Hail and high winds tormented the Texas Hill Country a few months back. We watched news reports of windows shattered, vehicles smashed, and businesses destroyed within minutes. For us, a push-me-pull-you battle began. Do we drive up there to check on the condition of our place, or do we bank on it surviving unscathed as it has for three decades? Obligations and obstacles around here forced us to wait until last weekend before making the trek.
After our last cabin trip, back in October, we left the place neat and tidy. Turning the corner from the steep inclined road, the sturdy building came into view. Collectively, we exhaled relieved breaths. No sign of damage anywhere. A quick dash around the exterior reassured us that the windows remained intact, window air conditioner sat snugly in place, and the ancient porch screening stretched undamaged. A rooftop examination revealed a vent covering had shifted during high winds, but nothing that let rain into the place itself. It’s on our “TO DO” list for our next trip as we’ll need to order the correct part to replace it.
The screened porch, swept back in October, remained dust free! Many times, I have to sweep it right away to prevent us from tracking dirt into the cabin. Inside looked as I’d left it seven months ago, ready for visitors to stay hours, days, or even weeks! We doubled checked the ceiling where that vent cover had moved and found it pristine and dry.
Every trip, I vow to stay longer than one weekend. This time, though, we planned on heading back home after a few hours. My anxiety over possible damage assuaged by simply “checking in” to see with my own eyes that all is well.
Copyright 2026 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman
IOUNIO's "Do We All Slowly Lose Control?" fit my mood perfectly before seeing our place in person!
Knowing your personal strengths and weaknesses means you learn when to tune in to your inner voice that warns, “Watch your step. Take your time. Give yourself distance from others to think.” Many times, though, the cacophony of other voices drowns out that quieter internal tone. Hours, days, weeks, and even months press by when you listen and respond to everyone but your own ideas and emotions.
Your life becomes a long list of “To Do” and “Should Do”. Family and friends lecture those of us in caregiver roles to “take care of yourself first” without realizing such advice cannot be taken without another person actually stepping into your home. They throw out suggestions for you to get away and take a break, but it’s extremely rare that they enter into the responsibility you’ve undertaken for any extended period of time.
Huntington’s disease attacked my mother fairly late in life. In her 60s she stopped the voracious reading she’d done her entire life. Her passion for cross-stitching died overnight. She talked about being depressed, but insisted her “blue days” didn’t warrant a doctor’s visit. Her tendency for anxiety increased. She complained frequently about not going out or doing things, but then pulled the plug on suggested outings and activities. Sometimes, her feet would move in a restless dance, but she’d stop them the moment anyone called attention to them moving. In her early 70s, she still drove her car and walked a mile each day. She had a couple of times when her legs folded up under her midstride, but HD didn’t blip on any of her doctors’ radar. At 78, Mom had a TIA that propelled her into a Huntington’s disease nightmare. The neurologist treating her at the hospital still didn’t recognize HD, but a young nurse caring for her had worked with an HD family. It was her insistence that forced the doctors to run genetic tests, which gave us the diagnosis.
No amount of research prepared our family for the years of caregiving that became our family destiny. For two years after the diagnosis, Mom lived in an assisted living complex walking distance from our home. I visited her every day unless I was ill. On those occasions, my husband or son spent part of the evening with her. Her motor skills spiraled into a decline that forewarned us that eventually she’d need to move into our home. She went from walking on her own, to using a walker. She broke her wrist, had cauliflower ear from a fall, and split her nose on her coffee table. Her internist shifted her into a wheelchair because no one wanted her to break a hip. During those two years, our lives revolved around making certain Mom never felt alone. She made friends with her aides, threw parties for both residents and staff, and daily insisted that she missed her apartment. She knew, though, that she’d never live alone again.
My retirement from teaching on year 30 became imperative. No one talks about the extremely high costs of assisted living. Mom’s care during the two years she stayed there increased from $4,000 to $5,000 a month as her nursing needs changed. Shifting her into the 24/7 care that Huntington’s disease would eventually require meant that price would increase out of our budget. The cut in my take home income from retiring to care for Mom was still financially better than moving her into the more intensive care.
In 2010, Mom moved into our home. For the next two years, life increasingly revolved around her and her needs. My son rented a home in our neighborhood to be close by, and during the last six months of Mom’s life, he moved back home to help me while my husband worked. The bond formed with the three of us caring for Mom still connects us today. Mom’s deterioration once we moved her here slowed down. Her neurologist noted that she felt happier and more secure. Her mental decline never happened as with many HD patients. If she got enough sleep, she stayed sharp and focused. My greatest fear, that Mom would eventually be unable to swallow, started in November 2012. She went three weeks without food and three days without water.
No one writes about or talks about the scars carved into the caregiver’s heart. Ten years later, I still catch myself thinking that I need to rush over to Mom’s apartment if I’m out running errands. My caregiver’s scar means I listen for Mom’s bell to ring some nights. That scar reminds me that a disease took over our existence as it destroyed my mother’s life.
Edna Abrams 81st birthday 2011
Edna Abrams with her nephew and his wife 2011
Mom listening to live music with family 2011
Mom at cabin in Leakey, TX 2011 age 81
IOUNIO's "Isolated" captures my feelings perfectly.
The second impact for us on removing the pond out back came with a new garden out front. The fountain, a cheerful fairy, needed a different location. We hauled huge rocks from our cabin in Leakey, purchased a new bird bath, and wheelbarrowed the fairy to a spot to show her offto our neighbors. No longer tucked into the backyard for my personal joy, she sits encircled by rocks and flowers for all to see.
I decided this spot would display colorful annuals that I’d change by grabbing whatever caught my fancy when shopping at local nurseries (or sometimes the grocery store).It’s fun selecting blooms that fit my mood and budget. Unlike the perennials I long to place in the new spot out back, I want this smaller garden to changemultiple times each year.
The simple enjoyment of pulling into the driveway to blooms and blossoms is a wonderful ripple down to our rat solution. I miss the serenity of the pond out back, but it’s tied to memories of Koi drinking from the fairy bowl. Her new role as a planter shifts my grief to a celebration of life simply moving forward.
Several years ago, a bold family of roof rats invaded our home. A combination of live traps and baited boxes outside eventually took care of them, but our exterminator warned that the pond out by our kitchen wallprobably drew them to that part of the house. He advised us to remove the fountain and pond. While doing that, he suggested we double check the back wall for entry areas and seal everything off. Our successful efforts shifted us into a roof rat free home as we’ve made it several seasons without sighting a single brown nose!
We removed the pond lining and spent last summer filling the area with bag after bag of soil. I couldn’t decide what to plant into the new area and tossed wildflower seeds that like shade over the ground a few weeks ago. I picked up some lily bulbs, too. The packs were a random assortment of types and colors. The first bloom, white, sat perfect and pretty in at the edge of where our old pond once rested. A couple of days later, a sunny yellow blossom danced in the morning breeze.
I focus on the positive growth losing the pond brings to that section of yard. As this spring moves to summer, fall, and winter, I’ll plant other kinds of bulbs into the fertile area. I’ll remind myself that change can be good, even when it was unwanted.
Copyright 2026 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman
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A few days ago, the library branch I use notified me that my card needed renewing. An annual ritual marked each spring that arrives with Live Oak pollen, Mountain Laurel blooms, and dancing dandelions. I left the message with its bold RED number in my emails, knowing it would nag me relentlessly until I checked this task off my list.
Entering the library,I sniffed the scent of books like a hound hungry for meat. For some unacknowledged reason, I’d pulled away from reading over the past few months. Fingers trailing along titles, I realized I’d never finished the final book of a trilogy. My usual goal of reading a favorite author, a new-to-me writer, and a non-fiction piece had died with our frozen winter months. The time of year that usually binds me inside with a book in hand had escaped without a single volume sitting on my bedside.
Driving home, I thought about how WORDS, my solace and haven, have slipped intothick and silent shadows.
People frequently ask, “How are you doing?”
“Fine. I’m fine. How about you?” I reply politely. My thoughts scripted by what I think they want to hear.
However, I’m not fine.
WORDS have left me.
MY WORDS.
OTHERS’ WORDS.
My sadness, so subtle that I didn’t notice its presence, silences my day.
Copyright 2026 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman
I'm definitly feeling like IOUNIO's "Lost and Found".
unnatural competition sibling rivalries created and nurtured by narcissistic manipulations the alcoholic mother and enabling father doling out love to the winners the challenge evolves to plastic wives and drunken children awards for misogyny and adultery applause for cheats and deceits victory gained by zealous clannish unity that punishes the different drummer with ostracism and disdain darkness shadows each generation with something to prove
Copyright 2022 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman
IOUNIO's "Do We All Slowly Lose Control" provides the PERFECT background for today's post!
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her exclamations of righteousness fill every hour of every day as she proclaims her piety she protects her façade of devotion with her illusions of perfection she announces her good deeds by never saying no she weaves wreaths of sacrifices she carries the cross of expectations over her broken body her fears wrap around her when she judges herself harshly with condemnation for human failings she kneels in supplication asking forgiveness for her sins
Coppyright 2024 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman
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Rain on the rooftop, a Texas lullaby Thunder a distant heartbeat, wind a crooning sigh Watch the windows weep as lightning cuts the sky Clouds roll and tumble, carry raindrops on a ride Trees cleanse their dusty leaves—shake off Summer’s dry Droplets form to puddles, and rivers start to fly Mother Earth’s cracked face smiles and laughs in reply To rain on the rooftop, a Texas lullaby Copyright 2011 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman
"Soft Rain on a Quiet Night" PLUVOASMR
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