Dreaming of Spring Gardening in the Middle of a Wisconsin winter part 2

[ShrekDawg]

Hello

 

[Callender Girl]

I wasn't feeling judgement, Lisa. I'm a pretty lazy chicken keeper myself and am more than a little peeved that the girls are requiring so much time and energy this year. Oh, and expense -- let's not forget the monetary cost. At this rate, they all need to step up egg production like crazy!!

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Hello

How are you doing?

 

[ShrekDawg]

How are you doing?

Okay lol you!?

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Okay lol you!?

My mother in law is going into hospice. That's sad.

 

[ShrekDawg]

My mother in law is going into hospice. That's sad.

Awwwwww I’m so sorry!

 

[Callender Girl]

Lisa, sad news about your mother-in-law. I was going to write something completely different this morning, but now my intended topic seems a bit flippant. Four years ago, my Jim was in a hospice facility.

I don't want to sound (too) weird, but I read a lot about the end of life and NDE's (near-death experiences). Julie McFadden's "Nothing to Fear: Demystifying Death to Live More Fully" is written by a former trauma nurse who switched directions and went into hospice nursing. In hospitals, McFadden wrote, the goal is generally to keep the patient alive, regardless of what measures have to be taken -- often pointless measures that cause extreme pain and prolonged suffering.

McFadden believes hospice is more natural, less intrusive, less traumatic and less painful for patients. Some people, she wrote, go into hospice and recover enough to come out; then may go back in again, but it's a choice made by them or their family, based on what they want and feel is best.

Jim, who had some Winnebago heritage, believed in the Lakota version of an afterlife, where a person can find peace. I have always been intrigued by Native culture. I just finished one of William Kent Krueger's novels. He is one of my favorite authors because he weaves real-life places along the North Shore of Lake Superior into his mystery-crime books as well as a lot of Ojibwe culture and language.

In "Heaven's Keep," an old medicine society member explains to a young mixed blood boy: "Some people think death is like a hungry wolf and they are afraid of it. I think death is just walkin' through a door and we go on livin' on the other side, livin' better. Livin' in the true way, just waitin' for those we love to join us there ... you shouldn't be afraid. We all walk through the door one day."

I wish the best for your mother-in-law and your entire family.