After 4 weeks of rain and cold this last week of June has finally decided to release some real summer weather to us winter weary Minnesotans. I love this time of year and so does my loyal trainer, Jack. He loves it because it is softball/baseball season and the park where we walk every day has 4 ball fields. This means nothing to me, but to Jack each walk is a quest for balls. The best we have done so far is 16 baseballs and 4 softballs.
Summer walks in the park are like stepping back in time. The smells of fresh cut grass, blooming clover and humid air that feels like a blanket brings me right back to the circle where all of us Kacher kids were raised alongside dozens of other families. We were in a new housing development that, just a year earlier, had been a cornfield. Maybe it is just me, but I am certain that being raised in the 60's was about as good as it could get. There were woods where we built tree forts, caught butterflies and played hide and seek. Every spring we went to the feed store and picked up a couple of baby ducks that would grow up and move into the pond behind our house.
One summer my friend Renee and I convinced our parents to let us rent horses and keep them in my backyard. I guess they agreed because it was cheaper than horse camp. One Saturday morning we were dropped off at Hanson's ranch about 10 miles from home, picked out two horses and headed back to the suburbs. For 7 amazing days we strolled around Bloomington on horses. We went to parks and jumped baseball benches, road to the beach, sold rides to little kids and at the end of the day, since we had no barn, we just tied them to the cloths line posts.
Anything was possible when you were a kid in the summer and maybe anything is possible when you are 50 in the summer as well. The temperature outside is over 100, I think I will grab my water wings and head to the beach... Oh wait, I have meeting tonight. Well, maybe tomorrow....
June has started out with a, hmm, I can’t think of an adjective that can properly sum up how badly the summer has started out.
I was reminded again this week that I(we) continue to grow old with the unexpected death of a very dear friend. We have been friends since high school and had amazing adventures. You see we were flag twirlers, so you probably don't need a lot of explanation when I say "amazing adventures". We were supposed to meet for lunch and she never showed up. I sent her email and texts but didn’t hear back until her sister sent me a message on facebook saying she had passed away after a brief battle with cancer. So instead of a reschedule lunch date the next time I saw her was at her wake. After the wake my flag twirling friends and I went out for a drink and to share memories of Michelle. I still cannot believe that she left.
A few days later I drove my mom to visit her brother who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Her brother Bill was a World War II Air Force veteran; he owned a ranch and worked with horses his whole life. He has a wonderful wife and 4 children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. It was heartbreaking to see him this week, he mostly sleeps, doesn’t speak much and I am not sure what he knows or doesn’t know. As mom and I left their home we came into a group of several memory care residents and as I looked at them I didn’t see old people, I tried to see what they use to be before their bodies were robbed of their minds.
If I could turn back the clock to when they were 50 and show them what was ahead I wonder what they might have done differently, if anything. This brings me to the title of my blog today, My Dying Will. I know about the Living Will, telling people what they should do in case you’re very sick and don’t want heroic measures taken to keep you alive. But what is you are alive, very much alive, but your mind is gone. What if every day you wake up with fear, anxiety, and loneliness because you don’t know anyone? Every person I have talked with about this says they absolutely do not want to live like that, nobody has said well, it wouldn’t be that bad.
I will do some research and put up a template for anyone who wants in on this plan. I imagine I will need some pretty good criteria that must be met, but it doesn’t really need to be complicated, does it? Of course the “termination” plan needs an administrator, hopefully by the time I might need to implement the Will there will be a process in place.
Okay, that is two somewhat depressing blogs in a row. Hopefully my next post about the root canal gone bad will funny…. Not!
After 4 weeks of rain and cold this last week of June has finally decided to release some real summer weather to us winter weary Minnesotans. I love this time of year and so does my loyal trainer, Jack. He loves it because it is softball/baseball season and the park where we walk every day has 4 ball fields. This means nothing to me, but to Jack each walk is a quest for balls. The best we have done so far is 16 baseballs and 4 softballs.
