If big feelings are my superpower, to-do lists are too!

Just a little something my Gram’s nursing home made for her! She’s the cutest!

I want to write a quick update. I did see Gram today and gave her the news of my trip. She was very stoic with the news. She said “I know you feel you need to do this.” I told her that I was going to make sure she would be taken care of. She said “I don’t know why I have lived this long, but I don’t think I will be alive when you get back.” I couldn’t help but laugh at her because she has been promising this for ten years. She is still so hearty. She read the Wikipedia page on South Sudan very closely. I believe she approves of this location more than Myanmar. I asked her if it was alright if Nikki became her healthcare power of attorney, and in her gentle quiet way she responded, “That’ll be fine.” So now we just have to make it official.

Gram methodically reading all about South Sudan!

How Gram and I communicate now with her hearing loss! It works!

We talked more about missing one another and I cried like I do. If you know me well at all, you know I have big feelings. It is one of my superpowers but also kicks me in the butt. She cried with me. I asked her if she missed my grandfather- it has been 11 years now since he passed. She responded, “Oh yes, very much. He was a VERY special person!” And oh readers, he was! There is no one like him. He charmed everyone he met! He was an avid gardener and I remember as a child going into his backyard and feeling like I was the character in The Secret Garden. Everything was blooming and you could pick figs and apples off the trees! His hydrangeas were his pride and joy and every house I have owned I have planted hydrangeas. Nikki named our two at our first house together (Heidi and Lacey short for hydrangea and lace hydrangea, which was one of the varieties). At my new house, there were already loads of them, but a dear friend, Shannon gave me a potted hydrangea when she worked as a florist and would have some of the misfits for free. I planted it in our yard and it is already three times the size in the year it has been in the ground! I am not the gardener that my grandfather was, but I do try. If you have kept up with the blog, you will remember the task my Gram gave Nik and me last spring to buy each other surprise bulbs and individually plant them in pots and gift them to each other, then wait to see what blooms. They did not all survive but we transplanted the ones that did. Nikki will see them this spring while I am away.

My new friend Janet, a nurse midwife who went to South Sudan for MSF twice!

I cannot believe that a week ago I had my interview for the mission and now I am packing! On Monday I was told that I was signed up for a 3 week “train the trainer” online course that meets several times live. It is Brussels time, so I have to wake up at 4:30 am for the 11am start time. I don’t mind because it makes it more and more real!

A packing list from Janet! So grateful!

I am very lucky that an old colleague that I worked with at the Durham County Health Department set me up with a woman who has been to South Sudan twice with MSF. She and I met this morning for breakfast and she gave me packing tips and gifted me a game she brought to all of her missions with MSF. I will treasure it! Nikki and I are game people, so I am glad to have a new one to bring. She started in MSF at age 53, which makes me feel so much better to start at age 38! I was afraid I would be the oldest one there! I am so very excited.

More notes from Janet!

The game Janet gave me that she has brought to all her MSF missions!

I think that is all my updates for today- again, I plan to be better at updating this blog from now on, so please feel free to share it with whomever you think will be interested. It also helps with my manuscript I am still working on about my gram’s love letters and my love letters. Unfortunately, book writing is now a business and I have to prove I have a readership so a publishing company will risk investing in me. Every click on my blog counts as readership, so everytime you come to my site, you are helping my literal dreams come true! So thank you my friends! I love you all, near and far, old friends and new!