Passions of the Soul

Letter from a former sponsored child

The following excerpt is taken from a letter written by Ruzamba Niyomwungeli, a 24-year-old graduate of Compassion's Child-Sponsorship Program.  Written in Kinyarwanda, it was tranlated in English at the Compassion Rwanda country office.

I cried in my neighborhood, but no one listened to me.  I called to my neighbors because of hunger, but there was no boon coming to me.  I was sick in my bed, but no one could render a service.  But not far from God's hands, a sponsor, a parent, came to me from the far country that is beyond the sea where my eyes could not imagine a thought  What a blessing and love.  God I am too special in your eyes.  Thank you God.

You can read the entire letter here.  Then, if you would like to sponsor a child, you may click on the widget, in the left sidebar, or go here.

Unbelievable and insane!

I just learned today that the house/property where I spent all of my elementary-school years and began junior high (middle school, to most folks, now) is "valued" at somewhere around 3/4 of a million dollars.  That's based on a couple of other properties next door or a couple of lots away.

I have no idea how much my folks paid for the house, when they bought it.  It sat/sits on a very deep lot and was the only home there, at the time.  My dad added on an attached apartment, before he and my mom divorced.  After neighbors on one side built a 2-bedroom house behind their 2-story house, my mom used the same floor plan and built it on the front of our lot.  So--are you following this?--we ended up with three homes on our lot.  When my mom sold, she got about $16,000 for the whole shebang.  That was 1958.

I think the original house, that we lived in, was about 40 years old, when I was maybe 6 or 7, and it was constructed (I think) of wood siding.  My amazement is, first, that it's still standing, and that the price of the whole property could possibly be so high.  Of course, maybe the termites polished it off, or it burned to the ground, sometime, and has been rebuilt.   

The price on one of the properties my sister found has dropped $40,000 in the past 30 days.  That property had last been sold in 2001 for around $250,000.  The new price, of course, comes after several months of falling prices on real property in California.  I just can't imagine anyone paying anything close to $750-$850,000 for any property around there!

UPDATE:  According to my mom (see her comment), she and my dad paid $3,000 for the house--as she says, a lot of money at the time.  I have to think that market values hadn't gone up that much, by the time she sold the property; the additions of the apartment at the back and the house at the front of the property must have accounted for most of the appreciation she realized, at the time.

Class of '67

I'm a solid week and a half behind in writing this post, but it's high time I did.  I wish I'd been able to write it as soon as we returned from my 40-year college class reunion; why I wasn't able at that time is another story.

This was the first class reunion I had attended, and I'm so glad Bruce went with me.  It really was more than a class reunion, for me, though; I also reunited, reconnected with Jerry and Nadine, and Warren and Jan, who were my peers in our youth group before they ever paired off; and with Norm and Judy, who were the adult leaders of our group, in the church in which I grew up.  I should say they were very young adult leaders, being college students, still, when they began working with us.  Anyway, it had been roughly 35 years since I'd seen any of them.

I left college without graduating for the same reason many young women quit school:  to get married.  My then-husband and I moved away, but we were still in the loop, to some extent, for maybe 10 years.  Several years after that, tho', we divorced; that was the one of the first of the twists and turns in my life, to the point that I was out of touch with almost everyone.

During the reunion weekend, the reconnecting with old friends seemed to be filling up a hole in my soul.  Even several people that I had known, but not known well, in college, contributed to that sense of being filled.  I had kind of known the hole was there, but I had no idea how deep it went or how important it was--how important those people were to me.  The opportunity to sit and visit, to play catch-up with each other's lives, and just to have great fun during the reunion luncheon, could qualify for a part in one of those commercials--you know, "Travel to and from the class reunion:  $150.  Hotel room for two:  $100+/night.  Seeing old friends:  priceless."  And the cherry on top was that my husband enjoyed it as much as I did.  I've started a photo album (look in the right Side Bar), but I have more pictures to add and editing to do.*

It wasn't quite all fun, however.  As I mentioned in a post below, one of my friends is now in a wheelchair.  I learned from her that 25% of patients with spinal-cord injuries live with a constant, intense, burning pain that nothing even helps.  She is in the 25% group.  The grief I felt for her and her husband after their accident, years back, all came up again.  I just wanted to be able to put my arms around both of them and make it all better, and I don't have the power to do that.  Oh, how I wish I did.

But the luncheon was fun.  We discovered a couple of stand-up comedians in the group; I'm not sure what they do for a living, but Eddie and Clyde ought to hire an agent and take it on the road.  Everyone was congenial and ready to reminisce.  It did come as a bit of a shock, tho', that both the school song and mascot have been changed!  I shouldn't have been surprised; the college moved from Pasadena to San Diego in 1973, and that really did call for a change in the song.  Face it--locating in San Diego, on Point Loma, is a bit of a change from being "Nestled in the High Sierras!"  (I'm not sure Pasadena's exactly nestled in the High Sierras, but we did have some nice mountains to look at, when it wasn't too smoggy.)  Somewhere along the way, someone must have said, "You know, we're at the ocean.  We really ought to have a different mascot."  So the college is now represented by sea lions, rather than Charlie Crusader.  I wonder how that works on the basketball court....

I let 40 years go by before attending a class reunion; now, I can't wait for the next one.  Five years! Listen, at our age, a lot can change in that time.  Sigh.

UPDATE:  I have completed the Photo Album for PLNU Class of '67 Reunion.

Also, while in Maine...

You may or may not have read about the family of six feral horses that were saved from slaughter by a group of very caring people in Maine and elsewhere.  Bruce wrote about it and posted a couple of pictures, here, but the first link will give you the full story.  We were able to visit these horses on the foster-farm where they have been staying.  When the word first went out about their rescue, many people did offer homes, but none could take all six horses.  The scramble is on, now, to find another home for them, where they can stay together.

Bruce's daughter Cathy, whose family we went to see in Maine, has been helping to raise some funds for the care of the six.  Her contacts with the woman heading up the movement to create a good and permanent home for them--and the fact that we had donated some money for the cause--set the stage for our trip to see them while we were in the area.  These horses are not halter-trained; they're carrot-trained.  When they see two-legged critters coming toward them with buckets of food or carrots in hand, they gather in a cluster at the fence, ready to receive.  Until they were rescued and began receiving good care, they were not accustomed to being touched, stroked, or anything else.  Their earlier neglect has left at least one of them with permanent leg and hoof damage that will mean they can never be ridden.  For the others, there is more hope for improvement in their physical difficulties.

At the website, you can also order t-shirts or sweatshirts or make a donation, if you are so inclined.  If, by chance, you live in the area and can help with the actual care of the horses, that's needed, too!

The family poet

A week ago today, we were in Maine, visiting grandkids Cassia and Ethan.  Yes, their parents Jeff and Cathy were there, too, along with doggies Dodge and Ace, cats Tinkerbelle, Arielle, Rose (mom and daughters, respectively) and Smiegle (sp?), and guinea pig Camilla.  All together, they are one neat family.  Once I get some pic's transferred from Bruce's computer to mine, I'll stick a few in here and in the Family photo album.  Maybe a couple in the Travel photo album...if I have one!

Anyway...one item Cassia and Cathy were eager to share was a poem written by Cassia, who just started kindergarten this fall.  She will be 6 years old in December.  I don't care how you parse it, in my never-to-be-humble opinion, this poem is pretty amazing even from a child several years older and further along in school; even more so from a child Cassia's age. Her teacher thought it was good enough to be published in the school newspaper, and naturally, I want to share it with you!  So now, I give you "Over the Rainbow," by Cassia C.

Birds flying.

Unicorns racing through the wind.

Mother in back,

Baby in front.

Beautiful girl riding on mother unicorn.

Beautiful sun shining.

Baby bird hatching.

Rainbow stayed for all days.

We also watched Cassia's horse-back riding lesson on Saturday.  She began taking lessons at 3-1/2 years and actually took home a couple of ribbons in competition, several months ago.  We watched her do a running mount, which took several tries because the horse (pony, actually, which I've learned is not a young horse, but a related breed, or something) is so much large than she is and he was trotting.  But she finally was able to grab on with her left hand, toss her right leg up far enough that she could pull up and grab the other handle (don't know the real term) with her right hand, and then pull herself up.  Whew!  On one of her first tries, the instructor ended up letting Cassia stand on her hands to mount; a woman sitting behind us told Jeff, "That's the way most of the adults get up; don't kid yourself!"

I may post more about the trip, but for now, it was a really good visit.  We thoroughly enjoyed being with the family, being in Maine, and have already started plotting how to improve on the travel experience, next year.

Falling behind, again

I don't think I've posted in a couple of weeks.  What does that tell you?  Okay, this is a little peek into our week.

Last Sunday morning, we left home for another trip to visit my mom and family.  We had delayed our trip by several days and enjoyed far more favorable weather, as a result.  Tuesday was still hot, but roughly 10 degrees cooler than it had been the previous week.  It was a good visit, and you can read more at Bruce's blog, where he also has a couple of pictures.

My sister introduced us to Spaghetti Eddie's, a great little Italian restaurant she's known about for years, but had never thought to mention to us.  We loved it so much, we went twice.  Tucson could really use a Spaghetti Eddie's, in case anyone over there is listening!

Now, then, about the 24 hours since we returned:  Determined to retake mastery over our own bed, Bruce blocked Bailey's access to even the hallway to the bedroom, so that we can start getting some sleep.  Of course, she did not go down without a fight.  Such pitiful, truly pathetic whining and carrying on she treated us to!  No, this did not come as a surprise.  But at one point, when she had been quiet for a little while--maybe 20 or 30 minutes--she started up, again.  Then she burst through a door that hadn't been closed fully, ran into our room and was on our bed before we knew she had broken through. 

Bruce got up, very nicely picked her up and carried her back to the living room, talking in a soothing voice all the way.  Until, that is, he felt a sharp pain in his foot.  Expecting to find a sharp piece of glass (tho' nothing had broken), he found a little scorpion under his foot.  Bruce got even, and that critter will never sting anyone else.  But adding insult to injury, he stubbed his other foot on something.  He was up for a few minutes, putting ice on the scorpion sting; when Bailey saw him just sitting there, holding ice against his foot, she jumped up on the sofa, curled up and went to sleep.  We never heard another sound from her, so we got maybe a little more than four hours' sleep before Kat woke us up before 6 a.m.

You're thinking I've gotten off scot free of trouble (unless you count sleep deprivation as trouble), and you're wrong.  I reached for something under a cabinet, this morning, and felt my low back go into a major spasm.  It's still tied up.  I've had heat on it, twice, but this evening, I'm going to switch to a cold pack.  Sometimes that works, when heat doesn't.

I'm taking bets as to whether tonight will be any better.

First day of school

I tried this, yesterday, and it didn't work, at all.  I'll try again.

Granddaughter Cassia Patricia, commonly known as "P," reached a new milestone, this week:  She started kindergarten and rode the bus.  We miss so much of their growing up, living so far, as we do, but at least Jeff and (Bruce's daughter) Cathy send photos, fairly often.

Scuttlebutt has it that Ethan chopped off his bangs, or maybe his daddy did it, but Cathy hopes they will grow back by the time we visit.  That's nearly a month, so I'm sure they will.  Frankly, from what I can see in the picture of him and Cassia, they don't look all that short, but to his mom, they do.  She's the one who counts!

We're back

We were in the Los Angeles area, this week, and just returned late this afternoon.  We encountered our first monsoon thunderstorm of the season, and boy, did it cool things down!  Whew!

I'll tell about our visit and birthday celebration (my mom's), in the next couple of days, or so, when Bruce has downloaded pic's.

What a week we've had!

We left last Tuesday (5/29) for a visit with my family.  It seemed, for a while, as if there were a conspiracy to keep us in Tucson, but despite our concerns we actually made the trip in 7 hrs. 10 min., from when we reached the freeway, here.  We don't usually start timing it until we get to I-10, because--as was true last week--we often make several stops on our way across town.  So we reached our destination, checked into the hotel and went to dinner.

Wednesday, we went to my mom's, and then Bruce walked back to the hotel (about 1/2 mile) so as to take pictures of the Jacaranda trees.  Boy, there were a lot of them, and they were beautiful!

Wednesday night, we (Mom, Judy, and the two of us) we to Macaroni Grill for dinner.  Getting out of the car at the restaurant, Mom had a quick, sharp pain in her thigh, a little above her knee.  It recurred throughout dinner, always causing her to jump in her seat.  She has previously been diagnosed with Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) and thought a clot had traveled into her thigh, which is where they become dangerous.  Finally, she and Judy put their leftovers in a box and took off for Urgent Care.  We soon followed.  Judy had her community group coming over, that evening, so I replaced her at UC, subsequently driving Mom a few miles to a hospital for an ultrasound.  We thought.

Naturally, the word of the M.D. at UC wasn't enough, so Mom had to wait interminably (about 2 hours) to be seen by a doctor, then had blood drawn and waited another hour and a half, or more, for the ultrasound.  Before the necessary person came to do that procedure, Judy's meeting ended and she came to replace me.  The bottom line:  no clot (thank God!), just muscle spasms.  So Mom went home, took some pain reliever and went to bed, which is what she really wanted to do, in the first place.  But if she had done that, she would have continued thinking that she had a traveling clot, and that would have worried her some.

On Saturday, it took us 9 long hours to get home, including an hour for driving across town and stopping at the grocery store.  We were a little too early to pick up Bailey at the kennel, so we came on home, unloaded the car, and Bruce went back for her.  She seemed just fine, although she was out the back door within minutes of arrival.  Good, I thought, she's going to do her business outside, instead of on the bed!  She made several trips out, and after a couple of hours, I went out to check; sure enough, she had diarrhea.  Oh, goody.

Sunday morning, we got up to find her supper from Saturday night deposited on our bedroom floor.  I'm grateful it wasn't on the bed.  But there were a few other small areas of continued vomiting, and several with just froth--the equivalent of our dry heaves.  Naturally, she was dehydrated, and when I got her to drink a little water, later, she subsequently sent that back up.  By mid-afternoon, she was so listless that we started talking about the ER.  Then Bruce followed her outside and discovered blood in her stools.  That settled it.

We took her to Southern Arizona Veterinary Specialists, where we had to leave her overnight.  They checked her blood, which proved to be okay, and hydrated her.  I brought her home, this morning, and she's better--a relative term.  She's taking Metronidozal, a great drug with a very bitter taste that dogs love to hate, and on a bland diet for several days.

This morning's conversation with our own vet' suggested that Bailey might have hemmorhagic (?) gastroenteritis (HGE).  It's not contagious from dog to dog, so isn't something she picked up in the kennel; it isn't caused by stress; no one, in fact, knows where it comes from, but it strikes suddenly, with diarrhea, then goes into vomiting and dehydration, and bloody stools.  Her blood test was 62-somethings that should be 64 or higher, for a diagnosis of HGE, but the pattern sure fits what she's been through.  The good news is that she should be over it in a couple of days.  She is definitely better, but also not yet up to par.

Outside our own family, a friend was taken to the ER on Saturday night with what first appeared to be Guillon-Barre syndrome.  Thankfully, he was doing better by Sunday morning, although he will be in the hospital for a few more days.  By Sunday a.m., the doctor had changed his diagnosis to viral myopathy, which seems vague enough, but at least Rob is steadily improving...last I heard.  He and Linda would appreciate our prayers.

And with that, I'm going to renew my acquaintance with the treadmill.

UPDATE 6/6:  Linda took Rob home yesterday morning.  He's so much better, except for weakness in his hands, for which he will have physical therapy.  Prognosis is good for a full recovery.  Yessss!

Bailey is also essentially her old self, again, which means she is, as I type, on the back of the sofa at the living room window, barking her fool head off whenever a dog passes the house.  I started weaning her, this morning, toward a normal diet.  Of course, I should have known that a Metronidozal would dissolve in the liquid before she could get it down, so she's discovered its bitter taste.  After she finished eating the bulk of her food, I dug the remains of the pill out of the dish and tried to mask it with peanut butter.  Didn't work.  Canned cat food, maybe?

For my mom

My mom will be 90 years old in July.  She doesn't look that old, and I hope I look as good as she does, if I live to be that old.

I hope I age as she has aged in other ways, too.  She has proved that we're never to old to grow, to change, to learn.  She's been using a computer since she was 84. Not 54 or 64--84.  She'll never become a computer "nerd," but neither will I.  She e-mails people she would not be able to communicate with, otherwise.  She does Internet searches to learn more about things that interest her.

But she's not tied to her computer chair, either.  She lives in a really nice independent living center, worlds better than the first one she moved into.  She takes part in some of the games--word games and spelling--and she wins, or is on the winning team, more often than not.

Physical activity is no longer an option, as the arthritis has taken too great a toll, but her mind is still very active.  She still reads a lot of books, starting each day with her Bible and a variety of devotional books.  The home she's in, Bridgecreek, has an extensive library, and she has to be one of its most ardent patrons.  (Bless all the people who have donated books to the library!)  I believe her love of reading has allowed her to age without showing signs of even mild dementia, as her mother and several older, now-deceased siblings did, even in their early 80's.

Mom's faith in her Lord continues to grow, as well, and in that, I certainly aim to emulate her!  God has seen her through so many challenges and major heartaches, and she knows He's always been there.  He took care of all of us when Judy and I were children, both before and after our parents' divorce.  Those were hard years for her, but with faith and grit, she persevered.  The Lord has continued to guide, protect and care for her, although at times, we needed faith to believe it, as we could see His care only in hindsight.  And He is still caring for her in her old age.

I can't tell you how difficult it is to refer to my mom and "old age" in the same sentence!  Except for her physical limitations, she just doesn't seem that old to me, but 90 years really is a long time.  Anyway, Happy Mother's Day, Mom, from Bruce and Vicki.  We love you so much!