January 21, 2008, about noon, temperature 20 degrees after night time lows of 0 for some days.  Nine-week-old puppy goes out onto thick ice on creek and falls through thin spot over current.  Rescue attempts find me losing my center of gravity and crashing through the ice into waist deep water with nothing but a steep bank for an exit for a long way up or down the creek.  Hypothermia set in almost immediately and I knew I had very little time to get myself out of the predicament.  Had to break ice by pulling myself up onto it so my weight would break off larger pieces because doing it with my fists was not efficient.  It took tremendous strength and endurance to go the nearly 60 feet I had to go to a shallower bank.  About five feet from goal I just wanted to stop.  It would have been so easy to just rest, close my eyes, drift away.  So hard to keep my focus.  Only the thought of my children kept me going.  I remember getting out and taking off my soaked woolen poncho (heavy) but don’t remember walking up to my house, about 200 feet uphill.  I remember walking up the steps to the house because I had thought I might not have the strength to do that but knew if I could even crawl inside and collapse I’d be okay.  To this day I can’t believe I did this and survived.  I was 65 years old and live in such a remote area that I’d have never been seen or found for quite some  time, by which time I’d been a block of ice.  The up side of that is that I learned that hypothermia is a very, very peaceful way to go.  And that I still have more physical stamina than I would have imagined.  There are other dramatic exploits in my life as I’ve always been an outdoors adventurer and got caught in some crazy wind as Joan did many years ago in the San Gabriel mountains of Los Angeles (and with my four tiny daughters to protect), among many other close calls.  But this was by far the most dramatic.  So exactly three weeks later when I got my shoe caught in the front steps and took a wrenching fall, literally breaking my foot off my leg, and had to pull myself into the house by my arms, scooting on my butt,  with my foot bumping along behind me, it seemed relatively easy (except for the pain when it set in).

Good news: the pup miraculous survived, I can walk again, and Daisy and I enjoy life together very much.  She has proven to be one tough pup over and again.  That’s my girl!

Some of the karate/kung fu training has been pretty grueling. I have asthma and the lungs don’t do well with humidity. And doing a hard-core workout or sparring in a non- air-conditioned dojo can be beyond exhausting.

I like some of the other Women found the Pain of Grief to be the worst.

When my Daughter in law was murdered and two of my granddaughters kidnapped I didn’t think I would survive the pain…

Twenty two years later when my beloved grandson died at the age of 16 after he suffered from a rejected Heart Transplant, Again it was devastating. My husband feared I wouldn’t make it this time.

That was in 1999……in the next 3 years I lost 15 family members. (including my parents……brother and sister in law……….mother in law…….Husband and other relatives.

Grief is a debilitating ordeal to struggle through……….both physically, mentally and spiritually

Now my greatest struggle is continuing my Life living in severe Pain and barely able to walk.

But I believe Life is for the Living…………..I want to Live and still be happy and continue loving the family I still have.

I often wonder where I get the strength to carry on, but carry on I do.