Why Eating Out is Not What It Used to Be

                  

                 I think my salads should come from home, like this one, from now on.

 

              If I were to be honest, I would tell you that I remain astounded that the damage done in the COVID era has not improved.  I live in a Mid-Atlantic state which is, not in the least, a depressed area. During the COVID era, all of the restaurants in our county closed leaving only a couple of fast food restaurants near the interstate exits. Originally, we thought that the normal restaurants would return, but they haven't. One by one, they closed permanently.  Now, even the sheriff's department drives to the edge of the county to go to a better fast food joint.

                   In a quest to eat properly, I don't eat out often. Once in awhile though, I get sick of preparing food, meal planning, or I just want to have some food I didn't make myself.  Last week, I took the family to the Wendy's just off the interstate. One of us had wanted a particular burger they had as a special promotion. I had not been to this location in about four years.  We ordered, and then stood to wait. The total for three people, including my salad, was thirty-two dollars. When we realized that the people who were actually getting their food had ordered more than a half an hour ago, we decided to fill our cups and sit down. The restaurant wasn't particularly busy, but there were a few young families ordering.  Forty-five minutes later, they called us. "Oh, you're food isn't ready," they said. "We just wanted to make sure that you hadn't left".  About ten minutes after that they called us to collect our food.

                    We ate inside,foolishly hoping the food would be worthy of the wait. Mine was a very average iceberg lettuce salad with crouton crumbles flavored with parmesan, some asiago slices, chopped chicken and two Caesar salad dressing packets that were 240 calories each if you used all of them.

                    I ate half the salad and all of the chicken on it.  The following day I was ill, I believe from the salad.  I resolved not to eat there again, but who knows, in another four years, I could be stupid enough to turn the roulette wheel again, in this location.

                    It has taken several days for my stomach to feel better. I am still not back to what is a normal diet for me. Today, I was in another town running an errand and I was hungry, realizing that I haven't eaten today.  I stopped by a very busy Hardees, thinking that something small would be a good idea, and that all the locals standing inside waiting to order couldn't all be wrong. After I entered, I noticed that there were people arguing with the staff about how long they had been waiting.  "I'm sorry ma'am", said one of the younger workers. "No one wants to work".  I ordered a small portion of chicken strips, and a cole slaw and a drink. It came with french fries. I waited fifteen minutes.  When I took my order, I asked for honey mustard and ketchup packets. They were out of those. They ran out of french fries during the time I was waiting.  Then I asked for a fork for the cole slaw, and they were out of that too.  

                   I think I'm just going to load a cooler for the car and eat out of that in the future. You might wish to do the same.

                 

Goodbye "Carole"

               

                                    This is not my Paddington, but you get the idea.

 

 

       Yesterday, before I woke up, I dreamt I spoke with a friend I haven't spoken to for many years. I hadn't been able to look her up over the years because I don't know what name she used after she was divorced, and so we had lost touch.

                 When I was a young girl, I graduated from high school at sixteen and went on to college.  A young man I dated was friends with many people from other colleges and so I met a woman I will call Carole. My boyfriend had been a mutual friend of Carole and her husband.  Carole was a college student from a wealthy family who had married into a wealthy family.  She was navigating learning to be a wife while going to college,  while also being a twenty something with friends.  I remember her as particularly kind and generous.  She once tried to lend me her Mercedes while my car was being repaired.

                  I became a friend and confidante to Carole, and she became a slightly older friend and chief "encourager" to me.  Life was hard for us both. I was navigating being the youngest person in my college class and having family issues, and she was navigating being a young wife to a man she didn't understand. We did our best to support each other. However, I was young enough not to be able to offer much more than encouragement myself. 

                  Before long these days ended. I moved and attended a different college, and she admitted that her husband was abusive, and she moved away before finally getting a divorce.  We spoke in notes a few more times, but last time we spoke she had a new job and new life, and I wasn't sure whether I would be a reminder of those tough days with her first marriage.

                   In the busy years that followed we lost touch.  Over the years, I have thought about her from time to time, but I have not been sure what last name she used after her divorce, or whether she remarried afterward.

                   In my dream yesterday morning, she told me "My name is Stevenson. I use my maiden name".

That morning, I looked up the woman I will call "Carole Stevenson" for the purpose of this post.  There she was.  After relocating, my friend had become a businesswoman.  She married briefly and had a daughter.  She was divorced again and moved to another state.  Eventually, her daughter grew up, married, and had a son.   My friend was diagnosed with cancer and was taken care of by her second former husband until her death last year.  In her obituary was a lovely fairly recent picture that was so clearly the woman I had known all those years ago.

                   The really funny thing about this is that one December, she and I went shopping in Morristown, New Jersey.  I believe it was Bamberger's that had the large Paddington bear with the hat, the raincoat, and wellington boots. I remember commenting that I loved Paddington and that I had read all the stories as a child.  The bear was a fortune and so I didn't give it any thought.  Carole must have returned another day and bought it for me, because she gave it to me in a large shopping bag as a Christmas present that year.  The bear was not only cherished by me, but it lived on a shelf in every one of my children's rooms at some time or another through the years. It is still a point of fascination for my grandson.

                     I don't understand how Carole could have been young, lived an entire life, and died, and I could have grandchildren now, and Paddington Bear looks as new as he did that first day in Bamberger's.

                    Carole, you have been missed from my life, but I was happy to trade your presence if it meant a new start and chance for happiness for you. I will always remember you fondly.

              

The Fight Against Bitterness

 

 

 

  Some years ago, a friend of mine who was a physician had charges brought against him, that I agreed, were unfair.  The entire matter could have been handled much better than it was. Eventually, the matter was settled, although he did lose a very large amount of money spent for legal fees.  He asked me to pray for him, and his request was very specific. He asked that I pray that he not become bitter. I told him that I would, but that he never would become bitter. That's just not his personality, and that he loved people and God too much to fall into such a place.  I was correct about that.  He continued his practice, and his life, still supporting people he believed were good, still leading family and students in the right way, and still being a shining light for many.  He died in his 90s.

           Now, I stand at a similar crossroad.   My son Daniel died at 12, presumably due to a sudden heart rhythm disturbance, fifteen years ago.  A year ago, my son Matthew died at 32, just after an influenza vaccine.

              Both of the professions in which I made a living have gone mad.  They are training providers quickly and the result are poorly trained practitioners with insufficient clinical who are too interventionist and show poor judgment all too often.  The COVID debacle is another issue.  Our current American government is another. Hospital systems are being taken over by accountants when physicians should still head up major clinical decision-making, and too many times, they no longer do. Changes in health insurance and its expense, and inflation generally are making life difficult for many.

           Everywhere I look the things that made life worth investing in and working for, have been degraded.  My Trust and Will planning has also been decimated by the loss of two of my sons.

           It would be easy for me to look at all that has been taken from my life and from the lives of my remaining children and young grandchildren.  Sometimes, these losses really do eclipse the many good things that have also fallen into this life.

            And so I ask you now to pray for me, and for my family.  Please pray that I continue to meet the challenges of this life and that I do not become bitter at the continuing losses. Please pray that I continue to be able to see the way forward and move in a way that inspires my friends, my readers and my family.  Thank you.  May God bless you all.

From All Those Years Ago

               

                                    From all those years ago

 

             I don't talk about this much, but when I was 20, and in college, I got married during the Summer break. We had two close friends accompany us as witnesses, and went to a lovely country church.  We'd had all the premarital counseling, and then to a reception of sorts at a favorite inn before going home to our very first apartment. Just a couple of weeks later, I returned to college for my final year.

                 We both had some things in common. We both enjoyed international and domestic travel. We both had problems at home, from which each of us were seeking an escape. I did well in the last year of college, and then, we had planned that I would work while he completed his final year.  However, in that first year of marriage, even when the pressure was off, he wasn't thrilled about following through with our plans and completing college.  I had been serious about being married and so when I saw there were some problems, fairly quickly, we entered marital counseling.  Some of it worked and some of it left us realizing that we were poorly suited for one another in a number of respects and had very different expectations of life in general.

                 Eventually, we moved out of state, and he did not adapt particularly well there. I won't go in to additional detail because I believed then, and now, that when you were married to someone, you owe them silence on the subject of their failings and shortcomings.  We had an amicable divorce.

                  In the years that followed, he turned up like a friend from time to time. He was generally supportive of my remarriage, and he was probably relieved not to have the responsibilities, as my husband and I had four children.  My husband would occasionally help him when he had a question about his car or by explaining something a mechanic had said to him.  Eventually, he moved back to his home state, and from the occasional card, we gathered that he was happy there, and things were going as expected. Then, the cards stopped.

                  Those years were busy and so I didn't worry too much when the cards stopped.  I had built a life after him, and I hoped he had done the same. I actually thought he had probably built a life with someone else, just as I had, and that we were simply not important enough to keep contact, and that was okay.  Then, the years passed. The kids grew up, attended college, each of my parents passed, and then my youngest son died suddenly. I thought it a little strange that no matter how much went wrong in my life, that no one I'd known was in touch with him or ever let him know.  I did think it was strange that we hadn't gotten a card from him.  

                    It took all I had to recover from the losses of those years, and one of the ways I did that was to write.  My first two books were published and released in 2012, and a total of six have been released following that time. By now, not hearing from my former husband had to be deliberate. He couldn't possibly be dead. I remembered his social security number and so I ran it through the death registry, and it wasn't there, and so he had to have been alive somewhere.  More years passed, and we heard nothing, and the relatives he had that I knew, were dead.

                     Almost a year ago, we lost our thirty two year old son, some hours after a flu vaccine.  We also lost a number of friends and acquaintances during the COVID era, some of which followed their COVID injections. Within the backdrop of this terrible loss, I began to touch base with many friends I hadn't heard from in some time.

                    Eventually, I contacted a cousin of my former husband.  I learned that after he moved back to the Northeast, that he learned that he had a very rare type of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.  From the outset, his chances of recovery or survival were not good, and so he focused on palliative rather than curative care. He also didn't share much about his condition to very many people while trying to enjoy the time he had remaining.  Eventually, he had a controversial surgery, and was left for the rest of his life in a wheelchair. He spent the remainder of his life in a nursing home. Two close friends from high school were there for him. I am told that they asked a number of times I he wanted me to be contacted, but he never did, and he was quite clear on this.

                    He died in 2006, long before either of my parents or my sons, Daniel or Matthew, died. He has been gone from the Earth for years, and I never knew. I never even had an inkling, which is so very strange because I am the woman who knew when my daughter had been in a car accident, when she was merely five minutes late home from work. (I had simply seen a picture of her in my head, that she was very frightened, while driving.) I didn't even feel his absence from the Earth in all those years. 

                      Life moves quickly. Make sure that you stay in touch with those who were important in your life. I had always hoped that he would reach a point in his life where he would want a marriage and then find someone who would share his interests. It makes me sad that this likely did not happen for him. I also hate the thought that he suffered, even though I hear that he closed out his life on his own terms, as much as was possible. May he rest in peace.

               

Welcome to the Third World

                   

                                                        A mall similar to the one discussed.

 

 

   We live in a rural place but sometimes we make it to one of three small Southern cities for shopping, or something else.  We no longer go very often, and so the changes in these places seem very clear and obvious to us.

                        Yesterday, my daughter, grandson and I went shopping in a particular shopping center that we used much more about twenty years ago.  Two of our kids were in college in that city, and for that reason, they or I were at the shopping center sometimes three times a week. It was a bit upscale and had some good shopping, a medical supply shop, an electronics shop,a bank,  a Tuesday Morning, a large chain grocers, about seven good restaurants, and some physicians, dentists and veterinarian's offices. One of the restaurants had a very reasonable Asian buffet, and so when the kids who were in college needed something, or when they needed some extra money or something, I used to meet them there for lunch.

                        I fully understand that malls have a lifespan.  Upscale malls don't remain upscale malls. As they age, they may or may not find their original occupant stores remaining with them. Some stores will go out of business. Others might find a less expensive commercial rental arrangements. The only constant anywhere is change.

                       About five years ago, the medical supply store moved away. A Dollar Tree moved in. The great Asian buffet closed.  Two bus stops were placed inside the mall.  The bus stop brought more customers, but it also brought elderly and disabled customers.   I stopped at the mall one day and a woman asked me if I could help her with her copay to the methadone clinic.  I didn't but I did some checking.  Yes indeed, there is a methadone clinic on the bus line, and they do actually charge a copay.  Shortly after, a vehicle that says Mall Security began making regular sweeps throughout the mall.

                       A couple of times when I had stopped to shop in Tuesday Morning, the police were in another part of the mall. There had been fist fights, and a couple of times a shop owner had called to have someone with a psychiatric problem removed from their store.  The family and I joked that it might not be safe for us to be shopping there any more.

                      Last year, Tuesday Morning, which is a business that has existed in the US for fifty years with many branches, closed its doors. Their store remains empty. A number of other stores have closed since, including some restaurants.  I am told the homeless bring sleeping bags and sleep within the courtyard of one of the empty restaurants.

                      Yesterday, we stopped by during the day because our errand took us to the area.   My grandson wanted to make a quick trip to the Dollar Tree.  When I tried to use the bathroom there, there were signs up that said that the bathrooms were not for customers, and were for employees only.  This was funny because it's exclusively self checkout with only one employee overseeing your checkout.  So, before leaving I went to Roses, which I remembered from ten years ago has a bathroom in the front of the store.  They have a sign that says, "See Customer Service for Key to Bathroom".   When I got to customer service, there was a woman using a walked with a walking cast on her left leg. She had come for the bathroom key, and customer service didn't have one and knew nothing about one. She was yelling at them because Dollar Tree hadn't let her use the bathroom either.  I told her that the Food Lion across the mall, had a bathroom. She said she couldn't walk as far as that.  She told the employees in the Roses that she was going to urinate in their grass outside. They shrugged.

                       As I drove to the Food Lion, a store that the manager has told me is dying in that location, I noticed signs saying that public urination and defecation is prohibited there.  Welcome to the Third World.  I don't shop much outside my own county any more.  I order the few things I need online and they arrive at our office.  We pick them up and take them to the farm. I have no way of gauging if this is occurring at other locations here in the South. If it is, then it may end shopping as we know it in the US.  Why would women with young children ever take them to such a place ?   Why would anyone go to lunch in a shopping center like this ?   Why would one shop there and incur risk, when they could buy whatever it is online ?

Remembering Dr. Leo Masciulli

               Some years ago, when I was still in college and still a teenager, working on getting my RN, I worked for a major teaching hospital, on a surgical unit as an LPN. I learned a great deal from this job, and it probably contributed to my learning about the profession, as much as college did.

                Since it was an academic hospital, I met everyone from attending physicians, to specialist physicians, interns, residents, fellows, and everyone in between. I still remember many of those people, and the important things they taught me in the course of caring for patients. This week, I took one of my adult children to an ophthalmologist who is also a retinal specialist. I could not help but think of the very first physician of this type that I had met. I was nineteen years old when working at Middlesex General Hospital, which later became the Robert S. Woods Johnson Medical Center where many physicians are trained. There was a fairly young attending physician named Dr. Leo Masciulli. He was notable not just because he was young, but because he genuinely loved what he was doing. When patients came in with a detached retina, and were blind, and often frankly hopeless, he was excited by the challenge of restoring their sight in that eye. He also came armed with a series of jokes which very much set the patients at ease, and sometimes, the stressed out nursing staff also. The doctor was also intrigued by all the new equipment that had come out in ophthalmology and he was thrilled when he found someone who had a few minutes so he could show them the new piece of equipment and how it could possibly help someone to restore their sight, or possibly to avoid losing it in the first place. I don't think I ever saw him discouraged, annoyed, or bored. I also never heard him say a cross word to anyone, and we were working in a place where the stakes were high and stress was high also.

                I am lucky that I remember almost all of the names of the physicians and other medical specialists I worked with at the absolute start of my career. I have kept in touch with some of them, followed the careers of others, and sent flowers sometimes, when some of them passed. A lot of physicians don't live a long lifespan. Even when they are calm, cool and collected, the work and the stress takes a toll. Even when they appear to have a work life balance, many of them don't live the lifespan we might anticipate for them. When I got home from the retinal specialist, I looked up Dr. Leo, and found that he had died in 2011. From the comments left by those who worked with him, knew him, and loved him, he hadn't changed much over the years. He remained passionate about his craft and about laser surgery. He still joked. Unsurprisingly, he was devoted to his family and to his grands, and he loved golf. I was happy to leave my own recollections of him. Rest in peace, Dr. Leo.

 

 

 

Thoughts on the Increasing Rates of Suicide

 

 

            This week, in order to renew several of my professional licenses, I had to do an awful lot of continuing education. Normally, I do some all year long and so there's no need to catch up. This year, probably because my son Matthew died, I have not been keeping up with many of the things I normally do. So, I had to spend quite a few hours playing catch up.  Some licenses specify courses you must take while others simply specify a certain number of continuing education hours. For one of these licenses, I needed to take a course on Suicide.

            Suicide was a big focus in college when we studied psychiatric nursing, and before we did state psychiatric clinicals and private hospital clinicals also.  Since suicide is a point of focus in almost every specialty, such as cancer, psychiatric nursing, critical care, neurology, transplant units etc., almost everywhere I have ever worked has required some type of continuing education on recognizing suicidal behavior in your patient or a coworker. So this eight hour course, and lengthy exam is about the thirtieth time I have had to focus on the subject.

            As I began to take the course, I had to think of my father. My father believed that people who were terminally ill, in pain, or in some other type of psychic pain should be entitled to receive physician assistance to safely and comfortably effect their own suicide. I vehemently disagreed. Many times I told my father that many different combinations of drugs exist enabling those who are in their final stages of life to be comfortable and make use of those final days, which are also very valuable. Our final days can be used for goodbyes, for final touches to our Will, to place the names of loved ones on our property in order to settle our estates more readily, or for simple reflection or for prayer. This was one of the few things my Dad and I disagreed about. I did agree however, that when he died, I was to allow whatever pain medication was correct and necessary, even if it possibly shortened his life by hours or days. Like any other promise I made of such import, I kept it when the time came, even hiring a Nurse Thanatologist who could properly and safely administer what was needed. I am also grateful to my father for not considering suicide in those last days which are very cherished memories at least for me, and I suspect they were important moments for him as well.

           The latest information on suicide, according to the course is that almost everyone is at risk. Girls between 10-14 are at risk. Physicians and dentists are at risk. Those who have experienced trauma or loss in the last year are at risk. Veterans are at risk, probably forever. Those with seizures, Crohn's disease, Multiple Sclerosis, issues of addiction, are all at risk. Those who have had a friend commit suicide, or who have had a family member commit suicide are also,  Those who gamble or use alcohol are also at risk. Young people who are bullied and those who have an eating disorder are also at risk of suicide. Professionals in the field say that we are to ask people who are having a difficult time if they are contemplating suicide. Their opinion is that the person being asked will be glad for the opportunity to talk, rather than think they are being given permission to act toward self harm. I hope they are correct.

            So despite the fact that I have now taken a course of the same subject for more than 30 times, as has anyone else in healthcare, the problem continues to worsen. Suicide by all means is increasing not only in the United States, but in many places in the world as well.  Apparently, requiring the attendance of courses on suicide so many times is not reducing the suicide rate, in either health care or in the general population.

            Now that we have established that just about everyone you know is at risk for committing suicide, I want to say a few things about it.  I have now lost two sons suddenly. One died fifteen years ago at 12 1/2 of a supposed spontaneous heart rhythm disturbance. Another son died after having turned 32, about 39 hours after having an influenza vaccine. So, I suppose we have established that I too must be at risk.

           What are the reasons we should not commit suicide ?  Now this is from me, and not any continuing education course.  First, because if we end our lives and take ourselves out of play then we will not be present on Earth to see things improve. Yes, nothing, including the bad times, last forever.  Suicide is a permanent solution to temporary problems.  Secondly, because when we commit suicide, we transfer the pain from ourselves to everyone else who loved us. This is probably not the legacy you had in mind. Third, because every drop of life is precious. As my father was dying in the ICU, I got a physician order to allow him to have bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale. He truly enjoyed drinking this favorite drink from his youth while talking to his daughter.  These drops of last days and moments of life are very special and should not be disrupted. We also should not disrupt any of the last tasks we may have on Earth before we are called.   Lastly, we must not commit suicide because God grants us this life and the time in it, and believe me, He calls us when He is ready for us, just as God called two of my sons at a moment's notice.

          Perhaps our strategy as a nation needs to change with regard to suicide.  Perhaps people who commit suicide are not people with an undiagnosed psychiatric issue that missed being treated.  Perhaps they are simply people who have been beaten down by the world and have found almost no encouragement in the schoolyards, the schools, the universities, the hospitals, the employers, the restaurants, or anywhere else.  I am not saying that we need to baby the world. I don't want that. I am saying that bullying is unacceptable anywhere and must stop.  I am saying that nurses and physicians, pharmacists, and EMTs need to have access and required hours with a counselor, just as police and veterans often do.  Things we see and do, and have experienced change us, sometimes always and forever. We need to recognize this and make kindness and decency more of the rule than the exception. Why can't Christian counselors discuss suicide ?  Perhaps the largest problem with so much suicide is that people are spiritually injured and are constantly batted over the head by a mandatorily secular world.  God is the most important reason I would never commit suicide, and I'll bet He is for an awful lot of other people also.

         On the evaluation of the course I took, I found it difficult simply to answer without expressing my annoyance and anger. I told them that there was one group they had failed to identify as at risk. People who had to take a course on the current state of affairs in the world on suicide for eight hours straight and who'd been required to take a similar course thirty times since 1981, probably were at as much risk as any other group they had listed. It seems forcing us all to take these courses isn't making much difference to anyone. 

         Perhaps we can, "Love one another".

I Came By This Honestly: Packrat Revelations

           

 

 

 

          When I was a little girl, I became aware that I had a lot more stuff than a lot of girls and boys my age. I didn't think a lot about it because we had only two children in my family, and a lot of families had four or five children. Obviously, I thought, the toys, books, and furniture would need to be spread out between more children than they needed to be at my house.  Also in those years, a lot of families in the US moved every few years for their father's job.  My parents were a little unusual in the era. They both had established careers and had traveled extensively internationally before marrying and having children. The large home they bought and restored wasn't to be a home for a few years, but a home for all seasons. They weren't concerned with being able to move easily with children every couple of years, and so they didn't mind collecting furniture, decorative items or books.

            Since my parents were consumed by the labor of love of restoring their post civil war manse, many weekends were spent at auctions, estate sales, second hand shops, garage sales, and even at bona fide antique shops.  In that era especially, one could buy some lovely things without spending a great deal of money.  When friends came to my birthday parties, they were surprised that I had such a large bedroom with a high ceiling and a chandelier. I had a canopy bed, a French provincial desk, a large bookcase, and two large closets. It's a good thing we didn't open the closets while they were there, because they were filled with dress up clothes and lots of dolls.  My desk and my bookcase were busy places. I might have been one of the few eight year olds who actually had a file cabinet with paperwork kept in alphabetical order.  The arrangement of that side of the room probably looked as if I were practicing law rather than childhood.  My large bookcase had an entire Worldbook encyclopedia a family had sold us while moving at their garage sale, for about five dollars.  I wasn't particularly neat in those years. The more things a child has, the harder it is for them to keep them in an orderly fashion. Although I usually knew where most things were, the room probably wasn't always as neat as one might expect a little girl to keep it.

            At about thirteen, I got tired of my locker in school, my desk and my desk at home being messy. My mother reported that one day, out of the blue, I cleaned everything, and put it all in order, and kept it that way from then on. I just got tired of having misplaced a couple of important assignments for school, I said.

            I was aware that most children donated, gave away to friends or younger siblings, or sold toys or possessions each year, usually before their birthdays or Christmas. We never did that. If we liked it enough to give it space, then it was likely remaining there until it was replaced, or wore out. Other than mattresses or refrigerators, I don't think my parents bought very much that was new. What they did buy was usually very nice though.

            When I finished high school and went to college, I was sixteen. My mother thought that it was time to find homes for a lot of the items I had in my youth, particularly the collection of soft toys I'd won at the annual fair. She rented flea market tables, and one Saturday I sold jewelry, clothing, girl scout regalia, shoes, bags, books,soft toys, some dolls, jewel boxes, my French telephone, and every game imaginable. My mother also brought some things from the house to be sold there. My mother set the prices for everything, and had a label on each piece. I couldn't believe how much people paid for some of the things I'd had for years, but I understood. In order to begin to collect things that would become a part of my adulthood, I needed to part with at least some of the items that had graced my youth. It was also time for other people to enjoy some of the things I'd had.

            I managed a minimalist existence throughout college, and for a few years after getting married. It helped that my first house was tiny and that the space constraints alone dictated that I couldn't collect very much.  We collected the normal items when my first son and daughter were born. Then, like many American families, we moved about every four years, in part for jobs and also in order to acquire a larger home, as our family grew. Eventually, those moves took us to other states.

            By the 1990s, we had recouped the space I had known as a child, and we had a large family. They each had a lot of books and items they cared about.  In this era, a lot of people like modern decor and the minimalist thinking had entered full swing. A lot of suburbanites felt economically stable and so they parted with most things rather readily thinking that if ever they needed one again that they could simply buy another one. I wasn't this way. I kept disaster supplies, large fans in case the air conditioning went out, vaporizers, baby baths long after we had babies, glassware, silverware, and pet supplies. I kept everything organized. When a friend needed a vaporizer, I could run a new one over to her.

            As my children grew, my ancestors passed. I became the curator to pictures, possessions, Bibles and a few antiques that belonged to aunts and ancestors.  When my in-laws passed early, we acquired more.I will admit to occasionally being frustrated as to what to keep, as no one can keep it all.

            As our children were in college and in high school, each of my parents passed. They had divorced when I had been a young adult and they had each had time to amass at least twenty years worth of household goods, antiques, books, and documents on their own. My father, who passed the year after my mother, had almost three floors of things, some of which were valuable. It took years to go through many of these items.

            Recently, I was reading about my paternal grandmother's family who settled in Nova Scotia, in the 1730s.  The family had retained every document that concerned their businesses, their estates, and their correspondence to one another, a lot of which discussed the history and their concerns at the time. These documents have become a part of the Nova Scotia Archives and have been uploaded to the internet for historical purposes.  As I read through their correspondence, I recognized these people. They kept everything, and accounted for everything in inventories when someone died, for tax purposes. They kept everyone's correspondence!   If they'd had photographs in the 1730s, I know they would have kept those too !  I realized that my family has likely not changed much since the 1770s. We still write a lot of letters to one another. We still hold on to whatever we can. We still love our children as much as we have loved life itself. I might be a family historian and a pack rat, but I came by this honestly. There is probably a marker in our DNA which will eventually be found to account for our detail to record keeping, and for the safekeeping of family records. Perhaps I have never wanted to be a minimalist anyway.

            

          

Goodnight Nanci Griffith

            

     I try to acknowledge the passings of people whose art, whose thinking or whose music has touched me, and who have made my own time here on the big blue ball a little softer or a bit more enjoyable. As people in the flesh suits we don't live forever, but sometimes our art, our music or our influence lives longer than we inhabit the flesh suit itself.   Once in awhile, I miss hearing about what would have been a pivotal passing for me, and I hope for you too.

                 Texas born Nanci Griffith was singing professionally, playing guitar and writing songs from age twelve onward, and it showed if you watched her perform as an adult. Every intonation, every inflection,  every movement, was professional and deliberate, all while she appeared to be completely natural and comfortable, as if you had stopped by after work to visit a friend.  Her songwriting was perfect. It was relatable to the many, and yet the work of a poetess, as well. She was good at blending worlds. Listening to her, you might wonder if she were a folk singer, or a country singer, and yet she called what she did rockabilly.

                 She toured with folk, rock, and even Irish music royalty. She received a grammy and numerous awards and was inducted to Halls of Fame, and yet she was quiet, just making her own music. I learned last evening, that Nanci Griffith died in August of 2021, and that I hadn't heard a word. I hate it when I miss hearing about a passing that would have moved me, or reminded me that time on the big blue ball is passing very fast for us all.  Despite the fact that Nanci Griffith survived both breast and thyroid cancer in the 1990s, her passing is said to have been of natural causes. She was 68.

                  If you get a chance today, and in the future, please listed to some of her works. Her songwriting and performances were nothing short of amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3AP6Ee7SFY

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cazUqIIEKb4

 

and with friends

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORMUqhofLGw

 

 

 

     

For the Love of Wedgwood Jasperware

                 

 

   My mother was British, and she married my father while he was in England. I know that originally they had tried to raise their family there, but my father, after college, found earning a living there, and finding adequate housing in the UK difficult, and so the couple moved first to California with his own family, and then eventually when he got a very good job, to the East Coast.  This move was not without its challenges though. My mother missed her sisters, her parents and friends very much, and their choice to raise a family in a rural home resulted in some degree of isolation for her.

                                             

 

                     My mother was a lover of Wedgwood jasperware. Not only did it remind her of England, and its history, but my parents had been given a number of pieces as wedding presents. For her, it was symbolic of people and familiar places, and of a life left behind.  When my parents had restored their post Civil War manse, it was decorated with Wedgwood jasperware.  My mother preferred the pale "Wedgwood" blue, but ultimately also had navy blue pieces, some older blue cobalt blue pieces, some green and the yellow "primrose" variety also.

 

 

                    The Winters in rural Northwestern NJ were long, and the snows were often deep.  My brother and I were therefore relegated through the Winter, after sledding etc. to large stretches of time inside, with the television, with books and occasionally even board games.  A few times, my brother and I inadvertently broke a piece of Wedgwood.  I believe, in total, we broke two ashtrays and some years later, I broke a larger dish.  When Wedgwood became broken my mother yelled, cried, and then withdrew. Even as children, we realized how special these tokens of her life from England were. We hadn't intended to break them, and yet, they were in our living room, in an era when families didn't also have a family room or play room. Breakage had been inevitable, and yet we felt badly having done it.

                                 

 

                      Over the years, my mother's collection gradually grew, and her children grew up and no longer played with Nerf balls in the formal living room. After college, I began to set up my own home. You would think that English Wedgwood might not have appealed to me when I used to get into so much trouble on the rare occasion that I broke one.  I was fortunate that my first few pieces came to me from consignment shops. I also didn't really care if they were the traditional blue. I liked almost all the colors of Wedgwood jasperware, and so I was quite happy with any that I could afford.

 

 

 

                       When my children were born, I moved a couple of pieces off coffee tables, but most of it I left out. It existed to be enjoyed.  However, I told myself that when my own children broke it, that I didn't want them feeling as badly as I had, and so I decided to make people more important than things. If they broke a piece, I decided that I would try to repair it, and if I couldn't be, then I wouldn't be upset about it.

 

 

                       As my children grew, Wedgwood jasperware fell out of vogue for a time, and I was able to purchase even some of the rare and antique pieces fairly cheaply. In addition, people who needed to give me a gift for Christmas or other occasions, knew I had Wedgwood, and so it tended to become the "go to" gift for me.  During its less popular days, I amassed a significant collection of all colors, and then when my mother died, I inherited many of her pieces.

 

 

                     In all the years Wedgwood jasperware has graced my home, none of my five children, and the foster kids, ever broke any.  One of my sons accidentally broke a piece of bone china in the master bedroom once, but they were injured sufficiently by it that we left in an ambulance and the child had stitches when the spurting blood had stopped.   The grands haven't broken any either.  I feel badly for my mother sometimes, thinking that when I broke hers, I wish I could have reached into the future and handed her whichever pieces she wanted, at that time.  I appreciate the artistry, but it has never carried such symbolism that I would have been devastated when a piece of it was broken.

 

 

                       I am still fortunate enough to receive gifts of Wedgwood from time to time. My eldest son and his wife found a rare item when away, and presented it to me when they got back. When the 2011 earthquake hit, and broke homes in half, damaged the National Cathedral, the Rotunda at the University of Virginia, and caused two schools to be condemned and need to be rebuilt from scratch, I could have lost some Wedgwood then, but I didn't.  A small but perfect piece of cloisonne on the mantle rolled off and was badly dented on the hearth, but all the Wedgwood was in its place. Consistent with my loving pieces for artistry and not necessarily value, it's still on the mantle, turned to show its perfect side.

 

                  

                          

                        If you like Wedgwood jasperware, although its price is recovering, it is still an excellent price considering the craftsmanship and the artistry.  You might consider beginning your own collection of whatever varieties you like.

 

 

                        I have one last Wedgwood project going on in my home.  I am having Wedgwood medallions embedded above the granite the surround of my fireplace. If it's good enough for Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, then it's certainly good enough for me.

                                   From Jefferson's Monticello.  Photograph by Michael Dunne

               If I were to be honest, I think I would say that there is nothing wrong with loving things of beauty, whether they were made by God, as in the case of natural beauty, or made by man from the clays and materials left on Earth by God,  for man to use.  Loving items of beauty is fine, so long as we do not place them above people or they occupy too important a place in our lives.

Refugees Found a Rural Area

                        

 

                    Today I had an afternoon dentist's appointment a distance away in a neighboring rural county.  I hate going to the dentist. Between braces, dental work, wisdom tooth extractions, I can honestly say that some of my worst experiences as a young person occurred in the dentist's chair. As much as I know that many, many advances in materials, technique and comfort have occurred in my lifetime, I probably have some degree of post traumatic stress when it comes to the dentist.  I once had a root canal where the dentist accidentally entered my sinus above my palate while drilling. I don't seem to forget those things.  I have done a good job making sure that my children and my grands don't fear the dentist, and get everything they need done.

                          My dental appointment today was a long one, and it was very hot.   The only thing that kept me sane during the drilling was thinking that I might go to a little grocery store nearby and pick up some watermelon, some berries and some ice cream. I tried my best to transport my mind to the store as she drilled.  During the visit, I had some unexpected discomfort and so she gave additional Novocaine. My tongue, chin and lips are still pretty numb.

                           By the time I got out of the dentist's office, a thunderstorm was clearly coming, and it didn't look like my trip to the nearby grocery was going to be nearly as pleasant as I had imagined.  I was very numb. It didn't matter, I thought, as the dentist has us wear a mask on coming and going. Normally, I throw the mask away when I get to the car, but this time, I think I might keep it for the store. I don't want anyone to see me drooling and as numb as I am, I might.

                          On the way to to store, I went through a drive-through and got a tall drink. I was absolutely amazed to see that I couldn't purse my lips around the straw enough to drink.  Finally, I looked in the rear view mirror and coordinated some sips. Then I drove to the store.   Between the store and a pharmacy there is a shady grassy area with a number of people sitting there.  It was 95 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade. Why are these people sitting in the shade ? I wondered.  As I drove past, I saw they had signs.  They turned out to be a family who are here illegally and are panhandling.  They had precious young children and they looked as if they might be from one of the countries in South America.  I noticed that the people in this small rural place were doing their best to ignore them.  I can't fathom how someone would leave their own country with very young children not knowing where they might go.  I would venture to guess that in this small Southern conservative town that most people go to church. Most people here would help puppies left in a box under the shady trees. However, this is a difficult time.  Gasoline is so expensive now that the man in front of me who had some kind of a card that allowed him to pump gas without paying in advance like I do, drove off without paying today.  Jobs are not plentiful in rural areas. Lots of businesses have closed. The solar installation people went out of business, and many of the restaurants are gone now for good. People can't afford to pay for the things they need, and they certainly can't pay to arrange for a place for an illegal alien family to stay in a hotel. People in this town don't want to pay for their welfare or WIC when lots of people who need welfare or Medicaid can't get it.  As the COVID emergency ends, many people have been kicked off Medicaid in our state.

                        And yet, my heart hurts as I decide I don't feel like going shopping .  I decided to head for home before the storm hits.  Perhaps I couldn't stand to take ice cream and berries home to my family when I wanted to buy gatorade for the family sitting under the trees.  I don't think the children will dehydrate and die there.  There are three rural churches that will do something for these people.  The employees at the small Goodwill will also do something.  But again, we can't keep doing this.  We do not have the reserves that our present federal government seems to think we do. People shouldn't make grueling trips with young children when they have no idea where they are going, and they have no money.

                        As I drove home I wondered what memories the young children would keep from sitting in the grass on a hot day with their large family.  What kind of citizens will they become if they remain in the US ?   Should children believe that no one cares as they sit as refugees on the edge of a strip mall ?  If I were to be honest,  I don't have easy answers other than our own government should be preventing the entry of people who could well die on the journey. I am no better than anyone, as I did nothing but get myself home.

With Twenty Years, Came Many Losses

         

 

        When I was a fairly young adult, we lived in a large house in the suburbs. My husband commuted to a full time job and by the time we had four children, I worked part time as a registered nurse in an intensive care unit. We weren't very happy with some of the social engineering ideas that the local schools were attempting to teach our children, and so we began to homeschool. Academically, our kids did well, but we were still concerned that they were becoming far better consumers than we wanted them to be. They knew all the fast food restaurants and what was on sale, and what they sold as Costco, when we wanted them to learn about animals, repairing mechanical items, and reading for detail. We eventually realized that we wanted to give them the childhoods that we had, and that this was only possible in  a very rural area where we could keep cows, goats, horses and other animals. We needed to live in a place where my husband could teach my sons how to change the oil and rebuild an engine, not in a place that restricted the number of dogs you could own to two.

 

               When our youngest was less than a year, we bought about forty acres in a rural area, and then not too long after bought additional land from a neighbor and so our holdings there totaled ninety acres. There weren't houses for sale in the area, and so we needed to build one.  One weekend, we found a builder we liked, and we marked out where we wanted the house sited, and work began. The house was completed quickly, and by Spring we moved our family to the country. This was an adjustment. My husband drove more than an hour to work now, and our children had no pizza delivery or any Chinese food in the entire county. It didn't take long for them to find things to fill their days. One began to paint on canvas, another began to sculpt, and two became very interested in computers and computer languages. We started an alpaca farm. We had eight dogs, and the kids raised chickens and rabbits.

 

               It's hard to believe that twenty years have now passed since the courageous choice to move to a very rural county. One of the benefits of doing so is that with fewer people present, one tends to get to know people in a rural county better than you might have otherwise. There is also a generosity of spirit that doesn't exist within the suburbs. One neighbor will drive another to the city for his cancer treatments, and will do so sometimes for months. One neighbor will give another a horse when he realizes that he has proper housing and would enjoy one. It isn't at all unusual for people to give a piano to a family who has a child who wishes to learn. We have had the blessing of being included by the rugged individualists who make up this county and who have played a part in building who our children became, and we will be forever grateful for this, and for our decision to have come here.

 

             Of course, time moves on.  As the kids neared college, we sold the original forty acres and the house, and built another. Some of our beloved neighbors moved out of state. Our youngest son died suddenly, leaving us sorrowful.  My husband lost the job he'd had for many years, and started his own business, which reduced our income and our financial security. Our remaining children went to college. Today, our children have businesses, homes, and two of those children have their own children now.

 

             I don't often look at the obituaries, but I did this week because I'd heard that one of our friends had died. When I did, I learned that fifteen people in our rural community had died within the last thirty days!  A couple of them who had worked in farming had been treated for cancer. Another one was a man who considered giving his business to one of our sons when his own son died suddenly, and now would not be able to take over his father's business. Another was a couple who died within a week of one another.  Two of them were women who were very active in charitable and church endeavors locally. In rural places, we are dependent upon one another and so there may not be the same divisions that might exist elsewhere between different races.  Almost half of the people who died this week were African Americans whose families have lived here for a hundred years or more. I want to cry when I remember that they welcomed us. Some of them brought us freshly baked bread when our son died, and others were thrilled to get our duck eggs when we still had them.  Fifteen people gone within thirty days is a lot of people from a rural place. A few had cancer. Some had Type II diabetes. One had an autoimmune illness. There were three heart attacks or myocardial infarctions. Whether the remaining deaths had to do with influenzas, COVID-19 or the flurry of supposed COVID-19 immunizations, I don't know.  I know only that I will remember all of these decent people who positively impacted the life we lived here in both the good and the bad times, and who also shaped the type of people our own children became.

 

             In the years following our son's death, we adopted a teen, in an attempt to make more sense of the insensible and sudden loss of our son.  Our community was welcoming to a new son, who easily could have been met with suspicion.  We are thankful for the welcome given to him too.

 

             This month our family grieves the loss of fifteen people from our area who welcomed us, shared with us, and actually modeled scripture for us, during the last twenty years of many changes in this country. We have gratitude for having known them. May God bless them all, and comfort their families in this new age of 2021.

 

      

The Ethics of the Internet Search

            

 

 

     I was online recently with someone from my high school, and he asked me if I had kept in touch with a particular girl that I had known when she and I were about fourteen or fifteen. I honestly hadn't thought of her in thirty years.  The friend who asked thought she may have died, since no one from the town where our high school is located seems to know where she is, and one of them thought someone with her last name had died. This wouldn't be an incredible surprise, if true, because almost half of our high school classmates have died, which is way more than actuarial tables would have predicted for people our age. A large number of my classmates died in one car accidents within their first few years of driving in the Northeastern Winters. A few died in serious car accidents while in college, including one of my closest friends, whom I occasionally still see in dreams when I am having a particularly difficult time with something here on Earth. Among my classmates from high school, there have been a smattering of suicides from college age, through to the present, and one of us died in a fire. In the last few years several of our class died of cancer, and two of lupus. I didn't set out to keep precise records of what has happened to us, but it has worked out that way.

                I hadn't thought about the girl my friend asked me about for a long time, but when I did think of her, I had many happy memories. She and I had not really been friends, but we shared about eight or nine classes together within a couple of years, and so we knew one another fairly well. So, when I had a chance, I did an internet search with the things I knew of her. It took only about twenty minutes to find that she had left the state just after high school, and had married twice. She went to college in another state, and now had two children. She had become a fairly recent grandmother, and still worked in health care. I did not have the same luck in locating her siblings, one of which I knew. One of them had died, and I presume this is what my friend heard, when he assumed that she had been the one who had passed.  Although the searching was nothing my friend could not have done himself had he spent the time, I decided not to divulge all that I learned to him.  Had my friend wished to stay in touch with people from her high school, then she would have, just as I stay in touch with selected people from that time. It appears that she hasn't wanted to. Perhaps such a beautiful girl had a stalker in high school. I could believe that she would have.  I told my friend that she was alive, had married twice and lived out of state, and that seemed to satisfy his curiosity.  "But is she still beautiful?", he asked. I have no idea, but if I had to guess, my guess would be that she still is.

Learning to Accept Your Moments of Clarity

                

     Sometimes in this life, there are moments of clarity in which we know something that we should not yet know. I don't believe that I am actually unusual in this, as I think most people, if they are reflective, and honest and have a decent memory will remember such circumstances.

                      When my Dad was young, he had one of these moments. As he listened to the radio and heard Hitler, he believed that he, and the rest of the world would be drawn into a world war and that my father might lose his own life, if he did not choose his role in this war carefully.  His family, including uncles and aunts who were teachers, principals and professors tried to allay his fears and tell him that the war was simply a European phenomenon, but somehow my father knew. This motivated him to become a Merchant Marine Radio Operator at sixteen, when just after Pearl Harbor, funds were quickly funneled to the programs teaching such skills.  My father had many such moments of clarity in his lifetime, some were positive, and some were sad, but they did allow him to plan in a manner which benefited those he loved.

                      I too can remember such moments of clarity.  On a class trip I took in middle school to George Washington's home, Mount Vernon,  I had a strange and sad feeling. I felt a strong draw South and I wished we weren't returning to the Northeast. Somehow I knew that the best years of my life would be spent South of the place I was standing, and I remember that strange feeling, that pull, to this day.

                      Eventually, as a young married adult with then two small children I had eventually moved to a suburb of Richmond, Virginia.  At one point, I accepted a job at what was then St. Luke's Hospital in Richmond's western end.  Traveling to the hospital in those first weeks from my new home, took me on roads that were not yet familiar.  At one point after work, even through I knew that I was supposed to take the highway heading East, for some reason I was drawn to the West.  My head knew that the house we had just bought was East of the hospital some distance, but again I was strangely drawn West, believing that my long term home was certainly West of the hospital.  I traveled West for about twenty minutes past miles and miles of evergreens and oaks beside the highway. Eventually, I took the next exit and turned around and went home, but I didn't forget this.  Ten years later, we bought ninety acres in that place to which I had been traveling.  We built a farm there, and raised a total of five children there. Indeed, that area had been the place in which I have been happiest.

                     I also recall, that a few days before the birth of my third child, we were in the car and headed for the hospital. I had been having some complications and thought it was likely that I would be admitted that day, and I was afraid.  All at once, we made a left at St. Matthew's Church.   In that moment I knew that the baby I would have in the next couple of days would be a boy, and his name would be Matthew. I could envision him as a child, with blond hair, green eyes, and very quick and bright.  Although we'd had ultrasounds, we had not been told our child's sex. Three days later, in the morning,  Matthew was born, and as a child, he became exactly who I had imagined in those frightened moments before his birth.

                    It's a shame that we can't will these moments of occasional clarity that human beings have sometimes. Perhaps all we can do, is accept these flashes of clarity when they do come.  May your life bring you as many pleasant moments of this type of clarity as is possible.