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| Saturday, 10-Feb-2007 20:51 |
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Saturday Afternoon Hours In Cleveland
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Couple of Months
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| 16:11 |
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See Through Denial
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| 16:12 |
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This is a cold Cleveland Saturday this afternoon outside. Inside it's cozy, and very creative. I didn't need to go out grocery shopping this afternoon. Anne and I went grocery shopping during the week. I called my mom just in case she had any needs this afternoon. I write her bills for her. She will be 81 years old next month. Our dad died two years ago, plus a couple of months. It was a shocking experience. A crack in the sky occurred. That crack came from the see through denial. How the denial was there all those years I was sober. I have been sober for twenty four years. But, something was missing. What was missing was my acknowledgment of Jesus Christ being my Saviour. Now, that harmony is restored in my life.
I didn't trust my father. Two weeks ago I came to terms with my father and that trust. I'm not mad at my mom, anymore. I am in touch with my life, what to do and how to do it. God will provide every day. Prayers are being answered. What was missing for twenty four years of sobriety is now clear, I have acknowledged Jesus as my Saviour.
Anne and I are living our life. Here I am at 54 years into my life. My midlife crises is crunching and grinding my angst, my anxieties, my phantoms and my thin veils of darkness. I walk the path of light so that I may work His will everyday. And, so it goes.
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| Thursday, 8-Feb-2007 15:53 |
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| 16:00 |
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With so much a available on the Internet, plus a business of my own I am cruising all over the Internet. Here I have a few minutes to post something while the very cold air outside lingers over the city of Cleveland.
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I am getting over the shock of my father's death now two years later, plus two months. I didn't know how hard it was going to strike at me and it would crack open other subjective issues, as a result. Loneliness is a nearly invisible phantom to play with from childhood now to my middle age crises. The chaos, the conflict, the confusion has taken it's toll as if this was the battle for my life. I have my life and I have Jesus Christ as my Saviour. The long night has been broken by dawn. It took a miracle to see the sunrise...and the guardian angel that protected all the while till I acknowledged Christ as my Saviour.
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| Wednesday, 6-Dec-2006 13:10 |
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Re-Entry
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I. Me. Mine. 2006.
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| 13:12 |
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I haven't posted anything here for many months. I have drifted away and unsure what the everydays will bring to my midlife crises. I found my fotopages, again. I have some additional experience I had not had last time I was cruising and parking here. I missed this place, this location on the web. Fotopages, be that as it may, is still free. I need and require free web sites. I noticed all my parked materials are still here. Thanks fotopages. This is my re-entry into this location on the web. I love to compose words and add photos with it.
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| Saturday, 25-Dec-2004 00:00 |
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Merry Christmas! From: The Automatic Pilot.
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Merry Christmas this extremely cold day in Cleveland. Yes, my dad died a week, ago. No one else in my family died since then. This is but a mixed bag this thing called life.
While we sorrow and worry and try to keep our asses warm here in Cleveland, I can't help but push and lift one leg after another, walking like a popsicle into the minute after minute that just was before me, now an immediate past, now a memory, now wondering what the hell happened, now drinking my coffee, now into only an automatic session that the navigator put on automatic pilot.
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| Thursday, 23-Dec-2004 00:00 |
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Merry Christmas.
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Merry Christmas In Croatian.
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Death Notice in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
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Good bye, dad! Wednesday, 12-22-04.
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To my dear friends here in fotopages, I wish everyone a Merry Christmas.
On behalf of my family, thank you for your thoughts and prayers and wishes and just being concerned and interested and kind. Kindness speaks for all you who have stopped here and asked and inquired and posted messages.
You have comforted my moments.
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| Monday, 20-Dec-2004 00:00 |
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My Dad. Joe Renko, 1925-2004.
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Joe, my dad. Rose, my mother. Photo: December 2003.
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After a long and hard struggle Joe, my father died of post surgery complications.
He had an aneurysm, had it surgically removed. The post surgery recovery was difficult and troublesome. The doctors did what they could. He had great love from his family, friends, and friendly strangers. Technology, nursing, medicine and his own personal will took him this far, enough so that he almost made it.
He didn't. He died Saturday.
On behalf of myself, my family, I thank each and everyone who has posted a comment here during my father's struggle. He enjoyed hearing that friendly strangers on the Internet wished him well. That impressed him. That added on the minutes to his daily life.
Thank you, my friends. Life goes on. I will not cry for him once. I will remember him for the rest of my life.
I am on funeral leave for five days. My mother needs me now. She is shocked and in thick denial. I'm in a thinner denial.
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| Sunday, 21-Nov-2004 00:00 |
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A Few Words Without Words.
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The photos will speak for themselves.
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| Thursday, 18-Nov-2004 00:00 |
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The Long Night
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The long night has settled in on my father and family. His post-surgery was complicated, extremely difficult to heal. He, unfortunately, smoked too many years. He could have used a pair of friendly lungs after the surgery. He, also, has diabetes, and a package of illnesses.
I can only focus on the daytime job, visiting my father in the hospital and managing my mother's house, finances and getting on with making sense, understanding this aspect of life.
I'm not mad at anyone. I am evolving, grieving and wondering how come the USA government has men and material for a foreign country, yet, has nothing, as such available for its family, its people, in this country.
These next four years I am "lost in America." That candle for America has been extinguished. I have independent candles. I'll light my own way on the long road of life.
There is hope that the long night will be broken by dawn. There is hope that a miracle will produce a sunrise. I am, but, a thirsty stone being followed by the stream of life.
Photos will be parked here sooner than later.
I thank you, and others, here in fotopages for your inspirations, wisdom, comments, and concerns. I am keeping it real, straight up and understanding.
The other day I discovered a question. I wonder if I would have discovered it if my father was not deathly ill? I discovered that I could not form relationships. As such, I could not enjoy life.
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| Sunday, 31-Oct-2004 00:00 |
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This week Joe improved his health. He did it himself, the technology did it, the LakeWest Hospital doctors, nurses, their care, Joe's wife, Rose, everyday visits, my daily concerns, visits and you my friends for your prayers, kindness, words that were sincere, considerate and understanding.
Joe ate, yesterday, solid food, having struggled with pasta and sauce from tray to mouth. When I arrived there, 6:30 p.m. his towel in front of him had pasta sauce on it. Around his mouth he had pasta sauce. There was an empty small area where the pasta and sauce were parked minutes ago.
I saw my father's struggle and a small victory for him. I had the privilege, a life achievement of wiping around his mouth, struggled pasta sauce. I contibuted to his small victory.
His surgery was deemed extremely difficult with the odds not in favor of his survival. He is far from completely healthy. He is still in risk. But! This week he gave himself a chance after the technology, the doctors and nurses and Rose and I and strangers who cared for him.
Given something to work with Joe's body is willing to recover to whatever degree it can with what it has to work with. Joe was a fatalist when he was healthy. He has now proven the contrary, being empowered, expressing it to the body, the willingness to hang on, hang in there, be amongst the living is a powerful gift each one of us has within our minds.
Joe gave himself a chance this week, he unknowningly empowered himself. He was willing to stick around this week.
For all of your concerns my dear friends, we express our thanks from the family that has been thrust into a life and death circumstance. Your generous understanding is a contributing factor in a man's willingness to hang around with his regularly scheduled personality. That's something the hospital doctors and nurses could not edit. Life is not perfect, it is understanding and powerful. With a will there will be a way.
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| Sunday, 24-Oct-2004 00:00 |
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My Best Friend.
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Good Morning!!! 7:15 a.m. from my central living room where the physical reality serves the virtually reality, an entrance ramp to the global village. This is where strangers are kinder then relatives, neighbors, everyday job people. This is where sincerity is measured with trust, gains are weighed in kindness, something always gives in a photograph. There is an understanding here quietly going about its business.
This has been a good week for Joe. I compose these sentences with guarded optimism. He is still in the Intensive Care Unit, LakeWest Hospital, Willoughby, Ohio, east of Cleveland, less than a half hour by vehicle.
This was a good week for Rose. She has seen her two trips a day to the hospital result in Joe breathing a little stronger, no additional infections in his lower intestines, no mounting white blood cell count countering infections.
Was it Joe's stubborn personality? Was it Rose's giving of herself, afterall they have been married for fifty years. Was it the doctors, the nurses, the technology, was it luck?
For now everyone and everything gets some credit. For now, I thank the friendly strangers here who have posted messages wishing prayers, praying for wishing, wondering, strengthening my own artist talents, in turn, trusting myself, in turn understanding myself, a man in his fifties.
For now, with great caution, Joe was breathing stronger these last two days, two extra machines removed around him, a few less bills down the reality road, more hopes every minute, another hour.
Joe didn't want to watch college football on his cable TV in his hospital room. He did want another sip of cool water, for now.
For now, the suit I bought a week ago has been set aside, for now it is not a death suit, a funeral costume, instead, it will be a suit to numb out a few normals at a daytime job, a local bureaucracy in a junkyard encased in see through denial, too late to set the dynamite in an exact place that would have removed the casings, made the personality feel like a new arrival on another planet.
If there are aliens in the universe, there is a reason why they don't announce their arrival to us, to this world, we just don't get it. We just don't get it when the health is cruising around in the heartbeats. It's taken for granted, too often, encased in see through denial.
For now, there is a lit candle in a room with the door slightly open. The rest of the room is dark and mysterious and chancy. I could trip over the furniture on the way in. With the door slightly ajar, with a small lit candle smiling with a small ray of hope, I thank my lucky stars that understanding is my best friend.
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Very insightful and worthwhile observations. 
