Writing a memoir

 Betsy Carpenter and I had our regular lunch today at Turning Point in Moorestown, after a hiatus of three months, thanks to sciatica and assorted other illnesses on my part. My dear friend Betsy is very healthy, an outdoors person who hikes, inhales nature and is adventurous beyond belief to a couch potato like me.

We've known one another since we lived in the same Berlin, NJ neighborhood some fifty years ago and we enjoy spending time catching up on our family news and enjoying our selections from the unusual, always tasty menu.

Then we began our customary habit of touching on whatever we've been thinking about since the last lunch. Betsy is a philosophical gal... we're both Leos and share a common birthday, so there's nothing we don't discuss. This time, it was about how, looking back on our 82 years, we've discovered how much our youth taught us, how many lessons we absorbed from our many mistakes and how much richer our lives are for having lived and learned.

She recently found a book she'd purchased back in the 90s by William Zinsser called How To Write A Memoir. His advice is sound... rather than write a travelogue through the years, telling the story of our lives from Day One, a good memoir could be a collection of vignettes... pieces of our lives that stand out, that are vivid in our memories, that are part of what makes us who we are today.

Betsy is considering doing this. She has a rich family history with bits of ancestral lore to back it up. She could write volumes of vignettes about the things she has and the memories that go with them.

Not so me. My family didn't settle in the land early like hers did. My possessions date only back to my maternal grandmother and they don't have much meaning except to me, since I and my children and grandkids are basically all that's left of my family.

But as I drove home in a light drizzle that demanded the intermittent services of my windshield wipers, it occurred to me that I've been writing those memoirs all along... my blog entries and before them, the weekly columns I penned for The Journal, the newspaper I nurtured and loved for 21 years of my life.

Some of them have made it onto my computer, but I have a manila envelope filled with yellowed copies lovingly cut from the paper each week by my dear, late friend Marie Martin. Marie believed the columns should be preserved for posterity, not that my posterity gives much of a damn. But Marie did, so I have a stack of them waiting to be copied into folders on my computer. 

That's how I'll write my memoir... one column at a time, one yellowed, brittle piece at a time. When I'm finished, I may decide to find other vignettes from my life to add to the collection, but by that time, my memoir will be almost complete. It'll only wait for another blog entry, then another, then another.

Living pain free

 Last time I posted, I was complaining about the ravages of sciatica (or radiculopathy, as my doctor calls it). Since February I'd been virtually debilitated, walking hunched over with a cane from room to room or not at all, just sitting on my office chair trying to relieve the unrelenting pain.

I consulted a physician in late February who ordered an MRI and then told me my condition warranted "watching" but that I might qualify for a nerve-block epidural down the road if it didn't get better.

Then, I found another physician (and I use that word in jest) who set a blood glucose level of 200 as her arbitrary level before she would administer the epidural. Her scheduler took two weeks to call me with a date. When I arrived for what I hoped would be a pain-relieving treatment, my blood sugar was over 200 and I was turned away. Two weeks later, we tried again, and even though the bgl was only 216, I was turned away again, this time in tears of disappointment.

I consulted with my endocrinologist, who agreed to have his nurse school me in the use of an insulin pen so I could give myself a shot the night before my next epidural appointment, thus guaranteeing a low blood sugar level and the long-awaited injection.

Turned out I was allergic to the type of insulin or an additive in it and was violently ill for six hours and had to cancel the epidural appointment. 

But as I tried to rest, I decided it was foolhardy to rely on the strictures of one doctor when pain management practices were plentiful in the area. So my primary care physician gave me the name of one of his personal friends with a pain management practice in Voorhees. I called on a Monday and was seen on Wednesday.

My first epidural (called a transforaminal epidural because of where the medication is injected) was on July 27th. I'm scheduled for the second next week. 

During this past month, I've spent virtually pain-free days... shopping, making the bed, cooking dinner, visiting my kids... all the small, everyday things people do when pain isn't ruling their actions. Because there are some hours each day when I feel the pinch of the sciatica just a bit, it was decided a second injection would be of help and I'm happy to do it.

But now I'm beginning to feel like my old self, something I had almost despaired of feeling for those five and a half months when pain was all I knew. I'm driving again... even visited a dear friend today after not seeing her through the pandemic and then through my own personal travails.

Yes, I will never again ignore or underestimate the suffering of friends who live in pain as I did. But I will also add gratitude to that... the thankfulness I have that, for the most part, my days are pain-free. My thanks to Dr. Adam Sackstein and his nurse practitioner, Bill Biskup, for their compassionate, efficient and, best of all, timely care.

Living in pain

 I never honestly sympathized with them...those friends and acquaintances who lived in constant pain.

Oh yes, I said all the right things, tut-tutted and murmured the right words of understanding. I meant them, for sure, being cognizant of the suffering they were enduring and wanting to offer comfort.

But did I really understand? Could I possibly feel the same pangs of anguish they expressed? 

No. Until pain becomes part of every minute of every day, it's impossible to truly understand someone's agony.

In late November, I had surgery. The entire month leading up to it was dedicated to rest. Doctor's orders. Surgery was successful, but all of December and part of January was dedicated to rest and very mild exercise. Doctor's orders. 

I'm not an exerciser by nature anyway, so being sedentary suited my lifestyle very well. I didn't mind at all being at my computer editing novels, connecting with Facebook friends, and spending hours in our home office. 

But those months of inactivity resulted in a long-lasting and worsening case of sciatica, which began in February and has lingered to this day. The searing pain leaves me breathless sometimes and makes doing even the simplest of tasks impossible. 

I won't ever again take for granted someone's suffering. My sympathy will be real. Such is the lesson learned from my own experience with unrelenting pain.

A dear friend gone

A dear friend gone

 We didn't know the Doughtys very long. They moved across the street from us in 2016 and we moved to a different part of the community in 2017. But during that brief time, we had become fast friends. They were closer to Howard's age than mine, but we somehow clicked, as different as we were.

Terry is the definition of creative. She quickly made the former home of our friends Avis and John Anderson into her own showcase. Room by room, wall by wall, table by table. Terry can look at a blank room and visualize the most stunning finishes. She sews her own accessories, sees colors in rooms most of us wouldn't and has done wonders with a sloping back yard no one I know would dare tackle. 

From the onset, Bill loved it when I called him an "old curmudgeon." His public face often was one of displeasure, a frown more common than a smile. That facade never succeeded in hiding a good heart belonging to someone who knew how to care for people, who cherished friends old and new. In the younger years when we didn't know him, Bill was a master electrician, a craftsman who could build anything with just his hands and imagination.

Howard and I loved spending time with the Doughtys. We graduated to Sunday wine and dessert at their home when it became too difficult for Bill to navigate the garage steps into ours for dinner. We usually went to their house promising ourselves we wouldn't stay long. Never happened. We would walk in, spot Bill in his favorite chair down the hall in the family room and hear his happy voice shout out, “The Smiths are here!” Conversation never slowed. From politics, which Bill loved to discuss, to local sports, to weather, to construction, to family...the topics kept flowing.

Years of fighting diabetes and its debilitating health problems made Bill weaker and more unsteady. When he was forced to go into a dialysis program, everything he knew about living was altered.

Sometimes, I'd be surprised during the day with my phone ID lighting up with Bill's name when he simply had to get something off his chest, usually something political. We agreed avidly on matters politics, so it was a meeting of the minds that always gave each of us an opportunity to vent our spleens about a current issue about which we felt strongly.

Terry and Bill raised a son and a daughter and were blessed with four grandchildren, two boys and two girls. When we first met the Doughtys, they were still able to travel to New York to visit Billy and his family or to Pennsylvania to spend time with Terri and hers. In recent years, the family had to come to them.

Bill had talked with me, a fellow diabetic, often about how long he would be able to endure dialysis. It's a brutal regimen, three days a week, at least three hours in a chair having toxins removed from the blood. It's exhausting and weakening, and many dialysis patients run out of the willingness to subject themselves to it after a number of years. Bill wondered how long he’d last.

My father's baby brother, in his late 80s, spent five years in dialysis but finally succumbed to heart disease instead of the scourge of the dialysis sessions. But I knew enough about the process to understand what Bill was talking about.

Bill gradually gave up most of what he loved to do...he spent hours navigating his spacious home using a walker, often with Terry's aid. When getting into the car to go to dialysis became too much of an ordeal, when he couldn’t enjoy the beautiful lower level of the home he and Terry spent so much time planning and decorating, when simply living lost its beauty, he did what so many others have done. He quit.

Not because he wasn't courageous or didn't have the will to live. Just the opposite. Bill stayed committed to seeing his 58th wedding anniversary with Terry and to being with her as long as he could. But his health didn't give him that grace. In the end, he drifted away from everything he loved, peacefully and finally.

Knowing he wouldn't be with us much longer didn't make his passing any easier to accept. Only the Sunday before he left us, Howard and I spent a couple of hours at his bedside. He dozed a bit, then awoke and entered right into the conversation where it had been headed. When we made a move to leave, we heard, “Don't go yet,” he said, just as he always had done every time we were together.

We were blessed with Bill's friendship. We were blessed to be able to support Terry whenever she called on us. We intend to keep doing that as long as the need is there. And we are blessed with Bill's memory.

Every time we stop in to visit Terry, we'll look back toward the family room and hear, “The Smiths are here!” It's a gift that will keep giving.

 

 

It's only money

 My dear friend Betsy is an amazing source of interesting experiences and facts.

We had our monthly lunch a couple of weeks ago and she showed me a video she'd gotten from someone on the Pinelands Commission that really upset me: here's the link if you want to check it out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3fV8e8xiRo

I don't upset easily, especially about things I can't affect, but this hit home for some reason.

It was shot by a couple of guys who look up abandoned sites of interest and then post photos of them to raise awareness of what's happened since they'd been empty. This one was about the old Burlington County College on Pemberton-Browns Mills Rd.

In its heyday, it was home to a thriving community of scholars, teachers and community members who enjoyed classes and recreation on the site. I recall the parking lots being full of cars as I drove by on my way to Browns Mills from my home in Pemberton. I often checked out the course offerings, knowing I'd probably never enroll.

The olympic-sized pool (the only one in the area) that hosted community folks who liked the exercise, was left open but only for a short time. Then it, too, was abandoned. 

I often wondered as I passed why and what would happen to it. The video showed the story.

Perfectly good chairs left overturned in classrooms. A science lab with sink and accessories unused. Worst of all, to my mind: shelves filled with books...books strewn around the floors of the library and classrooms. Books!!! On the floors!!!

Did no one ever consider donating them to a still-functioning library? Were there none that might catch the interest of folks in a senior living facility? How about local schools? And, oh yes, how about the spanking new college buildings in Mt. Laurel where the college relocated? 

Could nothing have been done with all those books?? 

Congressman Andy Kim's aide told me to contact someone at the state or county level who might look into the issue. State Senator Jean Stansfield's aide said she would touch base with the Board of Trustees of Rowan College of Burlington County, who apparently is the owner of the property. She'd update me when she received a response from them. At least that's something, but I'm not holding my breath.

It's just maddening, though, to see the utter disregard for the waste of taxpayer dollars, not to mention the knowledge packed into the pages of those books. Yes, they might be specialized topics not for general consumption. But who knows who might want to learn about those topics? Why not at least clean them up, get them out of that sad place and give them new life?

Who knows how long it will take for those buildings to rot and collapse into the ground. Perhaps decades, if not longer. Vandals will have a field day and the surrounding vegetation will overcome the sidewalks and roadways. 

And inside, the books and out-of-date computers will decay. But why does that matter? After all, it's only money.

Musings on losing a pet

Selma has been with us for just over a year. It seems like she's always been ours.

Let me amend that... we've always been hers.

I've had pet cats in my life since I was four. The college years and early years of my first marriage were the only times I couldn't find a cat in my world and I always missed having one.

At one time, Howard and I had two...then Mitzi was pulled from a storm drain outside our condo and she became number three. I loved that cat and she loved me (and no one else), so when she died in 2017, I swore my pet days were over. No way I would go through that kind of grief again. No way could another cat replace Mitzi.

Then our neighbors moved in with their cat, Maddie. She was the same breed as Mitzi...same coloring, same everything...except she wasn't my cat. So I started thinking about adopting a kitty...an older one, no doubt, since at 80 years of age, I didn't want a kitten who would definitely outlive me.

And that's when I found Selma. Her photo on the Burlington County Animal Shelter web page tugged at my heart. She was thin and sad-looking. She needed someone to love and care for her.

So we went to meet her and it was mutual love at first sight. She is the most affectionate and loving kitty with whom I've ever shared space. We love her without condition, despite medical bills and unrelenting carpet scratching.

My best friend since we were in second grade is a dog person. She's had dogs as long as I've known her, each one lavished with love and care. And one by one, she's lost them to age or illness, each taking a piece of her heart as they crossed the Rainbow Bridge.

Two years ago, she lost Pepper, a loving yellow lab. He left my friend with his sister, Ginger, to soothe the loneliness and keep her company. 

Last week, she lost Ginger, too. Wanting to stay with my friend was overcome by old age and illness. And now comes the hard part we've all experienced when a furry loved one leaves.

The grieving is especially poignant and hard when you live alone and have relied on the support and simple presence of a pet. The longer they are with you, the deeper the loss. My friend says she still looks for Ginger in the house, still feels she's still there.

That's because she is. I believe our pets love like we do. Their spirits are very much alive, even when they're not physically with us. So Pepper and Ginger, like Mitzi and so many of my other cats, have left their love behind to console us. 

I remember how Mitzi reacted every time she saw me cry. I don't do that often, but when I did, she nudged my hand with her little face, curled up next to me as close as she could get and purred so loudly she could be heard in another room. She knew I was sad, or in pain, or just feeling blue, and her heart told her to help in the only way she could.

Pepper and Ginger, as well as every dog she ever had, did the same for my friend. They will always be there, ready to put their heads on her lap as they look at her with their loving eyes, telling her it'll be okay. 

My heart aches for her and for everyone who loses a beloved pet. I hear people say, "it's only an animal," and I recoil in horror. Those of us who have been blessed with the love of a pet know so much better. We were given something our pets reserved for those who shared their hearts with them. We are the lucky ones, even though when we lose them, we suffer tremendous grief. 

Thank you, Ginger, for staying with my friend as long as you could.

Unlike any Christmas past

 It's almost unrecognizable.

Christmas, 2022, that is.

We're doing a dual celebration, for one thing. Erica and Andy will be in the Caribbean on their honeymoon for Christmas this year, so we held our family get-together yesterday, the 18th. Not that unusual, since they've been in Florida at Andy's folks for the past three years anyway.

We're minus Chris for the first time in 25 years. I for one felt his absence, a son-in-law who destroyed his life and his family with the decision to use drugs. So his place at the table was conspicuously absent.

Then there was the menu.

For as long as I can remember, long before we moved to Burlington County in 1989, long before my first marriage broke up in 1977, my prize lasagna was the centerpiece of the Christmas dinner table. 

This year, on orders from my daughters and Howard, I was not able to cook. Recovering from surgery meant "resting," while the kitchen was commandeered by the girls and Andy. We had a delicious dinner: salmon with sauces Terri invented, risotto, cilantro rice and asparagus. All favorites. All expertly prepared. All utterly foreign to a Christmas dinner at my house.

Andy made a scrumptious Hershey chocolate cake for dessert, which capped it all off. Miranda and her partner Tatiana cleared the table; Howard washed dishes, loaded the dishwasher and Nate, under some pressure from Andy, dried. I don't think Adela contributed in any way other than with her beautiful presence and occasional smile.

It was all over; the kids were gone by 8:30. We'd already agreed not to gift one another this year. Instead we contributed to Erica's French Club project of providing families of patients at St. Christopher's Hospital with wish list items. After all, we have everything we need and, according to the grandkids, Christmas shopping is simply too stressful. 

On Christmas Eve, weather permitting (and that's questionable as a huge storm is threatening), we'll take the ride up to Terri's and spend some time with her and the grands. Just the five of us. No gifts, no lasagna, not much resembling the Christmases I've spent for the past 80 years. 

I suppose change is good, but why does this one make me want to cry?