Tag: aging

Until we meet again…

Sunday in Church , I prayed for an end to my sister’s suffering. The cancer and the treatments had ravaged her body. She was afraid to die and very sad. I could feel the passing would be soon.

I was already very sad as it was it was the anniversary of my oldest son’s death.

I paced from room to room. I paced around the church.

I cried.

I prayed. At bedtime waves of

anxiety overwhelmed me as I lay on my bed in a fetal position.

Dreams of my parents who had gone before and my long lost son chased me through corridors of another dimension.

I woke up with a start at 3:32 for water or to relive myself.

I shuddered remembering my dreams. I prayed again for comfort for my little sister before collapsing back into fitful sleep.

When daylight filtered through the moon window above my bed, I dared look at the phone on the nightstand.

The call had come, muffled by the sound of artificial waves that rock me to sleep each night

The call I’d dreaded and expected.

My little sister was no longer wracked with pain.

Her smile returned-accompanied by Angel wings.

© Nancilynn Saylor June 2018

Austin TX

Heartbreaker 

Such a difficult decision to make; no easy choices and no right answers. An 8 pound  male puppy coming of age in a house with a three pound Chihuahua in heat

The alpha male in our home is Romeo. Tiny Chica is his emotional service puppy and the fight ran for months stretched from  weeks on end…

It became the.Elephant in the room-every room.

I begged  to have her spade. He would not hear of it- his poor little baby. I reminded him that Chachi would grow.                        He became Egyptian-and the waters of his  denial  ran deep. The friction of this dog fight shook the very walls of our little world.

This past week I scheduled the tiny, already now  pregnant  Chica for surgery. 

I also posted a request to re-home Chachi in our neighborhood web log. 

By the end of the day, on Friday,  both occurred. As Chica softly moaned on the sofa, a lovely  new angel rose up in our lives. “I never go to that group,” she said. She’d not had a dog in many years. The picture, below, she said, made her call.

Two  very sleepless nights, Romeo lamented. The missing pup infiltrated his dreams. Tears wracked his aging body.  Not to my credit, I seemed callous. It had all driven by him.                                                 His anxiety led me to contact the new momma owner to enquire about their bonding…was she as happy on Sunday as on Friday? I told her my alpha male had anxiety issues.

She just left our place, with Chachi, after spending over an hour here. He had been to Pet Smart and on several 30 minute runs. He has learned to sit on command. He was a calm pup truly enamored with his elevated status and his new mom.

Our lives were touched by this wild dog. He fed on the anxiety in our home . He is thriving in his new environment. He lives next door to a park. 

I loved him dearly. 

I loved him enough to let him go.

©Nancilynn Saylor 09 July 2017

Semi-retirement fog

It has been 7 weeks

I’ve not really settled in

there was vacation at the beach

the holidays

and the two little part-time jobs

Now, there are no distractions

I should be getting busy

A gigantic household purge

looms

like the apocalypse; organization

is my weakest suit.

There are clothes to donate

closets to clean

crafts to go through

my un-diagnosed ADHD is a master at

running interference.

each bag or box I open provides hours

of distraction.

Sigh…shouldn’t this be easy?

Reverse Negative

Reverse Negative

In photography, a reverse negative is a print of the negative image

where once was light- now darkness where there is dark, it glows

                    ***

I have moments in the shadows

seconds in the sunlight

there are epochs when daylight seems a darker shade

of night…

blue satin sky

inky velvet night

now this

my sixth decade

you find me find me balancing-

teetering

on

a golden gossamer thread

between life

and

eventual demise…

When I was 11

We visited my father’s favorite great aunt, Della

She of ample bosom fallen to waist line

still, much adored…

she, of faded, yellowed hair

she,

who loved my dark, dark auburn hair…

In the mirror of her life

She saw the past reside in the freckled

face of an 11 year old me

 

I screeched

then ran down the steps from that wonderful wide

Wraparound porch

to the tool shed behind her garden

where squash and okra grew.

I sobbed.

Several lifetimes later,

While looking in old family

photo album as a child, my precious, favorite nephew picked

“me” out in a picture and wondered why

I was wearing those old timey clothes…

It was she,

not me in the photograph.

My now nearly 40 year old eyes

acknowledged what Aunt Dell saw in me

at eleven.