Hi everyone! I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare today. I just had a soft drink and a glass of water, but if you’d like a cup of coffee or tea, I’m pretty sure my staff can make you one too. Let’s have a drink and let’s catch up.
If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that a fellow client passed away on Wednesday. He had had COVID back in February, like most of us, but he didn’t fully recover. This client had been hospitalized several times during December and January because of seizures, but these finally seemed to be well under control. Unfortunately, COVID was the last straw. He had been on a feeding pump ever since he’d had COVID, but because he became increasingly uncomfortable and unresponsive, the doctor and staff decided to discontinue his feedings on Monday. I last saw him alive Monday evening. He actually lifted up his body, smiled and squealed with delight upon hearing my voice. I made the conscious decision, having already been informed that he’d be dying soon, to keep this memory as my last memory of him while alive.
If we were having coffee, I’d share that I finally managed to craft another butterfly with the silicone mold I’d gotten for Christmas last December. I badly wanted to create a butterfly to go with the fellow client’s coffin, but wasn’t sure whether I could use the mold. However, other tutorials seemed even more complicated, so I eventually decided to give it a try. I did the wings in Fimo Effect color blue ice quartz. The body is pacific blue and the antennae are black.
If we were having coffee, I would also tell you that I have finally given in to the polymer clay color mixing thing and bought a precision kitchen scale. That plus a collection of 60 Fimo soft color recipes. Of course, I haven’t tried Fimo professional yet, but if I have to believe my staff, the colors I’ve mixed so far turn out gorgeous despite not being done with the true primary colors.
If we were having coffee, I’d tell you about the nationwide cerebral palsy day I went to yesterday. Of course, because the ParaTransit taxi had arrived at 8AM and we didn’t have to pick up any other passengers along the way, I was in Apeldoorn, where the day would be held, by 9AM. Thankfully, I had called my mother-in-law when I entered the taxi and she’d made sure to be there on time too.
The day started with a live-streamed lecture by Erik Scherder, a neuroscientist from Amsterdam. The message was quite similar to the one he’d conveyed in 2018 when I’d attended the cerebral palsy day too: that exerting yourself physically is needed to stimulate your overall neurological wellbeing. In 2018, the lecture had mostly been geared towards (young) adults, while yesterday it was more focused on children and their parents.
I attended two workshops during the day. One was on aging with cerebral palsy, mostly geared towards those age 40+, so I was a little outside of the scope, but I could relate (sad as it may be) to some of the increasing discomfort that older adults with CP face. The other was a yoga class.
As regular readers of my blog might know, I am not 100% sure I even have cerebral palsy, in that my parents never told me and, by the time I was an adult, things got so overshadowed with other diagnoses it’s unclear. For this reason, I felt validated knowing that I appeared not to be the most mildly affected person, strange as this may seem. In fact, during the yoga class, we had to loosen up our muscles and my mother-in-law told me to loosen up. Someone else half-joked: “That’s about the hardest thing to tell a spastic.” That made me feel good.
How have you been?
A Multitude of Musings 
Your polymer butterfly is beautiful. You have serious talent to be able to mix the colors. I am sorry to hear about your friend/resident. Praying he is out of discomfort.
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Thanks for sympathizing with regards to the loss of my fellow client. Also thank you for the compliment. That being said, I didn’t mix the colors for the butterfly myself.
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Oh, I’m so sorry to hear of the passing of your fellow resident and am glad you are able to process through the grief with your art. The butterfly is beautiful and a perfect gift for their transition. I’m glad to also hear your week included other positive moments and a little levity. Go gently, life is *very big right now.
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Thank you so much for your kind words. Yes, creating the butterfly did help me process this loss. I am also happy indeed that the week included some positives too.
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This is a beautiful butterfly
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Thanks so much! 🙂
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You’re most welcome
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Your butterfly is beautiful! I’m sorry to hear about the death of your fellow resident. Beautiful thought to make this butterfly go with him.
The cerebral palsy conference sounds very interesting – I must say I know too little about cerebral palsy, despite being a nurse originally. I just never came across it enough. I hope you’ll have a good week ahead.
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Thanks so much for commenting. I understand you don’t know that much about cerebral palsy. It’s not that common a disability. The first time I heard about it, I was about sixteen, because like I said my parents never told me about my diagnosis re my mobility impairment (if they even knew).
Thanks for the sympathies regarding my fellow client’s death. That means a lot.
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❤️ the butterfly
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Thanks so much!
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I’m sorry to hear about the death of your fellow resident. It’s very sweet of you to create a beautiful butterfly to go with his coffin and choose a happy memory to remember him. Take care. Thank you for linking up with #weekendcoffeeshare.
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Thank you for your sympathies. I am glad I was able to create the butterfly in his memory indeed.
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That is a lovely butterfly! I hope your upcoming week is a good one.
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Thank you so much. I really hope so too.
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I am so sorry about the resident who passed away. I am glad your last memory of him alive was a good one. Sending love and hugs.
The butterfly is beautiful. Well done.
It sounds like you had a great day out x
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Thank you for stopping by. Yes, I definitely had a good time at the CP conference. Thank you so much for the compliment on my butterfly and for your sympathetic thoughts re the death of my fellow client. I am indeed happy my last memory of him alive was good.
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Hi Astrid,
I was so sorry to hear about the death of your friend. Honoring him by recalling that last great memory is a great step to take. Good on you.
I was also impressed by how that butterfly came out and wondered if you used a mold. The patterns in the wings are very cool.
Covid is getting to be more rare in our news media. I doubt that means much because they are only interested in telling us things they think will keep us attending to their reporting or cooperating with their social or political agenda. The US news has become easily as bad as many 3rd world countries and many of us no longer pay any attention to them.
Objective truth is getting to be very hard to find.
Hope all is well with you.
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Hi Gary, thank you so much for commenting and thanks for the sympathies re the death of my fellow client. Yes, I did use a mold for the butterfly.
As for COVID being hardly reported on, it’s the same here. It’s all Ukraine here nowadays. I honestly doubt it means much.
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Hi! An old post here, but…I wanted to respond, it must have been so hard to see that client pass away, I mean, I know you didn’t witness it, but I guess what I am trying to say is, it would’ve been hard to be informed that he would die. It was so sweet of you to make a butterfly to go with his coffin. I am glad the cerebral palsy day was good. X
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Yes, it was hard, but saying goodbye to him when I’d been informed that his feeding tube had been removed was beautiful in a weird kind of way but I know you get what I mean. Like, he was very poorly but he tried to lift up his upper body and squealed with delight when he heard me (he was blind too). That was so touching.
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That is so beautiful, I’m glad you had that special moment with him xx
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