YESTERDAY’S EMAIL SENT TO MY DEAR FRIEND, MERLE

Dearest Merle (another beloved college friend, who has lived in San Diego since we were in our twenties)

I love the photo you emailed of your nearest and dearest taken on your birthday, (which will be complete when Scott and Stephanie drive down to celebrate Mother’s Day with all of you).

 Regardless of highly personal mistakes we ALL made during each of our young (inexperienced) parenting years, with our grasp of personal growth necessary to on-going character development, we both chose to embrace the humility to hold ourselves accountable for creating changes for the better, which is why our beloved sons and grandkids shower us with the abundance of love and respect, which, as aging adults, we need and crave as much, today, as our children had those needs when none of their parents had a clue that in the absence of mutual respect, love becomes a hollow vessel that springs so many leaks when remaining in disrepair as to require astute professional help to encourage each of us to work toward healing holes drilled into our hearts (during angry, insulting confrontations), until our hearts, serving as vessels meant to nourish each other, respectfully, never again fear hollowing out once ‘lasting love’ feels so fluid as to flow, naturally, back and forth, as we grow ever more mindful of the importance of developing a deeply connective sense of mutual trust, which proves to be a natural by-product of consciously setting a high value on self awareness so as to line each other’s hearts, minds and spirits with soothing layers of mutually respectful word choices each time a conflict erupts, which proves in need of calm, clear, logical decision making skills, passed forward in a gentle, kind and thus compassionate manner of speaking from parent to child—and then, as time passes and our children feel the need to parent us during our declining years, we find ourselves being spoon fed (and hopefully nurtured by) whatever we’d fed to them during their youth!  Why?  Because common sense tells us that classically, whatever goes around comes around ...

And as your family, likened to mine, has chosen to embrace the humility to value forgiveness of personal mistakes made in the past, let’s rejoice, together, over leaps of faith that we have taken, leaving defensive reactions behind in favor of choosing to discuss family conflicts (which surely arise in home after home) so calmly as to brainstorm collectively toward realistic solutions that respectfully consider everyone’s needs.

Hooray for working toward developing positive changes in your style of communication within your family!

And

Hooray for mine!

As to our friendship of over sixty years, my love and respect for the dynamic, kind hearted person you consciously choose to be has no bounds! And just as I’ve always treasured you, naturally, Merle, I’ve come to treasure your wonderful Mack, as well.

Please know full well that I’m planning to lick this tumor as one would lick a postage stamp and address this illness with such inner strength as to proactively send it flying into outer space so far away from my body as to never threaten to end my love of life prematurely by attacking my healthy cells, ever again!

🙋🏻‍♀️❤️❌⭕️☀️

PS today is my second Chemo treatment—four more to go before a second lung surgery will be scheduled, this summer, in AZ.  While being infused at Mayo on Tuesdays, I’ll continue to attend a weekly Shakespeare class on my iPad via zoom (with fourteen others, who tune in from various states throughout the USA, including our mutual friend of six decades, Michael S.).  And I really think you’d contribute to and fully enjoy our lively discussions as much as Michael and I do!  If you and or Mack are interested, I’ll send you the contact info necessary to participate in our up coming discussions of King Henry V. It’s amazing how much political intrigue has NOT changed for the better between 1421 and 2021.  I believe that sharing this lively, mentally stimulating weekly experience would be such fun to enjoy, together!

🙋🏻‍♀️😊❤️Annie