Painstaking Summer

As many of you know this summer has been very difficult. It has been one full of sadness, as well as one that is very busy.
In May, my grandmother passed away from Alzheimer's. I wrapped up my semester at Georgetown. Greg graduated from Georgetown and his and my families were in town. Mia participated in a cancer drug study, in which her tumor waxed and weened a bit but in the end the drug did not help. The vet told us trying Chemo would most likely kill her anyhow, so we decided to give her a few more months at home with us. We took her on her last road-trip to Birmingham, AL to see my sister-in-law. She loved it, although the trip was very difficult for her. Greg and I also decided to start working out regularly at this point. We purchased the Wii Fit and began weighing ourselves daily and watching more closely what we were eating.
During this time I was working on getting a contract job and also decided to write a Thesis for my final semester at Georgetown. I know what you are thinking--this woman is crazy.
June began with us traveling back to Washington, DC and spending time here with Mia. Taking daily walks and playing ball. We left the final weekend for a trip to Houston to see some dear friends of mine from Baylor and Washington, DC get married. We also got to stay with my ZTA sister Katie and see several friends.
In July, we traveled to LA for another wedding, this was the furthest West I have ever been. We enjoyed the beauty of the mountains and ocean side by side. Then I came home and traveled to New Orleans for the ZTA convention and when I landed there got a call from Greg that his grandfather had passed. I tried my best to enjoy the time I had in New Orleans--and came home a little earlier than expected from my trip.
This was yet another hard thing for us to face, as it had been two years since we had last seen his grandfather. This funeral took us on another trip, to Canada. His kind face and demeanor will be missed as well as his laugh. It was nice to meet a lot of Greg's family (many of which I had never expected to meet). Since we had visited Grand Falls, NB last summer, it was nice to go back.
When we returned Mia was having a difficult time breathing. She was having a hard time sleeping because the lymph-nodes in her throat had grown to the point they were keeping her from breathing. Earlier this week we had to put her to sleep. That was the hardest decision I have had to make as an adult.


Mia was such a part of our lives. She was always happy and loving, and all she wanted to was to play ball. Everyone loved her. She will be missed.
To say this summer has been hard would be an understatement. Grief has overcome me, and my body is barely hanging on right now.

Memories of Meme

For those who do not know I was named for my Grandmother, Mildred Jane Franklin Cates--or Meme as she was known to her friends. My mother loved her mother so much she gave me her name--although it is spelled a different way.Above is a photo of my grandmother and grandfather shortly after they were married, when they visited my grandfather's brother and his wife in Washington, DC. You can see the Washington Monument behind them. Two weeks ago my grandmother died after battling Alzheimer's for more than six years. Those six years have changed my perspective on life immensely. For six years she was there, but missed all of what was going on around her.

I am very thankful to God for the time I got to know her and the love she shared with me. I am very blessed I knew her before her memories began to fade, and she could stand on her own two feet. She taught me to love nature, animals (especially Cocker Spaniels) and people great and small.
Thanks for your love Grandma Meme. Rest in Peace.

Love survives the darkness

This past week I celebrated 5 years since G and I got engaged in Palm Beach, Florida. Our engagement date was March 18, 2005. That is when I received my beautiful engagement ring. I do admit that over the past couple of years I have forgotten about what a surprise it was when G pulled out the ring and asked me to marry him. This weekend that all became real to me again when I almost lost my ring's center diamond.


I was at my friend Samantha's Bachelorette weekend in Delray Beach, Pembroke Pines and Miami Beach, Florida. I was having a great time with her LA friends who now live in NYC and DC and the Florida Palm Beach County contingent. We went to dinner and then out to a club on Saturday night. At one point in the night I was dancing with the group, twisting around and jumping up and down and I realized that the diamond had fallen out.

I was in a club. It was dark and loud and the last thing I wanted was for Samantha to get upset or feel like her party was ruined. I tried really hard not to over-react, but all I could think about was how much I love G and what that ring means.

Pictures swirled through my head of our first kiss, our times in DC when we were first dating, Greg in his Safety patrol T-shirt out at a nice dinner, our trips from Waco to West Palm Beach and driving all-over Florida and Texas together, all the things that lead up to our engagement. At that moment my emotion was as great as when I first received the ring. I remembered the beauty of love and commitment.

Love is not about material possessions, and I know the center diamond could have been replaced, but I love Greg so much and that ring gains more value as our relationship matures beyond the expectations I ever had for it. In those few moments in the club the surprise and joy of that commitment was reborn through a river of emotion.

The other women in the group helped me to figure out when my diamond fell off by piecing together digital photos with time stamps from the evening. One of the women found a bouncer with a flashlight and a broom. After about 35 minutes of looking we located that diamond in a dark room. I am beyond thankful for their help!

The darkness seemed significant too. With all the things G and I have been through together in the past 6 years, knowing each other, joy and love can still be found in the darkness.

Coping with future loss

This week has been tough. I have learned that a lot of loved one's deaths and illnesses I have never dealt with. Sadly what brought this about was when I found out my dog, Mia has cancer.
She does not look like she has cancer except for the ugly sore on her lip.

Mia and I have been friends for her entire life. I met her a few weeks after she was born. She was a sweet rolly polly Cocker Spaniel with her eyes barely opened. She had a family then, her mother Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (Macy for short) was licking her face. She was so cute rolling around in the puppy pen with her sisters and brothers. I could not resist.

My grandfather, George Truett Cates was still alive then in the beginning stages of Parkinson's. My grandmother still raised Cocker Spaniels that were shown all over the world and they still lived on their 60 acre farm outside of Austin. Mia was granddad's favorite of the puppies and so he decided after she was about a year old she needed to come home with my family and I. My parents were not entirely excited about having another dog right away (our previous Cocker Spaniel, Poppy, had died the summer before) but they let Mia come home with us.

When I went off to college about two years later. At that point my granddad has passed and my mother and father knew Mia would be spending most of her time with them during the next few years. Mia would come up periodically and stay with what remained of her family at the Ranch with Grandma and I would visit her from school. Since I was in Waco, the Ranch was half way between school and home.

That was even short lived. During my sophomore year of college I went to visit my grandmother and see how she was--at this point she had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's and the disease was taking a hold of her. She could no longer care for her dogs so sadly my mother and her siblings had to find new homes for Mia's brothers and sisters and the 100 so other dogs that lived on the Ranch.

That might help you understand the events that underskirt my sadness in the past few weeks. Mia in a lot of ways is all I have of those childhood memories of puppies at the Ranch, of my grandmother before the disease made her angry and mean and unable to communicate.

I'm named for my grandmother--as a child we were always really close. Now she does not know who I am or who most people are that were close to her. Mia and I are really close. She is my confidant and friend. I'm her closest one except for when the ball's around.

Mia's been to the vet a lot recently. She has the tumor on her lip and in her lymphnodes, but she seems fine to me. The vet said she will most likely be happy until her body can not take it anymore and then she'll go downhill fast. Then I'll have to make a really difficult situation.

Anyhow I know this is really sad, but it helps me deal with stuff.

Stuck in a Hole

Getting stuck is a hole is not fun. Perhaps if I were Alice falling down a rabbit hole I would have more to say for myself. My recent hole situation just made me feel and look stupid.
Two weeks ago on Thursday I got in my car and drove over to a nearby coffee shop. I was trying to meet one of my mentees, Heather for coffee before running to the grocery to pick a few items up before going to community group. This is when I got stuck in a hole.
With snow melting into ice along the streets from the recent snow storms navigating a parking space became more difficult. I was attempting to parallel park and backed into a hole filled with slush. My poor car could not get out. I was moving her backward and forward to no avail. She just remained stuck.
Somehow I got it in my mind that I could get out of the hole on my own. I then got out and attempted to push my car, which was in neutral out of the hole. People walked by and did not even notice the sticky situation I was in. Sadly this increased my frustrations. Finally I called Heather, and then a friend, Julie also called me and they came to my rescue. After 45 minutes working alone I now had help. We were able to free one of our tires on our own. With the driver's side rear free there were only inches to go to free the other rear tire.
To make matters even better, people began to stop and help us. I guess three young women trying to free a car is more noticeable than one.
The car was finally freed when three men, who wanted to get by me stopped and pushed the passenger side tire out of the hole.
Thank God for friends that are willing to help you when you get stuck in holes.

Hurricanes and Snow Storms

Grocery stores with empty shelves and getting to know your neighbors. That's what hurricanes and snow storms have in common.

During my first Florida hurricane in 2005 (Yaba-daba-Wilma) I learned what its like to be lacking in food on the grocery store shelves for a few weeks. Last week during snowpocolypse 2 and 3 I waited in line for milk for like two hours and there were empty shelves everywhere at the Soviet Safeway down the street. While I was in line at the grocery store I made friends with another woman who has an elderly woman's name as well. I struck up a conversation later that day with a group of girls walking down H Street who had waited for the bus for almost an hour and met all of the people who live on my street while they shoveled 90 percent of the snow off of our street.

I recalled the group of people from my Wellington Condo neighborhood that started a grilling party with steaks from their powerless freezers in the middle of the parking lot. I also remembered how they all worked together to saw apart pine trees that had fallen into roofs and cars and clear the community roads.

These similarities gave me a short sense of deja-vu.

This two hour wait in line reminded me of people waiting in line for gasoline for their generators. Oh the memories of a category five hurricane. Rather than below freezing temperatures there was ridiculous the humidity, and in place of the snow storm drifts there were piles of cars and trees pushed off to the side of parking lots. Snow melts folks!

While there are similarities, I'll be the first to take the milk line for snowpocolyse over Wilma, or Rita or Frances or Jeanne.

Weathering the Second Storm

So we are hanging out with Julie and Jared James during this crazy winter storm. They braved the storm to watch Lost with us last night and now they're stuck here. Too bad. We're having a great time playing Mario and board games, eating a lot and will be playing in the horizontal snow later. Although I say vertical in this video--I meant horizontal.