Hello Dear Readers:
It has been almost eight years since my last post in 2011. I was sixty-seven then and today, I am seventy-five. Eight years in the life of a senior can be exciting, humdrum, heartbreaking, painful, disappointing, plodding, loving or any combination of these seven things. I hereby rule out exciting and go for the last six.
Humdrum: the days go on, punctuated by heartbreaking events that you somehow slightly recover from but go on living to meet the demands of your life and your loved ones. In my case, the humdrum was the everyday rhythm of going to work Monday through Friday, tolerating the ignominy of being older (for the most part) than the people who were my bosses and being told what to do, when to do it and where to go. Not that I minded the instructions that much since I had the privilege of working with older people who needed my help to find places to live, see doctors, be rushed to emergency rooms or apply for benefits to conserve what little funds they had left.
Humdrum is doing housework, shopping for groceries, paying bills, worrying about bank balances. Humdrum is picking up the daily newspaper and reading about the tremendous changes that convulsed our country and changed the face of the city of Denver, a city I have known and loved my whole life.
Humdrum is reading about our earth hurtling toward environmental disaster and knowing there is little I can do about it, except recycle what I can and drive less and continue to love and appreciate animals, loamy earth and towering trees and donate what little I can to the organizations that are striving mightily to protect our earth and its living things.
Heartbreaking: the death of seven dear friends in the past five years. First, Tom Holland. My dear friend Linda's religious, outspoken, gruff, loving, moral husband. Lost control of his car probably due to some medical event, crashed into a tree. Died at the scene.
Next, Pat Corazza-McNamara-Nielsen. My best friend since age 11. Smart, capable, neurotic, afraid to be alone. Her last marriage, miserable. Developed Multiple Systems Atrophy (MSA), first thought to be Parkinson's, but far worse. Her muscles failed, her vision faded, her speech turned into jumble. Her last words to me "Jackie, this is so hard", as she quit her medications and died under hospice care in a nursing home.
Gil Hersh: my friend since I met him at Brandeis in 1963. Married (and divorced) from my from my dear friend, Nina. Interesting researcher, business owner, charmer, intellect, father of five. Dropped dead at kitchen table, eating pizza with some of his grandchildren.
Sheila Bugdanowitz: Sheila had it all: looks, money, intellect, vitality, city-wide recognition for her role as Executive Director of the Rose Community Foundation. Has a pain in her chest; goes to Rose Hospital, thinking it's a chest cold, dies of a blood clot in her lung. Never any indication this could happen.
Sherry Mendelsburg: Always smiling; always answering queries about her status with "all's well." Played golf and tennis. Great companion to her grandchildren. Sherry worried about her step-sons contesting the will she had drafted to leave her money to her boys and grandchildren. Told me that on phone Saturday night. Found unresponsive in her condo on Monday, lived unconscious for four more days, possible brain bleed. Died without waking up.
Sandy Waldman: A great teacher whose students adored her. Great sense of humor. Utterly devoted grandmother. Bitter, angry, jealous. Refused to talk to me for months at a time because I had a man in my life. Lifetime smoker; described cigarettes as "her friends." Smoked while using oxygen. Died of rampant lung infection. Her burial site next to mine at Rose Hill. I wonder how many years I will lie next to her before she concedes to talk to me?
Barbara Pepper: My college roommate. Married Allan, my ex-husband's best friend. Both lawyers; both made lots of money. Allan led a secret life of prostitutes, money to mistresses. He died and left Barbara to pick up the pieces. Barbara battled ovarian cancer. She once said to me she would live till ninety but died right after her seventy-fifth birthday. As her son Robbie said to me: "My mom never made her illness other people's problem." Barbara was brave and accepting and grateful for her help in her condo in Vermont.
All but two of my dear friends gone. I live with the emptiness of their phone calls and company and e-mails. I live with the knowledge that my death could be around the corner.
Painful: I wake up in the morning, bones creaking with arthritis, tired because my sleep is profoundly disturbed by the CPAP-breathing machine for sleep apnea. I rehearse death each night when I go to sleep strapped up like a mummy, lying face up with a mask on my face. I fall often, losing my balance as my dog pulls me over in her quest to catch a squirrel or rabbit.
Disappointing: Lost all my money after the recession of 2008. Bank took my little shopping center that was way over-priced. Left me with my house in Tucson and $10,000.
Plodding: Do the daily things necessary to survive on your own: feed,walk, train the dogs. Buy the groceries, partially clean the house; pay the bills. Visit multiple doctors for various conditions including glaucoma, sleep apnea, emphysema, chronic kidney failure, arthritis, dystonia. Change CozyTurtle's tank often, turn his light off and on, feed him at night. Worry about who will take him when I die.
Loving: Lucia, Joe and Alicita's bright, dramatic, insistent, vibrant crazy seven-year old. We have adventures together at estate sales, museums, movies, book stores, aquariums. Occasional visits with Isaac, Sylvie and Elliott, Ephraims' three kids whom I love and relate to as I can with conversations and spending time together.
Loving my three dogs. Goldie Lox, my angel and love, who becomes my terror upon sighting of rabbits and squirrels. Arthur, grouch in his old age and apt to bite if not controlled. Annie, a whirling dervish dog who is loving but whose spinning, running, jumping, barking spirit needs to be tamed with lots of training.
Loving my three of my four sons at a distance as two are in California and one, in Colorado, is working constantly. I see Joe for meals and visits; his priority in our relationship is my role as grandmother. Spencer is my rock: we exchange phone calls and messages almost daily.
Loving writing. I have discovered the Lighthouse Writer's Group and take classes there. I belong to a small writing group. To write again is to keep alive and still communicate some of my essence for the world to take or leave.
