The miracle of Cris...

We just said goodbye to our friend Cris.  

Cris has always hated goodbyes and so every time we have visited her or she visits us there is always that dreaded time to say goodbye when Cris cries like she is never going to see Beth again and then Beth gets weepy and then I have to find something to distract me, like starting the car and adjusting the mirrors because I can't seem to talk at that moment.  It is always difficult because we leave Cris with tears running down her cheeks as she waves with her big toothy smile and her eyes squinted shut like she does whenever her smile is bursting out.

On Wednesday we said our goodbyes in an entirely different way.

Cris' eyes were dry and wide-eyed.  She was calm as we kissed and said thank you to each other.

Normally when we leave we always thanked her for the good time we had during the visit, but on this three day visit, we really were not having fun, and when we were thanking Cris on our way out, we were thanking her for the friendship we shared for the last 33 years or so.  

We will never see Cris again and we are going to miss her so terribly.  

She has lost her battle with Cancer and is just "waiting for the miracle".

Up until recently she seemed to think that the miracle would be to wake up one day and be healthy and energized again but I feel that she might finally have realized that the "miracle" that she has been waiting for is the gift of peace.  She has finished her work, it is time to rest.  She will be remembered fondly by all those that knew her, her laughter, her caring, her laughter, her mothering, and her laughter.  Cris loved to laugh.  She made other people laugh.  

I was sorry to hear Cris say that she was scared of death and we tried to make her feel better by reminding her that both of her parents and Derek had already done it and we haven't heard any regrets from them.  It is a natural process that is something to be looked forward to.  The timing isn't always exactly when you planned, but it is better to be early than late, which goes against Cris' entire "if I am not very late, I am waaaay too early" philosophy of scheduling.

Cris is always late for everything.  Everybody lies to her about the time of an appointment and she STILL will be very late.  Cris did not like to have other people drive her places because she might get there early which really irritated her.  I remember taking Cris and Beth to the airport once many years ago.  I was worried that we were running late because there was only twenty minutes to go before the flight when we pulled up to the sidewalk but Cris surprised me with a hissy fit "I knew we would get here too early! NOW what are we going to do for twenty whole minutes!".  I couldn't stop chuckling for a week.

This was the only flight that Beth took with Cris that the plane's door wasn't held open by a stewardess as they ran to the plane and slammed shut behind them.  Cris could never see the point of sitting on a plane waiting for other people to board, there were too many things to do.

If you flew with Cris you had to wear shoes that were good for running.

A few weeks ago Beth met Cris, Louise (Cris' sister), Rachel (Cris' daughter), and Jeanne (Cris' bestest Florida friend) in Sedona Arizona for a "going away" vacation.  They shared a lot of tears and visited the Grand Canyon in a limousine that came with a tour guide (the cost of the limousine and guide, the hotel expenses, and Cris' plane tickets was a gift from her many friends in Florida).  It was a wonderful way to spend your final vacation and Cris has since decided that she would like her ashes to be placed in Sedona.  

The three or four of you that read this blog probably remember Cris from occasional visits to the Annual4th parties.    Cris and Beth first met when they started working at the Foxboro Company on the same day in the mid 70's.  They quickly became friends and made arrangements for the "guys" to meet.  There were a lot of warnings and disclaimers to try to pre-apologize for each other's guy and what they may say or do while out in public, but I got along great with Dan S the first time we met, and between the good food, drinking, and constant laughing, the four of us couldn't help but become very close friends.

Eventually Beth and I had to move to New York so we moved there via a three day visit at the annual blue grass festival that Cris, Dan, Beth, and I went to every year.  The same festival that we met Jeff R at.  Dan and Cris had "the Peanut", one of those impossibly little round campers that was handy to hide in when security came around to check our wristbands.

Cris eventually drifted off to Florida searching for the unknown and settled in Clearwater, got married to Rick Gard and had a cute baby named Rachel.  Rick works on huge construction projects that take two to ten years each, so Rick would only be home a couple of weekends a month.  

Rick told me that he was looking for two qualities in a woman.  She had to be strong because he would never be home, and she had to be a good mother.  Cris was both.  They didn't always get along but she was very very strong and independent, and she was a great mother.  Rachel is a happy beautiful girl in her early twenties, Cris has a multitude of friends in Florida, and Rick takes a leave of absence from work when Cris needs help to battle her cancer.   He is taking VERY good care of her, being very patient and strong when she needs it the most.

Cris liked being good friends with guys but never really liked being a "wife".

If Cris ever felt that there was a chance of being forced to conform, even if she wasn't but Cris suspected that others just may expect it of her, she would rebel.  Above all, Cris was a rebel.   

Her rebel instincts would sometimes cause her to make decisions that she would later regret.  She would admit to Beth and I that a mistake had been made as she told us about some event, but she would never even consider backing down.  She was a stubborn cuss.  If she had committed to something that she knew wasn't going well, she would see it through to the end.

Cris loved to perform in plays and she loved to dance to bad music.  That thumping dance beat music that has always been lurking around, will continue to be produced, and will be played by radio stations with "kiss" in their tag line.  I would be shaking my head in disbelief that anyone could like this stuff and I would look at Cris and she would have her eyes closed, her teeth displayed like a peacock and she would be bouncing with the beat.

Cris loved good food.  She was a great cook and loved eating.  

Cris loved to take naps.  I always enjoyed visiting Cris because a group nap was always involved.

Taking a nap in the same room with someone has always been quality time for me.

Cris loved parties.  Especially costume parties.  I think there are pictures on this blog from last year's Halloween party .  

Beth had been on the phone with Cris constantly until a little while ago when Cris would sometimes be too tired to talk.  Cris not talking on the phone, that was heartbreaking.

Fortunately she is still talking, she just isn't long winded.

She has not eaten in many weeks, so is very thin.

She is still able to smile when asked and she is still in command.

Louise is staying there for a while so that she can tag-team with Rick for trips to the store.

If you would like Cris' contact info, just let me know.

We are really going to miss Cris, she is such a good friend.  A Rebel, a mother, a friend.

Beth's bestest buddy.

I am praying that the miracle comes soon.

Shrinkotopia, alpha release

Flushing out via whining. If you are having a cheerful day you should just skip this post because it doesn't seem to be very "up". Flushing, purging, and letting loose. Stand back...

One of the reasons that we are staying in one spot right now is that I have decided to see a shrink in an attempt to "clean out the cellar" and get on with my life. I may be wrong, but I have a feeling that 2006 was the result of deeper problems than losing Derek. I was thinking that since I was not as "emotionally healthy" in 2006 than I was in 2005, there is the possibility that there are deeper problems that needed a catalyst to make them visible. In case you didn't happen to work with me that year, my work performance in 2006 was what you would expect from a very distracted fourteen year old. I wanted to do better, and every day I had planned to do better than yesterday, but I couldn't climb out of the hole and I was getting too tired to hold on. My only saving grace was that the company that I worked for had known me before the "issues" and they showed an exceptional amount of compassion for my confusion.

The whole Adventure wasn't planned, we needed to move out of Derek's house, we never expected to sell it when we did. I was less productive and less profitable to my employer than I had ever been at any time of my life, and if our whole world was going to collapse then we figured that we might as well see things and enjoy ourselves while we flame out. I never expected to finish the trip.
Peterbilts occasionally squash cars, bridges collapse, armadillos spread leprosey, and Montana men threaten to bury you. We came though with flying colors and not even a hint of danger, well, I thought the guy in Montana probably was joking when he threatened to kill me, but the other folks in the bar were telling me he was serious (it was just a little misunderstanding, just because he was trying to give me crap about the Patriots and I told him that I wasn't your typical black lab so I don't seem to get as excited by watching a ball get tossed around as much as he seemed to be, jeeeesh people are touchy about their sports).
Of course we are a little smarter when we travel than we used to be. Someday I'll tell you the story about Beth and I being given a tour of the inner workings of an Algerian grain ship that was unloading in Quebec. Now that was stupid.

So we were winding down on this loop of The Adventure and taking a break from the road in Florida, and as soon as we stopped moving, I started to fall into a bit of a funk, and I realized that I am not at all ready to go back to a job that requires any type of management skills.

So while we are here taking care of the Hampster Ranch on top of this hill, I am going to a psychologist ptwice a pweek.

Things are going fine except when she pokes somewhere in my psyche that is a little raw. We haven't touched on very much of my life yet. Every time we talk about anything that has happened in this century, things seem to swing right back to my childhood. Harumph. It's done. It's over. There is No reason for her to root around in there, except of course, for the fact that I told her that I wanted to clean out my cellar.

It turns out that the dominant person lurking in my cellar is good ol Mother.
Anybody that knew my mother is now shaking their heads knowingly. She was Nancy. There was no one quite like her. She was true to herself. It made all four of us very tough. There maaaaay be a few issues here and there related to her child rearing techniques, but after all, who didn't have a difficult childhood. Her childhood was pretty crappy too. It didn't affect her one little bit.
I'm sure there are LOTS of kids who were never physically touched by their mothers. At least that means that you never got hit, right? We are reading in the papers every day about kids that were touched too much by the adults in their life. So we were lucky.
Oh sure, she didn't touch us, and there is a very good chance that none of us would be able to remember any example of affection from her but she was usually aware that we were there. We just understood that it was our job not to interfere with her life too much while we did our chores. The good thing is that none of us ever had any problem moving away from home, we had been independent our entire lives.
All four of us kids share a very serious work ethic. If you have spent your entire childhood doing chores, when you get into the working world everything seems easy.
I have convinced myself over the last few years that she had Asbergers, and it would explain a lot. She wasn't the nurturing type. Nurturing was for sissies. If she had seen the doctor perform a procedure just once, then there was no need to pay the money again, she could do it just fine. No wonder we always hid the usual kid injuries from her. You have no idea how much a simple broken nose can hurt until you have experienced a "nose reset" by someone who has to keep "starting over" until it is deemed "close enough".
Test my siblings sometime: just hold a needle over a match and watch them hide their hands behind their back. It's an involuntary reflex. Minor surgery in our house was such a common event that Mother didn't even have to snuff out her Chesterfield first. I remember my neighbor Marty would be painted red with iodine if he got a scrape. I thought that was cool. At our house scrapes were ignored unless they got infected and started inflating, and then that night after supper the wooden match was waved under a needle or a buck knife, depending on how big the "balloon" was. A match to sterilize the tool before the procedure and a splash of bourbon on the wound after the procedure. I am soooo glad that none of us ever had appendicitis.

So based entirely on the paragraph that I have just written, it seems that my visits to the shrink are digging out memories that had been dormant for a long time. So the big question is: Does this do any good? If I purposely review all of the absurd things that I went through as a child, what am I supposed to DO with this information that is being looked at by an adult for the first time? Am I supposed to sweep it under the rug now that I have dragged it out, or am I supposed to wallow in it and use my mother as an excuse for everything that I do? I haven't ever done this stuff before. I have seen a lot of Woody Allen movies so I am aware that these things don't just pack up and say goodbye. Everybody had a screwy childhood in one way or another. I don't understand how looking for the errors of the past can help you since the past cannot be changed. Maybe it can give you justification for being wierd but if you have to learn to have good posture and stand straight you don't need a flat surface to do it, you can ignore the few lumps that are under the carpet and just adjust your posture by minor tweaks to the position of your feet.
Well, tomorrow I am going to ask my shrink right away where this is all going, and hopefully I will get an answer before things veer back to Nancy and her novel method of running wires and insulation through very small spaces.


Has anybody done the whole "Mother" thing with a shrink before? Did it make things better, or do you wish you hadn't done it? Let me know.

Twenty One

Early December 26th 1986 just past midnight and the anesthesiologist has finally arrived. He is very crabby because it IS Christmas, but the surgeons have spent time warning us that Old Doc Weiderhold is ALWAYS crabby when he is called in for an unplanned surgery, he is really good, but he WILL yell at us. (and he did)

When everyone was ready, the surgeon who had been taking a nap in the little on-call room (where I was figuring out how to tie up my scrubs) suddenly sat up, looked at the clock and said “Good! It's the 26th, the kid gets his own birthday! Everybody should get their OWN birthday.”, and off we went down the hall to surgery. Me and my new surgeon buddy Dr. Brodkin.

At the time I was thinking that it was too bad that things got stuck, I had been counting on the 25th. Beth had been in a lot of pain for a lot of hours, but Derek was inexplicably stuck in the play-doh fun-factory of life and the doctor didn't know why. Plan-B would be a little more difficult to implement than usual because it was Christmas day and the doctors were kind of busy. It would be four hours before they would be in “operating” condition (so to speak).

I should have known.

It had been foretold by Lindsay.

On Christmas Eve we had hosted Joe and Lindsay for a nice dinner. Beth's due date was in January and Lindsay was already a wee bit overdue, and to hear her tell it,
she was months behind schedule. During dinner Lindsay shared her ultimate fantasy with us.

She would go into labor very early Christmas morning but wouldn't tell anyone. She would go to her in-laws to have the traditional opening of gifts and then she would say “I have an announcement to make: We are going to have one more present today... we are going to have a baby!” Everybody would fuss and get excited, and Joe and Lindsay would wave goodbye, go to the hospital and squirt out the kid.

I was horrified.
As I am prone to do, I told her so.

“That is an AWFUL fantasy. No No No” “Your kid would NEVER have a decent birthday!” I had experience with this type of thing because my mother had me induced to beat the tax-break deadline, she was a very practical woman, she saved some cash but she could NEVER remember my birthday.

We had a wonderful evening despite my big mouth, Hours later we waved goodbye as they drove off into the Christmas Eve darkness.

Beth and I finished whatever it is that we used to do on Christmas Eve and went to bed.

Beth didn't think that she could get out of the waterbed to get to the bathroom in a reasonable amount of time anymore, so she wanted to try sleeping in the guest bed.

We tried it. I was sleeping away on the hard mattress, minding my own business when Beth woke me up at two am. She wanted to tell me something.

Her water broke. Once my sleepy brain got wrapped around that, I found that I no longer was sleepy but had developed a sudden, very severe case of Tourette's syndrome. I was only using one word but I was using it continuously. I may have mentioned Lindsay's name and my feelings about her fantasy once or twice also. It totally ruined my ability to sleep for the rest of the night.

We spent the rest of the morning pacing around. OK, I paced and Beth probably did some constructive stuff. When the sun came up we drove to the hospital and after being checked out, we were told to come back later. Then we drove to Keene where Doug, Leslie, and both sets of parents were.

We opened our presents for a couple of hours and then we made the announcement.

Nana (Beth's mom) said “Have you seen a doctor?”

Beth and I started explaining the situation until Nana would interrupt with “Have you seen a doctor?”, we would say “yes” and continue with the story until Nana would interrupt with “Have you seen a doctor?”, and we would repeat as necessary. This continued for quite a while until eventually Nana's question would get a loud “YES” from seven of us in unison each time she asked. Her record was skipping and there was nothing we could do.
Eventually Beth and I packed up to go to the hospital again.

I still remember Leslie standing in the driveway all teary eyed as we drove away.

The damn hospital told us to come back later. Again.

We went to our house in Antrim and Beth handled the pain in her own way, she rearranged the furniture. She was trying to find a comfortable position and it seems that chairs that are uncomfortable in the living room might be more comfortable in the kitchen. Or perhaps not. Lets try a hassock... here... or here...

After several phone calls to the doctor to check on “times between” and other such things, I was just waiting for permission to return to the hospital, every piece of furniture had been moved at least four times and I was afraid that she was going to ask me to paint the house. Finally they allowed us to come.

I don't remember the details, but I am sure it was a pleasant trip.

Finally we were going to get some action. We had great nurses, a great doctor and... nothing.. Things were progressing. We would have a kid by 4pm. OK, Five thirty.

Hmmm.
There's something wrong, not serious mind you, but you will be all done by Seven. The baby monitors reported that everything was okydoky. Beth wasn't. She was tired. She had been pushing for hours. Two shifts of nurses. Other mothers coming and going.
Warren was hungry (of course), we had headed back to Peterborough before Christmas Dinner so I had to forage at the hospital. I had become skilled at racing down to the nursing station, getting cookies, and racing back before the next contraction.

Beth wasn't hungry, she had other things on her mind. We would talk between contractions, but she never made a sound during the pushing. Not a peep.
Hours and hours of pushing. At 8pm they started making arrangements for surgery, and Beth was not supposed to push anymore, which was even harder. We weren't told that it would be several hours before the various people involved with Plan-B could be at the point that we were at now. Beth was rolling on a gurney, and the doctors and I were walking.

Good ol Doctor Brodkin gave the tongs one last try.

If you have never seen a doctor using tongs, it is a sight to behold.

There is a sheet up over Beth's knees and Dr. Brodkin has a different viewpoint than I do.

He holds these two metal salad tongs and surveys the situation.

The tongs are jammed under the sheets and clanked against each other for five seconds and pulled back. Toss the salad and retreat. Stare, toss the salad and retreat. Stare.

No baby popping out, he announces that he is going to start cutting.

Dr. Boxer (with the purple pants) comes over and stands next to me while they start carving. I didn't know who he was, he seemed nice. He was our brand spankin new pediatrician. I didn't know why we needed a foot doctor, but that was because I didn't know what a pediatrician was yet.
Bright lights. I hold Beth's hand and try to explain what is happening on the other side of the sheet where everybody seemed to be so busy. They were busy and they were talking about all kinds of medical type stuff that I didn't understand. Beth wasn't even scared. Something was finally happening. There are a lot of layers to go through. The lights were bright.

The doctors were about two layers from the goal when the Dr. Brodkin said “Hey LOOK, he's looking right up at us!”. Derek was seeing the bright lights and as the layers were being peeled back things were becoming clearer and clearer. The doctors and nurses were all laughing and the mood in the room changed completely. It also explained why things didn't go as expected: Derek was looking UP while the manual says that he should be looking at the floor. Independent Cuss. They had to yank and tug to free the top part of Derek's head that Beth had spent many hours working so hard to push where it was.

Finally the little cone-head popped out. After celebrating for a while I kissed Beth goodbye and carried Derek down the hall to get weighed and measured. I walked very carefully so that I didn't walk into a wall while I was looking down at him. Dr. Boxer used a little tape measure to get the important data. One of the measurements that he was supposed to measure was the circumference of Derek's head. He measured around his eyebrows, he measured up where a beanie would be, and then he put the tape around the waistline of his very long head. Dr. Boxer turned towards me and seeing the look on my face, said “You'd be surprised how fast these things fix themselves...”

Ohhh thaaaat makes me feel better. My kid looked like Yoda with a cone-head. I figured that Beth and I would adapt to having a kid like this, isn't that why they created PhotoShop?

I put out my pinky and Derek wraps his fingers around it. At that instant I became a
dad. Everything will be just fine. The nurses let me sleep with Beth and Derek that night.

Over the next two days all of the Nurses would run up to our floor so that they could see the “adorable little cone-head”. Dr. Boxer was right, it did fix itself.

Beth and I had a very nice week at the hospital. Lindsay baked a cake for my birthday and we had a little party in the “day room”.

Beth, Derek and I all went home for the first time on New Year's Eve 1986.

We all slept in the living room. We woke up at midnight and watched the ball drop on TV. We then promptly went back to sleep.

Our new life. Pretty cool.

A week later Lindsay was pleading with Dr. Brodkin to make her baby happen when she told the doctor how Beth had “stolen” her fantasy. The Dr. Brodkin jumped all over Lindsay telling her that nobody should wish for a delivery like Beth had gone through because it was the toughest he had ever seen. The doctor didn't really seem to understand what part of Beth's ordeal was the “fantasy” that Lindsay was referring to.

That tough day and tougher night gave us the greatest reward.

That was 21 years ago tonight. I remember it like it happened last week.
In fact I remember it better than anything that happened last week, but that wouldn't surprise anyone that knows me.

Twenty One.

It is odd how there are certain MAJOR ages. Derek was convinced that his life was going to change dramatically on his 16^th birthday. The world was his oyster, although he was a vegetarian, so the world was his can of chick peas.

The freedom of driving, he would be able to do anything he wanted, etc. etc..

Sixteen really didn't create the kind of radical changes that he was imagining, but Eighteen! Just wait!

I'm sure that twenty-one would be the same type of major event, although I can't really think of ANYTHING that changes at that age except that you can legally drink.

OK.
It's legal. Gee. I guess the thing you would do is buy a beer for your kid. Hmmm.

What a festive occasion.

Derek always went out with us for Chinese Food on his birthday (which we NEVER forgot). Tomorrow/today Beth and I are going to take some of Derek's friends out for Chinese Food again. Should I buy the usual Roy Rogers that Derek always ordered (a non-alcoholic fancy drink) for the center of the table or should I order a Suffering Bastard?

Well I may still order the Suffering Bastard because it is soooo much fun for the guys to hear the waiter repeat “sufffffrin baaaasstahhd” back to me, but I think that I will stick to the Roy Rogers for “Derek's drink”. Who knows what Derek would have ordered.

Happy Twenty First Birthday Dude. Thank You.

Tim, Part I, Good ol Tim

In Freeport Maine today, 1600 miles away from us, our family is having a memorial for Cousin Tim.
As I am editing this, I am inserting this in front of all of my other “Tim” paragraphs, the line below says: “My cousin Tim passed away at 4:30 this morning. His son Karl was with him.”

I have written many paragraphs about Tim since then. Some of them have been coherent and some have been little snippets of memories. I haven't been able to post any of them, and I don't know why. Since today is his funeral, and I can't be there, I will post these now. It still perplexes me why Tim's passing has bothered me so much. I probably got less time with Tim than any of his other cousins, but he had a profound impact on my life that I will never forget. I think that I am so deeply affected because his children, whom I don't really know, would have had more time with him if I had done things differently.
I only got to see Tim up at Roland Park during the rare times that we were up there at the same time, and I saw him at funerals. Tim was ten years older than my sister and I, and from tales that I have heard I get the idea that he was the kid that would tattle on Judy, Betsy, Ted, and David when they were up to no good, which they usually were.
When I was a little kid, one of my biggest thrills up at the lake was going for a ride in Tim's hot-rod boat. Tim had made a very small, very fast, flat bottomed plywood boat many years ago. I wanted to have a little fast boat like Tim's when I became a teenager. When Tim was done playing with it, he took it downtown to the boat dealer to sell it and it was stolen from the boat yard the first night that it was on the lot.
Tim took that as a compliment. He lost the money, but it was a compliment nonetheless.

Tim, part II, Birthdays and Funerals

Birthdays and Funerals

I enjoyed chatting with Tim because we were both engineers, although in different fields (I was into metal cutting and software and he worked with “New and Used Water”).
At group events like birthday parties and funerals I would always seek him out so we could chat. We both were caretakers of cars that were purchased by our Grandfather Percy. I had the Marmon and he had the Ford. We both loved each other's cars and were both glad that the other one had “rescued” them. Tim had also ridden in my car many years ago, and for many years I still had not experienced such a thing, so I enjoyed hearing about his experiences.
Tim still has a couple of small parts that belonged to my Marmon. He would always tell me about them, but when you are getting dressed for Aunt Libby's funeral you just don't remember to put Marmon wing nuts in your pocket. I would always nag him to start working on the station wagon and he would tell me about his basket-case Jeep that he was going to work on someday. We talked about making the Jeep the front part of the “Roland Park large-crowd mass-transit system”, because we both liked jeeps, trailers, contraptions, and the ride to and from the lake more than actually swimming IN the water. Someday he was going to give me the Ford when he was sure that he wasn't going to work on it anymore. He had lost the back seat forever when he was using the car to haul firewood for several seasons. I was suposed to find a grill that got wiped out on the day that Granpa Percy gave up driving forever. You know, all those things that we knew were never going to happen.

With the cars being the reliable ice breaker we would quickly move on to “zen and the art of cottage maintenance” because we were both very involved with this losing battle of cottage life and I would always get some useful nugget from him.

Tim, part III, Porch Talk

Porch Talk, Chatting with Scorched Earth Tim


I have fond memories of sitting on any one of the cottage porches drinking a beer, and quietly chatting together while everybody else would be making noise at the “kitchen end” of the house, and he would make me laugh so hard with his no-nonsense approach to dealing with things.
I called him “Scorched Earth Tim” which would always make him smirk.
“The trees will grow back faster than you can mow them down.”
”Clear the view!”
“Pine trees rot roofs, cut em down.”
He had radical opinions on the width of roads, drainage, blueberry bushes, porch railings, roofs, sheds, porch steps, and porcupines.
There was no sentimentality when it came to cottages, furniture, barns, trees. If it didn't work, replace it with something that did.
When I was considering building a new cottage to replace our old one that had burned to the ground, Tim shocked me by suggesting a contemporary house. A REAL house, no cottage, forget cottages, they are cold, they are hot, quaint isn't comfortable. Cottages have too many problems. I think Tim would have made a house and furniture out of concrete to reduce maintenance if his family would go along with it. Yessiree, he wasn't afraid of change like some of us in Roland park.

Tim, part IV, My last Visit.

My Last visit


I was very fortunate to sneak in one last visit with Tim before we left on my Adventure this year.
Martha was going to take Edith. I asked if I could hitch a ride.
Then Betsy was going to be able to go too. Martha was overbooked and couldn't go and Edith wanted to “save her visit” until next week. So Betsy and I went together. It was great. Not only did Betsy and I get to answer each other's questions about family history, but we got to see Tim. He was having a good day. He looked good (to me). Betsy asked her brother some technical questions that she had saved up for her visit, which Tim answered for her. Tim was always her “technical” source. We chatted about cottages, kids, vacations, and health. His voice was getting weaker and aimed at the floor, so Betsy was having some trouble understanding him, but I was able to interpret what he was saying without any problem.
Tim wanted to know what my Father had died from.
I told him that it wasn't Parkinsons. “Parkinsons doesn't kill you, it just wears you down.”
My Father had been held down by Parkinsons since he was thirty five years old, by the time he was sixty two, he was very very tired. I asked Tim how old he was and his original answer was too high, which Betsy was exceedingly quick to correct (since Tim's age is related to Betsy's age).
We decided that Tim was about 63, the same age my father was when he passed. He told me that he suspected that the Parkinsons wasn't going to kill him, but boredom would. He was getting antsy to take a nap so we said our goodbyes, I complimented him on his model car on his dresser, and we left.
Betsy was crying like she always did when leaving Tim, but I felt oddly happy. I had a feeling that I would never see him again, so I didn't really understand my mood. As Betsy and I were driving back to New Hampshire I figured out that it was because it was just like visiting my father. Intelligent, fun to talk to, and funny. Very funny. A conversation with Tim was always productive. He didn't talk just to make noise, he talked when he could add something. I felt sorry for Betsy because she had to watch her brother being taken away, but I didn't feel sorry for Tim, he made me feel that he had spent a lot of time reviewing the situation and was at peace with it.

Tim, part V, Spotting Parkinsons

Spotting Parkinsons

The most important thing that Tim had taught me was how I had failed him.
I didn't know him well enough to tell him what he needed to hear and I shortened his life. He would be alive today if I had spoken up. I will never make that mistake again.
My sister Leslie and I grew up with Parkinsons disease. My father was diagnosed at 35 years old, so ALL of my memories of my dad are a picture modified with the broad brush strokes of parkinsons.
You may have noticed that people with downs-syndrome look like brothers and sisters of other downs-syndrome patients more than they look like their mothers and fathers. Well Parkinsons patients all develop the same “look”.
Leslie and I can pick out Parkinsons patients from a crowd. My older brothers can not spot the symptoms because they were already out of the house when the signs developed.
I would see Tim once in a great while at Birthdays or Funerals and it was obvious to me that poor Tim had Parkinsons. What I was too stupid to realize is that just because something is obvious to you, does not mean it is obvious to everyone else. I would see Tim deteriorate and feel sad after seeing him, but I never mentioned it to him because I assumed that he already was being treated.
Then there was the summer of funerals. All of us were getting together once a week to bury another family member and I was spending more time with Tim. I realized that I was never being asked to hold his tilted drink while he fished pills out of his pocket. Was it possible that he wasn't taking pills? Hadn't anybody noticed that Tim was aging at five times the normal rate?
I was still a wimp, so I talked to his brother Wink.
“Isn't Tim being treated for Parkinsons?”
“You DO know he has it, don't you?”
I still remember Wink looking over his shoulder at his brother Tim. At that moment, Tim was standing by himself, hunched over, and trying to juggle a plastic cup of punch while stuffing something sweet up into his mouth trying to avoid having too much falling onto the floor. Wink looked back at me with the lightbulb look. “You know, SOMETHING seemed wrong.” and we started tossing things back and forth. “I told him that Tim should get treatment immediately so that the aging process can be tempered a bit. Wink was still assembling pieces of the puzzle that explained why Tim would take five hours to do something that he used to do in twenty minutes.
That evening I received a phone call from Cousin Ann telling me that they had all discussed Tim that evening and wanted to thank me. I felt good temporarily.
Tim went to the doctor for a “test”.
The doctor asked Tim to walk across the room, Tim did, and the Doctor said “You've got it!”.
Tim started treatment, everyone adjusted to the new Tim. The rapid deterioration was squelched, but a huge amount of damage had been done. He had already skipped thirty years and he wasn't going to get them back. I want to cry when I see the porch pictures of the family hanging on walls of the cottages and comparing them. Tim ages five years while everybody else ages one. If I had spoken up to mention what was obvious to me (but not to anyone else), Tim would have not lost as many years.
During this same time period there was someone in my car club that obviously had Parkinsons too.
I vowed that I would confirm that they knew about it the next time that I saw them, but it was too late. She had a very rare, very aggressive variation that destroyed their life within a couple of years.
Since I learned my lesson with Tim I have been more “aggressive” with my amateur diagnosis.
There is a chance that I am wrong, the person finds out that they are okay and is angry at me for the rest of his or her life that I scared them so much for absolutely no reason, but there is a reason: My cousin Tim. If I spot the symptoms in someone that I know, I WILL tell them. For Tim.
What I am still struggling with is whether I should ever tell people on the street. If they already know, they don't need to be reminded by some jerk walking by, but what if they don't know?
I have never done it, but it tortures me every time.

Tim, part VI, The Symptoms

Parkinsons Symptoms that I see.

A Parkinsons person will hold a glass at a tilt with the liquid almost spilling. Other people would automatically level out the glass, but with Parkinsons, unless it is actually spilling, it is not worth the extreme effort to adjust your wrist.
The Parkinson's mask: Limited facial expressions that limit interactions with new acquaintances. The family doesn't even notice because they read the eyes, which still dance and laugh just fine.
The hunch. People that have always had good posture will start drooping. I think gravity wins and you don't have the energy to keep telling the shoulder muscles to do their job.
The fish was thiiis big. If they are explaining the size of something, a Parkinsons person cannot just hold a finger on each hand six inches apart. They will touch their thumbs to create a bridge that keeps the two hands steady.
Rotating your hand. Try this at home. Hold your hand out with the palm down. Now rotate it to the palm up position. Notice that the whole assembly rotated around an axis that is almost at your middle finger, your “driving finger” if you are a New Yorker. To simulate how Tim and my Father would rotate their hands, try locking your thumb in one spot in the air and rotate your arm and hand around your thumb. Curl your fingers into a cup shape and you will approximate the look of a typical conversation. Both hands are connected by an invisible cable that goes up and over the shoulder so both hands will rotate simultaneously. Isn't that tiring? Are your arms sore? That is how every movement is when you no longer have an auto-pilot. You have to send a message to each muscle to tell it to move. They will still do it, but it is a lot of work. Sitting quietly and listening is much easier.
If you could bring me some food, it is even better.
Tippy toes. The knees bend, the arms reach forward, but you aren't able to shift your weight to actually lift one foot to slide it forward. You end up leaning into a crouch that looks like you are ready to jump off a dock, and then everyone stops and turns around to watch you jump off the dock, which makes it that much harder. Try walking across the room and concentrate on a few steps to take note of how you shift your weight from one leg to the other one, lift, slide, place, shift weight. It's very complicated.
Obstacles. When you have parkinsons you can step up over a curbing, but you can't walk down the sidewalk. A long hallway can stop you cold because there are no obstacles. Walking down railroad tracks would keep your mind from wandering so that you can concentrate on which muscles need moving. When you are in a long hallway, the person next to you will ALWAYS start chattering because THEY have gone into auto-pilot mode, and if they expect a reply from you, forward movement has to stop while you are talking. Very frustrating.
An interesting tidbit: Parkinsons patients do not burn. In nursing homes where parkinsons patients have been bedridden for years, if the fire alarm rings, the patient who couldn't walk will run to the sidewalk. They can't stand up when they are out there and will keep falling down, but they can run down stairs faster than anyone. It seems that adrenaline can make auto-pilot work for anyone.
Intelligence. This isn't official, but most people that I have seen with Parkinsons are very smart and very funny. The kind of people that I like to hang around with.

Tim, part VII, Goodbye.

I am sorry that I couldn't make it to Freeport today. I hope that his entire family knows that we were thinking of you today. I am sorry that I didn't raise my voice sooner when I first spotted the problem, I have learned from it, and I hope it will never happen again.


I will miss Tim. He was fun.

Wandering again...

OK, we are on the road again. Sort of.
Headed East to Gainesville for a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat. We headed South to Clearwater for another Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat. and Alice... remember Alice?

Today we headed East to the Atlantic Ocean and I ate Rock Shrimp.
There were pictures along the way and other stuff. Eighty degrees today. They say it is abnormally warm for this time of year. Fine by me.

I was severely stalled by cousin Tim's passing a few days ago, but with the proper editing, I will work through it. The two Thanksgiving dinners with good friends really helped me.

We will be driving a lot tomorrow but I will get back on the stick as soon as we park. Honest.
...but, after I write my column for the Marmon News, then new stuff. Honest.

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I'm so sorry to hear about your cousin.
You are all in my thoughts and prayers.
love chemo sabe November 27, 2007 10:37 AM

Going for a walk.

1:37pmMST / 11:37amEST

Derek, his Nana, and Foxy his dog going for a walk.

A quickie post while we have a signal.

1:15pmMST / 11:15amEST
We are driving near the Grand Tetons and we have some reception so I thought that I would type in some of the stuff that I have been writing, but now that we are parked for lunch I have changed my mind, twice.
A few minutes ago in the town of Morin, Wyoming we spotted a herd of horses. So after we took some pictures I decided to upload some horsey pictures for Maureen T.
Maureen likes horses and may feel a connection with horses in Morin Wyoming.

Then I changed my mind again.
Just as we were parking we got a call from my sister Leslie. In fact she is still on the phone with Beth.

Well the news back home is that our trusty dog Foxy died yesterday.
She was about fourteen and a half years old, which adds up to a LOT of wonderful bowls of food.

Derek got her when she was one year old. That means Derek was seven years old, I think.
I will probably write soon about some of the funny things that Foxy did.
She was a great dog. She was our last dog.
Thank you Leslie for taking such good care of her this summer.
She had some kind of heart defib problem since a few days before we sold our house, so this was not unexpected, and she was still happy and healthy until the end.

Anyhow, back to the horses for now. Here are a few pictures Maureen and when we get to Cody and have a signal I will upload a whole group of pictures just for you.

While those are uploading later this week I will be able to type some of the stuff I have been writing in my notebook.
I have been trying to avoid the rants. When i start sputtering about a subject I just wait and write later after something funny happens. My rants and raves will stay in unpublished form so that I don't alienate you guys. I have to do some research before I open my big mouth.

So we are going to Cody soon to see some rodeos and I am assuming that I will have a signal there.

Bye Foxy, have fun rootin around in that big dumpster in the sky.
I bet Derek is so glad to have his dog back.

.
.
.
.

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COMMENTS

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chemo-sabe said...
Aw shucks, print your rants (unless they're political...too much of that crapola...and you probably would alienate someone). Other than that, I can't think of anybody's rants I'd rather read!!
I'm so sorry about your pup.
love you
chemo-sabe
August 17, 2007 2:14PM

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Sherm said...
Awww damn. Little Foxmoor is no more.

No wonder Champ has been more cantankerous than usual. He’s pining for his little buddy (and whatever sympathy cheese he can weasel out of us).

Another splash on the ground for dear Foxy.

Hope yer rodeo went well. Go to the BBQ cook-off and eat plenty of hot brown stuff.

There’s someone out there (in Wyoming or an adjoining state) that has an old minuteman missile silo for a home that they have tours of occasionally. A real swords into plowshares kind o’ deal. Or swords into a really cool underground home.

I’ll look for the link but ask around, can’t be too many of them.

Fireworks were epic, so was the traffic. Wouldn't miss it for anything. Over 9000 shots.

Hugs all around. The little one adds kisses.

August 19,2007 10:01 AM

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Random thoughts about a friend I never met.

2007-08-02 Thursday, traveling across the plains.

To the friend I never met:
I probably never met you, but my good friend Sherman worked with you every day.
He considered you one of his closest friends. Today is not a good day for Sherm either.
Being a few thousand miles away makes it more difficult for us to lend the support to Sherm that I would normally want to give, and of course he has to be at work today.
I've experienced what it is like to look at an empty chair at work. When do you go near the "Greatest Dad" coffee cup, and the pictures on the wall. The silent pause when somebody calls the unattended phone before they realize why nobody is answering. You will be missed at the power plant by your coworkers but work goes on. My concern is your family. I am very sorry that you died last night, but am relieved that it was quick. It is better for them to miss saying goodbye than it is to have to say goodbye over and over for a prolonged period.
I wish I knew you and I am kind of glad that I didn't.

There are many comforting things that people say to help friends and family try to justify an accident like this.

I've run out of excuses, no wisdom here, it sucks, it just plain sucks.

We can't avoid motorcycles, we can't avoid driving.
In these modern times civilians die from traffic accidents or bridge collapses.
One hundred years ago it was a boiler explosions (NYC could have six per day), workplace accidents, or the flu that wiped out millions in the USA ninety years ago.
Two hundred years ago it was common to die from a blister on your heel or from food and water that was just a "little too organic".
It sucks, but if I had a choice, I would probably do it the way you did, even though you didn't have a choice.
May your family find peace.


Good Luck in whatever you are going to be doing in the next life.
I hope you lived a good life here. It's time to rest.

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To my pal Sherman,

Your friend was lucky to have worked with you. He is still lucky to have you as a friend.
His wife doesn't know how lucky she is to have you as a friend-in-law.
Last night was probably awful for you and Kay, and knowing you, a good amount of time was spent trying to figure how you are going to help the family.
You will be an enormous help, but you will be much more help to them if you delegate. Find the phone numbers of their circle of friends so that you can call them with your deepest "Father Brian" voice and REMIND them to contact the family - again. Bully them if you have to.

Your experiences with losing Justin helped us deal with losing Derek in more ways than you could know. You will be able to force this knowledge that you have on the other members of the hive surrounding your friend's family. It will be your wedding gift to your friend.

Sherm, you had warned us about the drift-away phenomenon just a few days after we lost Derek. Thank you. It's heartbreaking to have close friends hug you at the funeral and then walk out of your life. Some resurface a year or two later when they feel that "the subject may not come up" but it's obvious that the others are gone forever. People are odd. (Note 1)

Now we all have to worry about his wife and kids.
Sorry Sherm. (It sucks. )
Call me when you have to crab or cry about it. Beth and I are here like you and Kay were for us.
I didn't know your friend but he was my friend-in-law once removed. I grieve with you.

Beth and I quietly participate in a ritual that Rasta-Charlie taught us while we were in the West Indies the Christmas after we lost Derek. In the West Indies it is traditional to spill a splash of your drink on the ground to share with your departed friends. (We found that it is tough on the carpeting so we only do it when we are outside.)

Tonight we will be arriving in Montana.
Nook, Eileen, Beth, and I will each open a beer, look out at the mountains:
One splash for your friend,
One splash for your friend's family,
One splash for you and Kay,
One splash for Justin,
One splash for Derek,
and the rest of the drink will be a reward to ourselves for making it this far in life.
We will savor it.

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New Day, I begin...
(yer pal, warren)

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Chisel the good times in stone and write the bad times in the sand.

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Note 1:(for non-Sherm readers)
This problem of reshuffling friends is a preventable heartache.
It is bad enough to go through the loss without also feeling abandoned for reasons that you don't understand at all. Don't let it happen to someone you know.
In our case Kathy, Stu, and Andrew forced themselves on us. They went from a 'see them once or twice a month' family to a "oh god, they'll be here at six o'clock again tonight" type friends. They provided the sanity when we were not able to. It's very difficult to commit suicide if your friends are planning to do something with you tomorrow.
They literally saved our lives.
I hope I can pay it forward to someone else.
Please force yourself on someone you love if they need it. They might push back, but just assume that you are thinking clearer than they are. You might not be, but what the heck. They don't really mean what they say, remember, they're crazy. Maybe crazier than you are.

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Disclaimer: I wrote this while we are driving across WashingtonState towards Montana.
There has been NO editing for the "insultability quotient".
Please DO NOT BE INSULTED. I was just rambling. It makes me feel better.
I will delete this post tomorrow if I should.
Thanks for listening.
warren

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Anonymous said...
PLEASE DO NOT DELETE/EDIT THIS POST!!! All across America, your readers will take pause and consider the fragility of life, how precious it is, how precious friendship is. And will no doubt in whatever belief system they adhere to will join together in a moment of prayer, or good thoughts or whatever--just to BE with Sherman, his friends and loved ones. It doesn't matter that we don't know them.Tonite I'll go home and pour out a libation for Sherman's friend, for Derek, for the one thing that never dies...love.

Love you both

Bev T

August 3, 2007 10:00 AM

Mia's Dragonfly

Jenny said...
This afternoon, I called (Momma) Mia to catch up on her Thursday afternoon off. She had an important story to share with Beth and Warren. Yesterday at 3 pm, on the 30th, while Mia was at work, a dragonfly, a big blue one, about the size of her palm, flew into the Clinic, down the hallway and fluttered about the nurse's station. Mia held a paper bag open for the dragonfly, and he crawled in. She carried the bag out the door, and he flew away. A patient in the waiting room commented - Why, that nice nurse saved that dragonfly! - not quite understanding what had just happened. Mia was greatly moved by this experience, and was thankful that there were witnesses so she knew she wasn't hallucinating.I hung up with Mia around 3 pm and a call came in. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw some leaves clinging to the brick outside the window. Since I am twenty-six floors up, I leaned forward for a closer look. I asked the client if I could call him back. I fumbled with my new camera phone, without any luck. Outside my window, hanging on to the brick of the building exterior, was a giant green dragonfly. He was so big, I thought his wings were plant leaves. The green of his body seemed to be tinged with yellow, and the wings, with blue. I stopped fumbling with the silly camera phone, so I could just be there, while he was there. I took about five deep breaths. He let go and rose up, out of view. Looking at my hand now, I'm sure he was the length of my entire hand. No tall tales here, but no witnesses either.
I called Beth.
A big hello, she said.
Hello, Derek. Hello.

Jenny

Derek's Spot

Three years ago...

It was exactly three years ago from now that our life imploded. i won't dwell on it, I just wanted to note it. Derek, I love you and miss you.
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Sherm said...
Yeah it has changed the way I look at this part of the year. It used to be a transition into summer fun and now it's an introspective time thinking about our kids here and gone.
That's the sad part.
The good part is that we're still faced with a new day, every day, and peeks and glimmers of hope, love, and some interesting people, too, will make it worth getting out of bed.
We’ve paid the damn dues; we might as well keep showing up, eh?
It’ll ease up; your grand adventure will certainly help.
If it doesn’t, you’ve got an interesting collection of folks to call.
June 1, 2007 6:16 AM