”. He finally sits so he can have the treat, and I can free him from his lead and we can go forth on his walk in peace and harmony. Hot dogs and string cheese are quite inexpensive at WalMart, and I can almost see the day when Alphie will respond calmly and with great dignity to young and old alike. Charles just responds with an enigmatic smile to my reports of this grand turn around, but surely we will locate the reason this breed is considered #1 in all the dog books one of these days. I am optimistic!