A Tear and a Smile

Tommie Jann Burns
May 31, 1940 - February 25, 2008

My Mother-in-Law, my Friend, my Role Model.
I loved you in Life; I will surely love you in Death.

I would that my life remain a tear and a smile.

A tear to purify my heart and give me understanding
of life's secrets and hidden things.
A smile to draw me nigh to the sons of my kind and
to be a symbol of my glorification of the gods.

A tear to unite me with those of broken heart;
a smile to be a sign of my joy in existence.
(From A Tear and a Smile, by Kahlil Gibran, 1883-1931)

[Photo taken December 25, 2007.]

Mom's memorial service will be on Saturday, March 1, at 2p. Between now and then, we will start cleaning out the house, getting it ready to be sold. Donica will start back to work on Monday, after a clean bill of health on her shoulder surgery yesterday morning.

Life will go on. We all feel a sense of release/relief. We will grieve. We will cry. And we will remember the good times.

For all your support and condolences, thank you!

Hanging On

The good news is that Donica's rotator-cuff surgery was the best possible scenario of all the possibilities. It was the minimum of what the doctor expected: a scraping/burning off of the bone spur and the bursa. Nothing more. No torn ligaments or muscles. We are very happy campers.

The bad news is that we're now dealing with her mom's stomach and liver cancer which we just found out about on February 1, the day we landed in Atlanta from Amsterdam. She found out the diagnosis the day before, following Sam's funeral.

The cancer is so aggressive that no treatment can be done without doing more harm than good. So all we can do right now is keep Mom comfortable...and be with her as much as possible. She lives 65 miles south of us here in Atlanta.

This is the first time in 4 years that Donica has been home for this long of a stretch. She now has two weeks off to heal from her surgery...time to be with her mom and time to work on "the last details." It's like the Universe "programmed" the surgery to keep her home for Mom!

We have strength for each day as it comes. And we have YOU. God is bedrock. YOU are part of our support system.

THANK YOU!

Defrocked

It was a week ago when I last posted...about Super Tuesday. The primaries continue, as we all know. The Democratic race is closing in. Hillary is losing her precious delegates to Barack, but I don't care any more. The important thing is that our country gets united. If it's through Barack, then so be it.

My heart's no longer there (don't get me wrong--I still pay attention!). Too many other serious things are going on, most of which I can't talk about. But I can tell you this:

My goal was to get the Xmas trees back to the basement BEFORE Valentine's Day, which is this Thursday. They're not quite yet into the basement, but they are at least both defrocked!

The Disney tree without Disney.

The Everything Else tree without anything but the bows.

BEFORE Valentine's Day is always my goal, only because I LIKE Xmas trees and want them lit as long as possible. But by VD, one DOES need limits, I guess.

THIS YEAR, however, the bigger reason is that Donica has rotator-cuff surgery on her left shoulder early on VD! Right now the procedure will scrape the bone spurs that are rubbing against her ligaments/muscles (too much lifting of suitcases and backpacks the last 4 years or so). IF they're tearing those muscles, the doctor will repair them, which will make the procedure more extensive, of course. So we're hoping for the lesser of the two evils.

She'll be in a lot of pain! (Sister Ruth recently went through all this with her husband!) But we're hoping for a speedy recovery in the following 2 weeks before she has a leadership week here in Atlanta the first week of March. Then the plan is to leave for Amsterdam on March 10. GOD WILLING AND THE CREEK DON'T RISE.

So, here's to goals and plans and all the stuff that happens between the cracks when only the Universe knows what's really happening.

And oh yes, HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

From Donica's mom's yard this past Saturday.

Super Tuesday

Today it's Super Tuesday here in America! I wrote about this on my Shutterchance photoblog. I said it was my Primary Duty to vote this day. It is. And I will.

Even though this is a pre-election vote, this vote today, and all the remaining primaries/caucuses, will determine what choices we come down to in November when we elect our next President.

They say you're not supposed to talk about Religion, Sex or Politics amongst your friends. Talk about volatility! So, all I will say is that I DO know who I'm voting for and I DO hope she wins. BUT if she doesn't, I will happily go along with him, when it comes to November.

They are saying it won't likely happen but I have said from the very beginning, months ago, that it would be AWESOME if we had a team ticket of both of them in November.

That's what I'm going for, without saying a thing about politics on this Super Tuesday!

(BTW, you do NOT want to know how many things are wrong about how this American flag is displayed in this image, taken in my neighborhood on Jan. 7th.)