Skip to main content
Dear Renee',

I saw you today, actually, I saw your image today. You were, pretty in pink, standing in front of a weeping rock wall, arms upraised, smiling to the Heavens. Wow! I cannot be sad when I see how much you enjoyed life. We were in Hawaii, on the island of Maui (your favorite), on the road to Hana with Dawn and Mark, myself, Rodney and yourself. But, this one is just you.

The year was 2006, your first trip to the Islands, and you were ready to embrace the spirit of aloha. What fun to spend that time with you! Everywhere you went, you were decked out in flowers and/or a sarong. You were living in California, the rest of us were in Washington, thus we were Renee'-deprived. How fortunate we were when you decided to move to Washington. (I digress.)

I remember your pedicure, shocking orange with white hand-painted plumeria, the exact shade as Mom's nails, though the two of you did not confer. I remember your toes in the sand, I should, I photographed them. It evoked a feeling of a tropical vacation, carefree, "toes in the sand", relaxation, warmth.... (I wish I could post it here.)

Renee' is my baby sister; she has shed her earthly body, a body that turned on her but we will meet up, again.
Labels:
Location: 2720 E Madison St, Seattle, WA 98112, USA

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I Remember...

I remember catching fireflies,  putting them in a jar, as a girl of five. I picked pears off a tree that overhung an alleyway on my route home from school, then enjoyed the forbidden fruit. .I had a golden cat who chased a gray mouse through our living room sending my mother, 3-year old sister, and me screaming atop the sofa and chairs. We lived in a farmhouse and I watched Romper Room. A daddy longlegs skittered across my dirty kid legs as I teeter-tottered on a broken kitchen chair back. I played grocery store and laid out a bedroll for group nap time in preschool. We lived in an apartment attached to a bakery. My maternal grandparents visited and a photo was snapped. Grandma held Dawn and Grandpa held me. I held Grandpa's chin. Walking through the back of the flour-caked kitchen, I saw scrumptious pastries and colorful toys stuck in the cupcakes with my hungry kids eyes. We lived in a two-story apartment building next door to a large farmer's field.  That field was my...
3 comments
Read more

Managed

Managed care, do not get me started. It is the bane of my existence and my savior. If quadriplegia has curtailed my activities, and it has, then being in a home has curtailed even more. I've had to dumb it down and set my standards low. Gone, are the halcyon days of getting in my wheelchair to go for a stroll or sit in the sun, or even sit in the sun room. Neither the nurses, nor patient care technicians, know how to put me in my wheelchair. Seriously. My chair has head controls and it is a bafflement. Most caregivers don't even realize I have head controls. First, they hit the left head pad when they lift the armrest which turns the chair on. Next, they sling me over and place me in the chair. The problem? My head, naturally, rests on the headrest, which accelerates and drives the chair and is beyond my control. Running over a caregiver or running myself into an obstruction are very real consequences of their ignorance. What could be worse? The caregivers remain clueless abo...
Post a Comment
Read more

Best Birthday Ever!

Started my day in a snit. Housekeeping cannot seem to get together on getting my clothing into my dresser drawers, instead packing shorts, tank tops, and pajamas into the closet on hangers. Those closets get so overstuffed the clothes end up in a pile on the floor where nobody bothers to pick them up. Then an unsuspecting aide arrives and asks me what I want to wear. I respond, "What do I have? " I get asked the same question as though I never answered and I blow a gasket. Woe is me, nobody greeted me with a smile and a"Happy Birthday! " Nobody surprised me by cleaning out the closets nor did they lay out my Birthday clothing. I refuse help until my closets are clean. I've been waiting for weeks for my regular aide to catch on to my routine. God knows she can't understand my requests between my ALS accent and her Ethiopian one. But, today I make my stand and have the Resident Care Manager making order so I can make some logical decisions. A waste of her va...
Post a Comment
Read more