FINDING THE BLESSINGS
A 5 a.m. blue-sky sunrise this morning revealed the lifting of a soaking and much needed three-day rain to welcome May 16, 2026. A dusting of snow covered the tops of the Olympic Mountains as two large boats headed out into Hood Canal. A very low tide revealed sea lions clustered on a tiny spot of land. I recorded 16 birds on my Cornell app, including House Finch and Western flycatcher (the breed that made a nest last year in my shell wreath at the front door.) A Cedar waxwing arrived to check out the choke cherry tree. Others included a European starling, and an Eurasian-collared dove that makes a sound like an owl, whoo whoo. An American Robin chimed in, a glaucous winged gull swooped past, barn swallows darted in and out from the large loose leaf Maple tree above the water. I also recorded a goldfinch, a Swainson’s Thrush, a Bald Eagle, a Belted Kingfisher and a Stellar’s Jay. More recently, we’ve seen a pair of Bald Eagles soaring out beyond the Maple.
The rhododendrons are in full outrageous bloom. Reds fade as purples and some yellows present stunning blossoms alongside whites. Roses appear, red and white, and Peace roses in back.
We returned last week from three weeks at our Orcas Island home. We began to prepare the house to sell, working to complete some needed projects. Thirty years we have owned that property, since 1997. We began with raw land, five acres that included a wide beach of pebbles. Our early plans to build fell through so we purchased an RV and took it up in summers. At one point, we gave up all dreams of building a house on Orcas. We put the land up for sale until our ophthalmologist told us he’d found a builder for us! By then we’d purchased our home in Union so we ended up with two resort homes, sold our home and properties in Tenino, and for eleven years we have traveled back and forth about every three weeks between Union and Orcas Island up Rte 101 along Hood Canal, and using two ferries to cross bodies of water, one from Anacortes and one at Port Townsend and Coupeville, about a six-hour trip. We are sad to let this property go but taxes have become a burden and this week Rich and I made the decision to place him in a local retirement home. I saw this happen when caring for my parents who were considered wealthy. By the end of their lives, they had little left. Medical care is difficult to access from Orcas Island but here in Union we are barely twenty minutes from Mason County Hospital and an hour from hospitals in Olympia.
I have been Rich’s primary caregiver for five years. He nearly died last year but a heart ablation restored his physical health. He struggles with memory loss, sleep apnea, digestive hernia, in addition to heart problems. I have benefited from the Orcas Island Senior Center, where for five years I have attended group sessions for caregivers and Rich recently attended some for Partners in Care. We will miss those and the people we met there. Recently, Becca started visiting to help us one day a week.
Becca also has begun a project crafting personal oral histories, called Legacy Conversations. You can find out more information by contacting her at beccaspiral37@gmail.com She has worked many years in transcription, published in Chicken Soup for the Soul, and has been my website manager for about ten years. She uses several methods to collect oral histories, and is presently working on a few. She has also done about twelve for the city of Tenino.
As Rich’s caregiver the past five years, I have struggled to accept having to surrender things I loved to do like yoga, going to the library, and shopping, as I cannot leave Rich for more than three hours. Fortunately, he is a patient and tolerant recipient of my care to include driving and cooking. But I cannot keep up with paying all the bills, cooking, cleaning, and scheduling and driving him to handfuls of doctor appointments. I know I am one of many going through similar situations taking care of elderly family members because I attend several meetings with these other caregivers. Unlike when my grandmothers needed care and went to “nursing homes,” today’s care is extremely expensive and too often family members are required to be the unpaid caregivers who serve with no pay and no time off. In my book “Parsing the Dragon: A Memoir,” I explain how my brother took on this task for both of our parents. My brother bore the burden and I arrived when called to help.
I have begun to focus on blessings to help me through this difficult time. For example, I keep a journal daily, and many mornings I record birds on the Cornell app. I often call several people each week to lend support to those living alone, old friends, neighbors, other elderly people.
Among support groups I attend is the Union of Poets Virtual Open Mic, an international group of poets who meet monthly to share their poems on Zoom. I recently published a few poems in poetsonline.org. See the issues of March and April. I have also submitted some poems to an anthology being compiled by a poet friend. Although I can no longer set aside segments of time to work on large writing projects, I can jot down poem ideas in spare moments and usually am prepared with three or four new ones for each monthly session of Union Poets.
Mindy and Becca were both with me for Mother’s Day and I have included some photos. I have 51 rhododendrons in full bloom in my Union yard as I write.
Mindy and Becca with Rudy, 4 month old new pet for Mindy
Rhody bush in Susan's yard in Union