Today I have traveled  49,046 million miles through outer space!  That’s 84 years’ worth of revolutions around the sun. No wonder I’m tired. One of Hal’s caregivers, who is an amazing baker as her second profession, baked me this beautiful and delicious cake.
And presents received too! And sushi for dinner! (But U of M lost to MI State)

Hal asleep now: reflecting tonight, where have 84 years taken me? What have I received and what have I given? There’s so much more in the received column. Trials, of course; worry, pain and fear… givens in a human life. But in no way have I been stretched too thin (most of the time). If I pause to look, joy and love are there. I started this morning lying in bed thanking my parents. What an act of courage to choose to have 2 children, in 1939 and 1942, when the world was in flames, dying on battlefields and penned up in terrible “camps”. To choose life is a courageous response!

I know I will keep choosing life, now and at 85, and 95 and beyond. To choose life means to say yes, even to the challenges. And yes, it is hard sometimes! I try to ask, “What are you here to teach me?” Sometimes there’s an answer, sometimes not.

My mother lived to 98; ninety-four of those years living fully independently until at age 94, a fall and broken ankle meant she could no longer live alone in her own condo (dad had died 10 years earlier). She was a wonderful painter and continued to paint into her 90s. And like me with Hal, she took care of my dad, her very disabled and beloved husband of 60+ years with Parkinsons, at home for many years, not because she “should” or had too, but for love.

 

Looking here at one of my favorites of her paintings (It hangs in our living room) and one of my sculptures, I can so clearly see the similarities, despite the difference in mediums.

One of my sons asked me yesterday, “what’s next for you this year?” Sharing the Dharma, of course. This brings me such joy. In January 2018 I started a new book, one from me, not channeled. I was very enthused about it, as were those with whom I shared pages and chapters. Then Hal’s stroke demanded all my attention, then the covid years, and just learning to live with limited finances, a husband who needs lots of care,  and an aging body.

Last week’s election brought such joy and hope, and a reminder to keep looking ahead with love. I want to restart work on the book (and finish it too). I want to restart work on this physical body too. Enough of deterioration!  Twenty-four of you got together (these specialty rollators are very expensive!) and bought me an amazing new all-terrain walker as birthday gift, to replace my dying one that lacked brakes and no longer rolled in a straight line. It comes Wednesday! I’ll send a picture. I plan to start walking daily on my dirt road, adding just 10 yards a day…  And I have a new companion for these walks, my new hearing-ear dog (still very much in training) Willow, a 3 year old girl from Ohio Collie rescue who is sweet, brilliant, and getting over her own trauma of losing her owner to illness and months in a kennel waiting to see what would happen for that owner and then have a new home found. We are connecting and learning to love and trust each other.  I DO need ears, and Banner, at almost 11, doesn’t hear or walk well. Here she is under my walker, as close to me as she can get! And (on right in right hand photo) with Banner, who is also her security blanket. What fun to have a new collie to train and love.

 

So even if I also live to 98, fourteen more years will never be enough time for all that I dream of doing!

Last week in my garden – new entry steps thanks to Sam.