March 13.  5 years ago it was a Friday 13^th.  I was just days away from facilitating a community Health and Wellness Expo.  Unlike today, it was a beautiful spring like morning.  I had just visited the venue of the Expo and as my Dad’s doctor jogged by, we exchanged hellos and comments on the beauty of the day.

Within minutes of getting back home the phone rang with the voice of Dad’s retirement staff on the other end.  Sure I can come up.  The scenario of many times; drop everything, Dad needs me.   I remember all to well being a child plagued with ear aches and the trips to emergency.

Two years earlier his health took a turn for the worse, very worse.  After being on life support and hospitalized for a month, it was best to relocate Dad to be closer to me.

I was officially and willingly a part of the sandwich generation.  Today, there are more seniors dying of loneliness.  What price do you put on being able to share in a leisurely timeless coffee with an aging parent????  Or being able to drop everything for emergency calls??  Or, to spend hours waiting for appointments??  I was so privileged and honored to step into this role as we closed the chapter on a generation in my family.

                                                                          No stone unturned.  No word unspoken.  Peace.

You can earn back your wealth, it is just money.  Sometimes if you’re on the ball, even your health can be restored.  But time, once it’s gone it’s gone

My Dad was a single father of three girls.  Telling you back in the 60’s, that was no easy feat.  Hard worker, high family ethics, “a good man he was” a stranger once told me at a cemetery visit.  He had been diagnosed with diabetes years earlier and we watched as his health progressively got worse.  I remember visiting when my girls were young.  “Show us your bad toe” they’d chime at him.  He would show them, they’d squeal, he’d laugh.  You see poorly managed diabetes causes circulation problems, particularly in the toes.  The tips of his toes would blacken and fall off.  Just fall off.  Once he told me there was a toe so blackened that the doctor just chopped it off in his office.  My apologies in being so graphic, but I think of and remember this on every conversation I have with a pre or full blown diabetes client.  Sure there is insulin.  This in itself has its wear and tear on the body. Then there’s macular degeneration.  Three months before Friday the 13^th, he’d say to me, “look, my hair (as he touched his front hair line), it’s up here but it feels like there are lots of little hairs in front of my eyes”.  Diabetes sucks!   Prevention is the key.

We also learned the value in good food from dad.  We and every family member had a garden.  Much of our food came from there.  As well the butcher or farm we knew for rabbit or chicken.  Our Sundays were spent driving in the farming area picking local fruit and veggies we didn’t grow.

Life was good!

So as this day approached I was thinking I had a handle on it.  We think of “you” often when Iggy is barking on the deck, barking at the air.  He gets so happy to know you’re with us and is most likely looking for a poke from your cane and your tie to tug on.  We think of you often when things in life just work out, thanx Dad for looking after us.

Then in the quiet of the outdoors, the blackened night sky, surrounded by 2 feet of new snow to shovel, my thoughts and heart are dragged to well………just remembering  you.  My pillow may be a little wet in the morning as I bask in the space of remembering you.

      No stone unturned.  No word unspoken.  Peace.
You can earn back your wealth, it is just money.  Sometimes if you’re on the ball, even your health can be restored.
But time, once it’s gone it’s gone