On being a (Hospice) patient

I am in Hospice Care, at home, in my own bed and it is weird, unreal, surreal, but REAL. I finally know that the root of my evil is a failing heart with its fibrillations and pacemakers and old valves. They, or it, has a right. It's 90 years old, for heaven sakes.

After a miserable month of retching and nausea that made me moan like the tennis Williams sisters' serving, my doctor could not prescribe for me, without actually seeing me. I knew I could not go to his office. Our son Tim found a way. He secured an impressive  private ambulance service who maneuvered their way down my terrifying driveway. DG rode with the driver, Tim followed. They took me to a pre-arranged examining room, the IV was set-up and waiting, the EKG was done, blood drawn, a thorough end-of-life talk ( no death panel, this) and by the time the ambulance got me home, I was enrolled in Hospice.  

My New Yorker magazine ( August 2 issue) arrived the next day, and although I had not felt like reading for weeks, I was drawn in by the cover. There was this little old person, pedalling all alone on a yellow road, through a lovely forest. The rider had to be me; I was on the road to eternity. When I looked at the table of contents, I found an Annals of Medicine article, "Letting Go", a scholarly, well-documented argument in favor of Hospice care, written by Atul Gawande , Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health. I am likely reading more into this than it is, I know, but it felt absolutely cosmic to me.

That night, I fell into the first real sleep I had had in over a month, not drug-induced, just good old-fashioned sleep-sleep. The crickets, the katydids, the cicadas were singing a musical, a magical surround-sound  outaide my bedroom window. I was at peace with myself, with our hard-won decision. I am in the hands of the Lord.

How I spent Fathers' Day

To be honest, I have not been feeling all that good this week, and it was with trepidation that I went to sleep last night, wondering if I could go to the cemetery with DG today.

I woke up feeling better than I have. and so off we went to Greenlawn.  The day was beautiful, the sky was blue, and aside from missing a turn or two on the way to section 41, we arrived with Bob's favorite day lilies in hand. DG placed them on the overgrown headstone. The whole place is unkempt, but still beautiful, with the huge trees and the birds and God's blue skies. We sat in the car together, then, and rememberd DG's Dad, and we cried because we think he would be pleased to see how well we are doing.

Then we drove around to the other side of the section, and we put day lilies on my Dad's head stone.  He has been gone since 1938.  Still, he is always in my thoughts. He was, to my children "the real Al Harmon"; as much as they and I adored Al Harmon Jr., they are still respectful and loving to a man they never knew. There have two Al Harmons since my brother; we have Rocky, Al III and Weiler, Al IV. And I think it is appropriate to include Alex Ruben, named for Molly's Dad.

We stopped for Starbucks on the way home, and visited with each other some more...

A perfectly wonderful day. I wish the same to all your parents out there. 

I don't have time to edit this.  The Pebble Beach golf tournament has just come on.  It's kind of ironic that I am rooting so hard for Tiger, who doesn't seem to have been a wonderful father, but his Dad was so important in his life, and in his skill , that it is fitting that I salute all fathers everywhere, including, of course, the fabulous fathers, Bob and Tim Greene.

The need to know

I have always been a policy wonk; long before there was such a descriptive word. I read every paragraph James Reston wrote, and corresponded daily, by letter, to the Eisenhower White House. (Oh, that Ike; he must have had his mind on Kay Summersby; he never responded to my letters. I thought-- and I still do-- that the better informed a citizenry, the better the country would become.

Wrong! wrong!

Now, I am ready to throw in the towel. Everyone has what they consider an informed position, and everyone feels a need to write about it. There are paid pundits and self-promoting folks who use Jack Cafferty, for instance, to get their two-cent worth of "wisdom" out to the public.

Have a certain point of view, and you will find a newspaper, a radio station, a news channel to give you access... and validity and visibility. We are drowning in words. (Believe me, I love words, I'm a writer.) Just don't use the words foolishly; use them so they are useful , not full of hot air.

I was not going to blog today, but this morning, as I tried to digest the Dispatch and the New York Times, I had my a -ha moment. I just don't give a damn. It seems incredible but no one is credible anymore.

I may spend my days idly watching soap operas, eating boxes of bon-bons as the world turns.

It's all about my driveway

Norah Ephron wrote about her neck and Sarah Silverman about her bladder, and it's my driveway that is worthy of a blog, if not a book. 

"Many long years ago," the story begins. The house was built by people who wanted nothing but the best. Not my style, exactly. Not my style at all. We bought it, though, because it really is a great house and, eventually, the heavy velvet drapes with the lace panels beneath wore out... and I have lived with the stone-encrusted bathroom counter tops so long I don't even notice them.

The house sits below a (very) small hill. It is a horizontal house and it seems to me that, if in the beginning, they  could have designed a semi-circular drive down the hill past the house and then up the hill, again, to a road hardly ever travelled, life would be a lot easier for my aging friends who come to see me.  But I'm no engineer and the property is narrower at the top than down in the back So. We have a driveway that is a pain for guests and, in winter, unmanageable.

We always drove down into the garage, and backed up to the street. When I was in my prime, I could almost do it with my eyes closed. Others, less familiar with the terrain have come close to tipping over. "Come close" is the worst that ever happened.  Thank the good Lord.

It is these difficult Ohio winters that have, truly, caused the problem. Adhering to the principle of "nothing but the best, the original drive was concrete. By the time it became ours, the concrete was  cracking up. We had taken on as much as we could handle to buy the house. Concrete was too much of an investment.

We went with blacktopping. Blacktopping, blacktopping year after year after year, because the %^&#&* concrete base kept cracking up beneath the blacktop.

The black-toppers are here today. They have applied one coat and an asphalt patch, and will be back this afternoon for coat two.

At this terrible time when the Gulf beaches are covered with tar, it is ironic that I am needing more tar.

The world is so full of problems. Norah's neck or Sarah's bladder or Phyllis' driveway seem ridiculous to even mention. But I cannot help thinking about it, imprisoned as I will be for 72 hours.

May I call you Phyllis?

I was making one of those necessary, and usually annoying, phone calls: to order shoes, or question a charge, or change my gas supplier, at the end of a two-year contract that I should never have chosen in the first place. I wish I could remember exactly who it was, for this is a kudo to them or their phone rep.

After I had identified myself to a robot, either by my phone number or the last four digits of my "social", a lovely-sounding human being said to me, "May I call you Phyllis?" I was dumb-founded! How long has it been since anyone asked your permission to call you by your first name?  Daily, someone calls and says, 'Phyllis, are you interested on our special price for grub-control?", when they aren't even my lawn service, or, in my e-mail, there are messages from purveyors of goods I have used that start, "Phyllis, it's time to send Carolyn flowers again."

It is not that I think I ought to be called "Mrs. Greene" because of age or seniority, although I am always older than the caller. Are there any jobs for 90 year old gardeners or even on phone-banks? I think not, although there are plenty of the aging population who could use the income and welcome the diversion.

I have always suggested to care-givers that they call me Phyllis. They are my friends, as is everyone who  helps me in anyway. Nobody should expect due-deference; that should have expired with slavery.   I did have a severely ill friend whose family had called in Hospice. The nurse, on her first visit, called the client by his first name; his wife saw the expression on his face and when they left his room to talk, the wife said, "I think he would prefer to be called Mr. K.....". 'Nuf said.

When I first got very sick, three years ago, I had a care giver who had lived in Paris most of her life, but whose family still lived on the Ivory Coast, where her mother, the matriarch, had care-givers of her own. She had some relationship to African royalty. Martha refused to call me Phyllis; it was improper to use a first name for an older woman. She referred to me as "La Contessa". I was never sure she meant it as a  sign of respect, or if she was inferring that I was surely not worthy of the title, and , in some way, she was condescending of me.

Whatever.  Please, just call me Phyllis. It is very nice if you ask what "title" I prefer. I would appreciate your asking. But I warn you in advance, if you are comfortable with Ms., Mrs. or hey you, just say it. But remember, I ain't no Contessa.  

This morning, I went to the Legacy exhibit at the Columbus Jewish Center. Toby Brief, another Designated Daughter, who came home when her father died, volunteered to be the innovator, designer, historian and curator of one of the most exciting historical exhibits I have ever seen. She has given meaning and beauty to the story of the Jewish immigration to Columbus, Ohio. It was a wonderful experience, looking and listening as D.G. pushed me around in my wheel chair.

As I have been contemplating the wonderful ninety years I have led, I have zeroed in on the events of these nine decades; this morning I realized how privileged I am to really have personal memories of my antecedents. There is hardly anyone left to whom I can talk about those people. As a little girl, my father took me to see his father, and two old ladies who were his step-grandmother and, I think, a step-great aunt. Aunt Bet was a little, round old lady who lived up a steep flight of stairs. Great grandfather, Henry, had arrived in Columbus in the 1860's and had run a grocery store. He brought his first wife and their children, and when she died, he remarried and had more children.

There were fascinating maps of early Columbus, the merchants side by side on High Street. There was a section devoted to the early junk dealers, all of whom grew prosperous by turning their scrap metals into something else.

At each stop I babbled on, I kept saying, "His grandson was in my confirmation class" or "yes, she was Uncle Harry's sister."

The collection of items is beautiful, and beautifully presented. The meaning is even more significant. Keep the old pictures and artifacts. Write your memories. You probably have no idea what it will mean to future generations.

Political news made personal

Alert: this is not a political blog, but, I think the reason it appeared on the front page of the Dispatch is a subtle reminder that it is much better to have the Casino in Franklinton than in the Arena District. Of course, if we hadn't had a constitutional amendment in the first place and blah, blah, blah...

Whatever.  The cut was an old car lot and the copy was:
        Holy intentions for an old car lot 
         West side Catholic Church is looking to a former Ford dealership as a new soup kitchen and museum
            Long before the dealership, the ground was home to the Convent of the Good Shepherd...
 This is where my story begins.

In 1942, after many months of heart-to-heart, Q&A, countless contention about the advisability of marrying a brand new infantry Second-Lieutenant, I finally was the winner and my parents would send me off to Oregon to be married. We announced our engagement in July, when the groom  was home on leave before moving to Medford, Oregon to help activate the 91st Division at Camp White.

Whether it was a delaying tactic or a sign of the times, we could not set the date until my trousseau: slips and gowns and a beautiful floor-length velvet robe could be hand stitched by the Nuns at the Convent of the Good  Shepherd. Those Nuns were very slow at their stitching. Time, and my groom, were a' wasting.

Finally, finally at long last, the arrangements were made to travel to Portland, Oregon for the wedding. Bob's mother and my mother went with me on the train. The flowers, the Rabbi, the photographer had all been arranged for. The small ceremony in a suite at the Benson hotel, and then dinner in a private dining room there, and off we flew to Medford. My mother gave us the left-over liquor which I tucked into my luggage. The plane, a DC-something was not pressurized, and as we snuggled in our bumpy seats, the tops popped off the scotch and the bourbon.

Arriving at the St. Francis Hotel at 3:00 a.m., our promised room had been given to someone else, but, they had an empty bridal suite for us. As we opened our luggage, the suite smelled like a brewery. The Nuns had slaved in vain! My navy, monogrammed lingerie bags had faded on to everything! We draped them around the living room and went to bed. Laughing.

And we lived happily ever after. Laughing for 56 years.