Our family is so happy to announce

the safe and long-anticipated arrival of…

Miriam Loretta

born October 15, 2014 at 4:59 a.m.

She weighed 7 pounds, 11 ounces and is 21.5 inches long.

Daddy Jeremy, Mama Carolyn, Clara, Elijah, Vivienne and Audrey love her so much already, and are all doing well.

I never get used to the wonder of a beautiful new life…I’m giving thanks to the Lord today!

If you’re new to my blog you might not know that I like alliteration. If you’ve been here before you’ve probably seen that I often use it, sometimes to the point of forcing the words a bit. Perhaps “Scenes from a Sister-in-Law’s Sojourn” could be better said as “Christy’s Visit” or “One Fun Week” or something like that, but “Scenes from a Sister-in-Law’s Sojourn” makes me smile, so I’m going with that.

My sister-in-law Christy flew in from Tennessee last month to spend a week in Northeastern Minnesota with me. We hadn’t seen each other in almost two and a half years. She’s the type of friend who is fine doing just about anything you have planned, even if it’s not much of anything. A super-fantastic evening for Christy is sitting around in some comfy jammies, knitting or reading, maybe watching a good movie on TV, having a little snack, chatting about life and loved ones now and then, being completely comfortable with long silences, and going to bed early. That sounds like a pretty great evening to me too.

We did actually leave the house a few times, though. Here are a few photos and phrases that come to mind from my sister-in-law’s sojourn…

Shopping at Yarn Harbor so she could help me choose the yarn and pattern to knit a hat for Michael… riding Segways all along the beautiful shore of Lake Superior and the attractive helmets required…

…eating just a few homemade salted caramels from a little shop up the North Shore…

…meeting Carey at the Duluth Grill… sharing our hearts over slabs of Carey’s scrumptious, coma-inducing Peanut Butter Chocolate Birthday Cake…

…sleeping on an air mattress (Christy, not me)… Millie’s meanness… Christy fixing my knitting… a lemon Bundt cake… the best Vietnamese food… seeing my beloved Michael… a nap under the moose… reading in silence… seeing our autumn trees begin to change… making Christy tell the Savannah Gate story for the umpteenth time… talking about our dreams for our daughters… getting moan-worthy Marcona almonds at Mt. Royal… enjoying the aviary birds… Pippa tales… watching the moods of Lake Superior… amazing food at The Scenic Cafe… (pictured below is Christy’s wild mushroom crepe filled with asparagus, sitting on falafel and garnished with sprouted corn…)

…and a barbecued pork roast sandwich with cole slaw and cilantro. See the fig by the strawberries below? I knew Sara would love a fresh fig so I put it in my purse to bring it home to her. Guess what sat at the bottom of my purse for too many days?

That’s a first for me — I’ve never heard or read of anyone in the world finding a rotting fig in their purse. Could that be a book title? Finding the Rotting Fig….

…an evening with lots of pizza and many grandkids… being willing to resemble Dick Butkus and Bozo the Clown in order to have a good time… watching One True Thing… having lunch with Michael… a week passing too quickly.

Do you have someone you can knit, read, Segway, pray, laugh, snore, sit and dream with? Or someone you can chat, walk, crochet and kayak with? Or maybe someone you can cry, giggle, eat and believe God with?

When we moved into this house two and a half years ago, Sara took on the job of keeping the three large flower boxes affixed to our front deck filled with seasonal beauty. It’s a challenge in the summer months, since there’s no shade over the deck and the sun rises toward one end and sets at the other, giving us full solar exposure all day long. It’s wonderful for winter, but hard on most flowers. This last summer Sara planted various sun-resistant plants and flowers, and made each box monochromatic — one was filled with yellow flowers, the middle box was all purple, and the one to the west had red. It was stunning, and I asked her to do it again next year.

She has also put cut evergreens in our boxes each December. We bought some inexpensive but large outdoor ornaments at Menard’s and she wired those in with all the gorgeous greenery, and when a soft blanket of snow fell on them? Oh my, I loved that. Here are some pictures of Sara putting together the winter boxes before the snow, and click here if you’d like to see how they looked after snow had blanketed them.

Well, last week Sara decided to surprise me and transform our flower boxes into something autumnal. I can’t even tell you how wonderful it is to sit at our dining room table and look out onto this beauty. It takes my breath away. Fall is my favorite season anyway and I never tire of the colors even though I’ve lived in northern Minnesota for over 33 years, but these boxes have been a feast for the eyes and a balm for the soul.

These photos can be enlarged by clicking if you like. You might be able to see the purple kale, dried hydrangea, red sumac leaves and blossoms, and dogwood branches:

Box after box, mounded with fall’s beauty:

The rain we’ve had the past few days has made the leaves a little soggy, but they’re still vibrant. Sort of like people? Are you a little soggy but still vibrant? I don’t know if I am…soggy sounds about right, but vibrant… uhhhhh, not so much.

Here’s a view from the front…I like the wild and twisty twigs and branches that poke up here and there:

And this is a view from our front door:

Sara has a Facebook page for her floral design business if you’d like to check it out, here. And if you click here to see her gorgeous web page, as the slide show plays you’ll see the floral hats and shoes she designed as well!  🙂

We also have some fall decor inside our house, and maybe I’ll share some pictures soon.

Do you decorate for fall? If so, what kinds of things do you do?

How fun it was for me to read all your really fantastic name suggestions for the little white moose head we’ve hung on our living room wall. Thank you so much for responding and being the cause of many smiles! If you didn’t see the photos of our living room moose, you can click here.

I honestly liked every single name, and could tell you all understood what I was after — something a little out of the ordinary and a bit quirky. My five favorites, however, are:

Milton
Magnus
Mountgomery (such a cute pun Ronda!)
Moses
Mendelssohn

And Mendelssohn it is! Thank you Jodi! I am going to insist that everyone in our family call him by his real name too. I have a feeling they’re going to just love that.

Doesn’t this guy look like he could be a Mendelssohn too?

So, very soon I will be sending Jodi a $20.00 online gift certificate for Amazon.com.

I have been fighting the flu for the past couple of days, so will write some more soon.

Have a peaceful weekend, dear Moose Namers,

Moose are very Alaska, very Maine, very Canada, and very Minnesota. I’ve seen one live moose in my lifetime, and it was on an autumn walk Michael and I were taking in the north woods of the Gunflint Trail in Northern Minnesota. We rounded a bend in the path and the moose, which was about 30 yards distant, lifted his head to peer at us out of his poorly sighted eyes, then turned and trotted off on his stilt-like legs. Have you ever seen a moose trot? You can click here to see.

Sara gave me a decorative plate and a canvas with a red bird painted on it for my birthday recently, and I’ve been thinking about where and how to hang them. I subscribe to the decorating rule/idea that odd numbers are visually better for groupings, so the plate and the canvas seemed like they needed a third item to go with them. I like moose. So I decided to buy a whimsical yet very anatomically accurate moose head to go with them. What do an aqua plate, a red bird and a white faux moose have in common? Nothing that I know of except that a quirky woman needing distraction likes all three of them and isn’t worried about what the Pottery Barn folks would say.

Here’s a picture taken from a distance, so you can see that the grouping hangs on a narrow-ish patch of wall in between our living room window and a tree we have in the corner.

And here’s a closer shot:

If you’d like to check out the other animal heads this business offers, click here.

I can envision his antlers being a good place to hang a few Christmas ornaments this December, too.

Now I’d like for him to have a name. You might already know I like alliteration, so I’m leaning toward an M name. This is obviously a manly mounted moose, so a man’s M name would be good.

Any ideas? If I choose your suggestion, I’ll send you a gift. You can list as many names as you like.

Have a blessed week!

It’s been a big adjustment visiting Michael only two times a week now. Whether or not my visiting less frequently is helping him is still something we don’t know. Monday and Tuesday I didn’t drive up to see him (if you’ve never taken the virtual tour of the veterans home, click here) and he didn’t have particularly good days, and yesterday I spent the day with him and he was fairly peaceful.

Because the Lewy Body Dementia episodes of intense agitation, pacing and delusion have increased, his doctor visited Michael on Wednesday and prescribed Exelon for him. He will wear a patch and we are praying it helps him. Will you join us in prayer for that?

When I arrived yesterday morning after a beautiful fall drive up the north shore of Lake Superior, Michael had just finished breakfast. Cindy, the cook in the Birch household where Michael is being cared for, spoils him rotten and it makes me cry to just think of her. She is such a blessing with the way she teases him, makes sure he gets his glass of Kombucha in the mornings, makes six sausage links for him along with his eggs, and dotes on him like a mother.

After breakfast, wonderful, encouraging Laurie, who has worked at the veterans home for over twenty years, came to get Michael for physical therapy. Yesterday he went twenty minutes on the NuStep while Laurie played 1970s music and set out some of her own baked goods for the residents she helps each day.

Then we saw Michael’s doctor as mentioned above. Next, I wheeled Michael to the beautiful sun room (you can see all the different rooms on the virtual tour link above) where we sat and watched the many birds in the huge aviary. The low, golden autumn sun poured in through the windows, and we watched baby Society Finches practice their first fluttering flights. We listened in delight as the Weaver Bird warbled. We saw the Gouldian Finches poke their multi-colored heads out of the nest while they brooded their clutch. I took some clippers and cut Michael’s finger nails while we sat with the birds. They do nail care there, but Michael’s nails have always grown quickly and I had an ulterior motive in doing it myself. Blade Time. What is Blade Time, you ask? Well, Michael’s nails always feel like tiny blades after I clip them, and for thirty-three years he has lovingly scratched my lower legs and ankles with his “blades” while we sit on the couch and I slip into a semi-conscious state. It feels so relaxing. So after saying goodbye to the birds we went to the Great Room and I helped him transfer from his wheelchair to the couch. He sat on one end, I laid down toward the other end and put my feet in his lap, and there was Blade Time.

Soon we headed back to his neck of the woods and had a snack. Fresh baked sour cream/lemon cookies (cookies are baked fresh every single day in each of the four households in the building) and milk for Michael, and a cheddar cheese stick and some watermelon for me. The refrigerators are kept stocked with all kinds of food at all times (sandwiches, juice, fruit, cheese, shakes, yogurt, ice cream, etc.) because they want the men to feel at home and help themselves. This is in addition to the three huge and quite yummy meals they serve.

Michael and I sat at a table in the dining room and “visited” for a while. I use the word loosely because he isn’t able to say much that I understand, but holding hands and whispering “I love you” a dozen times is working for us. While we were waiting for lunch to be served, Michael leaned forward with an earnest look on his face and said just loud enough for me to hear, “I’m really happy with your looks.” Hahaha! That made me laugh and he chuckled right along with me. Just the way he worded it. So I leaned toward him and said, “Well, I’m happy with your looks too!” We grinned at each other and I thank God for a sweet memory made yesterday.

After a good lunch (BBQ ribs, red potatoes, vegetables, oranges, milk, ice cream sandwiches) Michael wanted to take a little nap. So once again I wheeled him to his room and helped him on to the bed, and we squeeeezed together and were able to cuddle for a while. We listened to soft, soothing piano hymns on his little CD player and he feel asleep quickly. When he woke up after about 40 minutes, I reached for my iPhone and took this picture of us:

After Michael’s nap we went to the Birch living room and watched a weird movie with some of the other residents, an old black and white film with a confused blonde woman who seemed to be wandering around looking dramatic and having amnesia.

What I haven’t mentioned about each time I visit are the many interactions with the staff that occur. Cheerful, respectful aides help him to the bathroom, nurses hunt us down wherever we are in the building to give Michael his medication, recreation staff take the men on outings and plan activities to help them enjoy this home away from home as much as possible. The day before yesterday Michael and a few other men were taken on a drive to see the brilliant fall colors in our area. Here’s what many of our trees are looking like:

In just the past week Michael has played (and won actual money at) bingo, participated in (wheelchair) yoga, gone leaf watching, had a picnic, enjoyed some excellent live music performed by a local group in the facility’s Great Room, gone to chapel twice, and done some painting. There are at least three things each day, and even though to younger folks these activities might seem like nothing much, they help the time pass more pleasantly for the residents and I am so grateful. I am always so happy when I call to speak to Michael and nurses Donna or Tim tell me, “Oh, Michael’s not here, he’s having lunch with a group of the guys in town” or “he’s trout fishing on the pontoon boat today” or “he’ll be back soon, he’s out on a scenic drive and ice cream run.”

In spite of everything though, the beautiful facility, the dedicated and loving staff, the many generous activities tailored for veterans, and the very skilled nursing care, it’s not home. I don’t know if Michael or I will ever get used to being apart like this. That is the thought that seems to randomly come and violently tear at the fabric of gratefulness I’m trying to weave each day. I’m still writing in my gratitude journal, and it’s filled with things like: #3942 – Michael said his spa bath was “awesome” today, #3961 – Aide Amanda’s ready, cheerful help for Michael, #3987 – the breathtaking colors which remind me of your faithfulness and power, Lord, and so on.

When the grief comes, I’m trying to just be. The sadness envelops me and I often weep, but I sit and put my mind on the Lord and know He is there with me. He is well-acquainted with grief and sorrow.

Yesterday one of the veterans home employees named Denise came to visit briefly with Michael and me and she said the Lord had put something in her heart as she was driving to work. It was the account of John the Baptist, who was conceived, dedicated and raised to be the mighty prophet who pointed the way to Jesus after 400 years of silence from the Old Testament prophets of God. John did everything right — his whole life was given to preparing himself and others to meet the soon coming Messiah. He minimized his own importance, confronted the hypocritical Pharisees, baptized Jesus, and spoke against the corruption of Herod, resulting in his death by beheading.

Before John died, he wondered why he was locked away in a prison, and sent his men to ask of Jesus, “Are you really Him?” Because if Jesus really was the Son of God, why was John in a cell after serving Him so faithfully his entire life? Why didn’t Jesus do something about that? If you know the story, you know that Jesus didn’t give John the answer he was hoping for, didn’t supernaturally swing that prison door open for John and set him free. No. Jesus set John free in another way.

After Denise shared all this with Michael, she looked at him with tears in her eyes, put her hand on his shoulder and said, “Michael, you feel like your body is a prison and maybe wonder why Jesus isn’t setting you free from it. But even in this state, you are great for Him, and He is good and can be trusted with your life.”

I don’t know about tomorrow, but today this is enough to sustain us.

“Have the audacity to live this day as someone wholly forgiven and utterly clean. Never confuse faithless self-loathing with humility.” 

~~Beth Moore

*         *         *         *         *         *         *

Ahhh, yes, Lord.

This song by Ellie Holcomb has been playing on repeat in my house lately. It makes me think of my dear husband and all he’s going through right now.

I’m asking that these words would be true for him….

Have a peaceful weekend, friends,

Does it seem to you like people everywhere are going through harder things than you’ve ever remembered? It seems like that to me. Maybe it’s just my age, and I’m more aware. After all, things have been pretty horrible in the world before the calendar flipped the page on the twenty-first century.

I started my seventeenth year in Community Bible Study yesterday and for the next thirty weeks we’re going to study 1 and 2 Corinthians. Already I’ve learned just how unbelievably depraved things were back in the days of Paul the apostle, somewhere around 50 A.D. There were things going on in Corinth that almost made my jaw drop to hear about them, and some of these things were happening in the Church. So maybe things today are just the same old, same old, and there really isn’t anything new under the sun, as Solomon said. I don’t know though.

I have friends who have sorrows that burden my heart so heavily I hardly know what to say to them. Christian parents estranged from their Christian adult children. Parents who have been prevented from seeing their only grandchildren because the family withholding visitation is erring on what they think is the side of truth rather than on the very needed side of mercy. At least that is my perspective.

I’ve written about some of this before and it’s still baffling to me.

I know a Christian family torn apart by the Christian father’s lies and bizarre behavior, and he still doesn’t have a clue that he is the problem. He turns on a dime to attack and betray those he says he loves, then gushes words of devotion to them the next day. He talks incessantly about Jesus and forgiveness and doesn’t understand why he doesn’t have the trust of his wife and respect of his grown children when he still has a pathological lying problem.

I know a man who studies the Bible for hours a day (no exaggeration) and teaches the Bible, yet screams and swears at his sweet family and calls them hateful names for ridiculous infractions you’d think I was totally making up, they’re so inconsequential. When he gives his testimony in public settings, he tells mind-boggling lies about his life to make his “conversion” seem more dramatic. His family has pleaded with him to allow his faith to spill over into his real life, but he just gets more demonic as the days go by.

I know of a man with an exquisitely lovely young wife, and his secret back alley and bathroom stall life was recently exposed, and their romantic little cottage with the chickens and the dogs is no longer home to a newly married couple. She moved away to start anew and he never once apologized for his deviant, destructive choices.

I know believing people whose spouses have been the source of such pain in their lives, they think death seems easier. One dear mother of five I know learned a while back that her Christian husband has been a serial adulterer, says he doesn’t love her anymore, and seems very matter-of-fact about divorcing, and not very broken hearted about what this has done to his children.

And I know a family who seems to be haunted by a spirit of depression. Prayers are prayed, help is sought, Bibles are read and verses memorized, praise music is played, dark spirits are rebuked, and still those family members struggle deeply to stay alive and put one foot in front of the other.

Shall I go on? I think not. But I could. And I’ll bet some of you could list some tragedies of your own, things so deep and painful you don’t really want to talk about it. And maybe you don’t even pray about it much anymore.

And now here comes my latest tale of woe. Yesterday after CBS I drove up to spend the afternoon with Michael in the veterans home where he receives nursing care. I was so excited to see him. One of his favorite meals was served for lunch: hearty helpings of meat loaf, mashed potatoes and gravy, fresh buttered carrots, a wheat roll with butter, and a lemony cheesecake dessert. He and I sat outside on the patio in the beautiful autumn sunshine and I helped him eat his meal. It was peaceful. He wanted to go lay down for a nap after that and we squeezed together in his twin bed, comfy and happy to be together. I thought. Michael then told me he was despairing of life and couldn’t take another day. I burst into tears at this declaration and instead of trying to comfort him and pray for him, I boo-hooed that I couldn’t believe he was adding this burden to my heart since he knows how difficult things are to begin with.

Right around this point Michael’s social worker, a very kind and competent woman, knocked on the door softly, and came in to speak to me about how things have been going with Michael these past couple of weeks. Apparently my patient and gentle husband has been yelling, striking out, running back and forth for hours until sweat drips off his face, and looking for ways to get out of the large bay windows in the dining room of his residence. This is the face of Lewy Body Dementia. This is what happens in the evenings when he goes through an episode, and when it’s all over and the staff can finally help him to lay down and go to sleep for the night, he wakes the next morning quite cheerful, not remembering any of it. In fact, when Michael’s social worker was describing to us what was happening with more frequency, Michael looked shocked and said he would never hit anyone. I completely believed him. I suppose it’s a mercy that when the Lewy Body rears its ugly and grotesque head, Michael isn’t fully conscious of what he’s doing. There are days when his Parkinson’s-afflicted brain won’t let him walk even three steps or speak above a whisper. Then there are times when the Lewy Body disease kicks in and he can run, jump and shout. It almost seems surreal to type all of this, to say that this is what our lives are now.

The staff began documenting when these LBD episodes were happening, to see if they could discern if something was triggering them, to better help Michael. At a meeting yesterday, I was told that they believed they had figured out what was triggering most of his distress, which would then set off terrible hours-long episodes.

Guess what the trigger is?

It’s me.

Yes.

I felt yet another wave of grief wash over me when they gently told me that right after my visits with Michael, these episodes come on. He does better on the days when I’m not there.

He does better on the days I’m not there.  

And they also noted that he becomes upset after I call him on the phone. I’ve been driving up three days a week (and sometimes four) to be with Michael and we usually have a nice, pleasant time together (considering the circumstances), trying to make the best of this. And I’ve been calling him twice a day, once in the morning after his breakfast and once in the evening after his dinner, to be a comfort to him and to tell him how much I love him. They told me my evening call was a trigger for him, since he exhibits some of the “sundowning” behavior that many dementia patients do.

So they compassionately asked me if I would not come up to see Michael so often. They thought two days a week would be good to start, to see if he would do better and have less distress. And they asked if I would only call in the mornings from now on.

It took me some time to process this and to understand that it’s not my presence that’s upsetting to Michael. It’s my departures. He is relatively calm and happy when I’m there. And apparently when I leave to drive home in the afternoons, he just can’t take it. His social worker and one of the head nurses even told me they think that somewhere deep inside Michael thinks that each time I come to see him, I might be there to bring him home.

Lord Jesus, please help us…

I didn’t drive up to see him today. And I won’t go up to see him tomorrow, or the next day.

Today I grocery shopped, and cried. Then I went to Great Harvest to buy French baguettes, and I wiped tears when I got back to the car. I drove to the post office and to the drive-through pharmacy, and I couldn’t stop thinking about how much anguish and pain my decision to place Michael in a skilled nursing care facility has brought to him. When I got home I carried in the groceries, put them away, and sat in my bedroom chair and knitted for a while, tears welling. I did laundry, made a pot of soup and let it simmer all day, and thought about how much my husband would love a steaming bowl of beef vegetable soup at our table with chunks of bread to dip in the broth.

There isn’t one person who has advised that I should bring my husband home, knowing what his prognosis is and how quickly the Parkinson’s with Lewy Body Dementia seems to be advancing. Well, there is one person who thinks it’s a sin that I am not still trying to care for Michael at home. He has no idea what it’s like to care for a person who can hardly do one thing for himself, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week….but he told me recently in so many words that 1 Timothy 5:8 is my clear mandate. Are you familiar with that verse in the Bible? Here it is:

But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

I guess I don’t need to say that the words he offered me did not bring comfort.

Soooo, on that note I think I’ll stop rambling for now. It seems to me like life is getting tough for so many people. I want to walk closely with the Lord and I want Him to comfort me. I want Him to comfort Michael. I want to be a comfort to my friends and family, and I certainly want to be a comfort to my husband. Sometimes I’m not sure how to do that anymore, so I pray. And cry. And pray some more.

Here’s something from the Bible (Amplified Version) that does bring me comfort, the very words of my Savior:

“I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have [perfect] peace and confidence. In the world you have tribulation and trials and distress and frustration; but be of good cheer [take courage; be confident, certain, undaunted]! For I have overcome the world. [I have deprived it of power to harm you and have conquered it for you.]”

God’s peace to us all,

I’ve had a busy, blessed week. I will post some pictures and details soon, but today is a catch-up day so this will be a short post. My dear sister-in-law Christy flew in to spend a week with me and she and I had the most wonderful time together. She is winging her way home right now.

We have a hydrangea bush in our front yard that has never been so full and beautiful. I’m not a gardener but I think the plentiful snow and rain we’ve had these past months might be one reason why it’s showing off so much.

Sara has used some of these huge blooms for some floral work she’s been doing, so keep in mind when you see the photos, about 25% of the blooms have been cut. I think if you click on the photos twice, they’ll enlarge quite a bit.

I’m off to do some laundry, paperwork, bill-paying, vacuuming, and knitting. Christy is an expert knitter and helped me get started on a winter hat for Michael. It will be full of mistakes, but full of love too.

Do you have hydrangeas? If so, how are yours doing? What other kinds of flowers grow in your yard/containers/imagination?  🙂