This is a true story.
When my Grandmother was 5 years old in 1916, her beloved elder sister Clarice passed away at the age of 7 from meningitis.  
My grandmother also lost a son at the age of 2 years from the same awful disease, and little Ronnie was buried next to Clarice.
In my grandmothers house were  beautiful portraits of the children and one of her sister just before she died.  
The likeness of Clarice to my mother (my grandmothers youngest child) is absolutely uncanny.  
A few years ago my mother and I took my Grandmother to the cemetery.  It is a very very old cemetery and sadly we had not been there for many many years.  When we found the graves, we were amazed because growing over the two graves was the most beautiful pure white old fashioned rose with the most amazing scent.  My grandmother said it was a wild rose because there had never been anything planted there before.  So she, always the gardener, took a cutting from the rose and took it home.  
My mother also took a cutting from Nana's rose when it grew, which it did beautifully.  My mothers rose also grew beautifully, but...two of my aunties, my mothers cousin, my cousin and my Nana's friend all took cuttings and no one else seemed to be able to grow the rose.  
Mum and I often talked to Nana about all sorts of thing and she often said that when she died, she wanted to be cremated and she didn't want a headstone.  I said, 'Nana, where will we visit and put flowers?' and she rather wisely said, 'Well when you think of me, you can put flowers anywhere, can't you?'.  

My darling Nana passed away last year in July, at the age of 91, with all of us, her family, around her.    
My Aunty took the rose that my Nana had, after she passed away, but it started to wither.  
I told her to think about Nana and plant it somewhere in her garden and see if that worked! She said she did plant it and in July this year, it finally started to look like it was coming to life.  (btw..that aunty (the eldest of my grandmothers children is named Clarice after her own Aunty!).
And...my Mum's  rose bloomed last year in about October (Spring here) and is looking lovely and healthy for this Spring.
Those white roses are our angels!

Not quite sure why I wanted to share this story, just thought it was nice.
Happy gardening.

Peace and love.....Kim

Hi Marty,
I agree with you and it takes some guts to stand up to the 'Doctor Gods'.  My best friend is a very highly trained Peritoneal Dialysis trainer ( who has also been a registered nurse for years) and the fights that she has had just trying to gain respect from some of the 'big boys' is incredible even though she is published and has changed opinions on worldwide protocols!!
You are right, when something untoward happens, they all tend to close ranks and stick together, when the one at the bottom of the heap is always the patient who sometimes knows no better, so takes things no further.
I do try and teach my children not to be satisfied if they are not happy and to speak out if they think something is wrong.  
I don't even think it matters too much about the age of the Doctors, I think sometimes it is as simple as having a great rapport and confidence in your Doctor that he is doing all the right stuff.  Some  older more experienced Docs (as in my mother in laws Doctor) have lost their empathy and bedside manner.  They have no patience left and don't want to know about new advances in Medicine.
And..most important I believe is to be fully informed yourself, so that you know the questions that you have to ask!!
You are great Marty and as always, very wise.  Thank you.

Peace..Kim

Hi everyone,
I am so overwhelmed by all of your best wishes and prayers.  I thank you so much.  You guys are amazing.  
My surgery went well, although they did take quite a big chunk out of my nose and face.  It was really incredible little surgery and my Mum watched them do it so gave me a blow by blow!!  I have ten stitches on the outside and four on the inside.
Unfortunately I have now developed an infection in my eye which has really laid me out for a couple of days, but on some really strong antibiotics so feeling much better.  Now just have to wait for some results and to get my stitches out next week hopefully.
My love and thanks to all of you,
Hope everyone is doing well and the sun is shining.

Peace and Love...Kim

A Brave and Startling Truth

We, this people on a small and lonely plant
Traveling through casual space
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns
To a destination where all signs tell us
It is possible and imperative that we discover
A brave and startling truth

And when we come to it
To the day of peacemaking
When we release our fingers
From fists of hostility
And allow the pure air  to cool our palms

When we come to it
When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate
And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean
When battlefields and coliseum
No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters
Up with the bruised and bloody grass
To lie in identical plots in foreign lands
When the rapacious storming of churches
The screaming racket the temples have ceased
When the pennants are waving gaily
When the banners of the world tremble
Stoutly in the good, clean breeze

When we come to it
When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders
And children dress their dolls in flags of truce
When land mines of death have been removed
And the aged may walk into evenings of peace
When religious ritual is not perfumed
By the incense of burning flesh
And childhood dreams are not kicked awake
By nightmares of abuse

When we come to it
Then we will confess that not the Pyramids
With their stones set in mysterious perfection
Not the Garden of Babylon
Hanging as eternal beauty
In our collective memory
Not the Grand Canyon
Kindled in delicious color by western sunsets
Not the Danube flowing in tis blue soul into Europe
Not he sacred peak of Mount Fuji
Stretching to the rising sun
Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor
Nurture all the creature in the depths and on the shores
These are not the only wonders of the world

When we come to it
We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe
Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade, the dagger
Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace
We, this people on this mote of matter
In whose mouths abide cantankerous words
Which challenge our existence
Yet out of those same mouths
Can come songs of such exquisite sweetness
That the heart falters in its labor
And the body is quieted into awe

We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon that in a twinkling, life is
sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing. irresistible tenderness
That the haughty neck is happy to bow
And the proud back is glad to bend
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils or divines

When we come to it
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely with sanctimonious piety
and without crippling fear

When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the trued wonders of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.

                      Maya Angelou