Moxley Musings

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Moxley Musings

Wednesday, November 9, 2011 GeographyWhere to start? Frankly, I have no idea. I sometimes feel like I'm living my life under a microscope with bright white light causing all the imperfections and cracks to show. Other times, I'm definitely slogging through a dense gray fog. Not knowing where I'm going or if I'm actually going anywhere. That's a disturbing thought. I like to think I'm always moving forward, but the truth is, I feel right now like I'm treading water. Just trying to keep my nose above the waves. I don't feel particularly successful, unfortunately.

I need to go back a bit. I got smacked between the eyes repeatedly around the end of August/first of September. Most of the time I think I'm doing ok, but sometimes, I'm pretty sure I'm not. Four things happened in quick succession and I think that is why it is so hard to recover my equilibrium. Now, I know these things are not equal at all, and some don't even deserve mention, but, in my mind, they are part and parcel of each other and the entire milieu.

So, in no particular order, the challenges of the last few months. My boss at the church, Danny, came in one day and told me, in confidence, that he was being reassigned as of Nov. 1. He had been unhappy for some time, feeling that the church was not willing to move, to grow, or to minister to people outside themselves. He was tired and psychologically drained in my opinion. He took a 30 day sabbatic leave and I was surprised when he came back rejuvenated and ready to take on the tasks of ministry. It took less than two weeks for the shine to fade and the plodding to replace it again. It was sad. So, it was good news for him that he was being moved, but that meant that the man I had worked with for almost 4 years was going in a little over a month. I would get a new boss. Not a pleasant prospect as I kinda knew Danny's moods and we communicated well. Besides, I couldn't talk about it with anyone until after the announcement was made public. So everything at work shifted.

Then, my mama died on Sept. 7. She had not been feeling well for a couple of weeks before her death. We had talked on Friday the 26th and she was feeling under the weather, but she attributed it to the heat. I told her she should call Dr. Mercer and get in to see him before the weekend. She said she'd think about it. Then we talked again on Saturday and she said she hadn't called the doctor and that she felt a little better even though she had gastro issues. Since she was a diabetic, her digestive system was a little sensitive, so this was not unusual. Again, I suggested she call the doctor but she wouldn't. When we talked on Sunday evening she said she was sick, but she said that she had moved some furniture in and out and the heat had gotten to her. I insisted that she call the doc on Monday morning. She said she might. When we talked on Monday she said that her gastro issues were worse, but Amelia was sick, too, so Mama had decided that she and Amelia had eaten something that was bad. The problem was that Mama's issues preceded Amelia's issues. I called Amelia at that point and told her that Mama needed to go to the doctor. She agreed and Tuesday morning they went to see Dr. Mercer. He gave them a VIP ticket to the ER at which point she was admitted with gall bladder infection.

That started the daily pilgrimage from west Fort Worth to Garland and the hospital for me. I'd work, see clients, teach class, and go to Garland. My sister stayed with my mom in the hospital. That's what she does. I went every day, often leaving the hospital around midnight for the long trek back home. I made two trips on the Saturday, having gone over in the morning and staying until around 10 that night. I had driven to Hurst when I got a call from Amelia telling me that Mama wanted to see everybody to say goodbye. By this time Mama had had an aborted laparoscopic cholecystectomy due to heart irregularities and was in ICU with a dying gallbladder, an erratic blood pressure, fluctuating blood sugar, pneumonia developing, and kidneys that never really recovered from anesthesia. When Mama was coming out of anesthesia, she told us that she was dying. Amelia panicked, understandably so, but Mama was doing pretty well at that point and a lot of it was the anesthesia talking. I was pretty sure that Mama wasn't dying that day anyway. She'd decided that she would as soon as she heard it was gallbladder as that's what killed my daddy on her birthday in 2007. Even though the two cases were completely different.

When I got the call from Amelia, all I knew for sure was that I couldn't drive back to Garland on my own. I was exhausted beyond measure. I honestly don't know how I would have made all those trips in the middle of the night after working all day if God had not protected me. Anyway, I talked to my kids and Katy volunteered to drive Andy and I back to Garland that night. I think she had had a couple of hours of sleep, so that was a good thing. We went back to Garland and met Jennifer and Mike at the hospital and we had the ICU parade. It was rough. I was walking through water, just putting one foot in front of the other. Maybe exhaustion was a blessing.

I got home at around 6 in the morning, texted to cancel my clients for the day, and fell into bed. I got a call saying they were putting Mama into a regular room which was encouraging. They also wanted to put in a PIC line so they could deliver meds directly to her heart if necessary. I agreed that it was a good idea so in went the PIC. I went back to the hospital after noon and stayed until around 11 and drove back home. Labor Day I met with my supervisees and then went back to the hospital. By this time her pneumonia was well established and we knew that Mama's kidneys were not coming back from the anesthesia and, as a result, she would have to be put on dialysis. She had made her wishes very well known that she never wanted to go through dialysis, so we met with the hospice people to try to figure that part out. They had Mama on a feeding tube and she'd been on morphine for the pain since surgery. She didn't ever come out of the morphine fog, so I was glad that she got a chance to say goodbye to the kids in the ICU parade when she was clearer.

Tuesday I went to work in the morning and then went to the hospital at around noon. I had already called DBU to cancel my class for the evening. When I got to the hospital, Mama was pretty much out of it. The harpist, Mary, had been there earlier in the day and had left her harp sitting by the wall. Amelia and I ate lunch and talked, held Mama's hand and talked with visitors. Mama's hand was held almost the entire time by someone. That was good, too. Then, it was just a matter of waiting. I began timing her breaths as they were slowing down. Mary came and played. It was lovely. Lots of people came and went. Frankly, I don't remember who. The fog was thick.

They had removed all of the tubes except the morphine drip, so the machines were quieted. Everybody left at around 11. Amelia went to get us a cup of tea and I sat down and found out that I could play the harp. What a surprise! Amelia came back into the room and I was playing Amazing Grace. An easy song but somehow appropriate. The pneumonia made her breathing noisy and I was still counting. We had our tea and I counted. We pulled out the sleeper and bundled up and I counted. Amelia pulled up a chair and footstool next to the bed and held Mama's hand and I counted. Amelia fell sound asleep and I counted. I counted until 2:52 when there was nothing left to count.

Amelia ran. I stayed. I didn't blame her. She was done. She'd done everything she could and all she wanted was to get away. All I wanted was to stay. So I did. The nurses were great. They took care of everything and I stayed. I played the harp and I stayed. When the funeral director came and we had talked, then I could go.

David came to the hospital and picked us up. We went to IHOP and had breakfast. There was something disconcerting about the cheeriness of IHOP early in the morning and where we were in our lives at the moment. We went back to Amelia's house and I slept for a couple of hours with the dogs in my lap, then David took me back to my car and I went home to get some sleep. We were to meet with the funeral director that afternoon to arrange the funeral for two days hence on Friday which brings me to the next thing that happened to me.

I had been home for 4 hours sleeping. I got up, showered and dressed and started out the door to go to plan the funeral when I opened the door to a woman standing on my porch. She asked if I was me and, when I confirmed it, she served me with a lawsuit! Talk about timing. One of the debts that had been Michael's in the divorce and that had come back on me when he declared bankruptcy and on which I had been paying as agreed all this time had decided that they would send it to collections and they filed a suit. I had 30 days to respond, so it went into my purse to resurface a week or so later.

We got through the funeral even though I don't remember most of it. I do remember that I drove by myself to the cemetery. That was sad. I was hoping to spend a little time with Amelia to try to decompress a little, but she had a bunch of people coming to her house, so it wasn't convenient.

I went to Starbucks, had a cup of coffee, and sat in a parking lot, in the shade of a tree, and slept for two hours. Then I drove myself back to Fort Worth. I had driven just over 1,000 miles in a week.

The next couple of weeks included multiple trips to Mama's apartment to try to find insurance papers (there were none much to our collective surprise) and to figure out what to do with all her stuff...including all that china. I hate china. I really do. I didn't used to hate china, but I've wrapped and packed and stacked and unpacked and hauled china way too many times. I like paper or plastic or bags or almost anything else. Just not china.

Some of the furniture came to my house, some to others, the piano went to Katy's house as Brayden plays and wanted to teach Ben and Caleb to play, so that is a good thing. I had furniture, boxes, bags, piles, and stacks of Mama's stuff all over my living room and dining room when my fourth thing showed up.

On Thursday, Sept. 29, the Thursday after we finished clearing out Mama's apartment, I was still surrounded by furniture, boxers, bags, piles, and stacks. It was the first night for a new class I was teaching for BHCarroll. I went into my office to get my laptop at around 3:00 and it was missing. Katy came by and we looked and looked and couldn't find the laptop. We were looking in unlikely places when I walked into my bedroom and found a burned out cigarette on my dresser. No one smokes in my house....EVER. I realized that someone had been in my house. They had taken my laptop. They had been in my house. They had smoked in my house. I lost it. I completely freaked out. I think I scared Katy. I scared myself. I broke into a thousand pieces.

Katy was amazing. She took charge. She sat me in a chair and put Caleb in my arms. She is so smart. Holding a baby is therapeutic. I called the police and Dell. I had no phone numbers for my new students and I had to stay at the house to meet the police, so Katy went to Agape and met my class, gave them books, and told them I'd see them the next week.

I sat and held Caleb. He's great in a crisis. He's calm. He's happy. He's cuddly. What more could you ask? The police came and we did the report. Danny came by on his way to meet with PSPR to tell them of his reassignment. Katy came back and chased Ben, and I sat and held Caleb.

My laptop had over 10 years worth of data on it, including notes for my dissertation, my proposal, a half-finished cookbook I've been putting together for a couple of years, pictures, lots of stuff. It is the violation of my space and the theft of my ideas that bothers me. God was not surprised, though. About a year ago I got a wild notion and bought my mom a laptop so she could have email, primarily. The laptop came back to me when she died, so I have a laptop to replace the one stolen. It is sort of like a used car. Not exactly new, not exactly what I would buy for myself if I were buying new, but the price is right. That and I have to recreate a ton of documents.

Speaking of the dissertation, I'm stuck. I can't seem to get any momentum going. I try and I lose ground. I don't know what I'm going to do about that.

I found a lawyer, paid him all the bucks I had and he did an arrangement with the debt people. I'll continue to pay them and they will not exercise the judgement against me. This is when I had the word 'unfair' in my vocabulary.

My students have asked me how I'm doing with Mama's death. I look back over the past couple of months and it is amazing. Nobody loves you like your Mama. Nobody but her ever said I was easy to love. I miss her, don't get me wrong. I think of her daily. Sometimes it feels like she is very close and sometimes she is so far away. There have been a lot of ups and downs, mostly downs. But where Mama is concerned, she is still around. Not physically, but emotionally. Where Mama is concerned, it is just a matter of geography.Posted byShirleyat6:46 AMNo comments: Wednesday, August 10, 2011 Sitting here wondering....I've been away from blogging for a while now....over 2 years. I don't know that I'm really a blogger. I do have thoughts, but they rarely make it onto paper. Sadly, I have these wonderful thoughts, and they are there for a minute, and I say to myself, "I need to remember this," and they are gone. Ideas for the dissertation do that. Ideas for recipes do that. Grocery lists do that. I always intend to remember. What's that saying about good intentions? Anyway, I thought it was time to write something again.

I recently reconnected with a friend through LinkedIn. I knew Mike years ago in the 1990s. He was married to Karen and he and I worked for the same company. He was ADD, chasing the corporate star, and sometimes a bit of a jerk. I liked him well enough, but he was, in many ways, a kid. I always had the impression he wanted to appear deeper and more grounded than he really was. In a way it was kinda sad....and irritating. My, how things have changed. Since we parted company through the dissolution of the company we worked for, he found out how to be the man God wanted him to be all along. He went to seminary, back when Southwestern was one of the best around, got his MA in religious education, and went into ministry. He told me when we reconnected that his wife was diagnosed with colon cancer 2 days after she graduated from nursing school. She died 2 years later in 2008. He blogged about going through the valley of her cancer and beyond. I've been reading his blog this morning. In his blog, I can hear the difference between the kid he was when I knew him and the man he became. Amazing. I know Mike's not perfect. None of us are, but when I read his words, not the preachy ones that are ministry extensions, but the words of the man and the husband and the surviving spouse, I hear the depth and the breadth, and the height that he has found in God. He's the kind of man a woman wants in her life. I'm so glad Karen got to have that man in her life. And, I'm glad his wife, Cindy, has him in hers.

As a counselor, I've often heard people talk about losses, death, and separation. As a Christian, I know that God is always there, He's always strong, and He always cares. I don't know how those who don't know God make it. I couldn't. Neither could Mike.
slmPosted byShirleyat10:51 AMNo comments: Monday, November 2, 2009 Things that make you say "Huh..."I have contended for some time now that there are just things in the world that make you go "Huh..." or, in the alternative, "Huh???" In the latter category are things like the braille instructions on drive-up ATMs. It seems to me that if you need braille instructions you shouldn't be driving up to the ATM. These things do not go together.

Maybe it is just me, but I don't get sagging pants. As I understand it, the whole sagging saga began in the prisons where belts were prohibited, supposedly to cut down on suicide attempts or the use of said accessories as weapons. Then, in the early 1990s some hip-hop folks decided that this was a fashion statement of some sort and we're off to the races. Have you looked at underwear lately? With the possible exception of Victoria's Secret, most underwear is not the most attractive clothing to look at. Let's face it. Men's underwear is not a fashion accessory. Even if you go with a plaid or print, it STILL looks like underwear and underwear, by definition, should be UNDER something....not outside!

I have now had two occasions to see the silly side of sagging. Saturday I was getting in my car to go to the grocery when a young African American male was walking across my parking lot and between my apartment building and the next. I noticed that he was hitching at his belt which, by the way, most saggers do wear. As he walked along, his pants started descending his body without his permission. His boxers, a black watch plaid, were fully exposed as were his rather skinny thighs. I watched him continue to walk along trying to regain his clothing and his dignity. Primarily the former as I don't think he knew he was being observed. Clearly he did not have a callipygian rear, or at least not one sufficient to keep his pants on. Of course, if his pants had been positioned north of the rear they would have probably stayed all day without incident.

Again, I just don't get it.Posted byShirleyat8:32 AM1 comment: Thursday, November 20, 2008 Leaf blowers versus the windI honestly do not understand the point of leaf blowers. It is autumn here in Fort Worth and, while we have a lot of live oak trees that are not really oak trees since they keep their leaves until the spring and the new baby leaves push the old tired leaves off the stem, we do have falling leaves. Now, I get that people don't want a lot of dead leaves all over their yards, and I get that lots of leaves, when wet, get slippery, and I get that a fall of leaves does not look like an immaculate lawn, but I don't get leaf blowers. I was driving on campus the other day and saw no less than three blue shirts (the guys in the maintenance department at the seminary) using gas-powered leaf blowers to blow the leaves off the sidewalk to the street, from the lawn to the sidewalk, and from the street to the lawn. Do they not understand that they are working at cross-purposes? Haven't they figured out that while the wind is blowing they will not be successful in ridding the campus of leaves? Does anybody understand that leaf blowers and the wind are not working together? Furthermore, they are PAYING people to stand around using gas, making noise, and engaging in a totally useless endeavor. I just don't understand!Posted byShirleyat5:30 PMNo comments: Sunday, October 26, 2008 Driving Miss Daisy or is it Miss Sherrell?A few weeks ago my mother and I took a little road trip to Atlanta, Georgia. I went to attend the NAPCE conference, and she went along as my spouse (at least for registration purposes). I wasn't sure how this would all work since my mother is not a professional educator and I had never been to one of these conferences and was not sure what to expect.


We left on Wednesday afternoon at the height of rush hour. This was not the plan, but as we all know, plans are really just suggestions on how we want things to go. It was a rainy day with a full quota of dumb drivers out there. Luckily for me, I got to encounter most of them in my trek from far west Fort Worth to far east Garland. Oh, the joy! When I got to Mama's house and we got her car loaded, she informed me that one of her windshield wipers could not be run on high or the blade would disengage and go flying off. I thought this might be problematic, but what could I do? We took off in what I thought was the right direction only to find that we had the wrong road and we had to turn back to LBJ to get to the right road. As it turned out, we were only 1/2 mile from the correct road, but we didn't know that, so we went about 10 miles out of our way. Finally, after much discussion, we found the proper highway and were off! By this time it was close to 6:00 and we started thinking and talking about dinner.

We seem to talk a lot about food in our family. I think it may be because that is one of the best ways we communicate with each other. It has always been this way, and it probably always will be. At any rate, we tooled on down the road and eventually found dinner in the form of a drive-thru. We decided not to stop because we wanted to get as far as we could toward Atlanta before we stopped for the night. This, as it turned out, was an excellent choice because not long after crossing the Louisiana border and having left the semi-suburban areas of Shreveport and Boosier City, we found ourselves on a stretch of highway that we would come to know very well as the highway was shut down for over an hour as the Louisiana State Troopers cleared the road. We were stuck between a van in the front, an 18-wheeler on the right, the woods on the left, and an anxious to go 18-wheeler in our trunk. Well, he wasn't exactly in our trunk, but I think he wanted to be. He sat on our bumper for most of the time we were parked with the car off on the highway waiting for our chance to move a few inches toward Atlanta. The kicker was that after we did get to move after the accident was cleared all the 18-wheelers were driving like bats out of torment trying to make up their lost time. I finally just let them have the road.

We pressed on through the night until I finally gave it up at about 3:30 a.m. I had to get horizontal or I thought I would die. We wound up at the Econolodge in Forest, Mississippi. Honestly, I had no idea where we were. We were just on an endless highway going east and I knew that at the end of that highway was Atlanta. Funny how everything gets down to basics the more tired you get. Anyway, I did think to ask where we were and the clerk behind the glass said we were in Forest. I coulnd't help but think of Forrest Gump. In fact, she looked a little like Forrest Gump! And, yes, it was a cheap hotel where the night clerk looks like Forrest Gump and communicates from behind a glass panel with a little space underneath it where the credit card gets passed through to pay for your room. At least she didn't ask how many hours we wanted the room for. The idea was reinforced, however, when I got in the car and Mama asked how much the room was. I don't recall exactly how much it was, but she made the comment that we need to sleep fast since we were paying $X an hour for the room. I've never been to a "by the hour" hotel, but I guess that might be part of the mentality. At any rate, the room was OK, not the Taj Mahal, but OK for Forest, Mississippi. At 3:30 in the morning, you aren't too picky.

We got up and made it into Atlanta the next day with few difficulties. I did have my first experience buying WiFi at a Starbucks when I realized that none of my papers had a map to the hotel. $3.99 per hour wasn't bad for an emergency, but it is highway robbery any other time.

We got to the hotel a little after 2 and made our way to our room which was VERY nice! We decided to take a little rest before the newcomers reception at 5. We got up and dressed and went downstairs to discover ourselves at the end of the buffet line for dinner. We had neglected to change our watches and we were an hour late! Luckily, we didn't miss much and made it for dinner. Since most meals were included in our registration fee, I didn't want to miss one and have to pay for a meal on top of everything else. Dinner was fine, and the first plenary session followed immediately. Dr. Burns was a good speaker, but sitting for 2.5 hours in a banquet room chair after being on the road for 16 hours does not make for happy people. I was very glad when they released us and we could go back to our room to bed.

All in all the conference was a good one. We heard some good speakers, heard some bad ones, and learned something, so it was not a total loss. On our way back, we stopped to meet Mama's friend, Norma, for lunch in Pell City, Alabama.

Norma is one of those timeless people. She found a time and place where she fit and she just brings it along with her. She still drives a large silver Cadillac, wears basically the same type of clothes, does her hair the same, her makeup the same, and the conversation is the same. She is not in a rut, just timeless. I sat there in a Chinese restaurant in a strip mall and watched my mother and her best friend talking. I wondered who they were when they met, who they thought they were, and how both have changed over the years. They both led lives with many interesting twists and turns and have stayed together through it all. The story would be an interesting one, but better left for another day.

I guess that life is like a trip, come to think of it. We are always going somewhere, but sometimes we don't know where. People join us for a while and then leave on their own paths. Some people come in and stay for the whole trip, but they are few and far between. If we get one or two really good friends that will travel the road with us, we are blessed. I'm glad my mother and I took this trip. We are blessed by one another.Posted byShirleyat3:37 PMNo comments: Thursday, October 2, 2008 Suicidal SquirrelsI have noticed over the last couple of days that we have a significant number of suicidal squirrels in the Fort Worth area. Yesterday morning as I drove down Highway 10 on my way to work a fall-crazed squirrel ran out in front of my car. I have no idea why he or she ran in front of my car. There were plenty of trees on the north side of the road and nothing but a galvanizing plant and a defunct pawn shop on the south side. It doesn't seem to me that the squirrel was running to anything, so I must assume that it was running from something. Maybe it was running from life? That would explain the suicide attempt. Yes, you will note that I said attempt. It did not succeed, at least my car did not become a suicide weapon. I swerved and missed the little dude, but it was close.

Later in the day I was driving to the counseling center at SWBTS and two more squirrels tried to end it all by forcing me to squish them with my car. Again, fortune prevailed and I'm not responsible for the deaths of two Texas squirrels. Finally, when I arrived at Shady Oaks to see a client last night another squirrel ran out into the street and sat in the space in which I was trying to park my car. At that point I must admit that I wasn't too concerned about maintaining that squirrelly little life, but I did not wind up doing him in. Now, Shady Oaks is completely surrounded by oak trees and there is an abundance of acorns all over the place, so it is reasonable that we would have an increased squirrel population.

Speaking of the squirrel population, I mentioned the suicidal squirrels to Dianne at the counseling center and she made a good point. She said that yesterday she was walking across campus and noticed a huge number of squirrels on the lawns and in the trees, ostensibly gathering pecans and acorns for the winter. She wondered how the squirrel population gets thinned out because she said she has never seen a squirrel that has died of old age and fallen out of its tree. Lots of other things and people have fallen out of their trees, either figuratively or literally, here at SWBTS, but not so much with the squirrels. We concluded that the squirrels, when they've just had all they can stand, just run out into the road and commit suicide. You do see them as road kill pretty often.

Now, I don't really know what to make of this, but I believe that my sister has fulfilled her quota and probably mine for road kill, so I'm going to try to preserve the lives of these furry little creatures who appear to be in desperate need of counseling. I don't speak squirrel, but at least I can avoid getting squirrel fur on the grill of my car.....at least I hope so.Posted byShirleyat4:31 PMNo comments: Monday, September 29, 2008 My baby's baby

Ben Najera is four months old! Hard to believe, but, at the same time, easy to believe. Time has been flying since Ben and Katy left my house at the end of June. It's kind of hard because for the first four weeks of his life, Ben was in my home. I heard him cry, changed his diapers, washed and folded his tiny clothes, rocked him, sang to him, talked to him, slept with him, and held him. In so many ways he felt like my own. True, I didn't feed him and I was always very clear that he belonged to Katy, but the feeling was there. It has been a long time since I held him. Sometimes my arms ache for the weight of him....
Katy is a great mom. I must admit that there were times in the last few years that I despaired of her ever really growing up, but truth be told, she has done well. She has stood up and become an adult! She is very caring and gentle, but she can also be firm. She does what is best for Ben...always. That's what a good mom does.
I love this picture. Ben looks happy. He sees his mama and he is happy. That is all I could wish for. Katy, Brayden, and Ben will be here for a short time in a few weeks. I told Katy I needed lots of grandma time. I know that Ben won't remember me, but I will always remember him in my mind, in my heart, and in my arms.
Just like I remember his mama in my mind, in my heart, and in my arms. Posted byShirleyat2:24 PM1 comment: Older PostsHomeSubscribe to:Posts (Atom)Blog Archive 2011(2) November(1)Geography August(1) 2009(1) November(1) 2008(6) November(1) October(2) September(3)About MeShirleyI'm a PhD student at B.H. Carroll Theological Institute. I have three wonderful kids, four fabulous grandkids, an amazing mother, an unbelievable sister, and great friends.View my complete profile

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