
CATCHFIRE CREATIVE LIVING BEGINS
It started with the writing. The life long tinkering with stories, ideas, and words on paper, then word processor, in some medium. I write. My children write. Catchfire Creative Living is a brainstorm that started with me wanting an outlet for my writing: ongoing, inspired, mundane, experiences and thoughts. My husband and children encouraged me. My brother helped me start a website which stalled because I have no idea how to finish it and Willard is an artist with a passion of his own. So I turned to creating a Facebook page for my brain child. As I began chipping away at posting on my Catchfire Creative Living Facebook page, destiny was preparing to thrust us all into an epic tale.
My son, Michael, facing a major crisis that affected his health and sanity, came to stay with us. Devastated by the impending separation from his wife, he groped for answers and clung to the hope that he and his wife could ultimately work things out. He missed her. He obsessed about her. His marriage was important to him and it was crumbling. He fell into a deep depression. My husband and I, nursed towards health and encouraged him, letting him make our home his safe haven for awhile. We could not then have imagined what was ahead.
Michael is bipolar and ADHD. His ten year struggle with these issues led him to build a career outside the usual college/corporate world. He started by selling books, video games, and movies online. When he moved in with us, I jumped in and started working with him. We began sourcing merchandise in earnest in October of 2017. We sell on Amazon and eBay. We also became pickers, scrounging for merchandise at thrift stores, yard sales, and estate liquidations. Then, selling our finds on Facebook Marketplace, Mercari, and eBay. We developed a selling mentality. Our sales fund creative activities that generate more to write about. We successfully navigated the 2017 Christmas internet shopping season and rode the wave of increased buying into the first week of January.
All this time, my husband was fighting his own health battle. We played golf all spring and summer of 2017. Ralph was healthy. His back which troubled him for a decade, recovered from surgery and he was playing better than ever. We looked forward to playing great golf at River Birch Golf Course right up until Thanksgiving. Ralph looked good, he felt well. He began working on projects around our three acres of property overlooking Emmett Valley in Idaho. But in September, after a round of “Mystery Diagnosis”, he was bedridden by a spinal infection kindled by the migration of a bladder infection. The first one he’d ever had in his life.
I would work with Michael on orders and sourcing between caring for Ralph whose pain kept him flat on his back waiting for daily infusions of antibiotics to flush out the infection. The pain was excruciating and eliminated his ability to be active. After eight weeks of infusion therapy, he still wasn’t better. During the last week of infusion, his oxygen level took a dive. Robin, his nurse, rolled him down the hall from the infusion center over to the E.R. at Valor Health Medical Center in Emmett, Idaho. Two resident doctors diagnosed him with small blood clots in his lungs. He spent three nights and two days at St Luke’s Medical Center in Meridian, ID being treated with medication to dissolve the blood clots. “The blood clots are small, we caught it early.” The pulmonary specialist told him. The night of January 4th he called and said, “Come get me. Hurry.” I waited for him to be checked out as he cheerfully introduced me to the nurses, flirting and joking with them. But he really, hated being in the hospital. He was terribly uncomfortable there and thrilled to be going home.
That night and the next day he was worn out and dozy. I brought him food and medication and helped him gather pillows to cushion the sore spots. He sweetly thanked me for taking care of him and talked about going into an extended care facility because caring for him was so much work. A reasonable suggestion. It was exhausting hefting his 245 lbs from one side to the other, or from laying flat to standing with the help of his walker to shuffle to the bathroom. I couldn’t stand the thought. He was too young. Too determined to get well and fulfill his retirement hopes.
At lunch time on Friday, January 5, 2017 he pulled me into bed with him and curled his body around me. “Let’s just stay like this. Can we just stay like this and rest, warm and cozy?”
I hugged him and lay still for a moment. “I have to get your lunch, you need to eat.” He mumbled, “Ah, I know.”
“And I need to go to Walgreen's and get your medication.” I whispered as my mind rehearsed a long list of things I had to get done while he ate and took a nap. I disentangled myself from his embrace and left to make him a soup and sandwich, one of the few things he had an appetite for. After lunch, I tucked him in with a pillow under each arm, four behind his head and shoulders, and one under each leg. He was thoroughly cocooned and asleep before I left to pick up his prescription.
At the drug store there was a hiccup with the medication. It wasn’t ready. The pharmacist only had a starter pack and had to figure out how to put together exactly what was prescribed by breaking it open. I roamed the store looking for items on clearance that might make good Amazon inventory. I perused the nail polish colors, gels, hardeners, and conditioners, pondering whether to try polishing my nails, a futile practice which never lasted. I checked back with the pharmacist who had the medication ready. I headed home in the dark. I had been gone an hour and a half.
Back at home, I walked in from the garage and headed towards the bedroom. As I reached the entry, there was a knock on the front door. There on my doorstep, were two of my grandchildren who live in California, Carlos holding baby Natalia. “Surprise, hello grandma!” And then I was surrounded by the whole family: Alex, Carlos, Leo, Natalia Heather and Miguel. I dizzy with confusion. “How, what, when, did you get here?” They had traveled north from Texas after Christmas with the Cruz family to visit and especially to see Grandpa Ralph. I took Heather by the hand and said, let’s go wake Dad up and surprise him. . . .
Heather and I tiptoed into the dimly lit bedroom. We stood over his peacefully slumbering body whispering. I nudged his shoulder gently. “Ralph wake up. Heather is here.” There was no response. I shook him harder. “Ralph.” Still, he slept. I lifted his warm arm and gave him a hard shake. And then it hit me, “No, no, no, noooooo! It’s not possible. Heather. This can’t be.” I wailed.
Heather caught me in her arms. “Mom, mom, mom. Come here. ” She led me from the room and the night exploded into a rushing torrent of emergency action.
Michael flying up the stairs calling out, “This is what I have been afraid of for weeks. He needed to be in a hospital? He’s choking, let’s get him on the floor. Why didn’t they take better care of him? Why didn’t they keep him at the hospital? Where’s my phone?” Miguel gave Michael a phone and he called 911.
Shaking off their own disbelief, Miguel and Michael pulled Ralph out of bed and stretched him out on the bedroom floor. Miguel, our well-trained Marine, administered CPR and answered questions as Michael relayed messages from the EMT on the phone.
Me a trembling wet mess of tears and disbelief. Grandchildren hugging me. Heather holding me like I was one of her babies. I alternately rushed into the bedroom, and then let Heather lead me from the room. Wanting to be there to will him to live. Heather pulling me aside and saying, “Mom, mom, come with me. I’m not sure you want to be here. Let’s wait in the living room.”
“No, no,no, no.” We couldn’t be sure until later but we knew it was true. Ralph was gone. Still warm as life and yet gone. His breathing stopped. His heart stopped. His brain many minutes past had drifted towards the light and let go. He had slipped through my fingers as I drove to the store, as I shopped, as I drove home. “When? Why wasn’t I with him? He was alone? What happened? How did I let this happen? Oh, my sweetie, I’m sorry I wasn’t here . . . .my sweetie, I love you.”
The reality is, Ralph probably threw a blood clot and never even knew he was dying. No choking. No heart attack. No stroke. Just gone in an instant. And with his death, I was summarily launched into a raging flood of events to save myself and my family and my home and make this sudden death survivable. Catchfire Creativite Living was my ark. A vessel to carry me across the flood, a worthy work to show me I am capable of surviving a loss so devastating.
This was the beginning of Catchfire Creative Living. A beginng forged in life changing events. Catchfire Creative Living is about being able to kindle our fire for living when life tries to douse our aspirations, ambition, and our reason for living. Creativity is the spark that makes everything happen not just when we are filled with inspiration, but when things are fine, and when things are very, very, hard.
Catchfire Creative Living is all about the creating and making it possible to create. For me its the writing; which is all about communicating, which is all about preserving what’s going on in our heads when life happens. When life happens we share what happens and how we have been transformed in the life’s bruising process.
I recently found a journal entry from the fall of 2016. A brainstorming list I made of ideas for the words “Catch fire” before we finalized our brand name this spring.
Catch fire with curiosity.
Catch fire with self-discovery
Catch fire with better health
Catch fire with resilience
Catch fire through giving and sharing
Catch fire through learning
Catch fire through forgiveness
Catch fire through mindfulness . . . .
This was back before my Walk Through Fire of losing my husband. Never before in my life has my intellect, my energy, my health, and emotional resources been so challenged. At the same time, there are abundant opportunities for growth, healing, and happiness.
Don’t fade away, Catchfire
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For Ralph
