IHOP Girl: Thanksgiving '05

Monday, November 28, 2005

Thanksgiving '05

Hey all!

First, I must comment on my comments which are outrageously funny. Keep up the good work. Oh, P.S., SFL you are a slacker! It has been almost a month and you still have not sent me any rocking pictures...shame, shame, shame...

As far as my life it continues to be a whirlwind of activity. For Thanksgiving I had almost a week of lovely (still far too short) vacation with the Grandparents. It was so fun, getting to relax a bit...well, if you call tearing up a cement sidewalk, digging post holes, placing poles, and mixing and pouring cement relaxing. Yes, I managed to get a little dirty - scratch that - a little dusty this week, but it was great fun. You see my grandfather is putting in a fence for their dogs, and I got to help him so he didn't have to do anything heavy. The first post hole we filled with cement was a learning experience, as we had not bothered to see which way the wind was blowing. This left me pouring an eighty pound bag of cement while Boppa sprayed water in the hole, the whole time a huge cloud of dust got into every area of my skin. I couldn't breath leaning over the dust to pour the cement, and when we were finished I thought that I'd cemented the inside of my lungs, but it turned out alright, and a shower washed it off. The second post was much better, and I can proudly say that the posts look great. The second job was to break the sidewalk, and load it into the tractor bed. It only took three trips to get all the broken cement and the pile of dirt, and we dumped it down the hill were all the water from the driveway drains. All in all it was a new experience that was tons of fun, and it let me burn off all those calories from Thanksgiving! Anyway, I'm back to the grind, and have so much to do before finals which are coming in two weeks!!! Yikes!

I hope that was a good enough posting I'll try to keep up better, but until then I expect to see lots of comments!! :-)

1 comment:

Jess said...: jessica jessica jessica jessica!!!! how are you my dear?! how is the end of your semester going? just think, you're almost done with this one and then you have one more and then you can come home and do re-enacting!!!!!!!!! oh yes, and you can go visit with poor old sfl and his shriveled cronies (the ones he's threatening me with). and WOT and DOT too (wasn't that aud's nickname?) well i miss you dear and i hope you are doing well. stay healthy and happy!!! much love!! :) :) :); 1:20 PM

Movie Night In...I love a good movie!

Mega Mind
Taking Chance (Will make you cry like a baby)
Charlotte Grey (A bit of a different take on Nazi Germany)
Series - Merlin (I LOVE BBC)
Robin Hood (Okay, a love Russell Crowe, you'll have to understand that about me...)
Kingdom of Heaven (Chuck full of acting power with an epic tale)
Miss Potter (Such a great film! Story of the creator of Peter Rabbit)
How to Train your Dragon (Possibly my favorite animated movie ever...I'm like a little kid, I watch it over and over)
Buck (Sundance winner, Biography of Horse Trainer, heart touching)
Lost in Austin (Modern day spin on Pride and Prej.)

Life as a nurse...

Great words by Reb Jeff: Vayishlach: Facing Death

"Rachel died. She was buried on the road to Ephrat — now called Bethlehem. Jacob set up a pillar above her grave. It is the pillar at Rachel’s grave to this day."–Genesis 35:19-20

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vidui http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva_(Judaism), and preparing the notifications to the community, feel like little fragments of the sacred. I have been entrusted with the care and tending of the most powerful, complex and difficult emotions that a person can experience in life. I have been made, in some small part, a guardian of the memory of a departed soul — a life that touches upon many other lives.After dropping off my older daughter at her high school this morning, I made a stop at Treasure Coast Hospice http://www.tchospice.org/, a remarkable organization that sets a very high standard for the loving and respectful care of the dying. There, I visited a lovely man whom I have seen a few times in his hospice room. I sat by his bedside and listened to him (in full possession of his faculties) as he told me about his worries about his family, the support of his wife after he is gone, and the future of his children and grandchildren. I was deeply moved by the way he put any concern for himself — even while facing death — in a distant backseat to his concerns for his family. When my own time comes, I can only hope to have his awareness of the way that one life can touch so many others.Also at hospice, I visited a woman I have known for the past two years — a dear soul who is a former Jewish religious school director. I sat with her, too, singing psalms to her as I listened to her heavy and labored breathing. I have no medical training, but I have come to know the sound of a person who is close to death. The body begins to fight for each breath as it slowly looses it grasp on life. As I held her hand and sang, I realized that being a rabbi is no protection against becoming one of the people caught in the web of connection. I, too, am changed by the loss of a life that has touched mine.Later in the day, I met with a couple from our congregation. She had just learned that her brother died yesterday in a car crash. Coming to terms with the loss is made more difficult for her by the fact that she and her brother had not seen each other or spoken in five years. Sometimes, people think it is easier to mourn the death of someone who has moved out of your life. In my experience, though, it's harder. Grief is magnified by wounded love and regret. I have no magic words to say to ease the pain of mourning. All I can do is listen, become a vessel in which people place their stories, and offer compassion.Actually, there is one more thing I can do. I can have faith that "all I can do" is all that I need to do. It is enough.In this week's Torah portion (Vayishlach) Jacob watched Rachel, the love of his life, die in childbirth. He was overcome by grief. Jacob had worked for his cruel uncle Laban for fourteen years to earn the right to marry Rachel. Now she was gone. Because she died while they were traveling, Jacob had to bury her by the side of the road. He built a pillar of stones on the spot to mark the place as sacred.This is what we all do, in one way or another, when death enters our lives. We grieve and our hearts break. We wish that we could continue to walk along the path of life with our loved ones forever, but the dead cannot fully join us. We have to leave something behind in order to resume our own journey. So, what do we do? We mark the moment as sacred. We erect monuments — both in cemeteries and in our hearts. The stones we place on top of stones remind us that a life may end, but its sanctity is forever.The Torah says that the monument Jacob built for his beloved continues to stand until this day. A life that touches the lives of others never ceases to send living reverberations throughout the web that binds us all.