When Life Gives You Lemons
We are in 4 years of fighting for my daughter's disability case and it makes me nauseous. She has improved immensely from the time a neurologist thought she would be a vegetable, but she is still not ready to live on her own. The hours and efforts spent getting things together with her attorney are maddening and probably have a front-row seat in my stress auditorium.
My work week had been trying too, going from one room saving a mom and baby from a rapid-fire abruption type labor, to the solemn room down the hall of loss. Cheering one family on, while crying with the other. I wished there would have been a Superman phone booth in the hallway that I could have twirled myself in. Not changing my clothes, but my emotions as I moved briskly room to room. That shift left me emotionally and physically spent.
Hoping for a reprieve, at the end of the week, we had helped a person by inviting them to an activity with our family. Unfortunately this person is not stable on his meds yet and so we have had quite a time trying to assist him with the difficult disease of schizophrenia.
I thought I could handle anything and had seen it all with this individual, until I heard my daughter tell me that while in line at a buffet, he had made fun of my other daughter's posture. This daughter has kyphosis and scoliosis and does not deliberately have bad posture. Beyond that I am scared to death that she might have a cardiac defect. She has had some high blood pressures and an occasional murmur. She has an appointment at Children's Heart Center in May. I do not know why this was the last straw to my week, but it was. The daughter with the "bad back" had already forgiven our family friend because she said, "At least he apologized mom, and he didn't realize what he was saying because his meds are not right yet. I feel really bad for him. Over the years so many people have teased me about my back and skinny body and they haven't even apologized." She was fine, but I wasn't. All my fear and trepidation for this child rose up and spilled over into a flood of tears that leaked on and off for 2 days. I even woke up with my cheeks wet one night-I had been crying in my sleep. I wished her back was straight. I hoped her heart was OK. I wished my other daughter hadn't contracted a disease that changed her cognition and ability to care for herself. I wish I lived in a country that cared for their weak and sickly citizens a little better than they did for their rich and powerful citizens. I wished our family friend felt better too. He tried hard, but lacked insight into some of his thoughts and actions.
After such a "sucky" week!( Yes, there is that word again), I found myself wandering the aisles of Walmart as we were out of everything but ramen and dog food . I didn't feel like shopping and sometimes the florescent lighting at Wally-world triggered my migraines. Putting on my special glasses, I felt like just getting back in the car. I remembered a terrible commercial from when I was a kid with the actor Lorne Greene. I think he was trying to convince the audience that ALPO dog food was such a high-quality product, in a pinch, humans could consume it.
"Maybe I should just throw some ALPO in with the ramen", I chuckled to myself. "Lorne would approve and I wouldn't have to shop." Haltingly, I buckled down and hit the fruit aisle. "Well, I have to at least get some vitamin C to go with the ALPO ramen", I surmised. I was thrilled to see they had my favorite blood-red oranges. As I put one pack in my cart something whispered, "Grab another, someone else might like those too". I whirled by the lemons and thought about getting a few. Earlier in the week, my daughter with the back trouble had said, " Remember when we had fresh lemons from someone's tree in Vegas? They were so good! We need to do that again. In fact someday we need to plant a lemon tree". I agreed with her that that really was the best lemonade. My phone rang and as I answered it, I forgot to buy her the lemons.
Later at home, unloading my groceries, I was disappointed to find I had forgotten the lemons. Grabbing the 2 bags of oranges, though, I saw my neighbor in his garage. He was a kindly older gentleman from the Philippines. I said, "Hey, would you like some Kara-Kara oranges? They are delicious?"
"Oh, yes! " he said and excitedly took them into his hands.
While I was still unloading groceries, he came out with something for me.
"Would you like some lemons? They are from my sister's tree in California so they are exceptionally tasty".
I took them into my hands and said, "Oh, yes! " Through my misty eyes, I said my daughter had just been wishing for fresh lemons that week from someone's tree. In fact, she even wants a lemon tree! "
"She does?" he said. "Well, I have one for her. It also from my sister. I can't plant it yet because I don't have a sprinkler system. My wife thought I was crazy bringing it back now. Maybe it's for your daughter".
As my new friend, myself and my daughters were hauling the lemon tree across the rocks into our back yard, we all decided maybe this daughter should wish for more things..."Like maybe a million dollars?" she laughed. As I stood in the backyard with my new friend, and my two perfect daughters, all admiring our new lemon "coincidence" tree, my leaky eyes dried up. I said, "We don't need a million dollars, God gave us everything we need. Let's go make some lemonade !"
Addendum:
We used the lemons from "John" and tried two different recipes.
Here, this view might help too.
Don't worry, we took John and his wife Evie the good lemon cake. The sour cream in it makes it taste almost like cheese cake. It IS delicious. The light version tastes like someone forgot a few key ingredients and it kinda tastes like play-dough(yes, I ate some in grade school).
We saved one for us, too. We told them they had changed the course of our whole week with their kindness! So glad to have good neighbors.
My work week had been trying too, going from one room saving a mom and baby from a rapid-fire abruption type labor, to the solemn room down the hall of loss. Cheering one family on, while crying with the other. I wished there would have been a Superman phone booth in the hallway that I could have twirled myself in. Not changing my clothes, but my emotions as I moved briskly room to room. That shift left me emotionally and physically spent.
Hoping for a reprieve, at the end of the week, we had helped a person by inviting them to an activity with our family. Unfortunately this person is not stable on his meds yet and so we have had quite a time trying to assist him with the difficult disease of schizophrenia.
I thought I could handle anything and had seen it all with this individual, until I heard my daughter tell me that while in line at a buffet, he had made fun of my other daughter's posture. This daughter has kyphosis and scoliosis and does not deliberately have bad posture. Beyond that I am scared to death that she might have a cardiac defect. She has had some high blood pressures and an occasional murmur. She has an appointment at Children's Heart Center in May. I do not know why this was the last straw to my week, but it was. The daughter with the "bad back" had already forgiven our family friend because she said, "At least he apologized mom, and he didn't realize what he was saying because his meds are not right yet. I feel really bad for him. Over the years so many people have teased me about my back and skinny body and they haven't even apologized." She was fine, but I wasn't. All my fear and trepidation for this child rose up and spilled over into a flood of tears that leaked on and off for 2 days. I even woke up with my cheeks wet one night-I had been crying in my sleep. I wished her back was straight. I hoped her heart was OK. I wished my other daughter hadn't contracted a disease that changed her cognition and ability to care for herself. I wish I lived in a country that cared for their weak and sickly citizens a little better than they did for their rich and powerful citizens. I wished our family friend felt better too. He tried hard, but lacked insight into some of his thoughts and actions.
After such a "sucky" week!( Yes, there is that word again), I found myself wandering the aisles of Walmart as we were out of everything but ramen and dog food . I didn't feel like shopping and sometimes the florescent lighting at Wally-world triggered my migraines. Putting on my special glasses, I felt like just getting back in the car. I remembered a terrible commercial from when I was a kid with the actor Lorne Greene. I think he was trying to convince the audience that ALPO dog food was such a high-quality product, in a pinch, humans could consume it.
Later at home, unloading my groceries, I was disappointed to find I had forgotten the lemons. Grabbing the 2 bags of oranges, though, I saw my neighbor in his garage. He was a kindly older gentleman from the Philippines. I said, "Hey, would you like some Kara-Kara oranges? They are delicious?"
"Oh, yes! " he said and excitedly took them into his hands.
While I was still unloading groceries, he came out with something for me.
"Would you like some lemons? They are from my sister's tree in California so they are exceptionally tasty".
I took them into my hands and said, "Oh, yes! " Through my misty eyes, I said my daughter had just been wishing for fresh lemons that week from someone's tree. In fact, she even wants a lemon tree! "
"She does?" he said. "Well, I have one for her. It also from my sister. I can't plant it yet because I don't have a sprinkler system. My wife thought I was crazy bringing it back now. Maybe it's for your daughter".
As my new friend, myself and my daughters were hauling the lemon tree across the rocks into our back yard, we all decided maybe this daughter should wish for more things..."Like maybe a million dollars?" she laughed. As I stood in the backyard with my new friend, and my two perfect daughters, all admiring our new lemon "coincidence" tree, my leaky eyes dried up. I said, "We don't need a million dollars, God gave us everything we need. Let's go make some lemonade !"
We used the lemons from "John" and tried two different recipes.
The Best Lemon Loaf (Better-Than-Starbucks Copycat) - Averie Cooks
https://www.averiecooks.com/best-lemon-loaf-better-starbucks-copycat/
Healthy Lemon Cake - Better Than Starbucks!
https://chocolatecoveredkatie.com/2015/03/.../starbucks-lemon-cake-healt...
You visited this page on 4/27/18.tried https://chocolatecoveredkatie.com/2015/03/.../starbucks-lemon-cake-healt...
Guess which one is the healthy version and which one is the unhealthy but tasty version?
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