Memorial weekend with a smile

Memorial Weekend is a time for family and fun!












I want to thank you all for your kind words and encouragement! I have already faced many dark days and will surely face more but for right now, my face is sunny and my body is following along with my mental leading. God surely does have a blessing for each of us and a reason for our being here, no matter how long or short.










Top of Cottonwood Pass, Colorado

Ooops, forgot our ice! Lucky this pass has some extra snow!



Mmm, marshmellows over the campfire at night in the cool crisp mountain air! ahmmm, albeit a little smoky at that moment.

A little more of my Miracle Lady story to consider....
When I was in the hospital the first time for 3 months, and just realizing how close I'd come to going home for good, I could hardly soak it all in. When you are in a coma, you don't remember anything of course, which means you also don't go through all the emotional turmoil that your family faces. Death did not threaten me, it threatened my family. When I woke up and they told me all about it, they felt it but I didn't. I could only trust what they told me and empathize with their feelings. I felt so sorry for them, not myself because I wasn't there (mentally) to feel the fear and greiving they felt. I didn't feel the daily stress of going to the hospital every evening after a full day at work while worrying that something would happen while I was away, like my husband did. And then sit all evening beside my comatose spouse until time to go home for a fitful night of sleep, again worrying that my loved one would die before I could be summoned.

The more aware I became of what they went through the more guilty I felt. I couldn't stand it that I had caused them such pain. I sometimes wondered if it would have been more merciful to them if I had died and it would have been over for them once and for all. Not this ongoing struggle for life and health. How unfair it felt for my family. I truly didn't really feel any saddness for myself at first, since I was spending all my strength and focus on learning how to think and write and walk again.

I remember hearing from a nurse that on a recent morning while I was in there, a man walking down the sidewalk in front of the hospital just keeled over suddenly with a heart attack and died. I was shocked and mad then and very confused. Why did he have to die and why was I still here. Why was I given chance after chance and he had no chance.

By the time I was in the hospital again last summer, I had died or almost died 3 times. the last 2 summers I had massive bleeding in my right lung and coughed up cups and cups of blood. They had to do emergency intervention to go into my lung and block the vessels that had given way and bled. If I had been out of town or in the mountains camping like we love to do, I wouldn't have made it. Only because I was at home and minutes from the hospital did I make it.

But then, there was that man who died suddenly. He didn't even get to say goodbye or to tell his wife he loved her one more time. I got to do that (more than once). It's a privilage to have that opportunity but not fun to say goodbye, just incase things don't turn out good. My poor husband had heard that goodbye too many times and when is enough, enough? When God says, I guess.

I am so much better now and hoping to stretch that last goodbye for much longer than even the doctors can imagine. That's my hope and my determination. If I don't get that long, it'll be ok, because I've had the wonderful opportunity to tell my loved ones what I want them to hear and I have written a few letters to be received at the appropriate time later on. In the meantime, my family and I are so happy just to be alive and seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and otherwise absorbing God's great earth and the family and friends we have been blessed with.

For any of you who have visited my sister's page http://itsallwonderfullygood.blogspot.com/or my daughter's pagehttp://faithlovekidsandme.blogspot.com/, you will understand what I am saying about being blessed with a wonderful family who loves and supports me.

Thought; If you were given a second chance at life, who, in your immediate family or close friends would you most like to be. Who most represents the kind of person you would like to be? Hmmmm.......

With 5 brothers and a sister and loving parents, It'd be a tough call for me I think.

I know that at times my blogs are pretty long so I am going to try to confine my writing to shorter, easier to read blogs. At least I'll try.

Words to start the weekend...Think Safety first in all things.