I guess the timeliness of this “Christmas” letter is a reflection of how 2012 stretched us beyond the comfort of schedules, time and sensibility.  I was especially geared to fill in the gap from missing last year’s letter due to an untimely virus and resulting bell’s palsy that threw me off my game.  Life keeps speeding up at the Edling compound, as you can see from the size of my boys, the color or lack thereof in Steve’s hair, and the “wisdom” lines that have settled on my face.  What a wild ride the world has been on…making my life in crazy-town, seem awesome in comparison.  So here is what we’ve been up to….

Steve is as innovative as ever in our practice.  He has been doing graduate work in blood-born illnesses, metabolic diseases, peripheral neuropathy and other nerve related pathologies.  Frustrated by the constraints healthcare puts on trying to find the cause for pathology instead of just offering symptom relief, has fired him up to work with other doctors who feel the same way he does and explore solutions that offer hope where so many have just given up.  So far, he’s had great success and he’s excited to bring this dimension to his practice.  He is also working with ARP, or accelerated recovery performance (google it, too hard to explain) and has great results with treating injured athletes.  He is also excited to work with the Osceola football team, as the team doctor, as well as work with special teams.  He still trains, but since he turned 50 this year, is trying to be smart about his training…well sometimes anyway…his moaning after a workout has grown exponentially lately…

Connor is a senior this year…wow did that go by fast.  He is looking forward toward college and has narrowed down his choices to the University of Minnesota and DePaul University in Chicago.  He is still passionate about computers and wants to study digital media, computer game creation and programming.  Besides reveling in geekdom, he still plays trumpet and the euphonium in the marching, symphonic and jazz bands.  Last summer, he worked at Wild Mountain as a life guard and beyond having the first tan of his life, he saved enough money for a car, one he spent months looking for and finally found a 1992 Lexus in pristine condition, that seems to still be costing us money.

Riley is a sophomore, and has finally begun to hit his athletic prime.  He is a three season athlete, but like his father, has fallen in love with football.  He started on JV for both football and basketball this year, and plans on putting his baseball cleats aside for track to improve his running skill for football.  He played mostly tight end, outside linebacker and occasionally wide receiver (which he would like to do more often).  The highlights of his year so far have been winning the game in literally the last second both in football and basketball!  He may be my quiet kid, but never when he is in the midst of a game.  Beyond that, his phone is rarely out of his hands, except for when he is behind the wheel…yes, another driver.  I shudder whenever the insurance bill is due.

As for me, I’m still trying to make sense of the world and blog about it.  I’m still at our clinic, with many irons in the fire…I sometimes feel like those carnival acts that try to spin too many plates and not have them come crashing to the ground.  I try to focus on the fact that we are all still here, in the face of so much loss, struggle and tragedy that has happened this year, and pray that every step we all take this next year will lead us to a better future.

Wishing you all the best of everything for the coming year!

The Flood/Edling clan

As I’ve written and spoken about my month of broken things and how irritating it has been for my psyche, nothing has snapped me back to reality the way the school shooting has in Connecticut.  I, like many parents, can’t help but shed tears over the madness.  Our people are broken.  In a place where freedom reigns and the faithful flourish, even in a hamlet such as Newtown, evil can roar its ugly head.  There is no other way to describe the gunning down of small children and the adults who are there to teach them.  It is evil, pure and simple.  This tragedy can’t just become a discussion about gun violence, although we will have to have that conversation without people freaking out over second amendment rights.  It can’t become just a discussion about saving souls and what to do with those prone to this kind of behavior.  While those discussions must be had…I think we need to start looking at how rage, anger, vitriol, blame and ultimately despair have leaked into all of our lives and have taken hold.  There is no sensibility any more.  Our inability to handle conflict and divisiveness explodes more and more into blind rage, whether it be at a child’s sporting event, road rage, even in a vitriolic Congress.  We all have to be willing to do some soul-searching into how we want to move forward as a people and stop living in the denial that it can never happen to me, the fault lies somewhere else, or dump them in a prison somewhere.  There are many subtle ways we all add to the rage.   I know there are as many tears in heaven, as there are on this earth as we pray for all those affected by this tragedy.  While we are limited in our ability to understand why this happened, we have the power to move forward and bring light to our darkening world.  It will happen by the force of love, beyond any constricted definition.  And as I sit alone, and wonder what I can do…I can choose a simple but powerful action, to love my family, let go of anger regarding my petty broken things and be better agent of light.  My month of broken things has taught me that I am so much more than stuff…and even amidst the rubble…love will help me rise above.

“Someday after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for the second time in the history of the world, we will have discovered fire”

Teilhard de Chardin

Now, I’m all for new experiences…BUT COME ON!!!!  The statistical probability of this many things breaking in a month has to match its counterpart in winning the lottery…which I didn’t. From major appliances, to automobiles, our phone system, every satellite receiver in our house, small appliances, and our clinic adjusting tables, computers…everything bit the dust at once.  True to form, I’ve been in crisis/problem solving mode for so long, I think my adrenal glands have taken flight into the body of a duck rather than choose to fight anymore.  So far, I’ve been able to stifle the insane cackle of a woman losing her marbles, but it is hard…so much so, that I look like I’m hyperventilating all the time.  The question, then, becomes what is worth saving?  I managed to figure a couple of things out, and find acceptable help for others…but some things, well maybe the its just their time, the damage is irreparable and time to replace the broken item…which is in itself very stressful, because as you know, these major things aren’t cheap.  Mix the cost of repair/replace with class rings, jackets, college application fees, senior portraits, Christmas and everyday expenditures I am ten steps behind.

And yet, I wake up (or depending on insomnia…I get up) and say my morning prayer “Lord, let me start the day embracing my gift of grace and become a miracle to someone in my own small way,”  which I have to say is done with more of a smirk because it actually highlights how unable I am to see anything miraculous in my own life.  I sigh, and try to remember how dark it can be before the light breaks through (at least according to Harry Potter, through whose saga ending I sobbed like a baby).  I know many things are broken in this troubling time, beyond just the inanimate.  I know none of us are exempt…but we are challenged to be faithful, and believe that we are never given anything we can’t handle.  I know I’ll be stronger, but I hate it.  I hate the part in the story where all the bad stuff happens.  I would like to skip that part, please.  I already know that I am strong, seriously…have you met my family?  I want a working toilet that doesn’t overflow in the middle of the night through three floors, including all over my freshly washed laundry.  I want to stop being irritated to death.  In the same breath, I know that I should be thankful for what I do have, and what I don’t have to face what others in this world do.  I would hate to go to my grave knowing that I was done in by low-level malfunction, or death of a hundred cuts.  Perhaps this is the devil knowing my weakness…if this is the case, then let me remind you “Dude, give it up already…you lost the war.  Go home and stay there.  My soul is bullet proof, because I know if I fail…my super-power won’t, so frickin’ give it a rest.”  If it isn’t Beelzebub, then hell, I must be the unluckiest person in the world and or was Kublai Khan in my last life.