Dinner conversation

 Our friends from Florence are excellent conversationalists.

We enjoy their company and the ease with which we jump from one topic to another, often about our respective families, grandkids and what's going on with all of them. 

Now that all four of us are fully vaccinated, we jumped at the chance to have them over to our house for dinner, and those long-awaited hugs we haven't had for over a year. We had a lot of home improvement projects to show them. Covid gave us a chance to use our abundantly free time to paint, purchase new office furniture and continue the rehabbing of the house we bought three years ago that has required constant upgrading. 

Our friends appropriately oohed and aahed over our work. They will be welcome to come back since we thrive on praise and compliments.

Sometime between dinner and the delicious dessert they brought, the conversation turned to our ages and what might be coming in future years. Don't know how it got started, really; perhaps talking about our homes and how long we might be able to continue to live independently in a house that requires care. 

Anyway, we discussed our respective plans for talking with our kids about how we want to grow older. It started when, not long ago and out of the clear blue, our older daughter and her husband asked when we would consider turning over our car keys, being unable to drive safely any longer.

I admit that question threw me. Yes, I'll be 80 in August, a really big number I still can't wrap my head around easily. After all, I think of people who reach 80 as weaker, less sharp and infirm in some ways. But 80 means nothing to me except another year gone by, another year of trying my best to stay healthy and keep doing the work I enjoy.

But the question did haunt Howard and me. We started thinking seriously that our kids needed to know how we wanted to live out our days when we could no longer remain in our home or when we needed help to do so. That's a discussion we never had with them. And frankly, we haven't talked about it much between the two of us, either. Not the happiest of topics.

So we are taking stock of where we are now...preparing to update our wills, storing our advance directives and other important papers in an easily accessible place known to the kids and finally telling them we would like a family meeting this summer to talk about the whole topic of being the children of parents who need them.

Covid made me think about that. I thought long and hard about contracting the illness and not surviving. Would the kids know where things were? Would they know to whom I wanted certain things given? What would Dad do? How could they help him?

Now, healthy still and trying to be proactive, Howard and I will have that meeting. Then everyone can breathe easier, knowing what their roles will be someday down the road. Certainly not at 80.

A Bushel and a Peck

 I've only been fired once in my life and it was all her fault.

After two years of a job I loved, guidance counselor at an area high Catholic high school, I was looking forward to the third...when "my kids" would be graduating seniors and the year would be filled with college recommendations, job choices, June festivities. I'd been with that class since they were sophomores and felt they were all a precious part of my life.

Then, in August, I discovered I was pregnant with my second child. In those days, way back in 1970, we didn't know boy or girl...just happiness at wondering which and making plans to take a leave of absence for a month, maybe less, when the baby came in April. 

The school principal had a different idea. No leave of absence. No coming back to the job. Just a terse notice of termination of my employment. Oh yes, he did help carry the box that contained my office material out to the car. Big of him, wasn't it?

Why did I lose my job? According to the priest who made the rules in that school, a pregnant guidance counselor couldn't be seen roaming the halls or occupying an office where students might see her. After all, how did she get that way? Should tender 17-year-olds know the facts of life? What kind of example would be set by a married school employee getting pregnant? With pursed lips and righteous eyes, he had no other choice but to let me go.

So my sweet Erica, born almost a month early on March 3, 1971, caused me to be fired. 

She helped me turn a new corner in my life, added a distinctly wonderful definition to our family and has always made me glad she happened along. 

From babyhood, she smiled. She found joy in everything, a veritable jumping jack when she was happy. I suppose her big sister Terri would recall times when Erica (Ricki, we called her then) wasn't such a joy, but as with Terri, I don't remember anything but gratitude that they were there.

 

She "taught" her neighborhood friends, stuffed animals and pets. Solemn and serious, she filled out the roll book she'd requested for a Christmas gift when she was four and held classes in the family room. At about that time, she began taking French lessons from a friend, who told me Erica must have been French in an earlier life, so easily did the language come to her.

Today, she turns 50. She still teaches, remotely of course, helping her students learn to love French and the French culture as much as she does. She's still got pets and still smiles most of the time as she plans her wedding to the guy who won her heart by giving his.

Happy birthday, Erica. You were more than worth losing a job. You are a treasure.