THE DUST WILL WAIT

Cemeteries were visited and flowers were placed on head stones this weekend.  One of the ones visited is very tiny and sits on a small rise surrounded by miles of agricultural land with fields of wheat, canola, and alfalfa. That is where my husband's late sister rests. The scent of alfalfa blooms waft in the breeze over the dusty markers inside a chain-link fence.  It isn't your normal manicured grave site.  It's just dirt. She began showing signs of something being not right soon after she turned 50.  We noticed that she couldn't remember the rules of our Saturday night card games.  Her symptoms progressed causing her to loose her job working for an accountant.  She tried working at lesser jobs, but she couldn't keep up with any of them.   She would ride her bike to the store and forget why she was there.  She might wake up in the morning and find all of her kitchen towels and oven mitts on her patio.  A difficult thing for us to...

A courageous battle ended yesterday. My Sister-in-Law took a final breath and her pain stopped. Breast Cancer . The words are bitter on my lips - and these tears will not dilute the taste. We had many intimate talks over the past 1 1/2 years. Brenda was always full of hope, always positive. She was full of Grace. She was also honest about the mistake she'd made when she dismissed the initial signs. She made me promise that I would take an aggressive mode if I ever noticed a pucker or suspected even the hint of a lump. In this moment, when I haven't really registered the fact that she is gone, I keep thinking "if only..." (Please take this moment to do a self-exam and to schedule your annual exam. Do it for me and in her memory.)

Today was my annual mammogram. I am thankful for the friendly technician, her efficiency and skills. This visit was very significant for me BECAUSE my sister-in-law, Bindy, underwent a mastectomy two weeks ago. The lymph node status was discouraging, resulting in yesterday’s full body CAT scan (Computed Axial Tomography.) Bindy has been through five crazy years. It started on June 14, 2002 when she woke up with a tortuous headache, which quickly proceeded to a grand mall seizure and unconsciousness. My brother, who is a respiratory therapist, was home and able to do CPR with competence until the ambulance arrived. The paramedics intubated and transported her to the closest Emergency Room where they quickly diagnosed a brain aneurysm. The mortality rate is high and one out of three survivors sustains permanent disabling neurological symptoms. An airlift to Harb*rview H*spital in Seattle and the skilled hands of one of the four top Neurosurgeons i...

I love Anona. That isn’t what we call her, but you can call her that. Although she is somewhere in her 7 th decade, she is also a newlywed of one year. A blushing bride again after many years widowed. She reminds me of the Fairy God Mother in Cinderella, from her sweet rosy cheeks, right down to the pixie dust that sparkles over everyone that she encounters. Anona affects laughter from the people that surround her. Not by purpose, but through humorous misfortune, misspeak, or misstep. For instance, one Saturday she met with some other women at a local coffee shop and proceeded to order a crappuccino. There are many other “Only Anona’s”, but my favorite story was told by her late sister, Alta. The sisters traveled together to Bend , Oregon to pay their last respects when a third sister’s husband passed away. They found distraction on the six-hour trip by singing along with The Golden Oldies on the radio. Halfway to their destination, they stopped at a service station. While Anon...

Late Friday night I stood at the window that faced the ocean and saw something more than the incoming tide claiming the beach. I grabbed my binoculars and then my bird book. In the moonlight and the lights from the motel, I could clearly see over 100 little Sanderlings running in the surf. They were doing exactly what my National Audubon Field Guide described. "As a wave comes roaring in, the birds run up on the beach just ahead of the breaker, then sprint after the retreating water to feed on the tiny crustaceans and mollusks left exposed." We turned off the lights in our room and we sat our chairs by the window to watch the little shorebirds antics. For well over an hour past our bedtime. They looked like ice-skaters because we couldn't see their legs moving. Back and forth they glided, always right below our window in the foamy breakers that at high tide were within five feet of the retaining wall. We walked down the outside stairs for a few minutes and could hear the...

Watching the sun set on the ocean made me wish that I read the instructions on how to photograph a sunset. The zoom uncovered the changing shape. I've been told it is the curvature of the earth and the reflection on the ocean that provides the distorted shape on the horizen. I imagine a "real" photographer would have a filter. Or a much more expensive camera. The waves kept rolling into the beach and I never heard any sizzling. Have you seen the sun wearing a hat. Or is the sun really a sky submarine that dives beneath the surface. Or in the end, a puddle of wax, from the candle that lights the day. It rests and day is done. The heat in our room woke all of us at 3:00 a.m. We would have been funny to watch, all of us looking for our glasses in order to see the thermostat. Or a little fly on the ceiling listening to us babble: Who turned the heat on so high, I didn't do it. Well you touched it last. No, I got up to use the restroom and it was hot so I turned it do...

It is a horrific experience to see the movement of a car on your right, and then gaze into the rear view mirror at 55 MPH to watch it crash into your sisters car. I knew that car was going to hit her - it was like a second sense. I saw my sister's attempt to brake and the sudden fishtail before they plowed into each other. The other car would have been T-boned and it's driver seriously injured if not for that brief defensive move. The noise filled my ears and the glass and metal flew in all directions. The memory of braking and pulling over has not returned to my head, but sitting on the shoulder of the road dialing 911 in a panic is clear. I don't know why I just didn't hop out and start running back there. Maybe I was too afraid. Fortunately two handsome young men who were traveling right behind her were out of their car in an instant and rushing to both cars. The emergency vehicles arrived on the scene in minutes. The other driver was cited for failure to yield...

No. Not the Movie. Me and my two sisters. A trip to the ocean. We're going to meet at a lodge right on the beach where you can watch the waves roll in, the seals frolicking in the surf, and the the local kite enthusiasts digging in for the strong Pacific Ocean breezes. This weekend is long over due. I remember our very first sister weekend was scheduled when our fourth sister was still alive. Nelda called at the last moment and begged off because she had a sore throat. She never recovered. The diagnosis was an acute form of leukemia and she was gone before any of us could say goodbye. My sister Sandra is someone that Swampwitch would call her SOS or Sister of Survival. She beat breast cancer. Because of her fight I signed up and was accepted into a breast cancer research study coined the Sisters Study . I have given my blood, my urine, my vital statistics, and of all things, the dust in my house to be monitored over a period of years. "The Sister Study is the only...