Alex's Recovery

Full Report

For daily updates on Alex's progress, check out: www.caringbridge.org. Click on VISIT, then type in ALEXWOOD to view his own personal website.

You can sign the guestbook and leave them a message if you like. They check it often!

Life Changes in an Instant

My little nephew, Alex, was in an accident this past Friday. At the last minute, he bolted out behind a car while it was backing up. Alex was taken to the Machias hospital and then later air-lifted to Eastern Maine Hospital, where he has been in the Pediatrics ICU since. He suffers from a broken nose and other facial fractures, including ones around his eyes. The doctor's have ruled out any kind of brain damage, thank God. We were very concerned about this since there was much swelling and some bleeding in the front part of his head (brain). Luckily the only laceration is behind his ear, so he shouldn't require any stitches which could cause scarring. The specialists at EMC are waiting for the swelling to subside (Alex doesn't even look like the same child, with all the bruising, road rash, and swelling.) before they decide what to do in terms of facial surgery. He's been sedated since Friday, so we haven't had an opportunity to talk with him. It's the saddest and most unnatural sight, seeing him laying there, sleeping, in a neck brace with lots of tubes hooked up to monitors. Of course, our family has been so upset and tired, but Alex is receiving the very best care. The nurses that have been assigned to him station themselves right outside his door at all times. Missy, Aaron, and Lindsey have been staying in Bangor, and are so amazed by the amount of encouragement and assistance they have received from family and friends. If you would like to call them or send them a card, please let me know and I will email you their number or address. In the meantime, please join in with the many people who are sending them prayers and wishes for Alex's full recovery.

Kathy's Poem

Water and Ash

We choose to be strewn
Over two bodies of water
Father's over Crawford
His favorite fishing spot
Mine, through the narrows
Of Spring River Lake
The place welcomes me
in whispers
As I stroke it with my paddle,
Budge it with my breast.
Soon, we'll swim with the fish
Cry with the loons, seeing stars
From the surface and put them
In our watery pockets.

Summer

In Loving Memory of Kathy

In Blackwater Woods, by Mary Oliver

Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars

of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,

the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders

of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is

nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.