Category: reflections

My father died halfway through my senior year of high school, and I remember going through the second half of that year on autopilot. Thinking, if I can just get this last bit of high school over with, graduate, and go to college maybe that will fill up this gaping hole in my life. I was so desperate to go off to school anyway, but even more so after his death. I have tried to fill the hole of my sweet Daddy through the years. But you can’t escape the loss of a parent when you’re THAT young by filling it with things that really don’t matter. As I’ve gone through the medical things that I have for the past 10 months, and a horrific experience nine months ago tomorrow, the memories of him that were once so easily accessible haven’t been as easily accessed. That is, until recently. Now, when I close my eyes and sit in the beautiful silence of this new apartment, I can hear his voice or think of a silly memory. What a special gift.

My Daddy was larger than life in every way a person can be, and this December will mark 18 years since his passing. I’ve lived a lot of life in the years since he left his Earthly home for his Heavenly one, but I’d like to think that the hard living is done and I can just be who God wants me to be now. Hopefully that person will make that silly angel in Heaven with the crooked halo and Hawaiian shirt proud. ❤️

I use ride shares to get around now, and have for many months. In the couple of months since I’ve last written, I don’t use them nearly as often because I’ve moved , but occasionally I do. I don’t usually get anyone rude or weird. Sometimes I’ll get a silent person that gives off a leave me alone vibe, and a large portion of the time I will get a Spanish speaking person. Those are my favorite ones to get. Not because my Spanish is that great, although it can be when my brain lets me access all the Spanish stored in there, but because I know what it is like to not be able to communicate. I am an American and speak English, but what I mean is i know what it’s like for the words that I want to say come out in a jumbled mess…or not at all. I know what it’s like to not be able to speak to others, and so I relate to these gentleman in a round about way, get out my translator app, and try. Then of course they get really excited and start speaking REALLY FAST. They’ve missed talking! But I think they appreciate someone making the effort. Someone not thinking you’re in America so you need to learn English! 🤦🏼‍♀️They do try to speak and most of them are actively trying to learn a language that is tremendously difficult to learn because they’re humans that want to communicate with others. We need to open our hearts to others and throw preconceived notions and prejudices out the window. How can we ever expect things to get better in America if we don’t extend grace to each other and especially to those that need it the most?

Many years ago, I first heard someone say that they were homesick for Heaven. I had had no idea what she meant at the time. She was a happily married pregnant person. Everything at that point that I knew even then wasn’t in the cards for me. She never explained and I never asked, but I have wondered what she meant through the years. I suppose different people can view the meaning of such a phrase differently. Here is my take.

I will most likely never have an abundance of money, or power, or fame of any sort. I will be known to the people in my immediate circle. A circle that is decidedly larger than what I thought, but my immediate circle just the same. I will be noticeably physically handicapped for a long while. Maybe always. Live in apartments perhaps. I will have a dog, and treat it like the prized possession that all dogs are for the rest of my life. I will appreciate everything indefinitely. Every interaction good and bad, and every breath I take. Every emotion that I feel. I will keep most things to myself except with those that matter, love a good meme, detest watching tv, and be brutally honest. I will live life now, fully and authentically, but oh how I will be homesick for Heaven. Not just because my father is there, and his mama, and my mother’s parents, etc. and so on. But because people do not hate each other there, or prioritize nonsense. I imagine I will feel there like I do at Mass. I will be most myself and sit at the feet of Jesus. My yes, I am certainly homesick for that. In the meantime, I will appreciate the here and now, and make sure that’s where I end up. ❤️

May you find your voice and may it be heard. Amen

When I began to be incredibly ill in December of last year, I remember thinking if I could make it to Saturday and submit a prayer request to this Facebook group I’m a part of, then maybe I could live through another week. Someone responded to one request with that simple prayer that you first read. All my life I have felt that my impact was small. I have silently survived and made do for as long as I can remember. But people began to notice my rapid neurological decline. They wondered what I was doing and why. There were multiple trips to hospital ERs, balls were dropped, and I realized that I would have to rehab myself again. Being sent home with a brochure was a poignant moment of the pre new location journey.

Then I began to speak again. It didn’t make much sense, I was still so ill, but I had a voice.

Going to Mass was an integral part of my survival at the beginning of this journey, and continues to be to this day. Normally, I am very foggy by the end of the day since I cannot go to Mass as much. It is also difficult walking and dragging my body around as it is now. But after I receive Communion weekly I find that I am alert and cognitively very much myself. Physically, I’m not sure where I will end up, but my brain is awesome. It will heal as my face already has.

I don’t pretend to know why things happen. God is the ultimate authority figure, and I’m skeptical of know it alls and those who claim to know as He does. All I know is that His goodness and mercy in my life is so vast and surpasses my understanding.

I suppose staring death in the face all those months is what makes me bold. It makes me unafraid to speak for the first time in many years now that my voice has been found and is heard.

Thanks Be to God.

My life inherently changed 7 months ago.

All my life I have been proud of my ability to do physical things. Mostly because it’s always hurt to do them, but also because I knew that I was quietly helping myself feel better. It has been an outlet of sorts for me. Any frustration, sadness, whatever-I could go to a gym, go to crazy jobs that I’ve had no business doing, take a fitness class, or go for a walk. It also helped with clots and swelling to pedal or do any of the aforementioned things when those started to flair up. Anyone that tells you that any sort of movement, if they are capable of moving, will not help them is flat out not being honest. 🤷🏼‍♀️ (or they’re just lazy. 👀)

I cannot move now without it being incredibly painful. I am also hunched over because standing upright makes me feel like letting out a yell. I have always waddled, but I corrected that for a time and now it’s a million times worse. I also drag my left side around all day. As a person who has honestly never really enjoyed attention, I’m hard to miss now when I move.

Some days the loss of physical anonymity makes me sad, or embarrassed, or ticked off. (Or a combo of all three!) But on this eve of the 7 month anniversary of my new life, I suppose I’m writing this to give myself permission to let go. Come what may God will see me through, and maybe I’ll be better than before my journey began. ❤️

What if you had nine hours of good time a day? By good I mean able to think and function relatively normally cognitively. I am in that position most days. Sometimes it’s more like 6-7 hours, but you get the gist. Plus, nine hours is definitely an improvement from the -2 hours I had going on for awhile there, so I’ll take what I can get!

I recently took a week off from my main social media account because I didn’t want to waste some of my 9 precious hours looking at all the political garbage happening in the US right now. But alas, it’s unavoidable no matter how hard I try. Maybe after November my nine hours can be filled with nothing but laughter, Jesus, prayer, hobbles with my dog up and down my street, watching an occasional show, this blog, reading, etc.

One of the most beautiful things that has happened to me amidst all the trauma and upheaval and fighting to survive from December of last year to now is a realization of sorts. It’s okay to say no. It’s okay to put up strict boundaries and protect your peace. It’s okay to hobble, not want to speak to awful people that you happen to be related to, and it’s okay to be yourself. It’s okay to use 9 hours of the time that you’re awake and with it cognitively however that looks for you(or maybe you’re lucky and get more time! ❤️😊) to be unabashedly you.

In the spirit of a podcast I just listened to, and also because I haven’t done it in awhile, I’m going to post a free flowing prayer as it comes to me. 10 years ago, my Uncle Ed taught me to pray after my brain issues really began. When he was in seminary at Duke he learned the ACTS prayer method which stands for Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. This method has saved my life a time or two, and has helped me to communicate with my best friend The Big Guy in Heaven when I have been out of words, or just had too many to make them make sense. So here goes:

Adoration: I am so thankful for the relationship that I have with you. A relationship that sustains and uplifts me even on days that I don’t realize it. Thank you for loving me and showering me with your Grace.

Confession: I am not always appreciative of the blessings I am given large and small. Sometimes, I am filled with fear because of the chaos that runs rampant in the government in the US. Sometimes I let the bad outweigh the good in my life when there is always more good.

Thanksgiving: Thank you for this apartment. Thank you for lights that turn on, water that runs, and a sink that is fixed, Thank you for every trial and struggle. Thank you for my angel Elles. Thank you for Catholicism. Thank you for my neurologist, cardiologist, and PCP.

Supplication: Please restore my faith in the government of the United States, and help all elected officials to see past their own egos. Help them to remember that they were elected to govern, lead, and help the people of this country. Please help me to maintain safety from Covid when I attend Mass, and am at the hospital.

Amen.

This is a departure from anything I’ve ever written, but sometimes it’s nice to write differently.

Yesterday after therapies, I was waiting for my Lyft to arrive in this open air area at the hospital. It was absolutely lovely. Normally, I sit on this little perch, or at the bistro where the employees eat but I wanted some quiet. It was the oddest thing, but I was mesmerized by the view. Odd because I could give two hoots about water and it takes a lot to mesmerize me. 😅 But, in that moment, I was relaxed. As I watched this sail boat on the river, I thought of all the years others had sat out there too. I wondered who was steering it, and if my childhood neurosurgeon still had a sailboat. I wondered about my future and the future of my country. But, as is the norm now, my back began to ache, and I got up to distract myself and wait for my ride home.

It is an undisputed fact for those that know me well that I should not be alive. The life that I have lived has been complicated at times, and seems like it’s been 70 years long instead of 35. What started the complications was that I was born with a condition that created lots of trials for me growing up in a teeny southern town. The only cure for this condition is brain surgery. Until high school, i never knew anyone with hydrocephalus. I just knew my head was heavy, running was a terrible idea, and I tripped a lot. Also that my head was very very big evidently. I went to a conference and was dumbfounded. Those kids and adults had had way more than four brain surgeries! Also that those kids and adults were ridiculously happy go lucky and felt fortunate to be alive.

My anxiety about functioning in the world with hydrocephalus was often misconstrued as other things. Then came blood clots, then came a withdrawal after heart ache, then intracranial bleeds, and then full on survival mode. Somehow, I’m still standing. But now I have to function with a new level of pain, a weird gait, and rolling cognition. Life is weird. Invisible illnesses are weird too. And hard. Especially in this new world we live in that seems to change by the second. Be kind out there, readers. You never know what battles someone is fighting. ❤️

The blog that you’ve stumbled across if you’re not a friend, acquaintance, or family member of mine has my heart in it. (Hence the website name) This blog has many layers, and if you start from its infancy to now it may seem as if you’re reading the thoughts of two different authors. But it’s just me. I have just been horrifically sick the last 7ish months. My brain has issues, and not like your ex did, but of the neurological variety. Around December of last year it began to be even weirder, and there’s been a relocation for medical care, and its healing itself. Again. These past months I’ve learned what, and who matters, and try to live my life as authentically as possible as a newly physically disabled person in the middle of the pandemic the world finds itself in.

I’m unapologetically honest, Catholic, and honestly have no idea what’s next for me. Im often a bit like that fish from the Disney movie that can’t remember much for long. But I’m alive, have the basics, a perfect dog, healthcare, and am making it so far just fine. If I don’t know you, welcome to this site you’ve stumbled across. I’m glad you’re here.

I didn’t think I was going to make it at the beginning of this year many times. That has a tendency to make someone pray harder, be a lot more kind, and wake up with a sense of purpose because you didn’t think you’d wake up again in the first place. There’s more to come for me, and with Gods help perhaps it will be wildly fantastic. Or perhaps it will be perfect in something as simple as remembering to eat and daring to dream.

Blessings and love,

Lisa