Renee Rocks

Until I’d been home for a couple of days from my most recent magical vacation, I didn’t realize we’d forgotten to take our traditional feet photo. That omission from this most amazing trip surprised me, because my two adult children, now forty-five and almost forty, didn’t forget to snag our other traditional photo, the two of them standing on a shoreline, holding hands, looking out on a beautiful horizon. I have a ton of those pictures.

Those old photos were primarily taken at Lake Michigan or on the Gulf of MEXICO, (capitals deliberately selected), which were the places where we most frequently traveled together as a family. This time they were gazing at the Pacific Ocean.

This special trip to Hawaii, my last unvisited state in the U.S., was a gift from my kids for my 75th birthday. I never had a life goal of seeing all 50 states, but over the years, I realized I’d managed to visit every one but that faraway and very expensive one. So when this idea was hatched I was really excited. But no feet photo.

I suppose we could say that given Michael’s long nine year absence from our daily lives, we just forgot about the picture. But considering how much the three of us still talk about him, and continue to feel robbed by his unexpectedly early demise, I’m surprised we didn’t get our photo. At one point, I’d even pointed the camera at my toes in the shallows, trying to get a shot of them in the water, but I was distracted by the waves knocking me off balance. Oh well. I have to say that’s the only disappointment about this trip, so reminiscent of the one we took as a family of four, to New Mexico, twenty one years ago.

Before I continue this story, let me clarify a few key points about family travel. When I was growing up, my family of origin took a grand total of one vacation. Even then, my two older siblings were not included as they were already away from home, my sister in college and my brother in the Air Force. Limited finances were certainly the major factor in our stay-at-home lifestyle. Still, my parents were not much interested in seeing the world. My older sister described their existence as “life on the couch.” In any case, our one family vacation, which included my parents, me and my younger sister, was a driving trip from Chicago to Mackinac Island. I was twelve. I remember so much about it. Buttered toast brought to our table in a diner seemed so exotic and especially tasty. I still love the taste of hot buttered toast in a restaurant. And the fun of buying giant cherries at a roadside fruit stand, the purple juice staining our fingers as we ate them in the car, right out of the cartons. And riding in a horse-drawn carriage around the island which had banned motor vehicles. I remember feeling like I was in the olden days, truly seeing another time. Cheap thrills, I guess. In any event, I was determined that when I had a family, we’d have a lot more than one vacation, difficult family finances or not. My kids would experience more than I did. And so we traveled.

My in-laws lived in Florida on the Gulf side so we had a place to stay when we went there. Many of our earliest vacations revolved around that free housing. But we went other places, too. Amusement parks. Water parks. Historical sites. For several years we joined old friends and their families at an old fashioned resort, staying in cabins that looked straight out of another era, dingy and just this side of modern, a place that bordered a lake and which was like an extended family camp.

I really don’t know what I expected from these vacations. Some imaginary, idealized perfection I thought I’d missed out on as a stay-at-home kid? Maybe…but the truth was that our many ambitious adventures often left me crying in a corner. The kids, five years apart, each had their own opinions about what was fun, usually diametrically opposed to each other’s, and they bickered and argued a lot. Michael would get annoyed and lose his temper. I got sick of everything, breaking up arguments between the kids and trying to stop Michael from making irrational statements about never taking any family trips again. Didn’t these people realize they were stomping on my attempts to give them what I didn’t have? And was that even their fault? Probably not. They were busy living their current lives, not my old one. And, in truth, the trips weren’t all bad. They were just real life which didn’t always match my dreamy vacation aspirations. All those disappointments lessened as the kids matured. And our family dynamics were helped along by a key choice made by our daughter after she graduated from college.

She had gone off to school in Wisconsin in the fall of 1999, when she was 18 and her brother almost 13. There were visits home during the next four years as well as family visits to see her. Time seemed to whiz by. And then she graduated. Next up for her was her lifelong goal of law school. But during her university years, she had a revelation. The sibling spats of childhood were mostly over between our two kids, but the physical distance and their busy schedules didn’t leave much time for either of them to really know learn about each other as the people they were becoming. Michael and his older sister were never able to have a successful adult relationship, a big disappointment for him. Our daughter didn’t want to repeat that history. So in order to build a stronger bond with her little brother, she enrolled in law school right in our own hometown. In the fall of 2003, the whole family was back on the same turf for the first time in four years. During our son’s remaining two years of high school life, our busy law student showed up to all his soccer games and basketball games, lugging her computer and law books with her. She’d come over to our house to hang out with him and his friends. In time, they became a major sibling success story. And then poof – when our son graduated from high school in June, 2005, we were suddenly down to just a couple of months left together before he headed off to college in another state.

In addition, our daughter had met and fallen in love with the guy who was clearly going to become her life partner. So we planned what we felt would likely be our last family of four trip ever, to New Mexico to stay at the Wind River Ranch, where one of our oldest friends, a conservation biologist and his family, lived and worked. There was plenty of room for all of us. We’d be able to slow down, relax, hang out in nature, and periodically rouse ourselves to explore the remnants of the Santa Fe trail and various other historic locations in the vicinity. So off we went.

I wish I could accurately describe the reasons why this trip became such an outstanding experience. The words spirit and rhythm come to mind first. At home, the four of us were in our own unique spaces, coping with the challenges of truly divergent daily lives. Michael was 56, currently in his second full year of his second career as a high school history teacher. After almost three decades of owning an independent record store and being his own boss, he was adapting to being part of an organization. He was also working very hard, developing his own unique approach to what would ultimately become his life’s true vocation. His passion for U.S. history was big and he was hoping this big mid-life move was going to be successful . I was 54, in my 27th year of my job as an assessment official. I was like the hub of our wheel, holding the center while the rest of the family was going into new parts of their lives. I didn’t mind. Soon we’d be kidless at home. Michael and I had ten years together before we’d had children, so we figured we could remember that experience and adjust well to the proverbial empty nest. For me, the hardest part of the changes was not being able to call Michael all day long at work, to share every interesting thought I had with him. The school day squashed that luxury. Meanwhile, our daughter was a year away both from finishing law school with both a career on the horizon and a new life as someone’s partner. And our son was getting ready for college in the fall, leaving the familiar cocoon of home and old friends for a brand new experience. The four of us, with all these adjustments to make, piled into the car. Somehow or other, with a minimum of hassling and disagreements, we rolled west, taking turns choosing from Michael’s house favorites CD’s as our musical accompaniment, and playing the classic car geography and license plates games to occupy our brains.

Despite all of our diverse concerns and often widely-diverging opinions, we seemed to quickly settle into this unusual shared harmonious state. Suddenly we were just fine with doing all the same stuff. Hunting for insects of the west, a passion for our son, was good with everyone, even when the temperature approached boiling. We grabbed our nets and water bottles like it was our job. Riding the ranch horses? Great for the riders and the observers. A trip to Ft. Union? Absolutely. How about the museums of Santa Fe? No problem.

Relaxing worked too. Sometimes we didn’t do much besides reading, chatting with each other and our hosts, and admiring the beautiful landscapes, plants and wildlife.

I haven’t forgotten the annoying moments on this trip, when one of us fell out of sync with the others for a bit, wrecking the overall vibe. But a disagreement outside a museum because someone got tired of the whole pack mentality was generally a pretty fleeting event. Sometimes the younger set was frustrated with the lousy telephone reception on the ranch, particularly when they wanted to connect with their significant others, back home and so, so out of reach. But mostly, we were all good. I still remember a visit to Las Vegas, New Mexico, a nice small town with good restaurants, interesting history and a great bookstore called Tome on the Range. What was not to like? Nothing.

Ten days passed fast. I think the dominant feeling we all shared was a sense of wellbeing. And perhaps a shared awareness that this particular trip, likely the last of its kind, cemented us together as a family unit. And we appreciated it and felt lucky to be us. On the way home, we stopped at Garden of the Gods to admire the beautiful rock formations and Pike’s Peak in the background. We headed next to Cave of the Winds Mountain Park, where in the spirit of family unity, I, always a claustrophobe, was talked into going deeply underground. And despite a measure of fear, I was able to appreciate the stalactites, stalagmites and all the other highlighted geographical features, without dissolving into terror-induced spasms. We threw in a little history, paying a visit to the Ludlow Monument which honors the bloody struggle of the United Mine Workers and to the Truman Presidential Library, as all of the presidential libraries were on Michael’s U.S. History bucket list. A torrential rainstorm clobbered us as we made our way back to the real world. Then we all picked up our lives and went forward.

Years passed. All kinds of vacations happened. Sometimes Michael and I were on our own. Other times, we were with the kids, one or the other, sometimes both, often with their partners and eventually with some grandchildren. We made plenty of memories. Even after Michael died, trips continued. I went away by myself on occasion, and our whole crew managed to go back a few times to some of our traditional family places. We had many good moments. But I always remembered that incredible trip from 2005, which felt so great, every single day. When I recalled that New Mexico interlude, I would think of that old phrase, “lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice,” which I know isn’t even scientifically true, but which I felt about those special few weeks. How could we get that again, especially with Michael dead? That’s what I thought. Until now.

I admit, I had some trepidation about this Hawaii trip with my two kids. It’s been over 55 years since I’ve flown anywhere for almost nine hours. I had no idea how my body would respond to that flight which was then followed by considerable jet lag. In addition, the three of us were going to be living together for the first time in ages, and for 24 hours a day. Would we all be able to get along?

The answer to that question turned out to be a resounding yes. Like that vacation 21 years earlier, we seemed to find our rhythm pretty quickly. My kids were eager to have me see and experience pretty much anything on my to-do list. And the good news was that they really enjoyed themselves, doing my things.

From the beginning, they were game to get soaking wet on our first and only solid rain day, tramping through a beautiful but sodden botanical garden. After that, we wisely left space between our planned excursions for lolling around the pool at our hotel for rest and relaxation.

Our week was pretty packed. We went to Pearl Harbor, another beautiful botanical garden in the Waimea Valley, and to a luau with all the Hawaiian traditions. We visited a remarkable museum campus called the Bishop Museum, which is considered the premier natural and cultural history institution in the Pacific and houses the world’s largest collection of Polynesian artifacts and natural history specimens.

In what is truly ironic, all three of us had someone we knew on Oahu during this trip. We all met up with a classmate of mine, the two of us in classes as far back as elementary school. Up until this time we’d only seen each other once, at our 50th high school reunion, since 1968. We had a lovely afternoon renewing our friendship. My son got together with someone he knew from work circles and my daughter had dinner with a college classmate who’d realized they were both in the same place. Bonuses on our journey. At night my kids went out while I relaxed. I watched a lot of the U.S. Open tennis tournament and they climbed a mountain which was the most challenging hike on Oahu.

As with the New Mexico trip we had disagreements and some bickering. All of us still had our opinions which didn’t always match. But this head-bumping was generally brief and quickly supplanted by realizing we were all having this great time. I think each of us felt Michael’s presence instead of just his absence. And as our time together grew shorter, no one particularly felt like going home. For me, I was with my two surviving favorite people on the planet. The only thing calling me back was my garden. But of course, my kids both missed their partners and children. Like lightning, this long-anticipated vacation was over in a flash. Still, the family magic was still there, regardless of any negative moments and only being away for a week. Hearing your adult offspring both state that they didn’t know any other family who operated in the same close way as ours, is a gift. Michael whose family was fractured, wished for a deep, intimate connection in our little crew. And that’s what we got. He never got to see our son as a partner and a dad. That will always be sad. I will always wish he could was with me to feel and see the beauty of it. He would be beyond happy and proud.

My recliner is right across from this bay window in the living room. Intellectually, I knew where I was the whole time. Right in my living room where…

Still Somebody’s Baby

Intellectually, I knew where I was the whole time. Right in my living room where I can be found almost every evening. The living room, which unlike many other rooms in my oversized house, has always been used in the same way – primarily for relaxation at the end of the day. And, which will in September, have been used that way for the last 48 years. Which I consider to be a very long time, compared to just 10 years, or even 20. After having moved every year from 1968, as a first year college student, to 1978, I still occupy the first house Michael and I bought together. We’d been together for six years, living together for four of those and married for two. Back in 1978, we thought this was our “starter” house. Surprise, surprise. We couldn’t have predicted the future back then when we thought we knew almost everything. In any case, I’m still here.

This living room has been a gathering place for family and friends. Over the years, a room for celebrations, hanging out, confrontations, political meetings and sexy trysts. The play area for babies and the space for watching movies with my teenaged grandson. Also a resting place for the sick and the dying. For the past nine-plus years since Michael’s death, it has been my cozy evening spot, where I watch the news, binge-watch television shows and watch my beloved tennis. The place where I read, draw and knit. The place where I work my way through the boxes and files stuffed with papers and keepsakes that I keep sorting out, in the hope of downsizing. To make life easier for my kids after my demise. I know, I know. They don’t want my stuff. So I keep at this seemingly endless task. Forty-eight years provides ample opportunity for accumulating all kinds of memorabilia. Thus, every week or so, I work on either throwing things away, or recycling and donating them, mostly while I amuse myself with whatever is interesting on the tube.

So there I was, in my living room. I was being myself, this person with a goal for the night. I almost always have one, a goal, I mean – in my head I hear my dad saying “you have to make a plan.” I had my plan. I’d dragged a big box into the living room with me, a box labeled: Cards and Letters. The plan? Empty the box. I had a fair idea about what I would find inside, an accumulation of greeting cards and letters exchanged between my family members. But when I actually opened it, except for just a scant few, most of these cards were from Michael to me or me to him. I was surprised Shortly after he died nine years ago, I’d dug through many of those cards and pulled out the most memorable ones. I put them in an album, so I could read them over and over again. For almost a year I kept that album in my bed to sustain me when I needed…I don’t know – comforting, I guess, when I was too sad. So I wasn’t expecting to find anything new that might trigger any kind of emotional intensity – been there, done that already. Or so I thought.

My daughter had mentioned that recently, she’d decided to dump all her greeting cards which, good historian that she is, she’d stashed away for years. Piece of cake, she told me. I took that as a good sign and figured a cursory glance would be enough before I, too, would pitch everything from the box into the recycling bin. Ah, the best-laid plans and yes, I should’ve known better. I couldn’t resist – I started reading through each card, slowly, one at a time. I realized that I’d put them aside in chronological order. Back then, we wrote dates on almost everything. And we wrote in cursive, that disappearing ancient custom. Michael had such beautiful handwriting. Anyway, I discovered that the first card was dated 1972, the year I moved in with Michael, and the last was in 2016, right before his illness took over the rest of our time together. I realized that the printed message in the card wasn’t ever enough for us – almost every single one had a personal additional comment, one we’d written just to make sure we’d really expressed ourselves. Yeah. We both did that. What I thought was going to be a quick chore slowed down, way, way down. I was lingering over every word.

Then, after only a short time, the atmosphere in the living room started to feel very different. I’ve struggled with how to describe what I felt. As I said, I knew I was in my living room. But the actual physical structures around me seemed to melt, giving me the sense that I was floating in some intangible rhythmic goop. Like being inside a water bed without the sloshing? I don’t know. But it was warm and rushing. I knew I was still in the living room. I knew I was me. But I was also somewhere else. Some place I’d left behind which was the strangest combination of unfamiliar, but yet well-known. I felt awash in comfort. I was melting too. I distinctly remember raising my head from the cards and looking around the room and thinking, I’ve time-traveled. To somewhere. I’m back in that space where I knew, that no matter what was happening in my life, I was still somebody’s baby. More relaxed than my adult self. Smaller, more vulnerable. And it was ok. Better than ok. I felt like I hadn’t been how I was feeling in a very long time.

In my current regular life, I honestly can’t recall the last time I thought of myself in that way, “baby,”or any other soft diminutives for that matter. Honey, sweetheart, darling? No. Not in forever. I think of myself as a full-on woman, a grownup, strong and capable. I started working toward being that person when I was quite young. The world seemed to me to be a place where being assertive and powerful was necessary, the best skills for coping with what life tosses in your path. I wanted to be good at managing problems instead of being undone by them. What happened around me early in life set the stage for that choice. I saw lots of “being undone,” a catch-all phrase for plenty of trauma in my family. Not for me. I would do the caregiving, never being the one needing care. I would endure. No falling apart. Yes. That was my modus operandi, way back when and going forward. Except for one thing.

When I was just twenty I ran into Michael. And this magical connection happened. I’ve never wholly understood it. But it was real. And while I was busy growing myself, and together, we were growing our life with all its normal issues and challenges, I was simultaneously getting stronger while still totally being Michael’s baby. How did those twin levels coexist? I don’t know. But they did.

I know that when Michael and I became friends back in 1971, he inspired a level of trust that I had never previously felt with anyone before. Not in my family, not in my friendships, not with my boyfriends. With all those other people, I’d felt love, both for them toward me and I toward them. But I had a filter. I was wary. For a multitude reasons of reasons, I was never 100% myself, not with anyone. Sometimes I was ashamed or embarrassed. Sometimes I was uncertain about whether I truly felt sure of who would be able to put my needs first if I needed that. Sometimes I was protecting my image. Life felt complicated. I was guarded. Scared. But for some reason, from our very beginning, Michael made me feel safe. I could be all me, all the time. I could tell him anything without fear. Now of course, there were times when we needed to work things out. But that fundamental trust never changed. He was the best friend I ever had, the person who could always set himself aside and put my interests first. Kind of miraculous. That was so freeing for me. I could totally relax. I could be cared for, no strings attached. Just like a baby. Which is what he called me, all the time. My baby. A common endearment, but so special and unique to me.

I felt that safety for the rest of my life with Michael. No matter what was happening with us, that constant trust and care was always the bedrock of our relationship. The truest friendship. When he was dying, I was his caregiver, a role I was glad to fill. One day in the midst of the sadness and the confusion, he looked at me and said, “you really have no idea how strong you are.” The truth is, I kind of did. Our special bond helped me to be that strong person he needed and also, who I needed to be for him. What he couldn’t possibly have known back then, as I didn’t, was that I never relinquished that strength after he died. Not really. I needed that armor for my new life without him. Unconsciously, I put away that wholly safe space his presence provided for me. I needed to take care of myself. I have no regrets regarding that silent choice. But on this night, with those cards and their loving declarations, I was transported to that place which sustained me for decades. I felt filled up. Rejuvenated. I realized I will always be Michael’s baby. What a luxury to know that sensation, which though, more in the ether now, I suppose, is still as true as it always was. How amazing. The gift that keeps on giving, as the saying goes. A unique and transformative moment, unexpected and welcomed, right in my living room.

That night, I just let myself feel what had surprised me in the best possible way. But the next day, I was able to gather up a big pile of those cards to toss into the recycling bin. I took the photo above as proof for myself. But I also saved some for another night. You just can’t downsize everything. Certainly not enduring big love.

A recent hiatus from writing my blog happened unintentionally. I created this outlet for my thoughts and memories on January 1st, 2018, almost seven …

Hiatus – Of Travel, Trees and Aging

A recent hiatus from writing my blog happened unintentionally. I created this outlet for my thoughts and memories on January 1st, 2018, almost seven months after Michael died. Since then, I’ve published 542 different posts, with another 127 unfinished drafts in a queue. That’s about 6.7 pieces per month, on average. In my head, I’m writing daily, often jotting down a thought or idea so I don’t forget where I’d like to follow it. I’m also a champion at creating nifty titles. Yet, somehow, after February 2nd of this year, I just stopped. I had some organized paragraphs spread out under four different topics, but I couldn’t finish any of them. I haven’t exactly figured out why. I realize that the over-arching political situation in this country has been wearing me out for ages, every day revealing a new piece of crazy news that I can’t wrap my head around. I’m not alone in this, I know. In addition, I’m acutely aware of what feels like the rapid acceleration of time passing. I never was one of those people who got freaked out by “big” birthdays. I blew past 30, 40, 50 and 60 without blinking an eye. Seventy felt different as close family and friends who populated the landscape of my life started dying more frequently than before. And with my 75th birthday looming this month, I’ve definitely become more engaged in having experiences rather than writing about them.

But today I got a little mental kickstart, probably as May is looming with its emotion-laden days, starting with what would’ve been my 50th wedding anniversary on the 1st. Of course, I remind myself that when that day arrived in 1976, Michael and I had already been living together for four years and had been friends for five. So actually, fifty-five years of my life have been wrapped up with “us,” this “us”which is still an essential part of me, despite his being dead almost nine years. The undercurrent of our bond remains a mysterious connection that I’ll never be fully able to explain. But it’s undeniably real for me and has been sustaining as I’ve proceeded forward. I love his constant presence in my deepest core. Now that’s simply a given.

This year began with multiple trips scheduled for me. I’ve traveled more since Michael died than I ever did before, but he was still working before he got sick, which made leaving town less flexible. In any event, I’m moving around a lot more, grateful that I’m physically able to keep going. My daughter gifted me a getaway weekend with her at a spa in Wisconsin in January, to a place I’d had the pleasure of visiting a few times before. Then in February, I joined my son and his family in New Orleans. I’d been there before, but never during Mardi Gras, which was a wholly different and truly entertaining experience.

The good news about these interludes is multi-faceted. First, there is the great pleasure I get from knowing that my kids and their families include me in their lives in a way that feels like I’m still a person with whom they can enjoy themselves. So far, there’s no caregiving required from them in regard to my capabilities, either physical or mental. The twenty-five years I spent as my mother’s primary person after my dad died, were fraught with challenging responsibilities that seriously frayed our relationship. I want to avoid that erosion in my own family for as long as possible, maybe even longer. My kids say they’re happy to step up for me as the situation may someday demand. And I believe them. But I still don’t want to burden them with my needs, all their best intentions aside. I don’t think I’ll ever get comfortable with that prospect – my scars from that part of my life are still too fresh. Secondly, changes of scenery are definitely good for keeping your mind fresh. Going to different places seems to create new neural pathways for me, while simultaneously stimulating access into my memory bank. I’d been to both the Wisconsin spa and New Orleans several times with Michael. I really enjoyed the almost holographic images which popped into my mind from those times, stimulated by the still familiar places we’d shared together. A true travel bonus.

But in between these good times, I was struggling with what felt like an onslaught of deaths in my immediate universe. During the months preceding these two little trips, I was involved with three different women friends who’d suffered the deaths of their partners. As a widow with practice at grief, I was doing my best to be a supportive sounding board for them. And I was managing that pretty well without much of a personal PTSD response, as I confronted my own traumatic experience one more time. Instead, what really rocked me were two other random losses. One person was an old friend from high school, Stuart, with whom I’d reconnected via Facebook some years ago. We’d exchange messages and memories frequently. The last time we’d communicated was in October of last year when we were chatting about a hot dog business started by mutual friends out in Boulder, Colorado. Just a nice social exchange. But in January, I received what I thought was a fake message from some stranger informing me that Stuart was dead. What??? Impossible. After all, I’d just talked with him. I didn’t have any personal relationships with his family or other friends who might confirm things, so I poked around on my own and discovered that indeed, Stuart had died only two weeks after our last conversation. I didn’t get informed until two months later, after posting a birthday greeting on his Facebook page. That stranger had actually done me a favor by letting me know he’d died. The peculiar truth about social media is that unless an individual has given someone else the authority to remove their Facebook or Instagram accounts, their pages exist in perpetuity. I gave myself the macabre assignment of counting the number of deceased people I knew, for whom birthday reminders are still sent out annually on those platforms. To date, my list has 33 names. So weird.

And then there was the disappearance of my friend Peg. Peg used to be the best friend of Michael’s older sister Betsy, for almost 40 years. We periodically socialized with them, Michael and I never quite understanding how Peg tolerated the often rude and selfish behavior Betsy displayed toward her. Eventually Peg walked away from that relationship while continuing to build one with us. Over the course of the next 15 years, she became one of our most valued friends.

Two and a half years ago, Peg wrote me to share that she had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. She requested no phone calls from me, which I assumed meant that she wasn’t emotionally prepared to confront all the ramifications of her diagnosis. So for months, our communication was limited to brief texts. I had no information about her prognosis. I’d never met her adult children and had no relationships with any of her other friends. It was a bleak time. Then last year, I got an unexpected birthday greeting from her. I decided to follow up with a phone call and to my delight, she sounded like herself and was interested in getting together. Peg lives in Denver. As my son and his family were now living in Colorado, an opportunity for a visit arose last June, when I was staying out there for a month to help welcome a new grandchild. My son and I drove to see her for a day. The visit was rough. In person, I could see both the physical toll of her disease, coupled with the very obvious mental decline that had transpired in a scant year. At the time, she was very angry with her children who she said were trying to take control of her life. I’m sure that was true, as it was clear that independent living was getting to be a dangerous situation for her. But she couldn’t see that issue clearly, only as a power trip against her. Our time together was emotional and unnerving. After that day, we texted sporadically. Life moved along. And then at the beginning of the year, I realized Peg had disappeared. No more notes, no more texts.

I have tracked down contact information for Peg’s two kids and written both of them. I don’t know if they’ll reply or if they’ll simply delete my messages. I don’t know if Peg is alive and in a facility or if she’s dead. A vanishing. It’s a terrible feeling to have someone disappear. I know that these kinds of things happen to people all the time. Stuart’s death and this situation with Peg are new for me, quite unlike living through the hard times of watching loved ones eventually succumb to an illness. I know how to do that kind of loss – but these are a different kind of sobering, the transient and ephemeral nature of life, right up in your face. When I’ve had to hold my dogs when they are euthanized, I’ve had a similar sensation of thinking that the line between life and death is just a brief flash. Over, just like that. And then and then…

In March, I was spring cleaning in the yard when I noticed a split in the trunk of my 37 year old redbud tree. We’ve rough winds and powerful storms with lightning, and many tornadoes near where I live. I planted that redbud tree when my son was three. The buds for this year were formed on its branches. But the split got worse. When I called a tree service company to come and have a look at it, they recommended immediate removal. Otherwise the next big wind could topple it and plunge at least half of it into my house. Everything happened so fast.

Losing a tree, especially one you’ve planted, is deeply disturbing. With the environment and climate change in the forefront of my mind anyway, having a tree go is like a death. Is that dramatic? Maybe for some people. But I spend a lot of time appreciating and admiring trees which provide so much for humans and animals alike. While living in our home, I’ve planted six trees on our lot. The redbud is the first of them to go. Michael and I were both forest walkers and tree lovers. After he died, I was preparing a pamphlet for his celebration of life. In his famous red notebook where he wrote his thoughts about his illness, his life and his impending death, I found this poem by Maya Angelou. It was clear that it resonated with him so I placed it on the bifold of his program.

And then and then…I parted with my 23 year old car and reluctantly got a much newer one. And then I was back in the traveling mode, on another extended trip, this time to Colorado to visit with my grandchildren. Somehow or other, as people die and disappear, I’m still running around through airports and flight delays. I know I’m aging and slower than I used to be, but so far I’m keeping up with it all and trying to squeeze the best possible experiences out of this time I continue to have.

While on these trips to Colorado, I usually pick up the viruses that the day care kids bring home to share. So far they haven’t killed me. I wonder how long I can keep going along at my current pace. Trying to stay strong is certainly a life goal although I realize that anything can happen once you hit your mid-seventies. During this particular journey, one of my oldest friends who’s lived abroad for decades had a birthday. I sent him my usual greeting but received no reply. I have no way of knowing whether he’s okay or not. Then I received an email from a swimming friend informing me that one of our fellow water lovers had died. I missed her funeral. At the very end of my trip, while at the airport, I got a call from still another friend, telling me that a lovely woman we’d known since college had died quickly from a massive stroke. And to top off all this news, my daughter called to let me know that a huge maple tree right across the street from me had come crashing down, taking out a relatively young tree on my parkway. The front of my home, shaded by amazing trees since we moved in here in 1978, was now totally exposed. My shade garden is now a sunny one.

These first months of the year have felt like a lot. I miss my trees. I’m sad about the shrinking of my social fabric, although I’ve known for a long time that this part of life is for those of us still living, a time for thinking about age, diminishing and loss. I still remember my mom frequently asking, “why am I still here?” I had no answer for her back then and I have none for myself as I continue on my road. Life’s mysteries.

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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