Loretta Humble and Gary Sobol.
By Loretta Humble
I usually don’t just go on and on about something my companies are doing. It feels like I would be taking advantage of this column to get free advertising. But here I go again, because this is something so good, I would be writing about it if it wasn’t happening through Cedar Lake Home Health and Hospice.
I told you about Gary Sobol, whose Parkinson’s disease got him down so bad that he couldn’t get himself out of bed or sign a check. He decided not to give up, started studying, and found ways to get so much better he could hike and run and even climb a couple of mountains. He got so good at it he started teaching his techniques to people all over the country. Cedar Lake brought him to Malakoff from Colorado to make teachers of our people, so we could help other people with Parkinson’s and related diseases get around better.
Well, the first Sobol class started June 6, and is being held at 12:30 Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at Family Fitness in Gun Barrel City. The first meeting 38 people showed up. The second one, 41. They are already having some really good results. I heard about people laughing and crying with joy when a woman who was able to stand and take steps for the first time in a long time, by using the rocking technique Sobol teaches. A second class will start June 27 at the Cowboy Church in Athens. All classes are free. We have also been able to send our therapists into three homes to help people who are not able to get up and come to classes.
And we have already had requests to bring the Sobol classes to Ennis, Waxahachie, Fairfield and Tyler.
This is really big, friends. I believe this can make life better for a everybody who learns it, and for some of them, a whole lot better. Maybe they won’t all go out and climb mountains, but some may.
I’ve very proud my folks are the ones who brought it to Texas. If you know anybody these classes might help please call 903-489-2043 for details.
As for me, while I try to figure what to do with my retirement, I have taken up the mission of getting rid of stuff, and in order to make my home much more pleasant to live in. I’ve made some serious progress, but I still have a way to go. I have the same problem as a lot of my generation who grew up—I started to say who grew up poor—but then we never thought we were poor. We just didn’t have much money. We used and reused everything. Mama could take our own or somebody else’s castoffs and make something new out of them. We never were ashamed to do so, in fact we enjoyed it, thought of it as good stewardship. I grew up thinking that is the way to live, and it is imprinted on my brain. I still want to salvage and reuse everything. The problem is, I like new stuff, too. So sometimes I will “replace” something with a new one, but keep hanging on to the old one, meaning to reuse it or find somebody to give it to. That is how things stack up and clog up my life.
So I am busily boxing up stuff to share with others, and resolving to not just leave it sitting around in the box, but take it to them. And I’m trying to think twice before I buy anything else. The other thing I’m having to face is that some of the stuff I’ve been hanging on to, nobody else would have! I’ve got to learn to toss stuff when it’s time.
That’s the toughest part.
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