Encouragement-Bent Over

Summer, new schools, new homes, hopeful holidays and what is in store?

I bent over this week, yes, to take a macro shot. I shook some, ok lots, but I bent over. I was sitting in a chair but not for all shots.

So, why is this so important that it be written about?
A number of years ago I was bedridden, bedridden for nearly 3 years.

As a very active mother of one, musician and music biz geek and most of all a work-out-aholic who swam about 2 miles a day and lived for racquetball, this was the beginning of a journey, one of hell on earth.

After 6 breast biopsies and one lumpectomy that fateful year (all benign,) I couldn't face it, nor deal with it and would go on stage or to my beloved racquetball court even with my bandages on. In spite of my band's or doctor's efforts to slow me down, nothing was going to stop me. As stubborn as they come.  Before I knew it my body stopped. I couldn't move without becoming dizzy, tired beyond comprehension and my body started to turn on me. I kept pushing and it kept pushing back. Many weeks in the hospital with all kinds of things starting to happen to my once very fit body, it was almost metamorphic. I will spare you the gory details but will relay that I took a laptop with me to the hospital so I could keep going.

After all my obligations we fulfilled I left the band only to create a business to help others with the connections we had gathered. That was the beginning of a new era for me. I kept getting sicker and kept working harder.
I was afraid, so very afraid to amount to nothing. I had been chasing my future for so long. With this fear and refusal to rest it only created more illness.

Finally becoming too ill to even read the contracts that I had once helped my attorney write! and poof.. that was it, I became a blob of jello.. my sentences were incoherent, my doctors told my husband to make arrangements. I was so very frustrated. My short term memory was less than a few minutes.
I would tell guests of a BBQ to make sure and hang their dishes up on the clothesline. (We didn't even have a clothesline.)

THEN---

Then were two super hero children! I was honored to by my dear friends Harmony and Josh, 2 of my favorite children, who have had many challenges of their own. Both of these amazing children have Cystic Fibrosis..we spent many a night in the hospital. (Both are in their 20s now Praise God! CF used to claim children around 7-8yrs old.) They wouldn't give up on me..cleaning buckets and wiping my drool.

Harmony looked into my eyes and said...shell, I see you, you are still alive, your soul is there..I see it in your eyes, I love you.
Ohhh dear Lord I get goosebumbs remembering.

One of my first.

Then my husband, who married me in my fog (we rescheduled a number of times and my daughter nearly carried me up the aisle.) had to drive 4hours a day so I could live where I had health insurance..cooked, cleaned, ohh that is a whole book unto itself.. He got me a camera and said..."shell, show me what you see!" Mind you I wasn't communicating very well, and walking had become nearly impossible. He took me all over the US and Canada , pouring me into the car lol and kept saying "You are alive, show me what you see!" My love and NEED for photography had begun...I couldn't talk, but my photographs could, for me.

Encouragement---believing in me..

Then on my 40th birthday. My husband took me to the Grand Canyon and I watched the sunrise. It was an amazing spiritual experience. My life was changed. I rekindled my relationship with God, who for so long I had been angry with. I started to get some health back. With that came the realization that I will never be able to go back to work, well the way I had worked before and racquetball is nowhere in my near future. My client roster was 50 of some well known artists and it was so humbling to let it all go.

Since recovery started my husband and I started helping emergency needs children. We immediately ended up adopting the first ones..and we are looking for more as these ones graduate and move on. I don't run any marathons, nor will I ever be the music mogul like David Geffen.. I am nowhere near what I thought I would be, but I am in a better place than I could ever have imagined.

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We live on a house on the hill with acres of land and beauty, have 7 wonderful children, a husband who for the love of God still loves me LOL We have a lovely horse named Smoke'm, cute dog named Bear and damn it..

I bent over and took a picture of a flower.

90% of all of my photos are taken from the sitting position. I have hopes that that will change!

• Don't quit!

• Live life today as if there is no tomorrow!

• Rest is very important!

• Encourage one another!

• Self Pity will get us nowhere

• Help a Stranger

• Tell your friends and family that you love them

• Have FUN! Enjoy every moment!

You are not dead, your soul is alive--show us what you see!!