Carpe Diem Extra December 6th 2019 ... CDHK on hold

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

I feel the urge to tell you how it's going here in The Netherlands. As you all have noticed the last weeks I am not publishing on time or sometimes not at all. I love to explain why. As I told you in one of my earlier posts my mother is diagnosed with vascular dementia. The last weeks her dementia is very progressive. She looses the hold on her life and brings her own safety in danger. I am the only one left, next to my mother, of our family, so I am almost on a daily base at my mother's home.
She is really loosing the hold on our life and needs almost 24/7 care, but at the moment there is no place in the nursing homes for the elderly.
You all will understand that the care for my mother takes all my time and that makes me sad, because you all are in a way my family and I just want to give you all the attention you deserve. That's not possible at the moment. I am exhausted and running towards a nervous breakdown.
So I have decided to take some time off. Ofcourse with pain in my heart, but I cannot cope in a good way with the progressive dementia of my mother ... I hope you all will understand my decision.

I hope to be back as your host in a few weeks, because I really love CDHK and I love to do our traditional "Seven Days Before Christmas" feature ...

it dribbles tears

The man
I used to meet in the mirror
is no more.
Now I see a wasted face.
It dribbles tears.

© Masaoka Shiki

This Tanka by Shiki, gives you an idea how I am feeling right now.

Namasté,

Chèvrefeuille, your host

Making the CDHK-family bonds stronger

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Recently I read a comment on one of the posts here at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai and (not that it worries me), but I think it's good to respond on that comment here in an extra post.

This extra episode I titled "Making the CDHK family bonds stronger" and in this title the reason for this extra post is hidden.

I am grateful that CDHK has become a wonderful and loving community / family of haiku poets all around the globe and I love creating it, but (and I know for sure that I am not the only one) there is more than CDHK alone. Next to creating CDHK I have a busy job and a loving family of myself. But, and I think I don';t talk only for myself, there is not always time enough to make CDHK or even visit all of your wonderful blogs to comment on them and read all your beauties.
Of course I do love to visit you all to read your haiku and tanka, but time is not always on my side.

Time isn't always at our side

In the above I tried to tell you that, and I can understand that completely, we can make our CDHK bond more by visiting each other's blogs more often to "like" them or to "comment" on them. One of our family-members said the following (and I quote):

[...] "I have observed that haijin who are part of CDHK hardly visit the blog of fellow of haijins to comment or even like the works they post on the blogs. This is worrying to me. I know we all do not have time on our hands, but for the sake of fellow feeling,the bonding and love we have found on CDHK, I believe it is only complimentary for us to visit each other more frequently on the blogs. 

We may not need validation when we write and post on our blogs but hei if no one reads and comment or critique, how do we grow. [...]

How can we make this bonding of our CDHK-family stronger? Without "working us over the head" (I don't know if you say that in this way). As I wrote above and you all know that I think, I am a busy guy and I don't have enough time to visit you all, but I am trying to visit you all ... and yes I know I am behind with commenting too ...

Do you have ideas to make this bonding better? Please share your ideas and thoughts on this with us all here at CDHK in the comment field. We are a warmhearted family and I need you all to make CDHK a better place to share and ... as you know you are all part of CDHK and therefore we make CDHK together.

Namaste,

Chèvrefeuille