A Briz-man Update - not such happy news

I was going to talk about last week's really enjoyable Relief Society enrichment evening (and I still will) but tonight before I go home I wanted to post an update about our little woof (and mine & Ruth's state of mind(s)).

It's with much sadness (but not with the same overwhelming pain we experienced two weeks ago) I write that once again things have taken a turn and it's now sure that our little Brizzy has cancer. "Sigh." The only reason I'm able to write this without the same deep, raw pain I (and Ruth) experienced a couple of Sundays ago is because the Lord has been so good to us and has allowed us both to come to terms with the possibility that this could be cancer after all. He could have taken Brizzy right after Halloween when it got really bad. And in the ensuing four days it looked as if Brizzy really was ready to go. But nope, that little dog rallied and in the past two weeks he led us to believe he would get well after all. His pain diminished and he perked up and it was so evident he wanted to still be living. So the Lord has allowed this to play out in its own ebb and flow, and because of that we've been given time to accept and even prepare.

What a painful but educational roller coaster we've been on. NOT the kind of education I wanted to have, but it's one I get to have anyway. As much as I want it to be different, I am still grateful for what I have learned and (yes) am experiencing. Isn't that crazy? But true. We went from "What's that limping about?" to "Oh no, he can't walk very well!" to "The front leg is so swollen" to "OH NO, Briz can't walk at all" to "It's probably cancer" to "But he's rallying, and look he's walking again - how could that be cancer?" to "No cancer in the biopsy!" to "Look at the x-rays, I'm 80% sure it's cancer" to "Look how well he's doing" to "If it was cancer it would have manifested itself by now, so I may be wrong and I'm cautiously saying it's 80% NOT cancer" to "Oh no, now the back leg is swelling" to "Now his little face and neck are all swollen!" to "I'm so sorry to tell you this ..." "Sigh."

We both knew. I think as soon as Brizzy's face began to swell and his nose to run, I knew. And as soon as the large lump appeared under Brizzy's chin, in his ruff - Ruth knew. I hope you don't think that our vet has been insensitive or incompetent because he couldn't get an accurate diagnosis right off the bat -- our Little Man is such a fighter he pushed back the symptoms and refused to succomb. Today Dr. Edmonds said Brizzy "had the heart of a lion" and I agree. All through this experience he has fought to get better and has been so patient with Ruth and I as we've administered all kinds of holistic stuff and made him get up and "go poddy" when he didn't want to and petted and fussed and mothered (and probably smothered) him. So patient.

So now ... we wait. He is in minimal (if any) pain right now and we have some STRONG diuretic pills to get all that water out of him, and as long as Brizzy wants to be here and is not hurting, we will do whatever we have to do to make his life comfortable and we will take it one day at a time. Dr. Edmonds said that he will try to get Brizzy through Christmas, but we will see. And we will not let him suffer just to have him a few weeks longer. But you can bet that each day he's here will be relished.

And through this whole traumatic experience, both Ruth and I have experienced so much love and kindness from our wonderful families, our wonderful friends, our wonderful Ward friends. People have been so good to us: no one has mocked our pain, and we have been given phone calls and hugs and pats and blessings and kind acts of service. I don't think I will ever forget the kindness and care we are being blanketed in. I wish I could do for others half of what others are doing for me. I feel very humbled.

Case in point, just from today: Several of the Young Men came over today and for a service project they dug up all those yukky, long stringy weeds that were all over our front yard. We haven't had the time or the tools to get those darn weeds out of that cold ground and they really created a problem for "picking up poops," etc. It may have felt like a simple act of service to those young men, but they really REALLY helped us and I feel much gratitude towards them. And then my friend, Margaret forwarded a YouTube video of the "the Sky Angel Cowboy." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0r_FbARIn8&NR=1. The religious reporters get a little over the top but that wasn't the point of the video - it was the message that God understands our pain because he experienced the death of His own son.

Onward we go - and in the end (if we're lucky) we remember that God is Good, loving someone is worth the pain of losing them, and we never really lose them anyway because we KNOW what awaits us in the Spirit World.

COLORED PENCILS

It's been quite a while since I've written a blog (okay, it's only been 2 weeks but from what I've seen in the Blogging world two weeks seems to be a LONG TIME - haha). So I thought I would jump back into it with a little essay I wrote last night. My BFF introduced me to a WONDERFUL website called jessicasprague.com and Jessica has been holding a fabulous online class called "Stories In Hand." Debbie joined up and at her urging I did too and I am SO GLAD I DID!!! The class is all about capturing the stories of our lives -- the little ones as well as the big ones -- the ones inbetween all the pictures we take to scrapbook or blog. She does it by way of "memory sparks" and I've seen things similar to this before (you know, like the terrific memory jars with pieces of paper asking all kinds of questions about your life) but this goes deeper than anything I've ever seen and to me it seems designed to help you dig deeper into your memories and capture all kinds of things you may never think about otherwise. I love it I love it I love it!!!!!! I haven't put together my prompts and checklists binder yet (heck, all I've done is print everything out because I gave away many of my scrapbooking tools - hahahahaha! I thought I was "going digital" and would never need them again. Little did I know. :-) I hope you're enjoying them, Mom! :-) :-) ). I'll get it put together eventually. I'm notorious for not doing a project through to its completion.

So anyway, for better or for worse, here's my first little memory essay. I'll never be the kind of a writer our friend Amy Sorensen is (Amy is AMAZING!) or my BFF, Debbie is (she's also fabulous!) but I sure enjoy stuff like this, and I'm not tooooo bad ... :-}


COLORED PENCILS
Well, not too long ago it was Saturday again ... correction: it was Super Saturday again and I had offered to bring my box of colored pencils for one of our creative projects. Funny how I hadn't touched my colored pencils for several years yet I knew right where they were, stored away with my scrapbooking supplies. I don't know where many of my things reside these days but some things I never lose track of, even when I don't use them for a long time.

Okay, I was happy to share (within reason). On that Saturday I pulled the box out and as I did so I was surprised to find myself inexplicably drawn to that lovely box of brightly colored pencils. Almost longingly drawn. And for goodness' sake, they were just sticks of colored lead! Yet ... I LOVE colored pencils. Always have. For me, a colored pencil goes hand in hand with storytelling and artistic endeavor and coloring inside the lines. I wish I were the kind of wild, adventurous sort who colors with abandon outside the lines but nope, not me. I love the structure of following the rules and filling in the spaces as neatly as possible and creating beauty with color. But I love the tools most of all: the pencils, the crayons, those little oblong tins of water colors with your basic ten colors (and oooohhh if you're lucky, the double sized tins that have all the fun extended hues).

I have a vivid memory of spending grade school recess huddled with my best friend against a wall, creating stories with ... you guessed it, colored pencils. We drew all kinds of stories about little girls who did fun and slightly dangerous things, and who had to be saved by the knight in shining armor (whoever THAT cute boy happened to be at the time). I can still feel the warm wall at my back and the secret fun of sharing what we were writing. Of course it was secret ... we couldn't let anyone read our stories ... horror! At least ... not right then. Then was all about the creating and the giggling together and the colors. Some time later we graduated to something just as wonderful: colored PENS. All together now: ooooohhhh yyyeeaaahhh. Pink and purple and red and turquoise blue and GOLD of all things! Little small pens the size of my index finger that flowed color and made writing and drawing pictures so much fun! I loved those pens as much as I loved the pencils.

My attachment to colored pencils didn't end with grade school, though. As a Tweenie I spent many quiet Sunday afternoons sketching. I had a whole series of pictures of young women from all over the world, dressed in their native costumes. I would sketch them as meticulously and precisely as my young hands could master and then color the pictures with my pencils. I would sit quietly on the bed in the room I shared with my two sisters and take great pleasure in copying the pictures as closely as I could. That same pleasure followed me through high school and even into a few college art classes where I tried to master drawing, watercolor, charcoals. I was never the best of sketchers but you guess it ... I had a killer eye for color. Still do.

So where did this love for coloring tools come from? It's hard to say for sure. Part of it comes from my mom, I know. I remember sitting at the kitchen table as a really little girl, watching my mom do these gorgeous, vivid colorings of Bible stories using crayons. They were intricate and beautiful and I was in awe. I thought my mom was a true artist and I wanted to do something just as detailed someday. I also wanted to help color the pictures but Mom would never let me get my tiny hands on them (I wonder why, ha ha). But my mom's influence is only part of it ... I still find myself inexplicably drawn to every box of colored pencils I see. Perhaps it's the creative potential, perhaps it's the sense of creating something lovely, perhaps it's just the colors themselves! And perhaps I had a peculiar love for the colors that populated the Spirit World, and I brought that attraction with me to my mortal life. That's a particularly nice thought -- I think I'll stick to that one.

Whatever the reasons, I'm glad for this little personality peculiarity. HEY, does anyone have a box of colored pencils I could borrow?

WELL ...

Yep. Well. The elections are over, "the people" have elected a new president ... and I think we're in for it now. Which I guess tells you in a nutshell what my political views are.

I think it's wonderful and historic that we've come far enough in our national thinking to elect a Black man as president -- that's a good, good thing. A woman might have been possible too ... if Hilary hadn't been a Clinton. Which all says something about the progression of our country away from bigotry. However. I wish it could have been someone other than Obama. If Colin Powell had run I'll bet he would have had a huge support among Democrat AND Republican and it still would have been a "historical win." As it is -- we have Obama. My concern is that he is such a liberal man. How could people lose sight of that fact? Or maybe they just don't care. Maybe those who put him into office want that. I recently heard in a quote from one Senate member that Obama was the most liberal man in the Senate.

So I ask you: now what happens? If the Democrats get a filibuster majority (see this link for a discussion on what that means: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/28/us-elections-democrats-senate) then what kinds of laws are we going to see landing on the books? What kinds of judges are going to be elected to the courts in our country? What are businesses going to be forced to do? How far will foreign radicals push the envelope to test this young, unproven president? What will happen if he pulls out American troops in 18 months when our military leaders consistently say the Iraqi government isn't stable enough yet? I worry. I'm trying NOT to worry, but it's hard not to be emotionally affected by this particular election.

The big chant this election has been "Change Change Change." Whoo-hoo. I ask you: Change toward what? How far have you really thought this through?