Forever, Mother and Child

I regularly go back home to upstate New York to see my mom and my sister. There are people and places there that are precious to me and I will forever be drawn to my original home. But, (and herein lies the problem) I am emotionally exhausted when I return to Virginia.  It takes me a day or two of foggy brained, head aching lethargy to recover from these trips. I'm in such a state today after returning home Wednesday night.

My mom is ninety-two and she lives alone these days. She's falling more often and the two most recent falls have landed her in the ER. About three years ago she broke five ribs after falling in her bedroom. She's fallen on and of since then with minor bumps and bruises. Two weeks ago she fell in another bedroom and broke her nose. Then, on my first day home last week, she fell again, right in front of me! This time on her front porch and hitting the same broken nose area. She required fourteen stitches to her forehead. It was pitifully sad.

We have begged and cajoled her to move in with us. We have plenty of room and it would alleviate her dread of a nursing home. I have offered to be her devoted caretaker; to cook for her, drive her places, keep her company, help her visit with her grandchildren and great grandchildren, to no avail. She can't bring herself to make the final decision to move.

SHE WON'T LEAVE HER HOUSE.

I understand, I really do. But at the same time I am so frustrated and weary of it all. It's getting old and it sounds like a broken record in my head.

The fallout from all of this also makes me sad. My dad and older sister are long deceased so, happy family reunions are no more. My mom is tottering around, beaten up and sad. I see the pain in her eyes when I tell her that I demand she not go down her basement steps any more. (We've arranged for my sister to do her laundry.) I hate demanding. I devote my visits to my mother's needs and to keeping up her home. Hence, there's no time for me to visit with old friends, go to my favorite places, or anything of the sort. I hate my selfish agendas. I feel a strong dislike toward going back home. I hate not wanting to visit. I ask myself, "Is she really putting my sister and me in the position of forcing her to move against her will?" I hate being annoyed with my mother. Agh! I hate all this hating and grumbling!

I am at war with myself as a result of the frustration. I'm a "fixer" and I feel compelled to find solutions to problems. But this one is a puzzler. I return to Virginia with a heavy heart. Nothing stays the same. People we love get old and die. Sometimes we are powerless to change a thing.

And so, I pray. Long, hard, coming-to-grips-with-reality prayers. I'm searching for God's will and what am I to do in all of this. In my prayers, I can't get the image of my dazed, terribly bruised, and bleeding mother out of my head. It prompts me to include the plea of a small child, "God, please don't let my mom be hurt."

Building Raised Garden Beds

In May, 2013 we began building raised garden beds. We researched types of wood, cost, availability, etc. Steve liked the idea of railroad ties because they were the most cost effective. Standard railroad ties, such as these, are 7" x 9" x 8 1/2 feet long. He found these untreated ties at Kopper's in Salem, VA. They come in loads of twenty-five ties for $250. Our neighbor has a landscape business, so he picked them up for us in his heavy-duty delivery truck. They were beasts to handle, but Steve managed to build the beds almost entirely alone.

We used the site of our old garden, one of the few flat spots on our property. It used to have a fence around it but it had begun to decay. I was tired of weeding and I knew that raised beds would be easier to tend. We calculated room for six, 4 ' x 8' beds.
 

 The timbers upon delivery.

Steve cut each bed to size with a chainsaw. He then laid them out in their approximate positions.

 He rested the longer sides up on the shorter sides and marked notches for the rabbet joints he would cut. He used a template to trace out each joint. One template was 7" x 9" and the other was 3" x 9".

All cuts were made with a chainsaw.

 Each joint will be drilled and bolted with 10" x 1/2" diameter lag bolts. The bolts weren't added until all the beds were properly positioned and leveled.

Steve used a post hole bar to level the beds. He pried the timbers up and I pushed gravel under until they were level.

 All six beds finished.One pick-up truck load of soil filled two beds. We bought top soil mixed with cow compost. The lag bolts are visible on each side near the end.

For the paths, we placed landscape fabric between the beds and covered it with pea stone. We used bricks to define the areas. 

Weeds already! They'll be easy to pull from the gravel. As I said, we wanted (really) low maintenance.

We only had enough time to plant three beds last summer. We did not use landscape fabric inside the beds. I pulled and/or killed all the weeds before we filled them with new soil.

We are very pleased with how these turned out. There were enough ties to build eight beds, making the cost per bed at about $55 including soil and bolts. Gravel paths would add to that cost, but we already had the pea stone and bricks so I haven't calculated that in.

They are a breeze to plant and tend and much tidier than our previous, weedy garden. We will have to add some simple electrified wire to keep the deer from eating everything. They found the beds right away last summer. We'll place one or two high tension wires around the entire perimeter of the beds.

Steve admits the ties were backbreaking to handle. He did not have heavy equipment for moving them or for preparing the site. Otherwise, we would definitely do this again.

A Love Song in Two Perspectives

 
 I love this song and Peter Gabriel's "So" CD in general. It's been my driving music for several weeks (!) because I keep forgetting to bring it in the house. But the point I wanted to make is that secular music takes on an entirely new dimension when processed through a Biblical perspective. My guess is that this was written as a love song. It was used in the 1989 Cameron Crowe film "Say Anything" and I don't find anything written saying Gabriel intended it as anything otherwise.

But, when I hear this song, I hear words that speak of the irresistible pull of God: 

"Days pass and this emptiness fills my heart. When I want to run away I drive off in my car. But whichever way I go I come back to the place you are. All my instincts, they return and the grand facade so soon will burn, without a noise, without my pride, I reach out from the inside"

I hear words of redemption:

"In your eyes, the light the heat, in your eyes I am complete In your eyes I see the doorway to a thousand churches. In your eyes, the resolution of all the fruitless searches. In your eyes, the light the heat. In your eyes, oh I want to be that complete."

And I hear of longing fulfilled, love for love:

"Love, I don't like to see so much pain, so much wasted and this moment keeps slipping away. I get so tired of working so hard for our survival. I look to the time with you to keep me awake and alive."

It's a great CD no matter the perspective from which you listen. I just think it's interesting that the framework from which we view reality and make sense of life and the world can be impacted to such a degree as to completely change the meaning of lyrics in a song. I know we all see art, hear poetry and read stories in a subjective manner and in my mind, this makes created works even more miraculous.