Yes I Did

Did you really do it?  Or is it just a picture?  No, I really did it. That is my wrist you are looking at.

Something that says what I can't always manage to say.  Something beautiful. Something I never would have dreamed that I would do.  Yet there it is along with the miracles and the Faith.  There is my one and only tattoo.
I am home. We are all presently in a safe harbour.  God is with us.
Anne

The Blessing

God has blessed us
with a gift that is beyond compare in this world.

A family has chosen to give an organ for transplant. 

God gives freely and with great magnitude.  This family has also.

Out of the deep and profound loss of their twenty year old son or daughter they have been somehow able to give life to others.  How?  It is so hard to imagine this kind of bravery. 

It is life changing.
There are no words...

I have spent 24 years thinking how some day this gift and ONLY this gift would save the life of someone I love.  I have prayed for this countless nights.
I have begged, I have wept, I have had faith and I have lost faith only to find it again.  I have given it to God and I have taken it back many times. 

God in his great Mercy knows a mother's heart. 

There are three mother's hearts here. A birth mother. The mother of the donor. There is my heart the adoptive mother's heart.  God holds them all.

How do I go on.  What can I give of myself?  So great these gifts to me have been.

It is truly humbling and life changing.

We are all still in the midst of this.  As the days go by I need to find a path that will allow me to give back some how, some way, even a measure of
this gift. 

The Dr said today to measure progress one day at a time. Yesterday I was told by the same Dr to measure progress in hours.  I have been told this is a roller coaster ride this experience of receiving an organ transplant. It is.

Only God knows the answers to life's mystery.  To God and God alone I turn and give thanks and ask for Peace to be upon these other Mother's. 

Registering to be an organ doner is easy.  It is a box to check that says yes this is my wish.  It is an important choice to make.  Important because the act of giving these organs is far far more complicated for the loved ones the donor leaves behind.  I have thought about this so much in the last five days.

The reality that the death of a loved one is imminent.
The family gathering.
The bewildering choices and decisions to carry out this request. 
The final good byes.
The transplant team of Dr's and Interns waiting at the end of the hall. 
The behind the scenes team of experts and coordinators.
The long list of waiting terminally ill patients.
The donor's wishes.
The final choice and permission.
The transplant recipient waiting.  Getting the call. Waiting. Getting prepared. Waiting.
The unknown.  The known.
It is unknown who each other are.
It is known that there is love and hope.
Hope from the donor family that a life cut short will have Grace and Meaning in this sharing.
Hope from the receipients family that life will be given an opportunity to flourish with Grace and Meaning.

God is in this balance.  It is neither fair or unfair. None of life is. 
It is what we get.  What God gives or takes is beyond words. 

I am praying for understanding of what I cannot imagine. 
I am praying for a good outcome for us all. For the Grace of God that passes all understanding to enfold each one of us and give us peace.

Anne.













 

My Mother's Writing Her Story of Motherhood

How Do You Dust A Butterfly:
  by my mother
Barbara Arnold written about 1995

Dusting was not high on my priority list, but it had to be done occasionally.  When I was especially lax my husband would write the date on the slant top  mahogany desk.  Then I would go to work.  The children's rooms were a problem.  There were the unfinished automobile and plane models I wasn't supposed to touch, and piles of oddments I didn't want to touch I might put my hand on an attempt to cure a squirrel skin, or a very old sandwich with furry mold on it.  I was careful about clothing after I pulled three decomposed clams from Ross's blue jeans, the forgotten bait from fishing two weeks past.
    
I dusted the base boards, window sills, and arranged stuffed animals artistically, as in a home decorating magazine, then tackled the real challenge, the tops of furniture.  Here were the treasures which under no circumtances could be thrown away, not a single rusty nail, box top, marble or unstitched baseball.

The Scouts, bless them, and the schools all encouraged hobbies and edifying collections in shoe boxes, glass jars, mounted on cardboard, taped in scrap books which fell apart, and in heaps.  All attracted dust, especially Chip's car parts.  Have you ever considered dusting the greasy organs of a disembowelled automobile engine?  The trick is to put them in boxes with covers, a bigger box every week as the collection grows.  I must not forget he won a blue ribbon with his dismantled V8 engine, each part carefully identified and connected to a diagram with tape.

Then there were the live things, the fuzzy caterpillar living of course in a shoe box, the bowls of guppies which ate their children, and the baby racoons demanding to be fed every half hour with Anne's doll baby bottle.

No, our house would not have made the pages of  " House Beautiful".  Interesting, yes, but odd.  What decorator would put piles of rocks on the bureau, and cigar boxes of possible fools's gold and "could be" arrowheads teetering  on the bookcase:  Why were the books in tall stacks on the floor?  They were pressing leaves and wild flowers for, you guessed it, a nature collection.

Anne's room was usually booby-trapped with open paint boxes on the floor, jars of mixed and murky paint water, and damp paintings where I needed to step.  "Ginny dolls" and their accouterments occupied the level spaces, all of them, except where the stuffed animals and our live cat Cleopatra lounged.

I dediced to go with the flow on one occasion and posed the dolls interestingly
standing on their heads, peeking out of drawers, sitting precariously on the toilet, peering in the mirror, and so on.  That was fun but I had to stop to fix supper, and the dusting didn't get done.

Lullabelle, the Big Doll, seated in Anne's little rocker, presided sweetly over the chaos.  I had to be careful of her.  She was the Best Doll, so loved her arms and legs were prone to fall off.  She once had to go to the doll hospital and came home intact but with a new wig which took a long time to become accustomed to.  Today she sits on the sofa in Anne's living room, a presence in an antique dress.

My heart skipped a beat once at the sight of a fragile bird nest on Ross's desk, and one day, a butterfly.  After a few weeks I could blow the dust off the nest without disturbing its delicate construction, but how does one dust a butterfly?  It wasn't impaled on a pin, or part of a collection, just there as one would place a treasured bibelot, a wonder to be cherished.  It stopped me.  I was suddenly so glad I had a son who kept a butterfly on his desk.  In the high school, this oldest son Was on the wrestling team, but I had seen this butterfly!  At last the wings fell off, it disappeared, and I would look at the space where it had been.

Ross is gone from us now, but not before the special dust on a butterfly's wings touched us all forever.

Anne, the little mama of Lullabelle, the "Ginny"  dolls, and Cleopatra's descendents which cat-wise threatened to populate the earth, grew up to mother two adopted children along with her home made son,  sheltered a succession of black Labradors, and presently owns a mutt named " Otis Campbell", and a small dog creature that well looks to me, well, like a "dust kitty".  Her water colors now decorate her walls, crisp fragile renditions of fruits and flowers which I who was an art teacher wound not dare attempt.

Anne and her husband once provided dinner, bed, bath, and breakfast to a remarkable man passing through town on foot.  He was carrying a huge wooden cross, like Jesus.  It had a little wheel at the foot so he could drag it along the highway.  More recently she was a nurse and bus-mother to twenty teen-agers on a church mission to Mexico to build a house for a grateful little family in a barrio.  Twice lately when I have gone to visit her in another state there was a family or person in need housed in the guest room.  That is what she is like.

Younger son Chip, now middle aged, shares a house with me.. He has long since graduated from car parts, though that knowledge has been invaluable to us all these years.  He distinguished himself early by becoming the youngest graduate of Saab school and parts manager in the country.  He likes to hike in the woods and this spring brought home a beautiful perfect skin of a five foot long black snake, freshly discarded.  He draped it across the chest of drawers in his room, among the pictures and mementos of his children.    I found it a problem on cleaning day, so coiled it in a shallow box and stretched Saran over the top for viewing.  It is very handsome.  We can see how the emerging retile carefully peeled it off around the eyes and mouth, revealing an elegant new suit, never tearing even to the tip of the tail!  I feel good when I look at it.  I am old now and know I am in good hands.

I learned I didn't need to be so tidy, just wait a while and the hoards would be assigned to oblivion by their owners.  New sets of wonders would appear, and they really were wonders, the stuff and dreams of my children.  Dance programs, a victory sign cut from leather, another of metal welded in the school shop, posters, ballet slippers, a tiara, hockey pucks and the derby Ross wore exuberantly for sprin skiing, awards, diplomas follwed, and then they were gone, so soon it seemed that after all the dust had settled.

by Barbara C. Arnold


I miss you mom and I always will.  I think of  " how to dust a butterfly" often.  I remember the brother who first collected it every day.  I wonder at how my mother managed this balance in her life... this will to continue to search for beauty and the courage to cherish life and children with such passion even as they are taken from us and the dust settles.  Mothering is like taking off your clothes and walking naked when your tired and your feet hurt and your heart hurts you would take this walk for your child you would carry your child.  This is how God shows us to love one another.  Having faith to loose all you hold so dear and taking the walk carefully and with amazement past the butterfly, past the mementos and ahead into the every lasting love of God. 

Ecclesiastes 3:1
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven:


Happy Mother's day to the mothers I know, and the birth mother's I haven't met but who have taken that naked walk and intrusted their most precious gift with me.
Happy Mother's Day to my daughter's Amy and Biz and my dearest friends and my Sister's in law Gail and Debbie.  Bless you all.
Anne

Mom and Ross

Mom and Chip

Biz and Leo

Me, Mya, Amy

Mom and I her 90th birthday

Me and Lullabelle

A boy

Prayer                                                                                   
for a boy
praying
a moment
of wonder
and waiting


Prayer 
my boy
for time
a chance
praying.


relinquish the wish
to God.
breathe.


Anne 3/7/12

Wee Lil Seoul's Very Bad Hair Day Part 1

Very bad hair day :)

Making this wee Lil Seoul for my grandaughter Mya. Her black hair reminds me of Mya's mommy's beautiful black hair and how much fun I had combing and playing with it when she was a little girl.  This will remind my daughter Amy of the time I cut her hair into a Mullet. Still an unforgivable offense.  
This doll was designed by 
weefolkart.com/content/knitted-round-12-baby-doll-part-1-knitting-body
  I love the simplicity of the pattern. In the style of Waldorf Dolls. I am knitting her body and clothes with stash yarn, but I splurged on a new skein on Paton's Classic Wool for her black hair. 
I am hopeful that I will be able to pull off an original design for her Hanbok. (traditional girls Korean dress).

                                                                    Yes she has a belly button :)


Grandma  
할머니 
Halmoni / Halmeoni 

Halmonie, halmoni and halmony are basically all the same. 
Ie - ee / 이 (ㅣ) 
i - ee / 이 (ㅣ) 
Y / ee / 이 (ㅣ) 

Y as in pony, harmony, etc. 

The Best of a Mess. Prayer Shawl

wristers

Prayer Shawl

Some things are just too hard. Like knitting a sock.  I have spent hours with four metal sticks and some baby fine wool making little knots and loops to create a pair of socks.  Maybe it is the light so I have adjusted the goose neck lamp. Or could it be my progressive lens glasses?  I have cleaned them thirteen-umpty times. What to do? Frog the sock and start over? Call it quits and admit I am too old, too blind, too arthritic to knit a sock? How useful would bulky knit socks on large needles be?  At least I could see them and make them, my fingers would not cramp so much with the larger needles.  What is the point?  I should be enjoying this.  Decision made I am not going to give up on socks.  They will be a work in progress....and put away for a while in the stash bin. I will try wristers in fine wool and tiny needles first. At least no heal to turn. They will stand a chance of getting finished. I feel more determined with this decision and I really want my own pair of delicate wristers for semi chilly Florida weather.
So back to difficult situations and knitting.
My son is on a liver transplant list.  He has been fighting his disease  for over 2 decades now and yet he is so young. Thirty-four. Not fun, unfair, sad beyond words.  I weep. I pray. I put it out of my mind. I can't get it out of my mind. It becomes my mind. I have no mind. I am finding the point. I am missing the point. He is better. He is worse. Dr's are miracle workers. Dr's know nothing. Prayer helps, Prayer frustrates me. I can't pray, all I do is pray.  I am on my knees. I am mad. I am handing it over...no I am taking it back.  I am a mother.

Ross at 24

I am knitting my way to the city of oblivion. Along the way I make some nice things. I make messes. I solve some problems. I frog my knitting. I become a yarn snob. No I will use any yarn...just keep busy knitting. I use yarn I got at Goodwill. Acrylic. No I need to use pure wool. Wool so natural the lanolin faint on my fingers.  I need the connection to life to real wool. Sheep. Silly sheep in the fields.  Chewing their way to the earth to get every taste of green grass. Sheep are such good lawnmowers.
I grew up with sheep. My brother Ross raised sheep. My mother's oldest son and he died so young at twenty-four.  My oldest son trying so hard not to die young.
Sheep, wool, knitting, mothers, children, prayer, projects, desire, love, things that fill my life and clutter my mind.  I am doing my best in this mess. My best is not enough.  The wool is lying slack in my hands with metal needles all akimbo. My son in a hospital.  My son on a list. Far away in the north. My prayers sent into the abyss.
I picked up the Acrylic yarn from Goodwill and began to make a prayer shawl. K3P3, and the opposite on the returns.  Father, Son, Holy Ghost. The Best of a Mess. Prayer.

Pray

Arriving at Gramma

This has been the year of Gramma Annie.  In February after an emergency C-Section I welcomed my first grandchild into the world.  Her name is Mya and my daughter Amy is her Mommy.  Her Daddy is Micah.  She is a perfect wee little babe with her mother's eyes and the soul of a very wise and traveled person.  Watching my daughter with her daughter is beyond any expectations of, "how will she do?"  They are bonded in a deep and abiding love.  Amy is a mother through and through and she has found her reason to be here on God's green earth.

Joshua

When I first locked my eyes with your eyes and fell into those black pools I loved you. I loved you before I saw you, when I saw you and I love you still.
You were six months old when I got off the plane at the San Salvador International Airport, El Salvador. It was November of 1976 just before Thanksgiving. I stepped out onto the stairs of the aircraft into the sticky sweet tropical evening and looked up to the roof of the terminal. There clustered against the sky a throng of people awaited the arrival of the plane that I was on. The silhouette of one tall man holding an infant high above his head into the fading light caught and held my searching gaze. I knew as a mother knows her child that he was holding you up for me.
Somehow at 25 years of age I had arrived alone at this place at this time to receive into my arms my first child. After struggling through the crush and confusion of Customs I found you again out side the glass doors of arrivals. Thomas your foster father came directly toward me and placed you into my outstretched arms. Immediately you looked up into my eyes and grabbed my nose and held on tight. Your little body was solid and so warmly dressed in a yellow terry one piece footed pajama. Sweat curled your straight black hair into glistening concentric swirls on the crown of your head. I drank you in. Your heft, your scent, no longer strange to me, but now a part of me. We came together a mother and a son as only God alone could have chosen.
Looking into your eyes I saw an expanse of time that reached back to the very beginnings of time. Like rain pouring down a spring green leaf and mud sliding an other wise sure footed step I tumbled into an awareness of love. Love that passes all understanding. Our Father's love for us. All of that reflected in your deep dark brown eyes.
When love is not enough there is faith. I have had to be reminded of that so many times. God has you in his hands. He always has. I pray that his plans for you become fulfilled. My son. My boy for whom I could not always do what was needed or wanted. My Joshua. You are filled with light and laughter and I pray that our Heavenly Father's guiding hand keeps you safe and heals you.