Jaci Dawn

I have debated what to write for my next blog post. 2022 has brought about quite a few changes in my heart and my goals, and it has caused me to consider where I want to go with this rambling blog of mine.

I do want to touch on genealogy here and there. Family stories and family tree findings. I will be migrating all of my art related posts to this blog as I am shutting down my “professional” (ha!) website for my artwork and promising myself to do most of my marketing on Facebook and Instagram from here on – but only the finished images. Here is a place for me to write about how I got to the finished image so I can remember the process and keep it public in hopes that it will inspire some other faltering artist. I also want to record things that go on in my life between gardening (we are headed into that season again) and those I love (especially the subsequent generations).

I did go in and delete certain pages as I feel they no longer apply to the ME in 2022. No little bios of my children who I was still homeschooling when I started the blog. The oldest has moved on to become a homeschooling mom (reluctantly) of four children. I understand the “reluctantly” as I felt like my own time during the homeschooling years was just putting off my own dreams and plans for the future. But I also felt (as she does) that my children were more important than any feeble plans I had. I think I did pretty well.

The second child died at the age of 34. I’m still grieving. I am involved with a group Bible study called “GriefShare” and it is helping some. I did decide that any advice I would pass on to another grieving parent would be this: don’t listen to anyone who offers you a “Christian platitude”, e.g. “God had a better plan..” I stop short of advising anyone from slapping said Sister or Brother in the face with the Bible, but only out of a better conscience. I would slap them. My husband and I are wading through our grief and I share with my daughter-in-love and daughter often. I have resources that many bereaved parents and spouses do not have. I am grateful, but I still hurt deeply.

The third child… Well. I know many adult friends who suffered some sort of trauma at the hands of their own parents, and many of those friends are adoptees. I listen. I read. I respect her distance and her decision to cut us out of her life: her younger siblings, my husband and I, our children, and so many other relatives. I can’t pretend I understand, but it isn’t about my understanding, is it? It’s about her perception of her childhood, the trauma of losing both of her parents, and choosing to live with people who were very different from the mother she loved. It has been four years… or five? – since I last saw her in person or actually spoke to her. Her choice, not mine. I grieve the loss of that relationship but I am finding it easier to let go of because I know she is well, I know she contacts some of her old friends and some relatives, and I know that it was her choice, not mine.

I could follow that rabbit hole into a dissemination of my own childhood and my neglectful parents, but I also know how much I was loved by those people. They weren’t perfect but they would have laid their lives down for me or for either of my siblings – or the countless other young people they helped along the way. I was raised by some incredible human beings with large flaws and larger hearts.

2022 has been a muddle of health concerns. I realized early on that I could no longer push a grocery cart the length of our local Fred Meyers (Kroger on steroids). Every muscle hurt and my breath came up short. I started walking to an app that measures my steps and how far I have walked. I figured I was simply out of shape due to the past two years of Covid., grief, and Covid. And I developed a DVT (blood clot) in my left lag.

I think that would have been enough, but the sonogram specialist freaked and I ended up waiting 4.5 hours in the emergency department of the local hospital only to be told to “go home”. The ECG they took showed an anomaly and they recommended I see a cardiologist and have an echo cardiogram. My primary also freaked and asked my to NOT continue with my exercise regimen. “Light” work only and “strolling” only.

Two weeks later, the cardiologist dispelled any of that. He wants me to pursue my walking itinerary to the point of “not being able to sing, but being able to talk”. He changed my blood pressure meds. He took ‘Heart Disease’ off the table. I still have the DVT, but I am – once again – free to push my physical body to the limit (which isn’t much: I’m up to a whole 2/3’s of a mile in a single walk). But I feel better about the potential prognosis. And I’ve gotten a LOT of gardening done as it is the first week of April and I am plant crazy.

This Saturday is “Garden Palooza” back for the first time since 2018. I will spend money buying perennials. Wednesday is the stress test on a tread mill. I will see how that goes. Right now, I am hoping for the Dx of “you’re just out of shape” and “nothing wrong with your heart”. I have a rock wall to build. I’ve been planning this particular wall for two years.

I also have several “pop up” art shows to attend for the summer. I need to hawk my wares. I want the exposure. I will be blogging about those more in the upcoming days. Art is at the heart of my soul.