The Impossible Do-Over

I recently watched "A Little Bit of Heaven", starring Kate Hudson. (Spoiler alert: she dies of cancer.) I sobbed—yes, it's a major chick flick. But for me, as a widow of someone who died of cancer, it was a blast back to the final days of my husband's life.

He stopped eating on a Thursday. He stopped drinking on a Saturday. There were acts I had to perform with/on him (to get morphine into his body to try to quell the overwhelming pain) that one would never, ever want to perform on a loved one. The closer he got to his passing, the harder it was to understand what he was trying to say to me.

As Monday—after the Thursday, after the Saturday—progressed, his breathing became more and more labored. I would rush into the bedroom to see if I could do anything for him, then I'd rush out to try to call someone—anyone—to help him. Visiting nurse's associations, hospice, our doctors at Walter Reed. Can't anyone do anything to help this man?

I called our dear next-door neighbor, Peggy, and asked her to come help me. She told her boss that she had to leave the office—the tasks she needed to perform that afternoon were far more important than anything in her office. She came and sat beside John, talking him through each wave of excruciating pain. I ran in and out. Running. Rushing. Frantic.

Finally at about 4:00 in the afternoon, our hospice nurse stopped by. When he saw John's condition and heard the labored breathing, he immediately called the ambulance. The EMTs carefully carried John down the stairs and settled him into the ambulance for the ride to Hospice of Washington. I rode in the ambulance with him, singing to him for the 5-10 minute ride. Peggy followed in her car so she could bring me home after we got John settled for the night.

But within minutes of arriving at Hospice of Washington, he was gone. I had frantically rushed around for four or six hours to no avail. With no positive results.

When I watched the last hours of the Kate Hudson's character's life in the movie, I was touched with the beauty the writers had infused to the scene. Her friends and family were there, quietly, peacefully, lovingly carrying her through the final few hours. They weren't panic-stricken or rushing. They were peacefully tending and attending the end of a life. They were there.

A million times in the 14+ years since John's death, I have wished I had just stopped. Stopped and reflected. Stopped and sat with him. Stroked his head. Held his hand.

Why couldn't I have stopped?

Why couldn't I just be?

There's no do-over, no Mulligan, when one's need to provide comfort turns to resolving problems rather than providing succor.

I can never do that one over. I hope, wherever he is or isn't, he knows I'm sorry I didn't just be.

---

John and I met singing with the Washington Chorus, one of the primary symphonic choruses in Washington, DC. One of the many works we had performed together was "Porgy and Bess." As we were in the back of the ambulance, I was singing "Oh Lord, I'm On My Way," the final movement of "Porgy and Bess."

Oh Lawd, I'm on my way
I'm on my way to a Heav'nly Lan',
I'll ride that long, long road,
If You are there to guide my han'.

Oh Lawd, I'm on my way,
I'm on my way to a Heav'nly Lan'
Oh Lawd. It's a long, long way, but
You'll be there to take my han'.

Is It Worth Arguing About?

I like doing dishes. I don't enjoy cooking, but I think I don't-enjoy it less than the Jazzman doesn't-enjoy it. If we're both home and I've prepared a substantial meal, he'll clean up the kitchen after the meal to compensate for my having prepared it.

Recently, there was a reason I wanted to do the dishes. I don't remember why. I just didn't want him to do them. I wanted him to be able to go off after his hard day and do whatever he wanted to do, which I couldn't imagine being washing the dishes.

As we stood there arguing about who would do the dishes, I was instantly transported back in time to around 1963.

My lifelong best friend (at that time, we were about five years into that friendship that still endures) was living with us for a month or so while her mother was in the hospital with hip or back problems. It must have been a Wednesday night or a Sunday evening, because Daddy was home. Daddy was out in his garage workshop, tinkering with one of the antique cars he was always rebuilding.

We finished dinner. Mother turned to us and said, "You girls do the dishes," and the incident began.

Whoever normally washed wanted to dry or some equally stoopid argument. Gail and I stood there going back and forth, arguing about who should wash and who should dry. I don't know how long this went on, but long enough and loud enough that Daddy could hear us in the garage, through several doors and over the jazz he always kept playing in the garage.

Before we knew it, he had stormed into the kitchen. (This was a man who never stormed anywhere!) He sent us each to a bedroom and said he would do the dishes.

Punishment? Oh. My God! He could not have devised a worse punishment. We both adored him. We knew how hard he worked every day. To have, by our hard-headed immature arguing, forced him to drop his beloved car-tinkering to wash the dishes was a worse punishment than any we could have devised.

This, my friends, is creative parenting!

Like Father, Like Daughter

This weekend my younger son is at a large alumni reunion organized for the 50th anniversary of the founding of his high school, a world-renowned school for the arts. I keep checking his Facebook page to see who he has reconnected with. I have sent and received greetings from his dormitory housemother, who—from my perspective—treated each of those young men as her own. I have gazed in awe at his inspirational history teacher, who instilled in my son such a unebbing love of history. I have seen familiar faces, now almost 20 years older, and looked for these classmates' Facebook pages and websites to see the successes they have logged in the ensuing years.

Then I stop and wonder if there's something wrong with me that I'm so entwined in my sons' lives.

Only then do I remember my daddy and how closely he followed my life. He knew my friends' names. He listened to the tales I told of our exploits. He doted on my place in his life and in the world.

I always called him "Daddy." My brothers called him "Doodle." One of my closest college friends, who recently finished her U.S. Air Force career with the rank of Major General, dubbed him "Doctor Daddy Doodle." We still talk about how wonderful he was to us.

One of my favorite memories dates from around 1970. I hosted a gathering of my University of Central Florida Tyes Sorority sisters at our home in Spring Valley. Daddy was away at a medical convention or fishing in Alaska, his two most common reasons to travel. In the middle of all the laughter of college-aged girls, the phone rang. It was Daddy, calling to say hello to my friends and to see how the party was going.

Was that intrusive? No! Was that overinvolved? Never! It was a daddy who somehow knew his importance in my life, staying connected.

And I think I'm standing in my daddy's shoes.

Doing It Right

Longtime readers know I have a lot of misgivings about the courses my life has taken. Four marriages? Being a non-custodial mother? Twenty years to complete college? Getting a J.D. but not passing the bar? Changing jobs every two years or even more frequently? Where's the sense in all that? How did it happen?

But sometimes, despite missteps and misgivings, one gets her life right.

And those rightnesses bring me great happiness and joy and a few tears to the eyes.

One of the big successes was walking with John from his diagnosis with metastatic prostate cancer through the 21 months to his death. He was lucky to have a wife who had the inner fortitude to just focus on him and his needs. And I was lucky to be able to give and give and give to him. We were both personalities who needed to be needed, and we were blessed by the universe to find each other.

I've done what I could for my older son, who is bound and determined to do everything for himself. The damage of my mother's parenting of me, and the damage of my parenting of my sons (i.e. leaving) led my older son to follow in my counterdependent footsteps. He seems to want to be left alone. So I try to let him know I love and support him, while letting him be his own self. It seems to work. I think we've been successful in our forming of the adult child-to-adult parent relationship.

But where I really did it right was with my younger son. This weekend he is at Interlochen Arts Academy (IAA) for a reunion, and I am filled with memories of what an absolutely miraculous place Interlochen is. Because of John's son-in-law, himself a National Music Camp alum, we were introduced to Interlochen Arts Camp and Interlochen Arts Academy. Because of my son's self-assurance, he was able to break away from his father and come to the parent who understood his love and affinity for this creative place in the woods of northern Michigan. Because of my determination to always try to do what was best for my children, I worked and worked and worked to provide that education and that place for him. I told him from Day One that he was to consider his time at IAA as an investment towards college. He worked harder than I've ever worked, made reasoned choices and decisions, studied, made a name for himself, and ultimately earned a full scholarship to college. Thanks to a loving housemother, he learned to do his laundry and manage his time. Thanks to incredibly gifted and compassionate teachers, he got an academic education he simply would not have gotten in any public or private high school in Dallas or in D.C.

And the entire time he was at Interlochen, he did not let a week pass without thanking me for all my sacrifices on his behalf.

And so this weekend I reminisce back to my phone calls from D.C. to his dorm between the lakes. "Is there anything I need to know?", I would ask. I would send packages containing both fans and blankets—to counter the blistering heat of northern Michigan summer days and the seemingly unseasonable chill of northern Michigan summer nights. I would find ways to make trips up for Parents Weekend and the Collage Concert. I would sacrifice and I would worry. But I would know that what I was doing was one of the rightest things I had ever done.

And I wipe away the tears of joy for having been given something hard to do and having done it well.

Ultimately, isn't that what matters?

The Hardest Thing You've Ever Done

I'm reading a memoir written by a woman about her experiences hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. (More about the book in a post to come.) One of her reminiscences is of saying to herself, "This is the hardest thing I've ever done."

That statement made me think about things I've done, and how difficult or easy they seemed at the time. For me, completing law school and receiving my Juris Doctor degree was my greatest accomplishment. In my memory, it seems I wanted to quit each and every day. I had a friend whom I met the first day of orientation before law school began; she was my age and we bolstered each other's courage throughout the years in school.

During the four years I was in law school, I endured my second divorce, my older son being sent home from college for a semester to "learn how to study," and gaining custody of my younger son. In my third and fourth years, I worked a full-time and two part-time jobs to keep tuition and rent paid and food on the table. Now, over 20 years later, I can't imagine having the strength and energy to accomplish all that, but I did. It was the hardest and most important thing I had ever done.

Ten years earlier, I had gotten my first divorce. At that time, it was the hardest thing I had ever done. I had been miserable for the entire 10 years, married to a man who was incredibly selfish and emotionally abusive. By the time I walked out, I had twice swallowed a handful of pills, hoping for release from the months-long migraine that the situation caused. People told me I was courageous. I felt like a failure.

Five years after my law school graduation, I was newly and blissfully happily married to a unique man who understood the aches of my soul. Six months into our marriage, he was diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer. Walking beside him for 21 months as he battled cancer was hard, but selfless. All I had to do was stay incredibly organized and focused on easing his pain. The most precious note I remember from him during this time said, "Thank you for caring for me."

Those hard times had a payoff: a sense that there was nothing I couldn't do.

I could start over and start over and start over. My mulligans were endless. And with each starting over again, I survived.

Is that what goes together—accomplishing incredibly hard tasks and surviving?

What is it that you do?

You go to a party. You meet interesting people, attractive people. What's the first thing you ask after you learn their names? "What do you do?" or "What line of work are you in?"

I hate that question. I don't know what I do. I do lots of things, to which my two-page résumé attests.

In formulating this post, I started writing down the various jobs I've had, but quickly became bored and didn't want to inflict that upon you.

So I'll just put it in a list:

typist
clerk-typist
promotion and public service writer for CBS affiliate
secretary-receptionist
bookkeeper
church pianist
staff accompanist
Dickens Caroler at Walt Disney World
ballet and modern dance accompanist
musical director for theatre
temporary secretary ("temp")
programmer
technical writer
lounge pianist
database application developer
market support representative
Nordstrom pianist
legal technical editor
legal assistant editor
help desk rep for a cable firm
legal index editor
marketing technical writer
Lotus Notes developer and administrator
Lotus Notes instructor
database manager
IT coordinator
Web editor-in-chief
Web content writer and editor
Web page coder

(And, just for the record, almost all of those occurred more than once.)

What do I do now? I update clients' Web pages using HTML or Drupal or Wordpress; I accompany the Young Artists of the Opera Western Reserve in their Fun With Opera presentations, I volunteer as a singer with the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, I assist in the caretaking for my two precious grandchildren, and I provide a lovely home environment for my sweetheart.

It's a mouthful, but [to me] it doesn't sound like much. I was proudest in Tucson when I could say, "I'm the editor-in-chief of the website for the IBM Storage division."

I liked being associated with large, highly respected firms. The only friend from my IBM days with whom I still communicate has been in his job for 35+ years, I believe. He was a programmer, then he was a manager. End of list. I'm jealous.

But I think that—just like I can't pick an art/craft form that I prefer, whether it be knitting, dyeing fabric, sewing, quilting, pottery, stained glass, … —I seem to get bored easily with jobs. I think that in all matters I am a generalist.

And it appears my children are like me, and my grandchildren are turning out the same. Both sons are musicians and computer professionals and have many other interests (although not like each other's interests). The grandchildren do well in their schoolwork, but also at ballet and modern dance and tap and hip-hop and karate and piano and …. You get the idea.

I think one of the side-effects of this generalism—for me—is that I never fully learn anything. I work daily with the content management system known as Wordpress. But when something in the format of a page or site has to be changed, I have to call upon a specialist to make the change. He has specialized knowledge that I just can't seem to grasp, no matter how hard I try. (Let's not even discuss the fact, please, that this may have something to do with the age of my brain!!)

Honestly, the older I get, the less motivated I am to acquire new skills. I'm treading water, biding time until the ripples in my financial situation flatten and I can just not work any more. I understand all my friends who frequently compare notes about how soon they'll be able to retire.

Would I feel differently had I been of the mindset to stick with a single career path, like my IBM friend? I have no way of knowing. My generalism is my life. It's all I know.

But I'm not proud of it.

Ho hum.

Toothpaste Snails

We all have idiosyncrasies. And sometimes our idiosyncrasies bother those around us. It's a very simple fact of life. You've heard it said: If we were all alike, the world would be a very boring place.

The Jazzman comes home from his 12-hour-days on the railroad smelling of diesel fuel. He walks into our bedroom, to his side of the bed, drops his clothes on the floor, and then gets into a hot shower where he washes the hard day away.

And I don't mind.

I remember husband #1 complaining—a year or two into our miserable marriage—about picking my clothes up off the floor. (Hey, Mister, here's a news flash. You didn't have to pick them up. I would have gotten to them when I saw them.)

I was disabled; I grew up with in a household with a maid who came every day to take care of things like laundry and bed-making and house-cleaning. I never learned to do that stuff.

It bothered me (and still does, quite frankly) that I had this idiosyncrasy that bothered him so much. And it bothered me that he couldn't or wouldn't talk to me about it. When I look back, it's probably a miracle that the marriage lasted as long as it did (10 years).

So when I see the Jazzman's pile of clothes on the floor when I'm making the bed in the morning, I smile as I pick them up and carry them across the house to the laundry hamper.

I smile. I feel waves of gratitude. I dance a little jig.

After many years of being alone and lonely (or, alternatively, in a relationship and lonely), I have a wonderful, caring, loving, thoughtful man who snores beside me each night. I'm—quite possibly—the luckiest 61-year-old woman in the universe.

Did I say "snores beside me"? I read all the Facebook posts of friends and acquaintances who are complaining about their lack of sleep for their partners' snoring. I love it. "Why?", you gasp. I'll tell you.

I adored my daddy. For the first, oh, twenty years of my life, my daddy was the only person who made me feel there was any worth or value inside me. He worked very long days, usually leaving the house at 6:00 a.m. and returning around 11:00 p.m. I adored him and saw very little of him. But if I woke in the middle of the night and heard snoring coming from the next bedroom, I knew he was home, and I could continue my sleep in peace and security. (To type this today, many years later, brings tears to my eyes.)

When I hear the Jazzman's snores, I snuggle down a little deeper in our comfortable bed and count my blessings. How could I complain about such a wonderful sound?

My Good Husband (#4 - finally got it right) would complain about my leaving "toothpaste snails" in the sink. It was something I'd never been aware of before beginning to cohabit with him. Ever since, I've noticed them and always made sure to clean up after myself after brushing my teeth.

Now—in this life—I walk into the bathroom and notice toothpaste snails in the sink. Did I leave them? Did the Jazzman?

We're both aging. We can neither see nor hear as we once did. Or remember a damned thing. How'd that medicine cabinet door get opened and stay opened? Didn't I close it. Who can remember?!

So what do I do? Do I assume he left the snails and say something? Not on your life!! I probably left them and can't remember. And besides, if I didn't, and he actually left them, what are the alternatives? I can give him a hard time about it (probably in error) and possibly damage his feelings about me or about living with me. Or I can just scrub them off, while smiling and thinking how lucky I am that I've got a handsome man who still has all his teeth and cares enough about them to brush, floss and visit the dentist on a regular basis.

(But visiting the dentist on a regular basis—or not—is the subject of another relationship gone wrong, best told another time!)

I'll say it again. I'm the luckiest 61-year-old woman in the universe. Or maybe the luckiest woman of any age!!

Generations of Comfort

In 1981, I became a noncustodial mother. That label is hard to say, hard to bear. When you state that fact, people look at you and you sense they're thinking, "What egregious thing did you do to lose your kids?" My egregious act was to divorce a husband who said one thing and did something else, and who worked very hard during the divorce process and afterwards to hurt me (in return, I suppose, for how I had hurt him during the marriage).

Eighteen months post-divorce, I moved from the Dallas/Fort Worth area to Washington, DC, to marry a fellow IBMer whom I had met through work. I went from seeing my sons every other weekend and all summer to only seeing them in the summers and on alternate holidays. You take what you can get.

To set the scene for today's post: At a baby shower given by our church while I was pregnant with Tyler (son #2), I received a beautiful bunting (like a sack you slip the baby into, if you're unfamiliar with the term) that unzipped to make a blanket. The blanket was white flannel on the inside and a silky white printed with yellow ducks on the outside. Tyler had stomach problems and a lot of discomfort as an infant, and that blanket became a source of great comfort to him. After we moved to Ft. Worth, when he was about 4, the blanket came in contact with an oil-fueled space heater and one end of the silky fabric melted. I took the blanket apart and remade it into a pillow, which he then loved for several years to come until it totally wore out and disintegrated.

On one of his visits to Washington shortly after my relocation, Tyler asked me if I could make him another blanket like the one he no longer had. A mother doesn't refuse or ignore such a request!! Before his next visit, I went to the local fabric store and got flannel for the front, nylon tricot for the back, and quilt batting for the inside. I made a blanket the size of a twin bed top, and he used it on every Washington stay. When he turned 14 and I finally regained custody and he went away to arts high school, the blanket was tucked away with extra linens where it stayed for many years and marriages to come.

Fast forward to 2001. Beautiful grandson Boston was born. We were all living in Tucson. I was not working and spent lots and lots of quality time with Boston. We bonded early and strong. During one of my Scottsdale Nordstrom shopping trips before he was born, I got him a Barefoot Dreams Receiving Blanket. These blankets, which are now very hard to find, was flannel on one side and silky on the other. Oh, did he fall in love with this blanket! I also got him the travel size and his parents dared not get into the car without packing the travel blanket.

Note: I'm reading this and editing on Jun 29, 2026. The website has changed at the blanky store, so I fixed the link. They no longer sell those particular blankets, but here are some others that would make the perfect gift for a wee one in your life. You're welcome.

Two years later, my life situation changed and I bought a house a mile away from Boston and his parents and, now, baby sister Ridley. During that move, I uncovered Tyler's 30-year-old race car blanket. We had lots of sleepovers, and I would cover Boston with his daddy's old blanket.

Then the parents had an epiphany about their lifestyle, and prepared to move back to Youngstown. Sleepovers became more frequent as the babies and I steeled ourselves for the separation. About three weeks before they were to leave, Boston—now five years old—asked, "Grandma, can I take Daddy's blanket with me to Ohio?" Of course, I said yes. I'm not very good at denying these darlings anything.

Then he told me he wanted me to make a label to put on the blanket. When I asked him, what he wanted it to say, he dictated:

Boston's Sleepover with Grandma
This was Daddy's blanket when he was a little boy.

If you look at the photo above, you'll see that's exactly what I did.

Fast forward again. It's 2012. He's been in his new home and life in Youngstown for five years. He [still] sleeps with this blanket (and several others!) every night. But this is the one that always goes next to his body. He loves the silky fabric, just like his daddy did—so much so that he's worn a hole in it and the fabric has ripped.

Once again, Grandma comes to the rescue. Last night when I babysat, the blanket transferred hands, with its owner's hopes that it would return quickly. While waiting for the parents to get home from a movie, I cybersearched and cybershopped to order white nylon tricot yardage. While I wait for the fabric to arrive, I'll remove the torn backing, carefully remove and preserve the label, then replace the backing and the label.

And again be a hero to my offspring and off-offspring. Aren't I lucky?!

I'll finish with a little family lore. Tyler's blanket was referred to as his blanket. To Jaci, a blanket was a woobie - which is, I guess, a midwestern term. When Boston started talking, he translated "woobie" into ah-boo, which we wrote as "obu". He also translated "mama" into "rara", and—even today—she is known as Rara. And handsome, smart, and talented 10yo Boston will ask, at bedtime, "Rara, where's my obu?"

Makes you wonder what his kids will call their blankies, huh?

How It's Done

Ever since the 2011-2012 Cleveland Orchestra schedule came out, I've been looking forward to singing under the baton of Maestro Pierre Boulez. He is a legendary conductor, and he's been places and known people who are also legendary in the world of classical music.

This week the Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus are performing the Stravinsky Symphony of Psalms. I first heard bits of this work when I studied with Nadia Boulanger in the summer in 1971 at Écoles d'Art Américaines in Fontainebleau, France.

The summer I spent in Fontainebleau marked the 50th anniversary of the school. Almost every famous musician who had ever studied or taught there returned for that summer. Each night some musical luminary was invited to dinner with Mlle. Boulanger, and there were always students included on the guest list.

Igor Stravinsky was a close friend and colleague of Mademoiselle (as we called her). She loved his music, and he had chosen her to teach his younger son, Soulima, in 1929. Igor was scheduled to spend at least a few days in residence for this star-studded summer. Alas, his death in April of 1971 changed those plans. But Soulima was there. As I recall, in one of the many concerts we attended that summer, Soulima played the piano and conducted some of his father's work.

The night I was included on the guest list for Mademoiselle's dinner, Soulima and his wife were in attendance. I was a 21-year-old sheltered child from the South, who just happened to be a very good pianist and musician. I had not been trained by teachers who worked to increase my knowledge of the big picture of music. I really had no idea of the greatness with which I was surrounded.

So, knowing Boulez was coming to town brought all of that—the music, the musical stars, the vision-changing experience of learning how little I knew—full circle. So many of the luminaries from that summer are gone now. There are many young musicians who have never heard of Nadia Boulanger. I treasure the memory of that summer. And I would be able to sing, led by someone who knew them all!

But Maestro Boulez is almost 87, and having some vision problems. Last week he was to conduct the men of the Chorus in three Schubert songs, and the orchestra in the Mahler Symphony No. 7. Early in the week, his opthalmologist advised him not to conduct. The Cleveland Orchestra administrative staff quickly rearranged the program, substituting the Mahler #5 for #7, and bringing in the highly respected conductor, David Robertson, from St. Louis. Director of Choruses, Robert Porco—our beloved Bob—conducted the Schubert.

But the plan for this week was unknown. Would Boulez's eye problems be under control enough that he could conduct?

No. It was not to be.

Again, the administrative staff worked wonders, bringing back former Cleveland Orchestra Assistant Conductor Tito Muñoz. Take a minute and read his bio. He's 28 years old! And he's so cute. As a mother and grandmother, I just want to go up and pinch his cheeks and tousle his hair. He has achieved what I dreamed my own son would achieve. Good for him!!

And he's incredibly insightful and intuitive, as a conductor stepping onto the podium in front of a chorus he's never conducted before. (He told us that in his three years as Assistant Conductor with the Cleveland Orchestra, he never had the pleasure of conducting the chorus.)

The Stravinsky is tough. There are dissonances where each choral voice struggles to find and maintain its pitch. There are unusual meters and unusual syncopations and unusual harmonizations. It's Stravinsky. It's brilliant!

When we first met with Maestro Muñoz for our Conductor's Piano Rehearsal on Monday night, we got to one of the fast-tricky parts in the third movement. Bob Porco had prepared us for this passage by conducting it in 4. We knew exactly where all those off-beats would fall. Muñoz dove into it with a 2-pattern, and we all just about fell off the risers. When you're used to looking for "two" and "four", and suddenly you're looking for "the and of one" or an even smaller subdivision of beats, it's a big stumble waiting to happen.

As I practiced yesterday, I was discouraged, thinking about how last night's first orchestra rehearsal might go. I normally love every moment I'm on that stage, but I wasn't looking forward to this.

The rehearsal progressed. We got to the third movement. We got to the fast-tricky part. All eyes were on Maestro Muñoz. AND HE BEAT IN FOUR!!!!! We nailed it. We observed every rest and hit every entrance perfectly.

That, Dear Friends, is what a good conductor does. He enables the musicians to do their best. He listens and observes and intuits the actions on his part that are necessary to a stellar performance.

If you're in Cleveland on Thursday night, Friday night, or Saturday night, come to Severance Hall and observe a brilliant young conductor that will—hopefully—have another 50 or 60 years of showing the world how good conductors operate.

If you're not in Cleveland, tune your browser to WCLV.com at 8:00 p.m. EST. It will be a feast for your ears.

CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA
8:00 PM
Severance Hall
The Cleveland Orchestra
Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano
Tito Muñoz, conductor

SCHOENBERG - Three Piano Pieces
MOZART - Piano Concerto No. 18
STRAVINSKY - Symphonies
of Wind Instruments
STRAVINSKY - Symphony of Psalms

Interesting reading: A Most Unsuccessful Project: Nadia Boulanger, Igor Stravinsky, and the Symphony in C, 1939–45

Melancholia - or not!

If "melancholy" means long-lasting sadness, what is the word for long-lasting happiness? Contentment? Bliss?

Whatever that word is, it describes my mood today. I was noticing the date was July 1, and wondering where on earth June went. Then I realized that since May 29, my mother's life has turned upside down in a most disastrous manner, and I've traveled to North Carolina three times.

But now I get a little respite. Tomorrow morning we'll be off to the lake cottage for a relaxation-filled week with our circle of friends. The DearGrandChildren will accompany us for the first two days, and their parents will join us on the 4th. Lots of eating; lots of golf (for the friends - knitting and reading for me!); lots of sun; lots of smiles and laughter.

Today I'm trying to finish up all my work for the coming week so I don't have to spend much time in the Madison Public Library accessing their wifi. I'm listening to an old favorite Sergio Mendes album - "Ye-Le-Me". The song "Look Who's Mine" came on. Whenever I hear it, it takes my breath away.

So as I'm winding things up, I'll share those lyrics with you:

Sleepy sun, it's time to rise and shine
Just take a look who's mine
See who's in love with me
Gentle wind, his smile will make your day
He'll take your breath away
And he's in love with me

Weeping willow, you can dry your tears now
When he passes by you wouldn't want to cry
You won't believe your eyes
What a sweet surprise

Oh, just look who's mine
Can you believe who's mine
That he's in love with me
He's in love with me

Listen sun,
I know you're leaving soon
Be sure to warn the moon
He's got a treat in store
In my arms are all my wildest dreams
And crazy as it seems
He's here in love with me

Oh look who's mine
Can you believe who's mine
Look who's mine
I can't believe he's mine
Look who's mine
Can you believe he's mine
Look who's mine
I can't believe he's mine

Hope you have a great week. You might read new posts here during the week, but don't count on it!

---

And if you want to hear the song, here's the Amazon link: "Look Who's Mine".

Wandering through One's Memories

A couple of weeks ago, I had the grandbabes at my house on a Friday evening. It was a dusky pre-summer evening, 8ish, and we were playing outside with balls. For some reason, they've named this game we created "War". It involves pots and pans and bouncy rubber balls. And the best part? It gets rid of lots of energy!!

As we were playing outside, I was suddenly transported in my memories back to my summer vacations spent in the Chicago 'burbs.

My aunt lived in Winnetka or Wilmette, I never can remember. (My uncle's podiatrist office was in one 'burb and they lived in the other. Unfortunately, both cities begin with the same letter, so how am I to differentiate?!) Every summer my mother would pack me into the car and we'd leave Maitland at 4:00 a.m. I don't remember any motel stops along the way, but Google maps tells me the journey is 19 hours, using interstates. So it must have been a three-day drive with no interstates and only one driver. The fact that we left at 4:00 a.m. so as to be out of Florida by 8:00 a.m. tells me we must not have had air conditioning in the car. (Time reference: late 50s, early 60s.)

We didn't have Daylight Savings Time in Florida in that era, and the summer sun would set around 7:30 during the summer. And at our home in Florida, we had palm trees, cypress trees, oak trees, and a citrus grove. I had never seen a weeping willow before we visited Chicago.

My aunt and uncle's house was a couple of doors away from an enormous park—blocks and blocks of grass and trees and children playing all day long and into the night. And the sun didn't set until 9:00 or 10:00, according to my childhood memories.

It was a magical place. Just to have a day that lasted almost into the next day was a strange experience. And the trees and smells and sites. We'd go to the museums in Chicago. We'd drive to the lakeshore. We'd take a day and drive to Wisconsin to visit another aunt. It was a world apart from what I experienced as a child.

And here I am, again in the northwest, where the soft evening light and the smells of evergreens and sycamores and lilacs are at once familiar and unfamiliar.

How strange to have returned to my childhood summers again.

What Makes People Go Bad?

This afternoon, in my never-ending decluttering effort, I'm scanning in a bunch of photos of my mother. She's turning 98 next week, and—ever the optimist—I don't want to have to rush to put together a "slideshow" for her memorial service when she dies.

In one envelope I found pictures of each of Mother's three sisters—Helen, Louise, and Betty—at age 18. These would have been taken in 1915, 1919, and 1921. Lovely young women.

I look at their faces, their hair. I look in their eyes. I wonder what their lives were like. I've heard a few horror stories about their father. My supposition is he was the reason Mother had no inner resources to share with me once the adoption was final and I started to walk and talk. He may have had a similar impact on each of those girls.

Look at this photo of Betty, the youngest. I knew her as such a hateful, bitter woman. She never had children, and didn't marry until in her 40s or 50s. She would single out one of her sisters or one of her nieces or nephews and make them the Demon of the Decade (or some time period, until someone else took over the position). How can someone who looked so lovely in a photo at age 18 alienate every single member of her family?

I guess that's the question with all people who turn into career criminals or woman-chasing slippery-zipper husbands or drug addicts or skinheads. What went wrong? Someone, somewhere in this person's life, loved him or her—probably passionately! How did that love not seep in and ground the person and give him or her the wherewithal to have an upstanding, successful, fulfilling life?

It's probably a rhetorical question.

And two tidbits with the purpose of ending on a lighter note:

We're laboring under unending rain in northeast Ohio, with temps in the 40s and 50s. I speak for the masses when I say we are all sick of the rain and the cold!

The other day Tyler said to Boston, "Why is it so cold?" Boston, three months from turning ten, replied, "I'm guessing that's rhetorical."

I think I learned the meaning of "rhetorical" when I was about 32!

Here I am at five, with ten-year-old Jim[my] and twelve-year-old Jerry.

I'm a Good Girl, I Am!

Spring has finally arrived in Northeast Ohio, and I can only hope that we won't get any more miniblasts of winter! The winter just passed was long and hard, and I'm not sad to say "Farewell!"

As the flora is beginning to green up, I'm needing to clean out the beds around the house to make room for growth. Last Sunday afternoon, while the Jazzman was golfing, I got out and did some raking and pulling.

I was reminded of the yardwork I used to do at my daddy's lake cottage. Here's my description from a post written in 2008.

One of my most prominent memories is of the summer when my boys were, I believe, two-and-a-half and one. That would have been 1976. My daddy had a lake house out near the back entrance to Walt Disney World where he would go from Saturday noon to Sunday night to fish and relax. The house sat on two lakefront acres and had lots of grass that had to be mowed regularly. That summer he was having heart problems again and couldn’t go out there every weekend. TJ and Tyler’s dad was working at WDW as an entertainment supervisor. Every Saturday morning we would pack up all the accoutrements two toddlers require and head out to the lake, 45 miles away, for the weekend.

On Saturday afternoon I would crank up the riding mower and mow the grass, which would involve about 45 minutes of riding around in the sun, heat and humidity. The result for me, every week, would be a screaming headache. As I sat on that mower, riding, turning, riding, I imagined my daddy whispering in my ear, “You’re a good girl.” He was one of only two people in the first 46 years of my life who made me feel I had any worth. To this day, when things are hard and I take steps to ease them, I hear daddy telling me I’m a good girl and tears come to my eyes. He was one of a kind and died way too early.

It never fails. Whenever I'm doing something hard and/or painful, I can hear my daddy encouraging me. We should all be so lucky—to have such a cheerleader on our side.



I've been trying to get to the gym every morning, and the surest way to do that is to beg Tyler to let me drive the babes to school, which is sorta on the way. I called him this morning, and he said, "I think they've been missing me this week, so I'll take them."

First, let me say, "What a good dad!"

And then it reminded me of my sophomore year in high school, when I had to catch the bus ("first on, last off") at 6:00 a.m. Daddy—always up early to make rounds and clear up outstanding paperwork before the day's surgeries and patients—would drive me the mile-and-a-half to the Rexall Drug parking lot and sit with me while we waited for the bus to arrive. That was the year when I have the most memories of him, the year I spent more time with him than any other.

Again, how lucky I am to have such wonderful memories. And my grandchildren are following in those footsteps.

Today's photos? Before and after of the beds on the west side of the house.

I'm a good raker and weeder.

It Takes One's Breath Away!

I just learned shocking news. I was digging through file drawers searching for a paper when I came across the address book/calendar that John always carried in his briefcase. I kept it in case I'd ever need to contact one of his old friends.

I flipped through the pages before putting it back in the drawer and noticed the entry "Karl & Donna Teepe" (TEH-pee). Karl was his closest friend at the Defense Intelligence Agency.

When we married on March 16, 1996, we invited one couple from each facet of our lives. One couple was John's best golf buddy, who was married to a woman we sang with. Another couple traveled to Italy each January with John to ski. My best friend from law school was there. The woman with whom we had just finished staging a successful charity auction and her husband were there. And Karl and Donna.

He was a delightful man, intelligent, kind and funny all in one handsome man.

Today after seeing his name, I googled him to see if I could determine what he was up to these days.

I found the tribute to him in the Washington Post section remembering all the victims of the 9/11 Pentagon disaster.

You know those people who say there is no evidence a hijacked plane crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11. They're effing crazy. Crazy.

A good man lost his life. A very lovely lady lost her husband. Two young people lost their father. One hundred eighty-nine people lost their lives that day. Countless people lost their loved ones.

And I'll share with you a remembrance Donna wrote that was published in the Post. John had told me this story and we loved Karl's creativity:

"Karl believed in making your birthday a special day. Our daughter, Wendy, was born on July 14, Bastille Day. Her Dad always told her he would take her to Paris for her 16th birthday. On that special day we told Wendy and her 10-year-old brother, Adam, to get ready to go out for a special birthday dinner.

As we got in the car, Karl announced we had a surprise -- our bags were in the trunk and we were going to PARIS for Wendy's 16th Birthday. Wendy looked surprised, and Adam was very excited as we headed toward the airport from our house.

Pretty soon we came upon this small town and Karl announced here we were in Paris---Paris, Virginia, that is! We all laughed (Adam was bummed!) and we headed to our nice dinner, with a fun birthday memory.

Fortunately, we really did take Wendy (and Adam) to Paris (France, that is) for her 21st birthday adding another wonderful birthday memory and celebration."

-- Donna Teepe, wife

Postscript:

After writing and publishing the above story, I started searching to see if I could find Donna's e-mail address to write her a note, and found this beautiful love story. Out of the ashes . . . .

Memories of Holidays Past

As I was thinking about the quiet (and delightful) evening I shared with the Jazzman on New Year's Eve, I reminisced back to the best and worst NYE's I had experienced. The absolute worst occurred while I've been writing this blog.

Here's the link.

(And if you want to read more about this guy, type kayaker into the search bar of my blog. I realize now that's how he was referred to earlier in the blog's existence. He's the one who told me I had poor taste in men!)

The best NYE party was during the two years I was living with John and we were housesitting on Lamont St. NW for friends who were in India with the State Department. We had about 14 friends come over. We all went to the theatre, then came home to a seated dinner in the grand dining room of this stately DC rowhouse. During dinner, John's future son-in-law announced his engagement to John's daughter. It was a fabulous, festive evening.

However, I actually prefer something a little quieter.

I was sorry we missed the traditional evening that the Jazzman's circle of friends always enjoys. But here's what we did: There's a pizza place on Hilton Head, at the entrance to Sea Pines, named "Take and Bake". You tell them what size pizza you want, what crust, and what toppings. They prepare it for you on a special heat-proof styrofoam-like platter that's a little larger than the crust. You take it home and bake it. Magnificent! While eating, we sipped adult beverages and watched "Love Actually", which I love, actually. After the movie, we cleaned up the unit and packed our things, watched the ball drop, and fell asleep—after midnight, which is unusual for me!

Today is the one-year anniversary of my first communication with the Jazzman. I am living a charmed life with a wonderful, caring, supportive, loving man. I am truly lucky!

And a Happy New Year to you!

If You Can't Say Something Nice . . .

A couple of weeks ago I picked up the babes from their Wednesday dance class to have our weekly dinner-with-Grandma. As we got into the car, Ridley said to Boston something on the order of "stop complaining". He responded, "I'm not complaining. I'm just telling the truth."

I smiled. I almost laughed out loud. I time-traveled back almost 40 years to Early First Marriage and a husband who didn't know himself, much less me. (Note to lawmakers: Allowing people to marry before, oh, age 25, might be a poor idea!) At some point shortly into the marriage he commented on how much I complained.

His statement caught me by surprise and made me stop and think about my words. I wasn't complaining. I was simply stating how I felt or what I noted.

If I tell you I have a headache, I am imparting knowledge to you. Yes, I may tell you that every day, but I frequently get headaches every day. It's merely a part of my life. It's not a complaint!

Ditto "I'm cold." "I'm tired." "This job is hard." "These pant are too short."

Just facts.

How interesting to learn that my grandson's brain is wired the same way.

- - - - -
Why a graphic of Thumper, beside the fact that I just love him? Here's the quote:

Thumper: He doesn't walk very good, does he?

Mrs. Rabbit: Thumper!

Thumper: Yes, mama?

Mrs. Rabbit: What did your father tell you this morning?

Thumper: [clears throat] If you can't say something nice... don't say nothing at all.

What Goes Around . . .

I walked backwards in time this morning.

We have a Monday morning kick-off meeting. My boss walked in dressed—gorgeously, if I may say—in a dark suit, [white?] shirt, and rich orange tie. The fabric was rich. The color was rich. I wanted to pet his tie, but I restrained myself.

He looked fabulous.

I was suddenly back in Paris in the summer of 1971. I had searched all the guidebooks about the best, most special gifts to purchase in Paris to take back to one's American friends. The book suggested handmade silk ties for men. I walked into one of these tie shops and picked out a fabulous purple silk brocade for one brother and another fabulous orange silk brocade for the other brother. The ties were handcrafted and shipped to the States.

About a year later I asked the brother to whom I had given the orange tie whether he had ever worn it. He responded, "Men don't really wear orange ties."

Nyah. Nyah. Nyah. In 2010, men wear orange ties. And they look brilliantly dressed.

Musical Tastes

Miss Ridley got her own room a couple of weeks ago, and within days the walls hosted two Justin Bieber posters and one Beatles poster. She's seven years old!

I think I started listening to the radio when I was nine. That would have been in 1959, and I remember, still, many of the songs. I had a radio in my bathroom (yes, I had my own bathroom), and I would spend hours in there singing along to the music. (No, I don't know why the radio wasn't in my bedroom. Some facts defy memory.)

My mother would drive me to school, four miles away, about a 15-minute drive. In the afternoons I would tune the car radio to the station I wanted (WLOF?) and she would turn it off. She severely disliked my preferred music. As I think back, I don't remember her ever turning the radio on to listen to music. She would occasionally sit down to play the piano, but I was too naive to know it was impolite to call from the other room, "That's a C#, not a C." Pretty soon she quit playing the piano when I was around. (Sorry, Mom.)

(Daddy, on the other hand, had music going constantly. Ballads from the 40s or good hot New Orleans jazz. He was the one who introduced me to Ferrante & Teicher and Gilbert & Sullivan operettas and Broadway show tunes. Some of my favorite memories of him were his sitting, after a day spent standing in the operating room, in the recliner in his all-red den. The stereo played a favorite jazz record, a baseball game was in progress on the muted TV in front of him, and he was working the daily crossword puzzle out of the Orlando Sentinel. (My introduction to crossword puzzles came as I sat at his feet and tried to answer the clues he gave me.) And you wonder why I'm the ultimate multi-tasker?)

(In another side-note, as crazy as Ridley is about JB, Boston is equally disdainful of him. If we're in the car and a JB song even comes on in a commercial, Boston commands me to change the station. I don't know what fuels his hatred, but it is strong!)

I preferred music when there weren't music videos to accompany them. I just love the music and the accompaniment and want to form my own mental images. Why does everything have to be so produced? I actually saw JB perform once on a TV show, and the only word that came to mind was "contrived."

My feelings—and Boston's—aside, I heard something on "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" last weekend that blew me away. Did you know that, at any time, 3% of Twitter's servers are filled with tweets regarding Justin Bieber? 3%! According to a Twitter employee, they have "racks of servers" dedicated to him. Can you say "phenomenon?" That's a whole lot of tweetin' goin' on!

My opinion of JB? I just want to grab his head and muss up that perfect hair. No sixteen-year-old boy should have hair that perfect!

Obstinance

In the past few weeks, my brothers and sister-in-law and I have learned through the caregiver that Mother is not taking her medications on a daily basis. She has one med she's supposed to take in the morning, and another that she's supposed to take morning and evening. The caregiver sets up the two little segmented pill containers at the beginning of the week. As she leaves after filling them, she sets them on the kitchen counter and turns to Mother to point them out and remind her to take them as instructed. (You might remember that my mother was a nurse and my daddy a doctor, so this is not a foreign concept. And it's a concept of which she understands the consequences.)

In an e-mail to my sister-in-law this weekend, the caregiver wrote, "She smiles her sweet smile." I'm afraid that the caregiver is interpreting that "sweet smile" as acknowledgement rather than acquiesence. I wrote back to my SIL that the caregiver doesn't understand that's the same "sweet smile" Mother smiles when she doesn't hear or understand a word you've said. When I made that statement, my older brother wrote back, "Or she just doesn't care. Or both [didn't understand and doesn't care]."

It's clear that Mother is not just forgetting to take the meds. She is willfully neglecting to take them. One is for the Type 2 diabetes with which she's recently been diagnosed. I don't know the consequences of this action, but I do have to acknowledge that the woman is 96, almost 97, years old, and she can really do what she damned well pleases.

This set of communications with my family reminded me of my teenaged years, when my mother told me, "You'll never get a man. You're too obstinate." I remember the moment so clearly. I was standing at the kitchen sink, doing the dishes. Her words were a knife in my heart. Of course, in the late 1960s in the South, getting a man was the be all and end all. Higher education didn't matter. A rewarding or successful career didn't matter. Getting a man, having babies, raising one's family: those were the objectives of life.

So when a boy proposed to me, I accepted. (I'm sorry—I have a hard time thinking of a 20-year-old boy as a man.) I didn't really like him. But, by God, I was going to show her! She was wrong; I was right. And, thanks to the church's drilling into us that we were never to get divorced, I stayed married to him for ten miserable years. (I reiterate that I wouldn't trade my sons for anything, even if it meant avoiding that ten years of misery. If I had to live through that to have these two handsome and successful young men in my life, I would do it again. I would just be smarter about things I would and wouldn't put up with.)

But back to Mother. Phrases like "it takes one to know one" come to mind.

Who's the obstinate one now?

Why Marry at All?

To continue my earlier post, I'll share with you the poem that we asked John's daughter to read at our wedding. This is just a little piece of Marge Piercy's "Why Marry At All?"

I love what this poem says about older couples, who could stay as they are, independent and self-sufficient—and alone—but choose to be together. Choose to make a statement of their love.

We start where we find
ourselves, at this time and place.

Which is always the crossing of roads
that began beyond the earth's curve
but whose destination we can now alter.

This is a public saying to all our friends
that we want to stay together. We want
to share our lives. We mean to pledge
ourselves through times of broken stone
and seasons of rose and ripe plum;
we have found out, we know, we want to continue.