“One thing can be to another
It doesn’t take any sacrifice
Oh, Father and Mother
And sister and brother
If it feels nice
Don’t think twice
Just shower the people you love with love
Show them the way that you feel
Things are gonna work out fine
If you only will
Do as I say
Shower the people you love with love
Show them the way that you feel
Things are gonna be much better
If you only will…” James Taylor
I am struggling a bit with this blog post. Usually, the posts are written as a free flow of reflections on Betty and my uplifting experiences throughout our marvelous travel adventures. The title and excerpt from a James Taylor song point to a fabulous evening we shared with our sons and daughters this week. For sure it is the highlight of this post, but there are other events that crowd my mind and try to focus me in a different direction. I could/ should choose to share the great, uplifting part, and ignore the rest. We might have to read to the end of this post to see which way I went. Lol
Last year (Sept. 2021 post), Betty & I had a family experience for the first time in decades. We forever love getting together with our adult children, their partners, and our grandchildren. With 12 to 14 people around the dinner table, there are always a variety of lively conversations as we catch up on everyone’s lives. But the dynamics are significantly different from our earlier daily meals with our four growing children. Those formative years created unique memories – good, bad, and otherwise – that can be shared again with the benefit of age, and hopefully gained maturity and wisdom. With 20-20 hindsight, we can now laugh at the seemingly earth-changing dramatic experiences we all lived through. And as our kids have kids, we can now see who is a chip off the old block. Or to put it another way: “What goes around, comes around.” Lol
I won’t go into detail about our reminisces, but suffice to say it was a calming, centering, peaceable experience to shower the people we love with love, and show them the way that we feel. Truly uplifting for all of us!
Ok, that could be the end of a short post, but I would be remiss not to mention the recent, kind help from two fellow campers. We have had motorhome slide-out issues for almost a year now. A mobile RV repair guy in Nanaimo, BC spent much of last winter trying to fix our living-room slide problem, to no avail. I had been told in Twin Falls, Idaho that we needed a new slide controller, and had purchased one. A mobile RV repair guy in Winnipeg examined the slide controller connections – a real spaghetti mess of wiring in a very awkward location– and we lost control of our two bedroom slides.
Thankfully, Gordie and Jeff were patient enough to trace all of the many wiring connections, and get our bedroom slides operating again. We still have an issue with our living room slide, but their time and effort was much appreciated!
So I’m not going to go into the depth of my distracted mind, but a follow-up with the oncologist last week suggested that the surgery in June may not have removed all of the cancer. Scar tissue from the operation caused a blockage from my bladder, and after removal of the obstruction I am now back to wearing a foley catheter. He is scheduling further tests for this week to see if the cancer may have spread into my bones, and is setting me up for hormone therapy, known as Androgen Deprivation Therapy, for the next few years, or indefinitely…
Betty & I are still hoping to travel to Arizona next month for the winter, but our plans keep getting clouded in uncertainty. We can only take life as it comes, knowing that we rest in the palms of God’s hands, and remembering the inspiring words of James Taylor: “Shower the people you love with love. Show them the way that you feel. Things are gonna be much better If you only will…”
Cheers!