Count Your Blessings, page 5
A few days later, the stomach tube was removed, a week later the staples, and two weeks after that the catheter. During all this, I was his nurse, trying to keep up his spirits, read the instructions for his care, and take him back and forth to doctor’s visits. We had lots of time to talk, and talk we did. About how blessed we were that they caught it early, and how much worse it could have been.
We feel a little bit stronger since the diagnosis, a lot wiser, and thankful for each and every day we have together. Richard will need to be tested periodically, now that he’s someone who has had cancer. But he came through the hard part. We both did. And the tests so far have shown no recurrence.
And those two claw-foot bathtubs? We didn’t need them; but if we ever do, I plan to crack open a bottle of wine and make a toast to the joy of life. We didn’t know fighting cancer would bring us closer, in ways we could have never imagined.
~Isabella Gianni as told to B.J. Taylor
Flooded with Blessings
If pregnancy were a book they would cut the last two chapters.
~Nora Ephron, Heartburn, 1983
We began 1983 as a young couple full of happiness. We had just purchased a new home after learning that we had a baby on the way and were excited to be moving and starting a family. The baby was due in September and we thought we had plenty of time to move into the new house and set up a nursery. Our new home was completed toward the end of March and we were completely moved in by the end of the month.
It was a fun and exciting time. We had rented previously and were looking forward to having lots more space. Our excitement came to a halt the following month when extreme weather brought a flood to the area. We were located near the Amite River and we woke up one morning to find water covering the floor throughout our new home.
We soon learned that the river had overflowed its banks, and the water had crossed a highway and coursed through the woods to our subdivision and into our new home and those of our neighbors. I was four months pregnant and still going through the “very tired” phase of pregnancy. There wasn’t much that I could do to help clean up the mess.
Damage to our home was minimal, and we counted our blessings that it wasn’t worse. There was just enough water to thoroughly saturate the carpet, but not to damage the baseboards and walls.
Since we had just moved in, our contractor was gracious enough to help us out. He sent someone over with a commercial vacuum to start drying out the carpet. He also hired a professional to come in and chemically treat the carpets so that they would not mold or mildew. When this job was completed, the carpet looked brand new and you couldn’t tell that it had been saturated and under water the day before.
We counted our blessings, added flood insurance to our insurance policy and went on with life. After all, we were expecting our first baby!
Several months later, in August, we were again fighting a flood. This time we had excessive rain for several days and nights and the drainage system just couldn’t keep up with the amount of rainfall. We hoped and prayed that our home would be spared, but it wasn’t. This time we had about a foot of water in our home. I can remember watching water being pumped out of a low window in the den with a sump pump.
I was only a month away from my due date this time, had the nursery all ready for the baby and was not in any physical or emotional condition to deal with a house with one foot of water in it. We had a long road ahead of us concerning repairs. The carpets all needed to be ripped out, furniture needed to be moved around, ruined belongings thrown away and the walls repaired. We would not only be starting over on so many levels, but we were now without a nursery and only a month away from delivery!
My parents brought their travel trailer over for us to stay in while getting the house back in order and cleaned up. We had all the basics that we needed in the trailer and were adjusting to the cramped quarters fairly well. It was quite cozy!
Toward the end of August, I woke up having pretty strong labor pains. We waited to see if this was a false alarm, but they continued so we headed to the hospital. Of course, after being admitted to the hospital the pains disappeared and we were sent home to our little travel trailer.
The following week I developed a pinched nerve which made walking very difficult and painful. I was beyond ready to have this baby at this point. Finally the big day arrived and we were blessed with a beautiful baby girl. She was completely healthy and once again I thanked God for my blessings. We brought our new baby home from the hospital and back to our house. My husband had gotten the essential things like our bedroom, kitchen and nursery back in place. We just didn’t have any flooring since the carpet had been ripped out and the insurance settlement had not yet arrived.
This was a very trying time for us, especially for me since I was pregnant and had to go through the house flooding not once, but twice. My emotions went up and down like a roller coaster during my first pregnancy with all the excitement and added trauma. I learned that my faith in God would help me through trying times and that he also doesn’t give you more than you can handle. We survived!
~Karen H. Gros
Don’t Take Away My Coffee
Starbucks represents something beyond a cup of coffee.
~Howard Schultz
They’re threatening to close my favorite coffee shop. The economy is weakening, and people are losing their jobs. But they can’t close my coffee shop. I listen to the national and local news channels. I understand budgets, dollars and severance pay. Every morning when I get ready for work, I pray that the next morning I’ll still have a job. I want to get ready for work every Monday through Friday.
But they can’t close my coffee shop.
Eight years ago, I sat in front of a judge and listened to her end my marriage. It wasn’t what I had envisioned when I walked down the aisle in my white dress. But it happened, and as a middle-of-the-demographics woman, I was suddenly thrust back into the marketplace. I worked three jobs, saved every possible penny and finished raising my son.
One of the things that kept me going was my goal to someday be able to afford a drink at the coffee shop. I watched other people going in those hallowed doors and coming out with smiles on their faces. They seemed to have no problems, no financial concerns. Surely none of them worked three jobs like me and saved every scrap of food for leftovers. They carried Styrofoam cups filled with mocha, caramel or some other type of sugary foam. Some lucky guys and gals carried metal cups with the coffee shop brand on them. How I wanted one of those cups! How I longed to be part of the gang!
As the calendar months in my planner flipped over, I continued to work various jobs. Two years passed, and life was still in the survival mode. Then one day, a co-worker noticed that my birthday was coming. “What do you want?” he asked.
It was too easy. “My love language is coffee.”
On my birthday, I opened his card and saw the answer to my dream—a gift card with the coffee shop logo. You would think that I might have scurried out of the office during my lunch hour to gobble that coveted drink. But I had waited too long for this goal to hurry happiness.
I planned the right moment: a Saturday morning when I didn’t have to work. My son was at band practice. I was alone and geared for joy. After fixing my hair and putting on my best make-up, I drove carefully across town. Slowly, savoring each ray of happiness—I parked and walked toward the door with the coffee logo on the front.
Once inside, my senses exploded into overload. Brownies beckoned from glass cases. Those coveted metal cups gleamed from a corner shelf. And the menu—rows and rows of delightful possibilities. I would choose wisely, and make my gift card last.
“I’ll have a small chocolate something,” I told the young man behind the counter.
“A tall mocha?” he asked.
Did I sound like a rookie at this game? Probably. No doubt this polite young man was laughing inside. I didn’t care.
“Yes, that’s right,” I said, squaring my shoulders like a sudden expert. “A tall mocha.”
My treasure and I sat on a tweed sofa while I slowly sipped. Nothing I had tasted previously in my entire fifty-plus years gave me such pleasure. I pulled a novel from my purse and read about a faraway place, imagining myself there, with another tall mocha—or maybe the largest size, whatever that was called. I pretended I had all the time in the world and was as rich as all the people who kept opening that door and ordering their favorite drinks.
During the next few months, I carved out special outings at my coffee shop. Each time, I tried a different drink. By the time I had used up my gift card, I had a relationship with chai latte, hazelnut and a delightful pumpkin spice. But that first mocha still remained the favorite.
Now that my son is raised and I’m working only two jobs, I visit my coffee shop more often. I still ask for those gift cards on my birthday or at Christmas. Last year I saved enough coins to buy myself one of those treasured cups. It sits on my desk at work, but I don’t always drink from it. Sometimes I just stare at it and say a prayer of thanks that I’m finally out of the hole.
You see, they can’t close my coffee shop. We all need a place to find hope.
~Rebecca Jay
Healing Toxin
We have no right to ask when sorrow comes,
“Why did this happen to me?” unless we ask the same question
for every moment of happiness that comes our way.
~Author Unknown
When she was four months old, our daughter Eva got sick for the first time. The doctor thought that it was just a cold. But Eva became more silent and still as the hours passed. We called another doctor and he told us it was probably a bad virus and that she would be fine. “That’s how babies fight these things,” he said. “They just shut down until they fix the problem.”
Two days later, our baby was not only “shut down” but almost gone.
Running to the ER wasn’t easy. It was late at night, and one of us had to stay with our two-year-old son. We decided that my husband would go with Eva. I am from Argentina and moved to the U.S. when I was twenty-eight. English is not my first language, and it was important that every word in that exchange with doctors was understood right away. After the longest hour of my life, my husband called. “You should come right away. This is serious.” My knees were weak, but in a flash I left my son in the care of good neighbors and rushed to the ER.
When I got there, I saw my baby daughter lying on a stretcher, now completely limp and barely conscious. She was making a soft, weak sound. I didn’t cry or ask many questions; I was shocked. I just watched as if standing in the eye of a hurricane of white and blue scrubs.
During our first night at the hospital, my husband and I looked into each other’s eyes in silence while holding this limp little baby. That night I memorized every single feature of her face. I would have given my own life in a second to secure hers. That night, my husband’s hug felt like a life preserver.
The next day we were transferred to a bigger hospital where they hoped doctors could figure out what was happening to her. She was steadily getting worse. Eventually she was completely paralyzed. Gradually, inexplicably, she was fading away.
We decided to call family, and from all of those phone calls I only remember the voices of my parents asking, “How serious is this?” and my response, “You might not see her ever again.”
Two days later, my mother came from across the world. She and a good friend took care of our son, Martín, while we were at the hospital. I always tried to make it home for Martín’s bedtime and after kissing him good night, headed back to the intensive care unit.
We felt Eva’s life slipping through our fingers. Would she survive? And if she survived, would there be disabilities?
Eventually somebody had an idea: botulism. Infant botulism, called an “orphan disease,” is a rare paralytic illness caused by a nerve toxin that is produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum. All forms of botulism can be fatal and are considered medical emergencies. Botulism is very rare in infants; there are around eighty cases each year in the whole U.S. Even though botulism could be lethal, it doesn’t have any long-term effects if it is overcome.
Given the other possible diagnoses, botulism was our best-case scenario. It was impossible for me to believe that she had botulism since she was exclusively breastfed. However, I was told later that the bacterium is in the air and soil, and medical science does not yet understand the factors that make one baby more susceptible than others to botulism spore germination.
There was no time to lose. Doctors decided to treat Eva for botulism even before the final results came back from the lab.
In the hallways of that hospital, I met other parents. From them I heard about transplants, neurological impediments, cancer, and post-surgery complications. I heard about parents’ plans for organ donation if the worst happened.
Some of these children had been in intensive care for a long time. Others were “frequent flyers”—as their parents call them. They spend weeks at a time in the hospital and go home hoping that the next time they come for a checkup they won’t end up staying.
My husband and I stood by Eva’s sleeping body day and night, waiting for a sign of recovery. Days later, Eva started to react. One day she moved her fingers and toes. The next day she opened her eyes. In time, over many days of waiting and then receiving the confirmation that she did indeed have botulism, life clearly began to circulate through her whole body again. Eventually her eyes could fix on mine. She was holding on to life. She managed to smile, and that was when we knew she would return to normal. Some days later, her smiles brought life back to our hearts and for the first time I was able to sleep.
I still find an inexplicable peace when holding Eva. We still almost burst into tears when Martín kisses her forehead.
One friend whose daughter is a “frequent flyer” supported me greatly when Eva’s hospitalization started. When I asked, “Why is this happening to us?” she replied, “Why wouldn’t it happen to you? There are lots of people out there to whom these things happen all the time.”
Some people live long lives, some don’t. Instead of asking why, we are grateful for what we have. We also notice the good things that come to us during, and even because of, the worst of situations.
~Maria Victoria Espinosa-Peterson
Back to Basics
I am beginning to learn that it is the sweet,
simple things of life which are the real ones after all.
~Laura Ingalls Wilder
Opting for a Slower Pace
Life is really simple,
but we insist on making it complicated.
~Confucius
In the 1980s, my husband, David, and I married, bought a home, and began our careers. It wasn’t long before a friend informed us we were “Young Upwardly-Mobile People” or “Yuppies.” Who knew?
Then came the 1990s. Still childless, we were working from dawn to dusk and spending nights and weekends at the local amateur theater. It was a great life. That’s when another friend told us we were, “Double Income No Kids” or “DINKs.” It was news to us.
In the next few years, we went from double income-no kids to single income-three kids and began a whirlwind of diaper bags, minivans, and play groups. We decided I’d put my career on hold and be a full-time mom. After waiting so long to have a family, we wanted to do this thing right. Before we knew it, elementary school came along, and things really got hectic.
We signed up for gymnastics, soccer, Girl Scouts, T-ball, and karate. So much to do. So little time to do it all. There were art classes, French, and Suzuki violin.
A balanced dinner became nachos and a corn dog at the ballpark.
Some of our most meaningful conversations took place on our street with David sitting in his car heading home from work and me in mine dashing off with the kids in another direction. “Dinner’s in the microwave.” Kiss. Kiss.
I suppose it was inevitable that I discovered I was, once again, an American cliché when yet another friend informed me I was a “Soccer Mom.” I could live with that.
Then one day, I looked around and thought “What are we doing?”
We had three beautiful, healthy kids and everything we ever wanted. Yet the five of us hardly knew each other.
I’d put my career on hold to be a full-time mom and had become a full-time maniac. My schedule was worse than it had been when I was working. I couldn’t remember a time when we’d had dinner around the table like a real family.
Was this what we were aiming for? No time for us to be a family, no time for our kids to be kids, to use their imaginations, to enjoy just doing nothing?
By trying to give our kids everything, what were we taking away from them?
After several late-night discussions and a lot of praying, David and I decided we wanted out of the minivan marathon. Secretly, I wondered if it’d be that easy.
When friends asked, “Do you want to carpool to karate?” or called, “See you at the ball field?” I took a deep breath and declared we were taking some time off.
As they raced past our front door, we stayed home and built birdhouses, baked cookies, read books in the hammock, and planted a vegetable garden. My kids made stuff. They painted. We took nature walks and wrote nonsense poems. Our river replaced the van as the place we were most likely to be found.
I had moments of panic when I thought of all my kids were missing. The twenty-first century was going on without us. Should we clamber to catch up? David and I lay awake at night second-guessing ourselves. Maybe we didn’t have to cut out everything. Maybe just French, gymnastics, and …
Then I began to hear my friends complaining that no matter how much they did, their children were always bored. Meanwhile, my own kids made blanket forts, performed original plays, composed songs on the piano, taught tricks to the dog, wrote stories, and were anything but bored. They didn’t ask for TV. They didn’t ask to go anywhere. They were too busy just being kids.
