Off We Go!

(Told through guidedog Vivi)

Surely she sees me standing on the step waiting for my morning walk. But she is listening to something on that thing in her hand she says is a phone, and she’s smiling at something inside her head again. If I could read her mind I’d be sure she’s thinking of people I don’t know that she calls Mama, Daddy, Larry or Mammaw and … oops, there’s this dog she calls Brownie. I bet he’s not as pretty as me this Brownie dog, but he wags his tail hard and scratches fleas. Somebody needs to buy him some flea medicine.

Now she’s singing. I wag my tail too, hard enough to hit the front porch wall, but she keeps on singing. I go over and lick, lick, lick and she hugs me and promises me a walk in just a little while. 

“After the trash trucks are gone,” she says. They are really noisy, those trash trucks. They drown out that thing she holds in her hand that makes noise and they drown out her singing. I lay back down at the top of the steps and work hard to zero in on her thoughts. Can she think and sing at the same time?

I guess so because now she’s thinking about little children she calls Kevin and Christi. I know a Kevin and a Christi but they are grown up people. 

Christi and Kevin as children

And … oops, there’s this other dog they call Princess. I’d like to play with Princess. I think about Stella, my best friend and wonder where she is. Is she with that Christi person and Taylor? I love Taylor and that person Brittany… I wonder when they are ever coming over to play.

Stella

More friends! 

There’s a squirrel sprinting across the yard! I stand up and stare but don’t dare run off the step or she’ll quit singing and yell at me. 

 

Oh boy! She’s standing up and opening the door for us to go outside but … she passes right on by my leash without stopping and goes into the office. Surely not another long day of her working! I lose hope and know I’m probably fixing to snore.

What was that?! She’s standing up and changing shoes! This is a good sign. I try to lick her feet to be sure they are clean before she slips on that shoe but she pats my head and says “get back silly girl,” just like she does when I pounce on her pillow so she can’t get in her place in bed at night. She’s getting a doggy bag from behind the door, rolling it up small, and sliding it in the front of that thing she calls a bra. 

I think we’re just about ready for a walk when she turns around and goes into the room where that big water bowl is that she won’t let me drink out of. She closes the door and I lay down at the front door, still hoping. Finally she comes out, forgets she already has a bag and gets another one, then laughs and puts it back. Now, it’s time for sure! She picks up my harness and my leash! I’m so excited I jump around and try to lick her face, reaching up as high as possible. She tells me to stay or we’ll never get that harness and leash snapped. I can’t be still and keep on doing my excited dog dance. The leash gets snapped and I stand beating the front door with my tail. She picks up that thing she says is a phone, grabs two pieces of sugar free peppermint, opens the front door, closes and locks it and there goes that squirrel! Oh I want to chase him in the worst way! Instead I do another little happy dance as I realize if I chase that squirrel I’ll be grounded for the rest of the day and she’ll just think, sing, and play or work and I’ll never get a walk. I remember just in time to stop at the curb. She steps down, I concentrate on everything around us but mostly what might be in her way. We’re clear for take-off! Off we go!

STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS

 

Today my blog thoughts turn back to earlier days as I move from middle age into elderly? What a subtle transition! Yet as I live and notice different things somehow it’s fun to organize time into the gentle chaos of today that seems now to be a serious love moment of yesterday. First of all, before I dive in, let me say to all my facebook friends who have said needed prayers for me over the past few days, you people rock! There’s no better gift on earth than a prayer said on behalf of a friend. I believe those prayers definitely go from your hearts to God’s heart and return to me in the form of His healing touch, so much better than a gift wrapped up with a beautiful bow! Thank you all!

Now, however, I want to do a little spoof on the days of yesteryear, so if any young folks ever get around to reading this just hang on.  

Do you all remember when people didn’t feel well how all the friends and family invaded the house so they could watch you be sick? Not only did they do this, but they came armed with food you didn’t want to eat. If you actually had a phone Mom or Dad would eventually take it off the hook so you could get some sleep, or appoint one informant to receive all those calls. People sometimes felt compelled to do something so you might even end up with four or five pairs of new pajamas or coloring books if you were young enough. Neighbors came in and swept the floors and washed the dishes, and sometimes made irritating suggestions about how you might be cared for better.

If you were in the hospital nurses could actually give out minimal wellness reports until they got tired of doing so. People had to be shooed out of someone’s room because there were too many people in there. Besides regular aunts, some great aunts were obliged to check on you until they knew you were up and running. You were never left alone at night, even if you just had the flu.

It was this latter statement of “overnight” that kept me in the hospital after being put through emergency gallbladder surgery. The ONLY reason I stayed overnight was because I live by myself and am blind, which, in itself, warrants a time-out for a separate paragraph here.   

This was a modern mega hospital in the middle of the state’s capital, so I was taken back when questions came at me like:  “Does your dog help you get to your kitchen?” or “Do you need me to hold the cup so you can pee?” One more question was concerning the fact I just could not sleep in the bed, in the chair, in the recliner, or after walking up and down the hall with a nurse holding onto me for dear life. “Would it help if I turned on the lights for you?” she asked. In the morning breakfast was served but the CNA’s were clueless until my daughter came in and said “the eggs are at 6 o’clock, the bacon is laying right over the top of them, the oatmeal which you won’t eat is moved from 3 o’clock and the Jell-O is at 11.”

No matter, these folks were so kind and concerned I tried really hard not to scare them too much, and wish I had felt good enough to help them become more educated about blindness. As usual, Vivi did her own version of that, and doctors left their rounds to come visit the beautiful Labrador who became an instant star.

  Now, four days later my mind rewinds. If I had had gallbladder surgery fifty years ago there would probably be an incision from navel to the right side, I would still be sleeping on morphine, and wouldn’t be able to enjoy all those folks who invaded the house to help. Today, however, I’m down to about one power packed pill every fifteen hours and am wondering if tomorrow I can take Vivi for a short walk around the neighborhood. Four little puncture wounds seem to be healing up nicely.

So, as today my phone has not rung, no texts, no people, I quietly think of my mom sitting in Lexington. I know she is in her chair trying to watch a TV she told me yesterday she can no longer see. Her phone seldom rings. Her family surrounds her, yet neighbors don’t come to sit with her, bring her food or help in her care. Church folks seldom make their way to her door. Is this our future?

As I try to combine the past, the present and the future I hope somehow I can take the best from yesterday and apply it to the tomorrows ahead. I wish I knew how to take all the love from childhood and place it in my mom’s hands today, or take the time from a lonely Sunday afternoon and spread love over a heart like spreading peanut butter onto a slice of bread. There seems to be no real point to this blog, or is there? Maybe it’s just experiencing time passing.  Maybe it’s missing the mom who took care of us as children. Maybe it’s punctuated by my next-door neighbor who asked me how I was and walked away as I said “I just had gallbladder surgery.” Maybe it’s just too much Oxycodone. I do believe, however, if I put this into a capsule for thousands of years the one thing that would still be real is the feelings of love that will never become outdated.

 

 

SERIOUSLY SILLY THOUGHTS

 

 

How long has it been since all the candles would fit on your birthday cake?

Do you remember how you felt on your first job when you realized you had worked right through what once was summer vacation?

When is the last time you threw a napkin across the room and actually hit the trashcan?

Or you laughed so hard you couldn’t breathe and wondered if you would make it to the bathroom.

 

Do you believe that rubbing your tummy and patting your head at the same time seems much easier after age fifty.

Have you truly talked to your plant and believed it grew?

Or played peak-a-boo with your puppy dog?

 

Remember the nursery rhyme “sing a Song of Six Pence?

Did your mind ever really see how it might have looked when the maid was in the garden and the blackbird came down and “pecked” off her nose?

Now it seems to be more politically correct to say “sat” on her nose. Either way, think about it; it’s funny!

Besides a wedding day or birth of a child have you felt the way you do at Christmas, when it wasn’t Christmas at all?

Do you sometimes wish you could still roll over and over in the fall leaves?

 

Rainbows, like daffodils and the way love feels are ageless wonders!

And time keeps on moving, whether we do or not.

Take off your watch for a weekend and see if it doesn’t last longer.

Life is very short once you look at it backwards, so take the best of it with you for all days.

 

HOW I SEE

 

HOW I SEE

 

This little blog is just to bring you alongside me as days pass and things change.

 

Thursday morning my friend Teresa pulled up in front of my house. I saw something that looked almost white.  “What is that?” I asked Teresa. Finally we realized I was seeing the house next to mine. I was ecstatic about being able to see that house all the way from my parking space. “A great sight day,” I thought as we went inside.  

We stood in the kitchen talking as I put away frozen food. I heard her voice, knew exactly where she was standing, so why did I bump right into her?

 

I sat in the chair at the ophthalmologist’s office before taking the dreaded visual fields test.

Doctor:  How does your vision seem today?

Me:  I’m seeing ceiling fans.

Doctor:  Great!!!!

Me:  But there aren’t any.

 

The salad dressing bottle was full, so why was it not dropping onto my salad. The weight of the bottle suddenly felt a bit lighter in my hand as I understood that I was fixing to eat a salad swimming in Ranch. Dressing.

Vivi and I stood on the front porch, her harness in my hand. “Forward,” I commanded. She did not move. “Forward,” I said again a little more emphatically as I put one foot out front, just as my head banged against the square post right beside the front step.

Me and my shadow. Oops, that’s not a shadow. 

Have you ever watched one blind person trying to hand something to another blind person? Keep a sense of humor; it can be funny.

My family and sometimes friends love to go looking at Christmas lights, one of my favorite things. Now it excites me so much when I really do see some. “Look!”  I pointed, … just as it turned green. 

“Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone.” Walking from outdoors to inside is like a dark hole. If not for Vivi.

 

Christi and I sat in a lobby. “How well do  you see?” someone asked me.

“Well, I know you’re there so that must be you I see a shadow of, only frankly you could just as well be a vase of flowers.”

“There is a vase of flowers on the table,” she said.   

Today that conversation could go like this:

“Can you see what’s on that table?”

“What table?” I’d wonder.

It was dark outside except I could see flashing lights and heard two motors from probable rescue vehicles turning into my cul-de-sac. Immediately my thoughts went to the older neighbor down the street and thought about her. Then I realized other people may be thinking it was this older lady down the street, me. Okay, rubber necking is not something that works for me. Is there such a thing as rubber earing? What happened you ask? To this day I have no idea. All I can tell you is I heard folks talking outside my window and laughing about whatever had happened. Well, that really would have been me had911 came the day my boiled eggs exploded to the ceiling.

 

Poor pitiful me.

One night over twenty-five years ago I fell and broke my wrist and my ankle. Not wanting to call and bother my children, I called a cab and then sat in the hospital emergency room for about three hours, admiring my ability to keep from screaming. Finally two casts later I called my cab to go back home with bottles of Percocet in my hand. It didn’t occur until I was indoors that my wrist and hand were in the cast and the pain killer was in a childproof bottle.

 

As I live and discover new things happening, my admiration for those totally blind girls and boys I went to school with grows by leaps and bounds. I suppose they always knew that when you stopped the vacuum to go answer the phone or anything, you’d best remember where you parked the vacuum. Maybe at my age it’ll help my brain stay active?

 

A few of my favorite things:   

Fire engine red and bright banana colored cars.

Cloudy days that even up the shadows.

Sunshine when I don’t have to walk facing it.

Digital pictures or photos put on canvas.

The way things move across my TV screen, whether I know what they are or not.

Music! Music! Music!

 

As I said above, this is just letting you walk beside my life through the changes and try to “see” life through my eyes as I experience new places.

Should I ever stumble, I believe God will just turn up the music.