Thanksgiving, 2014

     I have much to be grateful for. Starting with myself, I am grateful to be alive and well, happy that I am not dependent on anyone, that I can still get up and make my breakfast without burning the house down, without sitting and holding my head unable to decide what I want to eat. Everyone has choices, I am thankful that I still know how to implement that ability.

     I am thankful that my daughter Judi is close by, in good health and enjoying her independence.  Also she helps me, I see her at least once a week and speak with her every day.  I need to take moments, more frequently, to be thankful that we chose Judi years ago and that she is a vital presence in my life, helpful and affectionate as well.  When she pats the top of my head, she says that she is covering my bald spot; I believe that there is affection accompanying those pats.

     I thank the good Lord that I have a grandson.  At the moment he is in trouble, many grandsons put their parents and grandparents through a lot of growing, maturing pains.  This too will pass and we will be able to pick up our connection.  It will be strengthened  and valued, even more tomorrow, than it is today.  I am happy that he is alive and well and eager to show his caring heart.

     I am grateful that I have a hatful of memories, mostly happy ones.  My parents loved me and did their very best to load me with the very best.  I had wonderful guidance and just enough leeway to allow me to grow.  Sure we had our disagreements but I do not believe that we ever carried them through the night.  How good it was that when we discovered we could not have children with our biology, we were smart enough to adopt Judi and her brother Jeff.  Apparently we only borrowed Jeff. He left us after his 43^rd birthday, but has left behind wonderful memories of a dedicated and loving son.  I have great memories of my brother, who died the year before my beloved.. Once we outgrew the pain, the little sister/the big brother know it all stage, we became friends.  As adults we not only loved each other we also shared respect and understanding.

     I am grateful, thankful for my friends who are supportive, loyal, forgiving and loving.  Old people can be cantankerous; I am no exception.  My friends (of a variety of ages) keep me steady, challenged and able to wake up to face the day.  Always & foremost, I am grateful for the wonderful life I enjoyed with Erv, my mate of sixty-two plus years!!!

 

 

I Stumbled Again!                                                                                 November 17, 2014

   When I broke my hand, I did not fall, I broke my hand by hitting a wooden stool with my very own fist.

   Last Sunday I gathered myself to walk around the neighborhood.  I try to do this daily.  It is about a twenty-minute safari, considerably longer when I stop and chat with a neighbor.  I enjoy the exercise and the chats as well.  When my day is empty, the exercise and over the fence conversations keep my spirit light.

   As I sit to write I recall, I put on the proper shoes, fixed the brace on my hand, put keys and Kleenex in my pocket and I headed out.  My walker was in place outside my door, I reached for it and I went down.  I have no idea what happened, no one was there to trip or impede me.  Later I found a small rock that may have been the tripping stone.  I landed squarely on my back…ouch that hurt.  Because I suffer no severe pain, my friend Karen and I decided that I did not need the doctor.  She, who is seriously tuned to Eastern medicine, suggested some herbal meds that she could supply.  I have tried them and they do take the edge off the aches.  One more day before I turn to aspirin or its substitute.

   Falling at my age is a double-whammy.  In the first place, I do not want to fall and incapacitate myself secondly, it seems weird that I am so very careful about a fall, I write and caution everyone else about falling then out of the blue I went down.  Did I lose my concentration, was my mind wandering, did I take a step without thinking?  A friend said, “Get over it, it happens.”

   I have not time to be incapacitated. I still have much to do.  I also must not be afraid to move, lest I fall.  It is just another catch-22 or damned if you do and damned if you do not.  It is a an insult to me when I fall, I act and write as if I know exactly how NOT to fall, yet every couple of years I take a spill, despite my “good intentions”. 

   I am not afraid of death; I am also not ready, yet!

Smoking    November 1, 2014

     I remember like it was yesterday.  I was getting dressed to meet my husband in the city for dinner.  At the time we lived in suburban New York.  My 14 year-old son Jeff burst into the room, breathless, full of questions, important questions.  “Mom, how long have you been smoking, how much do you smoke, when did you start?”  I slowed him down a bit and promised to answer his questions.  I did slowly, attaching a family story to each one: my Mother was a smoker, she wanted the “privilege” of giving me my first cigarette, my Dad objected to our smoking.  As I spoke I noted that Jeff was no longer looking at me, with his eyes on the floor, he sadly said, “Oh Mom, you probably have cancer already!”

     Jeff had just come in from his last class of the day: Hygiene.  It was 1963 they had been discussing the surgeon general’s report on smoking.  I did not know how to reassure my son and I was not prepared to make promises at the moment.  We left my room together; we parted with few words.  I had no idea that that conversation would have great impact on me.  There were three cigarettes left in my open pack.  I smoked the three and have never smoked again. 

     Jeff had gotten to me, to my mind, my heart.  I did not process that conversation; I never deliberately made a decision, did not say to myself, “I owe it to my children…my boy is correct, this dangerous,”  I never thought it through.  I just followed Jeff’s instinct. I quit.

     But the story is not ended.  No, it was not easy to quit.  When the children came home from school, I met them with anger, I was angry at everything and everyone in my path.  When I became tired of hearing myself yell, I consulted the doctor.  My husband Erv had told me that this was something I had to do myself, he could not help.  My doctor came to the rescue; a small dose of Phenobarbital at 2 o’clock in the afternoon enabled me to face the children’s homecoming with a smile. Quitting the sedative was easy when our family came down to normal. I believed we were smoke-free.

     I was wrong, the saga, however, is not finished.  I was shocked to find that my kids smelled of smoke when they came home from school, no one is more sensitive to that smell than a recovering smoker.  “Oh the kids in the back of the bus are always smoking, that is what you smell, Mom”, Judi and Jeff agreed.  For a time, I bought in until I challenged them both.  The years  passed, they went off on their own,  I had failed.  Two weeks before Jeff died at age 43 he stopped smoking because the doctor told him he was smoking up his own oxygen.  Paralyzed and ill, he quit cold turkey.

     When Judi had a serious illness before she hit 60, the hospital would not permit her to go outside to smoke. A month in the hospital enabled her to quit smoking.  I do not know that smoking was a major cause of my adult children’s illnesses, probably not.  I know that my Mother who smoked all her life died at 67, too young, that my brother died of lung cancer after 50 years of second hand smoke, he never smoked.  I am so grateful for my teenager’s courage to confront his Mom’s problem.  He saved my life, I am sure!