Month: March 2023

April 2023 Theme Reveal

Shirleyjdietz6 Comments

I’ve missed the deadline for the official April Blogging Challenge theme reveal but the wonderful thing is, this is my blog and I can write what I want, official or not. Hahaha…

I have about a week to decide if I want to add the stress of a blogging challenge to my caregiving life. For years I’ve used this April A to Z Challenge as a way to inspire and stir up my will to write and share my writing. It’s a lot of work to write something worthwhile for 26 posts in one month. Having a theme sometimes makes it easier and I’ve been hunting for a theme.

How hard would it be to work on my ability to introduce interesting characters to readers? My thought is that I would start with 26 of the interesting people I’ve known, change their names of course, and add a few disguising details. I would end up with a fictional character based on reality. I’m not going to write a book so there will be no plot, yet. These would be character sketches.

The more I read, the more obvious it is to me that developing a believable character that readers like and identify with, or at least find intriguing, is vital to a good story. I don’t know if I’m good at that, but I would like to be. My favorite type of reading material is historical fiction. I want to learn while I’m reading but I need a plot to follow, some excitement, some wonder, problems, questions to be answered. All that requires people. I’ve already chosen my people.

And the reason I’m writing about it in advance is, well… you might think you’re one of the people. You might recognize yourself or someone you know, even though the characteristics don’t exactly match. If that should happen, remember it’s not you. It’s a fictional character and the parts you don’t like about him or her, well, those are the parts I made up. You are perfectly wonderful, as am I, wonderful and probably boring.

And even though I am making a plan, April may come and go without the plan being realized. But I do like the idea, just sayin’…

Reflections on the Death of an Unusual Friend

Shirleyjdietz2 Comments

I was sitting by myself, in a Cracker Barrel restaurant, on Thanksgiving. My favorite family holiday was anything but that in 2011. I was having dinner and writing my first post on this blog. I was in Atlanta, on the job as a private duty nurse for my client who was a quadriplegic. It was the most miserable job I had ever taken, and writing out my misery was comforting.

Scottie was an unforgettable client. She had a diving accident in her early 20’s that ended her career as a flight attendant and changed her life drastically. In fact it changed many lives, because she went through the years having a marked effect upon her family and all her caregivers and friends. Being so vulnerable and helpless was not easy for Mary Scott Stoddard, or Scottie, as we all called her.

I found Scottie’s ad on Craig’s List of all places. I was needing a job to help my daughter Julia through veterinary school and was having trouble finding one. Even though I’d taken a refresher course, the hospital had passed me over and hired new grads instead of older nurses, like me. I was pretty desperate to get something so I went to the interview even though the salary was low, even though she was really wanting an LPN, even though I would have to drive out to Longboat Key to work.

It turned out that she was glad to hire me. She was in the habit of losing nurses, about one a month, and had gone through lots of them. Word was out there about how difficult an employer she was. The nurse who oriented me was an LPN, working on her BSN, and she hardly ever got a day off and even did some nights because there was no one else. It was a pattern I came to expect over the next six years as I became the senior employee who oriented new people.

I could go on at length about what made Scottie a difficult employer, and I did do a lot of venting in my writing. But I have since spent more time being grateful for the unique experience I had in her employ. Where else would my job description have included trapping raccoons, taking carriage driving lessons, and traveling to Nova Scotia? Our many trips to Atlanta and north Georgia were filled with interesting stops and people. We spent time at Bluegrass festivals and the North Georgia fair. We stopped for fresh peaches in the early summer and apples in the fall. She loved music, so we went to concerts. She loved the inter coastal waterway so we went out in her pontoon boat. She shared her Longboat Key cottage with me when I had family come to visit.

Scottie and I had adventures. Getting a quadriplegic with tons of luggage, two wheelchairs and a Hoyer lift on a commercial airline flight was uniquely stressful. Stopping the van on the side of the road to handle a medical emergency with her was uniquely stressful. Spending nights during hurricanes in her home, with water lapping the floorboards beneath my bed was uniquely stressful. The adrenalin rush of unique stress is about the same as the rush during excitement, and the years have blurred the line. I now think of those times as having been exciting.

I think Scottie got used to me praying for her, especially during those times of crisis when we didn’t know what to do. She even began to ask for it, and to do her own praying. And I think she would say that we got a lot of our prayers answered. Scottie died a couple of weeks ago, at her home, on a ventilator, feeding tube and IV’s. I’m sure it wasn’t an easy ending but she was ready to stop suffering.

Today, I know that the difficult years with Scottie provided me with two things. They gave me income to help a daughter through veterinary school, which was the goal at the time. But they also prepared me for the present time with my husband. I would not have had the experience and the confidence to bring him home, had it not been for the things I learned caring for Scottie. His physical care is almost the same as hers was. I could not have foreseen that part, but I believe that God knew and was even then putting things in place to help us through this difficult time.

Thank you God. And thank you Scottie. May you rest in God’s peace.

A Little Confusion

Shirleyjdietz1 Comment

Lately I have had reason to visit some old blog posts and update them. Don’t be confused! I have not just been to Seattle. I haven’t been neglecting my vitamins. Those posts were from 2011.

WordPress has also made a big change and I am not seeing the same posting activity that you are seeing. I didn’t know those posts appeared again as if I had just written them.

I’ll get it figured out in time. I’ve enjoyed reading about my past though, and maybe you will too. I will try to identify the old ones so you know what you’re reading. Just sayin’, don’t be confused.

Thinking Kindly about Winter

ShirleyjdietzLeave a comment

Sometimes when you pay attention to something it becomes satisfied and goes away…

The snow blower (and my brother) have had more than enough to do this winter.

I was sitting with Mom this morning in our usual places – looking out the window at our small street. My brother was out blowing away the latest snowfall, even as it continued to fall. Suddenly huge clumps of the stuff came flying through the air and hit the side of the house. But most of it landed in the yard where it has been accumulating all winter. The lilac bush that is only slightly shorter than I am is buried once again.

Yesterday I thought it would be fun to play in the snow for a change. Mom has been pointing out how the snow is so high in the yard that she no longer can see which cars are coming and going. She takes her job of monitoring our neighborhood seriously and the snow was cramping her style. I decided to shave off a foot or two of the bank in front of her window, so she could see better.

The view down the street, with no lilac bush in sight.

I was surprised to be able to walk on top of the huge drifts without sinking in. There have been so many layers of ice in between snowfalls that I was supported wherever I walked. It is so strange to be standing on top of a bush that you know is probably at least four feet tall. I carefully picked chunks of snow from around the tender branches and twigs of the bush until the top of it was exposed.

And then last night’s snowfall…

Our furnace has gone out twice in the last two weeks. Since we have a boiler that heats the cement slab floor, it takes a while for it to cool down (and a while for it to heat up again). It is a beautiful way to have even temperature and nice warm floors. I don’t usually notice something is wrong until it gets down to 67 degrees inside. I pulled out the small space heaters from storage and tried to keep the husband comfortable while my brother called the repair man. After a good cleaning, the boiler was back in operation and a day later all was normal.

A week later it happened again. I couldn’t believe it – so soon after having been fixed. This time I was surprised to hear the repair guy up on the roof, shoveling snow. The exhaust stack, which is about two feet tall, had been buried by a huge drift. Uncovering it fixed the problem. Thank you winter.

So it is still definitely winter in March, as well as January and February, well… and December, and probably November. And possibly April. Yeah.

To live up here in northern Wisconsin, it is best to patiently make peace with winter, and even give it a little attention. As long as we aren’t in danger of freezing, or having to drive on ice, it can be exciting to see how extreme conditions can get.

This has been a very snowy winter, one in which I have been more restricted to being indoors, have skied less, have been less social. On the somewhat brighter side, daylight savings ends next week and we will have longer afternoon light again. I will also have one more full moon this week and one more chance for a moonlight ski. There’s always something to look forward to. (Like winter being over… shhhh, don’t tell it.)

Layers upon layers

The World of “Me Too”

Shirleyjdietz1 Comment

Today I was challenged. What if there is one person who needs to hear my specific story in order to survive? Some stories are harder to tell than others, but that is a really good reason to tell them anyway.

The devil never tires of taking something good and twisting it to bring evil on humanity. Take sex, for instance.

Growing up, from time to time, I would hear stories of abuse, rape, family incest. I didn’t know anyone personally who claimed to be a victim because, well, me and my friends, we were normal kids, with normal families. Stories of sexual trauma were not normal.

To demonstrate what happens in the mind of a child who is abused and molested I will tell you my story.

I grew up as the eldest child of very young parents. Farming was my Dad’s profession, and I loved our farm life. I loved being around animals, having kittens to tame, and being in the barn at milking time. But it was a struggle for my Dad to earn a living on the farm and he sometimes had to hire help.

Danny was our hired man when I was around five years old. He was handsome and personable and paid attention to me. I didn’t know he was a parolee – that was how Dad was able to afford him. He began to pay attention to me, to joke and talk to me while he was working. I enjoyed the attention. I didn’t begin to feel uncomfortable around him until he started setting me on his lap and feeling around under my clothing. I had no knowledge of sex at that age but even to me, that did not seem right. And yet, he was there in the places that I loved to play and hang out.

I remember the day it all came to a head. He had suggested that we play farm and do what animals did. I didn’t know how to say no to a grown up. I also didn’t know what animals did, but it sounded dangerous to me. I kept walking around the granary trying to keep away from him. I knew that animals were usually hard to catch and that was how I intended to play the game.

My anxiety grew until I finally got out the door and ran to my Dad. He was standing at the farm gas pump, gassing up the tractor and I think I recall grabbing his leg and holding on. I don’t remember what I told him but it must have been sufficient for him to get the picture. The only other memory I have of that day is seeing a patrol car with lights flashing in our yard by the barn, from the safety of the house. There was no more Danny to worry about, and my world was safe once more. No words were ever spoken of this in my hearing. It became as though it had never happened. It was an incident.

Many years later while listening to another person’s story, and still feeling that it only happened to other people, the memory flashed into focus. It was a shock to realize that I had indeed been molested as a child. Having never processed it (and at four or five years old I’m not sure I could have processed it) I needed to know more. Who else had any memory of what had happened? Mom and Dad only knew their part of the incident and it was then that I found out about Danny being on parole. He should never have been around children.

I decided that the part of the story that I would make important, was the fact that I was believed and rescued, without hesitation. The rest of my childhood was happy. I was in church regularly with my family, taught about God’s love and made a decision to believe and follow Jesus at camp one year. I eventually went to a church university where I met my husband. We raised our family of two girls and were actively serving the Lord at every opportunity.

But lest you minimize the importance of one sexual incident, especially when it is the first exposure to sexual feelings, I will tell you that there was damage done. From that point on through the rest of my life the feelings of anxiety, confusion and dread have been linked with the feeling of sexual arousal. It was not that it was difficult to have a normal sexual relationship with my husband – I realized there was no need for negative feelings with him. The evil twist was that I had to imagine situations of anxiety, dread, being used, and coercion in order to be aroused. These imaginations were wrong and I knew that, but they were exciting and almost necessary in order to perform.

What had been stolen from me was the goodness and freedom of sex with a loving, committed partner. I see this same sad thing happening in our culture today. Stories of sexual abuse and violence are mainstream entertainment. Many in our culture, men and women, clamour “me too” at the same time as they consume a steady diet of literature and media that wallows in sexual perversion and objectification of individuals. It would be very hard for a young person to escape being influenced by this contamination of what God intended to be a pure and holy relationship. It is sad, and needs to be redeemed. It’s one more example of why we need saving. Yes, we do.