Bonnie Recovery

On our way to NC on Tuesday

This is a short post to say that the eye doc is pleased with the progress of my left eye.  The stitching closing half of it is still in place though, as expected, the placenta is mostly melted.  She left it stitched and said that we can go to NC for three weeks, returning here for an appt on March 25th.  We intended to go after we see Dr. Cutler this afternoon, but we are tired and have decided to go on Thursday morning.  Progress goes well on the house we are having resided in NC.  The old siding is gone along with the soaked "sponge" board.  New insulation and hurricane clips are in place. 

I have much to tell you about, but it will wait until we have arrived in NC.  Daniel wants to drive all night to put us there on Wed. 

Love to you,
Bonnie

We are hanging in here

The beach is beautiful; the temp was 70 yesterday.

Both Daniel and I have colds that are weighing on us.  Daniel continues to do a fine and fast job of the retrofit of the other beach house.  Looks like we will be finished before schedule.  He is working his team and being pleased with the work they are doing.

I'm struggling to keep up with my online courses.  There is no "late paper" in an online course;  you have to contribute to have the conversation among students be meaningful.  Yesterday was exhausting for me, but I did manage to get my postings done for both courses done today.

We had both boys here for two nights and three days over the weekend.  We celebrated my son Ron's second 100 mile bike ride for Leukemia. I wore the shirt Ron wore last year.   Ron sent updates of his ride from his iphone.  We sent these pictures to his phone.
Here are also pictures of what the shirts said on the front and back.
 

House Renovations, Ocean, NC BBQ and Grandkids.

We are up to our favorite things:  House Renovations, hanging out at the Ocean, cooking North Carolina BBQ and seeing our Grandkids.

The ocean goes from raging and thundering with lightening overhead in the night, to a mirror-like lake in just 48 hours time.  The air is cool and the sun warm. 

The "other" beach house renovations are going well.  I loved getting the house ripped to it's studs and all of the wet fiberboard and insulation pulled, so we could repair a few rotten studs.  We jacked the house up and got it to within 1/2" of  level.   Not bad for a house that sits on piers sunk into sand.  This house has which been facing the ocean and hurricanes for over thirty years and it had begun to sag sadly.  We replaced the bottom 2x10" band.  Then we bolted some 6x6" supports under the bottom band to brace up the house and strengthen the decks. 

Daniel's Blog

March 20^th is Maundy Thursday, the day on the Christian calendar where we recognize the founding of the Eucharist/Lords’s Supper. Many churches also have a ceremonial foot-washing by the clergy to celebrate the servant function of church officials. I think of it as the last day of Lent, but I’m not sure that is canonically correct. The day became a favorite of mine the same year as Ash Wednesday, the day that begins Lent. I’m not very fond of Lent, but these two days which call our attention to the facticity of death are days of comfort in my life.

While at All Saints’ in Palo Alto, I would pray for hour in the chapel as part of the Maundy Thursday vigil, usually from 3-4 am. It was a precious time talking with God. I experienced miracles from my praying. I continue to take the time to “stay awake for one hour” with Christ on this night.

This end of Holy Week is the most solemn time of the Christian year. Good Friday is tomorrow. This year, I am saddened by the deaths of friends.

Daniel’s friend, William F. Buckley died recently. His passing touched Daniel more than I had anticipated. He immediately wrote a memorial which was published on the National Review website. It is a touching remembrance told from a perspective that few people had. Most know Buckley as an ultraconservative, combative guy and suspect that he had to be rude in his personal behavior. Nothing could be further from the truth. Daniel speaks of his humanity and his zest for new technologies. You can find that remembrance on Daniel's discrete weblog - www.danielshurman.com.  It is the last of five posts and is called “Bill Buckley’s Uncommon, Common Kindness”.

I recommend reading all five posts on that blog. Curiously, Daniel started this blog on Oct 14, 2005, just one day before I got news that my blood levels were extremely low, indicated a relapse of leukemia. I was quite confident that I would never have leukemia again and thought my tiredness was some kind of residual heart condition. How could Daniel have known when he did that writing on Oct 14^th that we were on the brink of a whole new adventure starting on the 15^th? Over the next few days he wrote elegantly of our position and my condition. In the middle of November, Jewish-raised Daniel had a remarkable dream of Jesus that guides his life to this day. He wrote about that in his blog too. It is some of his best and most intimate writing. Good reading in this Holy Week.

After Daniel's Dream of White Light / Christ posting in November of 2005, our attention turned in a more focused way onto me. The first posting of this blog was December 7. Daniel started writing here in part because I was often unable, but mostly because this writing is a source of comfort for him as well as for me.

Awaiting Good Friday,

This is Bonnie for BanD

Good Friday

Good Friday

Good Friday and the Saturday following is a time we pause and contemplate death and suffering.  I wrote on Thursday about the loss of Bill Buckley.  Two wonderful women in my life died recently.

I am grieving the deaths of my friends Rosemary and Diane.  Rosemary lived a long life, one that all who knew her admired. She had the same kinds of travails that life entails, but as long as I knew her (about ten years), she guided her life like an angel. She was very active at All Saints’ until she moved to Palm Desert to be near her daughter a few years ago. I regret now not calling her often. Those are the regrets we face when it is too late to do anything about them. She retired from a teaching career and opened a nursery where she specialized in flower for special occasions. She was a flower in all senses of the word. I was only beginning to learn about spiritual direction when Rosemary and I lived near each other and saw each other often. I knew that what I was getting from Rosemary was spiritual direction in so graceful and beautiful ways. My life is diminished by her moving on.

My friend Diane did not have the opportunity to live her whole life. She developed a fast growing cancer in her early 50’s. I knew Diane through a group in Silicon Valley we called “the culture club.” We were a bunch of internal and contract consultants that worked with organizations to revive their cultures, especially using information technology. I was mostly an internal consultant; I had a salary. Diane was a successful contract consultant. I always admired her ability to make her own way and to provide value to clients that kept them coming back for more. I don’t know much about Diane’s last days. I hope that she came to peace with her premature call to heaven. I suspect that she did because she was always peaceful and confident in her life. Her grace was an inspiration to all who knew her. Like Rosemary, she found peace and beauty in maintaining an amazing garden. Her memorial service is being held at her favorite garden shop. Wow. 

As we approach Good Friday, as Christians or not, we encounter questions about the death of Jesus. I am not of that school of Christianity that holds that Christ had to die to redeem us from original sin. The gospels are pretty clear that Jesus was a prophet of the first century, calling people to admit and repent from their sins. He refused the claim that dietary laws and other rituals had anything to do with repentance. He spoke for the poor. He taught us that the first will be last, and the last first. And for these radical ideas, he was killed by those who thought his revolutionary theology would bring destruction to Jews living under Roman rule. To the last, he called those of his generation to stand up against oppression. And to this day, this is the meaning of Jesus crucifixion. C.S. Lewis observes in a fine little book called Mere Christianity that one meaning of Christ’s death is an example for all of us about how to die. God, being God, had no experience of death. By taking human form, he could die as a human and in so doing show us how to die. The path of Jesus to death is integrity and courage. 

Easter - Bonnie running a 103 fever - going to BWH Emergency room to be admitted

-----Forwarded Message-----
>From: Bonnie Johnson <[email protected]>
>Sent: Mar 23, 2008 12:19 PM

>To: Sue Crommelin <[email protected]>, Daniel Shurman <[email protected]>
>
Cc: Christi Humphrey <[email protected]>, gale yee <[email protected]>, [email protected]

>Subject: I'm heading for the hospital emergency room
>
>Excuse the format of this, I can't seem to get my eds mail to load.
>
>I'm running 103+ temperature and Doc Cutler is admitting me for intravenous antibiotic. 
>
>Daniel needed my laptop in NC, so I'm heading to the hospital with minimal facilities to keep up with my school work.  I don't know what will be happening, but hopefully it will be a short stay.  Gale and Earl, I will keep up with classes as best I can this week.
>
>Christi, would you let Madeline and others in our group know I can't be there tomorrow.
>
>Sue, I'll call Bill and cancel our Wed meeting with him.
>
>I have my cell phone and a charger.
>
>What a way to spend Easter!
>
>Love, Bonnie

Quite a Pilgrimage for Bonnie given her recent Easter contemplations.

/Daniel for BanD      

Bonnie is out of the hospital, and working on her eyes and regaining sight.

Bonnie received oxygen while she was getting intravenous doses of antibiotics,  And true to form, Bonnie's fever fell, and she began to feel better.  Having the right amount of oxygen in your blood stream sort of helps. 

What is new, is that this time Bonnie seemed annoyed to be incarcerated in the hospital for yet another Easter.  What happened to our unflappable Buddhist-like Christian Bonnie?  I can tell you.  Bonnie put on her German-Jew hat:  She became determined to make her Thursday plane back to NC to see her grandchildren and her ocean and her husband. 

On Tuesday Bonnie convinced her doctors that she was just too healthy to be lingering in such a disease prone place as a hospital.  She pleaded her case, stating that she had an important  appointment with her eye surgeon over at Mass Eye and Ear on Tuesday afternoon.  So Bonnie was sprung free from BW hospital.  She made it over to see Dr. Colby who removed the stitches closing her eye and removed the sutures on her eyeball that were holding the placenta tissue over Bonnie's cornea.  Can you imagine wanting to race from a hospital to getting stitches pulled out of your eyeball? 

Bonnie is now over at the miraculous Boston Foundation for Sight getting fitted for her new scleral lens to protect her delicate newly implanted cornea.  She is told that in 9 months we will know if she will have any useful vision in that eye.  How did she get to her appointment with the lens doctors.  She rented a car from Enterprise and drove herself out there.  Tomorrow she will drive herself to the airport and fly back home to NC.

It is fun to see Bonnie in her determined German-Jew independent woman mode. 

As we say during Grace as we go around the table.  Yea GrandBee, Yea God.

/Daniel for BanD

Recovering Bonnie

Don't I have a great PR guy!  I love how Daniel tells my story with such heroic flare.  I didn't feel very heroic getting out of the hospital; it was just tiring.  But I was determined once I saw the opportunity was available to make my scheduled return trip.  One might say that I am cheap and did not want to waste an airline ticket (Spiritair is cheap travel UNLESS you have to change any part of your reservation).  It might also be said that I wanted to get here to NC to see Zac's soccer game on Saturday.  And it is true that I was eager to see the beach house that Daniel has been remodeling.   The real reason that I HAD to make that plane was that the alternative was for Daniel to drive to Boston for me, stopping at his high school girl friend's birthday party in Philadelphia.  We had planned to go to that party together when I mistakenly thought that it was March 21st and not 28th (so much for blind people's reading).  I certainly did not want my trophy husband surrounded by all those former girlfriends.  I had to hustle to make the plane so he didn't need to leave Oak Island..

On Wednesday I was out of bread in Cambridge and decided to make bread for my morning ritual of toast and apple butter.  I made the dough on Wed night and got up at 5am Thursday to set it to rising and then baking.  After toast I was able to go to chapel where we baptized the baby daughter of a fine friend, Hall.  I love those baptisms and the renewal of life they bring.  I was scurrying around to get packed when Sue came over, made us tuna fish sandwiches with the fresh bread, and then kindly drove me to the airport.  I arrived in Myrtle Beach yesterday evening where Daniel took me out for a fine grilled fish meal and a big margarita. 

In a little while we will be going to see the "new" house.  I can hardly wait. 

I am wearing the big contact lenses in both eyes now.  They relieve a lot of pain.  I was reluctant to start using them, but the eye doc was pretty insistent and Daniel really wanted me wearing them.  They were right again.  I've lots of school work to catch up on, and I'm looking forward to it.  The ocean is beautiful and all is well with the Shurman-Johnson family.

Love to all, Bonnie for BanD