Friday night, October 29, 2010 — Still grateful

I'm getting ready to host five days of Kumihimo workshop (mostly Japanese braiding). I host this gathering under the name of The Kumihimo Festival in my Henhouse Studio each year. It is actually a class that is sponsored by Pacific Textile Arts. If you are interested, I'll be posting some reports and pictures from this year's activities in the studio as the days go by on the PTA website. (pacifictextilearts.org) I serve a different soup to the group each day and thoroughly enjoy having them here. I received a note from a friend asking me how I could possibly stand to host the workshop here this year. I bring this up because I think it's so important for all of us to remember that grieving is different for each individual. I am broken hearted over what has happened but I am still a functioning human being. That is simply who I am. I would be miserable withdrawing from all human interaction. I would probably go crazy. I need plenty of time alone with my thoughts and sadness but it is only part of what I feel I require. I totally respect the need for others to withdraw completely for a while but that would be out of character for me. So please don't worry that I'm trying to do too much too soon. I pace myself each day and still fall apart without warning. Much of what I feel will probably never go away — it will just soften around the edges.

Most days I feel a growing ability to get things done and see things more clearly. I'm grateful for that. And I continue to come back to the feelings of gratitude I felt toward the staff at Sutter Medical Center while Skip was there. It means so much to all of our family that our days were both a roller coaster there but also filled with hope. That hope was certainly enhanced by the presence of the most humane group of medical people I have ever encountered. Nurses like Kathy, Bill, Sam, Sara and many others kept us filled with admiration for their professional skills, their boundless energy and most of all their ever present caring attitude. We all know the final outcome was not what any of us wanted to have happen. And certainly not those dear nurses who are forced to see this kind of event more than a human would ever wish for. But they don't fold up their tents and go home. They stick with it day after day and make life so much more bearable for families like ours. We want them to know that we would welcome visits from them any time they'd like to come over to the coast and be in Skip's home and garden and get a feel for where he came from when he spent that last month with them.

We were grateful for the physical plant and its amenities as well. The courtyard located near the cafeteria, with its medicinal plant garden and handsome shade trees was a daily comfort to all of us. Mike and the kids played music almost every day we were there. It was a little oasis in which one could gather the strength to go on encouraging Skip to fight for his life each day.