pamlucken

I'm moving...and you're invited

2010-09-14T21:52:00.001-04:00

After a hiatus, I'm thinking of getting back on the saddle. You can find me here.

I'm thinking of moving

2010-05-18T13:38:00.002-04:00

Not in real life...we are here in Bingham Farms for keeps! How can a person move when she has so many things in the ground and so many plans for herself, her husband, and her children in this one spot!

No, I'm thinking of moving to a new blog.

I love this blog. It saved my sanity at a time when I had a LOT to work out. It connected me with strangers who became my friends, it made friends out of my acquaintances, and it even brought me closer to my closer set of friends and family members. I could never have dreamed up the advantages that blogging provided me with during my chemo year (and beyond).

However, when I set up this blog as a way to talk about my breast cancer and disseminate information, I chose to have the title be my name. I couldn't think up anything snappy (still can't), but also saw the value in making it simple. If people wanted to know what was going on with our family in the middle of the cancer year, they could look it up pretty easily. Try a few variations of Pam Lucken and blogger, and you could find me! It was a great tool for me when I was sharing information that was good to share.

Happily, my life isn't really about my own breast cancer story anymore. I don't have news to share with a bunch of people at one time. Unhappily, though...I feel like I have some bigger issues than my Stage I Invasive Ductal Carcinoma (not to encourage it to come back bigger and more deadly...I'm hoping it will stay a non-issue!). I'm doing just fine...but the cancers that have affected my life that are NOT my own have been harder for me to deal with than my own was.

I'd like to keep (or more appropriately, start, again) writing. I love the format of blogging - draft, hit "publish", and never look back! I don't mind sharing my stories. However, I'm not sure that I want that person who is coming back for a quick visit, hoping to see that this breast cancer survivor is still doing well, and have that person then be immersed in my latest types of therapies. (For that person - I AM doing well! I am living...I am regular...I am cancer-free, as much as anyone knows if they are cancer-free or not.) Curiously enough, in an age when everyone is blogging, self-promoting, social media-ing - I feel like being more anonymous. I'm not sure that the stuff I will be working on next will be appropriate for light chatter in the pickup line...I don't want people to shy around me like I might be fragile (I'm not)...I want to end this blog and say:

I am doing so well...THANK YOU for being with me on my journey! I am so grateful for your company!

Who knows what is ahead...good things, I am sure. I am sure I will keep (or start, again) writing - just maybe in a place that seems more safe for me. (And I know the internet is not ever safe...so in choosing this medium I am not entirely "safe" from whatever...but I want to make a fresh start and see what kind of good work I can do next.)

And...if I am NOT lucky, (as sadly, too many breast cancer survivors are) and if I need this blog to share about issues that are impacting my health and the future of my family, then I'll come back! Let's hope I don't need it.

P.S.

2010-04-22T23:18:00.002-04:00

I ADORE my chickens. They may not be that cute, but they are totally, totally precious. Who would have ever thought that $3.50 of bird (that is how much they cost as baby chicks) would be so affectionate, so funny, have so much personality?

I don't care if the whole world thinks I am crazy or weird...everyone should have chickens. They are good for the soul! (Well, not everyone. They are a bit of work...but there are some big payoffs - like the way they snuggle and fall asleep when they are cozy in my lap! Or the way they all come waddling over to see me when they are walking around in the garden - all 8 of them! Who knew I would be such a good mama bird?)

Also, Bill is making the most outstanding chicken coop. I'm so proud of him.

Hello lonely blog; or, when it rains, it pours!

2010-04-22T22:42:00.003-04:00

SO much for my fun Ikea job! It may go down on record as being my shortest-held job in all of my history...1 month of employment.

Surprised? Me TOO! I would never have taken the job had I known exactly how much work was in store for me (not all at Ikea, either). It took awhile between my interview, when I learned about the position and discussed it with Bill (who at the time was not superbly busy at work...as he had not been for roughly 1.5 years!), and my hiring date. In between those dates, Bill DID become superbly busy as work (yay for the Martec Group, what a sigh of relief)...so busy that he hired me to do some work for him.

Imagine my surprise when I went from being a stay-at-home mother of 3 kids, to working 40 hours a week between two jobs!

Imagine my pain when my husband was even busier than ever...making it impossible for him to always step up and be superdad if my schedule was a little full (pick up this kid from practice, come home a bit early so I can get to this appointment, etc.).

Imagine how freaked out I became when I realized we have no break in busy-ness in the imminent future - PLUS we soon add 3 nights of soccer practices, 2 days of games, girl scout meetings every 2 weeks, and soon after that, 5 nights of swim practice a week!

Add to that the fact that my very nice manager discovered that the other two people that she was training (who already work at IKEA) were not as in love with the position as I was (it was pretty busy and involved lots of running around the store, perfect for busy old me)...leaving her with lots of hours on the schedule to fill (which I never planned to be able to fill).

So Mrs. Lucken and IKEA parted ways too soon...which is actually quite fine. Nice manager set it up so that I could go back anytime that I want to work there again. I bought a few cute things. I had a nice little jumpstart and got out of the house. I realized I'd rather be a slave to The Martec Group, like my dear husband, because of course they pay better than retail.

The only sad news is that I am stuck in my house MORE...and it is DIRTIER as I am working on this stupid computer all the time! Not so good for my psyche, but oh well. It's good for the bank account, and for the self esteem. It has also forced me to not volunteer for each and every single opportunity that comes up in the kids' schools, which is kind of a bit of a good break. A person can totally sign her life's hours away to the schools, if she is generous with volunteering as I can be. I like helping, but sometimes I feel like it is now totally expected of me, instead of being something nice that I do to help out.

Next, my darling mother-in-law has decided to renovate our home as her latest project! (If you saw her house, you would know why she is not renovating her home...it is already glamorous and perfect.) SO, I am sitting at this computer while my stuff is all over the house, except in the laundry room, which is being revamped. The Lucken family without a laundry room/mud room is a very sad sight. Our garage is trashed (has a refrigerator, a laundry sink, a washer, a dryer, 8 chickens, stuff I still haven't unpacked since we moved here, and all of the random things that once lived in my laundry room, strewn about in disarray as we prepared for this project). I have to somehow paint the laundry room so that I can put the washer and dryer back in it tomorrow (soccer uniforms need to be cleaned for the weekend!). We are still in the middle of our chicken coop project, and there is wood all over the backyard like we are hillbillies. Oh yes, and I have 11 shrubs to pick up on Saturday, and 3 trees, and STILL HAVE TO MAKE SPACE TO PLANT THEM! And DIG THE HOLES! And GET THE SOIL! And the trailer (for getting the soil) needs to be returned Saturday!

Finally, I have to spend the weekend getting ready for the launch of another project with Bill's work...

oh yes, and I have three kids.

SO now, do you see what I mean by "when it rains, it pours?"

I can't believe I am actually managing all of this craziness. I think the half of a pan full of magic cookie bars is what got me through today, though.

Yikes!

The Easter Bunny must be very tired

2010-04-05T12:57:00.003-04:00

The Lucken children were really amazingly spoiled this Easter! They were included in an Easter Egg hunt in my sister's neighborhood, which was unexpected and mind-blowingly fun. The Easter Bunny left them baskets (including the standard garden gloves - how thoughtful! Did the Easter Bunny hop through our yard and say, "I think that 3 budding gardeners live here!" haha) PLUS a multi-step scavenger hunt leading to a few extra presents. (Another aside - The Easter bunny is a gifted poet! Her iambic pentameter is flawless!) Grandma Sybil loaded them down with adorable presents, Aunt Julie brought over the cutest things which she sought out and purchased from multiple easter-themed collections at area stores, Aunt Perry brought them a cute little bag of treats...our house is trashed with Easter presents, candy wrappers, and plastic eggs.

Oh yes, I should mention that in my first attempt at (co) hosting Easter (my sister cooked almost everything, because she is amazing), we had two Easter Egg hunts. One for big kids and one for small kids. Total number of hidden eggs = 160

Today, I definitely feel like I overdid Easter, but I think that is understandable. It was our first Easter without my Dad and his annual beloved Easter Egg hunt, and also our first Easter with Julie in town, so we thought it would be a good idea to change a little (or a lot). Added to the crazy Easter festivities was Katie's family birthday party on Friday night, which was also pretty big (23 people) and fun, and I am tired! I went all out for my little family - I can't imagine how the Easter Bunny must feel!

--------

In the same vein, the Easter vein, I really want to remember the other things that I did this Easter that were maybe more meaningful and memorable.

For the first time, I was able to take my children to Church on Easter Sunday! (The Easter Egg hunt and brunch were always early at my Dad's house, as Dad and Nancy liked to go to the cottage afterwards). I felt so nostalgic, seeing my 3 nicely-dressed children at Mass - more than anything, that reminded me of my childhood (well, that plus the fun scavenger hunt and presents - I had enough time to do that this year and that really reminded me of my thoughful mom who loved holidays). There was something about doing these two things from my childhood that made me feel like my parents were right there with me, celebrating Easter with my family. We may not see them, but they were right there in Mass with us - my Dad singing the songs, dressed in a tie, with my Mom, probabaly tired from the shopping and the scavenger hunt planning, happy that her three children are happy, making sure they are dressed properly and understanding the true meaning of Easter (I had even read the Stations of the Cross to my children and we observed some solemn hours on Good Friday). I was sure I felt them in our traditions which I was carrying on with my children.

In case I needed a little confirmation that I was doing the right thing, Mass started with an opening hymn that popped into my head when we were looking at our Easter baskets (and then it was in all of the Lucken heads, as I was singing it over and over for fun)! They all looked at me like I was magic when they heard it in church. And THEN, the offertory hymn was "Morning Has Broken" - the hymn I chose as the opening hymn for my Dad's funeral. Emma was sad, but I explained that it's meaning was perfect for my Dad then, the way it was perfect for Jesus now - the suffering was over, it was a new and beautiful day.

I looked at my little family, and the tears rolled down my face as I whispered to them - "I am sad your grandparents are missing this [being with my kids as they grow up], but I am so happy because I feel like they are HERE."

A very good life

2010-03-30T12:09:00.004-04:00

I'm reflecting on something my husband said yesterday...something that is so TRUE. He said that we are doing everything we can to surround ourselves with LIFE - we have a totally insane and very alive Red Dog; we have an enormously fluffy and playful Black Kitten-Cat (fat like a cat, aged like a kitten still); we have 8 baby-adolescent chicks. I'm growing about 100 plants in my house because it is too cold to put any of them out in the garden. Everywhere we look, it is life, Life, LIFE!

All of that life and liveliness starts to get to a person, and you just can't help feel the enthusiasm. Hope romps around the yard for hours like that old, unwanted green toy of Dagny's is the best thing she's ever seen (though she's just about used every last bit of it to pieces). Nixie New writhes with affection and coziness like she never believed she could be so happy! And the chicks - they are always stretching their little necks to see "what's that? where are we? what is the giant unfeathered mother hen bringing us now?" The plants stretch themselves out like there will never be anything to stop them from reaching the sky.

And THEN...the kids! How fun it is to do geometry with Emma...we are finally doing some problem solving and teaching at home that doesn't put a mommy to sleep. She got a bigger girl bike, and now she looks little again (she was looking so gigantic on her first big girl bike). Katie turns 8 on Friday! and we are starting a new adventure together as a Brownie and her Brownie Troop Leader Mommy which I expect to be so fun for us. And, Nathan! He skipped learning how to ride a two-wheeler on his bike (the one that has training wheels we could have removed) and in about 1 day, learned how to ride Emma's now-outgrown bike. I didn't even have time to teach him, to get sore running around the neighborhood hunched over and holding a bike, time to cajole him into trying again...after a few tries with Bill, I "helped" him and I couldn't even keep up (and I know how to run, too!) He was going around the circle into the driveway, off into the street, riding like he was born doing it.

I will admit, that if I mention my pets or my gardening obsession to plenty of moms at the kids' schools I get "that" look - like I am crazy, maybe dirty, and certainly strange. Let's face it, not too many people in this area run out to get 8 chickens or consider it a terrific evening (not to mention it an accomplishment) if she pulls up 700 small buckthorn plants and has a wonderful bonfire.

However, let me just say that if you are in my situation in other ways, it is very liberating to do whatever you need to do to surround yourself with life, love, and your hobbies (life - chickens, love - being around and with my kids so much, and by staying at home, being around my husband so much too, and hobbies - 700 buckthorn in one night means I can plant so many things this spring and summer)! I'm glad I'm beyond worrying about what people think about me! It's so non-traditional, but what a very good life.

Overheard from Nathan

2010-03-30T12:08:00.001-04:00

"I call that Dark Guy? The guy with the dark hair, dark clothes, dark everything? I call him Dark Vader."

My room smells like breast cancer, and...joy?

2010-03-24T22:38:00.003-04:00

On Monday morning, after my family members were all off pursuing their various educations and professions, I walked into my room and I was taken aback with a huge sense of deja vu. It was quiet. It was clean. Bill had left on the air purifier (which had in recent months taken up residence in Emma's room). Most importantly, the light was just exactly the same as it would have been two years ago when I was in that same room, recovering from my mastectomy (daylight savings time, still no leaves on the trees, sunny but with no snow on the ground to make it shocking...). I was taken right back to those early days of my breast cancer.

It was almost a nice familiar smell and scene - the peace of kn0wing I was on an upswing (in one way - the cancer was cut out, and I only had one way to go - up and out of everything) mixed with the fear that I still had some hard things in front of me. I think remembering that upswing - feeling it, in that instant - gave me some hope.

Sometimes I feel like grieving is a cop-out. How can missing a person, missing being a daughter, and the pain of hard memories actually cause a person to be as "off" as I feel like I often am? Am I just lazy, and making excuses for that? I have a hard time feeling like it is OK to be "off", and I have a hard time believing that I'm not always going to be a little wrecked from all of this. I have not really been so certain that I could be on an upswing, any time soon (though I tell myself it will come, I'm not sure I always believe it).

Then I walk into my breast cancer bedroom - that quiet, clean-smelling scene - and FEEL something again...or then, yesterday, for just a teeny-tiny instant, while I was running on my treadmill, I felt one flash of my joy. Both sensations were so quickly gone that I can barely believe I felt them - but I am so grateful for those flashes.

I think they mean that the girl that I am when I am at my best might still be here, somehow. Could I manage to catch that upswing?

This is why I wanted this dog:

2010-03-23T17:26:00.002-04:00

EXUBERANCE!!!!

Also, though she has a whole acre to explore, she prefers to play right next to these kids.

OMG! They are happy and not fighting!!!!!!

Picture fun!

2010-03-22T21:40:00.001-04:00

Just a few pics of a great excursion with my Bear...

Who wants this plant...

2010-03-22T15:21:00.002-04:00

It's my first of what I imagine to be many plant giveaways, on my gardening blog... One woman just cannot garden this much without giving some of it away!

Go to onenewleaf.wordpress.com for details.

I'm not sure I can resist any longer...

2010-03-22T10:33:00.005-04:00

I was going to try to keep some of my absolute weirdness on my other blog (which I haven't fully established yet), so as to save any of my breast cancer readers from thinking poorly of the person I was (and am) pre- and post-breast cancer! I have also been wondering if it would be better to keep all of the weirdness NOT connected with my name (i.e. not on pamlucken.blogspot. com), but on another site.

However, it is also time to face facts - the weirdness is me! And if I keep shying away from spewing the weirdness on the world wide web (ha ha - isn't it funny to think of it that way? Remember when we didn't know what to call the the internet - the web, the net, online, internet, whatever?), I'll never write on here again...and my memory of what happens in my day to day life is thus gone, which is a shame. (My other blog is fine and all, but I'm so used to this one...)

I thoroughly wish I was one of those wonderful mothers who records her children's childhoods with journaling, and scrapbooks, and constant picture-taking, but I'm not. I waste my time wrestling with them, and ignoring them while I try to exercise, or garden, or thinking of what activity I have to do next (email the class to remind them of some activity? Plan a girl scout meeting? Set up a playdate for Nathan?). It is a good thing that at least some of these activities include them (the things I have to plan for and communicate with others), and it is also a good thing that THEY have good memories (esp. Emma - she is my child who remembers to wear a "green" shirt to her Green Committee meeting, that it is "crazy hair day" etc. I notice it later and am so proud that she is more ahead of herself than I am.)

I am not one of those mothers, though...and tears did threaten when a lovely HR woman at IKEA regaled me with the precious story of her journaling of her 2 year old son's first "Momma". Emma has a baby book and a calendar and a scrapbook, Katie has a calendar (first year, like Emma), and half of a baby book, and Nathan has a first year calendar and a giant box of memories (the girls have these too). "Here, precious son, make your own scrapbook, I don't have time!"

Bad mommy. I WANT to give my dearests everything, I just never make the time. Bad mommy who doesn't prioritize well.

So you see, I need this blog! It's easy to do while I walk away on the treadmill. I remember things while I am exercising, and WHAM! I can write them down!

For example, I want to remember how I was putting Emma to bed last night...or reputting her to bed, as the case might be. She has totally learned to take advantage of her mother and father's absentmindedness and she has found that as long as she gets in bed and turns out the light, she can then turn her light back on in about 1 minute and read until it is WAY TOO LATE! So I was reputting her to bed, and it was exactly like this...which I know about because the Kay family has brought the joy of Sesame Street back into my life (and into the life of my children. We can now all reference numerous Sesame Street moments which we never actually saw on the show...we've only seen them on youtube with Matthew.)

I was singing, not this song, just a gentle and yet strange song of my own creation, and giving her nice pats on her head, and then I would -in a flash!- pull her covers up and leap onto her to tuck her in (in the middle of the song I was singing, to surprise her). She would scream (isn't that such a good thing to do, when there are 2 other children already asleep and a husband who is trying to sleep - make your 10 year old scream?), and tell me to do it again...and again...and again. At the end, I said, "Now, have you been put to bed with the respect you deserve, having been my daughter for 10 years, 3 months, and 19 days?"

She smiled sweetly and said, "No. Only after you do this 10 more times." Meanwhile, Dagny looked at me with a look that said, "Are you DONE yet? I'm ready to go to sleep, woman!" and Katie came storming upstairs to demand the same mistreatment (which she got, later, because she was the lucky child to share the menopausal suite with me last night).

How great that this was all happening at 10:30pm, on a night when I told Bill that the kids could NOT watch The Amazing Race! It's already 8:40pm!
They need to go to bed early! (They did watch a dvr'd episode, prior to this "bedtime"...and see, that is the problem! I try to be disciplined with bedtime, but if I am overruled even for a second, I can no longer keep up that fake-disciplined facade.)

SOOO...good. I'm glad I will remember that weirdness now. I'm also glad that now Bill knows I kept Emma up until 10:30pm, since he was the one to deal with her crankiness this morning.

And with that, I'd like to make a warning...I have much crazier weirdness to report. Such as this:

and that's only the half of it.

My personal trainer

2010-03-21T10:01:00.003-04:00

Wii Sports has become my new personal trainer, but not for the reason one might think...
(And here is where I would be posting a picture of Nathan playing Wii Sports Resort while I walk or run on the treadmill...but it didn't work and I have no patience today!)
He has NEVER been so happy for me waste away the minutes exercising as he is now. The key is to make it sound like a treat - "Do you want to play Wii Sports while I exercise?" and to totally save such activities for only during my exercise time!

Goals for this glorious spring

2010-03-19T10:45:00.002-04:00

I'm getting ahead of myself (as always)...first of all, it's not even spring yet! Secondly, who knows if the upcoming spring will be glorious (weather-wise) or not. However, one thing is totally awesome about this post...Mrs. Lucken is planning for something IN ADVANCE, instead of jumping into it head-first as is more typical of said woman. Yay!

So here are my goals - all thoughts geared towards solving my biggest spring problem - gardenlove:

Keep running! (Usually I either injure myself gardening or I'm too tired to do it after hours in the yard.) How to accomplish this goal: run in the morning. Yikes. Seems impossible, esp. once school gets out (swimming is early for Emma, and I have not yet proved successful at being an early riser). Still, a goal's a goal, right?
DO NOT GET INJURED! Or more likely - DO NOT THINK THAT I AM INJURED! All of these hours of heavy labor can make a woman sore (no you don't have cancer in that rib, you just pulled something). How to accomplish: Miracle Balls (do you have these, they are awesome!), yoga, stretching, less yard work, more running (hoping running makes me tired and takes up at least an hour when I would have been gardening).
Do not neglect children! Yes, horrible Mrs. Lucken has been known to say "sure, in a minute" ALL DAY LONG to her poor children, forcing them to forage for themselves in the wilderness where all they can find to eat are cereal bars from Trader Joe's. How to accomplish: take breaks to provide snacks (also good for goal #2), good meal planning (instead of forcing husband to make all dinners from end-of-March until snowfall), use of crockpot, plan to do fun activities with them (also good for goal #3).
Take more pictures. I've been avoiding this like a petulant child. (See previous post.) Case in point: Nyx! She is gigantic! Fluffy! Fat! Precious! And I have NO pictures of her kittenhood. How totally crazy. (And by the way, I just can't write her name down as Nyx anymore. I am taking the creative license to switch it to Nixie. Or Nixie New, as we call her, or New Cat, or Fluffy Cat.) This is also a great goal as I love to look at my garden pictures later....and I also have 8 new pets whose astonishing growth would be fun to look back upon later.
Keep up with email, and DO NOT NEGLECT TO CALL MY SISTER! Darling sister in Evanston may go through serious withdrawl if I get lost again in gardenlove and do not keep up with the phone conversations. And she gets mad, something none of us want to have happen!
Write more on my garden blog...for fun journaling I can look back upon later. This is another fun activity that should keep me from overexerting myself outside...

That's it for now, folks...I'm typing this while I do my warmup walk on the treadmill, and it's time to start "running". Progress reports to follow!

THANK YOU!

2010-03-10T21:13:00.002-05:00

Thank You all so much!! I managed to raise $300! It means a lot to me that I got to help with saving other people lives. Now I know that I helped to make sure no one goes through what my Mom and Aunts had to go through. Thank You.
Emma

a note from Emma

2010-03-09T19:57:00.002-05:00

This is Emma Lucken writing to say I am doing Jump Rope for Heart. I know that most of you donated to my sister (rats I never get to Jump first ). You don't have to donate but every little bit counts. I am jumping for my mom's mom who as you know died when my mom was a kid, and I have always wanted to meet her. I am jumping because I don't want anybody to have to go through what my mom and her sisters went through. So if you want to donate click on this link: Jump Rope for Heart Thanks!
Emma

Dear Dad

2010-03-09T19:06:00.001-05:00

Dear Dad,

It's hard to believe that this was us just a year ago: trying to have a good time in Roatan despite the terrible diagnosis...but still together.

It's harder to believe that this is my life now - with no you. I hate to whine about it...but it seems so unfair to me that our historian, our photographer, is gone (and of course, and more, that my father is gone). I don't see my children smile as widely anymore as I saw them smile in pictures you took...and I know that I feel different, ungrounded. I'm having a really hard time taking things seriously, with this feeling that life is so fleeting.

I'm never far from the pain, and from the memories. December: "A year ago we had our last Christmas being someone's children, being together as a family." January: "A year ago, Dad was diagnosed." "These were the days we spent learning everything we could about pancreatic cancer." February: "A year ago we were trudging through the snow in Bayfield and sliding down the hills." March: "A year ago we were celebrating Bill's birthday together in Roatan." "A year ago we were returning from our last trip together." I'm getting farther and farther from those though.

And even the good stuff causes me twinges - Noah's first haircut! Natalie looking so big and happy in her new backyard! Matthew's 2nd birthday party, at his house in Evanston, surrounded with family and friends. Katie will be making her first communion this year...and we're doing it all without our photographer, and without our biggest smiles.

However, dear Dad, I know that life isn't fair. I also know that I was gifted with a pretty good life, in the scheme of things. Yes, there is plenty of shittiness, but at least I am tough enough to handle it (or prepared enough - what's the phrase - tested by fire?) - MOST days.

So anyway, my progress report: I am not the all-A student you raised when it comes to grief management, but I am at least passing this class. I started running again (and that makes me cry, to tell you that! I would guess you can run again, too, now that your legs are not all ruined)...I'm not any good at it AT ALL, but I'm trying and not giving up for once. I'm not allowing myself to be intimidated by the runner that I used to be, and I am starting from scratch. It's like Fitness '93! I made a whole plan for myself and I'm sticking to it, and recording my progress and all. I may even cry myself through the Peter Cottontail Run, without you, just for old times sake...or maybe I'll bring Emma and teach her about how you used to drag me out and make me miserable while you sang that song the whole way. Or maybe I'll bring Katie and she can make me miserable and I'll feel the same way I used to feel (she won't be singing, she'll be berating me for making her do it, but the end result will be the same).

Next: I'm starting a Brownie troop for Katie tomorrow. You probably would not feel this is such a great thing - you'd prefer I was not always doing kid stuff...but I'm telling you anyway. I'm hoping for a whole new wholesome adventure and more special time with my precious and most dangerous child. (Dangerous for me, because she has my same bad temper and we can make each other crazy.)

I guess the point of all of this is, I'm trying to force my life to go on. I'm trying pretty hard to engage, even though sometimes I wonder if any of it is worth it. Losing you, and maybe also losing that role - "daughter" - still hurts an awful lot...so much that my other roles aren't quite filling up that spot (though I try pretty hard with the "mother" role...and the "aunt" role helps too). Maybe these new adventures will help me pass the time and one day I will look up and not feel that hurt quite so much.

Anyway, Dad, I'm sorry for the times that I didn't appreciate you as I probably should have. I should have probably worked less hard on my "mother" role over the past 10 years and worked harder on the "daughter" role - because it seems I wasn't ready to be done with that role yet! (And everyone knows, you can always mother harder...it is a neverending spectrum, motherhood.) Hopefully you know my intentions now, though, and know how much I loved you, even when we didn't always understand each other.

With love,

your daughter,

Pam

Sometimes...

2010-03-08T21:24:00.002-05:00

I can't really believe that I am a breast cancer survivor.
It seems so weird that such a womanly disease was written into my DNA...I feel like I am the least womanly person around (and don't mind being this way, either!).
I think it is funny that now I have so few "girl parts"! No real breasts, no ovaries, no periods to deal with, etc. So I guess I fit better now with who I always thought I was.
I can't believe I had chemotherapy for breast cancer.
I can't believe I am lucky enough to not be having it now!
I can't believe I found a lump.
I can't believe I was lucky enough to find it in stage 1.
I can't believe this will be my 4th 3-day!!!!
I can't believe I was lucky enough to find this event in the first place...I just love walking for 3 days straight (if I loved it when I was bald and with only half a reconstructed chest, you know I really love the event).
I can't believe we have 29 team members! With more on the way...
I can't believe I have no living biological parents.
I can't believe I am a parent myself.
I can't believe spring is really coming...I'm almost frightened by the prospect.
I can't believe I was once late picking up Emma from school because I lost myself pulling dandelions in my yard!
I can't believe I counted all the dandelions I pulled that first summer - 3300 (I did them in batches of 100, thus the late pickup).
I can't believe I am on my 2nd generation of pets.
I am amazed to have such wonderful women to call friends...

What are your Sometimes...?

OOHH Look at this pic I just found

2010-03-03T23:06:00.004-05:00

The Lucken family mushers! This is what I did on my 2 year anniversary of my breast cancer diagnosis:

You should do this project with your boy (and your dogs)

2010-03-03T22:19:00.006-05:00

(look closely, I'm no photographer - Pinecone birdfeeders!)

It's a winter favorite in my house...unfortunately, the VERY NEXT MORNING after I set out these cute pinecone birdfeeders they were gone!!! Very, very, hungry raccoons. Luckily, it is so fun, I plan to do it again.

Supplies

Smiles

Seed

Share

Share some more!

See how cute?

The birds will love you - and they are hungry after migrating! We saw thousands of birds mid-migration in Nebraska as we drove home on winter break.

If I was not just now catching up with my pics taken over the past two months, you would have seen this much earlier...like mid-January, when we actually did this project!

Look at my invitations!

2010-03-03T21:48:00.008-05:00

I had NO business spending much time on these invitations, with all that I have to do. However, I have been hoping for this girl scout troop for such a long time and I have such high hopes for it! It seemed like the extra effort and intention was worth it tonight.

You're not blown away? That's ok...they're so Mrs. Lucken - a little bit cheap and a lot resourceful. I made these invitations with little pieces of ribbon I have been stowing away in my house for years, along with these recruitment fliers from gssem.org (there are five to choose from - I used them all and just used whatever ribbon I had to match). I had to marry the two pieces of paper together somehow, because my busy husband most likely did not want to be messing around with the copier 1) at his work and 2) on his birthday...so I was just fancying up something that had to be what it had to be.

Still, I think the little extra effort is cute - it meant something to me, and it was a fun thing to do with my daughters. (Anything that has me sitting in one place for a period of time is good, in my family's opinion!)

P.S. - I put the ribbon on the side because I wanted everyone to flip the invite text over to see the Girl Scout flier on the back (and not ignore it)...this way, they see a little bit of the graphic on the other side and are teased to see what it says!

The word that strikes fear in every mother's heart

2010-03-03T13:05:00.002-05:00

SPRING!!!!!

Oh, the days of mud, and more laundry (is it possible?), and SO MANY SCHOOL ACTIVITIES IT MIGHT MAKE A PERSON INSANE are nearly upon us! And with it comes something far, far worse, in Mrs. Lucken's world.

Today alone (and it's only 1pm!) I sent out fundraising emails, set up a parents' meeting for the new girl scout troop I am starting, sent out an email to our wonderfully large 3-day team about a team meeting I'm hosting in my fantastically dirty fixer-upper-that-hasn't-been-fixed-up-yet house this Sunday, volunteered in Katie's class for an hour, MADE 4 PHONE CALLS (not to my husband and/or sisters - this is amazing as I avoid the phone like the plague. If you have been called by me in the past 10 years or so, consider yourself one of the smallest minority in the world!).

I still need to put together two baskets for two classrooms' Fun Fairs/Blast auctions, I'm in the middle of at least 10 loads of laundry, need to make invitations for the 35+ girls who we are inviting to join this Brownie troop (please, don't all join it!) and need to make a birthday cake and dinner for my birthday boy husband, before I pick up the girls from school.

All of this marks the beginning of the uptick in activities that happens every spring (shhh! it's coming, don't tell all the moms of school-aged children!)...which would be fine, except for what is happening outside.

It is about 40 degrees outside and SUNNY right now...and the forecast is similar for at least 3 more days this week. That can only mean one thing - Mrs. Lucken is going to lose herself to the yard! I've already been out there chopping things down in my woods like Laura Ingalls Wilder and Almanzo. I don't know where I'm going to put all the stuff I'm about to rustle up - buckthorn, dead things, etc. - as the fire pit is about 7 feet tall from Monday's escapades outdoors.

Oh SPRING. I love you and yet...yikes. So much to do, so little time!

Katie's Jump Roping for Heart!

2010-02-11T08:50:00.002-05:00

Katie loves this day, (JUMP ROPE FOR HEART!) and has been asking and asking her delinquent Mom to post information about this for at least a week...I told her that since this year we have a big fundraising job (fundraising for both Mom and Dad to do the 3-day...yikes), we wouldn't be pushing a big campaign.

A special anniversary changed my mind.

Coincidentally, today Emma is the exact age that my sister Amy was when our Mom died. At around 11am today, I will be breathing a huge sigh of relief that I am still alive to mother Emma...and then I will start down the countdown to the day when Katie is the exact age that Julie was when our Mom died. (8 years, 5 months, and 16 days...on September 18th of this year Katie will be that age.) I've been hoping and praying to mother my children past all of these special anniversaries, and then to go on mothering into the new frontier (what would it be like to mother, or have a mother, past the age of 12 years, 5 months, and 12 days?). I can't wait to find out!

And so...

Jump Rope for Heart! In Memory of Grandma Cathi

The EC is on the front page of the Eagle

2010-02-10T22:15:00.004-05:00

With a little bit of a lie, by the way...
The district will not really be saving $200,000 if they cut the 2.5 instructors at the EC...because:

The only full-time instructor is at the top of the pay scale...and has tenure. She'll just move to an elementary school and bump out some other wonderful teacher at an opening salary. So whatever her salary minus the new teacher's salary is what they will be saving...not her whole salary.
The other 3 people are part-time parapros...
I am certain there are other ways for the Environmental Center to make money and help pay for itself...and I feel it should. These cute little fundraisers are only the teeniest part of what I think we could do for this little Environmental Center. If it weren't so hard to reach these stupid board members, I'd be telling them this myself.

Anyway, I am not falling off the deep end with the EC, kids. I do really like it (as I like any marginally run-down piece of property - note my house). It has so much potential. I'd hate for something so close to my house and my children's school to become a run-down eyesore. AND, I have a growing passion to teach other children (not my own, they are already sick of me and my passions...I need to find a new audience) to love the environment and gardening, etc.

Plus, it is fun to have a project.

However, I may just have too many, says the woman who just came back from Girl Scout Training, the woman who just applied for a fun part-time job, and the woman who is getting ready to teach her three young ones how to ski. (Other projects of late: cleaning up the rancid sewage problem in my basement, reforming my Irish Setter who has a death wish - she wants to be killed by my rage, volunteering my ass off at schools, trying to get into shape again - because I eat too much chocolate to make my ass really go anywhere, and making ridiculously wonderful fabric gift bags for no discernible reason at all.)

Buy plants AND Support the BEC...it's a win-win situation!

2010-02-10T12:47:00.003-05:00

Here's a great fundraiser to help the BPS Environmental Center...hosted by Flower Power fundraising. I'm going to start some shopping right this minute...please check it out!

The prices seem reasonable, and the BEC will earn 50% of your purchase.

My (selfish) next step! and later...why I am lucky

2010-02-09T09:55:00.003-05:00

Here's my (selfish) next step in the Save the BPS EC campaign...to host a perennial exchange at the Environmental Center this spring!

It was my quiet and secret wish and goal to start a perennial exchange (and then, a garden club...or find a garden club, but I kind of wanted to start one as then I wouldn't have to go find one myself). I've been thinking of ways to get this started, and it seems like the EC would be a perfect place to host this. Plus, the timing of it (this spring) goes well with the goals of the Friends of the BPS EC committee - to spread the word about the EC. It goes well with MY goal for the BPS EC, too - to make it more community-friendly.

I got the OK from the leader of the Environmental Center today...now what?

.................
As an aside, I think I am filling up my plate sufficiently these days. It's all SO GOOD for me, helping me to find my favorite things again, keeping me busy, keeping me around people (if you pick the right people, they can be so inspiring, so energizing, and so wonderful - they just help to pull the good right out).

I am SO GRATEFUL to friends, to family, to God...for sticking by me when I am so down, and confused about why I would even want to be alive, and antisocial, and suffering. I knew I would come out of my misery SOMETIME...I always do, but I am always afraid and nervous about what friends I might lose in the process of my misery. I seriously did lose high school friends during my college summer miseries...probably lost some college friends during my post-college miseries...lost some friends during my post-death-of-mom miseries way back, too. So I have been wondering, in the back of my mind, who I would lose during this post-death-of-my-dad-antisocial-behavior-period/misery. It was/is inevitable...I only have so much energy, and I have been trying so hard to just keep it together for my little family.

So if you are still here, and you don't hate me!, for whatever emails I didn't send, whatever phone call I didn't return, whatever thank you note I didn't send, whatever thing I messed up, whatever irresponsibility I was responsible for (!) - THANK YOU. I feel myself coming out, a bit, and if I still have you as a friend...I know I am lucky.

Saving the Environmental Center...

2010-02-08T13:30:00.005-05:00

IF you are interested...here are some things YOU can do to help!

Send your child to camp during Winter or Spring Break at the Environmental Center! (This link takes you to the Community Ed webpage, where you can then click around and find out about the other days of the camp.) The thought is, if the camps fill, that is an indication that we have a resource here that is used and worth saving.
Pass on the word that the Environmental Center will be closing...chances are, people don't know that it actually is planned to close. The Environmental Center and the nature walks at the Environmental Center have been part of the good experiences had with Birmingham Public School children for generations...people will be sad to see it close and want to know about it.
Attend a board meeting. I'll be there! (It will be my first time, but I'll be there!)
March 23-24 are tentatively scheduled to be "Community Conversations" regarding the budget...plan to be there!
Have your child's class write letters to the school board, telling them to Save the Environmental Center! (I've already asked Katie's teacher...a good idea would be to have this become part of the Valentine's party this week!) Bring those letters to the next school board meeting!

Mrs. Lucken is contemplating a grass roots campaign

2010-02-08T12:05:00.002-05:00

I'm contemplating a grass roots campaign to save/help the Birmingham Public Schools Environmental Center...which is something so clearly over my head, it's not even funny!

However, I love the Environmental Center, I see so much potential in it, and I'm crazy about anything green (meaning plant life, nature study, etc.). I really, really, really, so much, do not want to see it taken away from our school district and our community. I have not been totally engaged in the activities of the school board as they find ways to trim and cut and make the school district's budget leaner in these hard times, but I did find out that the plan for 2010-2011 is to cut the $200,000 environmental center program. (This cut is essentially the salaries of the teacher and her 3 parapros at the Environmental Center.)

So far today, I have spoken with Barbara Pepper, who is said teacher at the Environmental Center. She alerted me to the "Save the Environmental Center" blog someone set up (don't be fooled, it's only maybe one person behind this campaign so far...so I can tell they need me, even if I have no skills in managing grass roots campaigns). She mentioned there is an email address, as well: savethebec@gmail.com. By emailing that website, I'll be able to get some "talking points" to use when I go to the board meeting at the end of this month (what? Me talking at a board meeting? Yikes.).

I've also spoken to my cohort in all of this (didn't know that you were, did you?)...and we are brainstorming.

If any of my faithful readers have any interest in working on this little campaign, email me! I don't know what it will entail. I have no idea what I need to do to turn the Environmental Center into something that is truly fancy and a wonderful asset for our community and our school district...but that is a dream I've had for awhile. So stay tuned for more info from this crazy woman and her crazy dream.

new things on the horizon

2010-02-04T15:06:00.002-05:00

Dear Dad,
Don't worry, I'm not always as morbid as I was yesterday...but it is good to be morbid once in awhile - or to at least have a moment to think about what I have lost, what I miss, what I wish I had. It opens up the flow of emotions and then I can think of what I have, what I can look forward to/work for, and what fun there still is to be had.

I am also very thankful for the burst of sunshine that came through the clouds just as I was finishing up yesterday's post! (LITERAL sunshine, as well as figurative!)

Yes, there is much to be thankful for - and top of the list is my family (the family that I still have). I could never have imagined my sister living down the street and offering to watch my little Nathan as she does! I could never have imagined that I would spend hours a day on the phone with my other dear sister...and then, I could never have imagined the wonderful relationships my little ones have with my own aunts. Yesterday, I was surprised to see my Aunt Perry, stopping by my house with 4 WHOLE BAGS of canned goods to donate to the needy...after Emma emailed the family to ask for help with a canned food drive at school. Emma was JUMPING around the house, squealing and saying, "I have the best aunts!"

So see, there are relationships to cherish, and relationships to form, and cement.

I know we'll be ok, soon. Spring is coming (figuratively, and literally - the garden will be restored to me)!

Love,
Pam

This is why we didn't talk about it...

2010-02-03T10:06:00.004-05:00

Dear Dad,
Today I was dusting rather compulsively, albeit quickly, and I accidentally knocked down a folder on my bookshelf. Out fell cards, and pictures, and pages upon pages of memories people had shared with us over the first few days after your passing. Though I have not much time to clean my shambles of a house before Nathan's friends and moms arrive, I took a few moments to read, and now, a few moments to write to you.

I was so angry immediately following your death, dear Dad, that I didn't fully appreciate your career, or the impact you made on this region and the world during your time here on Earth. I was SO angry, feeling that you had chosen to spend the precious time that you had with your career instead of with us. Now that I look back, I realize I shouldn't have been angry with you...you did spend time with us. You did put your family first, if we ever needed you. No, we did not get that time together that I was wishing for, and hoping for, and praying for, and waiting for - time to talk about your life, your wishes, your hopes, your prayers. We didn't get the chance for you to spend some good - or great - days out on the boat that summer, watching Emma jump off the side (and probably Katie and Nathan now, too), watching Natalie and Noah take their first boat rides with their Bubba, and watching darling Matthew with his precious, precious smile take more rides, showing the rest of them how to do it. It wasn't your fault, though, that we didn't get these moments - it was your stupid cancer's fault.

I remember how upset I was that you didn't want to talk, during that last week or two, and now I am sorry that I was ever upset with you about it. I always realized that you were in pain (maybe didn't know how much), and busy dying (I realized that was where you were headed, I just didn't know how soon)...but I couldn't understand how the emotions involved with what you were going through just wouldn't come out. How, knowing in your head that things didn't look good, you just couldn't or wouldn't talk about it.

I think I know now, Dad.

Looking back, I think you probably knew exactly where we were headed, as a family...down the road of loss, and misery, and sadness, and grey days that don't end. You probably could not bear to even think about it, much less talk about it. Whereas I was saying to the rest of us, "we can do this...we'll have the rest of our lives to put ourselves back together, we just have to help Dad now and worry about ourselves later"...you remembered how hard that is.

I was only 12 when we lost mom...and when we lost Grandpa and Grandma and Uncle Mike in those few years before her, they weren't my parents and my brother. Only you knew our road ahead - young parents, with no parents of our own to guide us, or love us, or share these memories of parenthood with us, and no time to even cry (without freaking out the children), or stay in bed for months, or go crazy and sell everything and travel the world like nomads until we find our joy again. We have other people to be responsible to now, others to love while we still carry this heavy, miserable grey load around day after day.

It is horrible, Dad, but you knew it would be...I'm sure of that. I didn't know it would be so horrible - the loss, the memories, the missing parts of myself (you and Mom), and so much, watching my children grow up without you. How much I would love to tell you, and Mom (not just talking to myself, like now) about Emma! How she loves her family, your family - your brothers, your sisters-in-law, your nephews, your niece...how she counts on them and thinks of them and they make her feel safe and proud of herself. I wish I could talk to Mom about my little middle child - the shining star who sparkles and then just as easily explodes...so much emotion and creativity and intelligence in that skinny little body. And Nathan...he is a boy you could really love - he's funny, like you, and crazy, and smart, and can make anyone laugh.

But you, of all people, would know the burden this is...the joy that my children loved you is now my misery that they miss you, my worries that the loss of you is too hard for them, my concern that I won't be able to keep it all together well enough so that I can raise them properly during these precious years.

And believe me, I am now probably happy that I didn't know HOW MUCH sadness was coming my way. It's a different kind of loss, and grieving, when you are 36, with no parents, with young children of your own. It's not at all fun.

So, Dad, it's ok that we didn't talk about it.

Love,
Your daughter always,
Pam

A picture of bag city

2010-02-01T18:47:00.003-05:00

This is from 2007...thinking back, maybe I did get a chance to make a few bags between that Christmas and the Christmas of 2009, because I think I had a few more bags under the tree. (The wrapped presents are from Santa...he doesn't have access to my bags.)

Don't you see how cute they are? Ha ha, crazy city over here.

crafty eco girl finally makes more fabric gift bags

2010-01-31T11:25:00.007-05:00

I'm not as ecologically sensitive as I once was, which is amusing as the entire world seems to have finally caught up with the furor that was afflicting me back in 1991-1996 or so (with aftershocks felt to this day, but I'm not as cutting edge as I was then...).

Flashback to a young junior in high school, moving bags of used paper to our new house, because my Dad offhandedly remarked that someday we'd be able to recycle paper. I saved it under my bed until I found a place to recycle it (college...once they started recycling paper at U of M in the computer labs.) This same girl saved paper from her apartment in Chicago years later, and forced her poor boyfriend to bring them back to Michigan to recycle them for her! Poor boyfriend/husband. He's getting me back, though...whenever he is mad at me, he throws paper into the trash can (when he is certain I'll see it.)

Yes, I compost. Yes, I garden organically. I even compost my stupid guinea pig's waste...and did the same with my rabbits for years (now that I have a giant yard, this isn't so difficult as it once was). I even once bought a worm composter to compost my dog and cat waste, but that was too yucky, even for me...and so that experiment was very short-lived. I try to pack my children's lunches in all-reusable items, I bring bags with me to all stores almost maniacally, etc.

But I'm not as ecologically sensitive as I once was...I take too many showers. I wash too much laundry. I use too much electricity. I drive my children everywhere when they could just as easily take the bus, just to save them 15 minutes here or there. I feel a little guilty, esp. when I consider how crazy I used to be. I'm chalking my slippage up to motherhood, the accumulation of stuff, and maybe even the fact that it's all so mainstream and in-my-face now that I have to give myself a break or the sheer guilt would be too much.

However, I do have a crazy adoration of my fabric gift bags. They are easily one of my favorite parts of the holidays (thus, crazy). I just love pulling them out every year, shoving the gifts for my family inside, not needing to buy gift wrap, not needing to worry about wasting tons of paper, seeing the cuteness under the tree...and every year I wish I had more of them so that I could use them for every gift I give.

Life with 3 children during the holiday season doesn't always permit such luxuries as pulling out my sewing machine and crafting. Even after the holiday season, I never seemed to find the time...but with my youngest now 4 years old, I have a bit more autonomy in what I do when we are all hanging around the house at home.

And thus, finally, after wanting to do this again since the winter of 2002 (when Katie was so little, she could sit in a chair while I sewed...the last time I really made bags...) - yay! I made some more.

I use remnants, or fabric I have collected over the years, and ribbons I save from wherever I find them...and my sisters have been saving me things, too (navy/white bags are remnants of my sister's curtains):

**I make them big, I make them small, I make them medium-sized, I make them giant-sized. I only have pictures of the smaller ones so far as I am not a skilled photographer of bags!
And by the way, I'm still teaching myself how to sew...but this is an easy way to figure it all out!

I am giving myself an award...a really big one

2010-01-29T20:42:00.003-05:00

This was a huge day for a girl who can go comatose, occasionally, when faced with too much to do:

8:45am -Take kids to school, remember "Tacky Day" for Nathan, drop off cleaned toys (who just volunteered to start a "toy washing program for her son's preschool...oh yes, that was me)

9:00am - 10am -Come home, quickly clean house, including guinea pig cages (yes, cages...a friend came to school all allergic and so I volunteered to take her guinea pig until she found a new home for it. So I was cleaning a cage of a guinea pig that wasn't even mine...)

10am - Drop off deposit for Nathan's new school next year

10:10am - Return library books

10:15am - 10:55am - Drive to the mall, buy gift certificate for Emma's teacher who is going on maternity leave

10: 55am - 11:25am - Rush to Emma's classroom, throw "you are going to be leaving for maternity leave" party for her teacher, complete with scrapbook, coordinated by some crazy woman (me), with baby and big kid pictures, notes from all the kids, pieces of advice for parents, etc. (Yes, I worked on that for a week straight)

11:25am - Walk Emma to her friends' Dad's car...she's off to a playdate

11:40am - 11:55am - Pick up Nathan from school, along with a whole bucket of new toys to clean

12:05pm - Pick up Katie from the bus stop (half day)

12:10pm - Feed kids

12: 45pm - Answer phone, it's Katie's friend. Does Katie want to come for a playdate? Well, how about you come here?

1pm - Put on clothes to walk and get Katie's friend

1pm - 3pm - Supervise playdate, while cleaning toys for preschool and monitoring dumb dog

3pm - Into the car, drop of Katie's playdate

3:10pm - Drop off Katie at Julie's house for "movie Fridays"

3:20pm - 4:30pm - Drive to Pick up Emma, socialize with her friend's lovely mother

4:35 - 5:30pm - Drive home, home for 4o minutes

5: 35pm - 8:05pm - Take Nathan to new friend's movie watching party

8:05pm - 8:35pm - Leave, drive to pick up Katie

8: 54pm - Write this

9pm - Put kids to bed

I can't even believe the amount of activity and socializing for this basically antisocial girl. I must really, really, really, really, really love my kids.

---
p.s. - I think this tetanus shot hurts more than my bilateral mastectomy. Just kidding...but that gives me an idea...don't I have some vicodin around here? ha ha

Today by the numbers

2010-01-25T15:12:00.004-05:00

Minutes spent driving family members around (Emma to school, to car dealership to pick up Bill, dropping off Bill at work, picking up Nathan, picking up Katie and Emma): 243 minutes

Piles of dog poo picked up in the yard (since the snow has melted, before new snow comes): 49

Kisses bestowed upon a 4 year old: 100

Hugs bestowed upon same 4 year old: 20

Times same 4 year old was lovingly thrown onto the bed: 12

Times I said, "OFF, HOPE!" - unable to count that high

Brownies that were sent in the mail: 12

Brownies eaten by me: 2

# of Brownies I wanted to eat: 5

Hours I spent working on a teacher gift today: 3

# of girls from Emma's class who helped me with the teacher gift today: 6

# of parents who offered help today with teacher gift: 4

Exercise, in minutes: zero :(

Family dinners, and brownies in the mail

2010-01-25T14:37:00.002-05:00

Let me just, right here and right now, say how wonderful it is to have my little sister situated so conveniently close by, here in grey old Michigan.

I remember dreaming about our future lives, and telling her, 10 years ago when she was packing up to move to California, to find a good place for us to live. It was always my dream to have all of my loved ones right down the street from me...and I have always been willing to make that dream a reality, as much as I could. (Thus, settling here with our little ones, despite a rabid desire to live somewhere else...so they could know their grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins...)

11 years ago, I SO thought we would be relocating, me somewhere with my sister to follow, or the other way around...and then came Emma and so we stayed put...and now...HOW AMAZING that after moving away, here comes Julie back to Michigan with her little ones in tow, and dear Tyler, too, of course.

Can I say how wonderful it is to see my little sidekick running to the door to open it for us? To have to monitor fights between my sidekick (Natalie) and Nathan, because now they are growing up together and don't always want to share (the novelty of each other's presence is gone)? How much I love going to Costco and picking something up for Jules...and how much I love impromptu family dinners?

I may not be all back to my most cheerful and sunshiney self, but I am here enough to know how lucky I am to have the Gibbs family living in Michigan.***

(And I'm lucky they chose my favorite real estate agent to help them find a house, because she sent brownies in the mail to me today. How can a person not love brownies in the mail?)

***and we're lucky to have our guest "suite" empty again, for impromptu visits from my other most wonderful sister and darling nephew!

Loving new friends...and old

2010-01-23T20:11:00.002-05:00

Tonight I went on the greatest walk, with a new(ish) friend...and what fun! She knows the neighborhoods even better than I do, having grown up around here, and had lots of good tips and pointers. A cut-through here, pre-school advice there, where they took their daughter skiing, etc.

I am positive that walking with friends is one of my favorite activities. The time just flies by, I learn so much, we spend so much time laughing. Now if only I could get my 3-day friends to start walking in the middle of winter like this wonderful new(ish) friend...

AND...I think I have another new friend in the making - how lucky am I? The circumstances of this new friend-in-the-making are going to make any of my walking friends of the past 3-ish years laugh - she emailed to see if anyone wanted to start a girl scout troop for Katie's grade. This is HYSTERICAL to me...I have spent about hundreds of hours of my life agonizing over this decision, trying to find a co-leader, whining about the girl scouts and their rules which prevented me from doing this without a co-leader...and here she has been all along! Our daughters were never in the same class, so we never crossed paths the right way until this week/this email. (I've seen her around plenty, though...she's one of the handful of moms I ALWAYS see volunteering at grade-wide events.) So, I can pretty safely say, with all the time we are going to be spending together, I either have a friend-in-the-making, or an enemy-in-the-making (not that I would ever mind her, she is such a darling of a person...she may just find me a little annoying after awhile).

Now, to gush about my old friends...it feels like some 3-day fever is starting, and I am so excited to have some of my old teammates signing back up. The 3-day is my very favorite weekend of the year, and to spend the weekend with some of my very favorite friends is my dream. I could go into paragraphs of rapture and exclamation points for each one of the women who are walking (again, for the 4th, or 3rd, or 2nd time...and for the women who are walking for the first time)...it is going to be so, so, so wonderful. Spending time with those women is worth every fundraising moment, every training mile (which as you can maybe tell, is one of my favorite parts of the 3 day, too). Just imagine my happiness if I could get a few of the other favorites to sign up...hmmm...how can I bribe them? :)

Catching up...and resolutions

2010-01-13T13:56:00.005-05:00

I'm resolving to spend less time being sad...not necessarily as a New Year's Resolution, but more as an I-am-wasting-my-life-being-sad-and-that-is-stupid-resolution.

So, I'm trying my best to catch up on some of my emails, my procrastinations, my responsibilities, my cleaning, my organizing (the latter two because it makes me feel so good, clears my mind and helps me focus), and my pictures.

As such, I thought I would share a picture which is making me laugh today - my insane dog tried to get into the garbage, and look what happened to her (notice wagging tail):

It didn't stop her from trying to get snacks from Noah's high chair/lunch:

And now, off to my Impromptu Trip of the Day: the Zoo. (Yesterday's Impromptu Trip of the Day was sledding...twice! Once, with Nathan, and then again later with the girls and Nathan.)

A love story

2010-01-03T00:04:00.010-05:00

My sisters and I have spent quite a few moments over the past few days reading love letters that my parents wrote to each other throughout the years of their marriage. One can totally get lost in the history there...and it is fascinating to read both how things were, and how things are the same. Here is my Dad, writing to my Mom in the early 70s when he was in Basic Training as an Army Reservist; so much of it is history, but so much of it feels like the present too. I recognize so much of myself in those letters - here is my young mom, freaking out on the phone because my young dad had to leave things a mess to get to basic training(how many times have I had that same phone conversation with my boyfriend-turned-husband, made a big fuss over something because I missed him?). Here is my young dad, pining away for his young wife with the intensity of young love that I remember so well as a 23 or 24 year old, when a love like that was the whole world, or all I wanted from it.

It just all makes me wonder...how much of who you are is determined already by your own biology? Here are my knees, showing up in the 1940s under my grandmother's dress. Here's my hair color (and of course, though you can't see it, here's my mutation, too). Here's my crazy mood swings, showing up in letters before I was even born. Here's the same way I love, and argue, and the things that I worry about... (though I know so much of this is probably universal...I just recognize it so much in my Dad's prose, or my Mom's.)

It's been enlightening, reading their letters, and hearing them talk once again. I see my Dad's handwriting being formed...hear his signature phrases...and my Mom's as well. It's kind of nice, but I'm also a little afraid to really pour myself into those boxes and those letters. It makes me miss them...and though I BELIEVE that they are happy, and complete now, and together, I feel sorry for what they lost. How sad to love so hard and then to lose your young wife! And then also, how sad to miss the opportunity to spend time with these guys, the 2nd generation of your love:

And I know...how lucky to have found that love at all. How lucky to have been that happy...and yes, they are still with us in a way. But I know that for at least one of these grandchildren, it's not enough to just believe they are still with us. She'd rather have those grandparents on this earth with her - and I have a feeling that the other 5 will feel that way someday, too.

Letters to Santa

2009-12-25T00:05:00.002-05:00

Dear Santa,
Thank you for all the wonderful presents! Some people don't believe in you. But I always will. Even if my mom and dad say no, I will always believe. Have you met my Grandfather? He is a wonderful man. I really miss him. Do you have any pets besides the raindeer? I wish I could be like you.
I love you! And also Well Done!
Love,
Emma Lucken

P.S. - Oh and also "Merry Christmas and to all a good night!

------

Dear Santa, thank you for all the wonderful presents! I hope you enjoy the present I gave you. Please write back soon!

(on another note) Do you mind that they add "in your underwear? Please write back soon. Siceraley Kate LUcken 23095 248-646-3309 bristle ct bingham farms

(and she left a revised list, on the bottom of which she wrote PLEASE & THANK YOU! Love, Kate Lucken)

-----

oh how i love my children.

24 years

2009-12-22T15:42:00.003-05:00

Today is the day, 24 years ago, that we lost my Mom...and the day, 30 years ago, that we lost my Dad's brother. I normally go through this day with baited breath, hoping our family will make it through unscathed. December 22nd has been a day of worries, and sad memories, and loss.

This December 22nd, though, one less person is sad...and that makes me smile a little bit. Today instead of calling me, and calling my sisters, and remembering, and mourning his wife and brother, my Dad is hopefully with them! His cycle of sadness on December 22nd is over, and that is a nice thing.

Today, my burden of remembrance was made a little lighter too...how can it not be when the first thing my 10 year old said to me was, "We need to have fun today! It doesn't matter what we do, as long as you have fun, Mom." When I asked her why, she said, "Last night, I overheard Aunt Julie telling Uncle Tyler that today was the day your Mom died. So I want you to have a good day." I am acutely aware that my little sweethearts are my family now...and how can there not be joy in that, even on December 22nd?

A Letter to Dad

2009-12-20T13:48:00.002-05:00

Dear Dad,
It feels silly to me to be writing to a dead person, and especially to be writing to a dead person to whom you never really wrote much in real life (we could always just pick up the phone). I'm feeling all bottled up, though - I need to write - and I miss you. Since I can't call you, and since I promised you as you were dying that I would keep talking to you, this seems like the best choice. So here I go.

I've gone though stages of missing you so far...but I feel like I can't take any credit for it as I've mostly been a passenger on this grief train so far. I was so angry - angry that I didn't have more time with you, angry that you didn't take any time to say or write proper goodbyes to your children or grandchildren, angry with how things sometimes were between us. I've been grateful, too, for the time that we had, and for the family that you left us. I've also been plenty sad.

I know I should be relieved that your suffering is over, and I remember feeling that way as you were dying - relieved that the suffering would soon be over. It was so crazy, watching your body shut down, and watching you slip away. I felt like my sisters, Nancy, and I were participating in the most extreme labor of all time, but at the end our reward was not a new life - or was it? I suppose you have been rewarded with a new life...but most of the time it feels like a lot of nothingness to me. We went through this crazy and magical journey together and at the end of it, you were gone. I don't think I ever understood the intense complexity of the human body until I saw how hard Nathan had to struggle to make that journey from my body to the outside world, and then again, and even more so - watching how hard it was for you to leave your body at the end.

I'll always remember what Nancy said after you died - that she wanted your tshirt (which we had cut open so that we could cool down your body - burning up from infection and fever) because "He fought a battle in this shirt." You did fight a very strong battle, and I was never so proud or inspired by you (even though you have done much to make a daughter proud) as I was at the end.

It's good to write - because I WANT to remember your stinky navy battle t-shirt instead of what I've been thinking about all day, and that is watching the funeral home workers hoist your empty, broken body into the body bag. I've been stuck on that image - my sisters and I, sitting so close together, with our brave cousin Kevin in the room with us, watching such an unpleasant scene because we knew it was the last time we would ever see you as you were. For the first few weeks I kept wanting to be back in that room, to see you again, even if it was just the broken body.

It wasn't all horrible, the laborious end...and I think you know that because I felt like you were so there - either in the body or watching from somewhere. I want to remember all of those precious moments, too - how we played your ipod, played your "recently played" playlist on shuffle, and how the most amazing songs came on, one right after the other. "The hardest part is letting go not taking part", "How can you just walk away from me, when all that I can do is watch you leave? 'Cause we've shared the laughter and the pain, and even shared the tears..." It was so supernatural...like we had our own little death playlist.

The things you said were so funny, and so cute as well...well, and before the very, very end, just as bossy as usual. "Pam, you hurt me more than you help me!" "Pam, you are TOO aggressive." (Both were true, but I was trying my best to make you comfortable and to make you understand that I insisted on helping you, also.) I will never forget how, when I spent that last night crying over your medical records, wondering why I had never demanded to see them before, wondering how things had gotten to where I thought they now were (with you dying before I had even realized that we were actually at that point), and I went into your bedroom, tears streaming down my face. "Dad, I'm so sorry - I never wanted this suffering for you!" and you said, (between horrible groans, and in that voice you had near the end when it was so hard to understand you - like you were so far inside yourself, or halfway away, and couldn't articulate), "It's ok, Pam." And me, "I love you Dad." And you, "I love you Pam."

And one of my most favorite exchanges, which I only remembered today at Mass when the congregation was praying for "those who have gone before us" - I told you to look for Mom, that she would be coming for you, and you said, "Where is she? Send her in."

Well, I hope you are together...and I hope you are with God as well. I feel like you must be, because I see signs of God's goodness and what I like to think of as your protection (though my sisters think I am crazy) in Julie and Tyler's move back to Michigan - in his good fortune with his job hunt, in their good fortune with the house hunt, in their good fortune with their safe drive and some pretty cooperative and amazing children (only 2 years old and 7 months old!). Sometimes it feels to me like things are working out so well, that it could only be a parent's love, nudging things in the right direction. I'm going to keep believing that, because it makes me feel like there is some benefit in having both parents on "the other side"...and so, thank you.

I'm sure you know, with the omniscience that death may or may not bring (but I like to think it does bring), that I'm doing fine - or at least I will be. I have faith that I won't spend all of my weeks walking around in a grey cloud, that I won't find tears rolling down my face like a crazy person every week in church. I know that you probably went through this same thing, after you lost your brother and dad, and then again after you lost your mom, and then again after you lost MY Mom/your wife. Eventually something will pop up that will spark some of the life back up in me, but until then I will just keep waiting patiently. And missing you.

Anyway, dear old Dad, thanks for the talk.

Love, your eldest daughter,
Pam

Emma turns 10!

2009-12-11T11:31:00.001-05:00

Giving thanks in a different way, because this is a different year

2009-11-25T23:45:00.006-05:00

And I am a different girl.

So here we are, at Thanksgiving again...one of my Dad's favorite holidays, but he's not here.

As I think back to the person I was just a year ago at this time, and I feel like she's not here, either! I feel like I can't even relate to her. I can remember myself a year ago, being almost gleeful that I had made it though chemo, and the oophorectomy...and wanting my hair to come back in...and just being generally pleased with the idea of becoming regular again.

Today's Pam thinks last year's Pam was a little too naive, and certainly a little too focused on herself. Being regular is such a non-state, don't you think? How long does one ever exist in "regular"? I don't think I ever even got to regular before we were unregular again with my Dad's pancreatic cancer diagnosis. But beyond me...does anyone exist in "regular"? I doubt it. We all have our own challenges and hard times and good times - ups and downs.

This year's Pam sees all of that a little more. Whereas 2008 was maybe a journey of self-discovery, 2009 has taken the "self" out of that discovery a bit, which I think is a good thing. I think grief will do that for a person more than fear will - and while 2008 was more about conquering fears (such a personal thing, and puts you so in touch with your inner strengths), 2009 is more about losses and recovering from them, or grieving (which seems to also push a person in the opposite direction, like fear to strength...from grief to love.)

I can feel myself moving towards love. I have an acute feeling that I do need to embrace this life - to love life - because it can be so fleeting. Honestly, a year ago my Dad may or may not have had some abdominal upset...but would he have thought that he would be in another place 9 months later?

I also feel like I need to embrace the time I have with people, too...because people don't last forever, either. Here I lie in my house with my 3 children who are all so busy growing up and I know I shouldn't waste my time sitting around and feeling badly. Like it or not, this is my time with them before they all go off and live their own grown-up lives! Beyond that, do we know how much time any of us will get with each other before we are pulled apart? Not really...and I want to embrace the time that I have while I have it.

And then I think back to my Dad, who wasn't older than me when he had no parents left, too...and I think about how he embraced and loved his life. There is no denying that he really did that, in such a way that was really admirable. And though we might have gone in opposite directions when faced with how quick life is (he with work and accomplishing great things there, and me with my little family)...all in all we were/are exactly the same...going all-or-nothing towards something. That's a pretty cute thought.

And thanks to the help of several varied individuals (not just those I've mentioned, but also people who have sent me little messages here and there, or said little things to me in passing, and my sisters, who have gone over and over these things with me on the phone for hours upon hours - esp. Amy), I think I am coming around to the love in ALL of it. Because I loved, and love, my Dad...despite our differences and the way that our sameness was maybe hard for us (because how can two people really connect or make time to understand the other when they are going all-or-nothing for something totally opposite?). And I am thankful that I had him while I did.

And I'm starting to put away his shortcomings for good now, because he was human and flawed just like the rest of us...he just had the misfortune of being my father, and so I naturally expected him to be a semiperfect individual, which of course no one is. And I am wanting to think of our happy moments...the times on the boat together when he was so loving towards my girls, the times when he cozied up with Nathan in the chair in the living room, the time when I woke up flailing and yelling and in such confused and unbelievable pain from my mastectomy (there had been a problem with the pain meds) and he was there to hold my hand. And I remember him coming in with his work clothes from out-of-town to meet Katie for the first time, and I remember being so proud of him for the steps he had made in the 2.3 years since he had become a grandfather, begrudgingly and embarrassed, after my surprise pregnancy with Emma. He had stopped to get both girls a little teeny gift, but stopped for nothing else in his rush to get there.

And life does suck, sometimes...the losses and the pain and all the little hurts that pile up. But life is also so beautiful, too...the new little people that enter into your heart and your lives, and family in general - my uncles, my aunts, my cousins, my mother-in-law, my sister-in-law, and my two shining, wonderful sisters, and all of the precious moments that you never want to forget.

I'm thankful for it all.

Confession...

2009-11-24T21:35:00.003-05:00

Tonight I went to confession! That sentence deserves an exclamation point because I have most likely not been to confession (well, reconciliation) since I was in 4TH GRADE. Or maybe sometime in high school, but still...that's a LONG TIME. But, hey! I like to surprise myself, keep things interesting, etc. and so as I was sitting there after Katie made her first reconciliation today (they do these things in 2nd grade around here these days), the thought popped into my head, and I popped into the confessional.

I was amazed. I had envisioned it being this gigantic thing, as it seemed in 4th grade, or even in high school...but it was more like a conversation with a very nice person, about something that was troubling me. I left feeling like, hey! How cool that my religion offers free therapy! I should do this more often...

And here's where this one thought keeps coming back to me, through other people. First, from Bill (but I never believe him...he's like another me around here and I always think he is too close to the situation to really understand it, or maybe blinded by his affection for his wife to be impartial): "It's not your fault". Then, from my Dad, on his deathbed, in his garbled speech, "It's ok, Pam." Then, from the naturopath, "it's not your fault - even the guilty feeling can be related to biochemistry"...and she even has a homeopathic remedy to help this guilt-situation, which I think is at the same time totally hilarious and not believable, and also totally awesome if it works! (dichotomy! ha!) And finally, from the priest, who clarified that he didn't know the situation, but that sometimes things could actually be just as they seem (not all sunny and love-filled)...which I took as another idea that maybe I am not wrong in my thoughts and feelings all the time. And then he steered me into a different way of thinking, which is exactly what the acupuncturist told me 1.5 weeks ago - she basically told me I may never totally unpack all of the garbage, but I may just decide to leave it and make and follow a new resolution for myself.

So HOW ABOUT THAT. I have collected quite a random sampling of opinions, and they are all leading me back to the same little thoughts. So freakily awesome, the interconnectedness of things, sometimes. (I mean, I know it is all talking about me...but still. I was never even discussing the same thing with each person...but they all give me the same advice.)

I know I am being cryptic here...but the main point in ALL of this, for me at least, is that I don't have to figure everything out, or work all the way through hard emotions in order to come to a better and happier place. It doesn't even matter WHAT the situation is, really - ever. There just comes a time when a person needs to say to herself, "Pam, you're a good girl. [the priest actually told me that I was a good person and needed to focus on what good I do, instead of what not- good feelings I might have]. Who really cares what is going on here, or what is at the bottom of this whole messy thing. Let's just pick up, turn our faces to the sun, and move on with spreading that sunshine to other people. And PLEASE, leave the garbage with the garbage, if it is bothering you that much."

I may just try that!

....
And now, let me just lodge a few other random complaints and observations, because all of this confessing has left me so sunshine-y and cheerful that I feel like complaining - ha ha!

How weird is it that all of these people are preparing for our Thanksgiving meal, for not very many people, and the sheer amount of things I need to prepare (less than 1/3 of the entire meal) is more than I have prepared for my family in one whole entire week? Either I need to start cooking more (yes, this is true) or people need to eat less at Thanksgiving (also true). Oh, I hate cooking.

I'm looking at my darling 15.5 year old cat, who is staring at me as she ferociously tries to get out of the cat door Bill installed on the door leading to the basement (installed a few years ago). I love that cat, but she is such a huge gigantic pain in the ass and if she PEES ON MY DAUGHTER'S BEDDING ONE MORE TIME I MAY JUST LOSE IT! I'm not entirely sure that it is Maddie, but let's just say this - Annie is gone and the occasional inappropriate elimination continues...and seems to be ramping up, actually. Yes, I do have two cats and until I can convince Bill to install a Cat-cam, I doubt I'll know for sure. And no, I don't want to take her to the veterinarian to see what is going on. (see appendix a, which outlines our thousands of dollars of vet bills over the past year and then see appendix b, which outlines the extensive research I have done both in the field and in other texts to see what can be done in this situation, and appendix c, which is also entitled "Fifty Things Pam Does A Day To Instill Domestic Harmony in Her House Between Her Pets"). Oh how I love and abuse my washer/dryer and carpet cleaner (and vacuum for that matter). I feel so young to be on my 3rd-4th generation of all of those things!

Lastly, whoa am I tired of painting. The de-brownification of the house continues, as I paint the the trim on the main level of the house. I am such a shitty painter, too. However, I don't really care. I have found a way to gain a little zen while painting (flashback to early 2007, when we had just moved into this house, and I could paint for about 4 hours before losing my *&$t and yelling at the whole family...and now I have just spent about 4 eight+ hour days in a row painting and doing other various home improvement projects - thursday, 4 hours, friday, 8 hours, saturday, 12 hours, sunday, 14 hours, monday, 10 hours): I envision myself having touched each square inch of this house, probably 2-3 times (by the time I prime and patch and paint) and I imagine myself applying love to this crazy house. So how can I hate that splash there, and that ugliness there? I was just trying to love this crazy beastly red/brown crapfest of a house! That I love so much! And how many people can say they have touched all 3000 square feet of their house, inch-by-inch? I guess some, but still...I think I should gain some sort of entrance into a secret society of home improvement dorks for all of my efforts.

I did tell Bill that we were certifiably insane when we bought this crapfest...how could we not have known exactly how much work would be required? (We did, I know...everyone did.) However, the crapfest has so much space for dreams, which is so undeniably cute of it. If I want to make a new garden, I have tons of space for it! If I want to learn how to paint trim - here you go! If I want to learn how to finish a basement - here you go, it's already so shitty that you can't mess it up any further...And my latest idea of full insanity is to transform our horrid hollow doors into something at least useful when I paint them - chalkboards or magnetic boards for the kids and their imaginations and lists (the side that faces their rooms).

OK, I was tired over 3 hours ago, so now off to bed I go. Actually, I'll do that just after I stare at my 15.5 year old through the cat door a little more and taunt her. It's my right after she gave me 4 more loads of laundry to do tonight, and a mattress to clean...

nighty-night.

2009-11-22T00:38:00.004-05:00

Why 3 posts in one evening, after the lull? I've decided to return back to the basics - back to me and this little blog and my thoughts. I've felt a lot of pressure lately to only feel the right things, or to only say the right things, and especially, to only write the right things...and it hasn't felt so great. It doesn't help when I receive feedback that what I say has upset people!

However, I've worked through all of those feelings - and above all, the feeling of guilt that I always carry with me, for whatever I do, always. I don't know WHY I have such a truckload of guilt to push around everywhere - maybe some of it is circumstantial, maybe some of it is learned, and maybe some of it is just biochemical. Who knows.

I'm tired of it, though, and the other day I had a breakthrough. Yay, me!

I looked at myself in the mirror and thought of the many times I have spent wishing I was something different...or that I had a different path for this life, or different parents (for example, one that wouldn't die so early, and one that wasn't such a pain in the ass sometimes). And after weeks of complaining, and even praying, and thinking, thinking, thinking, this thought came to me - SO MUCH of this stuff was put in place before I was even born, and maybe, if I think about it, way before that. All that I can do is take what I have been given, and make something of it - hopefully, something wonderful.

I can't change the basics about the way I look just as I can't change my BRCA mutation...and with that BRCA mutation came my parents and whatever baggage they were carrying around (physical and emotional). It's possible that their issues (or, mostly, my Dad's) were so big and so inherent that he, too, could only take what he had been given and try to make something of it...just as we all do.

And suddenly, it all went away. The worry about my feelings - is it right to feel this way? Why do I feel this way? Why is my life this way? I sort of no longer care.

I also sort of no longer care what people think of me and how I am dealing with everything that has been given to me, too...which is amazing in and of itself. If you think I am wrong in what I say or what I do - well, you haven't lived my life, you haven't been there. On top of the fact that I know that I spent an inordinate amount of my energy and thought and time trying to make my father feel proud, and loved, and respected by me in his lifetime - and I know I succeeded - I do have a husband who has been with me since I was just a very young pup. It finally sunk in that I have someone who has LIVED so much of my life with me, who has loved me through even the worst of times, and who remembers all of the struggles along the way (through which he supported me, poor, poor guy). My little miseries were his miseries, too.

And as weird as this is to say, some of those little miseries should be gone now. If you can't have your father here on this earth with you, well, that does suck. But at least I shouldn't have to spend even another second worrying if I am being a good enough daughter...and why it couldn't just be easy between us, or what I did wrong, or what I should be doing that I'm not. Because hey, I'm no longer a daughter! I should be focusing my energy on my other roles now, and not beating myself up about what once was.

And wow...here's something funny (speaking about other roles!) I am a mother...and someone just called because she is having a hard time falling asleep at her friend's house, so I need to go get her! I'll finish this thought another night.

Conversations with children

2009-11-22T00:30:00.002-05:00

Nathan, as we are getting ready to go pick up his sisters the other day: "Someone named Pam Lucken forgot to put on my socks."

What a wacko.

After painting the bay window in our kitchen, and admiring my work (over and over and over again), Me: "What do you think about this window?"

Emma: "Mom. I think I have answered this question about 20 times today already."

Katie: "This is what I think of it." Frown...turns to sudden crazy smile!

I love these crazy kids. Sometimes I can't believe I made it through all of the frustrating moments of being a mom to young children to get to this point - which is so fun and so fulfilling. So far, I would take being a mom to a 10 year old (almost), 7.5 year old, and 4 year old over any of the past ages that we have been at together!

I'm changing my middle name (again) to Sweat Equity

2009-11-22T00:19:00.002-05:00

Where in the world have I been lately?

Well...the beautiful weather led to a bout of extreme craziness in the yard - if pulling out 300 buckthorn, hauling them to the fire, then cutting up and hauling tons of buckthorn Bill tore out of the woods, planting two strawberry patches and moving a bunch of raspberry plants, hauling at least 10 car loads of compost for the gardens, raking and mulching leaves.

And that led, of course, to me injuring my back a bit - maybe just soreness? I can never tell, but it was hard to move a lot...

And that led to a lack-of-exercise induced funk...

And after a nice appointment with my wonderful acupuncturist (who I hadn't seen since after my last chemo, but she was recommended by the wonderful naturopath), and a bit of rest for my back, I regained another incredible burst of energy...

And decided to paint all of the trim in the main level of my house in 4 days. Of course, I'm only on day 3, and getting rather sick of it...so maybe I'll stop where I am and be happy for awhile. It's hard to know, though...I've been so tired of the soul-sucking brown of this house for such a long time. (But I've been hoping to get a few big projects done before my sister, brother-in-law, niece, nephew, and their cat move in. Yes, and YAY, they have secured a job and are moving back to Michigan!!!!!!!!! And another yes, my house will be a bit crowded for awhile...what with the 4 adults and 5 children...but that is how we like it anyway.)

A common problem

2009-11-15T13:46:00.003-05:00

Pam, complaining to her husband: I just can never get enough dirt! I could go to that free dirt* place every day, all day long, and never have enough for this yard and all the gardens.

Bill: It's a common problem among the wives of Birmingham.

*compost made by SOCCRA...it is such great stuff. But it is killing my back, dirtying my mini-van, and causing innumerable complaints among my children as they do not enjoy all of the stop-offs to fill up the dirt buckets as we run around the suburbs doing our weekly suburban mom things. And yet, I just want more and more and more...it's like my own personal crack.

Another one bites the dust

2009-11-03T12:33:00.002-05:00

(My apologies to Oreo, I know that is a crude thing to say when your little guinea pig soul has reached the light...)

Yes, Mrs. Lucken again went downstairs to find another little animal soul had left this earth...this time Oreo, Emma's beloved guinea pig.

I'd like to say she was a good guinea pig, but she did sort of shred her sister Cookie Dough's ears...she was a speedy guinea pig, though, and pretty cute, and very well-loved by Emma (when she saw her - note: do not buy your 2nd grader a pet unless you are determined that YOU need a pet of your own. For me, the guinea pigs were a little bit overkill. Thinking back, I CANNOT believe that at one time I had 2 rabbits, 2 guinea pigs, 2 cats, and 1 dog. Let's keep this tangent going, though, and say that I love my husband for letting me be so crazy. I am over the small animal phase of my life, I believe...but feel lucky that I got a chance to be so off-the-wall and had so many at one time. More on this in another post.)

It was too early of a death, dearest guinea pig, and I'm sorry if I didn't take care of you well enough...but I think I did. I hope you are cavorting with your guinea pig friends in guinea pig heaven (or, if it is pet heaven, then you certainly have a lot of Lucken family up there - Frances the rabbit, Lydia the rabbit, Phineas the rabbit, and darling Nanners the cat).

Now, I'm off to finish cleaning the cage area and to dig a grave in our pet cemetary...

Let's post some pics!

2009-11-02T20:06:00.003-05:00

More here!

Believe

2009-11-02T15:11:00.002-05:00

OK, the last thing I should be doing is writing on this blog right now...I'm supposed to be helping Mr. Lucken with some work, or tending to the carpet of leaves on our lawn, or playing with the 4 year old...

BUT, if I don't take the time, will I ever get it back again?

So, let me take a minute to retell a bit of my conversation with the Naturopath...who wanted to know exactly what kind of depression I feel, or what kind of panic falls over me, because apparently homeopathy can get very specific.

I started to explain to her that I don't really have the same sort of depression or panic that I once had - that I have developed some very strong tools to deal with any sort of emotional tumult that might come up - but the explanation basically led to a 2 hour conversation about my life in general, and all of the different types of depression or panic or whatever I have felt, at different times.

I feel pretty strongly that right now I have been in pretty much a very normal state of grief...it's not the depression knocking on my door, I don't really have a whole ton of panic or anxiety...it's just that there has been a certain amount of emotion filling up my everyday life (the grief), so sometimes I get closer to depression or anxiety because I'm closer to the threshold where all of those things happen these days. I told the Naturopath that, which led to a discussion of my Dad, emotions surrounding his death, etc.

I mentioned that during my darker moments, I have had trouble believing some of the ideas I have held onto so tightly since my Mom died - that we are still connected to our loved ones, even after death, and that we can sometimes feel protection from them when we need it. Watching my Dad die, watching his body fall apart and watching what made him himself leave with absolutely no fanfare made me question all of my feelings about the spirits of the people you love after they physically leave you. It was all so crazy, so painful for him, and at the end, he was just gone - left the empty shell and there was nothing, just silence. My sister and I had each been holding a hand and feeling a pulse, until there were no more beats left. And that was that.

I knew the whole time and still know that I shouldn't have expected some bells and whistles...and there were very many beautiful moments surrounding his death which I will be so happy to share and remember for the rest of my life. The moment of his death, though, and also the lack of emotion from my Dad leading up to his death (maybe there was some anger, but it was hard to see if there was much else) - made me feel this huge emptiness set in.

So with the emptiness, and the feeling that his spirit had left, and also the pervasive feeling over the past 22 years or so that he was living his life and I was living mine, without a whole ton of emotional sharing going on between them (for whatever sad reason that happened), I began to have this (irrational?) fear that IF my mother has been the one to give me signs of her love and caring over the years, or IF it is God, or an angel or something...then maybe now that my father is joining them, the distance between myself and him will plant itself between myself and them (my mom, or God, or the angel). As if he could give me a bad recommendation in heaven.

I shared this with the Naturopath, and (maybe not knowing how far on the crazy spectrum I am with regard to angels and spirits...) she said, "You do know we aren't alone in here, right?" I said, "Well, I hope we aren't..." And then she said, "And you know, you didn't come in here with just one person...you have an army surrounding you!"

And I was like, WHAT? Just kidding. I only wanted to write that sentence. However, I that idea WAS a comforting one...like my posse had not left me, after all! The posse that helped me find keys that were lost in Metroparks, befriended me in times of sadness during the college days, and helped me find my breast cancer - still here! That would be such good news to Mrs. Lucken.

I don't require much in terms of uppers, I guess, because just a little affirmation had me feeling much better than I had felt in a long time. (Well, that on the waves of some kindnesses from friends.) I wouldn't say I was entirely back to where I started with my invisible friends, and all...

until about a day or two ago, when I received (what I would call) another little message from my invisible friends!

How else would you describe this: Cleaning my house (as usual), I glance at my old calculator, sitting on the kitchen counter. I've had the poor thing since at least high school, which is stretching farther and farther back in my memory. The poor little guy is irretrievably broken, I feel - I had it in the kitchen window trying to see if the solar panel wanted to give it one more go. It didn't; it had been at least 2 weeks of nothing.

In my cleaning mode, I was ready to say goodbye to the old thing, but as I reached toward it, I saw something on the screen. I quickly pushed the C (clear) button), trying to see if it really was working...and after my mind registered what I had seen on the screen, I really wish I hadn't cleared it so quickly:

BELIEVE

*and I didn't take a picture or anything...as I said, I cleared it immediately before the characters registered in my brain. They only registered after I cleared the calculator. But I did look to see if it was possible to see such letters on the computer, and apparently, all the letters are available (as upside down numbers) except for V. Close enough for me!

Update

2009-10-29T17:02:00.003-04:00

On the Naturopath: LOVED her. I truly felt that with all the emotion I have been feeling lately, feeling guilty about what I've been eating and doing would be the LAST thing I needed to feel...and I was so sure that was what my 2 HOUR APPOINTMENT with the Naturopath would entail.

No, no, no! I couldn't have met a nicer person if I made it my mission to find one. We actually spent nearly the whole appointment talking about larger issues...and the last five minutes on the other stuff, which amazingly, was so the way to go. I found that she freed me up, by talking about my life, so that now I do have the reserves to think about other things - like my health.

And, as Bill suspected, she did not tell me I was total garbage...on the contrary, she seemed to think I was doing everything right. WHEW.

Update on Hope: Did I ever mention here that our puppy has cost us THOUSANDS of dollars? Yes, it is true. Please consider that, if you are considering getting a pet! (And yes, we did consider that beforehand...) Aside from the bee allergy and emergency medical treatment for her near-death experience, our wonderfully crazy animal had a surgery 2 weeks ago to see what was up with a GIGANTIC LUMP on her throat!

She was running around a day later. Galloping, actually.

Anyway, apparently, she may have ingested some sort of foreign body which then caused a reaction...draining of fluid, an infection, and then more fluid and a strange tissue build-up in the pocket made by the infection. The veterinarian made a 7 -inch incision! in her neck, removed tissue about the size of my clenched fist, and we are hoping it doesn't come back. YES, that's right! It could come back!

Precious was the site of D, though, when Hope came home after spending the night at the vet's office after the surgery. She was so happy to see her crazed sister.

Update on kitten: spayed today. Precious cat. Still miss my Nanners so much, but am finding Nyx to be such a nice antidote to cat-missing. She is similar, yet different - fluffy like Nan, but all black to Nan's tabby colorings. MORE affectionate, if that is possible - but she can't meow! That is a HUGE change.

I miss the crazy meowing of my darling Nanners...but she wasn't doing much of that in the end anyway.

Update on children: All truly number one. Emma is becoming a bit of a striker! instead of a defender, in her soccer career. After no goals all season (she played defense all last season) - 3 games and 3 goals last weekend.
Kates is loving swimming with her pals, and also has made up for her slow start with reading by reading everything she can get her hands on - doesn't matter how difficult it might be. Also, fiery Kate has received no fewer than 5 treasure slips for excellent behavior at school this year - and it's only October!
Nathan is loving school...missed 3 days of it due to a cold and his mother's obsession with recuperation...but can't wait to go back. Will be a Tiger for Halloween due to his obsession with the song, The Eye of the Tiger.

Update on husband: I miss the guy. He had to restart his whole implant procedure for his front tooth, making him a crabby guy...and then he caught some sort of virus. I can't wait for him to come back soon.

So now, you can see that I'm not only miserable and suffering around here. I save some of the heightened emotion for this blog...but mostly things are just good and wonderful, with some extra sadness and freaking-out thrown in for good measure. I'm coming to terms with everything, though...and feeling some spunk returning.

I knew it would...and that it would just take a little time.

And now to corral all of the individuals in my crazy household - children to dinner, crazy puppy from whatever she is barking at outside, check on anesthesia kitty...etc. etc. endlessly.

SO precious

2009-10-29T11:45:00.002-04:00

This little girl, leaving notes behind for her Mom, Dad and Sister!

Dreading...the Naturopath

2009-10-26T21:27:00.003-04:00

Going to see the Naturopath tomorrow! I'd rather dig a 6 foot hole and cover myself with the dirt I dug up...and I just might.

Oh Naturopath, I already know what you are going to say...lose those extra pounds, eat less dairy and carbohydrates, exercise more...and being who I am, I will only hear that I suck. And I'll go into some downward spiral of chocolate-eating which may never, ever end.

THE THINGS I DO FOR MY HUSBAND>>>>the exact same person who made fun of me for my vitamin-purchasing binges at Whole Foods Market when I had only about two dollar bills to rub together (one of them his), in my early twenties! You see, dear Naturopath...I used to be even better at all of these things than I am now, but something calamitous happened to stop all of that. Actually 3 such calamities, which stress me out and send me into chocolate fits, and prevent me from doing whatever I want all day long (or at least I think they do)!

Oh yes, I know mothers - don't we all?- who manage to run triathalons, and conquer the worlds of birthday parties right alongside their blossoming careers...but oh, I am not that mother! 10 years of whining and emotional tumult have gradually worn away at my steel exterior, making my exterior as lumpy as my inside always was! Oh well.

I'm just hoping that the plummeting self esteem that will be felt all over Southeastern Michigan tomorrow will somehow ressurect itself in time to try to fit in a run and a healthy dinner...sometime in the next month or so!

P decides to speak

2009-10-23T22:14:00.002-04:00

Years ago, or even as recently as earlier this year, I thought it would be easier to deal with the death of a loved one if you actually had a chance to say goodbye - as opposed to arriving home from Mass to find your mother dead on the floor. The shock of something like that is just so crazy...and the guilt of a 12 year old girl who didn't kiss her mother goodbye is a pretty hard thing to handle.

I was wrong, though. Maybe I was not wrong about the goodbye part - it is good to be able to say a sort of goodbye - but I am not sure anything makes it easier to deal with the death of a loved one. I think the sadness, and the loss, and even the shock are ALL still there, even if you sort of had a clue that the death was coming, and even if there is a small window for a goodbye.

Even though my Dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in late January, and I spent much of February in a haze of research, and pain (2 kinds - I had a surgery of my own in January, and another in February...and then there was the emotional pain of my Dad's diagnosis ), I was still not ready for his death in August. I don't think ANY of us were. I know I was at least expecting there to be some sort of lengthy decline, some chance to spend time with him, to take care of him, and to say things people might say to each other when they are about to be separated forever.

My Dad had other plans...or maybe he just didn't know what was happening...or maybe larger things were happening over which he had little control...but my expectations were totally off. We went from a June filled with a random surgery, an infection, a Dad who was mad at me for babying him (at least a little - he didn't want to spend a minute in the hospital and so all of my efforts to make him comfortable and to help him to have a better time only bothered him), to a July where he was too busy to see me at all - even for my birthday - (though we did run into each other in our oncologist's office), to the end of July when he got word that his pancreatic cancer had metastasized...to August 5th. It was as if we were fast forwarding through his end-of-life scenes, and all of the scenes were condensed into about two.

I know my family members were all shocked by the speed of his decline - not to mention his coworkers and friends. I wasn't even sure when I made the call to my aunts that it really WAS nearing the end - I was just afraid to have his brothers miss out on it if it was, and went with a gut instinct. I even feel guilty - like how could I have surprised them like that! - but then I remember that even I had absolutely NO IDEA what was happening, so this guilt doesn't belong to me.

Then I feel guilty like I should have KNOWN...how does a daughter have no idea that her Dad might be dying in less than a month? And I need to remind myself that I wasn't even given access into his life for that month, really. He was running, running, running...doing things that I thought were so absolutely and totally stupid - croquet club, and his dumb cottage, and travel for his f$*&ing job, and never paying really good attention to his situation, and refusing to let me be the one to pay attention to it. He refused to let me go to chemo with him. He was a total snot when I tried to help him when he was in the hospital from his ridiculous surgery. He couldn't be in town for even my own birthday, his stupid social life was so important to him (while the rest of us had to change all of our plans around for his birthday, every year).

OR was it? I think of what I read in the book hospice gave us (really, gave my Dad and Nancy...I only had a chance to sneak a glance). There was a distinct part in it which noted that the dying tend to withdraw from the world 2-3 months before death. So maybe it wasn't his fault, or my fault, that I wasn't able to be around him, and to take care of him more. Maybe it was just the way it was meant to be.

But HOW could that be the way it was supposed to be? No one wants to watch her father starve to death...which is what essentially happened. The problem is, I had really no choice. I was given no access to the situation when there was something I could do, and then when I tried to help, I was also pushed away, and then it was too late. My sisters and I were on the phone for days and days in June and July, trying to figure out what was going on...but we had no real access, and so it took all of us by surprise.

Worse than all of these things, to me, is the question that remains to me. Did this take my Dad by surprise, too? If so, how horrible! How horrible to not be able to say all of the things that you might want to say, before you leave your family! And if not, if this wasn't such a big surprise - then HOW HORRIBLE! How horrible that he had nothing that he wanted to say to us!

And I feel guilty either way - either I should have forced access, so that I could have figured out what was going on and TOLD him, and MADE him talk to me (I should not have taken my cues from him, I should have forced my own way) OR, I feel guilty that I was not the type of daughter that deserved a goodbye.

And so, if it was at all possible, I'm left feeling JUST AS BAD from the death of my father as I was from the death of my mother. Can that just mean that death is horrible, all the way around, or can it be that there is a better way to do it?

All I can say is this: I WILL NOT leave my family without some sort of knowledge about how much they meant to me...my children AS WELL AS MY HUSBAND. If I have even a slight warning that the reaper is coming my way, I'm going to shower them with my memories, notes of my love, and wishes for their future. If my sibling asks, "Is there anything you want us to say to your children?" I won't say, "The Lord will take care of me"...I will say, "Tell them I loved them, and will love them, endlessly. And the pile of notes I wrote to them is in this storage facility...because I didn't have enough room in my house for the thoughts I wanted to share with them."

I do hope that my Dad finished things how he wanted to finish them...and I know that we made his last moments as special as we could. It is just a little heartbreaking when you feel such unreciprocated feelings...and when the conversation is unequivocably over between a daughter and her father, before it was ever even started.

A conversation with myself

2009-10-23T22:06:00.003-04:00

P: Oh, Mrs. Lucken, you should really spend more time on here. You could use the therapy!

Mrs. Lucken: I know, I know...but I'm really tired of being that sad person complaining about things all the time, or the mom who has something cute she wants to remember her Cub saying, or the breast cancer survivor. Plus, time is so precious these days, and I feel like if I waste any of it, I'm sad for having wasted it. I actually have a sheet of paper in my kitchen where I am keeping track of how I am wasting my time, so that I don't make the same mistake the next day!

P: I hear ya. However, it isn't like you are going to see a therapist soon...and your husband has little patience for the tears. So start writing.

Mrs. Lucken: Hey, hey! He's a good guy! He just wants me to be better, and has a very low tolerance for depressive episodes before he starts freaking out.

P: Well, whatever. You have some grieving to do, so get to it. You can become rah-rah Pam again sometime soon, but you've got to be sad Pam first. You have a right to it, you know.

Mrs. Lucken: Well, how about YOU write? I'm the one who has kids and pets and a husband to worry about. If you want to be all self-actualized and delve into your grief, you go right ahead!

P: FINE then. I think I will.

Uh, Mom...

2009-10-19T13:55:00.001-04:00

Me, yelling at Hope, after she jumped on the stove to eat brownies from the pan: HOPE!! Get DOWN! Stop acting like an animal!

Nathan: Uh, Mom...Puppies are animals...

My prize (s)

2009-10-17T16:17:00.003-04:00

Cozy Bear

2009-10-15T09:58:00.002-04:00

After an exhausting round of MarioKart, Nathan sprawled himself out on the floor.

"Can somebody snuggle up with me?"

Well, I guess since there is no one else home, I'll do it.... :)

Another funny forwarded email...and by the way, I'm not having problems with my upgrade...

2009-10-13T09:36:00.005-04:00

INSTALLING A HUSBAND

Dear Tech Support,

Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1..0 and noticed a distinct slow down in overall system performance, particularly in the flower and jewelry applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0.

In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5, and then installed undesirable programs such as NBA 5.0, NFL 3.0 and Golf Clubs 4.1.

Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and Housecleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system.

Please note that I have tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail.

What can I do?

Signed,

Desperate.

--------------------------------------------------

DEAR DESPERATE,

First, keep in mind,
Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while Husband 1.0 is an operating system.

Please enter command: ithoughtyoulovedme.html, try to download Tears 6.2, and do not forget to install the Guilt 3.0update. If those applications work as designed, Husband 1.0 should then automatically run the applications Jewelry 2.0 and Flowers 3.5.

However, remember, overuse of the above application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to
Grumpy Silence 2.5, Happy Hour 7.0, or Beer 6.1.

Please note that Beer 6.1 is a very bad program that will download the FartingandSnoringLoudlyBeta.

In addition, please do not attempt to reinstall the Boyfriend 5.0-program. This is an unsupported application and will crash Husband 1.0.

In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly.. You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance. We recommend Cooking 3.0 and Hot Lingerie 7.7.

Good Luck ,
Tech Support

Why you should not have 6 pets, if you are going to have 3 children...

2009-10-08T13:30:00.004-04:00

Once you are finally sleeping through the night with children, DO NOT go out and add to your aging pet family with puppies and kittens. Learn from my mistakes! (Just kidding, we love the kitten and the puppy...they are just SO. MUCH. WORK.)

Last night was a perfect picture of how I have made my life more complicated...by having 3 children and 6 pets...

10:30pm - We are finally all in bed after Grandma Nancy's birthday party, and the excitement of having Grandma Nancy spend the night.

11:00pm - Nathan is still awake, after a little catnap at the party. Madeline doesn't help issues by coming onto the bed for her nightly affection.

11:45pm - Mom is finally asleep...after taking out the garbage, the kitty litter, the recycling, taking all the pets out, etc.

12:30am - wakeup #1: kitten. Nyx (Greek goddess of night...I guess it was a good name?) wants to play!

1:30am - wakeup #2: Nyx knocks waterbottle off nightstand, onto Dagny. Stainless steel waterbottle. Loud and now I'm worried about my old girl.

1:47am - Hope is barking in her cage. As she has an infection and has been vomiting her antibiotics, I'm worried about her and let her outside. She takes long enough to come back in that I have time to clean the kitchen.

4:00am (estimated, so tired by now) - another escapade by Hope. This time I do laundry.

5:10am - UH OH, I'm all wet. I guess I forgot to put a Pull Up on Nathan last night! We wake up, change his clothes, change my clothes, change as much of the bed as I can (Bill is out of town and all the kids have come into the room to sleep, as is customary when they miss their Dad).

7:00am - UP AND AT 'EM! Time to start the off to school rush!

What did I do today?

2009-10-05T20:13:00.004-04:00

Tonight I was talking aloud, as I nearly always do...to myself or to anyone who might be listening. I was wondering WHAT I had done with my day, because each day starts with high hopes and then it seems at the end like I have accomplished very little.

This time, two of my children were listening, and luckily their opinion of me is higher than my own opinion...while I felt like I did nothing, here is what Emma said:

"Well, you helped someone with breast cancer, so you did a good deed...

you saved energy by driving the carpool...

and you made sure your children were well-educated, and well-prepared for the day."

Nathan then added his two cents:

"And at least you and Daddy were beautiful."

WOW. I was going to say, "I did 6 loads of laundry, cooked dinner, and returned the cans and bottles to the store..." but it sounds much better the way YOU say it, kids!

I feel so blessed with these darlings...and I guess it is OK if I'm not out conquering the world on any particular day, if I can have this love at the end of it!

Before I do, though...

2009-10-03T15:26:00.004-04:00

Here is the picture. I know when I go to read people's blogs, I am always scouring them for pictures that show what things LOOK like...it's the pictures into the lives that I appreciate. And so here's a picture into my life and my sadness. This is at Natalie's birthday party, just three days before I lost my Dad.

Also, if you still have a Dad...sit next to him, for me. I wish so much that I could still do that, even if it was only to be near him in his suffering. (And I know that is selfish...it is better for his suffering to be over.)

Autumn

2009-10-03T14:45:00.002-04:00

I thought I was sad about October - the girls fully established in school, the weather (cold mornings, warmer afternoons, cold evenings, rain, 4 changes in clothing/day for me) and the end of the garden. Those things are sad...and sadder still is that in two days I will have lived 2 months of my life without my Dad.

I hate the way time stretches you away from loved ones...I can feel it stretch and I notice the days as they fill in, putting more days between today and the day when I last had him on this earth. I resisted this passage of time so strongly at first. In the first days I made a calendar of every single thing I did the month before my Dad died, and everything he did - trying to figure out how all this had happened so fast, and how we could have spent any of those days apart.

And it was sad, looking at those days, but that was how it was (how it is) - you live your own lives, and the days just pass. We weren't in the habit of seeing my Dad very much - he loved his job and he also wasn't the kind of person who loved hanging around soccer fields or swim meets or homework tables. And I was/am...in trying to make up for my lack of some of those things in my childhood I embrace the boring moments with my kids (most of the time). I at least want to BE THERE for everything...even if it isn't always totally thrilling for me.

So now, in my effort to always be there, more days are passing...from the last days of being with my dad, from summer and my time with the warm weather, from my garden in 2009. Nathan has had his first two school playdates, the puppy is full-grown, we've had a new kitten for a couple of weeks, new school pictures go up on the wall.

So I'm conflicted. I still feel those twinges of pain - when downloading pictures from my camera, I still can't erase the pictures of my Dad sitting on our couch at my niece's birthday party. He couldn't stand up to sing for her, or eat cake, but he sang from the couch. When I look at my playful new kitten I think she is so cute, but I still don't see any way she'll ever mean as much to me as Nan...and I want to look at pictures and think about those moments with the individuals who either formed my life, or brought so much companionship to my life. Time is stretching though...and I need to start living again too.

I guess I can't be all that sad about October, then. The time is going to keep stretching me away from my parent (and my pet), just as it did before. There's no going back to change that. The only thing that I can do is to make all of these days really worth something to me. If they are going to keep marching on, and I am going to keep noticing them, I want to notice them for the good, and not for just the passage of time.

So, Autumn, let's see what you have to offer.

Swine Flu paranoia

2009-09-24T11:02:00.002-04:00

Swine Flu paranoia

One of my dear friends passed this photo on to me in an email, and I could not help but share!

All the angels are covening in heaven...

2009-09-23T09:40:00.003-04:00

It must just be the time for a new influx of angels in heaven...Cari, a woman I corresponded with after my diagnosis, joined them last night.

Two nights ago, I was back reading some blogs I have followed (and not kept up with as well, of late) and discovered that another woman I've been reading about and praying for, Susan, made her way up to heaven...5 minutes before my dad.

I suddenly feel much, much less sorry for myself as I imagine those bedsides - each of them were mothers with young children...and each of them had an even longer battle with death than my father did. No one wants to see that kind of suffering, and our society doesn't prepare us very well for what dying actually looks like. But if I am still a little shocked by my own father's last days - me at 36 years old, and his dying process having been rather quick, for a cancer death - all I will do is pray, and pray, and pray for the 7 dear children who watched their mothers slip away from them over months and years. I hope you will, too.

I know that each of their families and friends have done huge things to further the fight against cancer, but I also promise that I won't forget them, or their children, as I move forward. Everyone deserves a lifetime.

And to the angels, thank you for your inspiration. You've reminded me how hard a woman fights to be with the people that you love more than anything in the world. (Sometimes in one's sadness, she might lose a little bit of her survivor's touch...and you both gave it back to me.)

2009-09-22T20:38:00.004-04:00

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about life, and about how close life is to death, and about what is most important to accomplish while I am on this side of death (the living side).

A bit morose, I know. A bit high-minded, I know. Also, it's not very easy to complete these morose and high-minded thoughts when you are in almost constant companionship with a 4 year old (soon-to-be), or helping at his sister's schools, or monitoring various pet situations (as all of my various elderly and bright and sunshiney baby pets get to know each other).

Anyway, I have come up with the following thoughts. I have much more thinking to do, by the way.

It's time to get rid of my stuff. There's not nearly enough time in the day, week, month, year, or LIFETIME to use the amount of stuff I have accumulated. Back when I was hopeful and enthusiastic I could see the potential in so much of this stuff - "oh, I could use that someday!" "Oh, wouldn't it be fun to sit down and read this book again someday?" Well, now I'm mostly just picking up and putting away that stuff, along with my dad's stuff, and my mom's stuff, and my kids' stuff from all of the various stages of their short lives. I don't want to be doing that. So now, whenever I encounter something more than twice with distaste, I am going to send it on it's way in the river of life. (give it to someone else)
It's time to be more adventurous, once I have gotten rid of my stuff. Yes, it is adventurous to have a mini-zoo, as I do...and yes, I feel like I have no time to be adventurous as I am so involved in this motherhood of mine. However, lately I have been feeling extremely old and washed up...and so I guess I need to switch things up a bit. More on this later.

I have 10 bags/boxes of things to get out on my front porch for the veterans to pick up in the morning...and I'm not done tonight! I'm making good progress today on thought 1 of the night, though.

Misery

2009-09-21T14:48:00.001-04:00

This is so sad. (Read the caption under the picture.)

So is this. (Read what Emma wrote.)

If you would like to do something to help, please consider donating. We have lots of family members walking...you can have your choice of places to donate.

prayers

2009-09-21T14:09:00.002-04:00

I'm praying for either more time in the day, or more patience to let some tasks slide without getting panicky (I don't like a cluttered house, and mine always is, and I don't have much time to do anything about it lately), or more guidance to let me prioritize what needs to be done.

I'm praying for more patience with my lonely little 4 year old. (Luckily he doesn't know I'm impatient.) I really hate the noise from the tv, or Mario Kart, or the Smart Cycle, and listening to it makes me crazy, and turning it on makes me impatient. I have so much stuff to do it feels like it is the best choice for him sometimes, though. Maybe I should pray that he would be so tired he would nap? :)

I keep trying to remind myself that these children won't be little long...but it is such a struggle some days to feel like I am doing a good enough job with them and still staying sane!

Determination, and thankfulness

2009-09-19T17:47:00.002-04:00

Today I am determined...and thankful...and determined to be thankful, and thankful to be determined.

Here's why:
I'm determined to make it through this tough period in our lives healthier, and happier than I ever was before. It's been a rocky road, but as I told Bill the other day when he was wishing things would just stop being so hard, with all of the hard stuff that has been going on I am still happier than I was for almost the entire decade of the 1990s.

It's rough, living with depression, and not knowing how to make the grey cloud go away...and that was me for nearly that whole decade (with the exception of the time when I was rowing - producing endorphins). Emma was born at the end of 1999, and that is when I finally realized I needed help and started the road to a happier Pam.

So, darling friends, even if I get a bit morose on here, don't ever think I am really all that bad-off. I have tools to deal with my clouds, and I know how to use them.

As a matter of fact, it's the fact that I have these tools and I'm so eager to use them that led me to get worried about Emma. She's actually doing better than I may have led people to believe, but I'm not willing to see her suffer alone from the things I did, alone (well, with Bill and any other people who were that close to me during the 1990s. None of us really knew what we were dealing with, though).

I'm thankful Emma is doing so well with her transition to school this year. She has a lovely group of friends - considerate, playful, and youthful girls - and according to Emma, they are all playing well together and being kind to not only one another, but to all the other lonely souls in school. I can't help thinking of all of the lessons I've been determined to teach her (not that this is all my doing. In her heart of hearts she is the most naturally empathetic of all of my children.) - to look for the good in people and to look for opportunities to spread sunshine.

I am thankful that Miss Emma stuck it out and learned some lessons from how she was treated by girls who were maybe not-as-empathetic last year. I'm thankful that we chose to switch her schools last year, because I feel like this being-a-4th-grader in a 3/4 classroom has been very good for her this year at an otherwise hard time in her life. She is loving school, and school and her friends are giving her confidence and helping keep her mind off of her other worries. If any of her friends' moms ever read this - thank you for raising kind daughters!

I'm also thankful for other smaller things - my Irish Setter puppy (who is an almost constant source of joy for me these days), my two beautiful older pets who are still going strong (15 year anniversary of adopting Maddie yesterday!!! and both D and Maddie had good, but expensive, annual vet checks yesterday), and my little kitten, who is sweet. I'm thankful for this laptop...and for actually using my brain for once to figure out that I can USE IT IN THE GARDEN. (And I'm thankful for the bigger things as well - my husband, my kids, my sisters and their families....ALL of my extended family members.

I am determined to be thankful for all of these things, big and little, when I start to feel the loss of other things in my life - my father, my youth, and my brain! This back-to-school season has horrified me with my lack of mental clarity. I feel like something is missing...and that leads to:

I am thankful to be determined, because that is the only way I am going to regain some of my lost mental acumen. I'm going to have to be determined to fit in "sharpening Pam's brain" into our crazy daily, weekly, monthly routine!

My multi-pronged approach

2009-09-15T22:11:00.002-04:00

To helping my darling daughter (esp. Emma, who seems to be manifesting more symptoms of grieving my father, and who seems more anxious in general):

Have her keep a journal to write down her fears at night when she can't fall asleep (thanks to some good advice...didn't think of this on my own...)
Starting family catechism this fall - maybe the extra time carved out, as a family, learning about God and spirituality will help grow her big picture and teach her about the loving God caring for each of us...
Kitten...got her tonight (worried my husband regrets telling me yes, but it is a done deal. I know I will love her, but will he? Don't know.) Need to show darling daughters and son that there is room for more love...and the cycle of life.
Testing out therapists and looking for the right one...meeting with them myself until I find the right fit!
Considering Gilda's Club, where she might not feel like the only child who is living her life in cancer world.

I am open to other suggestions...do you have any?

Away from the Bell Jar and into...

2009-09-14T23:11:00.003-04:00

I have some very, very, very funny and wonderful friends...that is one thing you can say about cancer world - it can connect you in special ways with great people. So thank you, to the girls who understand WHY I can get so morose, and then can help me get out of it! (Missy, Lori, and Laura.)

I would say that I am NOT on top of the world right now...but I am not writing dark poetry, either. I am worried about my little ones, and all of the losses that they have had, big and smaller. I feel absolutely and completely to blame for all of their struggles - my stupid gene, my old pets, my Dad dying, and even my mood disorder (which I am worried about them inheriting!) - all my fault.

I DID do something right, though, for myself and for them...I married their father!

And what a guy. (What a poor guy. I'm to blame for all of those same struggles for HIM, and even more.)

So what is Mr. Fantastic doing for his wife and children NOW?

Despite the vet bills and cremation charges for Nanners, and despite the vet bills for bee-allergic and expensive Hope...he is letting me charge on with my second generation of pets. The crazy pet lady lives on!!!!

She is getting a kitten. We all are getting a kitten.

So we are all about to experience, again, the joy of new life in our family - a fresh little baby (like our crazy girl Hope, who is fast becoming one of my MOST favorite crazy decisions we ever made). It is so exciting for me, so fitting for the memory of my darling cast-off kitty Nanners (cast-off before me, because I certainly treasured that little being from the minute I saw her) that I make room for someone else to enter into our house and hearts. I also think it will be exciting for the kids (for a moment, until they are annoyed, because I definitely know that none of these people are crazy pet people to the extent that I am) to see the positive part of loving...that you can love your departed dear ones, and yet still make room for new loved ones in your heart.

And yes, I know that it is absolutely INSANE of me to do this. I know I will be partially driven crazy...I know that Hope was JUST becoming a good puppy and now I am just stirring the pot again.

But that is what I do best!

And just like when we brought home Hope, I'm at a time in my life when I could use the excitement of doing something crazy. Again, I could use the new life around the house (esp. since with bee-allergic Hope, I feel like I can barely count on her to hang around for the next 12 years or so. It remains to be seen if we can absolutely control what happens with her, though I am trying, double-time.)

AND, it means a lot to me to say right now, "I am taking on the responsibility of caring for this creature for the next 15+ years"...because to say that, it means I believe I can be here 15 years from now...that despite my gene, and despite seeing the way cancer just ravaged my father, I am going to keep living just the way I want to live. No fear, no looking back, just doing what I want to do, and finding a way to make it all work. No worrying about what other people might think, embracing the kindness and generosity of the man who married me...and experiencing another adventure with my little family.

Life with our new fluffy black kitten. Name tbd, arrival into our home: tomorrow night, hopefully.

Grey cloud squaring off against silver linings

2009-09-09T21:46:00.003-04:00

A woman can't always see the silver linings, all the time...even me. I've been on the treadmill longer than is rational for the past two days, and I still can't find them, and that scares me. I guess I should go down to the erg, but then I couldn't type and sweat at the same time.

The thing is, I'm not sure it is time for me to be finding something good about my Dad dying...and I take severe offense at any well-meaning citizen who tells me THINGS WILL GET BETTER. For anyone who is interested in spouting such language off at me, I'd like to just say, "HEY, I am the QUEEN of waiting for things to get better, and then guess what happens next? My cat gets cancer, my Dad gets cancer, my Dad dies, my cat dies, and then my brand new dog who is JUST STARTING to become a useful member of the family is nearly minutes away from death by anaphylactic shock. (Bee sting, yes it's rare...just like the BRCA mutation, just like a cat getting breast cancer, I seem to specialize in rare bad things these days). You try to handle these things - this momlessness, this breast cancer, this living with the gene, and then take these extra things, and THEN TELL ME THINGS ARE GOING TO GET BETTER."

I guess that's a little harsh of me, but my friends, Mrs. Lucken is depressed. No, I'm not suicidal, thank goodness...but I do feel that grey cloud settling in around me and I am practically welcoming it like an old friend. Hello, I've seen you before. Weren't you my best friend in the 1990s? Didn't I spend the first part of the 2000's figuring out how to make you leave? And why aren't my old tricks making you disappear again?

Oh, that's right, I'll never see my Dad again.

Oh, that's right, 5 weeks ago at this very moment I was keening in the stairway of his house as his lifeless body waited for the undertaker to hoist it up and into the black bag. While I watched, and took every moment of being in that body's presence because I knew that was all I was going to get for the rest of my life.

And all of the talks I was hoping for? All of the memories I was wishing he would share with me, sometime, once he slowed down a little bit, all of those moments together I was hoping he would want someday? They were hoisted up and shoved in the bag too.

So I guess this is where I become all Sylvia Plath-like, and lose all of the friends who thought I was so amazing and so full of vitality and positive energy.

I'm sorry. I just have a need for this grey cloud right now. I don't feel like being normal, or looking for the good silver stuff. It's not particularly normal to be very happy when your Dad (and your Mom in a way, as all of those memories are gone too) is now not of this earth.

If a woman only has a very extremely limited supply of sunshine and rainbows, she has to ration them...and I have three young ones who are in need of that sunshine and those rainbows as they process their own loss. So Sylvia, you stick to your blog...and Sunshine, time to get off the treadmill and make some lunches with smiley-faced notes for your progeny.

And maybe try for the erg tomorrow. It's better at finding silver linings.

Cubby Bear, the soccer player

2009-09-04T14:11:00.002-04:00

Nathan Riley Lucken is very excited to begin his soccer career this fall...SO excited that he has been carrying around his schedule and team roster very possessively! I had to make a copy of the schedule, which I kept as the original is soiled and crinkled from all that love.

I have absolutely NO idea how Mr. William Lucken is ever going to manage being the manager of Emma's team, and coaching both Katie's team and Nathan's team...but that's not my problem, right? OH WAIT...it IS my problem, because 1) I am the one who suggested he coach, and 2) I am the one who always ends up as the default assistant coach when Mr. Lucken is stuck coaching the more exciting team (or managing it). This year, I get to have TWO default teams!

SO...if you are ever trying to find the Lucken family on weekends this fall, just drive around to one of the (many) local soccer fields. Chances are, we'll be there, at least some faction of us.

a song

2009-09-02T23:46:00.003-04:00

I was talking with my sister tonight, and one thing that we spoke about was something that has struck me a few times over the past few years (and is striking her now): how close being dead is to being alive. It is actually amazing that we are all even here, considering how many things have to go right for that to happen.

Later this evening, I was listening to some music during "exercise at 8", and this song came on. It was one of my favorites when I was struggling with the idea that I had developed breast cancer so young, and it helped me tonight as I thought of my Dad. It reminds me that we're all "only dancing on this earth for a short while"...and it's what we do while we are here that makes the difference.

oh very young what will you leave us this time
you're only dancing on this earth for a short while
and though your dreams may toss and turn you now
they will vanish away
like your daddy's best jeans - denim blue
faded up to the sky
and though you want them to last forever you know they never will
(you know they never will)
and the patches make the goodbye harder still

oh very young what will you leave us this time
there'll never be a better chance to change your mind
and if you want this world to see your better days
will you carry the words of a love with you
will you ride the great white bird into heaven
and though you want to last forever you know you never will
(you know you never will)
and the goodbye makes the journey harder still

*(I copied these lyrics from a website...and checked several others. None of them had the same lyrics and some of them were so clearly wrong and idiotic, so I just changed them to what I sing when I sing along with Cat Stevens...so maybe this is just my version of Oh Very Young by Cat Stevens!)

Cute pictures of a sad time

2009-09-02T23:41:00.002-04:00

My sister Julie's visit to Michigan...you will see we squeezed in some smiles and fun in the middle of some very hard things.

I'm so looking forward to the next sister visit in a few weeks! We are walking in the Purple Stride walk for Pancreatic Cancer at the Detroit Zoo...and it costs nothing to sign up (and there is no fundraising requirement...though they are hoping walkers will raise some money.) Why don't you join Team Carroll and walk with us?

Mrs. Lucken's new thing...

2009-09-02T23:24:00.004-04:00

is exercise time for herself, every day, starting at 8pm.

So far I've done it twice. BUT it's fun! Here are my rules:

I have none. I just do something, anything, and then try something else. I figure eventually I'll get good at something.

Yesterday I ran for a little bit, with 2 girls on bikes, and a dog on a leash, and a dog who followed me (my own, slow dog, who believes she is above staying home and leashes). Well, being a complete idiot, I went to our favorite nearby off-leash location (totally unsanctioned by all people who might even consider sanctioning this activity), took my 1-year old Irish Setter off the leash, AT DUSK, and promptly watched my bird dog LOSE HER MIND and herself. My girls were climbing trees and my 12 year old pooch was meandering around who knows where.

As you can imagine, not much running happened after that.

Well, my two girls rode their bikes home in the pitch black, my 12 year old pooch became leashed (with the empty leash from Hope, the lost Irish Setter), and I began walking home, calling said lost dog. Through the grace of God and all other things that are good and forgiving in this Universe, Lost Dog had had her fill of running around the condos which are 1/2 mile from my home, and scaring up every single rabbit and bird that she could find. Thankfully, all the elderly people who inhabit those condos had long since been in bed and no cars were out to smush my Irish Setter to pieces during her adventures. Lost Dog came to me, was leashed, and I even leashed the Good Old Dog (with my iPod headphones. She obviously didn't really need a leash... it was more a symbolic leash at this point) and returned home.

I figure our emotions got quite a bit of exercise during that span of time, if nothing else.

Then I came home and did a smattering of other things which might be loosely categorized as exercise, followed by my yoga DVD (which soothed my emotions).

Today my 8pm exercise session was much less eventful...and that is a good thing.

A little 3-day help?

2009-08-29T21:13:00.002-04:00

My husband's darling cousin (so my cousin-in-law!) is walking the Seattle Breast Cancer 3-day in September....with our Aunt Joann.

They are two wonderful people...one of the many reasons I was lucky to marry Bill (great family members)!

If you are, by chance, looking for a great cause...donate to Julie's walk! And let me know if you did so that I can thank you! And THANK YOU ALREADY to Aunt Barbara and Uncle Richard, and our darling friend Kathy Westerlund, who donated to Julie's walk after I posted the need on facebook.

A mini-retraction, followed by a mini-update

2009-08-28T21:22:00.003-04:00

I always do this - blurt things out and THEN refine them in my mind, and hopefully, in the way I live. I should get over regretting the original blurt...especially on here. As this blog is so useful for cheap therapy, I'm bound to blurt, think, and refine.

And so the refinishing: I do still hate "cancer-free!"...but more when non-cancer people say it. If a person is a Survivor, she or he can still say whatever she or he wants. I may even be impressed that the Survivor can say "cancer-free!" (with the exclamation point). There is something awesome about putting aside all of the possibilities and going for pure hope.

Also in my mini-retraction, I should also write here that I DO like to get a rise out of myself and out of people, so I like to put the most miserable moments on the blog. One should never think that I am mostly in those miserable moments, though...not Pam Lucken! I like to visit them, touch them, make them hurt, and then go do something mindlessly fun and amusing like play Farmville for hours. So the amount of time I spend ruminating is less than one would think if they read my blog and didn't see the other (useless and amusing) ways I spend my time.

HOWEVER...I must still be sad and upset because daily I am looking for things to get rid of (donate, throw out, or just not buy). In addition, I CANNOT BRING MYSELF TO PLAN NEW GARDENS. That is shocking. It's a good thing I started 2 big new gardens this year already, and expanded one in a dramatic manner, and added significantly to three others. I can take a grief-inspired break and still have accomplished a lot in 2009, at least in the garden (though I do understand it matters to the world about as much as my playing around on Farmville...but this suburban housewife likes to feel like she has at least learned or transformed something in this year, aside from raising 3 children incrementally more).

Anyway, after a few weeks of craziness, it seems the Lucken family is hunkering down for some family time a bit. We had my Dad's crazed and fast demise, the funeral, the death of a kitty, the 3-day, then some cottage/extended family time, then a visit to my sister's in Evanston...and here tonight we are all back in the same room again. Dad and his Cub on the couch watching the Tigers, the girls lying around taking turns talking to themselves (usually Emma) and playing Webkinz (mostly Katie), and Mom walking on the treadmill and playing around on the computer. It's really nice to just be together and be relaxing for once. (And fitting in all the screen time we should have in one week in one evening!)

Gripe of the Day: "CANCER FREE!!!"

2009-08-24T20:15:00.005-04:00

Here is my gripe of the day: I hate when people say "She is cancer-free!" (I've been surfing the 3-day pages too much.)

Let me start out with saying that yes, I was lucky to find my breast cancer early. My oncologist (and my husband) truly believe that I have been "cured." Furthermore, I AM proud to be a breast cancer survivor. However, I want to cringe whenever anyone says "she's cancer-free!" I don't believe in that statement AT ALL...not for me, and not for anyone else for that matter.

NO, I don't think I am having a recurrence of my breast cancer. I'm not experiencing any crazy symptoms. BUT, I will probably never feel "cancer-free" ever again - not after having given away my body parts, having watched the image of my youth shatter in front of my face, and most especially, having watched cancer take two of my loved ones from me this month. Cancer will always be a part of my life - every time I try to fill two cat bowls instead of one, and every time I think to forward an email to my family and realize there is no one at jcarroll@detroitchamber.com.

I am most in awe (and not in a good way) of people who can feel "cancer-free" after having had cancer in the first place. Here we all were, living our good little lives, and cancer came around anyway. So now, knowing that cancer can come and steal a little part of your world when you are doing everything "right", how can you go back to ever feeling "cancer-free!", especially after your bubble has been burst the first time? Didn't you learn anything the first time around? We aren't immune!

Well, my bubble has been popped for me. The preliminary pop occurred all throughout 2008...when I realized what I would have to give up, and then when I realized that I was going to have to live my life despite the idea that stupid cancer could pop back up, somewhere else, someday... and being a BRCA mutant, I feel even more at risk. This year really finished off the idea of bubbles for me entirely as I watched the life being sucked out of my loved ones.

So what do I think people should say? (Because if you haven't figured this out yet, I am totally opposed to the term "She's cancer-free!") I think I have settled upon the term Survivor. And yes, I hated that term, too, because I thought, "How do you ever really survive cancer? Doesn't it come back for you someday?"

Well, THIS is how you SURVIVE cancer. You wake up, and you decide to live your life, despite the diagnosis. And then, you wake up, and you decide to find something good in your day, despite the pain of cancer treatment, despite the nausea, despite the fear in front of you. And then, you decide to do whatever you can to help other people SURVIVE cancer...you try to show them It isn't that bad. You can still be happy, and crazy, and life a full life, even if you are bald, even if you have only one fake boob for awhile, even if cancer is threatening and taking other people in your family from you. And you take your steps against the disease - you ask people to help you raise money, and to help you make a scene of pink for 3 days in the summer, because even though you know that YOU can survive cancer, you also know that there is a scared woman (and her family) out there somewhere who needs that money, and who needs that sea of pink. All of those things make you qualified to say you are a Survivor.

I take being a Survivor seriously...not because I have survived into being "cancer free!", but because I have survived looking at my mortality and not going crazy. I have faced cancer, realized what it cost me, what it may do to me in the future, and what it most certainly has done to my loved ones, and I am sure that I will still live to be a (basically) happy, vibrant woman.

But don't ever put an exclamation point (or several, like it's a party), after the words "cancer-free". And don't expect me to do that, either. And I will tell you why, another day...when I feel like telling you what it looks like to see your darling cat's tumors grow and bleed all over your bed and make her cough and stop purring. And you can hope that I won't tell you what it was like to hold my Dad's hand for his last 10 hours of life, until it was cold and he took his last breath.

After that, you'd never be cancer-free!!!!! either.

Why does she write so much about the 3-day?

2009-08-21T22:31:00.005-04:00

Let me just start by saying that I do not think about the Breast Cancer 3-day all the time. I actually think about it only just a little (despite all of my facebook status updates and my blog postings which seem to point otherwise)...my thoughts wander much more often to all of the sad things in my life these days. However, I do feel like I have a very serious responsibility to share my 3-day experience with all of my many wonderful donors, previous donors, and friends-who-might-someday-walk-with-me-and-share-this-wonderful-experience-or-at-least-donate-next-year. And thus, the updates everywhere.

So let's continue with all of these 3-day musings (which are more fun to think about than other things, very honestly)...I'll do it in Q and A format. I'll be asking the Q's and answering the A's.

Q1; What is your favorite thing about the 3-day?
A: This year, last year, or the year before?
Q1, continued: All of them.
A, continued: Well, the first year, I was very inspired by all of the kindness I saw. It seemed so wonderful that all of these people were taking such big steps to do things for other people - and not only the walkers and the crew, but the other volunteers who just show up, and even the people at the cheering stations!
I also can't stress enough how great it is to take 3 days out of your regular life...and when my children were a little younger, that was a huge benefit for me! I wouldn't have taken 3 days out for anything else.

Last year, I was inspired by my friends. I was thankful for those who walked with me...they gave me strength to do the whole thing bald, with one breast, and just after chemo. They gave me the strength to train when I felt like total yuck. Spending 3 days with people who would laugh with bald me and dance with bald me was really special. I also made some new 3-day friends...and that was great too.

This year...it's hard to say what was the best. All of it was wonderful, because I'm used to the event, and because I'm not bald! Yes, it was harder for many people physically, but for me, this year was easier. I wasn't bald, and I had just gone through such a horrific time in my life...and the 3-day was a great escape. Of course, then I had to face everything again once I got back from the 3-day...and that is not fun.

But one thing that crosses over all 3 days is this...I just really love walking!

Q and A continued tomorrow. Tylenol pm and melatonin starting to work!

Why you should seriously consider walking the 3-day, by Pam Carroll Lucken

2009-08-18T21:21:00.004-04:00

Doesn't that sound like a paper I might have written as a 7th grader or so?

Anyway, HERE is why you should seriously consider walking the 3-day:

It totally helps you forget that you are supposed to be miserable. If a woman can walk and have fun, just days after burying her Dad and saying goodbye to her darling cat of 13.5 years, you know it is a good time.
When the misery begins to set in (after sisters are gone, and all the work of dealing with the giant holes in your life starts), you can still have great pictures to look at...and wonderful emails from your NNN teammates...and memories.
My beyond-wonderful friend-from-high-school-and-roommate-after-college-turned-NNN teammate of 2 years STILL thinks it was a great time, despite needing to be hospitalized following the horrific heat.
It turns strangers into friends, acquaintances into great friends, and friends into family.
You will never regret taking big steps to do something wonderful for other people...and to do that with 1800 other walkers and tons of other crew members and volunteers is something really powerful.
You can become a part of a very wonderful legacy!!! To date, Team NNN (Nancy's Naughty Nockers which is No More Naughty Nockers this year...Team NNN for short) has raised over $200,00 for breast cancer research and support. That is huge!

Of course, if you donate to my walk, I will do my best to give you a feel for the event as well...and I will be eternally grateful.

I am extremely proud to say that with the help of my family and friends, Bill and I have raised a total of $18,000 for the 3-day in the 3 years that I have been walking it! And I will never NOT walk the 3-day...not until there is a cure. I am signed up for 2010, and I would sign up for 2020 if I had a chance. I have children and other beloved family members and friends to protect from this stupid BRCA genetic defect.

Plus, I just really love walking.

3-day picture

2009-08-18T20:59:00.000-04:00

Here's a picture of us at the 3-day!

I will write about the 3-day, but here is what I'm doing today...

2009-08-17T21:06:00.003-04:00

Remembering my Dad

I'm going to play around with some of the blogger features and hopefully put up a slideshow in a few days to show the glories of our very hot and yet very fun 3-day adventure this year. I'll write about it soon, too.

When I was uploading the pics from the event from our camera, I came across pics of my Dad (taken a couple of days before he died, at my niece Natalie's birthday party). This has caused a few tears to erupt, and also has led to me signing up for my next event to try to make a difference in the world of cancer...the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network's PurpleStride Detroit event.

Please consider joining me on that day, either on our team or on another team. If you can't join me, then please donate! Pancreatic Cancer is a horrific disease, and researchers could use our support.

The 3-day this weekend

2009-08-13T11:11:00.005-04:00

I feel a little guilty about it, but I am really, really, really looking forward to the 3-day this weekend. (Guilty because it seems like I shouldn't be so happy about something after having lost beloved family members.) However, I LOVE the 3-day...so much so that I signed up for next year already.

If you haven't donated and would like to donate (every donation helps!), I would love it. If you are inspired and want to walk next year, please join our team. (And use the discount code, POWER10, to get $35 off the registration fee.) Obviously, if I am looking this forward to it, having buried my father on Monday and my cat on Tuesday, and this being my third year, it is a great event.

You will never, ever regret taking such bold steps to make a difference in the world (and I say that with regard to breast cancer, or any other cause you choose to make your own). You might even find, like me, that doing things like the 3-day can get you through the hardest times in your life!

Other event details:
MAP - this year's route will be the best ever for me - going through all of our old haunts in Ann Arbor also!

Cheering Stations- to see this awesome event, come to one of these. People hand out goodies to the walkers, have signs, and just cheer in general.

Cheering Stations
The following Cheering Stations are safe, recommended places for your supporters to cheer you on along the route.

Friday, August 14:

10:00 am - 2:00 pm
Save a Lot
8244 N. Merriman Road
Westland, MI 48185

12:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Mid 5 Center
Southwest corner of 5 Mile Road and Middlebelt Road
Livonia, MI 48154

Saturday, August 15:

9:00 am - 1:00 pm
Kellogg Park
Intersection of Ann Arbor Trail and Main Street
Plymouth, MI 48170

11:30 am - 5:45 pm
Newburgh Plaza
Southeast corner of 6 Mile Road and Newburgh Road
Livonia, MI 48152

Sunday, August 16:

9:00 am - 1:00 pm
Main Street between William Street and Ann Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48104

AND, THANK YOU TO ALL OF MY SUPPORTERS THIS YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!

Nicole Bates

The Blackstone family

Rachel Brunelle

The Buckfire family

Mike Calamita

Donna and Kevin Carroll

Perry and Jim Carroll

The Blumbergs family

Rob Claar and family

Dave and Becka Clifton

The Cocagne family

The Curran family

Ellyn Davidson

The Davis family

The Durkin family

Carolyn Frishman

Audrey Geml

Ted Goldman

The Gorte family

The Guise family

Janine Hanson

The Hartwig family

Michelle Heitz

The Hickey family

The Honet family

The Howlett family

Sheryl Iloff

The Kennedy family

The Leitao family

The Meyer family

The Moorhead family

The Murray family

The Nelson family

Michele Parker and family

Charity Petrina and family

The Reinowski family

The Sass Family

Kelly (Raczak) Seestedt

The Selecman family

The Simot family

Geoff Smith

Kate and Nick Spindler

The Stout Family

Cheryl Tocco

The Thomson Family

John Whelan

Grant Wilcox

Thank you to the following who donated to my teammates for me:

John and Nancy Carroll

The Gibbs Family

The Kay Family

Melissa Mandl Mase

Bill Lucken

Marci Simot

And thank you to everyone who supported the Cutest Pet contest and our NNN Night out at the Loving Touch...that money also supported my teammates.

In writing this all out, I realize what a lucky, lucky person I am. I am so grateful.

2009-08-11T23:16:00.001-04:00

I'm having a hard time believing all of the events of the past 2-3 weeks are true. Could it really be that my Dad actually died? I know people who have been teetering on the edge of life for decades now...so it seems totally unreal that my Dad could have gone from really actively living to taking his last breath in a matter of weeks. And could it really be that my MOST intrepid, and most wonderful, and most loving cat lost her final battle, too? Neither of those two things make sense to me.

I also can't figure out how I can possibly close up the huge gaping holes in me, that these two individuals left behind. Yes, I know that it is the way of life for generations to pass...but with no living biological parents I sort of feel like the bull's eye is on me right now, and that is something I do not wish for with all of my heart. And yes, I know and always knew that my Nanners would not last forever...but it seems absolutely impossible that there is another cat out there who could ever come close to replacing her. (Before anyone tells me it will happen...know that it won't. No other cat will sleep on my huge pregnant belly...and I'm praying I'll not need another chemo companion, either.)

The holes are one thing I feel badly about, but there are other things bothering me as well. For example, I hate this, but I feel a little relieved that all of the suffering is over...and even Emma said something like that today: "At least the hard parts are over."

I didn't have the heart to tell her that THEIR hard parts are over, but ours are just beginning.

Goodbye, again

2009-08-11T22:45:00.003-04:00

Today, at about 3:15pm, I said goodbye to my faithful companion of 13.5 years, Nan.

I'd been watching her to detect any changes in her behavior that might indicate she was really near the end, and they finally came: she was trying to sneak outside, it seemed like nothing made her comfortable, and she had already stopped eating at least 2 weeks ago. Last night, my pup Hope was trying to clean her up, and I decided to give Annie a real bath - her breast cancer had turned to inflammatory carcinoma, and she had an infection on one side, which was horribly stinky and gross. After spending an hour getting her washed, brushed, putting ointment on her wounds, and just lying with her, it seemed to me that it would be most humane to help her to her final resting place. After seeing all of the insanely crazy steps of suffering that lead from nearly dead to totally dead (in a cancer death), I was determined to save her some of the insanity.

So I spent time with my little Nanners today, and after a bawling goodbye from the 3 children, Bill and I drove to the veterinarian's office (where he agreed with my judgment). Tears rolling down our 3 faces, we saved our darling cat from the coming misery - and sort of jump started our own, if I am completely honest.

I can't believe that she is gone. though...after all of those years, all the houses, all the hunting to find her when she slipped out the door, all of those hours of pregnancy lying with her on my side, all of those surgeries for various ailments, all of the purring and writhing, ALL of her unexpected little things...my Annie is no more.

Rest in Peace, my little angel.

Funeral Home Days

2009-08-09T23:54:00.004-04:00

Thank you to all of our wonderful friends and family who have come out to support us during this sad time in our lives. I wish I could say I deserved this outpouring of support, but it has been so big and so wonderful there is no way I have earned it!

I'm taking some comfort in feeling like I am representing my Dad well, in knowing that I tried my very best to give him some comfort in his last week and days, and in feeling that he really did live a very good and full life. With his crazy schedule and the many different aspects of his life, he really did pack about 110 years into his 63 years of life.

That's not really taking away my nightmares that seem to pop up every night. I keep dreaming he is dying in bed next to me, and I have been not caring for him, or he is nearly gone but alone in his suffering, or I haven't been helping him enough, and he's not safe. Once so far Bill had to have a long conversation with my sleeping self to tell me that my Dad had died, in his home in Grosse Pointe...that it had already happened and I could stop living THAT part of the nightmare. The loneliness part gets to start now.

And I do wish to say, if you haven't seen me weeping at the funeral home, and if you think that means I am not so sad...you're wrong. I just don't think my Dad would really care for that kind of a show. I save it for when the people leave, and I have a few minutes alone, thinking about what has just happened to my life.

I Iost him

2009-08-06T16:15:00.005-04:00

I am so, so, so sorry to write this...but last night, at 9:32pm (really 9:30, but the certificate will say 9:32pm) I lost my Dad. I know he will always be with me in some way, but I still feel that I lost him.

Rest (or live on, in a nicer way) in Peace, my darling Dad.

John W. Carroll, Jr.
6/19/46 - 8/5/09

Funeral Arrangements for John Carroll

Visitation: Saturday, August 8th, 1-5pm and Sunday, August 9th, 2-8pm
Prayer Vigil and Memory Sharing: Sunday 5pm

A.H. Peters Funeral Home
Mack and Vernier
Grosse Pointe Woods

Funeral Mass: Monday, August 10th, at 10am (In State at the Church: 9:30am)
St. Paul on the Lake
Grosse Pointe Farms, MI

Memorial Contributions:
Pancreatic Cancer Action Network
Pancan.org

As you know, it is my way to emote online...so I am sure I'll be doing a lot of that here soon.

I started writing this...figured I would share

2009-08-05T07:28:00.005-04:00

This is simultaneously the biggest nightmare, and the biggest blessing of my entire life.

Over the past 2 weeks, I have slowly watched my father disappear (at least physically) from my life. He is shrinking before our very eyes, as this horrific cancer steals all of his ability to nourish himself. His ability to communicate with us is also shrinking - whether from lack of energy (a few days ago), to lack of lucidity (yesterday), to lack of our ability to understand what he is saying (today).

At the same time, I have watched my family come together. My sisters, their families, my uncles, aunts, and cousins have flooded into our homes and our hearts. Yesterday, while my sister was finalizing the hospice sign-up (it has gone so quickly, we hardly knew we needed it yet just 3 days ago), my step-mom's sisters were making lunch, while my aunt and cousin were visiting with my Dad, and my husband and I were moving beds around to make room for the hospital bed.

Again, so fast

2009-08-01T14:16:00.002-04:00

Here are more updates, should anyone be coming back to this blog to check on the happenings in our family.

We are meeting with Hospice tomorrow to see what we can do to help control Dad's pain and to bring him some comfort.

Amy is in town, with Matthew, staying with Dad and helping.

Julie and Tyler are flying in today (in just two hours), with their two little children (Natalie is turning 2, and Noah is 3 months old). Julie plans to move to Michigan on September 1st, but she may just plan to stay as/if things continue to get harder and worse. Tyler has (thankfully) been given permission from his firm to work from Michigan as long as he needs to, but he will be flying back on August 8th to finish up there (and to move the family, with the help of his parents). Julie and family are moving into the Lucken compound in the meantime, poor things.

I think that is about it. I have no idea what I am supposed to be doing to help with things, or what else I am supposed to be communicating...so email me if you have any questions!

This is all happening too fast for me...

2009-07-31T23:06:00.002-04:00

I feel like I am caught in this crazy whirlwind of grief, and love, and confusion over what to do next, and action, and inaction. As many of my dearests know, my Dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in January of this year, and after a spring and an early summer of business as usual (my Dad has always been a very hard worker - he loves his job, with all of the responsibility, and dinner parties, and travel, and socializing), things began to quickly unravel just a few weeks ago.

He is currently in a tremendous amount of pain, unable to eat, the tumor has grown and he most likely has metastases to several different spots in his body. It rips out a woman's heart to see her father suffering this way - the part of me that is his child cannot believe what I see, and the part of me that is an adult, and especially a mother, wants to go crazy and wipe all the pain and suffering away with whatever I can.

My sisters are coming into town - Amy and Matthew are already here, and Julie, Tyler, Natalie and Noah are flying in tomorrow. I love them all so much, but I am afraid for what lies ahead for all of them. I feel the same way about my awesome extended family of uncles, aunts, and cousins. How will we all handle what is ahead?

Only in my smartest moments - which are few and far between as I rush around all day long, blinded and just moving - do I pray to God to help my Dad with his suffering, and do I talk to my Mom and hope she'll be right there waiting for him when it is time for something better.

First though, I wish we could just have a few more good days together. It has all gone so fast that basically Dad was working, and traveling, and having treatments, and enjoying his life - and I feel sad that I didn't get any of the good moments when they were there. I told myself at the time to let him go, to let him enjoy his life and doing what he loves to do...so I shouldn't be wishing that I had instead been a petulant child and gotten into a fight with him so that he would have slowed down and spent some time with me, instead. I wouldn't have wanted to be that kind of a person, and he wanted/needed to keep going.

I don't know what else to say...I'm so miserable right now.

Don't be fooled by this smile (on me) - Nathan's is real, though

2009-07-30T20:33:00.003-04:00

Have you seen this smile before? I'm good at it. I can put it on, even in the middle of lots of sadness. For example, here I am, having cried just before this - last weekend. It was one of the sadder weekends of my life...with I'm sure more to come. We are coming to grips with my Dad's suffering and trying to help with it.

The thought that keeps coming to my head is this: I feel like my life is full of so many precious gifts, given to me by God. I feel so lucky to have had them, but it hurts like hell to have to give them all back.

But I still wouldn't forsake even one of my gifts, despite the misery of losing them. I just hope my stupid, addled memory will help me remember some of the things I've had when they are all gone.

Oh my little garden

2009-07-30T12:33:00.002-04:00

I love it when you bring presents like this...

Annoyed

2009-07-29T16:46:00.002-04:00

Someone asked me if I was ok (with regard to my breast cancer), only then to tell me that she had a friend who "passed last year", after having caught hers early and having followed all the steps that I took. Obviously, I didn't need to hear that! But I guess that is all I needed to sign up for next year's Susan G. Komen for the Cure 3-day...
Bill is trying to strike up conversations with a preeminent BRCA researcher. From going over his research, it seems that I may just have taken every single step I could to cause my own cancer: Have children before 3o, Gain 10 lbs between 30 and 40 (how crappy is that...), and the kicker: Don't Smoke. Don't ask me to talk about it, just email my husband if you have questions about such things. I so appreciate his research and loving care, because only hearing such things secondhand still makes me upset. What I want to know is this: I can't have more kids, and I lost those 10 lbs...am I good now, or do I have to take up smoking? JOKING, I am.
Sick of cancer world being all around me. But I love the people who are in it with me...life is not always fair, but it can be so good.

Sneaking in some exercise

2009-07-23T12:02:00.002-04:00

Last night came around and I hadn't yet exercised (well, except for the push mowing of 1/2 acre of our grass, but that probably wasn't enough), and it was getting late. Fear of the impending brutal hot flashes led to me deciding to get in some exercise at 10:30pm. However, I was still wishing to get a bit more obsessive housework done, so I find myself:

Leaping around and doing other strange sweat-inducing moods as I fold laundry
Running around with laundry baskets to unload them, and
Finding that I can multitask and watch things on my laptop/check email and facebook as I walk on the treadmill (a little slower than usual, but still, a good use of that computer time!)

So 12:45 comes around, the laundry is folded, and I am getting in some yoga stretches, and then cat-on-the-belly time until I shower and get into bed at 1:30am.

Not much sleep, but NO HOT FLASHES! And I think I would take less sleep over brutal hot flashes any day. Who would have thought sleeper Pam would say that...but I would take more sleep with my normal mild hot flashes any day. That might just not be an option until I reset my body with a little exercise again.

Off to the cottages for the weekend for a little quality time, despite the rainy and cold conditions!

Coping Mechanisms

2009-07-22T21:23:00.002-04:00

In one day, I have discovered a few things about myself...my many, many coping mechanisms, as well as a few other things:

When a woman is severely stressed, menopausal hot flashes become extreme! I almost ran out of the house in the middle of the night last night, several times...both for the cooler air, and for the hope that the exercise would reduce the stress and thus the hot flashes. Alas, I did not. I probably lost a pound of sweat last night...which I made up for in fudge consumption today. Which leads to...
Chocolate consumption only partially helps misery (the yucky belly feeling erases some of the positive effects). I don't need to say much more about this, but I will: fudge, chocolate chips, hot chocolate. yikes.
Carpet cleaning is a great way to turn off one's mind. So is picking weeds from 1 acre of grass, and cutting 1 acre of that grass (or attempting to), with the push mower, even if it is raining on you.
Thank you, God, for my mother-in-law, who despite having had her own chemo today, took my three children out for lunch and shopping. Please, God - tell me how I can help her as much as she has helped me over my lifetime.
My children have learned to turn to dance parties in times of stress, maybe subconsciously. It is sure nice to watch them dance around in my old dance costumes, to the songs that have helped me through other tough times in my life. (And how weird that Emma loves the song that got me through her pregnancy? Bill put it on her mp3 player, without knowing the significance.)
Social media is great for times of sadness, as is blogging, as are movies in bed with the laptop. So you might be seeing a lot more of me, little blog, facebook, and dvd player.

We go up, and we go down...many times, in the same day

2009-07-21T19:56:00.006-04:00

Well, good bad news at the vet yesterday. Good: my kind vet reassured me that I could not have done much more, even if I had been the most proactive owner in the world. Bad: Annie's lesions are indicating an inflammatory breast cancer (which I knew), which gives a more poor prognosis. Good: it is still not time to say goodbye...she's still doing fairly well, for the situation. Bad: it won't be long now. Good: My darling vet gave me a tube of glucosamine/chondroitin goo for Nanners (for free, even), and it seemed to ease some of her arthritis/pain. Good: she purred a lot yesterday. Good: she purred as she ate tuna.

Super Bad: cancer is spreading in other family members.

Sometimes I wonder what I did to enter cancer world so decisively, as I have...but then I think of all of the blessings in my life, as well. If a girl has to face cancer world, it is really, really nice to have a dead mother. She is the perfect person to talk to...she sends the best presents and reminders that God is good and Life is good...she gives me hope that there is a wonderful place to ascend to after this life.

Super Good: special "miracles" from my Mom.

And now, since I don't care what any of you think of me...if you think I am crazy or wrong or not (but I love all of my friends and don't mean to insult you by saying this...I just am past the point of caring about things like what people think of me today. Super Bad news does that to a person.), I will share my special "miracles" with you. I don't think I have done this before.

Prepare for a long post, drop off here if you like!

Miracle #1: 17 year old Pam lost her car keys at Metro Beach.
Imagine the scenario: hard working young Pam drives herself to Metro Beach to do a run on her cross country team's home course. Said course is 1.5 miles long, not marked one bit, entirely on grass. Hardworking Pam does the course twice, and then has to return home to prepare for her job at Tubby's (sub shop) on Garfield.

Well, as Pam finishes the course, she realizes she has LOST her car key. It was tucked in the pocket of her running shorts (the one that is little, a pouch, at the top of the elastic, inside the liner of running shorts). She feels her shorts ENTIRELY (full liner feel - including private spots) to make sure the key hasn't slipped down somewhere...but of course a person would know if that had happened. Not there.

Pam starts quietly freaking out (emotional girl), and praying that she will find her key. She has no other real way to get home - her father works in downtown Detroit and will FREAK OUT about her losing her key. Her sisters are younger and can't drive. Almost none of her friends are driving their own cars yet, and even if they were, they couldn't get to Metro Beach and get her home in time for her to get to work. Plus, she has no money for a pay phone (life before cell phones - so inconvenient.) Pam starts retracing her steps, looking for her giant Mazda key in the grass. (It's only the one key - because nothing bigger would have fit in that tiny pocket in her shorts).

.5 miles pass, lots of prayers, and no key. Pam is begging the powers that be now. Maybe another 1/4 passes, and she feels it.

THE KEY IS IN HER SHORTS. In the liner of the shorts, to be exact, tucked down in a private area where YOU WOULD HAVE FELT such a thing for every step of 3/4 of a mile.

And that my friends, is Miracle #1. Thank you Mom, for taking care of your daughter. It helps to have someone on the other side.

Miracle #2: Lonely College Freshman Pam, Bursley Bathroom Incident.
So Pam is now a college freshman, leading her boring college freshman life. Pam was never a partying sort, or even really much of a friend-making sort...I wouldn't say she's a total loner girl, but she has certainly never been the most confident, or most interesting girl in the room. Her freshman year was OK...made a little easier with the help of rowing, and flew by due to the mononucleosis which made the last half of the first semester a bit of a blur. But there were some lonely moments.

On this night, some fairly nice girls were in a joking mood...and I can't remember at all what they said, but there was something that they said that made Freshman Pam feel very alone, and very sad. As she left the room, she was nearly in tears (though they didn't know, they were nice enough girls who probably would not have meant to hurt feelings. Pam never rolled with the punches that well, though.)

So, Pam went to her room (empty, her roommate had a serious boyfriend and was never around). She gathered up her bathroom bag from one spot, her towel from another spot, her keys (on a lanyard) from another.

Down to the bathroom, upset young Pam throws her bathroom bag in the sink, her towel in another, and whips her keys on top of the ledge under the mirror. (Hear the huge clang of the keys on the metal ledge, because she is upset, and wants the keys to feel it.) She goes into the stall to use the facilities, where she remembers she has forgotten to pick up her contact case from the heater (remember those)...it was on another side of the room. She is unhappy with herself, unhappy that she feels like she has made no friends, and this sets her over the edge. Failing to pick up the contact case feels like just another example of how stupid she really is.

She flushes the toilet. She opens the door. She walks to get her keys (will have to go back to the room to get her contact case), and there, perched very precariously on her keys is HER CONTACT CASE! They are practically tipping off the keys which had been flung on the ledge with such fervor. They are perched so carefully - impossibly carefully.

And then she feels it...peace, love, contentment...the kind of stuff you only feel when you are cozy and enveloped in your mother's love. It was amazing, how fast all of my sadness and loneliness went away.

Miracle #3: Pam is getting married!
It was no secret to my soon-to-be-husband that I was not looking forward to a wedding. I could not imagine life without him. He had been my family for 7 years already - my support and the person I could turn to in any situation - but a wedding was more than I could handle. There was something about the whole Mother/Daughter thing about a wedding that made me totally avoid a wedding. I had no idea how I would accomplish such a girly thing on my own...and being a motherless daughter, I was not great at doing things NOT on my own.

Luckily, Emma came along...or Emma embryo came along. Immediately, we would have the wedding, and I would have to get over my worries about how to accomplish a wedding - and fast. Still not being girly, I was very hands-off with wedding planning. I bought a dress off the rack at Nordstrom (bought two sizes, in case my pregnant belly needed more room). We found a priest who would marry a pregnant couple (thanks to Bill's dad, who had been a priest). We had a fancy reception site, so that I wouldn't have to figure out how to decorate the room too. The only thing left was the flowers.

Well, I waited a bit too long for the flowers...plus we were planning a wedding that was less than 3 months out. My darling sister went to the one florist in Ann Arbor that I knew, and asked if they would do some flowers.

"Fourth of July weekend? We are much too busy. We already have __ weddings that weekend. I'm sorry."

Julie said thanks, and then walked out, and down Main Street towards our small house.

And then she turns around, to the sound of someone running after her and calling for her.

"How many arrangements did you say you needed? I think we can handle it."

And that is how I think my mother helped me plan my wedding, after all.

So those are my biggest miracles...but I have had some smaller ones as well. Strange things where Emma STARTED falling down the stairs, only to stop right in the middle of the stairs and be fine. I don't think my children have avoided stitches thus far in our lives together because of my careful parenting...I think it is more due to some careful grandmotherly hands fixing some situations before they got bad. And then there was...

Small Miracle #1: Emma's first miracle (two weeks ago)
Emma does not like to lose earrings. In fact, just the thought of losing earrings has made her so fearful and panicky that she kept her first studs in her ears for about 1.5 years of her life (they are so tightly fitting).

Well, recently she has branched out and wears a few other special pairs...but the thought of losing them still makes her crazy.

So imagine her concern when she was wearing a different pair of earrings, for some special occasion, and she felt one of them fall out of her hair, in the shower, having been pulled out as she washed her hair. She caught the front of the earring, but the backing was gone. She immediately turned around and started looking everywhere, in the shower, water rushing down all over her.

Only to find the earring backing perched on the tip of her thumb.

Small Miracle #2: A Mother still needs her Mother (2 weeks ago)
Nathan has potty trained himself (because I am a failure at potty training), so a whole new world of swimming has come to the Lucken family. This world involves lots of swimming by both kids and Mom, in the big pool.

Sometimes Nathan and Mom decide quite last-minute that they will go in the pool, involving a quick change. That is what happened on the day I lost my beloved 3-day necklace. It has charms for both 3-days I walked, a ribbon, and a charm with the names of my 3 children on it. I remember taking it off, and I remember leaving it on the ground. I don't remember why I thought that was a good idea.

And then we swam, and then we left the pool, and I never picked up my necklace. I returned that evening for a swim meet, asked many people about my necklace (as I remembered having left it earlier that day), to no avail. I followed up the next day as well. No necklace.

Swim meet days are busy days - this year, we're at the pool (some faction of us) from 8:45-11:30am, only to return around 4:00pm (having spent the time between driving home, eating lunch, putting together the swim stuff, and packing up our picnic dinner). We are usually there until 9:30pm. This doesn't leave a lot of time for laundry, or other chores, aside from random kitchen things and maybe some shopping for food for our picnic dinner.

Well, I was sad about the necklace...maybe not bereft, because life with Bill has been so good and I don't worry about losing things as much as I used to. He is not the sort to freak out, or to call me irresponsible...he always is willing to replace lost items. But still, this necklace was special to me, and I hate losing things anyway. A few busy days pass (we had the swim meet, and then I embarked upon my crazy deck project)...I haven't done any laundry other than a load of whites.

Thursday morning comes (necklace losing happened on a Monday), and I am emptying the laundry to put in the swimsuits for the next meet (that day). I move the whites along, and check to make sure no socks have been lost in the door's seal. No socks there...but what is there? My gleaming, perfectly cleaned 3-day necklace!

I only have one answer for it's appearance in a washer full of whites (no shorts, no swim towels, no swim suits - places it could have hidden to get home with us, and I had not washed even one other load since Monday) - a Mother is still looking out for her daughter.

I hope any readers out there are looking for little love notes from their departed loved ones...I know it's not only me receiving them!

Having a hard, hard time saying goodbye

2009-07-20T14:31:00.003-04:00

My darling kitten's breast cancer is back.

Actually, it's been back for a while now...but when it came back, it could be found in the same spot, in another mammary gland, and possibly in a few other places. (Her pupils are slightly different sizes, it seems like she has a bump on her head, and she wheezes.) By the time I found it for the second time, I was no longer looking at a cut-it-out-and-pray situation anymore...maybe just a hope-and-pray situation.

I had been forewarned. When she had surgery to remove her first cancer last August, the results told me she had cancer in her lymph nodes (putting her at stage 2 of 3 stages for cats). And here we come to Regret #1: I waited.

I found Annie's cancer while I was in the middle of my own breast cancer year. Though I don't remember the specific date, I knew I found it after my own bilateral mastectomy, after I had already begun chemo, and after I was already bald. (This puts me somewhere after the middle of May of last year). At that point, her breast cancer was more than I could really bear...and taking her to the vet, explaining my own baldness, my own cancer, and feeling like garbage while doing it - well, emotionally, I couldn't handle it. And so, Regret #1: I waited...probably somewhere from 2-3 months, until 3 weeks after my last chemo when I felt like I could handle the news, and handle taking care of her through whatever we needed to do.

Recovery from her first surgery was no picnic, even though she recovered fine. It certainly was not as easy as our veterinarian had intimated it would be....but it was a big surgery, and in a place that was not so fun (right under one of her front legs). I told her (and Bill, who paid for the surgery...) that we would be done with surgery now.

That is Regret #2: surgery (but I'm confused as to what I really regret.)

Working in a veterinarian's office, I saw people who went to the ends of the earth to treat their pets' cancers. I could never understand putting my pet or any animal through things like surgeries or chemotherapy just to keep them alive for a short period of time. I promised (in my head) that I would not do that with my pets...that I would help them be comfortable and safe for as long as I was blessed to have them. Here is where I am confused over Regret #2: should I have not done it in the first place (she's only had an extra 11 months)? Or should I be regretting not doing more of it, when I found the cancer the 2nd time? I went with my gut and said "no more surgery", but I regret that. And yet I still regret the first one.

Anyway, what's done is done, and what's left to do? My Nanners is slipping away. Her purrs are coming less frequently. She isn't writhing with joy anymore. There is blood from her tumor on the end of my bed, on the chair I used to nurse Katie and Nathan (now Annie's chair), on Nathan's car bedspread. She doesn't always like to make it to the bathroom anymore. (The rug in the kids' bathroom has worked just as well, twice. So her litterbox will move.) She vomits. She is eating a diet of almost 100% cat treats - anything to keep some weight on her. We've moved her water bowl upstairs. Crazy Hope spends most of her time outside or in her crate, to avoid potential chasing scenarios. I lie down on the floor near her several times a day, just so she can crawl up on my chest and I can gently touch her. I pray for more purring.

And today, in just a few minutes, I'm taking her to the vet. I'm praying for a few more comfy weeks, for some miracle of science that will give her some comfort before our final goodbyes. Wish us luck.

100 things

2009-07-17T18:04:00.003-04:00

Fashioned after a life list posted by a blogger much, much, much, much more fancy and accomplished than I will ever be..

I am NOT going to be intimidated by my smallness, my lack of special talents, or my lack of imagination... I'm going to plow ahead and make my OWN life list. I believe firmly in learning from others, and don't mind at all taking a great idea and using it for myself! (And I don't expect Intel will foster my life list, either...but luckily I have Bill Lucken for that.)

So here we go:

Have a garden that is so nice, someone will want it to be on a garden walk
Run a half marathon
Do a triathalon
Start a garden club...and with it
Host a perennial exchange
Become a rower again
Redesign my front yard garden
Make a butterfly garden
Go hiking in Kauai
Learn how to windsurf
Spend a month living somewhere else with my family
Go back to school for something useless
Go back to school for something useful
Finish my basement, myself
Have a black cat
Volunteer for something I believe in...
Teach myself how to swim...or take swim lessons
Refrain from eating chocolate for one week (so hard!)
For one week, wake up early to exercise (so hard, too!)
Build a pond myself
Find gainful employment
See my children graduate from high school
See my children graduate from college
Help someone buy their first house (or renovate it)

Not very imaginative yet...but I'm going to keep working on it! Can you tell I am recently so excited about home improvement projects, and gardening...and wanting to exercise more? (but the home improvement projects and gardening are taking up all the time. For the past 3 days I have been helping Bill install and clean our *free* hot tub...and making a creek bed with all of the rocks and concrete we have had to move in the process. And I have fallen in love with power washing.