All Buttoned Up and Beautiful...

Those are the words Kathy Bates uttered when she found her money jar in the charred rubble of her home. It was only a movie, of course, called A Home of Our Own... As she shook it, then held it close, she was reassuring her children that they would be okay.

Sometimes, when things happen in close proximity, we are tempted to call it a coincidence. And sometimes, it isn't any such thing. Sometimes, thoughts, memories, and heartfelt desires converge and result in action.

But only sometimes....

Since I worked yesterday, my Thanksgiving meal was postponed until tomorrow. So today, I am busy baking pies and making stuffing for the bird.

And tomorrow around 1, my boys will join me and we will eat the traditional feast. Together around the table, my son, his two sons, and my oldest grandson, we will share the joy and remember those who cannot be with us.

I took a break from the meal preparations to go see what the mailman brought today. There, mixed in with advertisements for Christmas sales, and offers of significant savings on magazine subscriptions, was a little letter....

Not big, not fancy, not particularly showy, but packed with meaning. The local rescue mission is asking for help. And the letter starts: “Here's how your gift will touch thousands of lives this winter....” Well, of course, I had to read it.

It seems that they are going to be able to provide a complete turkey dinner, with all the trimmings, for just $1.92 per person. They plan on feeding 15,000 people this holiday season. And just as important, they will be providing 10,000 nights of safe shelter for people who would otherwise be sleeping in alleys, abandoned buildings, cars or other dangerous and inhospitable places.

Wow, that really struck a chord with me: dangerous and inhospitable places. I have noticed that those people never look at me when I drive down the street. I thought it was because they are embarrassed by their circumstances, and maybe they are. Or maybe it hurts to see the disdain in the eyes that look in their direction.

I saw the stark contrasts between living conditions just yesterday. One patient I visited lived with six other people in a rundown 2-bedroom apartment. They didn't have the money to buy his medications, and there was no hint of a festive holiday meal being prepared.

And, at another home, the food was in abundance: turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, string beans, corn, jello salad, fruit salad, rolls and more, much more. Still another home was beautifully appointed, with the most expensive things available. Though it was comfortable, and the people were very nice, I was taken aback by the contrasts between the places I had been.

And the little letter ends with this: We know your gifts are a sacrifice, especially in today's challenging economy. Thank you for caring! And there it was, all buttoned up and beautiful: the opportunity to share what I have with someone else.

So I am asking you to do the same, in your own community and in your own way: Find a need and embrace it!

Happy Holidays!

Blessings....

This seems to be the most popular time of year to count one's blessings. I think blessings are like socks: they come in all sizes, shapes and colors

but, as long as they keep your feet warm, they're good.

At times in my life, I have been short on socks, but never on blessings.

If someone has said “I love you” to you this week,

you are blessed.

If someone has called you today to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving,

you are blessed.

If you need the fingers on both hands to count your close friends,

you are blessed.

If you have a child's drawing on the door of your fridge,

you are blessed.

If you have an oven that works, and there's a turkey in it,

you are blessed.

If you are employed and you have today off from work,

you are blessed.

If you are working today and smiling about it,

you are blessed.

If every chair at your table will be filled at dinner time today,

you are blessed.

If you're alone and eat a turkey TV dinner, with your cat on your lap,

you are blessed.

If there's a little money in your wallet, and food in the fridge,

you are blessed.

I could go on and on, but you get the idea. I think that, sometimes, we look at the glass as being half empty and our mindset is on what we don't have, instead of what we do have.

Perhaps, in order to HAVE a blessing, you need to BE a blessing.....

I think I'll be a pair of rainbow socks today....

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Woe Is Me.......NOT!

I need milk. It's pretty hard to have twigs and milk for breakfast without the milk. Actually, twigs for breakfast is not all that great, even with the milk. But twigs are good for me and so, I eat them. It says “bran buds” on the box, but they look like twigs. And yes, they taste like twigs, too.

I thought about going to the store on the way home from work tonight. But then, so did everybody else in Podunk. Every store I passed had a parking lot full of cars, which means there had to be a minimum of one person per car in the store, right?

I am sure the popularity of the grocery stores this evening is directly related to the close proximity of the national holiday that is all about being thankful for our blessings and overeating. In order to overeat, there has to be food in the house. And food comes from the store.

Of course, it has to get to the store somehow, but that's not my problem. I've seen the commercials on TV: the hand comes out of the orange tree and gives the carton of orange juice to the lady shopper in the grocery store. I know how it works, really, I do.

So, I came home. I am hungry, so I am going to fix supper first, eat, and THEN go to the store. Tomorrow morning, as I toast a piece of bread for breakfast, I will chide myself for not going to the store tonight. I am not a pessimist, I just know how I am: once I'm home from work, I don't want to go anywhere.

I am lucky though. I am working on Thursday. I don't need to brave the crowds in the grocery store in order to get a turkey and all the trimmings.

On Black Friday, while everybody else is standing in line to get one of only TWO of the advertised doorbusters that is available, I will be in the grocery store, buying a turkey and all the trimmings.

I will get a small turkey, or a boneless turkey breast, stuffing mix, celery, onion, and walnuts to make it special, and shhhhhhhhhhhhh mashed potatoes in a box! You only have to serve REAL potatoes on the holiday, you can use boxed potatoes any other day of the year. Just don't tell Martha Stewart.

To me, the best part of the turkey is the leftovers. Turkey sandwiches, made with cream cheese and cranberry salsa are yummy! And then, all those little bits and pieces of turkey can be made into homemade turkey and rice soup, or turkey curry, served on mounds of fluffy rice as my

mother's recipe said.

Of course, as crowded as the grocery stores are tonight, they will be much easier to shop in on Thursday. I have never understood why the grocery store has to be open on Thanksgiving. I mean, if you forget olives, or cranberries, or something else, wouldn't you rather just do without?

That would be much better than having someone have to work on the holiday, instead of getting to be at home with family, I think.

It's different for me though. Right now, there is somebody in Podunk General Hospital, hoping he or she gets to go home tomorrow, in time to spend the holiday with family and friends. And somewhere in Podunk is a physician who will write the order discharging

that patient from the hospital.

The patient might have an IV antibiotic ordered, or a wound that needs care, or medications that he has to be taught to use. So, the physician will write orders for the home health nurse to visit him. And I will go see him on Thursday and make sure he is doing okay.

How cool is that?

Flies On the Butter.....

Norman Rockwell is not a friend of mine. I look at his art and it seems foreign to me. It is so different from what I plan to experience this holiday season.

Long ago, those holiday dinners existed. Generations around the table, lots of food and plenty of leftovers, laughter, stories, hugs and abundant love. What happened?

Life happened. We grew up, we married, we divorced, we remarried and we divorced again. There were steps and halves and ex’s and formers and friends. There seems to be a never-ending parade of changes…..life changes, time changes, and we change.

Even if I could somehow go back….no one would be the same. Nothing would be the same. Not just because we have all changed but because my memory plays tricks on me. Something that I remember dearly was probably not as wonderful as I think it was. Something that I remember as being tragic, or horrible, may not have been all that bad.

In one short year of my life, my mother was gone, my husband was gone, my father remarried, I remarried, and my older brother divorced and remarried. It seemed that we needed to wear nametags at our “Norman Rockwell” get togethers. I became a stepdaughter, a stepmother, a stepsister, a second wife, and a sister-in-law and daughter-in-law in less time than it took me to type this.

And now? The parents who loved me are gone. The mother-in-law and father-in-law who loved me are gone. The in-laws who never accepted me are still alive and still not speaking to me. The stepchildren and step grandchildren have disowned me…..and disavowed the part I played in raising them. My brothers are too busy with their own lives to worry about me at all.

I will be working on Thanksgiving, seeing patients in their homes. I will hurry my visits so I do not interrupt their holiday celebration any more than necessary. In return, I will go home to an empty house and a simple meal. And I will be “on call” until midnight.

I found out today that my son will be able to get his two sons for a couple of hours on the Sunday before Thanksgiving. We will cook all the traditional foods and sit down together to enjoy our meal as a family: mom, son, grandsons and son’s girlfriend. Norman Rockwell would paint more people into our picture, I am sure, but they won’t be there……

And we will enjoy ourselves. Traditionally, we go around the table and each of us will mention something that we are thankful for…….I will look at each person seated at the table and say that I am thankful for being with them.

After we eat and clean up the mess, and complain about how “stuffed” we are, we will go outside and play football….and I will win: nobody wants to tackle Grandma!

Under Construction...

I've been thinking...There seems to be a lot of road construction going on right now in Podunk. Everywhere I had to drive today was a construction zone. One of the main east-west arteries was closed a couple of blocks from where I needed to turn, and so I had to detour.

The main boulevard, running north-south, that leads to all the newer shopping areas, has been under construction for so long that I don't remember what it was like to NOT have heavy machinery everywhere. When they're through, the boulevard will be four lanes, each way. More traffic, more lanes, and more opportunities to miss your turn.

Oh well.

It also occurs to me that at least three projects recently have been to undo something that was done before. For instance, the street behind our office was a one-way, east, street for I can't remember how long and this year, it was reworked, repaved, and repainted. And now, it is a two-way street again. Of course, the hospital's new emergency department and emergency vehicle entrance are on that street, so maybe that is why it was changed.

Another project, last year or the year before, was to reopen a street that had been closed off as a “traffic hazard.” It seems that it was more of an inconvenience than a traffic hazard. Many people who worked at the county courthouse, or the country education department, were having to drive a considerable distance to get to work. And now, the street has been reopened and they have cut their commute nearly in half, supposedly.

I remember when Podunk got its first really huge, fancy department store. It was also the first building in town with an escalator. Not only could shoppers get to the second floor more conveniently, the escalator provided hours of entertainment to bored teenagers, preteens, and adventurous younger children, too.

Well, the department store declared bankruptcy and went out of business. Fortunately for Podunk, another department store chain came in and leased the building and opened just about two weeks ago. I won't tell you who they are, because they don't pay me to advertise for them. They do, however, sponsor a parade on Thanksgiving, but not in Podunk.

So many changes. Nothing seems to stay the same. Sometimes the changes make things better, and sometimes not. And, while I could complain about the expense for undoing changes that didn't turn out to be so great, I think I'll just be glad that someone, somewhere, wasn't afraid to undo something that wasn't all that great.

It's kinda like life, I think. Sometimes we do something, thinking it will be so great, and it isn't. And sometimes we are too embarrassed to admit that it was a mistake, and so, we live with it. I think Podunk has the right idea:

Sometimes a do-over is a good thing...

The Power of One...

So, I went to a class this morning. In nursing, we are always attending classes to learn new skills, new techniques, and new treatment modalities.

This one was different. For one thing, it was mandatory. That always gets my attention. I was signed up to take the class tonight but my caseload was down today, so I crashed the morning session instead.

I should have known that it would be different: there were tablecloths on the tables, a bowl of rocks in the middle of each table, peaceful music was playing, and when the class started, they dimmed the lights, too.

Two years ago, the nurses at my hospital were allowed to vote for the nursing theory that we wished to adopt at the hospital. We chose Jean Watson's Theory of Caring. If you go to her website, you see this written across the page:

Transforming Healthcare One Nurse at a Time

http://www.watsoncaringscience.org/

Yes, Nursing is a science and, as such, has many theories of nursing practice. In class today, I learned why we chose this one, and what it means to each of us. No dry rhetoric, no pat agenda, and no easy task, either.

The class was not only designed for us, it was presented by our nurses. Each caritas in the theory was illustrated by the story of one nurse, making a difference in one or more lives, in our hospital. Each story was told by the nurse who lived it. And all the stories were included in the booklet we received.

I found that, as the stories went on, I had moisture in my eyes and a lump in my throat. The simple acts performed by these caring nurses, the lives touched by their selflessness, and the enormity of the impact we can have, as nurses, in the lives of so many people....is mind-boggling.

To present Nursing Theory in such a personal way, through the use of stories and voices of our colleagues, right here in Podunk, was truly inspirational. I knew that I had the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of others; that's why I chose to become a nurse. What I didn't really realize is that so many others feel what I feel and see it the way I do, too.

Before we left, we were asked to pick up one of the rocks in the bowl in the center of the table. We wrote our name on one side of it (in metallic gold ink...how cool is that?) and then, on the other side, we wrote something that we give to our patients, every day, to demonstrate our caring.

And what did I write? TIME...

A Hundred Million Miracles...

Yes, that's the title of a song from “Flower Drum Song...” and was sung by Miyoshi Umeki in the movie. It has always been my favorite song from that particular musical.

It seems to me that it is even more appropriate now, in these times. Why? Because we need to see the miracles that surround us everyday and let them renew our faith and hope.

We live in a miraculous world in less than stellar times. War, poverty, economic downturns, mistrust, mismanagement of resources, and an ever widening gap between the Haves and the Have Nots......impede our ability to see the good in life.

And yes, there is good in life. Lots of good things happen, every day. Not always to us, but certainly around us, if we will just look. Did the sun come up at dawn today? Were there stars in the sky last night? Did you wake up alive this morning?

Of course, you're right: way too oversimplified. I have a tendency to do that, you know. I reduce things to the lowest common denominator and come up with much better equations than lots of other folks do. Is it because I am Simple Minded? Or Simply Mindful of the abundant good around me?

Is it because I live a charmed life and have never known tragedy? Or poverty? Or the myriad of things that can take us to the depths of despair? Or is it because I have made a conscious choice to find the happy and cherish it?

Finding your own happy doesn't mean ignoring the plight of others. I am touched, every day, by the horrible things happening to others. Can I do anything about it? Sometimes, I can. As a nurse, I can say or do something to help others. Often, it isn't much that I can do, but it is something. And often, a single act of kindness, or morsel of hope, is enough to keep someone going for another day.

As the holiday season approaches, I am hoping that we can all share what we have with those who have less. It doesn't matter what holidays you celebrate, or how different your beliefs are from mine. We all know someone who needs help, and we all have something we can share.

There is no sparkly bauble, no worldly object, and no amount of money that can make me feel better than the mere knowledge that something I did made life a tiny bit better for someone else. And yes, you could say that is selfish of me: giving to others so I can feel good about myself. Guilty as charged.

I am involved in a couple of projects this year. One of our home health agency patients is moving out of a very small travel trailer into a seniors' housing complex. We are finding furniture for his apartment. The local Emergency Aid group is desperate for non-perishable items to feed the poor and the homeless on Thanksgiving, and again on Christmas.

Our hospital is collecting “Coats for Kids” and the local motorcycle club has their annual “Toy Run”....collecting toys along their route and ending up at the Recruiting Center to give the toys they collect to the Marine Corps' Toys for Tots.

So, if you must, complain about the economy, the government, global warming, and all that other stuff. When you are through, go look at the face of a child, sitting on Santa's lap, receiving the only toy she will receive this year. Look at her bright eyes, her sweet smile, and the ragged clothes she is wearing. Watch her as she clings to that Baby Doll that someone bought and donated.

Holiday cheer and generosity start with you and me. Let's each make at least one of those hundred million miracles happen during this holiday season...

Marty...

Sometimes, you meet someone you like immediately. Marty is like that. Outgoing, talkative and funny, I was glad that I had been sent to be his nurse.

He lives out north of Podunk, off a dirt road, in the country. When I arrived, the chain link gate was closed and locked. I called him on my cell phone but, before he answered, I saw him walking toward the gate.

He waved a big wave and smiled a big grin. I knew he was my patient, and that I was at the right place: his wife told me Noah's Ark was out front. Back toward the south of the property, propped up on supports, was a huge ark, rusty and derelict, but obviously once seaworthy.

Marty didn't meet me at the gate by himself; he brought his “posse”.....four dogs and a very curious cat. And chained to the fence, on a long chain, was Lucy, the goat. As we entered his home, he showed me his bird, “Tweety” and there, perched on the swing in the very large birdcage, was a plastic version of the cartoon character. “He's easy to take care of!” Marty said with a laugh.

Short and stocky, with a wild mane of silver hair, Marty couldn't look mean if he tried. He ushered me into the living room and offered me a chair.

He sat down near me on the sofa. And then it started. For the next hour and a half, he regaled me with stories of his life.

“You know, I'm a third grade graduate....” he said as he looked at me with his intensely brown eyes, waiting for my reaction. I just kept smiling and so he explained: his parents came here from Spain. They spoke no English and worked in the fields. He didn't have a chance to continue in school because his parents followed the crops.

Somewhere along the way, his father saved up enough money to buy a big rig and started making a living by hauling whatever anyone would pay him to haul. Marty learned to drive a truck before he learned to drive a car.

When he was sixteen, he saw a piece of paper tacked to the wall next to the phone in a truck stop. Some guy in El Paso, Texas, was looking for a truck driver. Marty called him and set up an interview. One of the guy's drivers was going to be in a nearby town in a couple of days and he gave Marty a ride to El Paso.

The driver, a guy named Joe, let Marty drive the truck most of the way back to Texas. When they arrived at the trucking company, the owner took one look at Marty and told him “I'm not going to hire you....” Marty, far from being discouraged, asked him why.

“You're too small, you wouldn't be able to change the tires, on the road.” With that, Marty showed him exactly what his father had taught him: he put some axle grease on a board, put it under the tire, and pulled it off, single-handed.

Still not convinced, the owner asked Marty if he knew how to fix tractors, and Marty said he did. By the time he had the old Ford tractor running, he had a job. Thrilled, Marty vowed to make him glad that he took a chance on him. Over the next decade or more, the truck owner taught Marty everything that he needed to know about the trucking business, and taught him to speak English with a Texas drawl.

A dozen years later, at the ripe old age of 28, Marty had made enough money to buy his own truck and start his own business. Watching him talk

about his past was a treat. The sparkle in his eyes was refreshing. His laugh was contagious. And his intelligence was abundantly obvious. I can only imagine where he would be and what he would be doing, if he had had the opportunity to finish high school, at least.

After assessing his wounds, and reviewing what he was doing to care for them, it became clear to me that I could not admit him to home health services. He knew what to do and how to do it. He understood the reasons for taking each of his medications, and he was going to see his physician in a few days, too.

After a delightful visit, I had to leave my new friend and get back to work. Still smiling over his stories, and with a bag of apples that he insisted that I take, I headed for my car. He was fascinated by the Prius and had to see all of it. His cat liked it, too: we had to convince her to get out, so I could leave.

And before I left, he made me promise that I would come visit him again. I did, because I want to take pictures of the ark. And Lucy, the goat.

The Finger Man...

Not everything in life is black and white. The shades of gray can be overpowering. Choosing which way to turn can be difficult, too. Black? White? Gray? Sometimes, circumstances, or ethics, make the choices for you.

A very long time ago, I worked in the Recovery Room. There were usually four RN's working in there, with a nursing assistant to help us. There were six stations; each could accommodate two patients, with telemetry, automatic blood pressure cuffs, and oxygen available for each. There was a writing surface in the middle, so the nurse could chart while taking care of the patients.

It was a fairly quiet day in the operating room. There were lots of surgeries being done, but the patients were moving smoothly through the process. Each time the double doors to the operating room burst open, a gurney, surrounded by OR personnel, would enter the Recovery Room.

Whichever nurse was going to take the patient would raise her hand and direct the parade to her station. As the OR nurse gave report, the Recovery Room nurse was putting the oxygen mask on the patient, hooking up the telemetry, and placing the blood pressure cuff. Wounds were looked at and orders reviewed.

And then, as quickly as they swooped into the room, the OR crew was headed back to the operating room to do it all over again.

And the Recovery Room nurse watched over the awakening patient, monitoring vital signs closely, and offering comforting words: your surgery is over, you're in the recovery room now. Are you warm enough? Are you having any pain?....

This day was no different, with surgical patients coming to us, then going to their rooms. In and out, for most of the morning. And then, our manager asked me to move to the sixth station, the one we didn't use very frequently. I moved a couple of gurneys that were parked there, put oxygen masks and tubing on the oxygen outlets, ran a test strip on the telemetry, and prepared for my patient.

The doors burst open, and the scene was repeated: gurney with patient, and a parade of OR personnel accompanying it. Only this time, it was different. There were two men in uniform, one on each side of the gurney.

I got the patient hooked up to the oxygen, the telemetry, and the blood pressure cuff. I put the cuff on his left arm because his right hand was elevated on a pillow, and bandaged. The OR nurse gave me report: he had surgery on his right index finger. His trigger finger. He had been holding a gun, and a police officer shot it out of his hand.

I was busy taking care of my patient, watching his vital signs and talking to him to help him wake up. When he did wake up, he started yelling that he was in pain. I started to walk the five or so steps to the narcotics cabinet, to get the pain medication that was ordered.

One of the officers spoke: “don't give him anything, he doesn't deserve it!” I stopped, and looked at him, and saw that he was serious, and angry. I turned around and continued my trip to the narcotics cabinet.

The other officer, on the other side of the bed, looked at the first one and said “You're no better than he is!” And I looked at him and saw that he was angry, too. I drew up the medication that was ordered, walked back to the patient and gave him his pain medication, in his IV. He settled down almost immediately.

Approximately 2 hours before that young man came to me on a gurney, he walked into a local pawn shop and demanded money. After the owner complied with his order, the young man shot him dead, at point blank range. He was apprehended about two blocks away, and that is where his gun was shot out of his hand.

When he left the Recovery Room, he was taken to the same day surgery department for another couple of hours, then booked into the county jail on murder charges.

Now, there are lots of issues here, concerning motives, the loss of an innocent life, justice, and even the death penalty. How did this young man come to be a murderer? What did he need that money for? What did the shop owner do to upset him, if anything? Will he receive due process? And on and on and on.

None of that mattered in the Recovery Room.

Stopping the Buck...

I have done what I do for over 30 years. I have learned more than I thought my brain would hold. I have had experiences that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. And times and things have happened that I truly wish I could recreate, over and over again.

One thing that has never changed? The buck stops here. And that is the hardest part of being a nurse. In the public's mind, a nurse is a nurse, is a nurse. White shoes, scrubs, stethoscope around his or her neck and voila! A nurse.

I remember working an evening shift many, many years ago. I was in nursing school, and I worked for the experience and for the money to pay for school. I was on the surgical unit that evening, taking care of patients who had recently had surgery.

Our nurse that evening was also one of our nursing school instructors. I admired her for spending her vacations from school working as a registered nurse in the hospital. She was keeping her skills current and that was the type of instructor I wanted to have.

Back in those days, the unit only had one or two registered nurses working the evening shift, augmented by an LVN, or LPN, and several of us nurses' aides. While those of us who were nurses' aides felt like we were doing the lion's share of the work, it was actually the registered nurse who was making things happen.

So, on this particular evening, as I was busy with my tasks, taking vital signs, changing sheets, taking dinner trays to patients, and dumping wastebaskets, I felt like I was very busy and working very hard. And so were my teammates, the other three or four nurses' aides. Actually, two of us were not nursing assistants, we were Student Nurse Aides: students in the nursing program hired to work on the nursing units as nurses' aides, gaining more experience.

The surgical floor can be a very busy place, as I was to find out after graduating from nursing school. Things happen in the blink of an eye and it takes a skilled eye sometimes to see the subtle changes.

This particular evening, nothing out of the ordinary was happening. One of the ordinary things that was going on was all the IV drips. Usually, more than half of the surgical patients had IV medications to be given, and that function was the exclusive domain of the registered nurse.

So there I was, working with and for one of my instructors. She told us we could call her Dianne, since she was working as a nurse and was not there as our instructor. I found some sort of evil delight in finding her and reporting: “Dianne, the IV in Room 23 is almost empty....” just to watch her scramble.

After doing so about six times, for six different patients, she looked at me in sheer frustration and asked me to slow the IV down. I had to remind her that I was only a nurse's aide and I could not do that. Even though I had done it many times as a nursing student, I was not there in that capacity and I simply could not touch the IV.

Should I have slowed down the IV drips, to help her out? Well, maybe I could have, but then, you have to remember: she was my instructor, and I was afraid of being kicked out of school for performing duties beyond my scope of practice. Not an imagined fear, either, as it had happened to another student in a similar situation.

That was back in the days when IV fluids were in glass bottles. Any additives had to be added by the registered nurse before hanging the bottle and connecting it to the patient. I did help her out by gathering supplies for her: putting the right additives with the right IV solutions, and setting out syringes and alcohol swabs for her. In the end, she was the one who had to make sure that the IV solution was correct, the additive was correct, and the drip rate was correct.

And frequently, rushing into a room to hang a new bottle of IV solution meant finding an IV that had to be restarted. Also a job for the registered nurse.

It soon dawned on me that, as a nurses' aide, I could see things, and report things, and assist the registered nurse as she did her job, but I always had someone else to report to. I always had someone higher up on the food chain to hand off the problem to. And so, I learned an important lesson that evening...

In the world of hospital nursing, the buck stops with the registered nurse.

Connections...

Today is not just another day in Podunk. As I drove across town, toward the northwest to see a patient, I caught a glimpse of a big silver bird, up in the sky. The silhouette was unmistakable: it was a Boeing B-17 bomber.

Boeing began building the Flying Fortresses in the 1930’s. The bomber was known for its durability; there are lots of stories out there about bombers that got their crews home safely despite damage to the plane.

I turned off the CD player; rolled down the windows, and listened for the drone…it was amazing. Fortunately for me, it was headed east and I was headed west, so I had to keep my eyes on the road. I decided that I was lucky that I got to see it at all, since I had to work today.

And then, as I was headed back east, after visiting one of my patients, there it was again. As I drove on the freeway, it was flying low and slow over downtown Podunk. And just for me, the pilot banked and headed southwest..flying right over my car.

As he headed out of my line of sight, I looked around me: life was going on as usual in Podunk. As the bomber banked, a woman was standing, waiting for the light, by the gas station. She didn’t even look up. A little ways down the street, a man was pulling weeds in his front yard. He didn’t look up, either.

The past is over and life goes on. Or does it?

I have never flown in a B-17. I don’t remember seeing one before, though I am sure I have; I was never in the military, never flew a bomb run over Europe and I wasn’t even born during World War II.

Yet, somehow, I felt a connection to that big silver bird from the past. When that bomber was dropping its payload over Germany, Podunk was just a sleepy little farming town. Many of the local boys went off to fight the war. And many of them didn’t come back.

Every year, on Memorial Day, and again on the Fourth of July and Veteran’s Day, those “boys” are out in uniform, carrying flags, and reminding us of our connection to the rest of the world. Thousands and thousands of miles from Podunk, they fought for our freedom and some of them made the ultimate sacrifice. Others still bear the physical and mental scars of their service to their country.

Why?

Podunk has grown and prospered. The sleepy little farm community now has a population of well over 100,000 people. There is a "state of the art" hospital with a nationally acclaimed Open Heart program. Former local high school athletes play on professional ball teams.

There are movie theaters, golf courses, art shows, annual gatherings of hot rod clubs, motorcycle poker runs, and of course, the world famous Sofa Art Show….We have all the modern amenities including indoor plumbing and electricity and grocery stores and farmers’ markets and Starbucks.

Today, I was reminded why….

What happened?

I still have a lot of things I want to do while I am young enough to do them. I look in the mirror and my mother is staring back at me!

Where did the time go?

Oh wait, I remember. I spent all those years raising my children and trying to grow up myself. That's what happened. Life. But now my children are grown up and raising their children, so maybe it's my turn?

I remember as a child, starting many a sentence with “when I grow up....” and then launching into my elaborate plans for my adult life. Mostly, I was planning to do all the things that my parents wouldn't let me do because I was too young.

Well, now I am definitely not too young anymore. But somehow, I don't want to do many of them anymore. I remember telling my mother that I would stay up all night, “if I want to!” and now, that doesn't seem like such an important thing to do. Maybe because I spent plenty of years “staying up all night” when I was working night shift.

And I remember telling her that, “when I grow up, I am NEVER going to eat vegetables!” And of course, I do. But now, miraculously, they taste better than they did when I was a child. Or at least, most of them do.

So here I am, coasting into the downhill portion of life. Wondering how I could have wasted so many years not accomplishing everything I wanted to accomplish. Sure, I needed sleep, but not 8 hours. I could have squeaked by on 4 hours; I did it all the time when I was in nursing school. I had to just to do my Mom thing and my Nurse thing....and that was a lot of things to do.

The unfair part is, now that I don't have children to feed and clothe and nurture, I have lots more free time. Unfortunately, I used up all my energy back then, too. So now, after a full day at work, I don't have the energy to do as much as I used to.

I guess I could retire and have lots of time. But without enough money to make ends meet, how fun would that be? Not fun at all, I'm thinking. I have grown accustomed to living indoors, with plumbing and heating and all that good stuff.

And all that good stuff costs money. So, I have to keep working. Fortunately for me, I love my job. It really is rewarding to me to be a home health nurse. Rewarding and draining....Downtime is a must, to recuperate and regenerate myself so I can go out and do it again the next day.

So, what to do? I have to make a list, I guess. Hopefully, not a Bucket List, yet. A list of the things I want to do before I am too old to do things. Places I want to see and experiences I want to, well, experience. Then, I have to make sure that I don't let my work use up all my time and energy, and I save some for myself. For fun.

I know that planning for retirement is crucial, and I have done so. But it is still a ways off, and today is here right now. I need to enjoy today, tomorrow, the next day, and all my days. So, I have a plan: make a list, check off the experiences as I get to have them, enjoy today, look forward to tomorrow, and live in the moment.

Some of those moments are really, really special.