Only the Good Friday, May 7, 2010

Writing about only “Good” things on Friday is a project created by Shelly over at This Eclectic Life. Take a look and read her offering and scroll around to get the details if you care to join in on the fun. Just post a story about “Good” stuff.

I’ve had some “Good” happening around here. It sure didn't seem "Good" when it all started, but the outcomes of what I’ve been through have been “Good”. Let me spin a yarn or two and fill you in on what’s been going on. After all, I’ve been away, and I know someone missed me. It started last week, Tuesday think, when the phone rang.

Now that right there is deceiving as we use a cell phone as our “home” phone. I use a generic ring tone, one that came with the phone. It is a nondescript jingle of some sort. I’ve been meaning to get a unique ring tone. Maybe something from the Doors. Or maybe a small piece of a song we recorded in the 1970’s when I played with the Dump and Shortcake Band. But I digress.

I answered the phone, it was in the morning, and heard my brother on the other end of the airwaves. (almost said line, like we used to have someone on the other end of the line, get it?). Brother Frank lives in Sedona, Arizona. We talk now and then. He started the conversation slowly and talked about my Grandkids and how are they and how’s everyone.

That must have been his humble way to tell me he was in the hospital in the nearby town of Cottonwood, AZ. He told me he had experienced some chest pain and they were going to do an angiogram and take a look. Since he drove himself to the hospital, both he and I assumed that he might need a stent or two. The hospital nor the doctor seemed like it was an emergency and the blood tests didn’t show any sign of a heart attack.

I wished him luck and put him at ease. After all, I have had angiograms five different times, and heart surgery twice, and the speed at which progress is made pertaining to medical procedures these days, I was sure that they knew what they were doing. I went about my business that day, filling in other family members about Uncle Frank. I would wait for a call later that day with the results and go from there.

My call came, from his wife, not too long later. It seems that when they did the angiogram, they found a blockage that had closed an artery to 99%. They air lifted him to Flagstaff, AZ and performed emergency heart surgery on him the moment he landed at the Flagstaff Medical Center.

When I got this information, I called my sister in suburban Chicago. We discussed it and decided we needed to get down there and be with him and his wife. We both sought the airline schedule and called each other back a half hour later. I told big sister that I was going to drive down and leave first thing in the morning. My sister’s husband drove her to Des Moines, IA. I passed through there and met them at a truck stop at the junction of I-80 and I-35 called The Flying J. I met her at 11:50 a.m. On Wednesday and we pulled into Flagstaff at nine o’clock the next morning. We gobbled up the 1550 miles with a two hour nap in the parking lot of another Flying J truck stop in Albuquerque, NM.

The highlight of the drive was waking up just before the sun rose over Sandia Peak, a huge mountain the sits just East of Albuquerque. The moon had been full the night before, and as we sipped early morning truck stop coffee and got out on the Interstate, we had the unusual phenomenon of the moon, still full and bright on the Western horizon and old Sol peeking up over the mountaintop.


The town of Placitas with Sandia Mountain as a backdrop. Placitas is just North of Albuquerque

This beautifully stunning photograph of Sandia Mountains near Albuquerque is from the site of Sylvia Ortiz Domney.

My sister had brought her camera. She fetched it from her purse and I snapped a few shots out the drivers side window. It was a cosmic place to be, right there between the Grand Father Sun and the Grand Mother Moon. It was like having a tractor beam, hauling us at 80 miles per hour plus, towards our destination. The Spirits were helping us gather together. After all, we had just lost out Mother a few months before. We are all that is left and we acknowledge how much we love and need each other as our existence is all that is left of our family. That alignment of the cosmos was very very “Good”.


Not often is the Moon so bright in the sky when the Sunrise takes place

Uncle Frank was in his bed in what the hospital called a step down unit. He had just gotten there from the ICU and was doing very well. We visited and cried a little. Tried to make each other laugh too. We stayed at a beautifully appointed house across the street from the hospital called the Taylor House. Taylor House is a place set aside for visiting families of patients, we spent our days back and forth to his room.

On Saturday, the doctors and staff announced that he would be going home on Sunday. He was making a remarkable recovery and was doing great. We spent the night in Sedona, an hour away from the hospital, and on Sunday morning, passed through Flag, said goodbye and started the long journey home.

My sister had never been to Santa Fe, so we pulled in there after negotiating a freak Spring snowstorm at the Continental Divide near Grants, NM. Had me doing evasive maneuvers to avoid rear ending a squad of trucks stopped on the highway. We ambled down out of the elevation and soon hit dry pavement and sunshine in Albuquerque. We made it to Santa Fe and saw a few sights. I took my sister to Maria’s, one of my favorite places to eat in Santa Fe.

The next morning we headed out and made it to Osceola, Iowa and got a decent nights sleep. We pulled in to my place in River Falls a little after noon. My brother-in-law drove up from the Chicago area on Wednesday, spent the night, tidied up my yard, (he likes to do that kind of thing), and left Thursday.

So many “Good” things gleaned from this adventure. ”Good” that they found my brother’s problem and avoided a possible life ending heart blockage. “Good” that the surgery went well and that he was sent home so quickly and on the mend. “Good” that we had safe travel through all those miles and a weather pattern that sat on the high plains with heavy winds, rain and snow, and “Good” that we saved a boatload of money over flying, renting a car in Phoenix and the hospital having that beautiful guest house for families at a ridiculously low rate.

Also on the "Good" side was the togetherness we kept alive for what's left of my childhood family and the time spent in the car with my sister, having her as a captive audience to listen to me go on and on about whatever it was that was on my mind. I did do some listening as well.

I’m home now, but I’m having a hard time getting back into a routine, if there ever was one to begin with. I will never catch up on all the Facebook things. My e-mail box is jammed full of ads to buy Viagra and Cialis and methods to make my John Thomas bigger and better and more satisfying. And now I have the chore of getting on my creative hat and writing some amusing informative works and establish some readership again.

I’m happy to be home and that my brother is doing “Good” and will be with us for a while yet. It’s “Good” to be back.

Peace to all