A Colorful Move

Sometimes a month's worth of activity can compact into a week. It makes for exciting times. I hurried to do my Visiting Teaching at the beginning of this past week so that we would be ready to travel to Colorado at the end of the week to take our turn caring for Mom. One of my ladies, Ellen, is a non-member. Every time I visit her and present a spiritual message an amazing spirit invades us. It happened again this past Wednesday. As we talked, there was magic between us as the Spirit opened our hearts and minds and bound us together in perfect understanding. My experience with her makes me feel reassured that I can be inspired under the right circumstances.

My foster daughter, Michelle, told us that her son, Chris, was performing in a play at the local college (Ohlone). I pressured Layne to attend the only performance open to us, on Thursday evening. The play was Sweet Charity. I didn't know a thing about it. As the story progressed it quickly became apparent that Charity was a lovable prostitute. We sat through the first half. I know I'm picky but if the story isn't uplifting I really don't care how well done it is. The music and performers were great but the story line bugged me. So we left at intermission. Besides, we had to get up at 4 AM to try for a flight to Denver, the first leg of our trip to Cedaredge.

Audrey was sweet enough to get up early to take us to the airport on Friday. What do you know, we caught that early flight to Denver. Remember we go stand-by (for free) so every attempt to catch a flight is "ify". We arrived in Denver early and rushed to catch a flight into Montrose, a small airport close to Cedaredge. Amazing! We caught it and arrived at 1130 AM, a record for early arrivals to Colorado.

What a beautiful place Cedaredge is. We spent the weekend with my sister, Maryanne, and her hub, Bob. Oh, Mom was here too. And two of Maryanne's grandsons. Mom's little home was stuffed. But we had fun. The boys got hooked on Majong, my favorite computer game. We laughed and cheered our way into multiple victories and losses. On Sunday a storm moved in. Colorado summers have lots of those; one of the things I love about this place. Anyhow, the evening became quite blustery. I talked the boys into coming outside and feeling the wind run through their hair. I gave them quite an enthusiastic sales job on the joys of running in the wind and they bought into it completely. We spent the rest of the evening on Mom's deck, playing in the wind. Even Maryanne and Mom joined us. It was pure joy.

Bob, Maryanne and the boys left Monday morning, after a doctor's appointment for Mom. So we have taken up the reins of Mom's care for a month. She seems a little diminished to me. I am beginning to feel that she is sliding, slowly, downhill. I have a hard time admitting that as I dream of her being restored, if we can just give her the proper care. I suppose I am a helpless idealist. Mom is so lovely and full of life. Well, not as full as she was before the stroke. I miss her enthusiasm and regular comments and philosophizing. She is getting regular therapy and is making some progress but she doesn't seem quite as motivated as she was. But she still loves lemon fluff pie! Here she is licking the beater during the construction of this luscious pie. At least to us girls it is luscious; the guys prefer ice cream. So we girls ate the whole thing!

The good news is that Mom has a clean bill of health. Her hip is healed and, according to the local doctor, she is now free to use it in a normal manner. I'm excited about that. We plan to get her a bone scan so as to see the condition of her bones. It would be helpful to know if we need to take some precautions against further damage to her bones.

There are many local people here who love Mom. We visited some on Sunday. The Hovde's live in a lovely country home with extensive flower gardens. You can see a view in this photo. I'd love a garden like this one! At the top you can see Maryanne's hub Bob, at the Hovde's, sporting part of a set of armor that a local artist made.

And so our Colorado month begins. I feel happy to be here.