Ups and downs, pluses and minuses, good things and not so easy things; that’s life in a nutshell. 2019 was full of great meals, awesome movies, Wonderful new music, really nice books, and good times with my family. It was also full of hard stuff; sickness, hospital visits, ambulance rides, deaths in the street community, exhaustion at work for Erinn, and the uncertainty of life around every corner.
I guess I’m feeling Christmas in the air much earlier this year. I don’t know if it’s because we’ve already had our first snowstorm, or the Christmas displays are up early this year, or we’ve got our Oxford family batch of Christmas wine made, or the Santa Claus parade was yesterday and as a family we hunkered down and watched our first Christmas movie together while eating the festive special, or we have our Christmas lights up outside (not on yet).
Whatever it is, I’m feeling kind of Christmasy.
You’d think that people living in poverty wouldn’t have much to be thankful for.
But you’d be wrong.
Oh so very wrong.
I’m listening to George Michael.
Go ahead and judge me if you must.
I’d do the same to you.
Perhaps my favourite part of the camp is the lake. I so love swimming in lake water. There’s truly nothing else like it in my opinion. I would go each and every afternoon from the moment the swimming area opened until almost the time we were kicked out by the lifeguards. During the past few years while my body was giving out, some of my friends and the camp staff would haul me down to the water and literally throw me in, and I would simply float around and take in the serenity of it all.
But now that I am in this wheelchair I seem to no longer have a way to get in and out of the water.
This whole ordeal has led me to think about stuff.
(What else is new?)
We’ve been singing a song at church.
“You’re a good, good father,
that’s who you are,
And I am loved by you,
That’s who I am.“
Yesterday, after being told for more than five years that I needed to have my top left wisdom tooth out before it decays too much, I finally decided to get it done.
But it went very wrong.
I’ve been sick this week. Some sort of summer cold. Thankfully it hasn’t been so bad that I’ve ended up in the hospital (knock on wood), but it hasn’t been pleasant. I even ended up staying in bed for two days this week in hopes that the rest would help get rid of this thing
When I was looking at the house this morning I realized I was observing a metaphor for the past year. We had to rip up the front yard in order to put the window in to our basement. The perennial garden that had taken 15 or so years to mature is all gone. The front deck had to be ripped down also in order to get the front excavated so as to put in the window. Right now the front of the house looks a bit like a tornado hit it.
Two Wednesdays ago We had invited the families in our church group over for supper. It was a wonderful time together and we were able to show them our newly renovated home. I went to bed feeling great, but then woke up feeling as miserable as I have in a very long time. We even had to call an ambulance. They took me to Saint Michael’s hospital where sadly I had to be for nine days until things got resolved. It turns out I had a bladder infection and a touch of pneumonia which both required strong IV antibiotics. Good times…
