An animal-centered, very short and inexpensive new Amazon Mansion Wish List has just gone up, the residents need some help in purchasing cat and parakeet food, gravel paper and bird food. The list runs from $11 to $3.47 and there are only four items.
Summer the cat, who we helped to rescue, and the two parakeets (we bought a new cage) are so important to the residents, they talk to them, sit with them, sing to them, and in the case of Summer, they sleep with them.
They need a few modest supplies, and if you can help them. Because of your contributions to the Wish List, the number of Mansion outings has more than doubled. They can use their modest budget for trips outside. Thank you.
This time, I’ll hold back so others can buy some of the stuff. I might go for the $3.87 treats. Or maybe the Purina chow. If you need a phone for Amazon, the number is 518 213 5320. And thanks. List here.
Mudasor is seven, he was born in Afghanistan and spent the first years of his life there until his father was killed in a roadside bombing while driving food to American soldiers at an airbase. He fled with his mother Lisa and his brother Baseer and spent the bulk of his life in a United Nations refugee camp.
Now he and his mother and brother live in a small and roach-infested apartment, we are hopeful they will soon be living in a bigger, better, cleaner one. I met Mudasir yesterday, he is one of those kids who has the spark of life embedded in him, even though he has seen more awful things than any seven-year-old child should have seen.
None of this has dampened his spirit, his curiosity, or willingness to engage with the world. I beat him at our first round of thumb wrestling, but I won’t be able to hold him off for long, he does not like to lose or intend to lose.
Given a chance, I believe he will thrive in America. I would like to help Busadir. His mother has no money and he is in urgent need of new clothing. Sometimes I am comfortable buying clothes at thrift shops, sometimes I find used things a childlike Busadir could use.
But sometimes I am not comfortable doing that, and this is one of those times. Clothes are desperately important to refugee children entering our public schools because they are such important cultural and even political symbols to other children.
Nothing brings these children more ridicule and embarrassment than the clothes they often have to wear because they can’t afford the sneakers, sweatshirts and other clothes almost all American children wear.
Sometimes, I feel they need new clothes of their own. That’s what Busadir needs. He has been wearing used clothes for awhile now. It would be great if he could pick out his own.
If you ask a refugee child what they most want, they often say new sneakers or a certain kind of shirt. Most of the devices and gadgets American children have are beyond the range of their families, few have wi-fi or computers, the Internet isn’t quite within their grasp in many cases.
I would like to go with Ali and Busadir to get him some clothes, and perhaps a portable gaming device he and his five-year old brother Baseer, who is shy, might get to use and play with at home. He has no toys.
My idea is to collect four or five hundred dollars and take him and his brother shopping. Ali wants to come too. We are thinking Wal-Mart. Money goes farther there.
Busadir still remembers his slain father, he says he always made him laugh. Busadir is quick to laugh. I would like to help him, the magic is in his eyes. His mother Lisa has the saddest eyes, but when Busadir smiles, she smiles.
At the moment, we are helping Lisa with groceries and soap and toothpaste. There is nothing extra for toys and clothes, not just yet.
If you would like to help Busadir get his trip to Wal-Mart, you can send a contribution to the Gus Fund, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816 or via Paypal, [email protected]. Thanks, I’ll take photos along the way.
There is very little space between work and art in our home. Maria has taken to making a video almost daily, it fits her gifts and passion as a visual artist, as I knew it would when I gave her an Iphone very much against her wishes (she almost kicked me out of the house).
As Steve Jobs envisioned, his technology quite often led creatives to new and different directions. Maria captures the daily rituals and feelings of our farm, and her videos are increasingly popular on Instagram channel (mariawulf).
It’s a natural medium for her. Every morning, she goes out into the pasture with the dogs and animals and comes back with a visual mediation on life. Then, weather permitting, she sits out on the bench on the back porch, edits her videos and sends them off, more of her creative children flying out into the world.
I just realized she has co-opted one of my Tilley hats. Sigh.
I picked a yellow flower from the new wildflower garden and, on impulse, dropped it into our old concrete birdbath, fresh with storm water from last night. I liked the starkness and color of the image. I forget the flower until I showed the photo to Maria, and she looked mournful and asked if I had left the flower in the birdbath to die.
I went outside and brought the flower into my study, where it sits by my muse.
I left Ed on Wednesday surprised at how clear and vital he seemed, so full of the future. Thursday was very different. Ed had a very difficult night, full of fear and uncertainty, he says he feels the cancer taking him over bit by bit.
Today, hospice moves into Ed’s life in force – a hospital bed, an oxygen system, a wheelchair, a commode, medication for anxiety. Ed’s spirit seemed drained to me. He asked me to come over to take notes during a family meeting – the meeting was private – and when I asked him why, he said he wanted me to record his wishes in case he didn’t make it to meet with his lawyer on Monday.
I asked him if he wanted to do a video, and he said of course, he still had things to say, he still wanted to be of some use. So I sat on the foot of the bed – Ed was not able to sit up at the moment – and we did a video. His spirit seemed drained, he is exhausted.
For the first time, we did our video with Ed lying down. I said little, this is his time now, his statement.
He is also being medicated for depression and anxiety. He seems haunted by the children he meet on his road trip who have cancer, he said no child to have to suffer that, he has lived his life, they ought to get to live theirs.
Although cancer of this kind is aggressive but unpredictable, I believe Ed is entering the final chapter in this story. I am grateful hospice has been engaged. I think Carol will get some more help and Ed will be more comfortable.
Today, hospice is arriving in force – nurses, medication, a wheelchair, a hospital bed, oxygen. Ed was clear last night that the cancer was taking over, he says he is in full acceptance of his death, which he believes will be soon.
“The cancer is getting the upper hand,” he told me.”It’s going to make the choices, more than I am now.”
E asked me to come over today to record another video, and I will be happy to do that and bring some of his favorite sandwiches – BLT’s. He is also craving chocolate ice cream, he believes it has restorative powers. I can get behind that.
As a writer, I admire Ed for his courage and willingness to share his story when most people would hide it, perhaps understandably. I am happy to be of some use to him now. I always felt friendship was basically about trust, and our trust for one another is absolute.
