The Return to Normal Life. Whatever That Is.
July 11, 2011
I love the name of this blog. The Passionate Plate: Savoring Life in Small Bites. Admit it. It’s awesome. You wish you had thought of it first but you didn’t so move on and don’t cry in your soup over it.
When I started up this blog, that’s really what I was doing…savoring every little bit of life. There was my rather radical last push at weight loss through fasting that had me moving through the world in a normal size body for the first time in my life and the double-whammy corrective surgeries that removed about 15 pounds of sagging skin, the residue outer coating from a lifetime of morbid obesity. There were little snippets of new adventures out on the hiking trail (me…hiking….go figure), in the kitchen creating healthy food (there’s a first time for everything!) and impending travel plans to Italy and all the unbridled obsessive compulsive excitement that came along with it.
And then the hard edges of life happened. My mom died two weeks after my final surgery when I was still being held together with suture tape and a prayer. Two days later my brother Randy was diagnosed with ALS. Fast forward four months and my mother-in-law was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer and for five months until her death the rest of the life was put on hold. Travel plans were cancelled. Thoughtfully prepared healthy meals were replaced by fast, easy food thrown together at the end of emotionally and physically exhausting days. Day hikes, beach weekends, and and strolling through the farmer’s market were traded in for caregiving, doctor’s appointments, hospice arrangements, and end of life conversations. And when, after five months my mother-in-law died and we were still fresh in grieving her death our attention turned to my brother Randy and the lightening fast progression of his ALS. At that point life was no longer measured by weeks or months but by the short periods of time between the 600 air miles traveled to be with my brother and if I savored anything during those months from my mother-in-laws’ passing to the death of my brother it was savoring how precious life is in the moment. Knowing the time I had with my brilliant, handsome, and charmingly quirky brother was coming to a foreseeable end, I sucked the marrow out of the bones of every minute we had together. No minute was insignificant. Every second mattered. I knew it then when he was still here. I know all the more now that he’s gone.
During all the months that have made up the last three years, blogging plummeted to the bottom of my priority list while every meaningful relationship I have skyrocketed to the top. There were the months spent supporting my spouse as she cared for her mom, followed by months of spending every minute I could with my brother, and recently over the past two months life has been all about grieving his passing. Looking back, the only writing I’ve done through these months that’s worth anything at all are the words I scrawled together when writing the obituaries for my mom, my mother-in-law, and my brother. They were actually words that came easy even if they were the hardest words I’ve ever had to write. [Note to my surviving family members: No, I will not write your obituary if I out live you. Write your own or begin now to recruit one of your off-spring for the task. I'll correct the typos but that's all your getting from me because I've reached my obit quota.]
So here I am once again, getting back into some normal flow of life when life has seemed anything but normal and to get myself rooted back into ordinary life I’m going to make another run at blogging about this and that. Mostly this. Sometimes that. We’ll see where it takes us.
Posted in Healthy Eating, Our Families, Weight Loss
July 11th, 2011 at 4:17 pm
Welcome back, Anita, I’ve missed you, and I am sorry you have had a tough year. It is hard enough to say good bye to loved family members one by one, let alone a constant stream of farewells; my heart goes out to you. I am so glad for you that you were able to have precious time with your brother.
July 11th, 2011 at 5:03 pm
Welcome back. You have been missed. I know that you will serve up hearty offerings of love and details from your full life. To the best Cookie Baker I know, I wish you love a deep intimate relationships. You are a wonder and a blessing, Anita. Thank you for being you. God bless you, Dana and your families. With love, Kay
July 11th, 2011 at 6:32 pm
Elizabeth and Kay, Wow. Two of you are still hanging around here? That’s about two more than I estimated! Thank you both for such kind words. It’s been a hard couple years to be sure but it’s also been stretching, deepening, and I believe spiritually maturing….though I suppose time will prove that one way or another
Blessings to you both for such encouragement…and for not jumping ship!
July 11th, 2011 at 7:21 pm
We are strangers that have never met but I have followed your journey mostly on Facebook. Not wanting to intrude, my prayers have been with you during these heartbreaking times in your life. I am happy to read your words on this blog because I can feel that darkness lifting. Your words make me smile which I hope makes you smile
July 11th, 2011 at 8:02 pm
Mia, thank you so much for telling me that you’ve been praying for me through this time. That means so much, truly it does. Grief can be such a suffocating thing and there’s a sense of relief in being able to slowly find my breath again. There are still tears in everyday but I wouldn’t want it, nor could I imagine it, any other way. Again, thank you…and yes, I’m smiling in reading your words.
July 11th, 2011 at 8:09 pm
Oh, Anita… Breaks my heart to hear about the loss and pain. I can remember a time in my 20′s when I was having to take so much time off from work as a rookie federal agent, when I was supposed to be traveling, to attend funerals for family members, my boss had the audacity to require obituaries from me to prove the time off was legit. Cancer seemed to take out everyone in my father’s family all at once. I’m thinking about what it must be like for you now, and what I remember from those years for me – how hard it was to process the loss, and do the grieving when one loss is followed so closely by another and then another. I wish for you in the coming years (note the plural) time for deep and meaningful renewal, healing and a reconnection to life that allows you to find your brother, mother and mom-in-law with you in ways you can articulate and find pleasure in for the rest of your life. Namaste, dear one. The best to you, oh, writer of the living.
July 12th, 2011 at 11:28 am
What a difficult collection of months you’ve had. I’m so sorry for all the losses you and your spouse have sustained. My thoughts and prayers are with you.
Very glad to see you back in my blog reader and looking forward to reading more of your wisdom.
July 12th, 2011 at 6:52 pm
Kit and Kevin, thanks to both of you for such kind and generous words of encouragement. I genuinely appreciate and am touched by what both your comments. I’ve come in these past months to understand what it means when people call moving through the process of grieving as “grief work.” The multiple losses, as you know Kit from your own experience, is more than grieving and then grieving and then grieving again. There are times when it seems you don’t even know what it is you’re grieving on that particular day. I’ve also told everyone in my life I love to get their rest, eat good food, exercise, and see their doctor regularly
July 13th, 2011 at 10:57 pm
yay…can’t wait to hear how you enjoy life and savor it again.