12 year “crashiversary”

 It’s been a year. 

For 8 months I was looking to fill my caregiving schedule, and then my aunt passed suddenly from leukemia, she had been my constant caregiver for the passed 12 years, filling in when I couldn’t find the help I needed. Finding and keeping the care I need is a full-time job. Unfortunately, when I don’t have the help I need everything else gets put on hold, this is just the reality of my situation.

And here I am on the other side of this challenging year… and I am trying to enjoy the calm while I have it.

My therapies have been going really well. With the chaos of finding help during the pandemic it has been really nice to get back into a routine. The pool I had been going to for 10 years, Josephine Kernes Memorial Pool, closed down for 18 months, and now that they are back open they are no longer doing one hour sessions. They have cut them down to 30 minutes and that is just not enough time, especially for wheelchair users who need to get out of their chair to prevent pressure sores. It’s unfortunate that they don’t realize this, especially since they have a spinal cord injury grant for aqua therapy. I am thankful I found the Monterey Aqua Therapy Center where I started going in February 2021, they allow one hour sessions which is so beneficial for pressure relief, anxiety, insomnia, pain management, the benefits go on and on.

Buns up! This is during my session of Watsu at the Monterey Aqua Therapy Center. It feels so good!

I just finished showing a beautiful photography exhibit at my gallery by the photographer Edna Bullock that we had postponed since May 2020. Edna passed away 25 years ago but her daughter, Barbara Bullock-Wilson, now runs the family archive and it was an honor to show her photographs. My photographs are now back up in the gallery along with local photographer, Viktor Klinger. I also still have photographs up at Alta bakery in Monterey. And my 2023 fine our calendars are in! Shop here!

I came across this poem last week, another reminder to never give up. There will be the dark times and there will be the light times. Keep calm and carry on (thanks Terry)…

Unstoppable 

Unstoppable they called her

but I saw her stop

I saw her stop

many many times.

Sometimes

I thought she had stopped

for good

but no

she always found a way

to resurrect.

To rise again.

Not the same

never the same.

Each time a little more determined

and a little less vulnerable.

Unstoppable they said

but I think

it was in the stopping

that she found

her power.

Donna Ashworth

Erin Elizabeth Kenyon, 1957-2022

My sweet auntie passed away on June 22nd very quickly after being diagnosed with leukemia. She had been caregiving for me just a month prior. 

It still feels so unreal and I keep waiting for her to walk in my front door. She has always been my rock, in any emergency she was there. She was my buddy and we had so much fun together. One of the silver linings of my injury is getting to spend so much time with her over the past, nearly 12 years. She took such good care of me, and I know she is sending angels my way. 

When I was a child, before she had kids of her own I had made her a Mother’s Day card, the adults reminded me that she wasn’t a mother yet. That pretty much sums up our relationship. She was always more than an auntie to me, she was my second mom, my friend, my mentor…

When I moved back from attending Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara she helped me get a job at the Mitchell Group (now Sothebys Realty) photographing houses around the Monterey peninsula and when I was looking for an office/gallery space in town she was the one who found the current location of Gallery Exposed in Carmel. I look around my house and I see the curtains that she made for me, the pants she sewed up holes in, the flower arrangement she left on my table. I have a beef tenderloin in the freezer waiting for her to cook for us, she cooked it the best. 

She was beautiful, strong, funny, caring, creative, crafty and of course feisty (the aries with red hair). My heart is heavy for my cousins, Cody and Casey who lost their mom and for the grandbaby that she will never meet. Again and again I am reminded that life is short and that everything can change in a moment. Love the ones you’re with, give them a hug, tell them you love them. Until we meet again my sweet auntie, I love you so much, I will always be your sweet girl.

Auntie and Sean helping me with rehab at Zhu’s Neuro Acupuncture in 2011. 

Both now are angels in heaven.

Point Lobos, 2013

Baja Mexico, 2013

My 7th birthday party at Auntie’s house in Carmel Valley, 1989.

Pool time, 2020

Relay for Rachael, 2017

You have to love the 80s western wedding. Left to right: aunt Becky Dreher, uncle Tom Sullivan, my mom Katherine Anne McLachlan, great grandma Fern, aunt Erin, aunt Linda and grandma Dibbie. And yes, that’s my little pouty face in the front, I did not fulfill my flower girl duties...

Marin county, 2013

Auntie organizing the scavenger hunt at my 7th birthday party in Carmel Valley, 1989.

Relay for Rachael, 2022