Category Archives: Family

Family, Health

Kate

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Sunday gratefuls: Slavic, dishwasher repair guy. Kate, her life and times. Sleep. Shadow, my sweet girl. Artemis II. All safe.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Kate of blessed memory

 

Tarot: paused

One brief shining: Five years ago on a cold dark night Kate slipped away. Her breathing troubles, Reynaud’s, rheumatoid arthritis–all solved. I was shocked, so deep in mourning I couldn’t see the benefit to her. Not then.

 

From today’s perspective, she found herself in a difficult and vulnerable place. And stepped away. The path in this life no longer viable. A brave woman. Honest. Unflinching.

Every weekday morning until 2011 Kate got up, loved the dogs, and got in her Tundra to drive to Allina. At work she wrestled eighteen-month old babies. Talked to elementary school kids.

She chafed against corporate medicine. Now they’re only giving us fifteen minutes for a patient encounter. A speed up. We’re also supposed to upcode. Find the most remunerative code that fits the visit. No matter how it affects patients.

Corporate medicine, she would tell you with some heat, is all about revenue–not healing. Not relationships with patients. Made me wonder about all the coding decisions made in her ten last days.

Her last days. Surrounded by family. Visiting friends. Rabbi Jamie. Fitful communication. She would push away the thick plastic triangle covering her nose.

When I came in the room, Kate would look up and sign, I love you. I responded with the same. Each day, sometimes each hour a respiratory therapist would check her O2 saturation. Blood draws. Her arms so thin it was hard to imagine finding a vein.

She lay there in the hospital gown, yellow with red accents, each arm, each leg visible evidence of the strain her body had known since early September of 2018. She often seemed too small, a child sat up so she can see her visitors.

Jon sat in a chair on the left side of her bed. His face a full definition of bereft. Shoulders dropped. Head slumping. Kate reached out, hugged him with her thin left arm. Jon’s relief made me smile. Their relationship, often fractious, melted into mother and son. Each year when we celebrate Jon’s birthday that scene comes to mind.

Five years. A long time. No partner. No Kate. The days collected themselves into months and the months extended into years. Would I find a new partner? Move to Hawai’i? Travel? No to the first. I’ve never met anyone. No to the second. Couldn’t leave Ruth and Gabe. Yes to the third. Minneapolis once. Hawai’i twice. Korea once.

It is not life without her. When I look at the Phoenix in the Mardi Gras poster, I see Kate and me at the Cafe Du Monde, water sweating the sides of our glasses, fresh beignets and chicory coffee.

The chair I use we bought for her. The Hawi’ian painting of sea turtles.  Quilts. Blown glass. Kate in her essence.

She’s with me from the time I wake up until I go back to bed.

She rests.

I imagine.

But, maybe not.

Family, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health

Charlie’s Big Day

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Wednesday gratefuls: Diane. Shadow’s duvet nest. Relief. My phone returns. Tara’s big help. Fiber and protein. Groceries.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Cease Fire

Kavannah: Wonder. Malchut.  Shadow

Tarot: paused

One brief shining: Some days. Yesterday. Tara picked up my phone from the Synagogue. Once again I am in thrall. She also picked up my grocery order and my meds. The Miralax chose yesterday to kick in. I couldn’t have walked to the pharmacy and back to the car without a problem.

 

Not often two week defining events get resolved on the same day. Constipation ended though stomach soreness has not. I can sleep. Get up from a chair without concern. A festival moment for the Moon of Liberation.

My body got relief from a pestering problem.

Also starts sending out messages. Buy the high fiber oatmeal. The seven grain bread. Move more. Sensible. Stuff I know. I order a clamshell of Kiwi fruit.

Yesterday afternoon I had to get my groceries. Couldn’t. Asked Tara. She agreed. Got my meds. My pick up order. When she got back, she put the groceries away. A good friend.

Using the creepily easy find my phone feature in Google, I saw a small, red upside down tear light up in Lakewood. Lakewood? Only took a moment. Luke’s apartment. Made sense since we had lunch together on Sunday and Luke drove.

Sure enough. When Luke looked in the Subaru, my phone was on the passenger’s side. Yay! He took it to Bagel Table, but had to leave it there. Indisposed as mentioned above, I couldn’t get it. Tara had a tutoring student at CBE on Tuesday. Worked well.

When she came with the phone, she also brought Eleanor. Shadow and Eleanor played hard while Tara left for Safeway. I stayed home, preserving my dignity.

The two burs in my side since Sunday a week a go. Got plucked. It was 8-10 days of silence. Once I got over my 21st century existential crisis–someone might need to talk to me!–I found my phone’s absence a relief.

Except when I thought, oh, I need to text Ruth. Look up characters in a movie. Calendar. Emails. You know. That stuff we do with these powerful small computers.

I’m lucky to have a friend like Tara. She says yes whenever possible and shows such joy when helping. That makes it easier to ask her. I’m learning how to navigate this weaker me.

Happy that between my friends and Miralax I could have a celebratory Tuesday.

An epidemic of loneliness.

I live alone, largely relying on myself day-to-day. When trouble comes, I count on an inner-circle of friends and family.

Alone.
Yet surrounded.
By love.

Aging, Family, Fourth Phase, GeekWorld

Losing it

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Thursday gratefuls: Artemis in orbit. High orbit. Space dreams. The Moon. The far side of the Moon. Back at it after 53 years

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe:  Retina photographs

 

 

Kavannah: Wonder. Malchut.  Shadow

Tarot: Two of Arrows, Judgement. Randomization today. Decisions will follow.

One brief shining: I lost my phone on Sunday. Hunted in the house, at the restaurant where Luke and I had lunch. No teléfono. Peculiar feelings. Relief. Concern. Has anyone tried to contact me?

Losing your phone seems impossible. Unless you drop it out of a moving vehicle. We cradle and carry our personal computers. With care. Not unusual to hear someone say: My whole life is on that phone.

Cute photographs of Shadow. Alan’s contact info.  A quick way to see if anyone responded to my e-mail about the phone.

When we sit down, the phone comes out. Oh, Ruth texted me. Tom sent out another poem.

How could I leave something that intimate, that personal behind? Maybe it was the fatigue from wearing the neck brace. Maybe that I didn’t wear a hat. I almost always wear a baseball cap. At a restaurant I’ll put my hat down, my phone inside it.

If I knew where I lost it, it wouldn’t be lost.

This would not have been a thing in high school, college, seminary. Or even through my fifteen years in the ministry. Ubiquity of the sort we have today? Not until the early 2000’s.

At my age and my level of infirmity, I’m inclined to forgive myself. Going out has increased in difficulty. Unlike Ruth and Gabe I spent over fifty years without a portable phone. I’m on my side.

Wasn’t always.

What can compare? A car? No match for something I could carry inside it. Television? No. Ironically, no longer bound to home to watch TV. You can watch on your phone.

Lost time. Lost relationships. Lost in the woods. Lost

“Not all who wander are lost.”  JRR Tolkien

In certain Christian communities if you’re lost, you’re going to hell. I’m sure my phone is ok there.

I’ve lost many things. Two marriages. My car in a parking lot. My relationship with my dad. Two wedding rings.

Kate died. Five years ago. In 10 days. Losing her? The most difficult of the last sixty years. I’m following her path. Gradual decline.

Over the last year I’ve lost a lot. I’m weaker. A bit unsteady. My feet don’t always go where I aim them. Opening sealed dog treats. Difficult to impossible.

I’m ok with it.

When you lose something.
Look carefully.
Forgive yourself.

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends

Who do you love?

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Monday gratefuls: Luke, assistant professor of Chemistry. Jamie. Spring. Walking. Moving. Samantha. RMCC.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe:  Leo

 

Kavannah: Wonder. Malchut. The eyes of Shadow. The rough bark of the lodgepole.

Tarot: Five of Vessels, Ecstasy. “…seek and surrender to the cosmic life force.” Accepting, embracing the power of life, even in hard circumstances.

One brief shining: Eating out with Luke. Our long relationship adds another memory over tandoori chicken and mango lassi.

 

Once every month or so Luke comes up to do his laundry. The machines in his apartment complex are cranky, expensive. I love that he comes. A chance to catch up. Eat a meal together.

When Leo comes in the house, Shadow sniffs under the door, tail wagging at propeller speed. Then she twirls around for a couple of turns. When Leo comes through the door, she races over to him, smiling, play bowing.

They go outside for a turn in the big yard, Shadow bouncy and running, Leo walking stiffly. At 13, he’s slower. His joints ache as he tries a couple of runs with the youngster.

Luke had let his hair grow for two years. It came over his shoulder. Before he came up here, he had it all braided, then cut off. He grew it out for a charity that makes wigs for children with hair loss. He showed me a picture of the braids in his hand.

Teaching becomes him. Nobody tells him how to teach. He’s teaching a field he knows well.

He stands straighter, speaks more confidently. He’s created chai-chi–tai-chi taught from within a kabbalist framework.

He also told me yesterday he loves when I tell him I love him. “Not many men do that,” he said. When did we become so closed?

Luke turns 35 this year. Veronica, my mikveh buddy, is late twenties. Ruth turns 20 this year, Gabe 18. At 79 I cherish these relationships.

I turned 34 (Luke’s current age) in 1981. The year Joseph was born and our adoption of him finalized. When I turned 20, I was, like Ruth, still in college. 1967.

The great chain of becoming.  Charlie to Joseph, to Luke, to Ruth. No blood. Still, we love.

When Kate died, I lost my best friend, my lover, my wife. What to do with that love? The love that flourished with Wolfhounds and Whippets, with working in the garden together, cruising around Latin America. Where does that love go? It doesn’t die with her.

Love as many as you can.
As often as you can.
Anywhere you can.

Feeding the dogs. Eating Indian food.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Family, Memories, Minnesota

At the Capital Grille

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Imbolc and the Moon of Tides (2% crescent)

Tuesday gratefuls: Tamales from David’s mom. Ruth smiling. Winds. Melting snow. Final C.T. of this round. The lives of our days.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Young love

 

Kavannah: Histapkot. Contentment.   Seek what you need, give up what you don’t need.

Tarot: #4, The Greenman.  “…he brings order, discipline, and the “organized action” needed to manifest ideas into reality.” May it be so for my writing.

One brief shining: Ruth and David came up, their new, tender relationship feeling its way. David, “I’m nervous.” Patriarchs, eh? We sat, David on the ottoman, Ruth in the chair, me in mine, and talked of many things.

 

Do you remember? Meeting the parent or grandparent? I do. When I met Kate’s mom and dad, Rebecca and Merton, I had had, as Ruth said David had, a pep talk.

I was not nervous. At 42 I knew who I was and what I was doing in our relationship. I loved Kate. We were getting married.

Rebecca opened, “So, I hear you’re weaving a story.” Oops. She had taken that line from her loom. She was an accomplished weaver. Her slightly forced smile, her body language. The tone.

Merton, the anesthesiologist, was quiet. He twisted his ring a bit, one he set with a stone from his rock tumbler.

Part of the pep talk prepared me for this. “Mom and Dad think you’re after my money.” Since Kate made four times what I did as a Presbyterian clergy, I could just understand. An odd suspicion. Without evidence.

In retrospect it may be that Kate had told them that after we married I would resign from the ministry to focus on writing, cooking, Joseph.

See. That proves it! He’s taking advantage of her. I could feel certainty behind her not reaching the eyes smile.

I ignored the implication. “Yes, that’s right. A novel, Even the Gods Must Die.”

The booth at the Capital Grille got smaller. The sound of cutlery on China. I shifted my napkin in my lap. She had heard what she expected. I did not then, nor did I later try to dissuade them.

Moral grounding can only show up in deeds. Words are too slippery. Too often shaped to the ears of the other.

They never changed their perception. I didn’t care. Kate and I knew each other. Who we were. What we wanted.

When she came home from work, I had a hot meal ready. The dogs had been fed. I’d written my thousand words for the day. We could be together.

Our life blossomed. Let Rebecca and Merton stay in their xeroscaped home deep in the labyrinth of Sun City, Arizona. Seniors only. Golf carts mandatory.

Here’s the irony. I got the money. When Kate died. I felt sad about her not getting to enjoy more of it. Relieved that I would have enough. So much more than I ever expected.

Rebecca and Merton died long ago. I scattered their ashes into a river flowing into Burntside Lake, near Ely, Minnesota.

Who knows whether Ruth and David have a future. They don’t, not yet. I don’t. If they do, I hope David sees me as welcoming, trusting of his intentions.

That’s all I wanted.

In that booth at the Capital Grille.

 

Family, Korea, Memories, Politics, US History

Love it or Leave it.

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Imbolc and the Moon of Tides

Sunday gratefuls: Torah. Luke. Jamie. Galen. Nate. Ruth and David. Tara. Snow, a bit. Colder. Mary and Mark. Joe and Seoah.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe:  Snow

 

Kavannah: Histapkot. Contentment.   Seek what you need, give up what you don’t need.

Tarot: Six of Stones, Exploitation. The Great Work–creating a sustainable presence for humans on Mother Earth.

One brief shining: Ruth plans to come up tomorrow evening with David, her very new boyfriend. She asked if we could have a fire in the fireplace. When I said, “Yes,” she replied, “Great! I’m bringing fixings for s’mores.”

 

Ruth does not want to stay in the U.S. Medical school abroad. Ruth’s middle school friend, Wilson, went to Glasgow for college straight out of high school. He does not intend to return.

Tara and Arjean will be living in Costa Rica this time next year. Marilyn and Irv checked out Costa Rica.

Love it or leave it. The bumper sticker aimed at the long-haired, draft-dodging, pot-smoking, acid-tripping college kids. Like me. Many of us, including Mike Hines, a next neighbor and good friend, did just that.

Emigration to Canada appealed. No draft. English spoken. Nearby. Friendly. Even so, I never wanted to leave. Stay and fight. My country, not right or wrong. Hardly. Home though. Worth trying to change.

So many of my former friends in the anti-war movement slid out of their draft exemptions into the job market. White privilege keeping us safe for at least four years.

I tried. Wasn’t any good at it. An apprentice manager for W.T. Grant. What was I thinking? After a move to Wisconsin, Judy and I bought a house. Settled into blue collar work.

I moved eight-hundred pound bales of Munsingerwear scraps, left over from cutting out underwear and t-shirts. Put them on a conveyor belt and ran them through a cutting machine. Preliminary to making rag-bond paper for the U.S. Treasury. Much better than W.T. Grant. Even so. Canada looked as good then as it ever did for me.

What does it take to dislodge a person from their home country? Economic collapse.  The Irish potato famine. War. Call these push factors.

What can pull young, bright minds away from their homeland? Foreign students, especially from China, came here for a more open and innovative education. Others for the American Dream. A house. Kids. Decent income.

What about, though, the Ruths and the Wilsons? Perhaps it is the stranglehold on money and power of the older generation. Mine. Perhaps it is a more general unease. Government in shatters. Bigotry ascendant. Climate change imminent. Or, perhaps these same factors have, over time loosed the mystic bonds we call patriotism, made them less, much less, compelling.

Ruth fell in love with Korea. Great medical schools. I hope she finds a good spot. Our kids are leaving not only home, but country.

I will miss them.

So will the rest of us left behind.

 

 

 

 

Family, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Korea, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Travel, US History

Is it time to go?

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Tuesday and the Moon of Tides

Monday gratefuls: Tara and Eleanor. Arjean. Costa Rica. Iran. U.S. Israel. Gaza. Lebanon. War and peace. Mark in Hafar.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Tara

Kavannah: Shleimut. My lev, calm. Clinical trial decision made. Living into the next.

Tarot: Knight of Vessels, Eel. My spirit, strong. My decisions, made. Old, not dead.

One brief shining: While I sit in peace on Shadow Mountain, Shadow gnaws a toy, asks for breakfast. Mary roasts in summer heat. Joe and Seoah shiver in a cold Korea. Everyone seems further away.

 

A conversation U.S. Jews. Is it time to leave? Is this a Weimar moment after Adolf took power? Friends Marilyn and Irv looked at land in Costa Rica. Decided not to go. Irv said he loved the mountains. Too old to leave.

Tara and Arjean. Have hired a property manager. Are cleaning out 27 years of stuff.  Move to Costa Rica sometime in June. Stay in AirBnBs as they scout for a place to settle. A year or so experiment.

Two times when I almost left the continental U.S. 1969. Got the call for my draft physical. To Indianapolis with all of my money and all my possessions. (not much) Would have moved to Canada like my old friend Mike Hines.

Turns out psoriasis worsens when wearing wool and in hot, humid climates. Army uniforms. Wool. Vietnam.

As I left the place where I’d had my physical, a serious man told me: “You cannot enlist in the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, or the Marines.” I asked him, “Are you sure?” When he said yes, I said, “Thank god.”

Second time. After Kate died. Joe and Seoah. Planned then to retire after Korea and move back to Hawai’i. Cleared out the house and garage. Researched places on Oahu where Kepler and I could live. Checked out synagogues. Studied my budget.

Jon died. I couldn’t leave Ruth and Gabe.

My sister and my brother, Mary and Mark. Long time expats.  Mary now in Melbourne and Mark teaching ESL to young Arab men. Joe and Seoah: Hawai’i, Singapore, and Korea. Nine years

State Department urges Americans to leave the Middle East. Mark stays. Hafar has no military targets. He lives among the Saudi citizens. Not in an Aramco US compound. An old Saudi hand at this point.

I’m the stay at home of a far flung family.

When is it time to leave?

 

For me. Not yet.

Ancient Brothers, Family, Fourth Phase, Friends, Politics, US History, World History

Holding Opposites

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Imbolc and the Moon of Tides

Monday gratefuls: Ancient Brothers. Shadow, my downward dog. Iran. Israel. U.S. Gaza. Hezbollah. A cool, dark morning.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe:  The Deep Blue Sea

 

Week Kavannah:   Shleimut.   The alignment of the inner self with outer actions, bringing a sense of completeness to life.

 

Tarot: Three of Bows, fulfillment       Teshuva, alignment between neshama and the Self, a power that flows through me.

One brief shining: Fulfillment. Satisfaction. Not happiness. Joy in writing with more precision. Nouns. Fragments. Revising, a process with which I still struggle. My Shadow life. My Ancient Brothers life. My Jewish life. Engaged with Iran and with Mark, close by in Hafar.

 

Painful. To see Iran and my Ancient Brothers. The same day. Mary, down under. Joe and Seoah far away. Mark far away from me but near war. Grocery shopping and day care. A man pets his dog. While death races along the streets of Tehran. The One, yes, but. Pain and love, together again. Always.

A danger. Exhaustion from the steady, too steady beats of killing, of government acting in Iran and not acting at home. Epstein files. Rising health insurance costs while medical care disappears. Hospitals close. Cost of living rises. The cost of war.

So easy to turn away from accelerating drought in the Rockies. From those who need the Mountain Resource Center. ECHO’s food bank. Easier to launch Cruise missiles, Tomahawks. Drop bombs.

Ruth coming up to make me breakfast. Her specialty, French toast. This Saturday morning. Gabe sharing the poems he wrote in Oregon. Ruth in college, Gabe getting ready. Their lives full with preparation. Classes. Applications. Learning. Testing. Readying themselves for a future with dramatic climate change, increasing acts against Jews and Blacks and Latinos. What they have been thrown into.

I work. My candle is lit. These words. Those words. A Hansel and Gretel trail leading to, leading to what? A record of an Alexandria boy grown into a man. A man who acted. In theater. On the streets. In the soil. On the page.

A man whose life unfolded in the shadow of war. Whose maturation, delayed, came when conservatives began to gain ground. In 1981 Joseph’s plane landed. The wicker basket. Reagan inaugurated.

Fatherhood. Joyous. Daunting. Inspiring. Joe turns 45 this year. Seoah 48. I turned 79. Ruth will be 20. Gabe 18. That thin, yet strong line of love expressed as Ruth masters chemistry, Joe watches North Korea. I learn to write.

Too late?

We braid our lives into each others. French toast. Sunday morning themes. Breakfasts at Aspen Perks. Eleanor and Shadow playing hard. Parallel. Our braids. Their braids. The wider world. Iran. Israel. Minnesota fighting ICE.

Ruth goes to class. Bombs drop. Joe goes to work. ICE leaves Minnesota. I write. Cartels ship fentanyl. No life independent of another. The web of life woven by photosynthesis, by kisses and hugs, by acts of war.

Life. Lived in paradox and irony. Always. Holding opposites.

 

Family, Friends, Holidays, Judaism, Politics

Close. Yet. Unaffected.

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Imbolc and the Moon of Tides

Shabbat gratefuls: Class with Jamie and Luke. Cardio. A transformation grid. Shadow, a sweet girl. Iran. Israel. Gaza. The West Bank. War and peace.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe:  The Night Sky

 

Week Kavannah:   Yetziratiut. Creativity.   Feedback on my new writing style.

 

Tarot: King of Vessels, Heron

One-legged I stand beside my inner river, feeling joy, fear, inspiration. Purim. Starting the trial. Writing.

One brief shining  Life pushes things together: Warren’s sister dies. We celebrate Purim.  Explosions wrack the Middle East.  Iranians die. Dawn comes to Shadow Mountain. YHWH echad.

Shadow Mountain continues its snowless winter.

Trump strikes Iran. Executive power abused as royal decree.  He uses, like the neo-royalist he is, American fighter jets and bombers, aircraft carriers, to enforce his personal grievances. No checks. No balances. The sound of bombs shattering ears.

My brother, Mark, in Hafar, Saudi Arabia, lives 156 miles from Iran. Just across the Persian Gulf. He says there are no military targets nearby.

A similar situation. In 2005 I helped Joseph move. Late August. While we carried boxes into his Breckenridge apartment at 9,000 feet in the Rocky Mountains, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. I felt lucky. 9,000 feet above sea level. In the heart of the continent. Lucky and a bit, what? Guilty. Privileged. Distant.

Close. Yet. Unaffected.

This sabbath I write at my own mountain retreat. Far from D.C. Far from the Persian Gulf.  In my country’s name ordnance falls from the sky. Persians seek shelter in Tehran. Jews seek shelter in Tel Aviv. Jerusalem.

I seek shelter. From my own government. Find it in the One.

Warren’s family grieves. His sister died this week. Pneumonia. MS. A creative heart stilled. I’m far from that, too. St. Paul.

This Monday evening. Purim. Drink until you can’t tell the difference between Haman and Esther. A celebration of a female hero who stood up to Haman, the Persian royal vizier who would destroy the Jews.

Kate loved dressing up for Purim. She would wear a coat she made for Joseph, a coat of many colors, and a floppy hat. Our first Purim at Congregation Beth Evergreen, 2016, my mouth dropped open.

Dan Herman, then president of the board, came in carrying a case of beer on his shoulder. Others brought several bottles of wine. A bar in the sanctuary. All through the service congregants would go to the bar for another beer or more wine.

Groggers, noise makers, sounded every time Haman’s name came up in the megillah, the scroll of Esther. Their grating sound joined with boo’s.

This sabbath, this Rocky Mountain day, I watch the candle burn. Will study Torah at 10. Relax.

Persia. Iran. Jews. A long, long story.

Mark teaches English to young Arab men. Close. Yet. Unaffected.

A scribe adds to the scroll.

 

Family, Fourth Phase, Writing

Kate’s last journey

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Imbolc and the Moon of Tides

Monday gratefuls: Kate, always Kate. Her life and death. Shadow, deconed. Paul and the storm. Ellory, too.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

 

Sparks of Joy and Awe:  Language

Week Kavannah:   Yetziratiut. Creativity.   Revising Superior Wolf, learning from my writing coach. Focus.

 

Tarot: Page of Arrows, the Wren

Wisdom gained through study-my writing coach-and application-revising

One brief shining: Oh. Went to a Caring Bridge site for Warren’s sister, Kate. Once there, no posts. So. I went to my Kate’s site, started in October of 2018 and ending  a month after her death in 2021. Tears.

Didn’t mean to go there. Kate’s Caring Bridge site. October 2nd, 2018. An internal bleed of unknown origin. She would not come home until October 23rd.

Peaks. Valleys. Then, lower peaks and deeper valleys. Home from the rehab facility, Brookdale, twenty-one days after she went to the E.R.

At one point her nutrition came through a central line and I had to perform a sterile ritual to hook her up to the feed bag. A precise, detail oriented business. Not my strength. But, I learned.

Not easy for either of us. At one point, after her criticism of something I’d done, I looked at her, and said, “You have to respect me!” Stuck with me. Why? Of course she had to do no such thing. Underneath. Please. See me.

Hard.

We made a sort of a peace after that. I listened harder. She did, too. The change from partners to caregiver and caretaker. Ooof.

One evening I’d finished serving our evening meal, gone into the kitchen to clean up. She said something. I couldn’t hear it. Clanking dishes and my one not so good ear. What did you say? I feel like I’m being erased. Oh. My heart fell. Of course. A fabulous cook. A pediatrician. Gone.

A dance from one stage of vulnerability to the next often  found us unready. She could no longer get in the car unaided. No longer able to walk even with her walker. Her hands on my back as she climbed the stairs.

Emergency room visits and hospital hallways. More magazines in waiting rooms. Even after our talk about how much we would miss each, her final days still came as a surprise.

They began with a visit to the Emergency Room. Diagnosis: infection. She sat up in the E.R. bed, her yellow and red hospital gown showing her too thin legs, “Oh. That’s what they always say. Infection.” Still Kate.

The next day in the hospital she crashed. I got ushered out of the room as a code blue team filled the room. She survived. But. A pulmonologist whom I did not know counseled me, in the kindest way, “I would call her people.” I did.

They came. Kate moved to the 10th floor, intermediate between normal hospital care and the ICU. Her last room.

Kate’s breathing became more labored. She required more attention from respiratory therapists. Occasional hallucinations. Fear of being nuts.

After 11 days, Kate’s resolve finally broke. I want to die. How do you feel about that? I hate it, but it’s the right decision for you. She died that night.

I had to come back to the hospital to see her corpse. It scared me in a deep way that I only understood this week. Seeing Kate dead thrust me back fifty-seven years.

An elevator ride with my stroke crippled and bent mother to her final surgery. Her strangled voice. Her last word to me: Son.