I got to visit with Jim tonight for about an hour. I wish I had more time! The time flew by, and I needed to leave.
For the first time, I visited with Jim in the common area instead of in his room. He's made lots of progress since yesterday. He's now working out how he can make the progress he needs to get out of the hospital. His mind was sharp and lucid. He had no shark attacks during our visit. I'm very pleased with the progress he's making.
He doesn't want to talk with anybody on the telephone. He's not happy speaking on the phone.
I'd love to take any messages any of you have for him in for him to read. Just post a comment, and I'll print it out and take it in to him.
Thanks for all your love, faith, and prayers in Jim's behalf. I know that they make a difference.
Carl
5 comments:
Carl --
Could you please print this and take it to Jim for me? It would be much appreciated.
Jim -
I love you and I miss you so much. I miss our visits and staying up until midnight because we're both ridiculous insomniacs. Will you please remember that my kids and I are counting on you to take us to where the snail fossils are when things thaw out in Snail Hollow. All the paleontologists at CEU are waiting on us.
Tonight we went to the Utah Friends of Paleontology meeting, and met with the UFOP bigwigs. You would love them, and they would love you. I think probably you have been places they would drool over. You could talk for hours. Don Burge is the guy who discovered my favorite little dino at the museum, the one I think is the puppy dog of dinosaurs, which is upstairs at the museum (gastonia burgei). I was so dumb and pronounced the name of his dino wrong right in front of him (it has his name smack dab in the middle of it and that was what I butchered)! What a chowder head am I! But then we spent an hour visiting and laughing together. He told us where to go to find some really cool fossils right behind the college here. Won't you come with us? The weather is warming, and we could go any time you're ready. Should we wait for you?
Also, Darrin is going to lose his job July 1, so we must cram in all of our adventures prior to that date. We'll have to move away by then, and it is rapidly approaching. Hurry and come home so we can begin our adventures with you, ok? We're counting on you, you know. Things are warming up down here at the Swell, and we have places to go and things to see, rocks to pick up and fossils to pilfer!
I love you so much. Please don't worry about me. The Lord and Darrin are taking care of me. I'm having therapy too, and all is well. We're all nutso, so who cares, anyway, right?
Come home soon. You're part of my constellation too.
Love,
Ruth
Hi Jim,
I'm very happy you're doing better and as always await your return. In the meantime, take your time, do what you need to do. That's always the best way.
Looks like we're stepping solidly into spring. I've begun working in the garden, trying to clean up our unruly yard, etc. The juncoes are gone and a different set of birds is moving in, bringing their change of song. Larks winter over in flocks around here, but now they're beginning to sing. Canadian geese bed down for the night in local fields. They forage in the mornings, wait for their body temperatures to warm up, then take to the air, forming strings of geese that knit in flight, shaping up their wobbly chevrons till all the wings get settled out. Of course, they honk the entire time.
Yesterday I walked out to my favorite cliff overhanging Crossfire. I was surprised to see how fast the creek is swelling behind the beaver dams--snowmelt, I suppose. Impressive ponds are beginning to form on what was once only a bit more than a trickle of a stream fed here and there by springs that tumble down from the cliffs. Typically, this creek dried up in the summer. The beavers, who have only been there for three years, are turning this formerly seasonal creek into a year-round enterprise. The local wild ducks are impressed.
On the way back, a dash of movement caught my eye. There's an old jackrabbit that lives right around there. I assume it's old because it doesn't seem to want to run unless it finds running absolutely necessary. I was pleased to find this critter had made its way through another winter. Anyway, this time it sat still for a while just 25 ft. or less away. We stood for several seconds regarding each other. That's the closest and longest look I've ever had at the front end of a jackrabbit. I'm always surprised at how big they are. When I turned to walk away, its nerve finally broke and it dashed off in opposite direction with that long-legged lope jackrabbits have.
The pastures are barely greening up beneath the morning frost, a few plants are beginning to bloom, like stork's bill. The flax in my flowerbed (and scattered around it--flax knows no bounds) is springing up fast. Soon I'll have a patch of lovely blue flowers bobbing in the spring winds. I like flax, both its color and its "Just watch me, I can grow anywhere" attitude.
This time of year, my kids start dreaming of hummingbirds. We begin looking forward to their return, and somehow that gets into my kids' dreams. "I dreamed last night that the hummingbirds had returned," they say, coming out of their bedrooms in the morning. When the first lone male shows up sitting on the clothesline that runs around our second story level back porch, my daughter will often exclaim, "That's what I dreamed!"
Or maybe my kids have become so tied into the hummingbirds that they can feel the birds begin to turn their thinking back toward this region and our feeders and associated clothesline. The black-chinned hummingbirds are the first to arrive. By the time the broadtail and rufus hummingbirds show up, the black-chins have been around for a long time. Every once in a while we get a strange bird at the feeders, the odd passersby on its way to somewhere else. Yellow and black Bullock's orioles horn in at the feeders, too, much to the hummingbirds' dismay. But what can they do? The orioles show no respect and make a big mess.
Spring is a gift, isn't it? Now that I'm older, somehow, it has become a gift that always surprises me when it arrives.
Be well, Jim--as well as you can. Spring's coming! It's a good season with many healing qualities.
Take care. I look forward to hearing from you again.
My very best,
Patricia
Jim-
Howdy from Texas! We hear ya'll got a lot of snow the past few days... Ya'll need to come down and thaw out! It's 80 degrees here today...
We didn't know you were in the hospital. Yet we felt prompted Saturday evening to fast for you. If our family's prayers have any affect at all on the great scheme of things please know that they are directed towards you and your continued well being. We love you, Jim. You are in our thoughts and prayers always. We know the Lord will bless you according to your faith and His plans for you. And we need you - more than we could ever say. Please be well and come back to us soon.
Love,
Bill, Youngshin, Ammon, and Elise
Thanks, all of you, for your comments. I've printed them out and will take them to him this afternoon. If his eyes aren't working well for reading them, I'll read them to him.
Carl
Jim, I love you and we pray for you every night. The girls are so looking forward to seeing you this summer.
XOXO
Sarah
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