Closing Out 2024

As 2024 comes to a close, and Christmas cards flood the mailbox, I find myself looking forward to new beginnings, just like everyone else.  For several years when Rory & Ian were young, I would type up a New Year letter, print it on festive paper, stuff it into envelopes and spend a small fortune sending them out to family and friends.  I wish I’d have kept copies for myself to look back it, but it never crossed my mind.  Oh well, live and learn, right?

One year, someone wrote me and said that she no longer wished to receive my letters because they were boastful and phony and she was tired of hearing about my perfect life.  My life was far from perfect, but that was the last year I sent out a holiday letter.  Ever.

Year after year since then, I’ve enjoyed getting updates stuffed in with the signed Christmas cards from friends and family, especially my far away friends like Shelly, Megan, and Heather, and hearing about their vacations, their hikes, adventures, and even their animals.  So today I’ve decided to jump back in and join the holiday letter-writing crowd, but this time just adding it to my blog instead.

I celebrated New Year’s Day with a pretty good case of COVID, spent the day curled up on the couch with a fever and chills, managed to dehydrate the heck out of myself and go into Afib with a 247 heart rate necessitating a 911 call and an exciting ambulance ride.  That was fun (NOT).  Spent a few days in the hospital, and met my yearly deductible by January 3rd (for real, I did).  On March 6th, I underwent a new procedure called a Pulsed Field Ablation, which kicked my butt, and I woke up in the PACU with my old friend Sammy literally in my face going, “Rita, what are you doing here?!”  It was so comforting to see a familiar face, even in my post-anesthesia stupor.  She took good care of me.  Today, December 18, I am just hoping to make it to January 1st so that I can say I’ve gone a full year with no Afib –  13 more days.  Grateful these days to be in sinus rhythm, and for friends like Diane who I can call at 2 a.m. for a ride to the hospital.

In May I got out to Denver to visit Ian & Hayley.  They got me hooked on the sweetest show on Netflix called “Love on the Spectrum,” and if you haven’t watched it yet – you need to!  It will make your heart smile from chamber to chamber.  We took walks with the dog, saw a comedy show, went to church at Cherry Hills, and I ate the most delicious sandwich I’ve ever had in my life – turkey on sourdough with cheese and fig jam.  It was amazing!

In June I drove to Indianapolis and spent a few days with Ruth & Sarah, Chloe & Megan at TGCW.  It was such a sweet time – it always is.   When I returned, I knew life was getting ready to change, because my mom had a knee replacement which was pretty hard on her, and my sister and I began having to be much more available than previously.  Several trips per day over to care for her and visit, and just tend to her everyday needs has been the routine for the past several months.  I will say, it has definitely strengthened all of our relationships, and slowed me down quite a bit – which is good.  I needed to slow down.

What has been challenging and disappointing is watching how dismissive, annoyed, and sometimes downright cruel people can be with the elderly.  At almost 88, my mother still has the same ambition she had when she was 30; she just moves a lot slower and requires a significant amount of help.  Watching people roll their eyes or let out long sighs of disgust when they are behind her as she stands in the grocery store aisles has been disappointing.  Watching a few of her neighbors zoom around her in their cars, or lay on their horns as she’s trying to back out of her driveway has been really hard.  People can be so mean, and I can promise you – it doesn’t make her any more confident.  It reminds her that she’s aging, and becoming more frail, less and less independent, and more and more dependent on others.  To be honest, it makes her sad.  Rather than stop over and ask if she needs anything or if she’s okay, they gossip about her, and her next door neighbor tells her what they say.  This has been really hard for me to grasp (and even harder to keep my mouth shut!)  She still sews beautifully, and makes Medi-Port pillows for my cancer patients.  Everyday on my way home she’ll ask, “Did you give away any pillows today?” and ask me to tell her about my patients that day.  Someday, I’ll miss these on-my-way-home conversations, but for now I enjoy every single one of them.

I’ve spent the past year plus enrolled in BSF (Bible Study Fellowship) with Holly, and enjoy some of our Tuesday afternoons after class with long kitchen table visits, followed by homework with Lyla and Owen, and then some family dinners with all of us.  Getting to study God’s Word with Holly (and Cecelia too!) has been SUCH a joy!  And Tuesday mornings with a close friend having what we call “protein-packed conversations” have been one of the things I look most forward to each week.

In September I made a spur-of-the-moment trip back to see the kids in Colorado.  I can’t elaborate on here why – but you’re certainly welcome to reach out if you’re interested.  Ian and Hayley have really, really big and generous hearts, and we’ll just leave it at that.   I wish they lived closer and hope some day they find a place somewhere in the middle of Chicago and Detroit, but until then I’m glad to have a beautiful place to visit, and two sweet souls to sit around and laugh with.

I’m still in the honeymoon phase of my job at the Infusion Center, which I’ll never stop being grateful for (thank you, Anna G!).  It’s a sweet thing to be able to miss old jobs – not in a way that I’d ever go back, but just to know I was lucky enough to spend so many years enjoying solid friendships that continue today, and something I loved doing.  I plan to stay put until retirement right where I’m at today.  I’m still writing for the magazine as a part-time gig, still writing for the newspaper as a hobby, but blogging on my www.kitchentabledevotions.com website probably remains my favorite past-time (and therapeutic outlet).  I just wish it burned as many calories as a game of pickleball would.

Lyla, Owen, & Maci are getting too big, too fast.  Lyla asks lots of good questions about faith, and loves working on anything crafty.  Owen is tender-hearted and kind, and he loves to bowl, always asking me when I’ll take him again.  And Maci just wants to paint everyone’s face while always running around in a tutu asking, “Pleaseeeee play Make-Up with me????”  They are so much fun.  The days truly go by too fast.

Now, in the spirit of full disclosure, especially – God forbid anyone think my life is perfect – let me vulnerably disclose a few things …

I’m still way too fat and am struggling to get some weight off to decrease my chances of having Afib again.  I love bread, and I love candy, and chocolate, and all the sweet things, and have no self control, so pray for me!  It’s always too cold or too hot to go to the gym.  I want my ablation to remain successful, but haven’t really made much progress in preventing it as far as lifestyle goes.  I’ve got a torn rotator cuff that keeps me awake many nights, still struggle with some relationships, still get crabby as all get out and say things I regret, and let my imagination run crazy thinking up all sorts of untrue things.  I waste way too much time scrolling at night on Instagram (laughing my butt off and sending reels back and forth with Zhela), when I could be doing many other intelligent and worthwhile things.  I’m far from perfect, and so is my life, so I hope this letter doesn’t sound all phony and boastful because trust me…    Those closest to me know what a hot mess I can behave like when things don’t go how I had planned or when God has a plan that’s different than mine!

My goal for 2025 is to replace my microwave and get my kitchen re-painted, get rid of a buffet in my living room and try to brighten up my condo a little bit.  I’m going to visit some friends of almost 40 years in January, hopefully Ian & Hayley in February, my friend Sarah is coming up in March, and Lord willing I might make it down to Atlanta to watch a movie and go to dinner with Mike and Sarah for my birthday.  My sister says to always have something on your calendar to look forward to, and I do live by that rule, but I’m holding those plans loosely because I know – We make our plans and God laughs.

I do hope you have lovely holidays and that you know that it’s not about the gifts, or how much money you spend.  It’s about TIME spent with loved ones.  The “stuff” will wind up in a garage sale one day, but the memories will be shared with generation after generation when we’re all long gone.  So keep your hands in your pockets, and make memories instead.  I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of even one single thing I actually need.  And most importantly – Remind each other that this season of celebration is about the HOPE we have in Christ, and that Christmas is not just a nice holiday for cookies and get-togethers, but a divine visitation, necessary to deliver us from our spiritual captivity and meet our desperate need.

And they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has risen among us!” and “God has visited his people!”  Luke 7:16

I really do hope you all have the best Christmas TIME ever!

Love, Rita