musings – Page 143 – Joanne Corey

SoCS: Special Cents

In the US, money is denominated in dollars and cents. We still have a one-cent coin, called a penny.

People tend to ignore pennies, but they have a special meaning for me.

My elder daughter was an early reader and we were always on the lookout for stories that matched her reading ability without being too grown up in content. Her elementary principal suggested “The Hundred Penny Box.” The story is about a child and an elderly relative who has a box with a penny from every year of her life. We decided not to let our daughter read it because no other adults in the book really listened to either the child or the elder, but I loved the idea of having a penny for each year as a memento.

I have given penny boxes to family and friends for milestone birthdays or anniversaries. My parents’ 40th wedding anniversary. My friend and now spiritual mentor as a memento of her 40th birthday sweat lodge ceremony. My college roommate’s 50th birthday. I give a new penny for the current year each year on the anniversary or birthday date.

The only penny box I started that is no longer being added to was the one I gave my friend Angie for her 49th birthday. With a doctor-husband and many friends in the medical community, she was worried about turning 50, knowing that the fifties is a dangerous decade, health-wise, with many serious health conditions cropping up. Because the penny box commemorates the beginning of a year rather than its completion, the penny box for 49 contains 50 pennies. I thought it would be a good way to ease into her 50s the next year.

Within weeks of her fiftieth birthday, Angie was diagnosed with lung cancer, a shock as she had never been a smoker.

She fought hard and we added pennies for her 51st, 52nd, 53rd, and 54th birthdays.

We knew the 54th was going to be the last birthday she would celebrate.

As 2005 began, I wanted to find a new penny to add to the box while she was still alive, knowing her October birthday would not see her alive. I even went to a coin shop, hoping to find a newly minted penny, but it seemed that the mint had not yet started making them yet.

Angie died on March 25.

Later that spring, when I found a 2005 penny, I sent it to her husband to complete Angie’s penny box.

However briefly, 2005, her 55th year, was Angie’s year, too.

*********

This post is part of Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturdays. Join us! Details here: http://lindaghill.com/2014/11/28/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-november-2914/. This week’s prompt is sense/scents/cents/sent.
Badge by Doobster @Mindful Digressions

Thanksgiving journal

In the United States, today is Thanksgiving Day. There were eight of us today at our home for the traditional turkey dinner – and what I am most thankful for was that there were the eight of us together around our table today.

B and I had our younger daughter T on break from her master’s program at ESF in Syracuse and our elder daughter and son-in-law all the way from Honolulu, Hawai’i, where they are both graduate students. The last time the five of us were together in our home was at Christmastime almost three years ago, when a Christmas morning marriage proposal set the stage for the happy addition of L to the family.

Rounding out the party were three members of our elder generation, my parents – Nana and Paco – and B’s mom – Grandma. They have each had their share of health issues over the last few months, so it was a true blessing that they were all able to be there, especially Grandma. This was her first extended sojourn anywhere other than for medical appointments this fall. We were grateful that the lovely eight inches of snow we got yesterday didn’t derail the transport plans.

A special feature of the celebration this year was that T was doing an extended entry in her journal for an ethnobotany course she is taking. They have been writing about their personal and cultural relationship with plants and they had a bonus assignment to write about their family traditions in celebrating Thanksgiving. T filled several pages with stories about how our apple pie techniques have evolved over time, how the bread stuffing with sausage came from my side of the family while the baked onions came from B’s side, and how B learned to flatten a turkey to help it cook more quickly. T got to ask Grandma about where her Aunt Gert had acquired the Indian pudding recipe that we make and L got to experience eating it for the first time. As a British-Filipino, American Thanksgiving is a relatively new phenomenon, much less a New England dessert like Indian pudding. For the record, he enjoyed it!

This was definitely a Thanksgiving to savor. As our children proceed with their adult lives and establish their own households, they may be able to travel to our home less and less frequently. While we hope to have all of our elder generation with us for more years, the recent health scares remind us that they may not be able to be out and about as they were today.

All the more reason to be especially thankful this year.

Mytwosentences 83

A beautiful photo and thought on a cold November morning.

Mytwosentences

The grandparents had a comfy cozy home filled with generations of family who had come to celebrate the 50th wedding anniversary of an endearing duo that always made time for each other.
As gathered guests patiently waited, the elder twain took their love on that daily walk which was a cherished time to trade soft kisses and secretly enjoy a special togetherness found rustling with the leaves.
(Photo: Edward Roads)

Written by Edward Roads

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Veterans’ Day with Dad

Today, the United States and many other countries honor their military veterans. What began as a commemoration of the end of the Great War became a time to honor all veterans when it turned out that “the war to end all wars” sadly was not.

When I was growing up, it seemed that most of the men I knew were veterans. My dad served as a SeaBee ( US Navy Construction Battalion) in both World War II and the Korean Conflict. Because WWII involved so many people, most of my friends’ fathers and uncles had served, too. There were a few women who had served as well, but there were not many opportunities for them in the military at that time. Perhaps because so many had served, these veterans did not tend to talk much about their service, choosing instead to just about building their peacetime lives.

I also knew some Vietnam vets. In my rural area, the Vietnam vets were treated respectfully, but sadly we saw on the news that in other places they were unjustly vilified for an unpopular war. When I was a child, the draft was still ongoing, which led some men to become teachers solely to escape being drafted, as teaching was a protected profession. While some went on to become fine teachers, some of these men should never have become teachers and did a poor job of it for thirty years until they could retire. I have experienced this legacy as both a student and a parent.

The US military has been all-volunteer for the last several decades. In contrast to my dad’s generation when a large percentage of young adult males served in the military, now only a tiny percentage of eligible men and women serve. I can count on my fingers the number of people I know from our circle of friends, neighbors, and my spouse’s co-workers who are currently serving, including a high-school classmate of my daughter’s – and daughter of one of my husband’s co-workers – who was a top-ranked cadet at West Point. Meanwhile, the strains of thirteen years of war have fallen on a small number of military personnel, including National Guard troops, and their families. I don’t have an answer for this problem, but it does – or should – weigh heavily on the national consciousness and conscience.

Today, I’ll be celebrating at a lunch with my dad at a local restaurant that is honoring vets with a free meal to thank them for their service. It’s ironic that after decades of not making a big deal about their military service that so much recognition has more recently come to the veterans of World War II. My dad often wears a SeaBee cap when he goes out and receives thanks from passersby or fellow store customers. Once his cap even led to a pay it forward situation.

The ranks of World War II veterans have thinned considerably with time. With so few people currently serving in the military, in seventy years there will be hardly any veterans my dad’s age.

He will turn ninety in March.

I wish peace, security, respect, and good health to all veterans, in the US and around the world. Thank you for your service.

Thanks, Dad.

Visiting chapel and Beth’s tree

Mary, Tricia, and I with Beth's tree next to Helen Hills Hills Chapel, Smith College — Mary, Tricia, and I with Beth’s tree next to Helen Hills Hills Chapel, Smith College

After the Alice Parker concert at Sage Hall, Mary, Tricia and I proceeded up the hill near Paradise Pond to Helen Hills Hills Chapel.

Our first priority was to visit the winter-flowering cherry tree planted beside the chapel that is dedicated to the memory of Beth McBeath, another class of ’82 Glee Club member, who died as the result of an airplane fire during October break of our senior year. Her funeral was held at the chapel and Glee Club sang Bach’s setting of “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” through our tears during the service. Later, I attended the planting of the memorial tree, although the tree in the photo is not the original tree but a replacement for the one we planted that day, a weeping cherry that was unrecoverably damaged in an ice storm years later.

Beth was a light-filled, infectiously joyous person. She served the Ecumenical Christian Church (ECC) at Smith as a deacon and liturgist. She participated in the Smith choral program in all her years there, serving as an officer as well as lending her alto voice to our choirs. In the best tradition of the liberal arts, she studied with both breadth and depth, including taking a course in the art department on bookmaking. She was always friendly and interested in other people. Like me, as we entered our senior year, she was engaged to be married.

Her loss, along with another classmate who died from lung cancer later in our senior year, taught us not to take time for granted. Her memorial tree is something that I try to visit every time I get back to campus. I make donations to the Smith Fund in her memory, which puts me in touch with her mom, who still survives. Mary sent the photo, which we took with her phone, to Beth’s mom. I hope it made her smile.

After visiting the tree, we went into the chapel. None of us had seen it since the pews were removed, although we had seen a photo in the Smith Alumnae Quarterly. Despite that, it still was a bit of a shock to walk through the front doors of the chapel, which was modeled after a traditional New England Congregational style church, and not see the rows of white-painted wooden pews with the red center aisle carpet down which I had walked as a June bride a few weeks after our commencement. Instead, there were heavy, boxy wooden chairs, arranged in circles over a wood floor. Given that there are no longer regular worship services in the chapel, a fact that still makes me sad, I do understand the impetus to remove the pews to make the space more versatile for concerts and other events, but I wish that the wood floor had been a traditional New England hardwood and the chairs had been more elegant and in keeping the architecture.

Still it was better than the last time I had visited chapel in May 2012, when I wrote this poem that touches on both the chapel and Beth’s tree. chapel at reunion (Sorry for the pdf embedding, but I didn’t have time to fiddle with the editing settings to get the indents and spacing to work correctly.)

After walking through the main body of the chapel, we went upstairs to the gallery and visited the organ, which was a memorial gift in honor of Helen Hills Hills’ husband James. I spent so many hours on that bench, practicing, having lessons, accompanying for Choir Alpha, playing for Mass, prepping for my junior recital with Mary and Natalie, preparing for and playing preludes or postludes for ECC services, and additional hours standing beside the bench turning pages for other organists. It’s moments like this when it feels odd that I haven’t played for years…

We also walked to the basement where the offices are. Almost every room has a different occupant or purpose than when we were there. I thought about the series of Marc Chagall prints that used to hang in the hallway. I think the art museum took custody of them so that they are in a better protected environment, but it used to be so cool to have original artworks in an everyday space. The Bodman Lounge is still there, with shelves of spiritual and religious books and couches and comfy chairs. Mary had given me a bridal shower there and it was the room in which I dressed for my wedding.

I felt reluctant to leave. Even with all the changes, the richness of the memories will always draw me back.

doing and being

Among the things I have done so far this week:
* cooked healthy meals and a not-quite-as-healthy gingerbread bundt cake that smells and tastes amazing
* tackled the backlog of physical mail – the email/social media backlog, not so much
* gone to the doctor’s office for diagnosis of an MCL strain in my knee and started daily exercises to address it
* made a series of phone calls to help arrange for occupational therapy for my mother-in-law in her home, as she continues to recover from her collapsed vertebra
* visited in person and/or by phone/skype with her, with my parents, and with both daughters
* run errands for our house and for my mother-in-law
* facilitated the spirituality group at my church, which is studying Richard Rohr’s Immortal Diamond
* raked leaves
* wrote comments about fracking
* did laundry
* attended poetry workshop
* talked with B. about his work, the news, his mom, etc.

But, as Richard Rohr and so many other spiritual teachers tell us, we are human be-ings, not human do-ings.

We are loved and valued for who we are. I am fortunate right now that I am able to be active and to do things, but the do-ings are important only because they are expressions of love and care – love for family expressed through caretaking but to an even greater degree by spending time with them, caring for my own body, caring for creation, honoring artistic expression of myself and others, connecting with God and reflecting on spiritual matters in community. This is expressing who I am. This is what is important.

Mind? What mind?

The top of JC's mind, or at least, the top of JC's head — The top of JC’s mind, or at least, the top of JC’s head

I’m up in the middle of the night again. Theoretically, I could write a post from the backlog of things I have queued in my head or draft folder, but I don’t have enough sustained focus to do so. Instead, what follows will be (part of) the swirl that constitutes the “top” of my mind at the moment.

* I wonder if I will get my pre-election open letter to Governor Cuomo written before the election. It would be about the fracking moratorium, of course, the emerging science, the threat we feel here of being a sacrifice zone, the need to chuck the current outdated and corrupt draft SGEIS, etc.

* Ebola. Seriously, people in the US, get a grip! Other than a few dozen people, your chance of exposure to ebola is non-existent. If you want to do something useful for your health, get a flu shot – and catch up on any other immunization you might need. Millions of people have died from flu complications around the world over the years. It is easy to catch and transmit. Flu vaccine works partly by having lots of people immunized, creating herd immunity to help protect people who can’t be immunized and the percentage of people who will develop flu despite being immunized, who will generally have milder cases because they were immunized than if they had not been.

* So much war and violence. I don’t actually know if I could write a post about this. People are – and should be – so much better than this by now.

* The confusing muddle of the synod of the family and evangelization, which will be continuing at least for another year.

* The comfort that the beauty of a glorious Northeast foliage season has been in these past few weeks of dashing about on caretaking duty.

* The rest of my planned follow-up to Smith Alumnae Chorus event posts.

* More chapters to My (Feminist) Story.

* Poetry, which is the one thing I have committed to making progress on, despite the swirl going on in my head. Truthfully, I’m not doing everything I had intended to with it, but I have made all three meetings of the poetry critique group I have joined and where I have found welcome, help, and acceptance, begun the five-week fall semester of Binghamton Poetry Project, and may even attend, though probably not read at, my first ever open mic next week. I don’t have the time to do the research I need to figure out submissions, I owe a thoughtful email to a poet friend, and I wish that I had time/brain to write and edit more, but I am giving myself a pat on the back for making some progress.

* At some point, I really will get some of my Hawai’i photos – from May! – in shape to post FB albums and to re-post blog entries with some photos added. I hope to do this before our next visit to the Islands…

* Spiritual matters. There is so much going on – experiences with our elder and younger generations, a recent parish mission, studying Richard Rohr’s Immortal Diamond, missing contact with my spiritual mentor/companion and other friends with whom I can share soul-conversation.

* An update to my empty nest post. Something along the lines of when the sandwich generation goes open-face…

Maybe I should attempt some more sleep before dawn. Or attack the mounds of mail that arrived this week… At least I attended vigil Mass yesterday so I don’t need to drive about and try to be attentive for church this morning. And B. promised to make us a nice Sunday breakfast this morning.

SoCS: sad shape

It’s actually Friday and I just read the prompt which is the word “shape”. I figured I needed to write now, because my time is very unpredictable these days, so here we go.

My mother-in-law is in sad shape. I don’t know if that is a term that people are using now or not. I remember hearing it when I was growing up.

A backache she woke up with on Sept. 7 tuned out to be from a compression fracture of her L1 vertebra. By the time we got to the neurosurgeon and they did an MRI, the vertebra had collapsed. She spent two days in the hospital in order to have a procedure where they inject bone cement to stabilize the bone fragments. If the procedure had been done when it was still a compression fracture, they would have put balloons in and injected the cement to stabilize and shore up that vertebra, but once it is collapsed, it isn’t possible to retain the function. Also, the chance for fast pain relief would have been much better.

As it is, progress is very slow. She is on strong pain meds and does best when she is lying down, except that she needs to be up and about to get stronger so that she can start physical therapy and build her core muscles and leg muscles so that she can function and perform daily tasks. Unfortunately, she didn’t have a big appetite before and this has reduced her to not having an appetite at all, so she has lost weight. It’s all turned into a muddle of meds and side effects and one thing making another thing harder to do.

As you might expect, my spouse and I have been up there a lot and have been bringing her to appointments and running errands and talking to the health professionals and trying to get her to eat and helping with laundry and bringing in the mail and so forth.

This afternoon, I kind of hit the wall. I can’t tell the whole story – privacy and such – but I do think that I may finally have gotten her to realize that she has to be the one to actually make up her mind to get better. She has to stop saying “I know I need to eat and drink more” and actually do it, instead of making excuses. If she doesn’t, she isn’t going to maintain her weight, much less gain what she needs to. She has to want to get stronger and make up her mind to do it, instead of putting energy into self-pity.

We can’t do this for her. She has to do it for herself.

I am exhausted by it all and really wanted to have a good cry about it, but couldn’t quite manage it. The eyes watering while cutting up some onions to make ham and scalloped potatoes for dinner doesn’t count. Maybe later…

This post is part of Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturdays. Join us! Find out more about it here: http://lindaghill.com/2014/10/17/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-october-1814/

Badge by Doobster @Mindful Digressions

A Birthday Walk

As I wrote about last week – for SoCS and as a personal reflection – my birthday was on Saturday. We were able to get away for a few hours to the Ithaca area for a walk along the Gorge trail to Taughannock Falls, followed by dinner at Taughannock Farms, where we had a table overlooking Cayuga Lake with some of the trees showing their autumn colors. It was a wonderful break from our recently expanded eldercare responsibilities.

A few photos from our walk:

54

Today is my 54th birthday. Not usually considered a milestone birthday, but it is a poignant one for me. Fifty-four is the perpetual age of my friend Angie.

Angie called us “October babes.” She was born in 1950 and I in 1960. It didn’t feel like we were ten years apart in age because we had children in the same grades in school, although – bonus for me – she also had a child who was two years ahead of my elder daughter in school, which meant that I had a preview of coming attractions.

We were different in a lot of ways. I’m 5′ 1.5″ and Angie told people she was 5′ 12″ because she thought it sounded less daunting than saying she was six feet. Angie was raised in New York City and thought of our mutual home now as small. I was raised in a New England town of 200, so our current hometown of 20,000 was as large as the city I traveled twenty miles each way to attend high school. She was a trained artist and skilled in decorating and entertaining, with a great and quirky personal style, which included rocking her signature look – overalls. (Trust me – it was amazing.) I am not known for any of those things. She had a great talent for storytelling, complete with different voices and accents for the characters. I am better with the written word than the spoken word. She had a vast array of friends in various circles of the community and was well-known, while I had far fewer friends and was more comfortable working behind the scenes.

We were, however, both personally dedicated to volunteering, and met when I joined a site-based decision-making team at our district middle school. Angie had already been serving as one of three parent representatives and we quickly became friends. She helped me navigate the surprisingly intricate educational world and introduced me to a lot of new people and ideas.

Even though she had many friends, she was near and dear to all of them. She was a wonderful listener and a wise advisor. She was unfailingly kind and generous. The kind of person everyone hopes to have in their life.

Because her husband was a doctor, she had many friends in the medical community, but had a heightened awareness of the possible health calamities that happen to people of various ages. She talked about being worried about turning 50, because she had known so many people who succumbed to medical problems in that decade. When she turned 49, I gave her a box with a penny from every year of her life, which meant that I gave it to her with fifty pennies in it, and the promise to give her a new penny each year on her birthday. I thought already having fifty pennies in the box might help ease her into her next birthday.

Within weeks of her 50th birthday, a nagging cough turned into a diagnosis of stage 3 lung cancer.

It was a shock. Angie had never smoked, but through some combination of factors – growing up in a congested city when vehicles still used leaded gasoline? lung damage from infections? genetic vulnerability? secondhand smoke, as she was growing up before anyone had even thought of smoke-free rooms? – here she was with a frightening diagnosis.

Treatment was aggressive and achieved a remission. There was a big 50+1 birthday party, which served as a charity fundraiser. But, as we all feared, there were metastases that developed and more treatment with some short breaks but then the next problem and the next round of radiation or chemo until finally around the time Angie turned 54, there was nothing else that could be done.

After the new year started, I began searching for a 2004 penny for her box. We knew she would not live to see her 55th birthday and I hoped to get the penny to her while she was still able to realize it, but even the coin shops did not have them available so early in the year. Angie died in March.

When I found the penny later in the spring, I sent it to her husband to complete Angie’s box.

I still miss Angie and honor her memory. One of the ways I do that is by donating to the fund set up in her memory which raises money for scholarships and for the LUNGevity Foundation, which supports both lung cancer research and patients and their families.

Another way is to spread as much love as possible and to dedicate as much time as possible to caring about and serving others.

And for this year, Angie and I will both be 54.

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