shindigsailing: Life with Spirit and Resilience

We have one more post on our delightful trip last week across 3 Mexican states.
As you may have figured out, our posts are not real-time.
While you wait for the last post, which we promise will be interesting, I wanted to give you a quick update.

Just returned from a wonderful long weekend trip to the greater Sacramento area. It was my mother's Margaret Maxfield, 88th birthday. She is doing great (Hi, Mom!), and was very generous with her time to allow me to visit daily, as well as enjoy great family visits with my sister Elaine and JD, their kitty, and my best friend Kate. Mom continues to be interested in all sorts of things, as she has been an educator all her life. One day she was interrupting her newest Agatha Christie murder mystery to work on some more mathematical challenges (She has a Ph.D in mathematics). Her life in a nice assisted living home in Placerville suits her just fine. The ladies at her dining table welcomed me back, and chided Mom that she was a "youngster", as one of them was almost 90 and the other 98.
Mom self-published a beautiful book a few months ago, titled Where Were We? It includes her stories starting from great grandparents in the late 1800's all the way to her grandchild, my son, Bryan.

Her resilience and spirit for life kept me thinking of how our sailing friend, John, in La Paz, is responding to a very tragic boating accident last week. While rescuing a man that was thrown from his dingy he was run over by the unmanned boat and sustained severe injuries to his leg and foot. Rob and I are in awe of his spirit and courage as he has gone through very serious challenges and choices, starting in La Paz, and now at the UC San Diego medical center. Our friends from La Paz Cruiser Supply, Jeanne and Tom, have done a wonderful job of pulling the community of friends together to keep us updated on our buddy as well as know how to help.
The link to this story is here: Eagles Big Left Turn.

There are numerous ways to contribute towards John's medical bills, including a fundraiser March 5th and via PayPal that are outlined on their blog.

Here is the cover poem from my Mom's book.

Where Were We?

Where were we when we met before,
If we have ever met?
Or if you've happened on me now
And we don't know us yet,
Warm welcome to my life, my friend,
I'm glad to have you in it.
It's not too late for memory,
So let us now begin it.

-Margaret W. Maxfield