WHERE THERE'S A WILL, THERE'S A WAY!

Picture this: Two “mature” (One of them is my age! That is NOT OLD!) women, who speak different languages, are sitting side by side. One is the mother of the woman whose house my dear, sweet, high school friend Glenda is living in for the summer in France through a house-swap company. We’ll call that mother “Bridgit!” They have exhausted their dramatic talents trying to get each other to understand them.

Glenda has been there long enough that she is desperate for some companionship, and she is determined to have this conversation and get to know this woman. Bridgit has been very welcoming, and Glenda has taken the plunge to drive 12 miles ON THE BIG ROAD (!) to visit her at her home.

You’ve heard the old English proverb, “Where there's a will, there's a way!” I’m not sure which one of them thought it up first, but before long they both had their laptops out. Sitting side-by-side, Glenda and Bridgit had their first meaningful conversation...using Google Translate to bridge the language barrier! By the end of the afternoon, they both knew all about each other’s pasts and interests. They discovered so many things they had in common.

When I heard from Glenda last, she was looking forward to many more Google Translate conversations with Bridgit. A true friendship was born on line, but with the benefit of eye contact and body language. What a pleasure and relief to look forward to spending more hours in France befriending a French Bridgit!

Thank you, Google Translate!

P.S. When I told my husband Peter about this story, he laughed big and said, “That’s a great story for Mr. Google!”

RECOVERING NICELY!

Yes, I am recovering nicely after surgery last Monday. Sleep apnea wasn’t even on my radar a year ago, and now I have spent the night in a strange room where someone I had only just met taped 30 electrodes all over my body. Those electrodes were monitored all night long, and my doctor had the results by the time I went to see him. They called the process a Sleep Study. I called it quite bizarre! Did I leave out the parts about being video-taped all night long, being waked up sometime in the middle of the night to be told that sure enough, I was have sleep apnea episodes (stopping breathing, then gasping for breath much later, if I'm lucky!), being fitted with a VERY ATTRACTIVE (sexy even ***!!!) CPAP device (I affectionately call it my “elephant nose!”), then being asked to go back to sleep (still being watched, video-taped and monitored electronically). It was...memorable!

I love my husband Peter beyond measure to go through all of that, because I was sleeping just fine. HE was the one who was staying up wondering if I would actually gasp and breathe again. Of course, there was that part about stopping breathing, too; but I didn’t know any of that was going on.

So, I have used the CPAP device for 6 months not too successfully (it kept leaking air when I moved around, then THAT would wake up Peter anyway). We just considered looking for other options and decided that I would take the 70% chance that my apnea would be corrected with this surgery that I had on Monday. As Peter said yesterday, “We just need to wait until the sleep test is done in 2 months to be sure.” I definitely see progress, though; and I know my husband loves me lots to stick by me, through thick , thin, and the elephant nose.

“FOR BEAUTIFUL TO HAPPEN, IT HAS TO BE SEEN.”

Isn't it uncanny how you can relate EVERYTHING in life to whatever

your passions are?

Last night Peter and I attended the musical play “Ordinary Days” (Music and lyrics by Adam Gwon) at a small outdoor playhouse. In it was a song that spoke to my soul about relationships.

"Beautiful" was the name of the song, and the part I liked the best

was not a part talking about how beautiful a person was. The actor

sang about what it took for someone to be beautiful. "For Beautiful

to happen, it has to be seen." It struck me that it was a lot

like the old question about whether there is any sound when a tree

falls in the forest if nobody is there to hear it. It means nothing

for something or someone to be beautiful if no one sees it, and I'm

not talking about just seeing beautiful. I'm talking about REALLY

SEEING BEAUTIFUL! Everybody can be seen as beautiful in some way. It is the choice of the beholder to look for Beautiful or to see the faults in someone.

There was a student at my middle school ("Ed") who was living with his

grandmother and two younger brothers. The background story about Ed was long and sad. His emotional medical issues were extensive. He refused to take (or he spat out) his medications. He was a runner - often leaving his class and/or the school without permission. It was not unusual for the police to be called to assist the school in retrieving him. Ed was

a new student at our school one October, but by December he was sent

to an alternative school to finish the school year. He missed many of his classes and did slim to no academic work at our school, nor at the alternative school. His last quarter grades in the alternative school were all

0's. He was retained and slated to come back with us the next fall in the same grade.  In the mean time, Ed qualified for special education

services. He was to attend all academic classes in the Behavior

Disordered (BD) classroom. I was hopeful that Ed would be more

successful the next year. Our BD teacher was excellent.

I had seen the Beautiful in Ed. It was there. He derailed it by not taking

the 3 strong medications that were prescribed by his doctor, but Beautiful was there. Ed didn’t like the way it felt to have those medicines, and I

probably wouldn't either. His grandmother kept the doctors abreast of

Ed's behaviors at school and at home (wreaking havoc with his younger

brothers and the other boys in the neighborhood). She admitted him

to a psychiatric hospital for a few days every 3-4 months for the

doctors to get his medications straight and to give her and the

brothers a break. It just was not a pretty scene, but she never gave up on him. She had also seen the Beautiful in that young man, and she kept searching to find a way to let that Beautiful shine.

As it turned out, Ed did not return to our school the next fall. When school started, his Grandmother came to withdraw him. She had consulted with his doctors, and the decision had been made to allow him to attend a year-round special camp designed to use art, music and drama with students like Ed to bring out the Beautiful within. The adults were specially trained to see the Beautiful in each student and to help each one live his/her own Beautiful life, safely and peacefully. It was all accomplished by adults that could see the Beautiful within each person.

We never heard from Ed after he was withdrawn from our school; however, I firmly believe that Ed’s path in the camp was an outstanding opportunity for him to be loved into loving himself and being seen as Beautiful by himself, as well as others.