Renee Rocks

Currently, a couple I’ve known for many years have had to lay down their over two decades long struggle with cancer. Treatments have finally been …

Hospice Redux

Currently, a couple I’ve known for many years have had to lay down their over two decades long struggle with cancer. Treatments have finally been exhausted for the husband who valiantly marched through so many challenging years. Together, this family, which includes the patient’s beloved wife, two sons and their partners, along with their trusted medical team, made the decision to enter hospice. Their current journey has evoked many memories for me, many profoundly painful. These are some of my recollections which I periodically revisit and release.

The other day I received a telephone call from Carol, the hospice nurse who was assigned to Michael’s case in May, 2017. Michael wasn’t in hospice for very long, just about eleven days. During that brief time, I developed a fairly intimate relationship with Carol, who entered our lives at that impossible moment when a family has resigned itself to the fact that the death of their loved one is imminent. That she still calls me to chat is one of the unexpected positive byproducts of that fraught experience. Carol’s call brought back lots of memories to me. Michael’s last days weren’t my first experience with hospice. Back in 1989, after only a three month wrangle with bladder cancer metastatic to bone, my dad entered hospice for his last few weeks of life. At the time I was thirty eight years old, reeling from the fact that both my parents had been diagnosed with cancers within five weeks of each other. My mom, always the less healthy one, survived this cancer, her second one, and lived for another twenty-five years. My dad couldn’t tolerate his treatment and after only one round of chemotherapy, and despite the fact that the cancer hadn’t spread, opted out of life, asked that his funeral arrangements be made and went home to die.

I don’t think anyone in our family had realistic ideas about the practical aspects of hospice. The departure from active participation in trying to stay alive meant that life would go forward in my parents’ home without any further doctors’ appointments or visits to the hospital. A nurse would visit every few days to take vital signs, answer questions and provide medication we could administer for comfort care. The nurse was a liaison between the formal medical setting and our family. The professionals were still out there but we were in charge. Despite knowing that the daily decisions about meds, food and everything else would be the family’s responsibility, the actuality of adapting to that total caregiver role was really overwhelming for my mom. For me and my younger sister too, the siblings who lived nearby. I had a job, two young kids and a husband, who in the midst of my parents’ issues, was recovering from a siege with a herniated disk and ultimately, a back surgery.

The first few weeks of dad’s hospice time were relatively uneventful and my mom was able to manage their situation with support from me and my sister. But then dad’s pain medication made him groggy in addition to suppressing his appetite. The weakness that set in as he detached from nourishment eventually changed his status from mobile to bedridden. Next came a commode which ultimately would be followed by diapers and a catheter. A fall which required me to tear out of work in order to help my mom get my dad off the floor, was the catalyst for moving a hospital bed with guardrails into the spare bedroom. All these changes. The brief nurse visits could hardly prepare us for the devolution of dad from husband and father into a fragile, helpless person, soon to be wholly unmoored from the life that came before.

Volunteers came to visit, to be helpful. For the most part these well-meaning people were not a great match for anyone in our family. No screening was involved to determine whether they shared values and beliefs similar to ours. As a result, we experienced friction and alienation at a challenging time. An aide whose job was to provide bed bathing and general hygiene service, shaved my dad’s mustache off before we had a chance to tell her that he’d had one for the majority of his adult life. What an alienating moment for us, although his body grew that hair back before he died. Ultimately we opted out of visits from the hospice staff, choosing instead to only be alienated from each other. I write that with irony. Each of us family members brought our own ideas and emotions to helping care for dad. Despite our common background, we didn’t always agree on the way things should go. Our individual paces for adjustment were highlighted in a time like no other in our past experiences as a family. I can still recall making the leap from the normal boundaries between daughter and father to suddenly changing his diaper as if he was an infant. I remember thinking that the shock of a sudden death did not make the same demands on a person as having a loved one in hospice care does. Some people will never know the psychological permutations we had to make during those weeks. At one point my mom wanted to take my dad to the hospital. Reminding her that would violate his wishes changed her mind but the truth is, his hospice enrollment had removed that option anyway. She was simply too overwhelmed to remember that. When I became a parent I crossed from one type of adulthood into another – when I cared for my father’s body, while advising my mother, I went further into grownup life than what my parenthood had required of me. My siblings had their own version of these startling changes, bringing their personal spins to each challenge. We made it through everything, up to and including dad’s death. But hospice wasn’t simple nor was it really peaceful until the very end of dad’s life.

When Michael’s turn for hospice arrived twenty eight years later, I was obviously marginally more prepared than I’d been during my caregiver time with my dad. My mom’s physical and emotional limitations required me to do a level of caregiving with dad which I desperately wanted to spare my own children. For the most part I was able to manage that, mainly because I’d had considerable practice at maintaining the parent/child boundaries that had crumbled in my family of origin when I was only a teenager. I didn’t spend a lot of time bemoaning my early responsibilities. I just didn’t want my kids to repeat my experience in their lives.

Michael had been in remission for over a year when he suddenly began exhibiting confusing behavior. After a month of negative CT scans we finally were able to get a brain MRI which showed widespread cancer throughout his brain tissue. We were stunned and thrust into instantaneous powerful grief. At the same time, all the conversations about end of life issues and all the decisions that we made, were suddenly tossed to the winds. Michael refused to wear his DNR bracelet when he was admitted to the hospital. He wondered if there might be some unexplored treatment that might buy him more time. Despite our previous years of coping with his deadly orphan cancer for four and a half years, accepting the idea that his effort to live over felt unacceptable to him. With only a few weeks’ life expectancy, according to his dire prognosis, his drive for life was so powerful that he chose to undergo whole brain radiation, along with Keytruda infusions. Despite my feelings about the brutality of this regimen, I felt that honoring my partner’s wishes was the only choice I had. We spent almost 5 weeks in the hospital, from February to early March, 2017, before finally being able to go home. After all the debilitating treatments, Michael was never fully himself again, alternating between short periods of lucidity, confusion and forgetfulness. Amazingly, he regained some physical strength during April but the cancer rollback from the radiation was brief, with a steep decline on all fronts beginning in May. As days passed, life grew more challenging as both his cognitive and physical skills declined. All these changes spooled out between visits from home health care personnel, still drawing blood, taking vitals and encouraging physical therapy. Always a very tall and muscular person, Michael became more and more difficult for me to manage. My own body was bending under the weight of his when he insisted on trying to maintain his physical independence. Making the decision to enter him into hospice was particularly hard as he still maintained a deep desire to survive, coupled with an inability to retain understanding about the severity of his situation. But then he fell, twice. Getting him up was impossible for me, and even with the help of my strong children, we almost failed. Watching the person you love best disappearing in front of you is deeply eroding. After spending decades as partners in planning, having to make that hospice choice was incredibly painful for me. But finally I did it.

May 17th, 2017 – It’s not every day that you sign your husband up for hospice. No more doctor’s appointments. No ER. No more bloodwork. No more home health visits. Just watching and waiting for death to come.

When Carol the hospice nurse came to introduce herself and drop off supplies and medication, she talked with Michael and me together, and then to me alone. She’d quickly assessed our situation, giving me helpful guidance about deciding when and how to proceed with medication which might keep Michael calm and relaxed. The first days of that time were still hugely difficult. Trying to keep Michael safe and comfortable was a 24 hour job until the time came when he was no longer mobile. He continued to attempt behaviors his body and mind were not capable of performing. I was frightened a lot of the time. My kids came to stay with me round the clock for the last days of Michael’s life. I was able to keep them from having to parent their dad, but rather to love and grieve him as his children which was so important to me. By the time he died, I was beyond mental fatigue and utterly physically drained. We all felt that Michael never made peace with dying so those beautiful moments we’ve all seen dramatized in movies weren’t part of our hospice experience. Michael died on May 28th, only 11 days after he was admitted to hospice. On the day Michael died, Carol wasn’t the hospice nurse on call, but she showed up anyway, informed by her coworker that Michael had passed. Although I have no military experience, I imagine that the bonds forged under fire must be similar to what happened with Carol and me during this end of life process. Her popping up in my life throughout these last eight years is, I guess, a testimony to that connection. I haven’t sat back to relive those days in awhile. After getting these thoughts out I’m again going to set them aside. Those vivid memories are never leaving me.

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We Saw It – A Murder, Plain and Simple

Video and photographic evidence of Alex Pretti’s murder have been widely shared by countless individuals and news outlets.

The representatives of the federal government, who have readily lied all day long about the violent thugs who are fanned out in this country, are trying to tell people that this man was at the Minneapolis protest to kill ICE agents and police.

He was an intensive care nurse at a VA hospital. He was attacked while trying to help people who were hurled to the ground.

I can barely find the words to express my grief and rage about what’s happening in my country. Innocent citizens being slaughtered in the streets under the pretense that their murderers have come to their citizens to make them safe from dangerous, violent criminals. Lies. More and more lies.

WE SAW IT. This government is trying to make people deny reality. While they sanction murder.

The historian who sifts through the daily madness of current life in the U.S. is Heather Cox Richardson, a Harvard-educated professor currently employed by Boston College. She published a column on the platform Substack called: Letters From An American. She includes verifiable references as backup for her reporting. She can address today’s horror better than I can. I’m too flooded with emotions to do it.

Here is her column from January 24th, 2026 – Saturday evening:

January 24, 2026 (Saturday)

“This morning, on a street in Minneapolis, at least seven federal agents tackled and then shot and killed Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse for the local VA hospital.

Video from the scene shows Pretti directing traffic on a street out of an area with agents around, then trying to help another person get up after she had been pushed to the ground by the agents. The agents then surround Pretti and shoot pepper spray into his face, then pull him to the ground from behind and hit him as he appears to be trying to keep his head off the ground. An agent appears to take a gun out of Pretti’s waistband during the struggle, then turns and leaves with it. A shot then stops Pretti’s movements, appearing to kill him, before nine more shots ring out, apparently as agents continued to fire into his body.

It looked like an execution.

After he was dead, the agents walked away, apparently making no effort to preserve the crime scene, which people on the street later tried to secure by walling it off with trash bins.

As journalist Philip Bump noted, administration officials didn’t even pretend to wait for more information before jumping straight to “the opponent of the state deserved it.”

Mitch Smith of the New York Times reported that federal agents have blocked state investigators from the scene. Drew Evans of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, a statewide investigations team that specializes in police shootings, told reporters his agency had obtained a search warrant—a rare step—but the federal government still refused them access.

Tonight, in a lawsuit against Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem and other administration officials, Minnesota attorney general Keith Ellison asked a judge for a temporary restraining order to prevent DHS agents from destroying evidence related to the shooting. The suit noted the “astonishing” departure from normal investigations, seemingly trying not to preserve evidence but to destroy it. A judge, who was appointed to the bench by Trump, immediately granted the restraining order, barring the administration from “destroying or altering evidence” concerning the killing.

Ernesto Londoño of the New York Times reported that federal officials also “have refused to disclose the identities of federal agents involved in Saturday’s shooting, as well as the names of federal agents who have shot people in recent days.”

Minnesota police have refused to obey the federal officers, though. Local law enforcement has been talking to witnesses and finding videos of the shooting. Minneapolis police chief Brian O’Hara said at a press conference: “Our demand today is for those federal agencies that are operating in our city to do so with the same discipline, humanity, and integrity that effective law enforcement in this country demands. We urge everyone to remain peaceful.”

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has said that it, rather than the FBI, will investigate the shooting. But, as Alex Witt of MS NOW noted, DHS had already issued a statement about the shooting, which falsely asserted that Pretti had “approached US Border Patrol officers with a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun” and that he “violently resisted” as “officers attempted to disarm” him. The statement continued that “an agent fired defensive shots” and added that Pretti “also had 2 magazines and no ID—this looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.”

“So,” Witt noted, “they’re gonna be investigating that which they’ve already issued a summary about…. It would seem that it’s a closed book?”

After repeatedly being exposed as liars over previous accusations against those they have shot, the Department of Homeland Security has so little credibility that Witt is not the only journalist calling out the federal agents for lying. Devon Lum of the New York Times wrote: “Videos on social media that were verified by The New York Times contradict the Department of Homeland Security’s account of the fatal shooting of a man by federal agents in Minneapolis on Saturday morning.

“The Department of Homeland Security said the episode began after a man approached Border Patrol agents with a handgun and they tried to disarm him. But footage from the scene shows the man was holding a phone in his hand, not a gun, when federal agents took him to the ground and shot him.”

But lying to the American people is the only option for the administration when we can, once again, all see what happened with our own eyes. Pretti did have a permit for a concealed handgun and appeared to have carried the gun with him, although witnesses say he never reached for it. Tonight Noem doubled down on the lie, saying again: “This looks like a situation where an individual arrived at the scene to inflict maximum damage on individuals and to kill law enforcement.”

When the Democratic Party’s social media account posted: “ICE agents shot and killed another person in Minneapolis this morning. Get ICE out of Minnesota NOW,” White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller replied: “A would-be assassin tried to murder federal law enforcement and the official Democrat account sides with the terrorists.” The Democrats’ social media account responded: “You’re a f*cking liar with blood on your hands.”

Miller continued to bang that drum. When Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) said that “ICE must leave Minneapolis” and that “Congress should not fund this version of ICE—this is seeking confirmation, chaos, and dystopia,” Miller responded: “An assassin tried to murder federal agents and this is your response.” When Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar similarly decried the killing, Miller responded: “A domestic terrorist tried to assassinate federal law enforcement and this is your response? You and the state’s entire Democrat leadership team have been flaming the flames of insurrection for the singular purpose of stopping the deportation of illegals who invaded the country.”

Miller is a white nationalist, who has recommended others read a dystopian novel in which people of color “invade” Europe and destroy “Western civilization.” Those who support immigration are, in the book’s telling, enemies who are abetting an “invasion”—a word Miller relies on—that is destroying the culture of white countries. They are working for the “enemy.”

In the wake of Pretti’s shooting, Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote to Minnesota governor Tim Walz to suggest he could “bring back law and order to Minnesota” if he handed over the state’s voter rolls to the Department of Justice. As Jacob Knutson of Democracy Docket noted, she explicitly tied the administration’s violence in the state to its determination to get its hands on voters’ personal data before the 2026 election. Minnesota has voted for the Democratic candidate running against Trump in the past three presidential elections, but he insists that he really has won the state each time.

As G. Elliott Morris of Strength in Numbers wrote: Republicans could stop this at any time they wanted to.

“All it would take to end the murder of American citizens by an untrained government goon squad is 16 Republicans in Congress voting with Dem[ocrat]s to defund ICE (or 23 to impeach and remove Trump—3 in House & 20 in Senate). That’s it. 23 Americans can vote for the public and end all of this.”

Morris also pointed out that in December, Trump’s approval rating was negative in 40 states, including 10 he won in 2024. That covers 30 seats currently held by Republicans. Pretti’s shooting will likely erode Trump’s support further. Tonight, even right-wing podcaster Tim Pool reacted to Pretti’s killing by noting that it looked as if the agent had disarmed Pretti before the other agents shot him. “I don’t see Trump winning this one,” Pool commented.

The funding bill for DHS is effectively dead in the Senate, as Democrats have said they will not support any more funding for DHS. Tonight, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told reporters: “Senate Democrats will not provide the votes to proceed to the appropriations bill if the DHS funding bill is included.” But the July law the Republicans call the One Big Beautiful Bill Act poured nearly $191 billion into DHS through September 30, 2029, with almost $75 billion going to ICE and $67 billion going to Customs and Border Protection (FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, got just $2.9 billion).

“Alex was a kindhearted soul who cared deeply for his family and friends and also the American veterans whom he cared for as an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital. Alex wanted to make a difference in this world. Unfortunately, he will not be with us to see his impact.

Representative Seth Moulton (D-MA) had more to say: “What we just saw this morning on the streets of Minneapolis is another outright murder by federal officials. And let me just be clear, those federal ICE officers are absolute cowards. I am a Marine veteran standing here telling you to your face they are unprofessional, pathetic cowards. Because if a Marine, an 18 year old Marine, did that in Iraq in the middle of a war zone, he would be court martialed because it is murder. And you pathetic little cowards who have to wear face masks because you’re so damn scared, couldn’t even effectively wrestle a guy [to] the ground, so you needed to shoot him? This is why ICE needs to be prosecuted. Yeah, I voted to defund it, but ICE, you need to be prosecuted, and Director [Todd] Lyons, who’s running ICE right now, I hope you’re hearing this from this Marine to you. You guys are criminal thugs. You need to be held accountable to law if you think you can enforce it, and you need to be prosecuted right now.”

Just hours after the killing of Alex Pretti, agents pinned U.S. citizen Matthew James Allen to the street while he screamed: “I have done nothing at all. My name is Matthew James…Allen. I’m a United States citizen…. You’re gonna kill me! Is that what you want? You want to kill me? You want to kill me on the street? You’re going to have to f*cking kill me! I have done nothing wrong.” Nearby, his sobbing wife screamed: “Stop please! Stop!! Please!! We were just running away from the gas. That’s all we were doing.”

“We all know the poem,” Blue Missouri executive director Jess Piper wrote, “and there is no shade of white that will save you from this murderous regime.”

Tonight, Susan and Michael Pretti, the parents of Alex Jeffrey Pretti, issued a statement:

“We are heartbroken but also very angry,” they said.

“I do not throw around the ‘hero’ term lightly. However, his last thought and act was to protect a woman. The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting. Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly ICE thugs. He had his phone in his right hand and his empty left hand is raised above his head while trying to protect the woman ICE just pushed down, all while being pepper sprayed.

“Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man.”

This must end. Abolish ICE. Impeach Trump. Stand up against this dystopian federal autocratic government. Stop the murders and the lies.

That’s all I can manage for tonight.

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3149 Days

Time seems to just barrel forward at this juncture in my life. I can barely remember a moment when I was anxiously awaiting an event which seemed like it might never come. Those frustrations were the emotions of my young self, never to return. Instead I’m trying to adapt to this speedy pace, to not just be going along for its often breakneck ride. I’d like some control. I want to live my days mindfully, to exercise intention, banishing drifting and being lazy to only those moments when I’m really tired. Good intentions for a new year, right?

For me, this latest new year arrived without much fanfare, other than changing a digit from 5 to 6. I’ve always thought New Year’s Eve was an overrated holiday, except for the fireworks from around the world, conveniently displayed by news outlets in order of time zone. And I’m not big on resolutions which historically, back when I made them, proved less than successful for me. Except for one life commitment. Some decades ago, I made and stuck with one of the hardest decisions I ever attempted, smoking that last cigarette before turning the calendar to a new year, quitting cold turkey, and never going back to that habit again. I’d been smoking a long time and in addition to being addicted, I really enjoyed it. I used to think there would never be a time when I wouldn’t crave a cigarette, especially during moments of stress. But I was wrong. I made it through all the years of Michael’s cancer, up to and including his death, without ever lighting one. I’m so grateful for the often-elusive discipline I found for that task.

With all my other personal challenges, though, I’ve recognized that the bad habits in myself I most wanted to adjust since I was young, are still with me. For the most part, I manage them more successfully now than back then, but those issues with which I struggle are as integral to my essence as they once were. My two main ones are food and money. Will I ever have a perfect diet or be a great financial wizard ? All the evidence suggests not. But I forgive myself for those imperfections which evidently are my price for being human. The good news is that my problems don’t appear to have a negative effect on anyone but me, at least so far, as I haven’t heard any complaints to the contrary.

But back to time. Sometimes the days seem to simply melt into each other. The relentless news cycle is a huge factor in how I spend my time, especially during this past year which has been so especially fraught, for me and many likeminded people, as a result of the current presidency. So many long-held norms and institutions, trashed in such a short time, have left the most recognizable guardrails of democracy in tatters. I find the autocratic trend terrifying. And it’s not like I haven’t spent portions of my past life disappointed, angry and protesting the wrongs in my country – it was far from perfect for me starting way back in my teens when women’s rights, civil rights and the Vietnam War were huge issues for me.

But truly, this time is like no other. Has there ever been a more unqualified government in my lifetime? No. The only requirement to serve this administration is to have blind loyalty and obeisance to the president. And if you don’t toe that minimal line, you can expect retribution. I can’t think of any other time since colonial days, when there was an actual king, when things were this bad. This past week, to top off the madness of invading Venezuela to capture its leader and then its oil, having to watch the rules on children’s vaccinations be tossed aside by a cabinet secretary who has no medical license, and to hear the president and his sycophants blithely discussing the next countries they plan to take over, I watched over and over, the videos of the murder of a young American woman by a masked immigration agent, dead for the crime of temporarily blocking a street. That travesty of justice was instantly backed up by outright lies and character assassination of that woman by this corrupt inhuman administration, whose supposed intent of deporting dangerous illegal immigrants, has devolved into a moments like this. Maybe even more astonishing to me, is recognizing that there are people who have watched that same footage, who see that shooting as justifiable, an act of self-defense. How is that possible? I am haunted by all of it.

The barrage of assaults on democracy in this country during the past year has been overwhelming to me. Educational institutions threatened with sanctions if they support teaching classes that are too “woke.” Removing historical reports at museums and national monuments which are now deemed incorrect by the ideologues redefining history and truth. Willfully ignoring civil rights and the Constitution every day. Where will it end? And at my age is this what I should be focused on, 24 hours a day? Yes, no one is forcing me to pay attention. I could look away to protect my mental health. But I’m not great at ignoring reality. The ways in which I’d like to spend my time seem so trivial and meaningless in the face of this wanton destruction. I’m really struggling to find balance.

My 75th birthday is a few months away. I still remember when I read the article excerpted below, back in 2014.

DR. EZEKIEL EMANUEL:

“Well, first of all, let’s clarify, I expect to be alive at 75, and I’m not going to kill myself. I don’t believe in legalized euthanasia or assisted suicide, but I am going to stop medical treatments.

And I look at 75, when I look at all the data on physical disability, dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, loss of creativity, slowing down of the mind and the body, and 75 seems like that, albeit somewhat arbitrary, moment where you get the maximum chance you’re still going to be vital and alive and vigorous.”

That article, (which, by the way, really didn’t mean that the author wanted to die at age 75), had a profound impact on me. At the time I first read it, I was 63 and my husband Michael was 65. Michael, who’d been diagnosed with a rare, incurable cancer in 2012, had already been through a minor and a major surgery, 30 radiation treatments and 18 rounds of a powerful chemotherapy cocktail. Only a few months after his last infusion, his cancer had popped up again on three bones. We were waiting to see if he might be eligible for a clinical trial, as he’d already exhausted all the protocols for his particular disease.

I read Emanuel’s stark predictions of life from age 75 forward. For the majority of people, the body was likely to begin deteriorating in multiple ways, weakening at the very least. Treatments like chemotherapy and radiation are debilitating, even for the young and healthy. Would the suffering and indignities that were almost inevitable consequences of such therapies worth it to prolong life, often for only a short term? What about the quality of life remaining? Big questions. Back in 2014, Michael was still in his 60’s. So every effort to prolong his life seemed worth it to him and for our whole family. And indeed we did get some excellent time during the next two and a half years. But the hard times were definitely pretty grueling. His cancer was briefly quelled, only to return. Each attempt to induce remission took a greater toll in his body. I was with Michael at every moment, as he went through that time before late May, 2017, when ultimately he died at age 67. I came away from that cumulative experience with what have been unchanging ideas about how I want to live the rest of my life. Seventy-five is fast approaching. That Emanuel article stayed with me. So my most essential idea is that I don’t see myself pursuing the same punishing therapies which Michael chose, right up to his death. They took too much away from him, leaving him too exhausted to do almost anything. But the second most essential idea about how I want to go forward, is to always recognize the value in each healthy day I have, when I have no physical issues interfering with my ability to, as the saying goes, lead my best life. I always think about what each good day meant to Michael, and for months they were few and far between. I honor his memory by being conscious of my good fortune and try to proceed accordingly. But I need a reset, a fix to get back on track to making the most out of my days.

Sometimes I feel that my small life concerns are so trivial compared to what’s going on in the big world. I can protest. I can call my representatives. I can make my donations to the organizations which are benefiting the greater good, at least as I see it. I try being a supportive friend, especially to those people in crisis during these harsh times, those who are grieving, those who are coping with family illnesses or emotional strife. And I’m good about getting exercise, making sure I read books, and usually keeping current with the chores of daily life. But I have lots of projects that I’ve set aside while in my loop of pursuing news for too many hours in my day. This has to change. So rather than making resolutions which I might abandon, I’m going with good intentions instead. For example, during the past year, I’ve stopped taking classes which have been part of my goal of lifelong learning. I can fix that by signing up again this month.

I’ve started baking after not doing much of it for a long time. I still periodically cook old favorite meals for my family, but I want my grandchildren to have memories of me bringing them special homemade treats. My mom left all that nurturing behind when my dad died. I missed that, as did my kids.

And I have some digging to do into my past history, before my research skills diminish. For a very long time, I’ve wanted to explore the early years of my life, from my infancy through age seven in Sioux City, Iowa. I’d like to fill in the blank spaces before my parents relocated our family back to Chicago, where they’d lived all their lives and where I was born. I feel urgency about that as my parents and two older siblings are dead.

These are not earth-shattering or momentous goals. But they are meaningful for me and very concrete, certainly better choices than anxiously following the latest political events over which I exercise virtually no control.

When spring arrives, I can turn my energy toward continuing to develop my pollinators’ garden, ridding my yard of useless grass, except for a small patch for my dog, who likes to roll around in it. The garden is solid work for me, in addition to creating an environment that benefits threatened species.

So these are my intentions for 2026. The politics are a still a dark space until the midterms come, which I hope will bring some relief from the autocratic nightmare playing out right now. But that is an open question and a scary one from which I’m seeking some relief.

I miss Michael, who provided me with the space to lay down my mental load for at least a short time. I can hardly comprehend that he’s been gone for 3149 days. What a mindboggling number that feels like for me. Our relationship began as a special friendship during which we spent countless hours talking, late into the nights, about everything. And without a doubt, I talked much more than he did, as my thoughts and ideas have been tripping over each other for escape from my brain for as long as I can remember. But eventually, with Michael listening, I could get done with them. And I could relax. I’ve found other ways to slow down my brain during these years that he’s been gone, but this last one has been even harder than the early ones of adjusting to his absence. And I’d so appreciate his perspective and the broad knowledge he’d developed as a U.S. history teacher during his career. Forty five years was a long time to have such a wonder. But now, in this part of my life, the best intentions will have to do.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve said aloud, to oh so many different people, and of course, to myself, that life can change in a second. That …

Close Calls and Lucky Reflexes

I can’t count the number of times I’ve said aloud, to oh so many different people, and of course, to myself, that life can change in a second. That we’re all a phone call or a misstep away from disaster. That we can’t constantly hold that vulnerability in the front of our minds all the time because we’d be too scared to function in daily life. As I’ve gotten older, and have unfortunately been in the position of having my life as I’ve known it, suddenly shift permanently for one reason or other, that awareness is taking up more brain space than it once did. Take this past week for example. After a packed Thanksgiving holiday, which stretched into a sixteen day visit from my son and his family, I spent a weekend in Chicago, catching up with rarely-seen relatives and old friends. These days, I’m trying to pack a lot of activities into my life, taking full advantage of the moments when my body, albeit less than perfect, is still capable of pushing its limits. Anyway, I got home Sunday evening, pretty tired but with a prepared list of deferred chores to tackle during the upcoming days. A bit of good news was that the significant amount of snow that was on the ground while I was away had melted, including bulk of the thick ice layer that had covered my driveway. Only scattered rough patches left, not as unnerving or dangerous as one big slippery slick. Or so I thought.

I tackled that chores list for a few hours on Monday and Tuesday mornings, mostly running errands. I stopped only for a midday swimming break. When I was done, I went back home, turning my attention to inside jobs and eventually, allowing myself some downtime in the house. This strategy was working for me, as I recovered from all the holiday and travel tumult. Dividing my tasks into manageable chunks of time was a good strategy. So Wednesday morning started just like the other days. I put my coat on, grabbed my purse and some boxes to be mailed, and headed out to the garage. While I was walking, I noted where the remaining ice was on the driveway, reminding myself to walk carefully. But literally, at almost the exact second I had that thought, I apparently stepped on that tough-to-spot winter hazard, the dreaded black ice patch, and found myself headed face first into the concrete pad in front of the garage. A total faceplant.

In the nanosecond of consciousness I had before I hit the ground, I remembered to pull my shoulders back to protect my arms so I wouldn’t land on my wrists. Instead my chin took the hit, bouncing up, my teeth smashing into my lips. Head wounds bleed so much. I found some napkins in my coat pocket which I jammed between my lips to stanch the bleeding. With nothing to hold onto to pull myself up, I remembered this old people video about how to stand up from a flat position, one that I’d recently seen on Instagram. Yeah, I watch all those senior infomercials now. Amazingly, I got myself into the downward dog yoga position, walked my feet toward my hands, pushed hard and was suddenly upright. I got a big hole in my bottom lip, abrasions along the upper one, really hurt my jaw and had some whiplash. But my teeth were all fine and I didn’t break anything. Kind of a lucky miracle. It could have been so much worse. But it wasn’t. No one was around me. I didn’t cry. I didn’t scream. I was able to think and to not get undone by pain or anxiety. My reflexes, physical and mental, still worked for me, in an unexpected, startling situation. Lucky indeed.

A couple of days later, another snow storm arrived, coupled with frigid temperatures. Late at night, I shoveled my sidewalks. Because I no longer can do all the outside cleanup, I was relieved to see the small company I hired a few years ago, show up with a truck which plowed my driveway, leaving a path to get me from the garage to the street. But I was leery after my fall. Aware that big ice was still lurking below the new snow pack, I cleared the all the snow and ice on the pavement from my house to mid-driveway. I had no desire to walk over any treacherous ground back to the garage, so I parked my car, outside the garage, on an angle, next to that clean walkway.

The next day, I did my morning things, went swimming and came back home for a while, before heading out to an afternoon eye doctor appointment. I can’t exactly say what happened next, but my best guess is that I didn’t correctly gauge my turning radius from the unaccustomed angle I’d parked at to avoid the ice. Within seconds of trying to back out, my car had slid out of the plowed pathway. I skidded onto a pile of snow and ice covering a railroad tie which separates my garden from the driveway. Is there such a thing as beyond stuck? Because that’s what I was. I started doing the rocking thing, shifting up and back from drive to reverse and cutting my wheels to escape the rut. But I wound up digging myself in deeper, and making a huge racket while doing it.

That noise brought my neighbor out of her house to offer help, but I knew someone bigger and stronger than her would be required for my mess. Fortunately, my son-in-law who lives right across the street from me, had just arrived at his house. He came over and immediately realized that my passenger side tire which wasn’t making contact with the ground. He retrieved a piece of carpet and some wood to close the gap and restore traction. With him pushing, I began the rocking thing again. After less than a minute or so, I could feel the car rising over the rut, so I gunned the motor. And just like that, I was free. Except I was in reverse gear, foot still on the accelerator, moving at a high rate of speed and barreling toward my neighbors’ vehicles, which were parked adjacent to my side of the driveway.

The sequence of events is blurry to me. My son-in-law yelling, “STOP!” Me glancing over my shoulder to see those cars and suddenly swerving away to avoid a collision, then swerving the car again to avoid plowing back into the railroad tie and ultimately, slamming on the brakes before plunging backwards into the street. I don’t think even a minute had passed. But I was safe. No collisions. No disasters. My son-in-law’s expression as he approached me was priceless, a mixture of shock and relief. But I didn’t have time to think about it – I hurried away so I wouldn’t miss my appointment which would’ve taken months to reschedule. Later, when I came back home, I photographed the skid marks to remind myself of that close call. And I talked with my son-in-law who figured out how my unusual parking angle had contributed to getting stuck in the first place.

The winter week still wasn’t finished with me. Two days later, when heading out in the morning to meet my daughter for our weekly breakfast, I found my car utterly dead, a victim of the brutal weather. That incident required a visit from the motor club, whose car-charging guy offered me solace by reminding me that I was only one of many that day whose vehicles were no match for the cold. Then my garage door froze too, an issue which has continued for days. But on I went, jiggling and adjusting whatever glitched, just trying to lead my daily life.

The following day’s tasks were two-fold. I had a scheduled visit to my health clinic for lab work ahead of an upcoming doctor appointment. As the blast of frigid temperatures caused school cancellation, I also planned on getting breakfast for my grandsons after I finished up at the lab. After my blood test, I headed to my car, ready to bring food to the boys. But when I lowered my car window to clear some ice covering my rear view mirror, the window got stuck in the down position.

With windchills in double digits below zero, all I could think was really ?? Were all these incidents a series of cosmic messages telling me to just stay inside until spring?? Enough already. But rather than give up, I picked up breakfast, delivered it to the kids and made my way to a service garage where the kindly owner squeezed me in for an immediate fix. That was a relief. I was glad for it, and also, that I was still resourceful enough to find quick solutions to these inconvenient and annoying situations.

I know that based on my age, now 74, a certain amount of brain function decline is common. This is the kind of stuff I wasn’t thinking about ten years ago. But I’m hoping to be on the outside of that inevitable curve. So I’m trying to do what I can to keep myself as sharp as possible. Exercise, every word puzzle created and mostly, the right foods. I guess I’ll have to see what happens.

“The brain’s neural pathways — the routes signals take — start to change, too. Over time, some connections weaken or get less efficient, like an old highway with potholes. This affects how fast we process and respond to things, whether it’s a loud noise or a sudden movement. Hormones and blood flow play a part, too. Reduced oxygen or nutrient flow to the brain can further impair cognitive processing speed. By the time someone’s in their 70s or 80s, these changes add up. These changes make reflexes noticeably slower and less responsive. It’s not just about feeling slower; tests show that reaction time by age can double compared to someone in their 20s. That’s why older adults might struggle with split-second decisions. For example, stepping on the brake or dodging an obstacle.” Medline

What I do know for certain is that I’m going to be glad about every single thing I can still manage without anything type of catastrophe. And that’s a good plan as today, I had another challenging situation with my vehicle come straight at me, out of nowhere. As I was driving down a two-lane through street with no stop signs in my direction, I suddenly noticed, through my peripheral vision, that a car on a street perpendicular to me was racing through her stop sign. I accelerated, hoping to avoid getting crunched in my driver’s seat. That worked partially. Instead of that direct hit, the other driver rammed into the rear of my car, completely knocking off my back bumper. Fortunately no one was injured. When the police arrived, the offending driver was issued a citation which means that her insurance will have to compensate me for what will be extensive repairs.

As I said, I feel lucky that I still have quick reflexes and that I’m still uninjured and alive after all my recent mishaps. But there’s a part of me that thinks I should just stay home for a while. I’ve had my share of problems. Now wouldn’t it be nice if life worked that way?

Sometimes it’s just one note of a song. Or a whiff of that certain scent. Maybe a glimpse. What elicits a memory? Where do they really live? 1,800 …

Memory Land

Sometimes it’s just one note of a song. Or a whiff of that certain scent. Maybe a glimpse. What elicits a memory? Where do they really live? Only in the murky recesses somewhere in the head? Or do shimmering wavelengths of what we felt, what we thought, what we did, somehow melt into the places where they happened. Can they leak out of their hiding places when we return to those spots, adding three-dimensional sensations to the movies in our minds? I have no idea. But certain places feel like that to me…

I wasn’t one of those people whose childhood experiences laid the foundation for a life master plan. The truth is, while growing up, I didn’t have much practice in goal-setting. My parents did not model best practices for an organized approach to the future. When I was young, they led what I’d call a reactive life, always responding to some crisis or other. Sometimes that was okay but the “we have a problem” approach didn’t lend itself to long-range planning. Interestingly enough, later on in my teen years, my dad was constantly harping on the necessity of having “a plan,” a true irony as for the longest time, there was no evidence he’d ever made one. And he wasn’t really specific about just how these plans were devised. I realized that for many years, despite that admonition in my head, I was winging my life in the same way as my folks had.

My dad had a number of jobs until he finally settled into a secure position in his mid-forties. My mom worked occasionally, but had nagging health issues that usually caused her to quit her jobs. As a result of their economic challenges, our family of six experienced years of struggle. I knew that other people lived differently. My school friends went to overnight camps during the summer. They went to far-away places for family vacations. Both of my older siblings had moved out of our apartment before we ever went anywhere other than visiting our grandparents and one uncle who lived in Chicago like we did. When I was twelve and my younger sister ten, somehow my parents managed a road trip to Mackinac Island. A real family vacation. We stayed overnight in a couple of motels and ate at diners. The first time I was served hot buttered toast I felt so rich, so privileged. After so many years, restaurant toast still evokes luxury to me. I remember us buying huge, juicy purple cherries at roadside fruit stands which we ate in the car, and I can smell the earthy scent of the horses pulling the carriages on the island, still the only transportation mode allowed on Mackinac. But that trip was a one-off. In my family we didn’t build memories around shared adventures away from home. Most memories were created within the walls of our various third-floor apartments, hotter than hell in the steamy Chicago summers.

Except for a high school trip to Expo ‘67 in Montreal following my junior year, that Mackinac Island trip was the only vacation away from home that I ever had during my childhood. Money was always an issue and throughout college, not much changed until January, 1972. With $200 and a few free months, I hitchhiked my way around several European countries with a couple of friends, discovering the wonders of being elsewhere. When I moved in with Michael upon my return from that first big adventure, his quite different early life experiences would set the tone for future travel. His family took numerous trips while he was growing up, annual visits to his two sets of grandparents who lived in Ohio and Florida, along with visits to places like Washington, D.C. and Gettysburg. In college he was off on tropical spring breaks, scooting around Florida and the Bahamas. Early on in our relationship, we cruised around on long driving trips in our shaky vehicles, combining sightseeing with camping for affordability. I loved being on the move. But after roaming around together for almost ten years before we had kids, the next kind of vacations we took were the more sedentary kind, going to a particular spot and parking ourselves in a place where families could have a good time.

For many years in the early ‘90’s, we spent our summer vacations with old friends and their families at a small lake in Michigan. These were the kind of traditional experiences that I never had while growing up. The comfort of knowing where we would go, with people we knew to do the same things we loved was great for our little family. But eventually, we shifted away from those gatherings. Our son, the youngest in that Michigan group, felt uncomfortably detached from most of the older kids and no longer looked forward to that annual sojourn. So when everyone wanted to put down roots in that area for the future, we stepped back. In the winters, we usually visited my in-laws in Florida. After my relationship with them soured, there was a period of years when Michael made that same trip with our kids while I stayed home. After a time, he too grew estranged from his parents, so the two of us stayed behind while the kids went off to see their grandparents. The two of us wound up looking for a different getaway during the winter holidays, just a couple of days somewhere, fairly close to home, which wouldn’t be outrageously expensive. And that’s when our trips to Starved Rock began.

We loved the opportunity to recharge our weary internal batteries, just the two of us, but after a while, the kids wanted to come along for the swims in the snowy woods. Grateful that they still enjoyed our company, we began squeezing in short trips during their winter breaks. Starved Rock was only about an hour and a half drive away from home. We could quickly get that wonderful sense of being away, almost instant gratification. When we started going there as a family we had teenagers instead of little kids, people who were more self-sufficient and less likely to tangle with each other. So for the most part, we enjoyed a peaceful, relaxing time. I still vividly remember our winter of 2000 trip. Just a few minutes before we arrived at the park, snow began drifting down, big fluffy flakes. We dropped our bags in our rooms and went down to the big indoor pool which was surrounded by windows on three sides. Swimming around in a warm room in the midst of what became a blizzard was unforgettable.

That particular trip was also memorable because one night as we shared dinner, Michael informed the kids that he was switching careers after twenty-seven years as the co-owner of a beloved campus record store. I can still see their shocked faces, lit up by the nearby fireplace. Having a dad who knew seemingly everything about music, especially the kind they liked, was a source of pride for them. In addition they only knew their dad’s work life in the one way which had encompassed their entire lives. Our son looked at Michael across the table and asked, “are you going to become one of those dads who drinks beer all day and lays on the couch watching game shows?” I’ll never forget that moment.

The years went by. We didn’t always take as many photos of each trip but we tried to get that picture-perfect winter respite as a family every year that we could. As the kids evolved, so did the configuration of our group. In what seemed like only a short time, our daughter married and had children. Our son was joined twice by a significant other. We brought the grandkids along with us when they were small.

Michael developed cancer in 2012, had a year-long remission and began chemotherapy at the end of 2013. Between rounds of treatment, we were all back in Starved Rock.

As Michael went through a health rollercoaster ride, we managed to get back to our winter respite at the end of 2014 and once more in December of 2016. When he died the following May, I wasn’t sure I could ever go back to Starved Rock. I worried that I would only feel his absence and a huge sadness that would shake my hard-fought balance in the life I’d built for myself.

But as time passed, I missed that restorative little trip, tucked away in the woods, surrounded by nature noises with the extra luxury of swimming every day in the pool that felt outside, despite the snow and frigid temperatures. In January, 2023, my son, now married and a dad, suggested that maybe I was ready for a little emotional risk, in addition to his fulfilling his own desire to share an important part of his life with his wife. So off we went. Despite my trepidation, I was relieved to feel a flood of only the best and most positive memories of our many wonderful times in this proverbial home-away-from home.

Maybe our shared moments with people we love leave remnants of themselves in the actual physical environments where they occur. Sounds a little far-fetched, I know. Maybe I have an imagination so vivid that I’m projecting myself into these spaces and dragging everyone with me. All I know is that I’m glad I got past the anxiety about this place so I could enjoy it again, even if there’s always that empty space where I wish Michael would be, in the flesh instead of the dreamy way. I also realize, that despite not having the roadmap of a master plan in front of me when I began my adult life, that Michael and I created the kind of experiences in our family that I always wished I’d had. That my children cherish those times is everything to me.

Anyway, last year was so great, we managed to repeat the trip this year. Will it again become an annual event? Who knows? But if I go back again, I’m certain that the visceral memories will still be there to greet me. Even though I don’t exactly understand how they really work…