After his trip back home from the hospital on Friday, we were glad Dimetrios had so many members of his family all around him over the weekend. Inside and outside the house, they all did what families do. Visit with him and each other, play games, shoot some baskets, joke and enjoy one another. He was even able to be outdoors with them for a bit of time, too.
Some images from Sonja this past weekend...
...with Duane...
...with Grandpa Tim.
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On Monday afternoon, his Grandpa Tim let us here in PA know that Dimetrios' struggle to be well had ended. We are all mourning the loss of our bright, strong-spirited Dimetrios. He will be profoundly missed.
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Face-masked and all, we gathered here in PA at the farm. Keoni and Aidan asked me what song would I like them to play. I asked for Pie Jesu. They decided to record it with Seth at the church so we could send it to Dimetrios' family. Seth joined them on piano...
It's Juneteenth, and it's being observed like no other time in our history. My heart is with and is for its observance, yet I'm preoccupied with a family member gravely ill a couple of thousand miles away.
Great-grandson Dimetrios was once again hospitalized. He's been on a ventilator until day before yesterday. Valerie and Tim returned to Utah to be with him and his family.
With Grandpa Tim. Valerie made the quilt for him.
Tim
Jeff.
Elijah and Kingston.
After extensive medical interventions all week, Dimetrios was able to be extubated and could breathe with bi-pap assistance. It was touch and go for him yesterday, followed by a better night last night. He came home in an ambulance this afternoon.
Dimetrios arriving home.
This was the third pneumonia in eight months, plus some other bouts over time. His lungs are damaged--the right one badly. He'll be at home and Hospice will provide the extra care he and the family will need. The nursing staff will continue, as well.
He was excited to be home again and I'm sure they all appreciate getting out of the hospital setting into their familiar environment.
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This week, I made some more cloth masks. Our viral universe is going to be around for a good while. When I put on my mask, or wash hands, or disinfect I don't mind it a bit. If it thwarts even a few of those ravaging Coronavirus pathogens, it is worth it. If it prevents one more life gone or one more serious, damaging illness, it's worth it. The pneumonias that shut down Dimetrios' lungs and challenged his organs and body directly parallel what COVID-19 does to people's lungs, organs, bodies without mercy. Now over 120,000 of them dead just in our country, and nobody has a count of how many more who've survived with enormous damages.
My mask, it's worth it!
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From the Blog Desk: Flog Blogger!!! Rats. There is an upgrade going on and it's becoming a big mess to upload images and video. I'm back working in the old version so I'll include a couple more things that bounced my way during the past three pandemic months.
In these fractured times, where does one go for solace, for re-centering, refocusing? What practices calm our hearts, permit reflection?
The current events in our world draw attention--they need attention, they deserve attention. The cry now is at deafening volume for action to alleviate the pains of hideous injustices; upheaval; pandemic-sized illness; miserable poverty; erosions of democracy; egregious, lop-sided wealth and power; the assault on our planet that now and in the future mean migrations of whole populations seeking a place to live and thrive. And breathe. I hope, as do so many of us, that this time marks and bridges the deep fault lines. That we march forward on much, much better chosen trajectories throughout this generation to the next and the next.
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My body, mind and spirit hurt from our times' anguish. Always, there is more and more, and yet, even more.
For questions at the beginning of this post, I have found a few answers...
Stepping back from news absorption has helped. I don't ignore events, but parse a greatly reduced time spent on them.
This blog proved a place to go and share because you've shown you are out there. That is a meaningful connection for me as I am fairly isolated among four or five hundred other seniors, all masked and "distancing".
Many dollars I once spent on "running around" in pre-pandemic life have now been dedicated to steady support for organizations waging peace; advancing voting rights and justice; health; and trees.
Art made and observed, music in all forms are always winners in the best of times and the worst of times. So are all stripes of communications--snail mail (received and sent), texts, FaceTimes/Skypes, phone calls, Zoom (though hugely imperfect), hugging animals, talking to plants while I water them, "Good Mornings", walks outdoors, my bright windows, "distance visits", knowledge that a grocery order is in and I can pick it up curbside, and blown kisses.
I guess, like learning better how to wash hands and disinfect nearly everything, this pandemic and turmoil teaches me I have a deep human need for contact about which I, and we, are educating ourselves trying new ways, and some old, to fulfill this social and cultural need in our lives; and more profoundly learning and appreciating care for others' well-being is part of caring for ourselves.
These past months and weeks, what have been the hardest parts? Not being present during my great-grandson's illness. People lost to coronavirus. Raw injustice.
What have been the best parts of all this? The surprising contacts along the way that showed me again and again the psychic deepness of need for one another, for touch, for love. For possibilities of greater justice arising. How our spirits heal in friendship.
Where do I get hope? Young People. When I see them, hear them, watch them, they inspire me. They lift my heart. They fill me with love and hope. Am I fearful? Yes, sometimes; for to love them is to let them go without guaranties or controlled outcomes. Yet, their freedom, as my own, is the present and the future; and, if I last long enough, I get to see what happens next. And that is the great adventure.
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Elijah.
Kingston.
Dimetrios.
Keoni and Aidan. The Swan minus the wind in the Mother's Day video...
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Just this second, I got word from Valerie that Dimetrios is back at Children's Hospital again with bacterial pneumonia. Left lung. Intubated. So far, it's not Coronavirus, more tests to come. Valerie has only been back in NM for 10 days. I'm praying for them all and Dimetrios.
I just ate a luscious tomato that came from a vine in Lancaster County. Wonderful, full flavor, so juicy it ran down my chin. That tomato was the prime rib of the produce world.
Sometime in the latter part of April, Wendy, et al, started a gardening project.
The low fence around the garden is electric. So far it is keeping the goats and friends out. Keoni tells me it's easy to take up and put back in order to mow.
From Wendy before the electric fence went up...
Warm sun, warm manure-filled box, warm cat.
And the community garden began again at Dock. I often walk by it as this evening shows. A deer was going by, too.
About a week later. I don't know what is keeping the deer from eating this up.
After the first several weeks of distancing and being alone, I became acutely, oddly, and suddenly aware of the deprivation that it causes. It happened when John brought over a couple dozen eggs and we "distance" exchanged the bags we gave each other--the eggs in one, and the first set of masks I'd made for them in the other. Suddenly, I was almost in tears appreciating John's familiar presence. Soon after that, I masked up and began to walk around the perimeter of the farm a time or two each week, weather permitting. Nearly every time, one or more, sometimes all, of the family has come outside to "distance" visit for awhile. What a difference it makes. It also, makes me feel especially for those who cannot do something like this for themselves. Those with fading memories, or disabilities limiting them are for long, long times missing contact while their institutions must keep visitors away. At least, I can get in my car and just drive around.
The eggs are wonderful and the family and chickens abundantly supply me with them.
Aidan colored Easter Eggs again. This one is a masterpiece.
Another surprise happened when I was nearing the end of my walk at the farm, and Keoni stepped out of the woods with his violin and a bluetooth speaker. Here is a snippet...
Then, he said follow me around to the back...
And in addition, Aidan surprised me with a video he made on his iPhone...
Keoni and family fixed up the dining room as a makeshift studio, closing off the kitchen. He completed his school programs in May and by May 22nd sent the last of his audition recordings for virtual summer music institutes. It happened here...
On the evening of the last day to submit recordings, Wendy, John and Aidan dressed up like they were going to a concert and sat in attendance while Keoni made his final recording. They texted this afterward...
I immersed myself in Coronavirus coping and catchup blogging last week, barely able to take in the troubling news cycles enumerating that devastating number--100,000 souls lost to COVID-19.
Then, America convulsed. Again.
I cannot leave unsaid, or unremarked that what happened to George Floyd in Minneapolis was savage, horrible, unforgettable, despicable, sickening, heart-breaking and sad. Attempts to focus on positives are useful to weather the time of the virus but can't be, must not be, at the expense of feeling fully the impact of policemen killing a man in a way that wild animals would eschew.
God, please, help us build a way out of prejudice and festering racism. Let us begin! Who are my community's council members? Who are my county supervisors or commissioners? sheriffs? the state legislators? prosecutors? judges? Who hires or appoints police leadership? I can learn all I want about them these days of online communications and interactions, websites and, God help us, Twitter and Facebook. You and I, one item at a time can do this! Just like we're doing to handle this accursed virus.
While I'm working on my part, you can bet I'll be looking for ways to support building us out of the mire of generational poverty, of racism, the Coronavirus' mega-wallop to all our citizens' livelihoods, and for our beloved planet suffering so much damage from our mindless, ignorant squander of her bounty.
It is chock full of every piece of voting information that there is in the United State of America. Candidates and issues for every office on any ballot, in any precinct, anywhere. All I need is my address. LWV asks the same sets of questions of all candidates and includes their answers so it's easy to get a sense of what they stand for. There are ballot issues complete with advocate's or opponents' pros and cons. All easy to read, compare and print out for a convenient list for my ballot.
I support LVW411.org. There are others I support that align with my best thoughts and my conscience. One size that fits all does not exist. These enormous issues all burning on the front of our collective stove are as complex and as diverse as there are people. It is my hope that you join me in digging deeper into our imaginations and knowledge and science in search of and effecting solutions that really help. That really get every one of us to a better place. That is my prayer.
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My intention this week was to share the appearance of gardening the past couple of months while spring took hold. But, before that--first, I wanted to say something because like so many in America, I saw something.
