Vision

My eyes are my weakest body part.

Maybe that is why it is so hard for me to SEE some things.

I came down with conjunctivitis on December 27...actually in retrospect it may have been incubating for a few days, as I recall waking up the previous several mornings with unusually puffy eyes. But December 27 is when it got so bad that I called the doctor.

Today is the first day I can post to my blog without pain.

When I talked to Mary Browne the other day, I told her I felt as if the conjunctivitis is somehow connected to grieving over Maris. Mary said she prayed I would be able to see what I need to see.

A few days after that, I was told by my aunt that my grandmother, Apolonia Niezgoda Pabisinski, was partially blind. Apolonia died when I was 8 yearas old. I did not recall naything about her having trouble with her eyes, other than that she wore glasses.

Apparently her eyes were always red and irritated, and this is why she was always lighting candles and incense. She seemed to suffer from a chronic case of styes.

I remember the little altar she had in the dining room of her apartment at 4854 W. Armitage Ave. in Chicago. There was a little radiator in the southeast corner of the dining room, and I remember that she had something over the top of it that provided a solid surface for her candles, her incense, some pictures, and her dream book. There was a statue of the Little Infant of Prague, and a ceramic seated Native American in feather headdress holding a vessel through which smoke from the cone of incense wafted. I remember seeing her standing there lighting candles, especially when thunderstorms threatened.

I wonder what eye condition she suffered from. I wonder if it was something hereditary, like glaucoma, from which I myself suffer.

My aunt said that my grandmother consulted many doctors and healers, including a Native American who told her about an herb that grew along the railroad tracks, which she could gather and brew into a tea with which she bathed her eyes. My aunt does not know the name of this herb. she said it is short, and does not have flowers, although it had some sort of round or spherical part which she had trouble describing to me. My uncle used to pick the herbs for my grandmother, but he is deceased so I can't consult him.

Really wish I knew which herb this is! because perhaps it might help my own eye problems...and maybe even my Third Eye problems...I will call upon the spirit of this plant, that it might reveal itself to me.

I have consulted Chinese herbalists about my vision problems. Unfortunately the elderly doctor in Chinatown whom everyone used to consult has died. One of the ingredients in the eye blend he made for me was dried cicadas.....eeew! the Wolf Berries and fragrant woods at least covered up the taste of the cicadas, which was like burnt rubber.

Anyway, enough about me. It has been very difficult not being able to post blog entries. I am grateful to be able to post again.

My inability to do anything for the last 3 weeks has resulted in my sitting for hours in a recliner crying for Maris. I miss him so completely. I( grieve not only for him, and for everything he will not be able to enjoy, but the future I will not now be able to spend with him. I thought some day I might be with Maris and Alek on the land they talked about buying in Oregon.

I was so looking forward to Maris getting lots of rest and relaxation after his military obligations ended. I was so looking forward to finally getting some time to communicate with him on a deep level. I was so relieved to learn that family members would be covered by my HMO until their late 20s, as it would remove at least that worry about health care coverage, and i wanted Masris to know he did not have to worry about that. I just wanted him to be at home with me, and to be happy.

Maris had accompplished so much during his years in the Air Force that as far as I was concerned, he would never again need to prove anything to me. I am prouder of Maris than I have ever been of anything else in my life. He is my greatest treasure.

I miss him every moment. He is the first and last thing I think about every day.