Anywhoo, I've had a devilish hard time of it lately and now that there's a little lull (unfortunately, it happens to be between storms), I find myself too lazy to post anything very original. However, as it behooves me to post a bit now and again (and also from a sense of guilty conscience), I find it necessary to post something, so I have decided to attach a letter, which I sent to a friend only yesterday and that seemed particularly apropos given the recent holiday (i.e. Thanksgiving). Here it is:
The “coincidences” start 6 or 7 years ago when I worked for one of our neighbors, Patti. Patti’s sister, Dede, died during the time that I was thus employed and Patti showed me a very special plant that she'd gotten from Dede that Dede had been given by an very old woman (think 80 or 90 years old). The older woman had had the plant her whole life as it had been handed down to her by her own mother who had gotten it form her mother who had gotten it from her mother, etc. So you get the point that this plant is ancient as far as regular ol’ houseplants go. Well, eventually, Patti moved away, and when she did she got rid of almost everything in her house. She gave me that plant because (and I quote) "I know you'll take care of it better than anyone else and you won’t let it die because you know how special it is."
To make a long story shorter: the plant died, all except one tiny piece. But what is cool is I had given cuttings of it to several people. One of those people was my Spanish teacher. Andrew, Laura, Nick, Eric and I stopped taking Spanish in 2002 and we didn't stay in contact with our teacher. A few months ago, while I was trying to salvage the last remaining piece of the "dinosaur plant" (as I lovingly refer to it), I was also house sitting for a friend of mine who lives across town (coincidentally, near our old Spanish teacher's neighborhood). Mom (who was really the one who killed the plant by over watering it) felt bad about the plant and wanted me to call the Spanish teacher and ask her for a cutting of the plant she’d grown from the cutting I’d given her. I felt funny calling so I didn't, but Mom decided to call for me and set up a time for me to run by and get the plant.
When I stopped to get the cutting, I figured I'd just run in and get the plant and leave, but my teacher had me come into her kitchen and asked me all about how the family was doing. I decided I didn't want to tell her about Dad being bed ridden and stuff because it's just not a fun thing to hear about, so we were talking about school and work and she started saying how wonderful Mom must be to take the time to teach all my younger brothers and sisters. I ended up telling her how depressed Mom had been that summer having to care for my great-uncle, Marcel, and also for Dad who has four collapsed discs in his back, and how she feels like she just doesn’t have enough time to spend with the little ones. One thing led to another and before I knew what had happened I had gone into everything about Dad and all the pain he's been dealing with for the past year. My Spanish teacher got really excited and told me to listen carefully. Her very old dog had been extremely sick for months and the vet told her it was pretty much dying. She was so upset by it that she couldn’t think straight. Her neighbors had her to try giving it these human supplements (vitamins and minerals). She thought "what the heck" and tried the supplements. Within a few hours the dog was feeling better (even after having been sick for so long) and it lived another nine or ten months after that in good health. She and her family started on the supplements, themselves. She told me other stories about people that she knew personally, who have been helped by the supplements because the supplements provide the body with the nutrients it needs to heal itself.
She wanted me to talk to Mom and Dad about starting Dad on the supplements. I figured that my parents wouldn't really want to give it a try because of the expense and the weird-factor. However, they did decide to give it a try because we were at very rock bottom emotionally and Dad was a rock bottom physically (he's been bed ridden all summer because of his back). Long story shorter, Dad started feeling better after only four days on the supplements and he's been doing so much better since then. He's been up and around and he even built himself bookshelves in his office and he's picking up the little ones again and he's been exercising and he’s been alive. I can't believe how much better he is; before he looked like my granddad did when I was a little girl... I've never seen my dad so old or broken looking. Now he looks younger and healthier again. I get tears in my eyes just thinking about how scary it was this summer before he started taking the supplements.
Sooooo, that's what we've been up to.
and that's what I'm thankful for this weekend, a plant, Spanish teachers, supplements, family, and especially God
ps. here's a link to the nutritionals webpage: USANA.com
