PEOPLE WHO HAVE LIFTED ME UP..... PHAL




Phal Buntoum



     This morning I woke up thinking about how alone growing older can be.  Feeling sorry for myself, I guess.   That led my  thoughts to the many, many people I have known over the years that have helped me beyond any expectation.  How rich they have made my life.
     The first person I thought about was Phal   My life was in such disorder and she was my rope to order and sanity for over five years in Raleigh.  I was so lucky to have her in my life.  She thought that she was housekeeping for me.  What she was really doing was keeping my attitude a positive one.  She was helping me keep my sanity.  She was bringing me a wonderful view. 
      She would come and sunshine would come in my little condo.  Very quietly I would hear her come in and begin when I was sleeping after hours of pain.  We would talk about life.   She knew the pain of being afraid, surviving on her own, being alone, and starving.  She came to this country from an Asian country and survived atrocities that you and I can only imagine, and probably not very well.  Yet, her attitude never altered.  She came to my house in kindness, warmth and giving. 

Snowy garden, rare in Raleigh

The time she was with me was one filled with change for me.  I had a long series of surgeries and other painful times.  My garden in the back of the condo was my love.  When I first moved in I had a landscaper plant for me.  I loved sitting and just absorbing, even the spiders.  Phal and I shared our love of plants and everything gardening.  She knew the details of the plants that were shared with her homeland.  The things to eat, to use as medicine and to enjoy with our soul.  We would weed, cultivate the soil, fertilize and suffer the beetles.  We almost lost the war of the wisteria and mint.  These are two of my favorite things.  But alas, for a very small garden they can take it over.  We fought the prolific monsters as if they were the enemy.  She dug with her tiny hands, down to the bottom of the roots.  Sometimes we would laugh when another would come in that exact spot.  The hours I spent with her in my walled garden were a source of such happiness for me.

As my back got worse, I could do so little when it came to bending and cleaning up after my kitties.  I thought I was going to have to give them up.  But with never a word of protest, Phal helped me with the litter detail.  I kept my kittens.  She will never ever know, well not until now, how grateful I am to her.

On my chair  Squeaks and Simba

On my Four Poster... Simba and Squeaks

As I moved to Cleveland each day that she helped me as  I cried. She probably, more than anyone else in my life understands my pain at leaving.  We looked at so many of my little treasures and appreciated.  She got rid of stuff for me, cleaned and cleaned.  I wish she was here with me as I face another surgery.  But I would never wish her to be in Cleveland instead of Raleigh. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.