Reflections

Tomorrow marks my first anniversary as a WiDeaux.  December was a pretty dismal month for me, but you know that saying “it’s always darkest before the dawn?”  It’s true.  Over the weekend, I had a lot of time for reflection. 

I realized that I’ve gone through an entire year of first occasions, holidays, birthdays—and just days--without Bunny, and I’ve survived.  I’m so grateful for the love and support that I’ve received throughout the past year from my friends and loved ones.  Even the smallest gesture can make all the difference to someone who's having a bad day.

Not that the past year has been easy—it hasn’t been.   There were days when I didn’t want to get out of bed, when I didn’t see how I could face another day without Bunny.   For months after he died, my short-term memory was nonexistent.   I—the person who hates making lists—now make them frequently, just to be on the safe side.   The memories—both good and bad—have ambushed me, unprovoked.  I’ll always miss Bunny, but I’m tired of dwelling on what might have been.  It’s time to focus on and be grateful for what we had, but to leave the past behind.

It’s been a year of contradictions.  I’ve learned that I’m both stronger and weaker than I thought I was.  I’ve seen the best and the worst in people I love.  I’ve made new friends and lost old ones. I’ve felt like half of me was missing but strangely tranquil in my oneness.   I’ve done things I never would have done before last year.  For example, I won the 2012 Ladies’ Beer Drinking Contest at the Cochon de Lait festival, just because my cousin and step-father dared me to enter (see Country Comfort, 5/17/12 for the whole story).

To quote another Elton John song, after an extremely difficult year, I’m Still Standing.  Now that I’ve spent a year surviving, 2013 will be the year I thrive.

Rosalie's Gift to the Anti-Magi

December has been a very emotionally difficult month for me.   Even under normal circumstances, Christmas has never been my happiest time—the dark winter days, the crushes of people everywhere, the incessant, crappy/sappy Christmas music, and the generally increased noise level make me crazy.  I know—I sound like The Grinch.  Maybe that’s why he’s my favorite Christmas cartoon character.

This year, though, in addition to all the above stressors, every single Christmas-related thing I see reminds me that either: 1) my husband is no longer here; 2) my mother is no longer here; or 3) neither my husband nor my mother is here.  Lights?  Bunny loved them.  Angels? My mother collected them.  You see how it goes.  I don’t set out to make these mental connections—they come, unbidden, before I can stop them. 

I’m sure it doesn’t help that the first anniversaries of their deaths are just around the corner.  Even if I’d been able to get past the stockings, there’s no way I could have put up a tree.  I don’t know about your ornaments, but I can tell the story behind every one of mine, and nearly every one of those stories involves my husband or my mother.

So, I’ve stayed away from malls.  On the few trips I’ve made to Walmart and Target in the last month, I’ve left crying like a baby.  Not only do the trappings of Christmas spark these flashbacks, but seeing people shopping with their spouses or mothers, happily arguing about what presents they’re buying, or what they’re cooking, or where they’re going remind me of the suddenly empty spots in my own family.   Then I feel guilty for being such a whiner, because I’m so blessed compared to others, like the families of the shooting victims in Connecticut.  Then I feel sad for the people I feel guilty about.  It’s a vicious, emotionally exhausting cycle.

After these incidents, I retreat back to my Christmas-decoration-free nest to regain my emotional balance.   Celebrating Hanukah rather than Christmas this year was one of the smartest things I ever did.  The cats and I liked Hanukah so much that we’re going to celebrate both holidays from here on out. I still wished Jesus a Happy Birthday when I woke up this morning, and since He’s the “reason for the season,” I’m sure He didn’t mind that my house isn’t decorated with a bunch of glittery, twinkly stuff.   It’s the thought that counts. 

Thinking back, the one place I can truly say I enjoyed December was at my grandparents’ house.  They lived right next door, so we went there every afternoon after school.  My grandmother always had some snack waiting for us, usually hot from the oven.  About two weeks before Christmas, my Great-Great Aunt Renie would bring my grandfather the best coconut cake in the world, and he’d tease us with it for days before he finally cut into it.  Unfortunately, she took the recipe with her to the grave, and I haven’t even been able to come close to it since then, despite years of trying.

One of the very best things for a kid in December, though, was presents.   Every year, my grandparents did something that drove my mother nuts: they let us open presents throughout the month.   That was my grandfather’s doing, and he had a story to rationalize his behavior.  Once upon a time, he had a little sister, Rosalie, who wanted nothing more than a doll for Christmas.  His parents got the doll and were saving it for Christmas, but Rosalie got sick and died suddenly, just before Christmas.  His parents always regretted not giving Rosalie the doll before Christmas.

So, no stockpiles of presents from our grandparents on Christmas Day: we’d opened the majority of them long before.    In my step-father’s family, we opened everything on Christmas Eve, during the annual family get-togethers, but when Bunny and I set up our household, we decided that we’d open presents on Christmas Day.  As compatible as Bunny and I were, there was one area where we always failed spectacularly: gift-giving.  For years, I’d buy him Christmas or birthday gifts, sure that I’d found just the perfect thing, only to be met with his half-hearted attempt at excitement.  For his part, Bunny would sometimes try to get something he thought I’d really like, but other times he didn’t try at all.

For example, one Christmas, I opened my sole gift from him to find a wallet.  Not a fancy designer wallet, either—a plain, black wallet he’d gotten at Brookstone.  I already had a wallet.  I don’t remember what hints I’d dropped that year, but I could have printed them on bricks and chucked them at his head and he still wouldn’t have gotten them.

“It’s…a…wallet.” I said, the picture of underwhelmed.    Even Bunny, a master of BS, couldn’t sell me on how much thought he’d put into this gift.  For years after, the wallet was the bottom of the scale by which all other gifts were measured.   

“Hey,” one of us would say to the other.  “At least it’s better than a wallet.”

Finally, around year 17, I suggested we each stop wasting money on gifts the other wouldn’t appreciate.  He didn’t argue.

“We’re like the Anti-Magi,” he agreed, referring to the O. Henry short story, The Gift of the Magi.    So, from then until last year, we would buy our own gifts, wrap them, and put them under the tree.  On Christmas morning, we were sure to open something that we really wanted.

Suddenly, last October, he announced that he wanted to go back to the old way of gift-giving.   I had a moment of panic, but agreed, because I knew it would likely be his last Christmas.   One of the first things I got him was a St. Peregrine medal.  St. Peregrine is the patron saint of cancer patients, and with Bunny’s newfound embrace of Catholicism, I figured it was a winner.  Not so much—it’s still in its box, undisturbed after he opened it Christmas day.

I scored a victory with the big present, though.  Toward the end of the summer, I’d gotten an iPad. Bunny, figuring apps weren’t that important, got another, less expensive, tablet for himself.  Within a week, he was coveting my iPad.   Soon, he was borrowing it to take with him on days when he had chemo or blood transfusions.   

When he changed up the Christmas rules on me, I knew the perfect gift.   I bought Bunny’s iPad just before Thanksgiving.  Then, with Rosalie’s story in the back of my mind, I promptly gave Bunny his present.   I’d never seen him so happy with any present I’d given him before.  He immediately started downloading apps for all his interests: chess, poker, history, big foot, etc.  I think he used it every waking moment.

Finally, I’d broken the curse of the Anti-Magi!   As things turned out, Bunny entered the hospital for the final time three days after Christmas.   When it became clear that he wasn’t coming out, one of the first thoughts I had was gratitude for my grandfather’s insistence on telling Rosalie’s story.   Her legacy allowed me to make Bunny’s final days a little brighter, and that thought warms me.

As more time passes, I’ll get comfortable with Christmas again.   I’ll be able to decorate without falling to pieces over every single ornament I hang on the tree.   And I’ll be as happy as I can be with the incessant, crappy/sappy Christmas music in the background.

‘Tis the Season

Since early October, most stores have had their Christmas displays up, and it’s been nearly impossible to ignore the fact that there’s A VERY BIG HOLIDAY lurking just around the corner.  A short year ago, I had a husband and a mother, and was planning to spend the holiday with both of them.   Now that I have neither, it’s hard to get excited about Christmas.

Growing up, my mother put up our tree on the day after Thanksgiving every year, or by that Sunday, at latest.  It was a tradition I carried on in our family, and Bunny was more than happy to help.  His specialty was stringing the lights.  More lights than one tree should ever hold.  We’d hang the ornaments on the tree and drape all the stockings (his, mine, JoCo and kids’, and one for each cat) over the china cabinet or the patio door.  Hey, we didn’t have a fireplace in Florida!  My mother was fairly crafty when it came to crocheting and embroidery.  About 20 years ago, she made each of us Christmas stockings, embellished with sequins and embroidered with our names.

Last year, since we were supposed to be going to Louisiana for Christmas, we didn’t haul out the big tree.  Instead, I got a table-top tree and decorated it, just to be festive.  I later added a second table-top tree, this one made of aluminum, because I couldn’t pass it up—it was a miniature version of my maternal grandmother’s huge aluminum tree, so it was nostalgic and quite mid-century modern, which is my décor style.

I tried to get into the holiday spirit this year on the weekend after Thanksgiving.  I opened the storage container that holds the stockings, and the first one I came to was Bunny’s.  I held it in my hands for a few minutes and studied the scene with Santa climbing into a chimney against a blue background.  Santa’s suit is blinged out with red sequins, and “John” is embroidered across the top in dark thread.   I couldn’t keep the thought out of my head: once upon a time, my mother hand-made this stocking for my husband. Crap!  If there was one symbol of my lost loved ones, this stocking had to be the front-runner.  I couldn’t put it away and shut the lid fast enough.

Now I was stuck.  It just felt wrong not to celebrate, but I’d be an emotional wreck with all the reminders around me, glittery and beautiful as they are.  I hit upon the solution relatively quickly: instead of full-blown Christmas, I’d celebrate Chanukuh.    Long before my family celebrated Jesus’ birth, Jesus celebrated Chanukuh.   I’ve never done a full-blown, eight-day celebration of Chanukuh, and it’s certainly a holiday I’d never shared with Bunny or Mama.  No ghosts of Christmas Past when you’re celebrating Chanukuh!

Off to Target I went, picking up a menorah, candles and dreidels.   Then, because I have a near-morbid phobia of open flames, I bought a menorah with blue, candle-shaped light bulbs, too.  I Skyped my friend William to show them off, which sparked a case of menorah-envy in him.  The next day, he went to the same Target and got his own menorah, candles and dreidels.  I told him that two menorahs and accessories selling at the same North Hillsborough/South Pasco County Target within 24 hours would create a skewed sense of demand.

So Saturday at sundown, I will celebrate the first night of Chanukuh with William and my family.   My family will light the menorah and spin dreidels for the first time, and learn how another religion celebrates an important holiday.   We will eat the Cajun all-purpose winter meal: gumbo.  We will be culturally and nutritionally enriched, and we will be happy.   The Christmas trees can come out again next year, when I’ll be ready for them.

Lighting the Candle

Last night was Halloween, and in Bunny’s memory, we lit his bleeding skull candle. (See Trick or Treat, Oct. 14, 2012.)  Almost appropriately, today was All Saints’ Day.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, All Saints’ Day is a day to remember those who’ve died.  For Catholics, it’s a holy day of obligation—one on which you’re required to go to church. 

When we were young, our grandparents would load us into the car for a trip to the cemetery, which was on the outskirts of town.  We would put flowers on our family members’ graves, say little prayers for each of them, and wait for the priest.  In our hometown, the priest would come to the cemetery to say Mass and bless the graves.  Going to the cemetery took care of the obligation, at least according to what Pops (our grandfather) said.   Grandma went along with his opinion, because she wasn’t Catholic, anyway; she was one of the few Baptists in our town.

It’s fairly easy for a kid to sit still for Mass in church (even though it’s about an hour long), because there are relatively few distractions.  In the outdoors, though, it was quite different.  So many things out of context to Mass as it normally was: birds, clouds, wind, graves, and the overwhelming, sickly-sweet smell of the freshly-laid flowers. Even when I was older, I could barely keep still for more than a few minutes. 

After the priest was done, Pops and Grandma would visit with their friends who’d come for the same reason.  On occasion, we’d meet up with one of our friends, but the crowd generally skewed much older.  When we were younger, we’d sit in the grass and wait for the ride home.  As we grew older, that practice was discouraged.

The last time I was in a cemetery was about five years ago, when my mother-in-law was buried.  I really have no desire to ever go to another one.  Maybe it’s because I saw enough graves as a child.  Maybe it’s because I think that the graves hold no more than the earthly remains of the dead.  I can honor my dead relatives without climbing over tombs.

Now, back to Halloween--my late husband’s favorite holiday--and his previously-unlit bleeding skull candle.  A few months ago, my friend Will introduced me to the concept of the Yartzeit candle.  In the Jewish tradition, on the anniversary of a loved one’s death (the Yartzeit), the survivor lights a special candle in remembrance that burns for 24 hours. Even though Bunny’s actual Yartzeit is a few months away, I felt like the concept was similar.  We would light a candle in Bunny’s memory on his favorite holiday.

                I had the candle all ready to go by the time JoCo and the kids arrived.  I lined a small plate with aluminum foil (to catch the wax and “blood”) and set the candle in its center, then put the whole package in the middle of the dining room table.  I set up my iPad to film the process so that I could share the bleeding skulls with folks who hadn’t seen them before.

                My crew arrived and we lit the candle.  And waited.  And waited.  No blood.  Finally, Joey and Corey took the kids out to trick-or-treat around the neighborhood.  There would be video for them to see when the magic happened.  An hour and a half later, they returned—loaded down with candy—and were disappointed to find that the skulls still had not begun to bleed.   After a few minutes, JoCo and I went to sit out on the lanai.  Because a watched candle never bleeds, right? 

We’d been out there about 20 minutes when Trinity announced that the skulls were starting to bleed!  We all rushed in to behold the sight.  I rotated the plate so that the camera could catch the action.  Success!  They stayed a little while longer, and I blew out the candle once they were gone.  We’d light it again next year.

Now, I was left with over two hours of video footage of a bleeding skull candle that didn’t start to bleed until long after it was lit.  I snipped out the better part of it (with iMovie—an awesome ap), and started looking for the pivotal moment when the bleeding started.  A short clip of the action (with catchy music added) follows.  WARNING: Don’t read the next paragraphs until you’ve watched it!

Okay, if you didn’t head my warning, this is what happened: the candle is burning away, sans blood.  The tips of two red devil horns appear (Trinity was a devil for Halloween), shortly followed by the tip of her nose.  She rotates the plate to check for blood.  Nada.  She cups her hands over the flame then moves them to the sides of the flame—casting a bleeding spell, maybe?  Next, she waves her hands over the flame in semi-circular motions.  Definitely trying to cast a spell, I think.  Nothing.

Since sorcery isn’t working, she resorts to McGyverism.  Using a stick from an already-eaten Tootsie Pop, she pierces through one of the skulls’ eyes.  Finally, there’s blood.  That’s when she called to us to come and see it.  I couldn’t believe it!  We were hornswoggled by a 10 year old!  Far from being angry, though, I burst out laughing.  That was SO something I would have done.  Shucks, it was SO something I almost did while they were out!

Patience is definitely not one of my virtues: even as a child, I hated to wait for anything.  When I was Trinity’s age, I would stare at presents wrapped under the Christmas tree, dying to know what was inside them.  I’d shake them, trying in vain to discern what they were from the noises that ensued.  Then, when I was 10, I invented a way to surreptitiously remove the wrapping, look inside, and restore the paper so that my mother couldn’t tell I’d been into the presents.  Having that sneak-peek didn’t diminish my enjoyment of the gifts on Christmas Day, and I was even more pleased because I’d managed to satisfy my curiosity weeks in advance.

The year I turned 18, I made the mistake of showing off my skills to my sisters.  Hey, I was proud that I’d figured out the system!  One of them—I forget which—wondered aloud what was in her packages.  I offered to show her, and did.  I found out what was in all of our presents, and returned them all—none the worse for wear—to their spots under the tree.  Shortly thereafter, one of my sisters—I do remember which—ratted me out to our mother.  Oh, Mama was so angry!  I surely didn’t tell her I’d been doing it almost half my life.  Mama never let me forget about that little incident, and warned Bunny about it when we were dating.  He thought it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard, which incensed my mother all the more.

So next year, before we light the candle, we’ll poke holes in the eyes.  Because what good is a bleeding skull candle that doesn’t bleed?  Bunny would certainly approve.

 

October 22, 1912

If Bunny were still here, we’d be having some pretty lively political discourse about now.  I’m a lifelong Democrat (shocking, I know), and Bunny claimed to be Independent, but leaned Republican.  He actually picked out Mitt Romney a few years ago and predicted he’d be the next Republican Presidential candidate, so he’d be especially pleased with himself for having “discovered” Romney.  Anytime he spotted someone before the majority of the world took note of that person (Britney Spears being his best example), he bragged that he had discovered that person.

My belief in social programs was too “bleeding heart” for my husband’s tastes.  Likewise, his adherence to capitalism appalled me.  We had different views on abortion, too: I advocated for choice, and he had a limited acceptance of it.  His viewpoint came from a strictly personal perspective: he was adopted, and by his reasoning, if abortion had been legal, he might not have been here.  I pointed out that abortion was around long before it was illegalized, and that his birth mother could have chosen that route if she’d wanted to.  Even though he didn't like the idea of abortion, he didn’t believe that fetuses should have rights bestowed upon them, or that rape victims should be forced to bear their attackers' babies.  In other words, he accepted legalized abortion as a necessary evil, and believed that the choice of whether to have one should rest with the woman doing the deciding.   

I’ve voted in every Presidential Election since I was 18, but this is the first time that I’m actually afraid of the outcome if my candidate loses.  Though Paul Ryan dismisses the idea that there is a war on women, I don’t know of a better descriptor: women are facing the very real risk of losing rights that were hard-won: the right to equal pay for equal work, and the right to control decisions about what happens to their bodies.  

The Republican Party’s platform this time around is the most conservative I can remember.  Maybe it’s come close before, but there weren’t Republican congressMEN spouting falsehoods like “if it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down” (Todd Akin) and “[w]ith modern technology and science, you can't find one instance" of a pregnant woman's life being at risk (Joe Walsh).  Science and statistics abound to prove both statements absolutely false.   Bunny would have been the first to blast these statements and the men who made them.

You might blame their ignorance the fact that they’re not doctors, but then I think back to when Bill Frist, a Republican heart surgeon turned Senator, took a leading role in the Terri Schiavo case.  He used his medical degree to lend credibility to his incorrect opinion that Ms. Schiavo was not in a persistent vegetative state.  

The Schiavo case also had Bunny and me on opposite ends of the spectrum: I was firmly in the right-to-die camp, and he was on the “preserve life at all costs, no matter what the quality” side.  I drafted and signed my living will before Terri died.  Bunny wouldn’t even consider looking at one.  He was two years into his cancer diagnosis before he changed his mind.   Once he did, he was the biggest advocate for quality over quantity of life that you could find. 

Of all things, an article I read last week about slang terms from the 1920s got me thinking about all the strides we, as a society, have made in the past 100 years, and how much we have to lose.  For example, my grandmother, Betty Gray, was born in 1912, the fourth of 10 children.  On October 22^nd, exactly a century ago, Grandma was four and a half months old.  Her mother, Una (or Grandma Gray, as we called her), was 26; Grandma Gray would have three more babies before women in the United States were given the right to vote by the Nineteenth Amendment (ratified in 1920).  

It would be another year before Margaret Sanger founded the American Birth Control League, which was one of the early entities that would later merge to form Planned Parenthood.  At the time, it was illegal to distribute information about birth control (thanks to the Comstock law).  Sanger would do jail time before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the portion of the law that led to her arrest. 

It wouldn’t be until the mid-sixties—after my sisters and I were born—that the Supreme Court struck down a law that prohibited birth control by married couples, on the grounds that it invaded the Constitutional right to privacy. (For my lawyer friends, Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965).)  I remember this case from law school (thanks, Professor Mayton) because it was the first time I’d heard the word “penumbra.”  I was ten years old before the Court held that the privacy right extended to unmarried people, as well.  Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438 (1972).

A year later, the Court decided Roe v. Wade (410 U.S. 113 (1973)).  It’s almost impossible to pick up a newspaper or magazine, surf the ‘net, or watch the news for any length of time nowdays without seeing or hearing mention of this case.  How many people know, though, what the case really says?  If your understanding of the case comes from listening to politicians, you might think that the Roe Court threw open wide the doors to abortion clinics and encouraged all the women in America to get pregnant with abandon. 

First, the Court was not cavalier in Roe, by any means.  It went on for paragraphs about the gravity of the subject matter, and accounted for the various positions that are every bit as relevant today as they were then.   The Roe case challenged a Texas law made it illegal to procure or assist a woman in getting an abortion, unless her life was endangered by the pregnancy. 

Before 1854, abortion in Texas was not a crime; it wasn’t in the majority of the other states, either.  The Court recounted the history of abortion in the Roe decision, and there are some rather fascinating bits of information in the historical section.  In one of the first paragraphs of that section, the Court noted that U.S. laws criminalizing abortion didn’t start appearing until the latter half of the 19th century.  The idea that the fetus had a soul from the moment of conception was not originated by the Catholic church, or by any Christian sect—it sprang from Pythagorean philosophy (yes, that Pythagoras--the math guy), and was the minority opinion in ancient Greece. 

Actually, even the early Christians and the Catholic church didn’t spout the “moment of conception” view until the 19^th century.  Before that, cannon law and Christian theology put the soul forming at 40 days in a male and 80 in a female.  Until the 1800s, abortion in the U.S. was legal, up to the point of quickening (when the woman feels the fetus moving—usually around 16 to 18 weeks).

In America, after the Civil War, various states began passing laws increasingly restricting abortion.  Finally, by the end of the 1950s, abortion was virtually outlawed by a majority of the states.  However, even then, there remained exceptions to save or preserve the woman’s life.  As the Court noted, “…at common law, at the time of the adoption of our Constitution, and throughout the major portion of the 19th century, abortion was viewed with less disfavor than under most American statutes currently in effect. Phrasing it another way, a woman enjoyed a substantially broader right to terminate a pregnancy than she does in most States today.”

At the end of the day, the Court struck down the Texas law and legalized abortion for any reason, up through the first trimester.  In other words, Roe v. Wade didn’t give women rights they’d never had—it restored rights that had been taken away by laws passed after the Civil War. 

The Republicans of 2012—those of the Akin and Walsh and Ryan ilk—would take away those restored rights, plus strip women of the right to terminate pregnancies that endanger their lives.  That’s what makes me so fearful: I can’t imagine a party that wants to put women into an even worse position than they were in on October 22, 1912. Even with his objections to abortion, I know Bunny wouldn’t want to see that happen, either.

Trick or Treat

The specter of Halloween has loomed for the last few months, ever since the decorations and displays started appearing in stores.   Of all the holidays, it’s the one I’ve dreaded most.  Why?  Because of all the holidays, it was Bunny’s absolute favorite, and I’m not looking forward to the first one without him. 

Every year by this time, Bunny had stocked up on candy and decorations.  Every year, my plans to turn off the lights and pretend we weren’t home were met with incredulity; it was simply inconceivable to him that we wouldn’t participate.  He always put a lot of thought into buying the “good” candy, whereas I’d buy whatever was on sale.

October 31^st was one day I could always expect him home before dark.  He’d get out in the yard and arrange his surprises—motion-activated talking skulls, jack-o-lanterns, and spider webs, among other things.  He’d pull out the biggest bowl he could find and load it with candy, then wait for the little ghosts and goblins to come.  He’d ooh and aah over the costumes, and make nerd-chatter with the superheroes and sci-fi characters.  That was the routine on the years he stayed home.

Whenever he could, he liked to actually take kids trick-or-treating.  When Joey was little, we’d take turns escorting him and his friends around to the houses.  Once Joey outgrew Halloween, Bunny would borrow kids from his friends or co-workers.  Not that the parents would just hand their kids over—Bunny would invite the parents to bring their kids.  One year, we joined my friend Sally for her daughter’s first Halloween.

Corey and her family love Halloween as much as Bunny did.  Every year, they have a big celebration with a costume party.  Since JoCo lived out-of-state until last December, if was usually impossible to borrow Trinity for Halloween.  However, Bunny was diagnosed with cancer in June 2009, and knowing that his time was most likely limited, I prevailed upon JoCo to let her fly down for Halloween that year.

Bunny was beside himself with excitement!  Not only did he and Trinity carve pumpkins together, but he decided, for the first time ever, to trick or treat in full makeup.  He and I did Trinity’s makeup for her ghost bride get-up, and she made up Bunny to be a devil.  I did my own makeup to be a cat.  We walked the entire neighborhood, with Bunny chatting up the folks who had decorated their houses.  It was, he later declared, the best Halloween ever.

Last August, I flew up to Virginia to babysit the girls while JoCo went away for the weekend to celebrate Joey’s birthday.  While we were out shopping one day, Trinity found a candle with skulls all over it.  When you light the candle, blood (i.e., red wax) pours out of their eyes.  She excitedly begged me to buy it for Poppi for Halloween.  “He’ll love it!!  It’s so gross!”  She and Bunny shared a love of the repulsive. 

I brought it home and showed it off to Bunny like it was one of the crown jewels.  His eyes sparkled with excitement.  Had it been my bleeding-skull candle, I’d have lit it in a minute.  Bunny, however, could be very patient.  I wasn’t able to get Trinity down here last Halloween. By then, Bunny was fairly house-bound; walking any distance tired him out and caused him pain.  On Halloween, I asked when he was going to light his candle.

“I’m going to wait until Trinity comes for Halloween again.”  This statement took me by surprise, since by then he knew that he wasn’t likely to see another Halloween.  He managed to place a few of his decorations in the yard, but more slowly than he had in years past.

The unlit candle is still on the end table next to his chair.  We’ll probably burn it this year, but it won’t be the same without Bunny enthusing over it.  I don’t know why Bunny loved Halloween as much as he did.  Maybe it’s because it was the one night of the year when he could release his inner child.  Maybe it’s because he was just a big kid at heart, loving make-believe and scary stuff, and enjoying it even more seeing it through the eyes of the actual kids.

A few days ago, Trinity mentioned her pumpkin plans for this year: she was going to carve a cancer ribbon into one, “for Poppi.”  I was touched when she said it, and misted up just a bit.  Then I saw the finished product tonight on Facebook, and my tears flowed, unbidden.  Bunny would have loved it.  

My Song

This past Friday night, Corey and I went to see Elton John in concert at the newly refurbished USF Sun Dome (a venue which, by the way, is not the best for concerts).  Friday marked my tenth time seeing Elton—I’d been to eight of his shows, and had stood toe-to-toe with him on another occasion.  (See Glitter in the Air, 2/23/12, for the whole story.)  The last time I’d seen him was in Vegas, a little over four years ago. 

Back then, I’d joined my sisters and niece in Vegas, where Julie lived.  I was the only person in the group who wanted to see Elton in his Red Piano show at Caesar’s—the others wanted to go to Cirque du Soleil.   So, for the first time ever, I went to a concert alone.  Since my birthday was coming up, Bunny encouraged me to get top-shelf tickets.  For once, I didn’t disagree.  I ended up in the second row from the stage, one seat from the aisle!  For two hours, I watched Elton play and sing less than 30 feet away.  For the last song—Saturday Night’s Alright—I got to dance on stage with about 20 other fans while he played and sang.   It was one birthday present I’ll never forget.

Elton and I go back a long, long time.  I first heard his music in 1972, which, ironically, is the same year I met Bunny, who was my fifth-grade classmate.  I didn’t immediately fall in love with Bunny (that wouldn’t happen for years to come)—but Elton—oh!  His music spoke to me, inspired me, soothed me.  My family had one record player, and I drove everyone nuts with my repeated playings of the few albums I had.    Looking back, I think my mother kept giving me albums as gifts so the rest of the family could get a respite by getting different songs into the rotation.  Luckily for them, Elton has been very prolific. 

I have a strange habit—which appears genetic, judging by Joey’s and Trinity’s behavior—of never, ever tiring of watching a movie I love or hearing a song I love.  What’s that?  The Godfather’s coming on in an hour?  I’m watching it!  It doesn’t matter that I’ve seen it over 20 times—I find something new to appreciate about it with every viewing.   The Bitch is Back is playing on the radio?  I’m singing along! It’s my anthem!

For a few years running, every Christmas would bring a new Elton album.  Better yet, my neighbor, Mike, often got Elton’s albums for Christmas, too, and his were usually different than mine.   I remember he had the Caribou album, which I didn’t.  How, you ask, do I remember that, nearly 30 years later?  Because that’s the album that The Bitch is Back  was on, and I had to go to Mike’s house to hear it.  I suspect that’s the reason I didn’t get Caribou: my mom figured I didn’t need any encouragement.

From the start of our courtship, Bunny knew that Elton was my favorite recording artist.  Even in his drug-fueled days, Elton’s work was still better than the auto-tuned wonders who would come later.  When we moved to Atlanta, we got to see him in concert several times.  Elton lived in Atlanta, too, so it was almost always a stop on his U.S. tours. 

Before he married me, Bunny had only a passing familiarity with Elton’s work, but he enjoyed the music enough that he kept going with me to concerts.   As with most other things, we found something in Elton’s concerts to incorporate into our short-hand language: whenever he played Rocket Man (which he does at every concert), Elton would go into elaborate, unscripted piano riffs before the last chorus.  These instrumental flights could sometimes last up to five minutes, and would occasionally be punctuated with the refrain “long, long time.”  After our second concert, “long, long time” became code for something that lasted a really (sometimes inordinately) long time. 

So, it had been a long, long time since I’d seen Elton: 2008, BC (before cancer).  Joey excitedly called me in June to tell me that Elton was coming to USF, and I got two tickets.  He and Corey tussled over who would go with me, and Corey won.  We snapped photos of the stage and of ourselves as we sat waiting.  Corey wondered why the stadium was only half-full.  I assured her that the other half of the audience would rush in at the last minute—for some reason, that’s the way it always worked.

 Finally, the lights went down.  2Cellos opened the concert, playing three songs in quick succession.  They are, literally, two (very cute) cello players from Croatia, and you’ve never heard cello playing like this!  Check them out at www.2cellos.com.  Watch the Highway to Hell clip, and you’ll see what I mean.  They’re touring with Elton, and play on many of his songs.

Finally, Elton came out, wearing a sparkly jacket and black pants with sparkly outside seams.  He looked a little heavier than the last time I saw him.  I guess he hasn’t lost the baby weight yet.  Despite my aversion to schmaltz, I usually tear up a little when he first comes out.  I just get overwhelmed with the excitement and admiration and memories.   This time was no exception.

Of the thousands of songs he could have chosen, he opened with Saturday Night’s Alright.  Immediately,  my mind flashed back to that exuberant night in Vegas when I danced onstage at Caesar’s.  So carefree, so secure, so happy: Bunny’s cancer was looming, undetected, and wouldn’t appear for another year.   If I could only turn back time to that night!  Crap!  Now tears were flowing down my cheeks.  I miss Bunny all the time, but it’s during special times like these that I miss him most.  He’d probably have thought up the baby weight comment before I did.

It took several songs before I stopped crying.  The girls (who were at least my age) in the row before ours kept snapping pictures of themselves.  I was growing irritated with them, and irritation trumps tears every time.  Then I noticed Corey making faces every time they snapped a photo.

“We’re in their pictures,” she said simply, screwing up her face for the next shot.  Great!  Somewhere out there, someone’s got about 20 photos of me crying.  Gggrrr!

Elton’s voice was strong and true from start to finish, which was two and a half hours later.  He played a lot of his old songs, with a good percentage of them coming from the Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album.   We also heard other familiar songs from days gone by, like Levon.  I smiled when I heard the first notes of this song, because it reminded me of one of our Abbott and Costello moments.

On about concert number four, about halfway through, Bunny asked me a question between songs.

“Do you think he’ll play my song?”

“Of course!  That’s how he always closes the concert—with Your Song.”  It was true:  the concert would always seemingly end, but he’d come back for one or two encores.  You knew not to leave your seat, though, until he played Your Song.  It was one of his very first hits, and probably his first U.S. hit, and it’s a pretty, sweet love song.

Finally, he played Your Song, and the lights came up.  I nudged Bunny toward the aisle, but he stood his ground.

“But he didn’t play my song!” he said, somewhat petulantly.

“Sure he did!  He just played it!”

“No!  My song has Levon, and Jesus.  He shall be Lee-Von!”  Bunny literally couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, so he spoke the line.

“Der!  That’s Levon, not Your Song!”  Then we laughed; silly misunderstandings like this one were too funny to take seriously.

True to form, the music eventually stopped and Elton left the stage.  Corey gathered up her purse.

“No, he’ll come back.  Just wait a minute,” I said.  She settled back down and, indeed, Elton returned.

He took the stage again and thanked us all for our loyalty and devotion—he knew that times are hard and that we could have spent our money elsewhere.  Then he started Your Song.  Of course, 95% of the people in the stadium knew the song, so they all sang along.  I couldn’t—my throat was tight from holding back the tears.  Only a few minutes before, I’d been dancing and belting out The Bitch is Back.

Finally, with second part of the chorus, I couldn’t hold back the tears any more: “I hope you don’t mind, I hope you don’t mind, that I put down in words: How wonderful life is while you’re in the world.”  When he was sick, there were days when he drove me to the very edge of insanity: Bunny was the first to admit that he was not a good patient.  But measured against the years of happiness we had together, the memory of those days faded long ago.   For the most part, life was wonderful while he was in the world.

Don’t get me wrong—the concert was awesome! Of all the concerts I’ve seen, I’d easily rank it in the top two, and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.  It just unexpectedly evoked some powerful memories for me.  Life will be wonderful again, just in a different way.  I may not have Bunny any more, but I’ll always have Elton.

Adventures in Wonderland

Awhile back, I posted about my foray into the world of online dating (The Not-So-Young and Restless).   I’d like to report that the three sites I joined (E-Harmony, Our Time and Plenty of Fish) resulted in a shower of eligible men who wanted to meet me.  Unfortunately, I can’t.  As of early June, I’d met one guy, and while he was nice enough, there just weren’t any sparks at all.  For me, anyway.

I also had what looked to be a promising prospect with a guy from Sweden who’d settled in Jacksonville.  Ruggedly handsome, gainfully employed as an engineer in the construction industry, about my age—he was perfect!  He was on a project in Texas and wouldn’t be back in Florida until it was done, which he anticipated would be in about a month.  We’d traded e-mails for about two weeks when he sent this really effusive, overly mushy e-mail about how much he loved me and how I was his soul mate, etc. etc. 

That set off my alarm bells (hello! stalker!!), and I told him so in no uncertain terms.  He backed off, pleading a language barrier, and I gave him the benefit of the doubt.  After all, the only Swedish I know is what’s in IKEA.   We got back on track and he proposed we text.  I told him I don’t do texting (which I don’t), so he suggested internet messenger.    IM didn’t work for several days, because we could never seem to connect at the same time.

Finally, one night the stars aligned and we were online together.  I was in an airport waiting for my flight home, and had a few hours to kill.  I was sitting at the power-strip counter at my gate, and was soon joined by two other women about my age.  My Swedish Meatball and I were only a few minutes into our conversation when he started bemoaning the fact that he’d run out of materials.   He needed more materials to finish the job and come home.  I asked him several questions and got increasingly suspicious from his answers.  Finally, he mentioned that $7,500 was all that stood between him and the project’s completion.

“Oh my God, it’s a scam!!”  I have the annoying habit of talking to myself (or Margeaux) out loud.  To those of you who’ve been subjected to this habit, I apologize and thank you for not killing me.  I didn’t realize how annoying it was until I was subjected to it by a co-worker who kept up a running monologue throughout the day.

The two women sitting with me at the counter looked up from their own computers.  I briefly explained the situation.  One suggested that I try to put the bite on him for money.  I vetoed that idea—the last thing I needed was for him to claim that I was scamming him.  After that, we started coming up with everything we could think of to portray me as a most undesirable target.   By the time I caught my flight, I was sure he’d written me off.  Just to be on the safe side, I blocked him from contacting me again.

Another seemingly promising prospect also fell suddenly by the wayside.  This guy was retired military, now teaching at a local community college.  He was around my age and, from his e-mails at least, seemed normal.  He advertised that he was looking for a sane, mature woman who was drama-free.  After trading correspondence for about a week, he asked for my phone number.   All the dating sites advise against daters disclosing their personal information, like, oh…phone numbers.  Aside from safety concerns, I generally hate talking on the phone, so I politely declined and suggested a Starbucks meeting instead.

Imagine my surprise when, in response, I received a flaming e-mail from him stating that he WOULD NOT meet someone he hadn’t first talked with by phone.   I tried e-mailing a reply, but he had blocked me.  Huh?  I guess he was looking for a sane, mature and drama-free woman to balance out the qualities he lacked.  I still can’t figure out what’s so special about talking on the phone, but a lot of these guys want to do it.

After that encounter, I decided that Plenty of Fish should rename itself Plenty of Shit, because that’s what I was finding there.  I deleted my profiles from all three sites and decided to fish elsewhere: Match.com.  For any of you looking to join the world of online dating, I highly recommend this site.  It’s very user friendly, and it offers a money-back guarantee is you haven’t found a match within six months. 

As soon as my profile went live, I started seeing some traffic.  Not an overwhelming amount, but a few potentials a day.  Plus, the site suggests eight or nine matches a day.  One Daily Match’s profile, in particular, caught my eye: the tag line read “Semper Ubi Sub Ubi” (Always Where Under Where).  His answers to the standard questions were quirky and funny.  He was at the top of my age range—65—divorced, retired, Jewish, and in my town.  The profile photo showed a deeply tanned man with a gray hair and a neatly trimmed beard to match.  His eyes were warm and inviting, a bit guarded, but twinkling with mischief.   I sent him a wink and he winked back.

After about a week of exchanging Haiku-like e-mails, we arranged to meet.  Drumroll, please.  We hit it off immediately—what started out as a happy hour meeting turned into a full-fledged, six hour date.   We’ve seen each other once or twice a week for the past month and we usually Skype at least once a day.  He’s wicked smart, funny and adventurous.   His name is William.  Having never lost my Louisiana penchant for nicknames, I’ve tried to give him several, but haven’t hit upon the right one yet.  I usually call him Will or Will.i.am.

It’s interesting how my outlook on dating has changed since my younger days.  The goal to dating back then was to find the best husband, father and life-mate I possibly could.  I found that person in Bunny, and now I don’t feel the need to fall in love or find my soul mate or get married again.  My only dating goal is to have fun with people who make me happy.   

Will and I enjoy each other’s company, whether it’s over dinner or moving furniture.   One of his favorite amusements is riding shotgun while I drive—I’m prone to mild, profanity-laced road-rage—and roaring with laughter over my comments.  We make each other smile and constantly learn things from each other.  I’m having a great time with someone who makes me happy, which is exactly what I set out to do.   

What the Hell is Topsy? And What Does it Have to Do With Healthcare?

Since all the furor over Obamacare seems to have settled to a dull rumble, now may be a good time to raise the issue here.  Affordable health care has very much been a part of my life for the past few years, between Bunny’s cancer and the treatments and my cervical spine fusion back in 2010. 

For years, we had insurance coverage through Bunny’s job, and a very small amount of his salary went toward the group premium.  No sweat.  We had access to the best doctors we could find.  Once Bunny ran out of FMLA time and his employer terminated him, we were in COBRA territory.  COBRA is supposed to provide health insurance without a gap—you pay the premium, and your coverage continues until the insurance at your next job kicks in.  Sounds good, right? Ha!

I was acquainted with COBRA from changing jobs many years ago—it’s expensive.   Very expensive.  For the exact same coverage we had before, we now paid as much for health insurance as we did for our monthly mortgage payment.  I don’t consider it “affordable” when you pay as much for the roof over your head as you do for health insurance.

Not paying for COBRA wasn’t even an option: Bunny needed chemo and blood transfusions.  He got desperately ill with the least provocation.  Worrying about the extra expense added to his already-anxious demeanor.  I assured him that everything would be okay, but he worried nonetheless: if we spent all our money on medical care, there’d be nothing left for me once he was gone.  At the time, we didn’t realize how little time he had left, and he was prepared to continue treatment as long as there was hope.

Finally, he hit upon a solution, borrowing a page from some of our friends who’d done the same thing years earlier: if things got too bad, we would divorce, and he could qualify for Medicaid and get medical care that way.   Knowing how much the whole situation upset him, I agreed, but I thought to myself: how fucked up is it that people would be so worried about having health care that they would dissolve an otherwise happy marriage?  Then I started hearing stories from every corner of the country about people who had done the exact same thing.

I’ve been on board for universal health care since way before Hilary’s plan.  I’ve always believed that health care is a basic necessity that everyone should have.  Socialized medicine?  That label doesn’t bother me.  When people need it, they should have access to it, and it should truly be affordable.

I’d never discussed the issue with my daddy, other than in passing.  My daddy has worked in health care his whole adult life, so he knows more about it than the average dad.  He’s also maddeningly logical in his thinking—kind of like Mr. Spock on Star Trek.  E-mails from him never took up more than a few lines, so I was surprised a few weeks ago when he sent me a draft of an e-mail he was sending to a friend who was losing her mind over Obamacare.  With his permission, I’m reprinting it here:

**********************

"It growed like Topsy”

I can remember the late 40s & early 50s, when the only wonder drugs were the sulfa drugs (developed in the 30s), newly released penicillin (if your doctor trusted it) and of course the patent medicine spectrum (Hadacol) . Immunizations were the most visible sign of medical research. These were affordable to even the poorest people.

Surgical procedures were primitive compared with those performed today on a daily basis. In Louisiana, the Charity Hospital System (taxpayer supported) provided care to anyone who could not afford (or was unafraid of the "charity" stigma) and was willing to be treated. Most of the private physicians in the state interned or completed residences in these facilities.

"Clinics" which were generally named for the physicians in the practice and reflected their personal training and attitudes had become available after the 30s as a result of the advent of medical-hospital insurance schemes, which were participated in by union members, state governments, enlightened employers and some individuals.

Transplants, implants and chemo were experimental and not available except to the wealthiest.

Generally, outside of state-supported hospitals, if you could not afford a specific treatment, you did not get it.

In sum, standardized medical care was a commodity which was not available to everyone and 'Nature abhors a vacuum'

Thus, the impact of Medicare $ on this system brought forth research, enhanced medical care, fraud, unnecessary treatment, unintended consequences, etc. (another vacuum waiting to be filled).

Now we have "Obama Care" which will have both good and ill consequences which are awaiting discovery.

Until we as a society are willing to honestly address the fundamental issues (medical ethics - an oxymoron?), the cycle will continue.

How much medical care for everyone do we really want?

Although I am willing to drive a clunker rather than a Maserati, am I willing to receive the same medical care as the poorest member of society? Should there be an available difference?

How much morality do we want to inject into the issue? birth control? abortions? pacemakers for 85 year olds regardless of mental/physical condition, CAT Scans and MRIs for someone obviously about to die?

Do I want a friend on the "Death Panel"?

I'm sure you can add a few others, but as usual it all comes back to $$, and a way to administer the system in such a way so as to please everyone.

­vox populi, vox dei

*********************************************

Thought-provoking, for sure—the issues he raises could spark endless debates.  I was astonished that he could write so well!  My e-mail back complimented him on the content, and asked the burning questions: What the hell is Topsy?  And what does it have to do with healthcare?

“It growed like Topsy,” it turns out, is an arcane saying that developed after Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published.  Topsy was a character in the novel, and in the years following, "it growed like Topsy" became a popular saying to describe something that grew or increased by itself, without apparent design or intention.   Daddy had been introduced to the saying by his north-Louisiana cousins during childhood.  It was a new one on me, and on my (well-read) step-mother and (English professor) step-sister, as well.

Maybe Obamacare isn’t perfect, but it’s a step in the right direction.  I’m sure it will evolve over time as the bugs get worked out.  I don’t have all the answers, but I do know one thing: people should be able to pay a reasonable amount for the opportunity to access health care.