Not much time to write these days, bit of a time crunch with an extra project for work that I want to finish before we leave tomorrow for a wedding up Flin Flon way.

The weekend's parties in Saskatoon were nice but of course busy and tiring with two large events to attend and lots of family to visit with. Great food and good company don't always add up to any sort of relaxation.

When we got home, the first thing Everett noticed were the delphiniums outside the front step. In June when he left here, they'd been only dark green foliage about a foot high. Now they are towering blue spikes. He literally squealed in surprise, then headed for the strawberry patch.

At our place, the clouds resulted in calls to each other to come and see them. I ran for the camera while Scott yelled at his dad.

You can see this photo larger at photobucket.com.

Around the countryside, cameraless people were phoning to alert relatives and friends and ask them to take pictures. The clouds looked like smooth cotton puffs, with the texture of whipped cream or spongy styrofoam. None of us had ever seen any like them.

Try photobucket again for a better view.

After this round of picture-taking, Scott took me aside and showed me how to set the lens focus in several different ways. Maybe one day ....

We cleaned the half-gallon of saskatoon berries gleaned from the bushes along our driveway, and last night at 2 a.m. when unable to sleep I threw a handful into my granola. Whoa! Fantastico. So I want to dry the berries and substitute them for the raisins called for by the recipe.

(for which, organic, they are charging $6.99 for a cup and a half at the Co-op store and rinsing and draining isn't good enough, you have to pick through for actual sticks; goddamn raisins, dirtiest things on the planet; obviously i am due a trip to Steep Hill this weekend when we're in the city, for a better price)

I'm guessing here. I have no fruit dryer, but it is a cool day -- kathy starts to love cool days, i never thought i'd see it in my lifetime -- so the oven is an option. what, just lay them out and dry them at a very low heat, like say 150F? and i wonder how many hours, how dry they'd need to be. i can keep them in the deep freeze.

Never heard of dried strawberries. You?

I'm going planting flowers again today. Spent a couple hours at it yesterday aft 'neath a gray sky, lovely cool comfort. Wisely did not come home with more plants, as I have yet to decide where to make a bed for the hostas and the purple thing remaining from the last four trays Marilou gave me on Saturday.

It took till Tuesday to get most of them into the ground, but voila Scott came along and in 20 minutes did what takes me about an hour to do: put the edging into the ground along the crescent-moon shape of the flowerbed I made. Damn he's good.

It is late in the season for planting but M has so many perennials that must be saved, that I took pity on her and them and offered to help. I've spent two afternoons over there so far. We don't talk much, we just dig and place and pat.

Her yard is a splendiforous overflowing abundance of colour and there are so many flowers left to plant that it is mindboggling but oh what fun to stick flowers into the ground however you like and have such a variety to choose from. I am having a wonderful time, and so satisfied at the end of the day to look at the filled flowerbeds and imagine them less bedraggled and blossoming into glory.

There are so many leftover greenhouse flowers that we are forced to concentrate on the perennials and forget about the platoons of annuals for now.

I brought home brown-eyed susans, daylilies, lambs ear, blazing stars, speedwell and lilies and put them, all but the latter, together in the new bed. There were purple daisies and yellow dried-buttercup things to add to the potsful I already had sitting near the doorstep.

Dear Judy,

For some reason I didn't receive your last two notifies, so was pleasantly surprised to see you have been updating.

I first heard of you and Andrew when Shelagh Rogers interviewed you on CBC Radio. The news that you were keeping an online journal of your experience was welcome, because I have loved diaries and kept one since I was in my early teens. I've had an online journal in one form or another for quite a few years, too. So I went to your web page and came along with you as best I could while you followed the painful path that is part of life for all of us at some time or other.

You know how you can sympathize with someone's sorrow and loss, without having a clue just how extremely agonizing and debilitating it is? Well that's how I was. I empathized, I cared, but I had no way of really comprehending the gouge that was being made into your lives.

On May 17th I took my first step into that arena when my dad phoned from BC with the news that my mother has terminal kidney cancer, stage four, and "they can't do anything for her." The shock, the fear, the sorrow, the anxiety ... wow, who knew? Well, you do.

My mother is, aside from this cancer, a healthy 63-year-old woman with a sweet, generous nature and an old-fashioned, down-to-earth Saskatchewan sensibility. I can't bear the thought of being without her, much as I know it is inevitable even without life-threatening illness. Either we bury them, or our parents bury us — I don't think I'd wish this grief (or worse, perhaps, when you lose your child) on her.

Dad's mother died suddenly when he was only about 25. Shortly after, Mom saw her walk into their bedroom one morning while they were still in bed, just as if she was coming in to wake them up. She never told Dad this until recently because she figured he'd think she was dreaming.

Mom is not afraid of dying, she says. She'd just like a little more time if possible (there's an experimental drug treatment she's eligible to try for the next nine months, and with luck it will slow or stop the cancer's growth), and to make good use of the time she has left. So I'm taking my two kids and moving out to Kelowna for the next year at least, to help her though these treatments and to drink her in, every day that I can. My sister, who also lives near me on a farm, is also taking her teenage daughter and moving out there. We hope our mom will be a medical miracle, but just in case the initial prognosis of six months to a year to live turns out to be the reality, we don't want to have any regrets about not being with her now. And our dad also needs us. She is not only his highschool sweetheart, but his best friend. He's reeling, too.

How visceral is my fear of what she may suffer physically as well as in other ways. How surprised I am that I feel such intense grief when she is still alive and feeling fairly well! I wonder how much of this emotion is feeling sorry for myself and is completely unnecessary, just an addiction to melodrama, a reaction to a running-free imagination. I try to let the emotion come and go as it will, but my analytical mind observes and wonders if there isn't some mindset I could discover that would help me handle all this a little bit better.

I do believe, because those who claim to see and hear those who live on in spirit say it's so, that Andrew is around you and the kids, probably every day, and that your dream was not just a dream, but a way that he could communicate with you and let you know that he is alive and well and still loves you as much as ever and will be there for you.

It's only a belief. I don't know that it's true, because I haven't seen it for myself. There is a gap between believing and knowing. But it makes sense to me; it really does.

I was standing at the kitchen sink, washing dishes, a Tuck & Patti CD playing on the table behind me. The words to the following song seemed to speak directly to me, and as I read your recent journal entries this morning I thought maybe they would mean something to you, too ... a kind of comforting promise, if nothing else.

Here are the words to the song, the whole reason I sat down to write you this letter:

Tears of Joy

I can see the trace that sorrow has left upon your face
And bein' realistic I know there are some things that time just won't erase
But still I'm comin' to you gently and there's one promise I can make
Beside every tear that sorrow has left you, tears of joy will take their place.

C'mon and let them set you free.

Sometimes I know life can make you feel like you don't know what to do
But there comes a time when you must settle down and feel the presence of one who loves you
Oh yes I'm coming to you gently and there's one promise I can make
Cause I know every tear that sorrow has left you, tears of joy will take their place.

Tear of joy, wash you clean, c'mon and let them set you free

If I could fly, I'd fly straight to surround you with my love
You'll be cryin' tears of joy, hey, wash you clean
C'mon and let them set you free
C'mon, say, let those tears set you free
Come on now, you'll be cryin' tears of joy, you'll be cryin' tears of joy,
Real joy, tears of joy, you'll be crying tears of joy, they say that tears can wash you free, set you free, you'll be cryin' tears of joy.

It was supposed to be four miles — the distance of a section's perimeter — and a nice long walk for me. It turned out to be six miles and damn tired legs by the time I was three-quarters of the way home.

But it was pretty.

~Dreamboat's hillbilly cousin ~

Hi mom! Well, I'm surprised to find out that the kitten brownie is ok and is'nt dead. I thought it fell out of the loft. About Skipper and his legwound, lets just pray for him like I did for Blacky ok.

Its been raining here alot. It also stormed alot. The family reunion was great. I was playing frisbee with Dominic and I think he's getting better at it and we're going to his house today! The pinyauta this year was a spiderman one, I liked bashing it. All I wanted from it was bubble gum and I'v been chewing ever since.

The arcade had no good games this year at all, only that chicken egg collecting game whitch I won jelly beens for playing. The games at the reunion were fun. I won lots of candy.

The kittens look like thier ready to climb down already.

When I saw the picture of the giant bowl of strawberries I said:WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Well I think I wrote enough right now so bye from Everett.

~ breakfast fit for a queen ~
~ everett will be jealous ~

thurs 3:30 pm

Having an afternoon peppermint tea, trying to make myself relax because, even though I am often sitting still in front of this computer, there are always a thousand things racing through my mind. I’ve got this or that person to contact for work, I’m behind here, have to go there, blah blah blah.

I have been making phone calls and sending emails about rental properties in and near Kelowna. There is an apartment very close to Mom and Dad’s place, which I’ve asked them to have a look at for me. So I’m thinking about that, imagining what living there might be like, what I’d have to buy for furniture and dishes, wondering whether I should hold out for something with a yard or in the country, or focus on being so handy to Mom and Dad’s right now, blah blah blah.

I stepped outside with my first cup of tea and was surprised to find that although it is mostly sunny, the air is cool, there’s a wind, and darn it, the mosquitoes are still after my tasty be-shorted blood. It’s a good day to take a long, long walk, and I thought of coming in for warmer clothes and taking off that four-mile hike I’ve been considering, but decided I haven’t gotten enough work done so I shouldn’t. It would be great for my health and sanity, but not my financial welfare. I’m still tempted though. Money be damned. I’ve got no kids for another week, the weather is perfect, this is the time to go!

8:56 a.m.

It is a cool morning, refreshingly so after several days of scorching heat. I see it’s raining some more! We had only a dampening of the ground during the night.

Yesterday evening I connected five hoses and stretched them out to the vegetable garden, preparing to water it, but decided to wait till today because a storm had threatened. It blew over, which was a disappointment, although the temperature had dropped several degrees in a very short time so one can’t help thinking of tornadoes and such being a possibility.

After laying the hose alongside the row of tomatoes, I wandered over to the strawberry patch and nibbled on juicy red berries while filling the crook of my arm with as many as it could hold. Those I dropped off at the other house before heading out onto the road for a walk.

Dusk’s wildlife sighting was a deer bounding onto the road ahead of me, both of us stopping to stare at each other for five or ten seconds before she scampered down through the ditch and leapt over the wire fence to join another white-assed doe and disappear into the trees.

There is a double batch of granola baking in the oven right now; four rib steaks have been marinating in the fridge since yesterday; Karen is coming over this morning to pick up the screen tent for a family reunion on her in-laws' side this weekend; Mom goes for her third radiation treatment.

When I called yesterday she was a bit depressed over the delay in starting the experimental drug treatment. They insist on repeating bloodwork, a c.t. scan, and a bone scan, within two weeks prior to the trial’s start date. So she has to go through them all over again after just having them done a couple weeks ago. I’d be frustrated too, particularly since they still haven’t actually given her a start date.

Since talking to her, I’m depressed too. I tried to cheer her up by reminding her that the timing up till now has been perfect for her to get onto this trial, and surely it is still perfect, no matter how it seems.

But when I got off the phone, I was thinking that this drug concoction they are going to treat her with will probably, at best, if successful, only prolong her life for a little while. It isn’t likely going to be a cure. And it isn’t going to prolong her life enough for my liking. But she might go through hell in the meantime, with god-knows-what side effects.

My instinct is to search out every alternative cancer treatment known to mankind and consider them all, pick one or two, and start applying them. I don’t care if they are not medically, scientifically proven. What have we got to lose by trying something else? But Mom and Dad’s hopes right now are all hung on this experimental treatment, even though they don’t expect a cure. They only hope for a reprieve. And while they are focused on this trial drug, they seem to have no energy to consider other options, and are afraid that alternative treatments might interfere with the drug trial.

So I am walking a fine line between presenting ideas for alternative treatments, and being pushy. They need my support, not added pressure. It is not my life and death, and none of it is my decision to make. Their trust is in doctors, the medical system. Mine leans toward herbs and naturopathy, areas where doctors are woefully under-educated. Yet I have to try to be positive about Mom's choice of treatments, even when I fear it may not be the best one, or at least that it shouldn't be the only one.

We need it to rain all day, but it already seems to be slowing down.

~ Kelsey May ~

We stopped yesterday afternoon to visit with my cousin and her new family before leaving the city. We'd attended the wedding of Scott's nephew the night before and stayed over at the hotel where the reception and dance took place. It was a nice time and although we were dancing fools by the end, we didn't drink too much or eat too much so there were no regrets the next day.

I got to hold the little sweetheart above (my second cousin? cousin-once-removed?) for two hours while my cousin and I caught up on news and gossip. As long as the baby was snuggled right next to my body, she slept soundly. Several times I laid her on my legs and she'd squirm and complain until she was gathered up in my arms again. Just a few days old and already she knows what she likes and what she does not.

It was the first time I'd seen my cousin since we heard about Mom's cancer, and she too is upset. She too loves Auntie Grace, who babysat her and her sisters since they were babies and who has remained close to them all. She has been putting off phoning Mom, for fear of crying when she does. I encouraged her to call anyway, but Mom beat her to it. By the time I phoned out to BC last night, she'd already given my cousin a ring.

Today Mom starts a five-day treatment of daily radiation on the five-centimetre-deep lump in/on her breastbone. The radiation may or may not eradicate the pain; the radiologist said there is a 50/50 chance of success.

I think I am starting to miss my children. Well, okay, not actually miss them so much as look forward to seeing them again. Scott and I have been enjoying having time to ourselves — boy have we ever, say no more say no more — and will make good use of the next two weeks with no one to look after but each other. But I'll still be glad to see my two little tootsies again.

~ the slate walkway in progress at Karen's ~

Prayer*
by J.S.Hoyland

Teach us, o Spirit, to trust thee with life and with death,
And (though this is harder by far)
with the life and death of those
that are dearer to us than our life.

Teach us stillness and confident peace
in thy perfect will,
deep calm of soul, and content
in what thou wilt do with these lives
thou hast given.
Teach us to wait and be still,
To rest in thyself,
to hush this clamorous anxiety,
To lay in thine arms all this wealth
thou hast given.

Thou lovest these souls that we love
With a love as far surpassing our own
As the glory of noon surpasses the gleam of a candle.
Therefore will we be still, and trust in thee.

*I've fiddled with this a little so I could feel genuine while using it as a prayer. Special thanks to you, Julie, for sending it to me.