Farewell, Judy

When someone dies, it's not uncommon to hear friends and loved ones talk about how kind and special the person was.  It's so not uncommon that one has to wonder how genuine those reminisces are.  Is it possible that there are that many kind and special people in the world?  I personally can count on one hand the number of people in my life who would and have been considered kind and special.  And one of them lost her fight to pancreatic cancer today.

Judy Carter was my mother's best friend.  She, her husband, and three sons lived across the street from us for about 40 years.  They are family, really.  We even went on vacations together.  It was nothing for them to cross the street and just walk into our house or come over to sit on the deck.  Judy would frequently come over to the house in the mornings in her robe with her tea and sit and talk to Mom for a few hours.  They exchanged gifts every Christmas.

To say Judy was kind and special is an understatement.  She volunteered for her church, her kids' schools, her community, and did it all with a constant smile on her face and a cheery disposition.  I can't recall ever seeing her in a bad mood, although I'm sure she had them.  When I would drive home to visit Mom and Dad while living in DC, or drive a rental car from the airport since moving to Chicago, Judy would greet me in the street with a hug, almost always being the first person I would see when I arrived home.

She was devoted to my mother's happiness and sanity, and worried about her as Dad's health declined.  I know Judy did everything in her power to support Mom, even if it was just to talk.  Judy was that kind of person.  She did things for you without provocation.  Every Christmas, she would send over her special candy cane cookies that my sister loves.  Judy constantly had a compliment for you.  She used to ask me to make her bulletin boards for her classrooms.  She was always telling me how talented I am and what a good artist I am and what a lovely voice I have.  She didn't have to tell me any of these things.  On paper, Judy was just our neighbor.  But in many ways, she was another aunt or cousin or older sister to me.  And despite not seeing her over the past year since she was diagnosed, I can't help but feel a great loss in my world.  I can't imagine the loss my mother feels today.

It is a rare occasion when someone can be described truly as kind and special.  And Judy is that rare exception.  Whatever happens to us when we die or wherever we go after we leave Earth, that place has been made better by Judy's arrival, and we who remain will have to find a way to deal with the loss of her.  St Patrick's Day will be forever changed for us, because it will now reflect another saint in our eyes as well as be the day we all obtained the most kind and the most special guardian angel.

Car Names

I've had a few cars in my time. My very first car, that I bought myself in 1983, was a 1979 Chevy Chevette. His name was Charlie. I only had Charlie for 18 months. Charlie had a manual transmission, which I didn't know how to drive. My friend Chris Dellone had to drive it off the lot for me, and then taught me how to drive a stick shift. I kinda hated Charlie at first and only bought him because I needed transportation to the beach for the summer where I spent three months drawing caricatures of people on the Boardwalk and parking cars at Phillip's. I tried to jazz him up by adding pinstripes on the outside of him, but there is only so much you can do to a Chevette.

My second car was Rhonda, the Honda. She was an '83 Accord LX. I loved that car; gray with burgundy cloth interior, a kickin' cassette player and a sunroof. I was pimpin', baby. This was the car that I drove back and forth from my folks place in Frostburg to Ex#1's place in Sterling VA twice a week for several months before we finally moved in together - that's 280 miles round trip, twice (it's amazing what young hormones are capable of). This was also the car in which I suffered my first heartbreak. I logged alot of time on random drives and sometimes just sitting and crying. I pounded her steering wheel, beat her seats, and drove her recklessly at times, but she was ever faithful and dependable. Then sadly one night, she died a miserable, fiery death when a mechanic only put in one quart of oil after an oil change. One night driving down Route 7, Rhonda's engine caught on fire and she was totaled.

Ever wonder how we decide the names and genders of our automobiles? My first two autos were both 5-door hatchbacks, similar in shape, just built by two different makers. Yet one was "male" and the other "female". I just knew, at first glance, the gender and name of each car. And it's amazing how much we experience, both physically and emotionally, in our cars: from first kisses to driving to a parent's funeral to job interviews to breakups, and so on. And each time, they help us in the transition through periods of our lives, asking only for gas and the occasional tune-up. They listen without complaint, judgment, and feedback. How many conversations do you think you've had by yourself in your car?

After Rhonda came "The Turd", so named by my brothers because it was a brown 84' Ford Tempo. I bought it almost completely stripped - no A/C, no stereo, nothing; this was a necessity purchase to fill the void of my dearly departed Rhonda. The thing with The Turd was that I was not going to keep it long. My folks wanted to buy me a stereo for Christmas one year and I told them not to since I wasn't keeping the car. A year later, they offered to have a sunroof installed and I said no because I wasn't keeping the car. I bought the car in 1985 and drove it for the next 10 years - covering my first move to DC, my return to college, and the million road trips to vist Ex#2. I had a difficult time coming up with a name for this car, but at Shenandoah, it became known as "Miss Paisley" - and at least 5 people had keys to her. And as long as everyone kept her clean and filled with gas, I didn't much care who drove her. One day, a classmate was driving her and slammed into a hidden pothole and broke the rear axle. Since it would cost more to fix than the cost of the car, I donated Miss Paisley to an organization that taught skills to mentally challenged adults.

Then came Jett, the Jeep. I bought him new in 1994 and fell in love on the spot. He moved to DC with me initially in 1995, but when he kept getting broken into when I was living on The Hill, I sent him back to live with my parents (I mean what would someone think would be valuable in a vehicle that has no windows or a roof?). To compensate, I bought Judy the white '96 Jetta. I drove Judy around DC and on road trips to the beach and home. When I would visit my parents though, I would always jump in Jett and go for a joyride through the mountains and wide fields of western MD. Judy was the red-headed stepchild in Jett's presence.

Sadly, one day, Judy was stolen while parked in Dupont Circle. When the police found her in a lot in SE, she had been involved in a jewelry store robbery (the backseat was covered in small ring boxes) and severe damage had been done to her interior. She was a great car, but I totaled her. So then I brought Jett back down to DC to live with me.

I loved that jeep, and it became synonymous with me. My widely-used online nick was "Beef in a Jeep" and I am personally resposible for the sale of 9 Jeeps that I know of (roommate Ashley even has one now). After 11 years, he was just beaten up enough and dented in all the right places that he was perfect! Roof off in a rainstorm? Didn't hurt him. Back into a telephone pole? Character dent. Then one morning in June, I went out to take him to work and he was gone. I had noticed wires pulled from the back a day before, but just shoved them back up under the dash, thinking nothing of it. Apparently someone was going to hotwire it and couldn't. They must have come back and tried again - and succeeded. Jett was never found. I think I cried a little.

So right now, I am carless (these days, I am "Beef on a Bus"). So far I haven't needed an automobile in Chicago. Parking is an atrocity, and the bus and trains take me everywhere I need to go (I've only been in three cab rides since I moved here in September). Not sure if or when I will purchase another. But I think you can guess what I will buy when the time comes.

Annus Horribilus

And it goes like it goes and the river flows
And time it rolls right on

And maybe what's good gets a little bit better

And maybe what's bad gets gone

This is how I am summing up 2016.  This is the chorus of "It Goes Like It Goes", the slightly eerie Oscar-winning theme song to Norma Rae.  Because if 2016 taught me anything, it's to continue to expect disappointment while constantly hoping for better. 

This year started off with such promise.  We celebrated New Year's Eve in NYC with our friend, Tim - a person who embodies hope and wonder.  We saw a few Broadway shows and I reconnected with Kathy, a dear college friend and former housemate.  I vowed then to reconnect with all my lost college mates, but I didn't follow through.  And I think that pretty much sums up 2016 - full of promises that were not fulfilled, both individually and collectively.

2016 could have been one of the greatest years in our country's history.  But instead, it showed us and the world how backward we still are as a country while we laid out plans to not only stop social growth, but to roll it back by decades.  Again, I'll look to 2017 to hopefully prove that wrong.

Since January 1, 2016, I gained and lost 2 jobs, and my current one is on shaky ground thanks to the policies of the incoming presidential administration.

I fought (and continue to fight) a long health struggle.  Nothing major like dealing with heart surgery or fighting back from a stroke or dealing with cancer.  Thank God.  Most of my year was fighting something as mundane as a sinus infection that simply would not go away.  For the last 7 months of the year, it's been headaches, malaise, horrific odors, and the constant battle between stuffy or runny nose.

I missed a few planned vacations with my husband because I was too sick to travel.  My entire summer was spent at home, save for forcing myself to attend a cookout now and then so that Kevin wasn't doing everything without me.

It was another year of my Dad slowly progressing into his own world due to dementia.  Another year of him living in the nursing home and Mom visiting him two times a day every day.  Another year of their lives stagnating, living apart, and feeling helpless and hopeless.  Again, I call on 2017 to provide clarity.

2016 took many wonderful people from us.  On a personal note, the loss of Judy, my mother's best friend, continues to resonate with so many people.  My posting about her ended up being the 3rd most read post of my entire blog, following the two posts about Carol Burnett.  And rightly so.  Judy was an amazing woman full of love.  Her absence made this past Christmas that much more bleak.

There were certainly rays of sunshine during this year: the marriages of family and friends help lighten the levity of the rest of the year, doing their parts in keeping hope alive; our trip to the Baltic Sea and the wonders that brought; seeing family when we could and friends as often as possible.  There were certainly simple joys throughout the year.  And certainly another year of life is enough to be grateful for.

Creepy Bus People

There is a mother/son combo that gets on the 156 with me sometimes in the morning. Their relationship bothers me a little. The son is about 6 or so, old enough to be in school; the mother seems to be an older first-time mom. They hold hands at the bus stop (sure, that's normal), and hold hands while walking on the bus - him in front of her (awkward, but ok), and then hold hands the entire time they are sitting on the bus together (which seems weird). Each time, they deboard at the zoo.

The really strange thing is the way she talks to him. I can't capture the tone, and it might not translate how I want it to, but she speaks to him the way you talk to a child you don't know, like your boss' kids. Today, for example:

Son: We rode the 151 yesterday and had to jump a puddle.

Mom: You did?!

Son: Yeah.

Mom: When you were with Daddy?

Son: Yeah.

Mom: Did you like that?

Son: Yeah.

Mom: I'll bet you did. I bet Daddy liked it too.

Son: Yeah.

Mom: You're such a good boy.

Mom says that last line constantly. There's just something about the way she talks to him that tells me the kid is going to grow up to either sing Judy Garland medleys in piano bars, or cover Asian women in Wesson oil before killing them, leaving the 7 of Clubs behind as a calling card.

.

Caricature

Most friends who know me these days don't necessarily know that I am a fairly good artist.  In my teens and early 20's, I was constantly drawing portraits and caricatures of family and friends.  A tribute to my teachers won a blue ribbon in my high school annual art show, as did an acrylic painting that my mom still has hanging in her house.

Kevin is always urging me to get back to it, to buy paint supplies or colored pencils.  But the truth is, being artistic has always been something I take for granted.  It's handy to have the ability in life, but creating art has never been something I've wanted to pursue, much to my parents' exasperation.  To be honest, I am rarely confident enough in my style or taste to know if I am truly any good or not.  So it's just something that I like having in my back pocket.

After high school, I dabbled in projects - doing things like creating pieces for my friend, Judy's class room bulletin boards  She brought me a doll that she asked me to draw for her and it turned out pretty good when you figure I did it all with crayola markers on posterboard:

and painting Santa Claus faces on my parents' front door every Christmas:

and after moving from home and not being able to paint the door every year, painting a wooden Santa Claus that Mom still hangs outside her front door at Christmastime:

In college, I created caricatures of all my friends, some who used them for different reasons:

So you can imagine how appalled I was when Kevin and I went to an art show in Ft. Lauderdale the year we lived in Miami and allowed a local artist to create our caricatures.  Below is what the artist drew of Kevin:

(I'll spare you the Baby Huey portrait he drew of me.)

Now, I understand that we all see things differently, but the idea behind creating a caricature is to take a person's most noticeable features and accentuate them.  On Kevin, it would be his eyes and smile which, ironically, are the two features that are played down on the caricature.  So one night sitting in a restaurant a few days later, I took a crayon at the table and quickly drew Kevin's caricature on the brown paper tablecloth.  I'll admit it's not perfect, but I ask you to compare them:

Sexist Egotistical Lying Hypocritical Bigot

Jane Fonda's character, Judy Bernly, said it so well in the movie "9 to 5" when referring to her boss, Franklin Hart.  And the description was so accurate, it would be almost incomprehensible to imagine that it would actually fit a real-live person.  Oh, but it does.

Sexist - Newt Gingrich has certainly demonstrated through his repeated marital infidelity that he has a lack of respect for women.  And pundits were falling all over themselves following Gingrich's treatment of Michele Bachmann during the Iowa Republican debate. 

Egotistical - The GinGrinch's personal assessments, comparing himself to Thomas Edison, the Duke of Wellington, Henry Clay, and even (gasp!) Abraham Lincoln, are outlandish at best and dangerous at worst.

Lying - Newt  claims that "more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president in American history." He's wrong. More were added under Bush than under Obama, according to the most recent figures.  Although we only have numbers through last October, food stamp recipients have grown by 14.2 million under Obama. During Bush's first two years in office, the increase was 14.7 million. 

Hypocritical - Gingrich has long traveled the country espousing family values and dispensing moral advice. Yet so often, the Newt of his dreams gets tramped on by the Newt of reality. There's simply too much difference between what he preaches and what he actually does.We've seen this in his attacks on other candidates — such as his criticism of Mitt Romney for his role in the buyout industry. "I'm proud of real capitalists," Gingrich said, but private equity work, he huffed, "is not venture capital."  Meanwhile, we find out that Gingrich was paid $40,000 at a meeting two years ago to deliver a speech that praised the private equity industry.  And now, we have the new reports that his ex-wife, Marianne Gingrich, told ABC’s Brian Ross that Gingrich had asked her for an "open marriage." He wanted to keep seeing whoever he wanted, she said, while he was attending a Baptist church and doing a speaking circuit on family and religious values.  And I won't even bother going into his lambasting of Bill Clinton's moral character during his affair with Monica Lewinsky. 

Bigot - Gingrich was horribly applauded at the SC Republican debate by defending his remarks when he said that "black Americans should demand jobs, not food stamps" and proposed that "poor kids lack a work ethic ... and should work as janitors in their schools."  And to saddle this along with his arrogance, he sees nothing wrong with those statements despite the fact that a black American points out to him that those statements are offensive and racist.

So if they ever decide to remake "9 to 5", I think there is a shoe-in for the part of Consolidated's pig boss, Mr. Hart.  I only hope he's not a shoe-in for the presidency.  America - you really are smarter than this!

Farewell, Dad

Probably the one thing most of us think about, more than anything else - whether we realize it or not - is the impending death of our parents. It's the one topic that we probably put the most amount of thought into, and it's certainly the thought we think about for the longest period of time.  When we are children, our first question about death is the one that can never really be answered: What.  What is death?  What does it mean?  And then once we grasp that our parents' death is imminent and guaranteed, we follow up What? with Why?, then How?, and then finally the one constant thought we will ponder perhaps more than any other thing in our lifetimes: When will my parents die?

The one thing about the "when" question is that there is no good answer to it.   We certainly don't want to lose our parents when we are children.  And the older we grow, the thought of losing our parents, even when we are in our 40s, 50s and older, is still terrifying. And the odd and funny and sad truth about asking When? is that despite it being the question we will ask perhaps more than any other question - despite the amount of time we think about this question and the amount of time we spend preparing ourselves for the answer - we are never truly ready When? it happens.

Dad was diagnosed with dementia in May 2013.  Last Saturday morning, July 22nd, Dad passed away after a 5+-year battle with Alzheimer's disease.  He had turned 78 last month.

His and Mom's fight with this gut-wrenching disease has been well-documented in this blog.  I call it THEIR struggle because despite Dad being the one with the disease, Mom was with him every step of the way - from the undated beginnings of Dad asking strange questions and making odd statements, to his forgetting simple tasks and getting confused as to where he was, to his becoming incontinent and unable to dress himself, to finally being admitted to the nursing home in September 2014 where he remained until last weekend.  Eventually he became mostly non-communicative, couldn't eat solid food, and became bed-ridden, weighing less than 120 pounds.  Alzheimer's ravaged Dad; it simply didn't care.

Through it all, though, Dad remained sweet, loving, and cooperative.  There were times in the beginning when he would argue with Mom because he was confused and forgetful.  But he came to completely depend on her for his care - to bathe him, feed him, change him, and to be his advocate and fight for him when she felt he wasn't getting the care he deserved, or at least the care that she wanted him to have.  My Mom visited my Dad in the nursing home every day from 10:30a-1:00p, and then again from 4:00p-8:00p, feeding him lunch and dinner every day.  And when I say "every day", it is not hyperbole.  For just shy of 3 years, she essentially gave up everything in order to sit with him and just be with him.  It was impressive to us, but normal for her.  She wanted no praise for doing what she wanted to do - spend time with her husband regardless.

Last week while dressing him for the day, the nurses saw a Kennedy Tumor Ulcer on Dad, which signified his body was beginning to shut down.  There would be no feeding tube and no rehabilitation.  The amazing nursing staff at Frostburg Village would work to keep him as comfortable as possible as his organs began to fail and his breathing would become labored.

Last Friday night, Mom called me and told me I should come home.  She explained Dad's situation and told me not to rush because the final moments could actually last weeks.  I hung up the phone and packed just about everything I own into 2 suitcases, a backpack, a suit bag, and a canvas bag - preparing for any eventuality for an unknown amount of time.  And despite it being past 9:00p in Chicago, I loaded up the car with Kevin's help and started driving the usually 9.5-hour trip to my parents' house.  I felt that I just had to leave right then and not wait to start in the morning.  About 4 hours later, just as I had crossed the Indiana/Ohio border on the turnpike, my phone rang at 1:00a - and I knew.  I pulled over and Mom gave me the news.  We hung up and I sat for a few minutes, stuck someplace between sorrow and relief.  It had been a difficult place to live for 3 years: outwardly wishing for life, but silently praying for death.  On more than one occasion, I pleaded with the universe to simply take him.  And now it had happened.  And despite knowing this day would come, and feeling I was prepared for it, I simply wasn't.  The When? happens when it happens.

My father did not deserve the death he had, but through it all he handled himself with humor, grace, and kindness.  And up until his last breath, he expressed love for us as best he could.  Everyone was in to see him in those last few hours.  But he waited until everyone had gone home, a little past midnight, to leave this world.  It was as if he wanted to spare us all the pain of watching him go.

My last interaction with Dad was back in June during my final visit with him.  As I stood to leave, I leaned over to give him several kisses on his forehead and I always had done.  This time, though, Dad grabbed my forearm.  When our eyes met, I saw an intensity in him that I had not experienced before.  I smiled and asked him what's up?  He moved his mouth as if he wanted to tell me something, but no sound and certainly no words came forth.  His stare was intense and it was obvious he was trying to get a message to me.  At the time, I simply smiled back at him and patted his hand and kissed the top of his head a few more times, telling him to behave himself and that I would see him again in a few weeks.  But I now know that Dad was telling me goodbye, that he somehow knew that this was the last time we would see each other.  I know he knew.  I know it.

It's been difficult to mourn him because to do so, quite simply, seems selfish.  I cannot feel sorry for him because he is now no longer in any pain, and his new world is once again clear, pleasant, and relaxing.  I cannot feel sorry for myself because this is not the life I wanted for him and I am relieved he is no longer trapped inside a body with a disease that's robbed him of all the joy in his life.  I do, however, feel sorry for Mom because of her obvious loss, but moreso because she is lost herself, now.  She has to reconfigure what she does every day from 10:30a-1:00p, and then again from 4:00p-8:00p.  Hopefully sooner than later, she will no longer get the panicked feeling that she needs to be someplace or that Dad needs her.  It's as if she's just been released from prison and she has to learn how to navigate life and think only of herself - something she probably has never done before in her entire life.  But Mom is conducting herself just like Dad had done, with grace, kindness, and even humor when she can.

And so I bid farewell to my Dad.  My reasons for why I will always love him are obvious and trite.  But more than tell me, he showed me how to be a good man, how to treat people, and how to appreciate the love of your life.  I wish him Godspeed and I believe that all of his memories have come back to him and that he is now reunited with Granny, Judy, Uncle Bill, Dad's parents, and his beloved grandmother.

And how on earth can I feel sorry about that?

I love you, Dad.  I'll be seeing you.