Fern Ridge Review
Creswell Chronicle
Sweet Lorane Community News
February 27, 2020
By Pat Edwards
I’m needing to play “catch-up” this week since I skipped out on last week’s column.
Jim had his much-needed and long-awaited back surgery on February 19 and he was in the McKenzie-Willamette Hospital for three nights before I was able to bring him home on Saturday morning.
Our house definitely had an empty feeling those three nights, but I didn’t realize how much our pets had missed Jim. When he came home, his doctors had instructed him to take frequent short walks through the house with his walker. Even though he’s been using his walker in the house for months now without the animals seeming to notice, the day I brought him home and on the first walk he took, our cat, Jo-Jo, jumped up on the seat of his walker. When I picked up Jo-Jo and put him back on the floor so Jim could begin his walk, Jo-Jo immediately jumped back on and majestically rode the full route with Jim. He caught multiple other rides for the first two days that Jim was home. Our two dogs, Toby and BB, were also in attendance and obviously were glad that he was home safe and sound.
Jim has a long road to travel to regain the strength in his affected leg and the balance he needs to wean himself away from his walker, but most importantly, the terrible leg pain is gone. There is only minor pain from the surgery site which is getting better each day. So, once again we are counting our blessings.
Huge thanks to Tracie DeBoer, our store manager, and our wonderful ladies – Cynthia, Shelby, Kat and Janis – who have been running the store in Jim’s absence. I don’t know what we would have done without them!
The Lane County Territorial Project team has set up the next public meeting to share the design and construction plans of the project taking place in the Lorane area. Please mark your calendars for Tuesday, May 19, 2020, at 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. at the Lorane Grange. The first phase of the project will officially begin on June 15 and is supposed to be finished by November 20, 2020 at Stony Point, north of Lorane.
I have been asked to remind everyone about the upcoming Celebration of Life for a lady I have had much respect for over the years. Twinkle Morton (April 3, 1948 – October 20, 2019) was a long-time member of the Fern Ridge School Board and she was involved in many other community activities and events. I got to know Twinkle several years ago when I began working on developing a Community Calendar with Twinkle, her partner Joan Mariner, and other local ladies. We never finished the project because another calendar was published before ours was done, but the time I spent was well-rewarded by the experience of working with these ladies who have given so much to their communities.
Twinkle’s Celebration of Life will be held on March 7, 2020 at the Fern Ridge Middle School in Elmira, Oregon at 1:00 p.m. The family requests no flowers, but if anyone wishes to honor her memory, a gift to the Greenhill Humane Society or “Yellowstone Forever,” the Yellowstone Foundation, would be appropriate.
Just a quick follow-up on the column I wrote recently about the helicopter crash in California that took nine precious lives, including Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna… I watched the delayed broadcast of the celebration of life for this father and daughter that followed the Oregon Women’s Basketball game against Stanford. UO’s Sabrina Ionescu’s eulogy was amazing, but I was absolutely blown away by the 20 minute talk given by Vanessa Bryant, Kobe’s wife and GiGi’s mother. This beautiful, strong woman shared personal insights and memories of the loved ones that she and her other three daughters lost that day, and she did it with love, grace and respect. The sorrow and pain were there, but she was able to talk about them without breaking down totally… something that I couldn’t have done.
The event itself was tasteful and respectful towards all whose lives were lost that Sunday. Though the time was late, I couldn’t break away from watching it until it was over. The many eulogies presented were heart-warming, but the two musical presentations out of several that took my breath away and brought me to tears were Alicia Keys’ rendition of the beautiful “Moonlight Sonata” by Beethoven and Christina Aguilera’s emotion-packed “Ave Maria,” sung in Italian. If you did not get a chance to see it, you might want to stream it or watch the various features on You-Tube. It’s well worth the time.
All Things Lorane 