CHAPTER TWENTY NINE: THE LATITUDE OF GRATITUDE

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE: THE LATITUDE OF GRATITUDE

How’s this for karma? It’s September 29 (my birthday) and this is my 29^th Blog. It’s a time for a little bit of reflection and expressions of gratitude to those who have enriched my life before Slow Motion (BSM) and during Slow Motion (DSM).

Let’s start with my oldest sister, Jean. She died in 1996 of non –Hodgkins lymphoma. She asked that her ashes be scattered over Lake Mineola in the Poconos in Pennsylvania. Her daughter, Gretchen, decided that we should place a memorial bench on the trail around the lake in front of my Aunt Ruth and Uncle Ken’s cottage. We did that several years ago – it is a sturdy, very attractive redwood bench with a plaque recognizing Jean for her accomplished life. Last week my brother and his wife and I went to Lake Mineola to visit. Two things were evident. Aunt Ruth’s and Uncle Ken’s cottage, which was really their home, is in need of maintenance. And Jean’s bench needed a sealant for the winter. The next day the Admiral and I took a redwood sealant back to Mineola, and the Admiral did a first class job sealing the bench – top, bottom and sideways – against the ravages of winter. Yes, I cried as I looked at the gleaming bench, which the day before had looked a bit ragtag. And I kissed Jean’s plaque and felt enveloped by her love for a fleeting moment. She was a great big sister. She was the glue that held our family together for years, calling each of us and calling Mother at least weekly, then sharing what she had learned, so we really felt like a connected family. Jean, I miss you every day. I am eternally grateful to you for coming to live with me in 1994 in my little hovel in Harper Canyon to be my campaign manager and help me come in second in a 5 person primary. Half the people that voted for me were actually voting for you, I’m sure. You just had a way of putting people at ease and getting their life stories from them in the first 10 minutes.

Which brings me to Sue and Butch, my second oldest sister and her husband. Sue and Butch have been together since high school, and are about to celebrate 50 years of marriage, having eloped twice to North Carolina, first without birth certificates, then with them and actually sealing the deal. Sue and Butch are a team. They complement each other beautifully. And they have been very good to me and the Admiral. As we embarked on our cross country journey in May to take possession of Slow Motion in Ft. Lauderdale, we stopped at their desert paradise first. I left my car in their care, and they sold it the first day they advertised it – for more than I had even asked! Just like Jean, Sue has taken her big sister responsibilities very seriously and has guided me through some rough times. We have also celebrated the good times. And I hope I have been there for her when she needed me. We have mourned the loss of her gentle, brilliant oldest son, Doug, who extended his life through his will power and his ability to learn everything one can know about medulloblastoma, only to succumb to ARDS. I am forever grateful to Sue and Butch for letting me help care for Doug, when he needed it. If you want to feel useful, purposeful and completely engaged, spend time with a close family member who calls for your assistance.  Thank you, Sue, for sharing Doug with me, and for sharing so many holiday meals with me. Those would have been lonely times, if you had not invited me to the warmth of your home and your companionship and the friendship of your four kids, their spouses and children.

Then there’s my “little” brother, Rusty, and his wife, Lois, and their three children, as well as their exuberant springer spaniels. In recent years, as I flew to Pennsylvania to visit Mother and my girlfriends from kindergarten, I also had the pleasure of staying with Rusty and Lois for a few nights. As Mother became physically frail after turning 99, at her request, Rusty took over her financial affairs, which led to a titanic battle with two scalawag disability insurance companies, Penn Treaty and *!*!!**. I don’t even want to say the name of the second one – let’s just call it Scumbag Ltd. My admiration for Rusty grew daily, as he recounted the calls he made and letters he wrote – all cc’d to every consumer protection agency in Pennsylvania. And, with his tenacity and not so veiled threats (how do you get companies in bankruptcy to care?), he got the two companies to release the monthly disability benefits they owed Mother for all her years of payments. Sure, he had to “remind” them every month or so of their commitments, but dammit, he was going to get Mother her due, even if those companies had to forgo every other financial obligation to put her first on their list of creditors. And he did!! If you ever need an advocate, my brother’s The One.

And then there are The Friends.  I am so grateful for the love and support of my talented, generous, funny, well read, supportive friends. You all know who you are, and I’m not going to invade your privacy by “naming names”. I’ve been blessed with friendships dating back to kindergarten, through high school, college, law school, Salinas years, and most recently, Harper Canyon. And now, I’m meeting the most fascinating folks on boats – catamarans, cruisers, sailboats, trawlers. The boat people are amazingly helpful and they give me a sense of community even with the transient life the Admiral and I are leading. But it’s the BSM friends who come through every time, call me on my birthday, check on my health, and keep me in their thoughts and prayers. Thank you all!

Oh, did I mention that I am grateful for the Admiral’s love and support? While we go “way back” (50 years as of October 20, 2012), we re-met in 2009 and developed a friendship, when we both were at sixes and sevens. He was at sixes, I was at sevens. My mother had just died, and the Admiral had gone through some life-changing experiences. I was so relieved to learn that he had not died in Vietnam, a fear I had held since he went there in the mid-sixties. He brought his finely honed sense of humor to Harper Canyon, and he made me laugh a lot. He had co-raised three beautiful, highly intelligent and motivated daughters, so despite his button-pushing sexist remarks, I knew he was a feminist. What a good friend he has become! He gave me the kick in the pants I needed to get out of a rut – albeit a rather exciting rut – and go with him to see the world in SM. Thank you, Admiral, for sharing your boating adventure with me.

For those who are reading this Blog to learn about my boating adventure, here’s the scoop. We are still tied up at Calvert Marina in Solomons, Maryland. We are enjoying “docktails” with our new Kadey Krogen friends and Jake and Michael, the Hawaii-bound couple. We have had a few potlucks together. At one of the potlucks, the Admiral was talking with a new boater about where he grew up – you guessed it, they grew up on the same block in Folsom, just two houses apart from each other. And the first thing Sam said, after peeling away fifty plus years from the Admiral’s visage, was “you broke my tooth!” I asked him if he had ever forgiven the Admiral for doing that. He said he had, but his mother has NOT. He also noted that he and the Admiral were throwing stones at each other (what is it with 9 year old boys and rocks?), and the Admiral had a better aim. Anyone with a statistical bent, please tell us what the odds are of this random meeting between boyhood friends, who have had no contact with each other since high school.

While SM is in one place, we have moved across the land to the Poconos to visit my brother. We have also driven to the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay, so that I could rendezvous with 5 girlfriends at a bed and breakfast near Chestertown. I have visited the Solomons Maritime Museum. I have ridden my new used bicycle to the home in the woods of Mary Jane and Mike, where we had a two hour (or more) crab feast. Mary Jane and I have explored the beaches and forests of Calvert County. The Admiral and I have explored the aisles of the WalMart Supercenter, again and again. We have scored fresh white sweet corn from Chesapeake Bounty. We have twice enjoyed the best key lime pie outside of Key West. In short, every day is different, and every day brings something more to be grateful for. During all of these adventures, the Giants won their division – Hurray!

I leave you with this one suggestion: If you haven’t told someone today that you love them, or if you haven’t expressed your gratitude to someone today, please do it. No matter what crisis looms ahead of you, there has to be someone who has been there for you and will continue to support you, as you face hardships and loss. And as you face good times and triumphs too. So say after me: Thank you from the bottom of my heart for being in my life. You make me a better person.