Looking behind me...

Life can be a pretty dramatic story...
I mean, look at mine!
Ema

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

Thats all - just:: Happy New Year!

my December thanks giving

The month of November has come and gone -- the celebrated day of Thanksgiving has come and gone and my good intent to post my giving of Thanks has almost, just almost made it's way out with the month of December.

It won't though. I mean, it won't make it out with the month of December as my thanks on BLOGGER is right here::

I have no recent photos of Raul and myself
so I just stuck one of each of us together here!

My life really has been blessed. As I look back on the days of my 'youth', I can see how extraordinarily wonderful, fun and blessed my life was. Up to the present I have been blessed with good health. I am strong, have all the teeth I am supposed to have and one (only one) gold crown! laugh with me..

My mother and father are still here on earth with us -- my dad

is doing great post Radiation and Chemo Therapies after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last year. We are a blessed family who love and support each other --even my sisters husbands ;) who blend right into the family.

Then I look at the friends that I have -- I am blessed with great girlfriends -- girlfriends that I grew up with in California and have known for years and who are still in my life and then new girlfriends here in Idaho.. friends that I have made since living in Idaho.
Friends that check up on us while driving from Idaho to So. California and then back home again. Friends that have kept me 'company' either by telephone, email, cards, Instant Messaging here via the Internet -- friends who have counseled with me, encouraged and prayed with and for me (and us) especially during the most difficult of times since my husband had this head injury he acquired in the course of his work.

Friends and family members have blessed us with their help here with work that needs to get done around the house since my husband had this setback since July of last year. They have helped lighten what is sometimes a pretty heavy load for me.

Even our little black ball of fur, Buster our Puginese is a blessing! It's been a few months now that I stopped feeding him store bought food and have taken to feeding him 'homecooked meals'. My husband laughs at me sometimes and tells me that Buster gets to eat better than he does! lol -- well, I tell him that at least he doesn't have to eat the same thing for breakfast and dinner every day! but that if he really wanted to..... well...

I guess I'll stop now but I know that I could go on..
I am one blessed woman and I am grateful -- I am thankful.

God has been watching over me, he has, and I Thank him for that.

"Caregiver Unmasked" a poem

“Caregiver Unmasked”
(a poem– Dedicated with love to Ema and *Rachel)

Rachel is a friend whose husband also suffers a TBI
How I weep for you, heart of my heart,

for you have been stolen away from me

and I am left with only a husk that bears

passing resemblance to the one I married.

With a terrible screech of tire and shattering

of clear glass, my-happily-ever-after fantasy

crashed head-on into the exhausting reality

of being your crutch, your nurse, your keeper

rather than your lover, your mate, your equal.

Days and nights I fight my fight as you sleep

the sleep of the unknowing. I groan, I grieve,

I sob wordless pleas and grunt raw prayers.

My tongue is now overgrown with callouses

from biting back bitter retorts to many callous

remarks made not by you, but by the Injury.

My heart drains daily like a never-healing

wound that I bind up with words worn thin

“For better, for worse; in sickness and health”

If I pour enough salty tears on you in the night

as I lay still, listening for– and dreading–your

next breath, will they bring you back, my heart?

When death–who did not have you before–

speaks through your lips, “I should have died.”

Peace-lover by nature, I rouse to war for your

life. I fight demons, doubts, dark depression

and despair. I fight, I fight, I fight. I fight for faith.

I fight fiercely for family. I fight for focus. I fight

to remember Who walks this valley with us,

and Who has promised a Heaven with every

tear personally wiped away. And Health.

And Hope personified. And I bathe my face

in the kind words of my friends and I pick

up pompoms to cheer your next unaided step.

–Linda S. Johnson

September 10, 2007

Repudiating Darkness

a letter to a girlfriend

Girlfriend,

You do sound exactly as I have/had been feeling for quite a while now. Feeling left out of life? out of His favor? like a forgotten child.
I know that quoting scripture and verbally reminding you that God is there however silent he might be -- does very little to satisfy your soul.

Could be the meno/peri-menopausal thing, could be female hormonal stuff, could be other physical problems but they affect our spiritual person regardless, don't they?

What has helped me and I don't mean that it's your answer -- and I know that for a long time I had trouble with this -- still do at times -- but, I am learning again to talk to Him during the day while I am doing a chore, pulling weeds, stacking tomato, squash from the garden...

Ooh.. He does know how I have felt and how I am feeling because I tell him -- though he already knows, he's the Dad -- I tell him just like a bratty child or pampered child complains to her mommy and or daddy -- with tears and a little trembling of the lower lip. And I know that he has taken me in his arms and scoops me up and tousles my already mussed hair with his hands like moms and dads do with their little ones. I know that he is smiling and shaking his head but at the same time he sends me the comfort that I need when I sorely need it.

As you say, last night that miracle -- it was for you -- and that is how we receive assurances sometimes -- even though we say, aaaaghh -- whatever.

Little whispers to God, Girlfriend -- he hears them.
Embr

the descent into darkness...

will come at one time or another when experiencing the loss of a loved one. Whether the loss be that of a loss of life through death or the loss of a loved one through illness, injury or otherwise -- putting off entering into this darkness can only make it worse in the long run.

After a good conversation with one of my sisters this past Sunday, we both realized that I had not yet mourned the loss of my husband --the one I knew before the accident that changed his and my life forever. Therefore, there was no way that I could stop mourning if I hadn't yet started the mourning process. So grieve, I must. Darkness, here I am ...

A letter, a thought, a promise

written aug. 20, 2007 12:15pm
Nine years ago today, August 20, 1998, Raul suffered this TBI (traumatic brain injury)in Salmon, Idaho while transporting fire equipment to a Salmon, Idaho firecamp site. Nine Years!
He was driving a beautiful white tractor and hauling an almost 40 foot trailer filled with supplies whose brakes failed and he ended up hitting another government truck -- utility truck-- and rolled his own. The two in the utility truck walked away fine. Raul had to be cut out of the truck losing consciousness once they had him out of the truck and transporting him to the ambulance. When he woke he found that he was in a Hospital.

It was this very hour on that day that I discovered he'd been in this accident one hour earlier.

Today. instead of mourning the loss of that man I married just four years earlier (September 24, 1994), I have decided to Celebrate. I do not yet know what we will be Celebrating -- but, Celebrate we will.

Life is not easy since this TBI came to live with us, but happier I know I can be and that is what I will strive for. I can't bring the original love of my life back home, but I know that I can get my happy back because I am the one who allowed it to separate from me. Not on purpose, and maybe just part of life and the journey but I think it is time to get Ema back -- a better Ema.