I always love the Bible Reading from Genesis 17:17 - 18:15. It is the story of a miracle. The miracle of birth in old age. I was not old when my first child was born, just 28 years of age and it was a miracle for me for sure. Having already miscarried once, having this second chance was so sweet. She was beautiful with her bright blue eyes and blond hair and looked exactly like her father as she lifted her eyebrows and looked at me. What a treat. Having miscarried a second time when she was only two years of age, I had planned to return to school when she settled into school (was already marking for the professor for whom I would work and do my masters). However, Mother Nature surprised me once again with a baby this time at 36 years of age and I was thrilled once again to hold that little treasure in my arms. She too had blue eyes and had a strong look of her father with his very pale skin. Another treasure for the family. That was so very long ago now as I reach towards 78.5 years of age. Much has happened in the years since. I think what is most in my mind, is the twelve years here that I worked in either the medical school/the hospital/health canada but always close to the medical field, is just how important in life medicine is. There are millions of people in Ontario who do not have a family doctor. That is so sad. Although doctors do not generally become your friends they do relate to you on the basis of a friend/close cohort person who looks after your needs (albeit for money (we all have to eat and care for our families) but also for the love of medicine) and these people are special especially family doctors. Family medicine is by far the best of all the specialties. For my husband his friendship with his cousin here was important and when his cousin wrote to him shortly after the birth of his first grandchild to share the news Edward was in the process of asking his many second cousins to test their atDNA for him so he asked him as well although he wasn't a second cousin (perhaps third not sure) but it just seemed to extend that family feeling he told me. (Actually I agreed with him very much on that as one of my many reasons for testing my next older brother was he never had any children and I said he was doing his bit for the family with putting his DNA into a database.) Sadly Edward did not hear from Gordon Riddle after that and life was very busy with traveling (and Edward got hundreds of emails into his account every week and I guess it passed his mind at the time). Plus six cousins had tested for him and he was busy sorting all of that material and proving his lines; something he so enjoyed doing. It was six years later before we heard that his cousin had sadly died in a biking accident. Edward did rather mourn him I remember and grieved for a while after hearing that news.
Today is the second cleaning day and then that week's work is accomplished. Went for groceries yesterday and discovered that the grocery store was closed for Family Day - never noticed that before actually. All I really needed was milk and bread and the drug store was open fortunately otherwise it would have been milk powder for my breakfast cereal. I could just shop once a month as I buy mostly frozen stuff so that lasts me an entire month. I mostly eat fish or chicken and both freeze very well. Plus I freeze tofu in chunks which make a great dinner. Roast the cubes in the oven (after shaking them up in oil and corn starch) and cook up long grain brown rice and add peas to that at the end. Cook up some frozen broccoli on the side. Mix the rice and peas with the roasted tofu and it is delicious. Never had it before like that but it is one of my staples now and I could easily eat that three times a week or more but I do lack imagination in food for myself. I used to cook so many different things before I went back to work. Then Edward took over the cooking and he discovered he loved doing that so I let him. I just helped.
Finished a new series (for me) on Netflix "Alien Worlds" and it was excellent. I found it quite interesting. I was so excited by Sputnik in 1957 (12 years old) that I really just wanted to go into space too when I was older. That stayed around for quite a while as my first thought but the qualifications to be an astronaut eliminated me right away with my poor eyesight when I was in my early teens; it was a good thought though and I have paid attention to everything to do with space ever since. I suppose of all my dreams that was the one that stayed with me for the longest time and every show that has space in it captures that vitality of childhood which would have sent me into space!
Not much done yesterday in terms of working on the Pencombe book. Slow going with the Inquisition Postmortem and I spent some extra time on my Latin lessons on Duolingo. I am really finding this a great way to learn a language. Probably no work today as this is the large cleaning day soon to begin; just finishing off my tea.
Latin completed and I am becoming much more familiar with the speaking than I was my last time through in the summer. I needed the quiet time of winter and not the busy time of fall cleanup to really get into this work. It is like being a student once again but then I think we are always students. There is always something to learn in every day and a day is lost when there is no learning.
God in your wisdom look down upon us and help us to be better citizens of the world. To not be so selfish. To be good citizens of the planet.
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