And Yet Another Christmas...

 Another Christmas arrives.  All the gifts have been wrapped.  Sometimes it is difficult to think of something I am excited to give my kids as gifts.  They are grown, living their own lives with established households, but I still wish to find something that surprises them or makes them happy.  Some years it has been an envelope of money with a couple of small gifts to unwrap - college years, post-divorce years, broke years (for them or me).  Sometimes all of us are broke - together!  

There have been years when none of us felt much like celebrating Christmas, but we always manage to do something together.  December is a busy month for us - two birthdays, Christmas and New Year's Eve.  When the kids were growing up, December would usher in about a six month cash deficit.  It was always worth it.

As for the supreme beings, there are two red Christmas pears. They get apples, pears and carrots at other times of the year, but I like to make sure they have a little something for Christmas morning.  The two wolf sisters are getting new stuffed wiener dog toys.  Both dogs seem to greatly enjoy carrying the toys in their mouth, chewing (mauling) to make them squeak.  The squeaker is eventually torn out of the wiener dog, along with all of the stuffing.  Then the empty pelt, with head attached, is carried about until eventually the entire toy has been ripped into tiny pieces.  This is the third set of stuffed wiener dogs in 2021.  

This year has been both long and very short.  I had surgery on both knees in March.  I had no idea what difficulty and suffering that surgery would bring.  I am genuinely glad that is all in the rapidly receding past.  I am able to do everything I could do before the surgery, most of it without terrible pain, so I consider it a success.  It was genuinely terrible there for awhile.  I hope these bionic knees outlive me because I certainly will not be able to go through that again.   

I have continued to wear a mask though I have had all three vaccinations for covid.  My son, my sister in law, and my 98 year old stepfather have had covid.  My son was not old enough for the vaccine yet when he contracted covid last year.  Now he has had covid and two shots, so I hope that protects him through the winter and beyond.  My daughter is careful to wear a mask, though both my son and my daughter are increasingly put at risk in their places of work by people not wearing masks, and countless others who are not vaccinated.  That the issue of vaccination and masks has become politicized in this country defies basic common sense.  To what end are so many folks being radicalized against their own best interests?  It is tragic. 

There has been a thousand awful things in the world this year.  Sometimes it is hard to keep my balance.  I have to remind myself of the million good things in my own life.  I continue to be healthy and strong enough to live in the country.  I am capable of tending to the horses though the older I am, the more creative I have to be when moving sacks of feed, or mineral blocks, or hay bales.  I have two beautiful black German Shepherd companions that drive me crazy only some of the time.  

I have never lived with two dogs inside the house before.  They are very smart dogs and very honest dogs.  They understand not to get in the trash or destroy the sofa.  Most of the time I do not even have to say a word, just a gesture.  I do not know if it is peculiar to Shepherds or if all dogs behave the same, but at every event throughout the day involving a doorway, these two silently glide around me.  I am never 100% certain which dog is here or there as their movements are fluid and graceful and constant - weaving beside and behind me.  They remind me of dolphins slipping through water with zero resistance and neutral gravity - graceful, circling and constant.  Since they have to be wherever I am, this behavior occurs whenever I leave one room for another, or leave the house, or come into the house.  They must have a common ancestor with dolphins somewhere far back in time. 

Before the year is out, I must thank once again the people who helped me through those long weeks of recovery after the surgery, when I was all but bed-ridden.  My neighbor, Kathyrne, who took care of the horses for week after long week.  She came to sit with me every single day for a time, keeping me from going stir crazy or feeling too sorry for myself.   

I am grateful to the people who looked after my dogs.  Mattie was able to come home after about a month but poor baby Kenzie had to stay at boarding school for months.  

I am grateful to Gary Bacon, who drove from Emporia to Topeka to my house to deliver a prescription for pain medication when I made a mistake in planning ahead!  

I am grateful to my kids who came to see me in the hospital.  My daughter was commuting 200 miles a day to work at the time and my son had to come from KCMO.  My daughter stayed with me for several nights after I came home while still managing her full time job.  

My next door neighbors came the minute I called for something I could not do myself outside.  

I am grateful to all of those incredibly dedicated medical personnel, from the nurses to the housekeepers and the physical therapists.  They work long hours and put up with all manner of behavior.  It is also a very physically demanding job, helping other human beings in and out of bed, in and out of wheelchairs, in and out of the bathrooms.  I could not do such work.

I am grateful to every friend who called or visited or kept me in their prayers.  I had been in the hospital with the birth of my kids but I was not ill or helpless then.  The knee surgery was the first time I had been "hospitalized".  It was about as much fun as you would imagine if someone chopped out both of your knees and replaced them with metal and plastic, then left you half naked and helpless in the care of strangers.  When they made me get out of bed or sit in chairs, ALL sized for much taller human beings than me, my feet would dangle in the air.  It was so excruciatingly painful that I would have given ALL the nuclear launch codes to the Russians, had they asked.  I had no idea of the capacity for physical suffering a human body contains.  I understand that there are people who endure such pain and suffering for long stretches, and many with no hope of recovery.  It was profoundly humbling. I am very grateful that there were no complications with the surgery and I can walk now without pain.  I am grateful to a very talented surgeon.

So, another year passes in the peace and quiet of my humble little home here in the bend of the little prairie creek.  My children are healthy and self-supporting, smart and funny.  My companion animals are fine.  I am fine.  I had a wonderful Christmas with the two most favorite human beings of my entire life.  I am greatly blessed. 

Wishing peace on earth and goodwill toward (some) men - 
from the Crazy Woman, the Supreme Beings, and the wolf dogs of Spiritcreek Farm.

The best photo of them side by side.  Too bad it's through a dog-smeared storm window!

How wonderful life is when you're with your best friend and all the world is green.