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?

Looking at the past

 My cousin Mary Lou is moving out of the house she's lived in almost all her life.

Oh, for a lot of years, she and her husband were raising their five children in another part of town, but when my aunt and uncle passed, they moved into the stately white Colonial with the fantastically beautiful side and back yard.

Age has made it difficult to maintain the big house with its flights of stairs. So, like so many of us, they decided to move to a more convenient home.

In the process of packing, Mary Lou found two photo albums in the attic, both having belonged to my mother. I didn't ask how they got into her house; I was just grateful to have them. 

Obviously, my mother had included in that album photos once belonging to her parents and their friends. Very old pictures of people from the "old country," Italy, professionally taken and formatted like postcards, to be sent to the family in the U.S. Some had inscriptions on the back, even names in a few cases, but most were just photos. After all, the family knew who they were...no need to label them for anyone else.

Except now there isn't anyone left to tell us who those people might be. How did they fit into the family? Did they have ancestors here in the States who might want to see or even own those photos?

I've been mildly obsessing over the pictures since I brought the albums home, sat at my dining room table with an Xacto knife and carefully removed them from the crumbling black pages on which they were fastened with those little black sticky corners that left scars when they were removed.

Hours have been spent fussing with the pictures. I've scanned them into my computer, looked up some of the family history I've shared with cousins and come up with a fair idea of who the folks were. I've already sent some of the originals to one cousin in California so she can show her grandchildren their great-grandmother as an infant, a little girl, a sober-eyed secretary in her working suit standing in front of her car.

Now I'm trying to locate relatives of some of the others, those unsmiling, serious people in the photos from Italy, the men, women and children in group photos, some of whom I recognize, most of whom I don't. 

With surgery coming up in a week, I've found this to be a distracting pastime. I hope to be able to keep at it as I recover, searching the internet for information about a lost relative to whom to send photos they surely don't even know exist.

Lesson here: go through all the photos I have in envelopes, boxes and albums. Make sure they are carefully labeled. Save someone the task of investigating to find their real homes. Do the family a favor while my memory is still fresh.

No rest for the anxious mind

 The surgery is coming up fast.

And so far I've done a fairly good job of putting my worries somewhere in the back of my mind, sleeping well, not obsessing over what's to come.

At least until Thursday.

When the ringing phone indicated the call was from Virtua Health, of course I took it. What could they want? I've had all the tests and everything's just on hold until the 29th.

Wrong.

The sweet person on the other end of the call, Gwen, she said her name was, called to get the pre-admission questionnaire completed. It would only take about ten or fifteen minutes, she said. 

So we went through all my past medical history, the meds I take and when I take them and then she got down to the nitty-gritty.

I'm to arrive at 8:30 a.m., go to the surgery admissions desk and say goodbye to my husband, then expect to spend two hours being prepped. Dr. Deger has reserved the surgical suite for 3 1/2 hours, she said, although he might not need that much time. An hour and a half in the recovery room, then to wherever I light for the night, at which time my hubby and kids can come up and say hi. I'll be groggy, she said, and not very good company, so they probably won't stay long...just enough to reassure themselves I'm really okay. I will then sleep, or at least as well as one can sleep in a hospital setting.

You see, the problem is, I feel fine. I have no symptoms of this thing that's lurking on my ovary where it doesn't belong. I'm not overly tired; I have no pain. So the notion of a surgeon slicing holes in my abdomen or worse, making an incision there, doesn't jibe with how I feel. I'm actually going to inflict pain on myself just to get better when I don't feel ill at all. Huh?

Anyway, it's really going to happen. I'm certain I don't have cancer, but there will still be a recovery period and lost time so close to Christmas. I'll decorate the house the weekend after Thanksgiving, but no tree this year. Little Selma poses too great a threat to hanging ornaments and we have no idea how she will react to the blinking lights, so we'll pass this year and wait until next. But the wreaths and household decorations will go up early so I can enjoy them when I get home.

It was going well and I wasn't thinking about the 29th more than a couple times a day. Now it's there way too much. Sigh.

When life changes in an instant

 Whenever anything of merit happens in my life, my first instinct has always been to write about it.

Writing to me is a cathartic exercise, guaranteed to make me think carefully, choose the right words and put on paper my feelings, however mixed or confusing.

There is no confusion now. On the 29th of November, I'll be having surgery. Who would have thought it?

Just a routine visit on Halloween (how ironic!) to check on some discomfort I'd been having. My excellent primary care physician fit me in the day I called. Then, after some probing questions and an exam, he sent me for a CT scan. The order simply said "Stat."

We read the report together 20 minutes later. A mass was spotted on my left ovary. The doctor ordered an ultrasound for the next day. When that report came in, he called me at home to discuss the finding. Obviously, another opinion was needed, that of a gynecologic oncologist, and he gave me some names from which to choose. Doctors to whom he would send his wife, he said. He's comforting that way.

So yesterday, after a weekend that seemed to stretch for a very long time, Howard and I sat in the office of Dr. Randolph Deger. I'd read his credentials and patient reviews and decided he would be my choice to help me deal with whatever is ahead.

We were with him for an hour. He ordered new studies with greater accuracy to help him "see" what we're up against. He did an internal exam and felt the thing, about three and a half inches in size, that's lurking where it doesn't belong. We set the surgery date and today I began the series of studies necessary to provide information to guide the rest of the way.

I'm not normally a calm, rational being. I'm emotional and one who rarely sees the positive side of things. But this has brought out a part of me that's been hidden away, waiting I suppose, for something of this magnitude to emerge.

I'm not crying myself to sleep. I'm not wringing my hands and saying "Woe is me!" I'm taking this one day at a time, one test at a time, until the 29th. Since I can't control any of it, I have no tasks assigned to myself. I'm not terrified; I'm scared of the surgery and its aftermath, but that's a way off yet, so until I have to, I'm shutting it in a corner room with the door firmly shut. 

Call it denial. Call it whatever works for you. I intend to go on with my life, root for the Phillies to win the World Series, prepare for Thanksgiving with my daughter and grandchildren and know that, four days later, the hospital will call and tell me when to show up on Tuesday to meet Dr. Deger again. Until that call comes, I don't want to concentrate on all the possibilities that lie ahead.

That's what works for me. 

The story about a Christmas card

 

November 2, 2022

The following two blog posts never saw the light of day. I wrote them and then didn’t do anything with them. So I’m putting them up now. Just to be sure they’re included.

 December 4, 2019

I wrote the blog post below four years ago to celebrate an unusual tradition. It’s my turn to wait this year to find the treasured Christmas card in my mailbox.

When I read the message and telepathically send my love to its sender, I will squirrel it away somewhere easy to remember (nothing worse than hiding something so well I forget where I put it!) until next year when it's my turn to ponder over a single line of greeting, jot it down and send the card back. Who knew way back then that this lovely ritual would endure for so many years?

December 8, 2015

It is 33 years old this year.

When I bought it in 1982, Hallmark charged 75 cents for it. Today it would cost four dollars or more.

 There's nothing that noteworthy about the card... a guy with a Santa hat and red bowtie in red elf slippers with bells on them, flinging his arms open wide, saying, “Merry Christmas to a really wonderful, witty, charming, intelligent person!”

 Inside, it reads, “Save this card! You can send it to me next Christmas!”

 I sent it, way back then, to Michael DeNardo, a young Temple University student whom I'd followed during his years at Edgewood Regional High in Winslow. Mike was studying to become a radio broadcaster, which he did most successfully. His voice still can be heard on KYW news radio.

 In 1983, much to my surprise, the card reappeared, returned by Mike as a typical joke.

 I saved it, and sent it back to him in 1984.

 Each year, as it traversed from wherever I was living to wherever Mike was, we appended a one-line comment by way of greeting.

 Gradually, we ran out of space inside the card (even writing sideways one year). So we graduated to the back from 2004 to 2012.

 That being filled by then, the following year, Mike inserted a plain white piece of card stock with the words, “This should carry us for a few more decades!”

 Today, December 8, 2015, the card arrived again. It was Mike's turn this year and he did not disappoint. He said, “Our card endures. It'll be eligible for Social Security soon!”

 The last time I saw him in person was at my 60th birthday party, 14 years ago. He looked like the teenage Mike I remembered and his infectious laugh hadn't faded.

 But whether we are able to meet or whether our only contact is the Christmas card, we know our friendship has given us a wonderful tradition.

 When the inevitable Christmas sadness settles on my heart at the absence of so many people I've loved and lost, I can look at the card Mike sends and get a boost of joy.

 Little blessings mean so much and Mike is always there to provide one of my favorites.