Simple Gifts

First, I have to tell you about a book my sister read over Thanksgiving and left with me. It called 29 Gifts and it's by a woman named Cami Walker. She wrote the book because she has MS and had a very difficult time with the diagnosis and symptoms (I'm sure she still does to an extent). At a particularly bad time, a friend told her she was focusing too much on herself and recommend she give 29 gifts for 29 days. The gifts do not have to be materialistic or big, but her friend did suggest she journal about her experience giving.

I really like this book and the challenge the author describes herself experiencing. She also set up a website you can check out by going here. I have started try to give gifts everyday mindfully, but I haven't found the mental space to journal yet, so I'm not officially starting the challenge. I thought I'd sprinkle some posts into this blog to share a few simple gifts with you that I have received lately. Oh, there are so many wonderful gifts to share! Here's my first :

My mom gave me this purple warm fleece when I started chemo because I was always cold. She just brought it home knowing I needed it:

Shortly after I received the jacket, my good friend, Beth, sent me a warm card with this silky patch enclosed. It's from a feminist group that supported a local Mountain Keepers event. (Beth, if you're reading this, leave a comment with more details. I can't find your card that I put in a special place with this info. The special place, I guess, is a little too special). I love the patch so much, my mom suggested I sew it onto the jacket I wear every day.

Great I idea! I used fabric stabilizer and the zig zag stitch on my machine for the first time and it turned out great. A little crooked on one side, but you can't tell:

It meant so much to me that Beth thought about me at an event I would have loved to attend and that she took the time to send me this simple gift. It makes me smile and feel strong.

I also love that it got me to my sewing machine--even if it was just for a few minutes. I need to warm up because I've cut my fabric for my little quilt and the sewing begins tomorrow!

giving

I love this time of year. I love how the cold and the snow keep us inside and focused on being together. I love how our family is maturing and developing. I love the family we are becoming.

As a child, I had the kind of Christmases Walmart's dreams are made of. The amount of stuff my sister and I received was totally and completely out of control -especially since most of it was never again touched after ripping off the paper. Ugh!!

Partly because of finances, partly because of having a large family and mostly because the desire to be less materialistic, DH and I, long ago, decided that was not the road our family was going down. We began by limiting the amount of gifts each child got to three in honor of the three gifts of the Magi (I know that event didn't technically happen on Christmas, but it works). This didn't include "stocking stuffers". Friends, you'd be surprise what you can fit into a stocking 3' x 1'(he,he, he... I was trying). Each year we have gotten better and better, arriving now at this year where we are making all our gifts. This has really helped us to focus on the giving, instead of the receiving.

This weekend, we decided, as a family, to purchase a goat and two chickens for a family in third world country through World Vision International. When I explained that this gift, for someone else, would be in place of our usual large family gift, not one complaint was uttered. I was and am so proud! They immediately set about trying to decide what our gift would be. It was a close call between the goat- chicken combo and the stocked pond-fishing kit combo. We decided that next year will be the fishing gift, as it was over twice the price of the goat one, and we will make a poster of some kind to help us to focus and save for our next years gift.

There are two charities, that I know of, that have these kinds of gifts for people to give. There is Heifer Project International and World Vision International. I am so grateful for these two organizations who provide us with ways to love others from afar.

P.S. For loving those less fortunate, near by, we are working on a plan. More on that later.

Healing Art

This beautiful piece of artwork was drawn by Kandyce's second oldest, Gabe. It arrived rolled up and tied with a ribbon with all of my other handmade, healing gifts from this talented and thoughtful family. If you haven't figured it out yet, this is actually a cancer-eating dragon. I just think it's amazing. My mom framed it for me and we hung it right across from my bed so I can see it when I am recovering from chemo days.

There's more to this story: see the index card in the right hand, bottom corner? That's from Kandyce's dad's desk. He wrote inspirational sayings on scraps of paper and the family found them when he sadly passed away a few months ago. Kandyce was so generous to share one of his notes. It reads, "Courage is doing what you've got to do in the presence of fear." It just seemed right to frame these words with the dragon who is eating my cancer.

On the day my mom hung this picture, I had a Reiki session on the bed in that same room, right across from the picture. My Reiki Master came in and told me she had to leave her pager on because she is in Seminary and is working at the VA. I had no idea. Halfway into my session, she told me she felt like I was not going to have cancer one day and that I have an angel here with me helping. Mr. Bell (Kandyce's dad--I always called him Mr. Bell), was a very religious man who helped anyone he met. I knew right away he was there with me in the room and letting my Reiki Master sense him too. I wish I had a picture to post of my angel--you'd see that, like the fiery dragon, Mr. Bell did not look like someone you'd want to mess with (picture: ex-football player)!

I wanted to write this post to pay tribute to a great father we all loved who is still watching over us today. I also wanted to show how important art is. Children's art is so honest and bold and can really make the best healing gifts. If you have an ailing friend, artwork made in your home may prove to be very special and powerful to that person.

Shoulder Cozy

I'm so glad Kandyce shared the wonderful gifts she and her family made for me. It was such an amazing, uplifting, and touching care package to get. And yes, I cried at each and every handmade gift in the box because Kandyce pinned little sweet notes notes to everything. One gift she didn't have a chance to take a picture of is this warm and adorable shoulder cozy:

Here's the angle from the back:

I'm going to let Kandie explain how she made this cozy herself. I love it. It keeps me warm without making me feel overheated or trapped under too many layers--it's pretty much become part of my chemotherapy day uniform. I get lots of compliments on the cozy and I think it's helping my healing. I like to feel Kandyce close by while I envision my tumors in my liver shrinking and the healthy liver regenerating.

I am feeling great these days and don't have any liver pain at all. My labs show that elevated liver function numbers have gone down after only two doses of chemo and my liver has shrunk--it was very enlarged from extensive tumor growth. We feel the love, support, and prayers of all of our friends and family--and even strangers I should add--are helping tremendously and we feel happy and lucky every day to live this wonderful life we have.

I am on a break from chemo right now to get my blood counts up (they look good and I should be back on track with my full doses by Halloween morning). During normal chemo weeks, I have very little energy and I take advantage of any moment I feel good to play or even just sit with my growing little boy while he has a snack, so I may not post as regularly as I would like to. Kandyce is becoming an amazing crafter/sewer and she's holding down the fort for both of us. I plan on sharing updates and other handmade gifts I have received that have really touched my heart as often as I can.

Here's to old friends and healing handmade gifts from the heart!

Cancer

I hope you all know what it is to have a friend who you have known over half your life. I hope you know what it is to have friend who knows you better than anyone else, even your husband. I hope you know what it is to have a friend whom you are so close to she has dreams about your fourth child before he's born and accurately "see" that this little one will be blond and blue eyed, despite the first three being dark with dark eyes and you both laugh at her dream because it's just soooo funny.

I really hope that everyone in this world has what Kelly has been to me these 23 (can that be right!!) years. And I hope you never have to know what it is to have this precious friend to be so sick that you have to face the wisp of a possibility of your life without this friend. That is where we are. Facing and fighting Cancer. So very far away, I feel so helpless. I imagine this is a little like what Kelly must have felt when my Dad died earlier this year. Wanting so much to be there and be supportive. Feeling like your place is right next to her on the couch providing the shoulder to lean on. But, I have come to accept that is not where I belong and rather, this is my role in this journey. I am ready to go at the drop of a hat, but until I am needed this is where I stay and I offer up all I can and pray like there is no tomorrow.

The kids and I put together a gift box to send to Kel in Kentucky. I asked the boys, if they were sick what would make them feel better. Three agreed that they would like a pillow. So their collaborative effort resulted in this...

pretty cute.

Jo and Li Li designed their pictures on paper and then I cut out each little, itty bitty, teeny weeny, small, tiny (you get the picture) piece, pinned it to felt, cut out little, itty bitty,

teeny weeny, small, tiny (okay, okay) pieces in felt and appliqued them to the pillow. Li Li (6) designed the turtle and Jo (9) the butterfly and the rose. Pooh bear (8) stuffed and sewed the pillow.

KT made Kelly a necklace.

Gabe (11) drew her a "Cancer Eating" Dragon (that I forgot to take a pic of, oops) and I made Kel a shoulder cozy. There were also some books and other goodies. We loved making things for our dear friend though they were just small symbols of the love we are truly sending her.

So, in this month of Breast Cancer Awareness with pink ribbons everywhere you turn, please use them to remember to say some prayers for Kelly and her family and everyone else fighting this disease. If you are blessed enough to be near your dearest friend, give them a big hug. Take care of yourself and your loved ones.

And live.

P.S. Here is a link to an incredible dance choreographed for the Choreographer's friend fighting breast cancer.