Dancing My Butt Off

I love to renovate things, and I’m pretty good at it.  So toward the fall of last year, I started thinking about how I would begin to renovate my life.  I knew what my first project would be: getting physically fit.  As I told Joey one day, you can only blame the dryer so long.

I’ve never been a skinny girl—even at my very thinnest (senior year of high school), I’ve never worn a single-digit size.  Luckily, I have a large frame, so I can carry a few extra pounds better than my tiny-framed friends can.   I grew up in a state famous for its good food, and in a family that loved to eat.

My step-father and I worked at the same hospital for several years.  Donald used to go to suppers with some of the other guys who worked there.  One day, I overheard one of them having a conversation in the cafeteria.

“Have you ever seen Berlin’s family eat?” he asked.

“No,” came the reply.

“That’s some eatin’ people!” he exclaimed incredulously.

I laughed, as did Donald when I recounted the story to him, but it was true.  My male cousins, particularly, were legendary for the amount of food they could put away.  I’ve had a step-brother and several cousins banned from all-you-can-eat buffets.  Out of a big extended family, my grandmothers and my mother were the only mediocre cooks. 

Still, I managed to maintain a healthy weight throughout my early 20s.  Bunny and I got married when we were 24, and were both fit on our wedding day.  Soon after we got married, though, we both gained a little weight.  Within a few years, we had both gained a lot of weight.  By the time I was in my late 30s, I could only buy clothes from the plus-sized departments, and Bunny had long since graduated to specialty stores.  How did this happen?  We were working long hours and our free time was fairly sedentary.  We both hated—HATED—to exercise.  It’s a familial trait. 

We started a low-fat diet, joined a gym and got a trainer.  For about three months, we trained together, and we both lost some weight.  Bunny dropped out shortly after that—he was tired of low-fat foods and of taking the time away from whatever his hobby at the time was.  I stuck with it a little longer—even though I was starving all the time—until my crazy work schedule made it impossible to be consistent with the trainer.  Plus, the trainer had long since begun to bore me with the lack of variety in my routines.

I hovered at the low end of the plus-size range for a while, until I changed jobs.  Early on in my new position, I periodically went to live in Houston for weeks or months at a time to help the office there with a crushing trial calendar.  One of the attorneys from the New Orleans office—Ros—also camped in Houston.  We were staying at the same apartment complex, and she had just read about the Atkins program: low carb, high protein.  We could eat meat, eggs, butter, cheese, and most salad-type vegetables.  Potatoes, bread, and pasta were forbidden.  We started Atkins together, driving our boss batty whenever we went to a restaurant with him.  

On any other diet I’d tried—and I’d tried them all—I always felt like I was starving to death.  Atkins was an adjustment, because I was suddenly doing without the foods that made me fat in the first place—potatoes, pasta and bread.  But once I got past the first two weeks, it was easy.  The weight started melting off.

Then I got one of the first Wiis that came out, chiefly for exercise.  I loved the Wii, because I could work out in the privacy of my own home.  Every day when I exercised, the cats would gather around to watch.  For some reason, it fascinates them to see me sweating.

During the last two years, I got less religious about exercising.  The thing that initially stopped me cold in my tracks was when I had a cervical spine fusion in April of 2010.  I had to wear neck braces for about six weeks, and by the time I was recovered, Bunny was starting to decline, health-wise.  I spent my spare time going with him to doctor’s appointments or hospitals, or just spending time with him.  

It’s not a good excuse for my not exercising, but those of us who don’t like to exercise don’t need much of an excuse.  Here’s the biggest lie that we tell ourselves: I don’t have the time.  I have friends who are addicted—addicted—to exercise!  If they don’t exercise every single day, they get antsy or out-of-sorts.  One has to swim for an hour.  One lifts weights.  The tri-athletes are the worst—they are like the vegans of exercise.

Other friends work out because they realize it’s a necessary evil.  I seem to know a lot of runners in this category.  Running has never appealed to me, for a variety of reasons.  As the saying goes, if you see me running, you’d better run, too, because something is chasing me.

Anyway, over the past two years, my weight was quietly sneaking upward.  At first, it was because Bunny would bring forbidden foods into the house.  Frosties, cake, ice cream—you name it; if it was unhealthy, he’d eat it.  A lot of it.   On the days when my resolve was strong, I’d stay away from it.  As time wore on, my resolve grew less strong.

I would chide him for bringing the forbidden food de jour into the house, and he’d protest that it was “only a little” and that I shouldn’t eat it if it was so bad.  Ha!  That’s like living with a crack addict and bringing ‘only a little’ crack home and telling her to stay away from it!

Once Bunny was gone, I didn’t have the desire to do much of anything in my spare time, particularly exercise.  By the fall of last year, I realized that I had to make some changes, and getting fit was top of the list.  There’s a relatively new gym about three miles from my house.  We actually joined when it first opened, but never went.  I got online and signed up, then visited on the next Monday.

There are some projects I won’t attempt by myself: auto repair comes to mind.  Getting into shape fell into auto repair territory—I wanted a trainer to help me efficiently get into shape and help me get motivated to keep it up.  Even though there were lots of classes at the gym, I didn’t join any.  There are some things I just don’t like doing in a group.

I was introduced to the personal trainer manager (or, as I like to call him, the personal trainer pimp (he prefers the term godfather)).  He oversees the personal trainers and their clients.  We met for about an hour, and he quizzed me on my health, my goals, and numerous other things.  We decided that my training program would be three times a week, for 25 minutes each time.  I could change trainers any time I wanted, and he encouraged me to change them every once in a while to work with a variety of styles.

He encouraged me to start out with Sarah (not her real name), who was good with people who hadn’t exercised in a while.  On November 1, 2012, I started training.  Sarah seemed nice enough, but she wasn’t exactly a ball of fire; she had less personality and enthusiasm than a damp dish cloth.   By the end of the first month, I was ready to change.  She convinced me to stick with her a little longer.  Every time I mentioned changing, because the pimp—er—godfather--had told me to change, she would give me a sad look, like I was abandoning her. 

Finally, I couldn’t stand her another minute.  I was very discouraged, because I wasn’t seeing the kind of results I’d expected after a month’s time. I was also bored out of my mind with her routines.  I went to see the pimp.  We discussed a number of trainers on the roster, and he described each one’s style to me.  When he got to Corey (which really is his name), he looked a bit doubtful.

“He’s got a different style all together.  He’ll push you hard.”

“Perfect! Sign me up!”

I met Corey Trainer (so as not to confuse him with Corey daughter-in-law) the next day.  I loved him immediately—he was efficient, knowledgeable and no-nonsense.  I could tell that a personality lurked beneath the drill sergeant-like exterior he presented at our first meeting.   

We focused on stretching exercises at the first session.  He told me I needed to stretch every day, no exceptions.  I questioned this requirement to myself, but I’ve since learned that stretching does make a huge difference.  Plus, it’s made me hella flexible! 

He asked about physical limitations.  I told him that, other than hyperextending my neck, the only limitations I had were because of my—ahem—ample bust.  I have what my mother used to call the “Chatelain Boobs.”   I come from a family of well-endowed women.

“Get some good sports bras.  Double or triple them up.  We’re going to be doing a lot of running.”    Hello!  How had the other trainer—a woman, no less—failed to mention this?  When the Chatelain Boobs had gotten in the way during her exercises, we moved to different exercises.

“How much cardio are you doing every week?” he asked. 

“Thirty minutes almost every day,” I answered.  It was true, and probably the only reason I’d lost any weight since November.

“Try doing an hour four times a week.  And you gotta sweat.”

Maybe at our first meeting, he thought he was stuck with some doughy grandmother who would quickly flame out.  I’ll have to ask the next time I see him.  If that was the case, it wasn’t long before he learned differently.

“I love your motivation.  And your focus.  You’re very driven,” he said at our third session, when I was on my third set of lifting a seemingly impossible amount of weight.  I never have forgotten my Lamaze techniques, 31 years on—focus, breathe—deliver an almost 10 pound baby without anesthesia or lift a gazillion pounds of weight.

Corey Trainer challenges me, pushes me, and motivates me.  He makes me feel like he’s actually invested in my outcome. He’s loosened up a lot since our first meeting, and he does have a playful side. Now—shock of all shocks—I actually look forward to going to the gym!  What new torture has he devised for me today? I’ll show him!  Every trip is like an adventure--a big, sweaty adventure. 

Based on his advice, I started dancing (Wii Just Dance 1-4, mostly) for an hour a night rather than 30 minutes.  I started out at four times a week, but love doing it so much that I do it nearly every night.  In fact, if I don’t dance, I start jonesing to do it.  Am I—gasp—addicted to the dance?  I think I am. 

Since November 1^st, I’ve lost a little over 20 pounds.  Most of that has come off since December 17^th, when I started working out with Corey Trainer.  I’ve got tone and definition in places that never had them before (hello, biceps!), even when I was at my lowest weight.   I’ve become one of those freaky exercise addicts, dancing my butt off—literally and figuratively.  Hey, at least it keeps the cats entertained.

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.