Category: musings

a move for Nana

On May 4th, my mom, known here at TJCM as Nana, moved to Mercy House, a residence for people under the care of our local hospice. She had been under the care of hospice since last summer, staying with Paco in their independent living apartment with the help of family and aides, first for overnight and later during the day as well. As her symptoms from congestive heart failure worsened and she became weaker, the care needed to keep her safe and comfortable was outstripping what home aides are legally allowed to provide, so, when space became available at Mercy House, we chose to make the move.

Of course, there has been an adjustment period with new caregivers and routines and food, but things are settling in now. The staff all share a calling and commitment to this work, as do the many, many volunteers who make Mercy House such a peaceful, loving place.

My younger sister was here for the first week, helping Nana to settle in and staying overnight with Paco at the apartment. As it happened, on the one week mark at Mercy House, granddaughter S finished her semester at college and came to visit. She used her dorm room decorating skills to hang pictures for Nana and my sister, her husband, and S had an early Mother’s Day/Nana’s birthday lunch brought in from a favorite restaurant.

from Nana's room in Mercy House
part of Nana’s wall decorations

This second week, someone from my house has been staying overnight and we are developing a rhythm to our days. Nana and Paco each do their early morning routine in their places of residence and then, mid-morning, we bring Paco to Mercy House for the day. Like hospice, Mercy House’s mission reaches beyond care of the individual to care of the family, so the volunteers and staff help Paco, too. There is always food available in the common room and Nana and Paco eat supper together at the dining room table, which is special after so many months of eating on a tray table in the apartment living room.

At the moment, Nana is the only resident who is able to be that mobile, so Nana and Paco usually have the dining table to themselves, but it also means that we were able to have two dinners this week that my spouse B, daughter T, and I shared, too. On Monday, we brought Swedish meatballs, made with the recipe that Nana used which had come to her from her Swedish landlady 55 years ago, for a belated Mother’s Day dinner. Last night, we brought in Italian food and an apple-blackberry pie that B had baked to celebrate Nana’s 86th birthday. The volunteers had decorated the table with a centerpiece, special napkins, and a birthday hat for Nana!
Nana with birthday hat

Next week, my older sister will arrive for a week. We are all grateful to have so much love and support surrounding us.

Thank you also, dear readers, for the thoughts and prayers that you have been sending and for your patience with my increasingly haphazard postings. I truly appreciate your visits and comments here.

SoCS: initials

Sleeping has not been much of a thing this week, so this SoCS will be short.

Letter makes me think of how I refer to most family members on my blog with a letter. My spouse B, my daughters E and T, my son-in-law L. My granddaughter is extra-special because she gets three letters – ABC!

One of these days, I should update my About page to reflect all the changes.

It’s about 4,872 on my to-do list, so it will probably be a while…
*****
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is “letter.”  Join us! Find out how here:   https://lindaghill.com/2018/05/04/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-may-5-18/

 

a special gift

My younger sister came to visit Nana and Paco recently. She was excited to give Nana a special gift.

Under the wrapping paper and green ribbon was a box holding Nana’s father’s pocketwatch!

Her father had worked for the railroad and had used the watch to keep to the schedule when he was foreman of the maintenance crew. When I was growing up, I remember that he always carried it attached with a thick gold chain. He would wind it every day and it kept excellent time.

When he passed away in the early ’70s, I had hoped that my grandmother would keep the watch or give it to my mother, but she gave it to my uncle who lived out of state. I never expected to see the watch again.

My uncle passed away a number of years ago and my sister contacted our cousin to see if he still had the watch. He did and immediately sent it to her.

She brought it to an expert in antique watches who cleaned it and got it running again. He said it was in excellent shape for a watch of that vintage.

I’m so grateful to my cousin and my sister that her father’s watch has come home to Nana, its thick gold chain linking the generations together.

SoCS: Yikes!

Why, you may ask, was the first “Y” word that came to mind for me “Yikes”?

If you are from the US, you probably realize that the answer is itself a question, “Have you seen the news lately?”

(Yes, I know that I am encouraged to not watch news, but it is all around and it is less stressful for me to keep up with it than to have imagined developments intrude unbidden into my thoughts.)

While there is the occasional good “Yikes!”, such as the news that there may actually be a peace treaty officially ending the Korean War/Conflict, more often they are less positive or negative stories about court cases or crimes or investigations or legislative proposals.

And, seriously, Paul Ryan fired the Jesuit priest who has served as Congressional chaplain since 2011? Yikes! Why?
*****
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is “why/Y.” Join us! Find out how here:  https://lindaghill.com/2018/04/27/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-april-28-18/

 

 

blog problem – again

Well, the problem had righted itself and I was very happy – but now it has returned. Please use the previous and next buttons at the bottom of posts to navigate. I especially hope that people will visit my recent post 64th!

Joanne Corey's avatarJoanne Corey

Hello, Friends! Just wanted to let you know that I am having a bit of a problem with posts showing up correctly. At the moment, when you go to the Posts listing, you may see just the most recent post or two, followed by a post from early March, skipping over several other posts. To access those posts, go to one of the posts listed and use the “previous” and “next” posts at the bottom of the page to be able to read the ones that aren’t listed. I’m in the midst of troubleshooting with WordPress to figure out what is going on, but wanted you to know that I haven’t fallen off the face of the blogging world quite as much as it seems when you click on Posts.

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64th!

Today is my parents’ (Nana and Paco here at TJCM) sixty-fourth wedding anniversary.

And it is snowing, which is a bit odd for us here in the Northeast US on April 19th.

My parents married on this date for two reasons. It was Easter Monday during a time when Catholic weddings were prohibited during Lent. (While not currently prohibited, they are still discouraged.) It was also Patriots’ Day in Massachusetts where they lived, so it was a day off work for my dad and many other workers. They thought that they would always have their anniversary off work, which they did until the Monday holiday bill was created, moving holidays from their actual dates to a nearby Monday. (Patriots’ Day commemorates the battle of Lexington and Concord which began the Revolutionary War.)

Today’s celebration will be quiet.

[Three days pass.]

I started this post on the 19th. The plan was for me to spend most of the day at home until late afternoon when we would pick up dinner to bring to Nana and Paco. I was hoping to get this post out and do some other catching up and errands, but Paco wasn’t feeling well, so I went up to Nana and Paco’s apartment mid-morning to assess the situation and call the doctor’s office.

Later in the morning, Nana’s hospice volunteer visitor arrived. She brought a pink gerbera daisy with two blossoms as an anniversary gift from her and a gift bag from hospice with a bottle of sparkling apple juice, two glasses, a rose made of cloth, and an angel figurine. It was so sweet of her to visit and lift Nana’s spirits; we were sorry that Paco was napping and not well enough to be with her when she opened their gifts.

When I hadn’t heard back from the doctor by early afternoon, I called again and they decided to fit him into the afternoon schedule. I took him to the office, fortunately nearby to their senior living community, leaving Nana under the care of her aide.  The doctor made some medication changes and Nana and Paco both got afternoon naps.

My husband B and daughter T arrived at about five with food from a favorite local Italian restaurant. We set up their tray tables side by side on the couch with lasagna for Paco and bucatini for Nana. Nana and Paco got to enjoy their 64th anniversary dinner, topped off with sharing carrot cake for dessert.

They got to hold hands.

They reminisced about their honeymoon in New York City, seeing Bob Hope and the Rockettes at an 8 AM show.

And we had the privilege of being there.

I am grateful that they had this anniversary together, one more precious moment in their long life together. The precariousness of the day underscored that the much-discussed “quality time” is a gift that appears in our lives, sometimes planned and created, but more often appearing at an unexpected time or in an unforeseen way.  A cuddle from a toddler who is usually  too busy to stop her activity. An important discussion with a teenager during a routine car ride. A walk in the woods when troubles temporarily recede and clarity and peace return.

A time when holding hands means the world.

whirl within a whirl

The last few weeks have been hectic. My mom, known here as Nana, has been dealing with an increase in fatigue, weakness, and edema as the congestive heart failure progresses. The hospice team continues to be helpful with trying to re-balance some medications but there is always some amount of compromise among symptoms with relieving all of them an impossibility. A couple of months ago, we had to expand private aide coverage from overnight to daytime as well. There have been a number of issues with scheduling, though, plus a few unexpected events that have kept me in a bit of a whirlwind, not being able to tell how any day may develop.

This unsettled feeling is exacerbated by the constant maelstrom of the news. I have been very concerned about Russian interference in the United States and other nations, something that I posted about during the 2016 campaign and have followed since. The indictments that have been handed down so far as a result of the Mueller investigation are disturbing and more may be coming soon. It appears that the obstruction of justice report may be finished in the coming weeks. Having been brought up during the Watergate hearings, just hearing about the possibility of another president under suspicion of obstruction is chilling.

Then, there is Syria. And the rest of the Middle East. And North Korea. And a trade war with China.

Immigration issues. A Congress that is dysfunctional. Gun violence. Racism. Sex/gender discrimination, harassment, and abuse.  Bullying and incivility.

I could go on…

And on….

Everything feels impossibly complicated and tenuous and unbalanced. I don’t know if things were more stable in the broader world if I would feel a bit better equipped to cope with personal family issues, but I do know that it isn’t helping my mindset in the least.

 

SoCS: money

This week, I – not for the first time – washed dollar bills that had been left behind in pants pockets. Or maybe shirt pockets? Who knows?

I wrote a joke-y post on Facebook about money laundering, which has garnered more comments than most other things that I post.

Go figure.
*****
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is “mon”. Join us! Find out how here:  https://lindaghill.com/2018/04/13/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-april-14-18/

 

back in Northampton

In my second year at Smith College, a new voice teacher arrived on campus. Her name was Karen and my dear roommate Mary became one of her first students. Through Mary and her friendship with Karen that continued over the decades since we graduated, I felt a personal connection with Karen and had had a chance to reconnect with her a few times over the years when I was back in Northampton.

On March 23rd, a retirement recital was being held in her honor. Mary, who now lives in Colorado, had been planning for months to attend and marshaled me and two of our classmates, both sopranos who studied in the department with other teachers, to join her for the concert weekend.

The recital was given by one of Karen’s more recent students, Victoria Fraser ’10. It was a lovely mix of compositions, including a rarely-heard Buxtehude psalm setting. I was especially touched by “i carry your heart”, a setting of the e.e. cummings poem by Smith professor John Duke (1899-1984).  I have sung a choral arrangement of the piece and loved hearing Victoria’s sensitive interpretation of Duke’s original art song setting. It also reminded me of a board book of the poem, illustrated by Matti Rose McDonough, which daughter E bought for granddaughter ABC, which brings me to tears every time I look at it.

The only thing that could have improved the concert would have been the opportunity to hear Karen sing. I have many fond memories of hearing her expressive soprano voice when I was a student. She went on to sing in many recitals and concerts over the years, including singing premieres of works by Smith faculty composers Donald Wheelock and Ronald Perera, who was the Elsie Irwin Sweeney professor at Smith, an honor which Karen now holds.

The post-recital reception was fun! Many of Karen’s colleagues, most now emeriti, gave little speeches about her and told stories about her with warmth and humor. It was nice to see some of the faculty members with whom I had studied. At the same time, it was sobering to realize how much smaller the music department is now, both in number of faculty and number of students involved. It reinforced the discussions we alumnae had had three weeks earlier when we had gathered to sing Brahms Requiem to bolster the current Smith choral ensembles.

The next day, our class of ’82 quartet spent most of the afternoon visiting with Karen in her office. It was enlightening to hear about how things have changed over the years on campus and within the department. We told Karen what has been going on in our lives and listened to her plans for her retirement. We are happy to know that she will be staying in the area, so that when we return to campus we will still be able to connect with her, now without the time constraints of teaching, committees, and all the other obligations that come with being a professor.

The rest of the time, we four talked and ate and talked and shopped and talked and ate ice cream from Herrell’s. I admit that I also snuck in a solo run to Herrell’s, so I enjoyed not one, but two, samplers on Saturday!

After Palm Sunday services on Sunday morning and the scrumptious brunch buffet at Wiggins Tavern, I had to say good-bye to head for home. I am hoping there will be more mini-reunions in the future. We realized that we can arrange a weekend together even without a special event, so I hope that we will get together again later in the year when Mary comes east to visit her family in New England.

organist update

I posted here about a disconcerting incident at the church in Northampton when the organist fell ill at the console during mass on the first weekend in March.

As luck would have it, I was again in Northampton three weeks later for Palm Sunday. There was a gentleman filling in at the piano and organ, so I knew that the regular organist, a woman named Jeanne, was not there.

After mass, I asked two parishioners who were handing out church bulletins for an update. They told me that Jeanne had been ill with bronchitis and on medications, but arrived at church to play anyway – without eating breakfast, as she planned to receive communion. The combination was too much, resulting in the collapse which we witnessed.

The doctors ordered rest for four weeks before returning to work, so I hope that Jeanne was back in the loft for Easter Sunday, leading the congregation from the organ, and feeling well again.

(I am continuing in to be in catch-up mode on posts. With luck, there will be a post about why I was in Northampton again coming soon. Also, the navigation and layout problems with my blog are persisting, with a month’s worth of posts not loading on the main Posts page. The posts are accessible by using the prior or next post links at the bottom of each individual post.)