Mind Set Go

2024 was a year of healing.  That also suggests that there must have been some injury.  There was.  After a December ’23 fall in a hotel room, my husband required surgery in 2024 to help put a foot with multiple fractures back into the assemblance of a foot. (Note to self: turn on the light, and if you do fall, don’t let one knee hit the other foot.)  

Then, in September, while we were hiking and camping in the 100-mile wilderness in Maine on the AT, my husband stepped onto an extremely slippery rock near some falls.  All I could do was stand there and watch as his feet flew one way and he and his backpack went the other—slamming his right arm onto the sharp edge of another huge rock.   It was an unplanned landing which landed him at the ER for a quick reset of his upper arm (humerus) into his shoulder socket.  Ouch. 

As I carried his backpack part of the way out, along with my own, I started thinking about how, when I had cancer, he had done almost everything for me.  And now, after these injuries, I marvel at how I’ve never heard him complain once.  (Well, he did have a thing or two to say about the sort of pain that persisted for a while in the arm.)  You see, a couple of weeks after the fall at the waterfall, x-rays revealed that a chunk of bone had also broken off and that he’d require surgery to reattach that and to also have ligament and rotator cuff repair.  Now that that surgery is also done, PT is going swimmingly, pun intended.

Life has it’s ups and downs, and one never knows what is ahead.  But somehow what you need is provided.  You see, along our way out of the Appalachian Trail up there in Maine, a very fine couple with their grown daughter came along heading toward the falls.  They never made it there, to the falls, because they insisted on accompanying us back out along the side trail, carrying my husband’s backpack to where a very good friend of ours was driving in to give us a ride to the ER. 

I had borrowed our friend’s handheld 2-meter radio (I have one at home exactly like it that I had not brought along) that our friend had persuaded me to take since we were going to spend several days camping in a “wilderness” region.  I became a “ham” radio operator back in 1972, and I have always had the feeling that amateur radio, much more than a hobby, would come in real handy one day.  That day had come.  (I may rethink what’s important in our weight allowance on the trail.  We don’t carry a Mini-Garmin that so many hike with either.)  Anyway, the trail angels were there for us, and when you’re in need, sometimes people and things come your way.  “The trail provides,” as everyone says.

On another note, later in the year, I woke up and checked a local animal shelter’s website.  It’s something I do now and then maybe once or twice a year, going onto Petfinder.com, etc.  But this time, it was like it was meant to be, and I had, in my gut, a frantic urge to do so… at 4 a.m.  Admittedly weird.  I went to the local shelter’s site and immediately found the cat we had been hoping for for several years.  She happens to be a fat Calico—so fat that they thought she was pregnant.  Turned out—no.  Just fat.  They named her Prego, (I think they meant Preggo) but after I dropped off the application to get her, her name just came to me.  She is Pushka. 

Pushka translates to rifle in Russian, but in Polish it has to do with healing, nourishment and alms.  I just know that there was no choice of names even though I had never heard that name before.  It was like two bolts of lightning that very same day.  One, to check the shelter website, and the other, of what to name her.  Our cat has now been anointed Poppi Pushka.

We had been without a pet for some time… as we were travelling too much and our other pets had grown extremely old and had passed on.  However, when it is time to add some nourishment to your life, you know, and this was it!  I was amazed to discover later that day that someone else had already named a cat Pushka, a soldier who found a kitten roaming the streets in a war that has been going on for some time now.  That kitten stayed with the soldier and became a talisman for hope, healing and good luck.  So there was already a “famous” cat named Pushka?! 

There is so much unrest, unkindness, selfishness, and downright cruelty that exists.  We all want to be prepared and should be for God only knows what.  However, in a world where there is also so much worship, faith, love and nourishment, how can evil prevail when there is so much good?  When we’re not taking ourselves too seriously, we take ourselves, each other and this earth for granted – when what is truly natural is nature, literally and figuratively. 

Spend some time in nature to discover your own nature and the nature of this season.  Lick your candy cane if you want; but for us, we’re trading in candy canes for hiking poles.  We’ll be back on the trails again soon.  Hope to see you out there in 2025.  May your holiday be filled with friends, family, faith and love.  And may you, in the days, months and years to come, follow and restore your gut; open and welcome your heart’s pure nature; find tolerance, moderation and gratitude; meditate, worship and adore; remember, but find room to also forgive and forget.  God bless you and yours.