Time Line

Perhaps not...

Sun, 12 Aug 2007 16:15:50 GMT

A child's Wish

Sun, 12 Aug 2007 16:06:33 GMT

Is there anything more magical than a child who believes a wish can come
true?

Halloween 2006

Fri, 29 Sep 2006 13:10:48 GMT

So after much thought, consideration, and some very deep thinking we have decided that we would allow another halloween party, which includes the haunted walk this year.

This year the party is a combination between my two youngest daughters, and will be held outdoors in the middle of our property.

The party area itself will have a big bon fire, a dance area, a coffin for serving food, a stage with two DJ's. Tarps for escaping to in case we get rain on that night.... and much more...but I suppose I am getting ahead of myself.

Jamie and I are changing up the walk this year. Instead of following the driveway in front of and beside the house, we are doing a forested walk. Which will make the walk darker, spookier, and much longer than the previous two years. Sharlyn's friends who have attended the last two years will be here again this year... (they have been asking since march if there will be a halloween party this year)....so this new walk will be a good surprise for them! Brittany's friends have not been to one of these walks, so they are going to get a good scare!

Because this is an even bigger walk this year it is going to take me several posts over the course of the next little while to tell you about it, so you will have to be patient and stay tuned!

There will be five main areas of the walk this year:

1 - Main entrance area, which goes from the main point of entry to our place, past the house along the bottom drive - up to the spot where they used to turn the corner to continue on the walk.

2 - Haunted picnic area - which goes past the corner from previous years straight ahead.

3 - Forrest Area - which has several new large scale props now built. This runs through deep forest. Very dark, very creepy!

4 - The new graveyard - which the party people will have to walk right through the middle of to continue on to the party.

5 - The long lonley road - which starts as soon as you exit the graveyard, and will seem to loom ahead for a long ways. Once you get to the end of this path, you will turn the corner and the party will be up on top of the hill.

So those are the five main areas. They will all blend into each other along the way, but you can get a sence of how big this is going to be this year.

So stay tuned for my next post where I will start to walk you through!

Update....

Thu, 28 Sep 2006 12:36:08 GMT

Last night Jamie and I went up to mom and dad's and visited with them and Joyce.

Things were calmer there this time. It is like a peace is settling over everyone there. Joyce is no longer mobile, and stays in the bed at all times.

We sat in the dining room next to Joyces bed last night, visiting as we normally would. Talking mostly about days gone by... brought on by questions from myself. It was good to see everyone, including Joyce in her own way, laugh over some of the silly situations of years gone by. Healing for everyone. Taking away the fear of what is to come, and replacing it with the joy of memories.

Joyce is more peacful now. She does not look angry, but more settled, at rest and well just peaceful. Her breathing is becoming more irregular, and she drifts in and out of sleep as you visit. She did eat a little bit of jello while we were there, and she is sipping water through a straw. Her face is more swollen this week, and her eyes look tired, and they seem to be fading....

I fully believe that we are now in the very final stages. Very sad, but something we all will be faced with one day, and I am glad that we are able to be there for her. Over the years she has kind of adopted Jamie and I, and as sad as it is, thinks of us as her own children, even more so than her own 4.

I hope the rest of this journey is quiet for her. That she has found the peace within herself to move forward... to what is yet to come.

The Holiday That Almost Wasn't

Wed, 27 Sep 2006 13:27:20 GMT

So moving along...

Most people that know us, also know that Jamie and I try to get away in October for some 'us' time. A time without day-to-day obligations, no feeding animals, no phones, no TV, no outside distractions. This is our time to re-group our thoughts, talk about where we have been the past year, and where we are going in the year to come. A time of reconection, a time to get to know each other on a personal level again, a time for tears, and a time for laughter.... a healing of such.

This year is no different... we thought long and hard about where we wanted to spend our week this year and settled on Galiano Island, (click here to read about Galiano)in a cottage... yes we will have to cook and clean for ourselves, but as we found out last year while we were away, this is not a problem at all, and we actually enjoyed it. Doing things this way we discovered that we can totally block ourselves out from other people if we choose... which for this week is very healing for us.

We had originally planned on going back to Tofino again this year, but when Benjamin got called to Galiano Island for a forest fire this past summer, we both thought it would be nice to go there, as even though we live close to the Island, neither of us have been there in many years....many years as in , when we were teens.

So we did some digging and came up with the place we wanted to stay at... phoned them up, made the reservations, and sent in our deposit. Now all we had to do was sit back and allow ourselves to get excited for the holiday... ummm wrong...

Fast forward a month and a half....

Jamie comes in from work, with the normal handful of mail. Once such envelope was addressed to me. Not paying to much attention, I proceeded to open the envelope... to find that I had been called for Jury duty! Reading through the letter which was more like an offical type of form.... the date on the letter was the day after Thanksgiving! This is the day we are due to leave. ACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I read through the litature to find that I could call in during business hours - Monday to Friday - if I had a problem. Looking at the clock it was 5:00 pm... and it was Friday... so I had to wait the weekend. It was a long weekend... well long when you are sitting on pins and needles! Finally Monday comes around, and I call in.

"We don't normally excuse people for local trips" said the voice on the other end of the phone... "but you can write in and we will consider it".

So I sit down and write the requested letter, including a confirmation of our cabin rental, and send it off. Then I wait... and wait... and wait....

A week letter I get a phone call... "You have been excused' says the voice on the other end of the phone...

So after a very long and painful week of waiting and wondering... the trip is back on...and once again Jamie and I can start to get excited about our time away.

There is however a little raincloud sitting over the whole trip, and that is the situation with my aunt... however after many conversations between Jamie and myself as well as knowing my aunt very well... we have decided that requardless of the situation we need to go. Joyce for one would have wanted it that way... we are also close enough to home that if needed we can get back here in a hurry. It will be rough for my mom not to be able to call me on the spur of a moment... but we will stay in contact with her for this week, so she will not be totally shut out.

So we continue forward... into our tomorrows...

Not pretty but a reality...

Tue, 26 Sep 2006 22:06:30 GMT

So to catch everyone up on speed with my aunt. Yesterday a hospital bed was brought into my parents home and set up in the dining room. Adult diapers are now a reality, and the doctor has stopped chemo. It is all palitive from here on out. Not pretty but a reality in my parents lives right now.

Jamie and I are visiting tomorrow night, something that we are doing weekly now. If nothing else to give my parents a little bit of a break from the reality they are now living. My brother is planning on doing the same on an off day from Jamie and I.

The devertion will help our parents get through this rough time.

I know that once a week does not sound like a lot, but it all that our parents want at this time, and they know we can come more often if they want us to. Of course I still get the nightly calls, for stress relief.

Such a fine line and hard to find the balance!

Protected to Protector - is it a right of passage?

Mon, 25 Sep 2006 12:16:22 GMT

It is interesting that the older I get the more I find my role in life changing... not always changes that I have planned or care for, but changes just the same, and changes that I have to adjust to, shape my being and life around.

One of these changes has involved the relationship between myself and my mother.

Being the daughter of an identical twin has often presented it's own set of challenges, but the one of late is the deepest.

This story is long, and one that would take me years to tell, so I will jump ahead into the now of the situation.

My mom's identical twin sister, my aunt, the elder twin, with these two being the youngest of eight children... has both breast and lung cancer, and is nearing the end of her life. Having been told now that the cancer is all through her body, learning to live with the inevidable death, knowing that the time is near has been hard on us all, but I cannot even begin to imagine what my mother must be feeling.

My aunt who has been a widow for many years, and has there for lived on her own, with a move some years back into a senior housing development is now living with my mom and dad. Something that circumstances has forced, without much choice from any of the parties.

My aunt has four children of her own, none of which have enough wits about them to care for their own mother, and if facts are to be told, have basically ignored their mother over the years, allowing others to care and be there for her on all holidays, and be with her on day to day living experiences. My mom and dad, Jamie and I and our children have been the family, that my aunt wishes she had... but I won't waste any more breath on these useless cousins of mine.

So on a short form you are caught up to date with this situation.

So my aunt is living with my mom and dad now, and like I said nearing the end of her life, with my mother being the main caregiver. My mother who is not 100% well herself, and who will be 70 on her next birthday. A time in her life when she should be enjoying all the moments in a day, is filled with stress like none other. Watching her twin sister go through the dying process.

The cancer which is all through my aunts body, is affecting her personality as well. Once the fun loving lady that every one loved to be around, is now very demanding, and not so nice to those that care about her the most. But who is to say that each of us will not be the same, knowing you are going to die cannot be easy.

My mom, not having any close friends has come to depend on me to be her ear. I receive almost nightly phone calls, where I listen and she vents. This is a role I take on gladly, for in many ways it helps my mother through this very hard time.... but at times it weighs very heavy on me. At times I wish I was not old enough to be the one my mother turns to, in trust, to tell me how she is feeling, how things are going, or as is mostly the case of late not going. Hearing details, that only an adult can compreheand and put meaning to. It is sad.

I do not know what it is like to be a twin, or for that matter even what it is like to have a sister, beings that I only have a brother who is 12 years younger than me. But what I do know is that my mother is hurting, and right now she needs me to be there, to listen and to comfort. I wish that I could tell her that everything was going to be ok, but her and I both know it won't be. Life as we both know it will never be the same again.

I don't have the heart to tell my mom, that when her sister passes, and her care duties come to an end, that she will be left with an emptyness - a void that no one can fill... that at times I'm sure she will wish that she had just one more day to care for her sister. The only thing I can do is be there for her. Filling whichever role she puts me into at the time, whichever role she needs me in the most.

As I watch this process with my aunt, having faith that there is more after this life.... I feel sad.... I know that the older I get, the less time I have of my own....that my own parents are closer to the step to the other side... I am not so sure that I am to happy about this realization, or the changes that this is and will make in my own life.

I know that I must be learning something from all of this... but right now I am to deep in the middle of it all to be able to see what it is that I am being taught. I take my own days one at a time, and help my mother through hers.... I look forward to my tomorrows with a little bit more passion, and give my mother some of that passion when I talk to her.... giving her hope that there will be a tomorrow... and it will not all be bad.

It is funny how almost seemingly over night one goes from being protected, to being the protector.

Just as my mothers life will never again be the same as it was yesterday... my life to is changing.

Point Form Run Down

Sun, 24 Sep 2006 15:19:51 GMT

Has it really been forever since I have posted in here? Sure seems like it, as there is so much going on here, and so much for me to catch up on that it makes my head spin.

So for a quick, point form run down.

* My aunt, my mom's twin sister is very sick

* Our October week away was just about not to be

* This years Halloween walk is being worked on.

* Another Vancouver concert.

So the above is just a quick point form of the main things going on in Truddle~land right now. I don't have time to go into details right now, but over the course of the next couple days, check in to read details!