a blizzard hit our island a week ago or so. happily i was in southern
oregon celebrating my baby sister's birthday surprises (i won't tell you how old she turned - suffice it to say
i'm very depressed about the "baby sister" thing. it was a
freakin' milestone birthday). anyhow, hubs was here with three pups who were so happy to be rolling around in the white stuff. the pups, not hubs!
well, look here - a 90+ foot tree (the root system is over 10 foot tall!) came a-crashing down in the middle of our lane! a neighbor luckily came by as hubs was firing up his chainsaw. the nice fellow has a backhoe and was willing to share! thankfully. three hours later hubs was able to drive out and we now have plenty of firewood to share (want some)! the top part of the tree lays to the right of the photo - another how many feet? i don't know, but tons! i can tell you this. we are so grateful that no one was driving onto our property when the sucker fell - and that the massive trunk didn't hit our house!
how, why share this with you on an art blog? well, here's how i see it - sometimes life (quite unexpectedly), has a way of crashing in on you. 2009, for example. my mother-in-law suffered what amounted to a stroke. a severe stroke. she was in a coma for two weeks - cat scan that made her brain look like swiss cheese. little hope of any kind of real life for her. a huge tree crashed down on the entire family. this woman is the flue that holds everything together! everything changed in that moment. the tree across the lane.
the upshot of this story? she is doing a ton better lately. after some harrowing experiences and tons of healing (thak you , dear thrapist and a wonderful hubs of her own!), she is walking and talking and treading on her treadmill and cooking a little and laughing and enjoying two new great-grandkids that have arrived since her stroke. playing games on her iPAD, looking at her catalogs by the dozens, wanting to go out for dinner every evening....... amazing stuff.
yeah, things have changed, sure. her short term memory is like swiss cheese (she knows it and kids about her life being like the movie "50 first dates....) - but she knows us all and can remember everything that came before that day in 2009. there is a joy about her now, a growing living hope.
the good news, like the tree that came down (we are leaving the root system and the better part of the downed tree on the side of the lane. proof of life, primordial in looks and the basis for being a nurse-tree to all that grows up and around it), my mother-in-law is proof of a new life. a nurse-tree, too, if you will. she is the same and she is different......and one cool thing? she speaks her mind more than she ever did. it's refreshing, it's real, it's honest, it's a freakin' hoot. the tree will stay. the new mother-in-law is here to stay, too. we are pretty happy about them both!
a groovy hang-out in everett, washington. 
