Farewell....

What can I say?  My heart hurts right now.  A beautiful lady who was a huge part of my life for nearly forty years has died….

  

She has had Alzheimer’s disease for more than a decade and didn’t even recognize her own sons when they came to see her.  I know it was hard on them because my ex-husband (her first-born son) and I have talked about it.

My daughter told me today that she is saddened, too.  She thought she “shouldn’t be” because Grandma has been gone from all of us for a long, long time.  As I told her, the fact is that we are never prepared to lose a loved one, no matter how imminent the death might be.

She’s gone.  How can that be?  It isn’t fair, that’s for sure.  She was more to me than a mother-in-law; she was my Other Mother.   She was my shelter from the storm of my relationship with my own mother.  She was everything I wished my mother had been: kind, caring, gentle, loving and approachable.  As odd as it might sound, my mother was never approachable……  Yet my Other Mother was always there for me, as I tried to be for her.

Walking in the orange groves, after supper, so many years ago when I was pregnant with my first child, we would talk.  My husband worked evenings and my in-laws invited me out to their ranch for supper at least one night a week.  So, we talked.  We walked along a row of orange trees highlighted by the setting sun and she answered my questions about my pregnancy.

Over and over again, I asked her to tell me about “labor” and what I would be going through.  I asked her what things I needed to have on hand before the baby came home from the hospital.  And I listened in amazement as she described how I would feel when I saw my baby for the first time.

And she nailed it…

I remember after Steve and I separated that  she hoped we would reconcile.  She even “set us up” by asking each of us to come out to the ranch and help her on a Saturday afternoon.  I hadn’t seen Steve in a while as he was dating someone else and so was I….

It was hard to see her so desperate to fix something that was irretrievably broken, and neither of us could get mad at her for trying so hard.  And neither of us was in a place to try to fix it.  It was over, but NOT my relationship with my Other Mother.

She continued to be my friend and called me frequently to see how I was doing.  After her husband died, she called me and asked me to come by and see her.  She had a gift for me: a beautiful, dark red flower vase.   She wanted me to have something of hers to remember her by.

As if I needed an object to remind me of her…..

And now she’s gone.  Gone to a place where she is whole again and not suffering.  We are left with our memories—wonderful memories—of a beautiful woman, a beautiful person.  We will talk about her often, sharing stories and remembering her with much love and affection.

 

And shed some tears, too….

Cali

Things That Go Bark in the Night...

We were awake this morning at 4, listening to the dog bark.  There was a sense of urgency in her bark, and it was punctuated with growls.  He said “it’s cats….” but I wondered.   Cinnamon barks at cats all the time, but she doesn’t growl….

I went outside to see what she was up to but it was too dark (it usually is in the middle of the night….).  He brought out a flashlight and, shining it on the potato bush along the fence, there it was.  Not a cat, or cats…..

A possum.

He wasn’t frightened by the light, the dog, or us.  He just sat there calmly on the fence and stared at us.  Cinnamon was still barking furiously, yet she seemed amused that “mom and dad” had joined her in the backyard.  Bark, bark, bark, growl, bark, growl….

Still, the possum didn’t move.  He wasn’t “playing possum”….he was staring at us, then at the dog, then back at us.  Perhaps he is acclimated to humans?  And dogs?  And the four or five cats that live in our alley?

It seemed rather obvious that the only way to get Cinnamon to stop barking was to convince the possum to leave…..  Have you ever tried that?  Neither had I…

So, armed with a hose with a spray nozzle, he aimed it at the possum and turned it on.  The possum moved from one side of the potato bush to the other, then back again.  At one point, he turned around and we got to stare at his soggy, wet behind

.

And then, he disappeared….

Was he really gone?  Cinnamon was still quite antsy but she had stopped barking.  He got a piece of PVC pipe and started poking it into the foliage of the potato bush.  Nothing.  No movement, no sounds except the rustling of the leaves as the PVC passed through.

Is he gone?  Will he be back?

I “ordered” Cinnamon to get in her bed and miraculously, she did.  She seemed calmer now that the possum had disappeared.  I felt comforted that she couldn’t smell him, hear him, or sense his presence, so maybe the possum hunt was over….

I went back to bed but I couldn’t sleep.  I kept waiting for Cinnamon to start barking again, but she didn’t.

There’s always tonight…..

Cali

The Keeper of Memories...

So, where have I been all summer?  The short answer is: here, at home.  The long answer is that I haven’t been blogging.  Why?  The Social Networking Site where I got my start as a blogger suddenly disappeared at the end of May.

Frantically, I tried to locate my friends on other sites.  I joined two SNS sites, decorated my profile, and found a lot of my friends.  One of the sites was not a good fit for me from the beginning: they have blogs there but nobody reads them, and few people write them.

The second site I found was more promising: there are blogs and people actually do write over there.  Again, nobody reads them, either.  Is that the only reason to write a blog?  So someone will read it?  Yes and no.  I have to write for myself: my feelings, my observations, my thoughts.  Yet, it is nice to know that someone has read what I wrote and felt a synergy or connection with it.

It’s not that I haven’t been creative.  I just haven’t been writing as much.  What I am writing now is in the form of “journaling” on scrapbook pages.  Because of my writing background, my journaling is more substantial and interrelated with the photos’ subject matter.

After taking a weekend class in May, I was hooked on scrapbooking.  I actually got back into scrapbooking last fall at the encouragement of my daughter.  She is an accomplished scrapper and artistic genius, IMHO.

But taking classes made it all official.  Each day of class, there is an assignment to complete.  Each day, I happily think about the subject at hand and gather photos and papers and embellishments to complete the project.

And every day, the completed project goes into the Student Gallery for others to see and comment on.  And every day, I get up to a dozen or so encouraging comments on my scrapbooking efforts.  It’s fun to have that feedback and to see my work through others’ eyes.

For me, scrapbooking is about telling a story.  The photos are a big part of telling that story.  The photo part got much easier for me late this spring: my daughter graciously spent a couple of hours with me, helping me conquer Photoshop.  No, I’m not completely victorious yet, but I know—and can do—a heck of a lot more than I could before she helped me.

For today’s class assignment, I used paper scraps to “weave” a background for my photos.  And those photos were a mere 1.5 inch square!  Photoshop to the rescue, again.  I cropped and custom printed the photos I wanted just like a pro…..sorta.

The woven scrap papers were then sewn on with my sewing machine, making them look like a quilt.  I then added the photos, some embellishments, and my journaling.  What I have now is a scrapbook page that shows what was important to me today.  Hopefully, someday, my children and grandchildren will view my scrapbooks the way I want them to: as a family history.

Scrapped with love by Mom/Grandma: the Keeper of Memories….

Cali

And here is today's scrapbooking project:

Planting Seeds...

I wrote a blog, a few years ago, and published it on Eons….of course, it’s gone.  I was reminded of it today by something that came in the mail.  But let me tell you what I blogged back then, first..

In the early Nineties, I was the Charge Nurse in the Operating Room at the local hospital.  We had  eight operating room suites on the first floor, and two in Labor and Delivery.  Additionally, during my tour of duty, the hospital opened its Open Heart Surgery services.

Also during my tenure, many of the scrub techs went back to school and became RNs.  And many of the RNs took their training to become RNFAs: Registered Nurse First Assistants.  That was the time of big changes in the OR, insurance companies were no longer paying MDs to “assist” surgeons with routine surgeries….  And so, RNFAs took on that role.

One person I remember fondly was Noel.  I called him Noelito because he was Hispanic and barely 18 at the time he was hired to work in the OR as an orderly.  His job was to go fetch patients from the nursing units and bring them down to the OR holding area.

 

When patients were transported directly back to their nursing unit, without going to recovery, Noelito would assist the RN who had to accompany the patient and give report.  He was always busy and always willing to help anyone who needed help.

In the holding area, he would take time to make the patients comfortable, bringing them warm blankets and getting a nurse to answer their questions.  I was quite impressed with his demeanor and with his work ethic.

One day I brought him a book, an English-Spanish dictionary for medical workers.  Since he was Hispanic, patients naturally started talking to him in Spanish, a language he could not speak.  As he was standing at the desk in the holding area, determining what he needed to do next, I approached him and put the book down in front of him.

He looked up at me, and I knew he needed an explanation why I would buy a book for him.  My reply was simple: “you can go far in this world, if you want to…”.   He carried that book in his pocket all the time and I saw him looking up words in it more than once.

I mentioned in my previous blog that I was planting seeds with him.  I don’t think he was aware of how much he had to offer, or how much he was capable of learning.  I wrote that blog because I had seen Noelito at the mall.  Not Noelito the orderly, but Noel, the RN.  Since my departure from the OR, he had gone back to school, gotten his prerequisites done, and entered the nursing program.

I forgot to ask him if he still had the dictionary—the seed—that I gave him…

In today’s mail, I received the quarterly magazine from the hospital.  One of the articles was about their new Endourology services and equipment.  In the photo, dressed in an OR gown, gloves, hat and laser goggles, was Noel, RN.  But not just Noel, RN, anymore: he is now Noel, RNFA, having completed that advanced training, too.

I am not going to take any credit for his accomplishments.  He is the one who did all the hard work of going to school and working fulltime.  He is the one who balanced his new little family, his job and his schooling.  And he is the one who graduated, took his boards, and passed.  And then decided to get some additional training, too….

All I did, I think, was plant the seed….

Cali

Going Back...

I’m taking a scrapbooking class online:  daily word challenges.  We find the meaning of the day’s word in our life, write about it, and add a photo.  The purpose of the class is to help us learn to dig deeper and find what we really think about the everyday things in our lives.

Through posting my daily writing in the online gallery, I have met some wonderful women who share my love for documenting life as it happens.  Through our stories, we have learned about each other and how each of us approaches our life, today.

I feel a touch of the green-eyed monster as I read what others have written.  No, I don’t want to be somebody else, or live somewhere else, or have a different life.  Not really.  What I want is to revisit those wonderful days when my children were little.

I want to be a time traveler, going back a few decades in my own life.  As a time traveler, I can take all the knowledge and experience I have collected through the years and apply it to that time, back then. Perhaps I would make some different decisions, handle situations differently, or respond differently to the scuff and banter of everyday life.

Or maybe I wouldn’t…

Mostly, I would love the opportunity to just sit and watch my children.  Not fix supper, clean house, do laundry, or work in the garden, unless, of course, the children were there doing it with me.  I would know from all the life I have lived that I need to savor the moments.  Savor the special times that occur daily.  The words and voices that were my children.  The things they had to say…

I would discipline differently, trying to find out where the behavior came from instead of just punishing it.  I wouldn’t say “not now” when my children wanted to do something with me.  I would let the housework, or cooking, or laundry wait, instead of the children.

I would tell them how I felt about things and what I saw when I looked at them.  I would tell them how much joy they brought into my life, instead of telling them to “sit down and be quiet.”

Oh how I long for those little voices, those thoughts and ideas, and even that squirming and silliness.  Those days of innocence that pass too quickly, and leave a hole in an old woman’s heart.  I travel only through their photos for now, remembering and smiling as I look at each one…

There is a connection to that past that will never die.  It is emulated, closely, as I look at the faces of my grandchildren, catching fleeting glimpses of their parents at the same age.  I am sure that will come around again, with great grandchildren, if I am lucky.

But I really am lucky: my little ones are all grown up now.  They are good citizens and good parents.  And loving children, still….

Cali

All in a Day's Work....

Sometimes I look at what I have “done” during the day and chastise myself for not doing more.  Since I am retired, I can always do whatever needs to be done “tomorrow” if I want.  Ah, but tomorrow never comes, does it?

So, what did I have to do today that didn’t get done?  Truthfully, nothing.

Maybe I feel guilty because he spent so much of the day outside, mowing the lawn and working in the yard.  I don’t have nearly as much to show for my efforts today….. Let’s see: I have done two loads of laundry, cleaned up the kitchen, put some things away, and worked on my scrapbooking.

Is that enough to do in one day?  Does every day have to have monumental results?  Is there really anyone who would be impressed if I did more?  Or less?

Actually, there is more that I did today.  I was online, finding out more about Harald Hardrada.  He was the King of Norway and my 33^rd great grandfather, on my mother’s side.  Funny thing, he tried to conquer England in September of 1066 but died trying.

 

He was known as the last of the Viking warriors.  After King Edward the Confessor (of England) died, there were three men who claimed the throne: an Englishman, Harold Godwinson, a Norman, William of Normandy, and Harald Hardrada, King of Norway.

After defeating Harald Hardrada at the Battle of Samford Bridge, Harold Godwinson marched his army to Hastings to meet his other foe, William the Conqueror, husband of my 33^rd great grandmother on my father’s side, Matilda of Flanders.  Exhausted from the previous battle and forced march, Harold’s army was defeated by the Norman.  What my maternal ancestors couldn’t accomplish, my paternal ancestors could.

No wonder I’m so tired…

Cali

Forgotten Heroes...

On Memorial Day, we honor those who died in service to our country.  To all of them, throughout the history of our country, I am grateful.  And to a special group of veterans who are near and dear to my heart, I am especially grateful.

Vietnam was my generation’s war.  Every corner of this country was touched by the loss of sons, brothers, sweethearts, fathers, and husbands.  Some 58,000 Americans gave their lives in the Vietnam War.   They were drafted, or enlisted.  They were America’s future, the generation that would lead the nation into the next millennium.  They were my friends…

Some who went to Vietnam did not carry weapons.  They did not go through Boot Camp.  They didn’t jump out of airplanes, rarely walked through jungles, trying not to be ambushed, didn’t fly choppers, or build bases.

They were the registered nurses who went to Vietnam to care for the troops, to treat the sick and wounded.  They were volunteers.  Whether they felt a patriotic duty to serve, or not, they were committed to caring for those who needed their help and expertise.

As the choppers landed, those nurses rushed out and triaged patients, deciding who could be saved and who couldn’t.  Performing tracheotomies, starting IV’s, infusing blood, giving pain medications and dressing horrific wounds, they spent long hours living with trauma, death, and dying.

Moreover, they became mothers and sweethearts to young men whose lives were cut short.  “Yes, I’ll be right here with you.  Yes, I’m holding your hand.  Yes, I’ll tell your mother that you were brave, and your sweetheart that you love her.”   They saw too many young men die, holding their hands.  They promised too many young men that they would write to their mothers.  They cried more tears than the oceans could hold.

Some died when hospitals were bombed.  Some came back to the States and suffered the consequences of exposure to Agent Orange.  Some woke in the night, sweating and hysterical, as they lived the war in their dreams, all over again. Some came back and furthered their nursing education.  Some quit nursing altogether.  And all of them were/are heroes, too.

To those who ministered to the sick and dying American soldiers serving in Vietnam, I am eternally grateful for your service to your country and to your fellow man.

God Bless all of you!

Cali

Another Birthday...

Another year has passed.  I’m another year older and, hopefully, another year wiser…

I remember my mother’s last birthday: she turned 65.  I was in a real quandary, trying to think of something to give her for her birthday.  She had everything she wanted, so there wasn’t much left for me to give her.

After spending a very long time wandering around the mall, hoping something would inspire me, I went in the Hallmark store.  On the end of an aisle, perched among other photo albums, was the perfect one.  It was a lovely white, leather-like material with seashells embossed on the bottom, right corner.  Eureka!

I had found the perfect gift to give a woman who had everything, and was leaving on a cruise to the South Pacific in just a week or so.  It was a little pricey but I decided to get it anyway since it was such a perfect gift.

My parents went out to dinner for her birthday, and then stopped by my house to see us and have cake and ice cream.  I proudly presented her with my carefully-selected gift, nearly unable to contain my enthusiasm.  It was going to be so great to see her smile and exclaim over that beautiful album!

She opened it, looked at it, and without expression on her face or in her voice, she simply stated: “I already bought albums for the cruise…..”  I was crestfallen.  Crushed.  And  hurt, too.  I had tried so hard and failed so miserably.   She did realize what she said and hastily said “thank you!” but it was too late…

So, on my birthday, now that I am of a certain age, I worry about my children putting too much effort into trying to find me the right gift.  After all, I DO have everything …..already.

Not to worry: I received gift cards for my birthday from each of the kids.  “Buy something for yourself” was the phrase that went with the gift, spoken or unspoken.  And that was fine with me…

You see, they each gave me much more than a gift card.  Their present was their presence.  Their presence in my home, on my birthday, and their presence in my life every day.  My daughter only had one day off before working the weekend, and a million things she needed to do at home.  Instead she drove to Podunk and spent the day with me, even taking me out to lunch.

My son stopped by after work, before going home.  It was Friday night and I know he was tired and anxious to get home and relax, yet he spent nearly two hours with me, sitting around the table and chatting about his life and his plans and his interests…

When the day was over, I was very tired and very happy: It was one of the best birthdays ever.  In this frenetically-paced life we live, two of the most important people in my life took the time to be with me and just visit.  Giving me the gift of their presence speaks volumes to me.

Whatever I am, or am not, I am loved…

Cali

First Voyage

Recently, when cleaning out boxes in the closet, I came across a treasure.  No, not savings bonds, or rare coins, or the deed to a gold mine.   I found a story written by my father.  And hand-written by him in calligraphy….

On the cover, he wrote: To my beloved daughter….From Daddy, Christmas 1979…

I couldn’t remember seeing it before, yet I obviously did.  I suspect that, since I was working night shift at that time, and had to leave his home to go to work on Christmas Eve, I probably didn’t give it more than a cursory look after he gave it to me.  I know I didn’t read it….

It was a different time then.  He was alive and well.  I was a fairly new RN, working the night shift, married, and raising three children.  Daddy was always in my life, and I couldn’t imagine his being gone from me any time soon, so there was no rush to read his story.

How things have changed.  Daddy has been gone for almost 15 years now.   And somehow, this booklet, with his story, has surfaced again.  What was once a simple Christmas gift has taken on much greater meaning: it is no longer just a story, it is Daddy’s legacy.  To me.  From him. 

I was shaking as I opened the booklet.  On the first page are the words “First Voyage”…..  I was intrigued.   As I read the next page, and the next, I was enthralled.  It is a story of my father’s first trip to Europe, as a young man, and it is a delightful recounting of a trip, yes, but also of a young man who later became my father.

His words make me smile:

"Other eight-year-olds had toy ducks floating in their bathtubs.  I had a wind-up scale model of a World War I battleship.  I wore navy blue “sailor suits” in the winter, and white in the summer.  Both came from Brooks Brothers in New York, where my dad bought his clothes."

There was never any question in my mind as to what I would be when I “grew up”: I would be either Captain of a big liner, or Admiral-in-Chief, U.S. Navy."

He relates that his father met Lord Louis Mountbatten, and through him, Captain Arthur Rostron, RNR, captain of Cunard Line’s HMS Mauretania, “fastest liner in the world”….  He was Captain of the Mauretania when the Titanic sank and was awarded a special Congressional Medal for rescuing the survivors…

As his parents became fast friends with Captain Rostron, they had lunch with him every other Saturday when the Mauretania was in New York.  "I had complete run of the ship; I knew Mauretania from keelson to truck."  Captain Rostron became Sir Arthur Rostron when my father was a teenager. 

The rest of the story is about his first sea voyage.  He was 23, footloose and fancy free.  "Despite youthful dreams of a maritime career, a shrinking Navy, limited berths in the Merchant Marine, and—above all—the Great Depression—made nautical openings hard to find."

So, in 1935, he embarked on the S.S. Black Tern (“a Hog Island single-screw well-deck cargo vessel, built in 1919, and refitted in 1930 with an oil-fueled GE steam turbine, multiple gear power plant.”) He worked his passage as an Ordinary Seaman.  For the grand sum of .01 cent, he worked his way from New York City to Antwerp, Belgium.

In his story, he recounts the tasks he was assigned while aboard ship: polishing the “bright”, chipping paint, and painting, battening down the hatches, and coiling wire cargo halyards, among other things.  The captain took a liking to him and let him stand watch on the bridge. 

As he recounts his voyage, I learn more about my father as a person.  I read his words, first scribbled in his journal, during the journey.  I feel as if I have met my father as a young man.  A man who worked hard and had the respect of his shipmates.  A man who enjoyed the beauty of the ocean and the stars and wasn’t afraid of hard work. 

As the voyage came to an end, he writes:

”For the first time in more than a week, the sea is calm.  No rolling, no pitching, whatsoever.  The water is almost an emerald green.  All about us are ships and birds. To port, we can see the chalk cliffs of Cornwall.  We steam past Penzance, and a thrill runs up my spine at the memories the name evokes of high school operetta days when a certain work-away sailor was Major General Stanley in ‘The Pirates of Penzance.’”

The adventure ends at a restaurant in Antwerp: four shipmates met for lunch and then split the check four ways: 45 cents each.  Daddy was leaving for Brussels and the World’s Fair the next morning.  As he said goodbye to his shipmates, they went off in one direction and he went in another….

The voyage was over, and a new adventure was about to begin…..

Cali

Extras...

No, not the nameless faces in a movie crowd scene or the toppings on a pizza…… I’m talking about people, and the little things they do, every day, for others.

Today was the day we had an appointment at the DMV.  We rushed through a smog inspection first, and then off to the land of wait-in-line.  It’s not the first time we have attempted to register his Honda in California and get new license plates.  The last time, our DMV was closed, so we went to another nearby town.  As we pulled into the parking lot, the line was out the door and around the corner…..we went home.

As he was talking to a man behind the counter, another employee told me to “move over” so she could help another customer.  I was taken aback but then remembered where I was and obediently moved over….

We sat in the sea of people and listened to a variety of languages being spoken, and sob stories about misplaced pink slips or “undeserved” tickets….  When it was our turn, the gentleman who waited on us was very courteous and helpful.  He even loaned us a screwdriver to get the license plates off the car: no new plates without turning in the old plates.

As I stood at the window, writing the check for the registration, he went out with the screw driver to get the plates off the car.  The look on his face when he came back in told me that it didn’t go well.  Not only was the screw driver not the appropriate tool to get the plates off, but he locked his keys in the trunk….

Now it was my turn to go outside and call AAA.  The very nice woman I spoke to told me that she would have someone out to help me “within a half an hour”………I explained that we were at the DMV, being waited on, and could it be sooner?  She said she would make us a priority call….

I went back inside with the DMV clerk to finish the paperwork while he stayed by the car to wait for the tow truck driver.  He came back in after only five minutes: the tow truck had already been there and retrieved the keys. 

We made an appointment to come back in an hour and a half, with the license plates, and then went home to try to get them off.  No luck….  So, I called the only person I could think of who might be able to help us soon: the contractor who is remodeling our kitchen.

 

And yes, he came over within half an hour of my call.  And with a few attempts to find just the right tool, he got the screws off and our license plates, too.  It didn’t hurt that we squirted WD-40 around the screws before he got there….

We rushed back to the DMV, paperwork and license plates in hand.  As we stood in “Line 1”, waiting to get a number, the man who helped us earlier spotted us and motioned us to come over to his counter.  Within five minutes, the paperwork was complete and we had our California license plates and were out the door….

I honestly believe that we get back what we give out.  I think it’s human nature to be kind to those who are kind to us.  I’d like to think that kindness is contagious, truly….  I do appreciate the smog guy, the DMV guy, the AAA guy, and our contractor, for turning a difficult situation into a positive experience….

Cheerfully….

Cali