Rich

April 21, 2016March 20, 2017 Sally4 Comments

My father has told me a number of times, “You’re one of the richest people I know.”

I respond with, “Yeah, and maybe someday I’ll have money.”

Not this year, though. The money part, that is.

When I filed our taxes our income had gone down. It was the first time in many years that I didn’t have to file a Schedule C or SE for my swim officiating pay. Scholastic swim officials are paid, and I had been working for a number years at the modified, high school, and college level.

But, in the late fall of 2014, at the end of the girls’ season, I realized that I couldn’t commit to officiating during the boys’ season which runs November to February. I contacted the assigner and let her know. She emailed me for the next season, fall 2015, and again, sadly, I told her that I couldn’t do it.

Both times, I knew it was the right choice. As much as I love officiating swimming, it doesn’t compare with how much I love my family.

And, as it turned out, instead of scoring dives or disqualifying breaststrokers, during each of the seasons I have missed, I have had the privilege of caring for aging parents. No one can put a price tag on that.

Here is an partial ~~list~~ picture of my assets.

Zaengles, Pollocks, and Uricks at Sam & Donna's wedding — Family at Sam & Donna’s wedding

I wish I had photographs, too, of the circle of friends who do such a good job caring me.

Patrick Meagher said, “Some people are so poor, all they have is money.”

I am rich indeed.

A to Z Blogging Challenge

Mary

April 15, 2016March 20, 2017 Sally4 Comments

About once a week I still try to go see I-can-do-it Mary. I wrote about her in “I Can Do It” and Leave Me Alone.

My father likes visiting people at the nursing home so I drive him over. While he’s visiting Linda, the lady who cuts hair, or Savannah, the bank window lady, I go down to Mary’s room.

She usually has her blanket over her head. When I see her like that, I just whisper a prayer for her in my heart.

The other day, though, her room was empty. The sun was out and I found her sleeping the sunshine of the courtyard. She loves being outside.

I stood beside her and laid my hand on her arm but she didn’t stir. When I removed my hand to leave, her eyes fluttered open.

“I brought you a present, Mary,” I told her. “It’s in your room.”

A dish garden with yellow tulips, miniature daffodils, and a pink hyacinth had beckoned to me from the flower kiosk at the grocery store. When my mother was alive, I tried to bring her flowers occasionally because I knew that she loved them. This week, I purchased some for Mary.

“Oh!” she said, reaching her good hand out to me. “Say, say, I can do it!”

“I can do it, Mary,” I said. I put my hand in hers and she kissed it.

“I love you,” Mary said.

“I love you, too,” I told her.

“Would you like to go see the flowers?” I asked and she nodded her head vigorously in response.

She hooked her good foot under her bad one and began pulling herself along using that one good foot.

“One. Two. Three. Four,” she said, counting her pulls. I had never heard her count before and she watched me to make sure I was seeing and hearing this new miracle.

By the time she reached “Thirteen,” she was at the door.

Clearly thirteen has gotten a bad rap. It was a beautiful number when she said it.

When we got to her room and she saw the garden, she said, “Wow! Wow!” She turned the dish slowly so she could see if from all angles, then she reached up and pulled me to her in a bear hug.

“I love you,” she said again.

“I have to go find my father,” I told her. “He’s visiting upstairs. Do you want to go back to the courtyard?”

She nodded.

As we walked back to the courtyard, suddenly Mary stopped. She grabbed my hand and looked at me. ” I en-,” she began, and then she frowned.

“I en-,” she said again.

I waited.

She frowned in frustration, then she waved her hand in the air, erasing the words that lingered there unfinished. “I can do it,” she said quietly.

When I got her settled back in the sun, she gave me one last bear hug. “I love you,” she said.

“I love you, too,” I told her.

*****

This is a video I took of Mary singing to my mother.

family

Lovable

February 3, 2016February 25, 2022 Sally3 Comments

Several years ago I was walking Maggie in our little town and ran into a woman who was walking Maggie’s twin, a mostly black dog with some white markings.

“What kind of dog is yours?” the lady asked.

“They told us that she was a shepherd-boxer-akita mix at the shelter where we got her. Basically, she’s a mutt,” I said.

The woman smiled and said, “Mine, too!”

We stood and talked for a few minutes about how similar our unrelated dogs were. Unrelated, yet entirely related.

“Don’t you think,” she said, “that if we took all the dog genes in the world, put them in a big bag, shook them up and then pulled out a dog, it would look like this?”

I laughed and agreed.

Since that conversation I have noticed so many dogs that look like Maggie.

I suppose that would say that she’s a common dog.

But she isn’t.

Our neighbor who walks Maggie for us while we’re away — and sometimes, even when we’re aren’t — often comments on what a smart dog Maggie is. “I usually only have to tell her once and she minds right away,” she tells us.

Maggie is smart. And fun. And energetic.

She can sit, stay, shake, lie down, die, and come. She carries a fish on her walks, chases snowballs and squirrels, and howls at the noon whistle. When we come back from being away, she races around the house in a doggy-happy dance. What more does a dog need to do?

This past summer we got a kitten. She’s supposed to be a working cat, taking care of the mouse problem at my father’s house, but she’s still in training, slaying ladybugs and cluster flies in abundance.

She’s all black with a few white hairs like a little bow-tie.

Once we went on a field trip to a cat rescue organization and their shelter was full, mostly with black cats.

“They’re the hardest to adopt out,” the lady told us, “and seem to be the most common color.”

Our Piper was a freebie from a farm. When I took her to the vet, they asked for her breed.

“She’s just a cat,” I said.

I’m guessing that if you took all the cat genes in the world, put them in a bag, shook them up and pulled out a cat, it would be black.

But Piper likes to sit on my shoulder and lick my ears. She pounces on my feet from under the bed while I’m getting ready for bed. She snuggles on my lap in the morning, and rolls onto her back when my brother stops by so he can rub her belly. She is a special cat.

All this is to say that I think the least aspect of any creature is pedigree. Or color. Or any other externals.

What’s inside is unique and wonderful, waiting to be discovered and nurtured into maturity.

Lovable.

Faith · family

Isaiah 56: 3-8

September 1, 2015June 17, 2022 Sally3 Comments

“Here’s the thing,” says God.
“Don’t you go saying that you don’t belong to My family,
And don’t you go thinking that because you don’t ‘produce’ I’m going to throw you out.
I don’t work like that.
At all.
If you love Me
If you embrace activities and ideas that please Me
If you hold fast to the promises I have made to you
Then I will give to you something better than any fame, fortune, or power you might receive from the world for something you did
What I have to give you is better than a large family or even one successful child
What I have to give you is a name —
A name that will forever tie you to Me.”

“And if you think you don’t belong in My family,
let Me ask you this —
Do you love Me?
Do you serve Me?
Do you help others because you know Me?
Do you set aside time
when you aren’t working
and just think about Me?
Do you lay in a grassy field on a Sunday afternoon,
look up at my blue sky, and utter a simple thank-you?”

“My door is always open to you
because you are family.
Mi casa es su casa.”

“You are family.
You are welcomed with great joy
and big bear hugs
(even though you say you don’t like hugs).”

“Come.
Sit with Me in the quiet.
Whisper to Me.
I am always listening.”

“You may think that you’re an outcast,
but I am gathering you in My arms
and holding you close.”

family

“I Can Do It”

July 17, 2015May 9, 2017 Sally7 Comments

Darn it, Mary. You weren’t supposed to worm your way into my heart like you did.

I’m not talking about my Mary. Of course my own daughter is firmly entrenched there. I’m talking about nursing home Mary. I-can-do-it Mary. I-love-you Mary.

My father had pointed her out to me a while ago.

“See that woman,” he said, nodding towards her. “She always kisses me.”

Sure enough, she wheeled herself over to my father and took his hand.

“I llllove you,” she had said, carefully pronouncing each word and leaving a space between them.

My father patiently waited while she held his hand and said these words. Then, she started to sing, “I can do it. I can do it.” I think there may have been a few more lyrics, but those were the main ones. On repeat. Accompanied by an elderly fist pump. For emphasis.

Only one hand could fist pump, though. The other was curled in tetany.

“She had a stroke, I think,” my father told me one day after the hand-kissing ritual.

I would see her around when I went to visit my mother.

“I love you,” she always said. I could tell that the letter “L” took special effort on her part.

She hugged and kissed my Mary one day. Over and over. My Mary was gracious and allowed it.

“I can do it,” she always said, too. Sometimes she sang out those words to a tune that only she knew.

Sometimes, though, she would come very near and cradle another person’s face in her hand, her one good hand, look them in the eye, and say, “Say, ‘I can do it.'” She would repeat it until the other person echoed the words. Then she would reward them with “I love you.”

I watched her go through the dining area one day and get every single resident to say “I can do it.” It was remarkable.

Since she sat near my mother, Mary took particular interest in her, especially when my mother didn’t eat well.

“I can do it,” she said. “I love you.”

Last week, I heard Mary say something different. She said, “No.”

The man serving dinner asked if she wanted a meatball sub.

She gave an emphatic no. I didn’t blame her. The food was pathetic.

But she refused all the food she was offered. She indicated that she wanted something in her cup. It was already filled with milk. An aide got out the chocolate syrup.

“NO,” she responded, covering the cup with her hand.

The aide got her a straw and got the same response.

“Ginger ale?”

“NO.”

“Juice?”

“NO.”

Finally, Mary wheeled herself away never getting whatever it was she wanted. It must be so hard to communicate with only the words “I can do it,” “I love you,” and “No.”

And I never heard her say the first two at all that night.

Last night, she sat at the dinner counter looking so sad. Again she refused all food with a much weaker “no” before wheeling herself away. I watched her putter down the hall and wished I could help.

A few minutes later a nurse was calling for help. For Mary. She was in distress. The nurse asked someone to call the ambulance.

“No,” Mary said.

The she spoke progressively louder — “No. NO. NO.”

I wanted so badly to hear her say, “I can do it.”

I wanted her to tell somebody, “I love you.”

They got her chart out. “No hospitalization” was noted there. The ambulance was cancelled. Mary was wheeled to her room.

Today I can’t stop thinking about her.

I stood outside her door before we left, but there was too much bustling going on inside, and, really, I don’t know her.

“Happiness dwells in the soul” reads her door. Surely, it dwells in her soul.

You can do it, Mary.

I love you.

family

Overlap

June 12, 2015April 20, 2017 Sally4 Comments

The following is the text of what I read at the reception for Sam and Donna, my newly-married son and his beautiful wife. Enjoy.

Once we had a guy re-shingle our carport roof – a mostly flat roof, only slightly pitched downward from house to gutter. Bud uttered a minced expletive when he saw what the workman had done.

I thought the roof looked good with its neat black lines of overlapping shingles.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“He did it backwards,” Bud complained, but I still didn’t understand.

I’m slow to understand construction problems. I had to look at it for a long time before it sunk in. The shingles overlapped in the wrong direction. He had started at the top and worked his way down, so where they overlapped rain could work its way underneath the next shingle.

But this really isn’t about roofing or shingles or mistakes made in shingling.

It’s about Sam and Donna.

And it’s about the way our lives overlap, like shingles properly installed on a roof.

It’s about Sam’s first Christmas.

Not his first Christmas as a baby. He probably didn’t even get any good gifts that year. With him being the third child, I had figured out that babies almost one year old don’t care very much about shiny new toys. Hand-me-downs are fine as long as they come wrapped with paper that can be ripped into tiny pieces and with curly ribbon that can be waved and boinged.

Honestly, I couldn’t even find any pictures of Sam’s first Christmas. It was that non-monumental. The plight of the third child.

No, this is about the first Christmas when, as an adult, Sam didn’t come home.

“I just don’t get enough days off,” he told me, “and the holidays are such a busy time at the store.”

“What will you do?” I asked. “You can’t spend Christmas alone.”

“No worries, Mom.” He likes to say that. He knows I worry. “I’ve got several invites.”

“Who,” I asked, demanding to know, trying to make him a little accountable.

“The store manager invited me to spend Christmas with him and his family,” he said.

Perfect, I thought. Maybe the manager will like him so much he’ll start giving him better hours.

“Dan and Lindsay invited me, but I’d have to get over to the island,” he said.

Victoria Island. I had never met Dan and Lindsay, although I had heard stories about them and their child, Denali. I had chatted with Lindsay once on Facebook about the nutritional value of hemp. That could be a good choice, I thought.

“And a friend from school invited me to spend Christmas with her family,” he finished.

“Who is it?” I asked, like I might possibly know.

“You don’t know her,” he said, reading my mind.

“You should go to your boss’s house,” I told him. It seemed like a good career move.

When Christmas arrived, he didn’t go to his boss’s house. He didn’t go Dan and Lindsay’s house. He went to some stranger’s house, some girl I didn’t even know.

We skyped Christmas morning.

“Hey, Mom,” he said, “Donna’s mom wanted me to tell you that she gave me a hug today. She said that every mom would want to know that her child got a hug on Christmas.”

I laughed, and thought it was so sweet, and wondered how awkward that hug was. We’re not the most huggy family.

Donna. Sam referred to her as his friend from school. “We’re just friends,” he told me. At Christmas.

Six weeks later, around Valentine’s Day, I got this message on my cell phone – ““Hi, Mom, this is Sam. I was just calling because I have some exciting news. I have a girlfriend. Her name is Donna and she’s pretty much awesome…”

The rest, you know, is history, with more history being made here today. Sam and Donna.

Where do the shingles tie in?

It’s in the overlap.

While I was fussing because I would really rather have had Sam home for Christmas, God knew that it was important for Sam to be somewhere else that Christmas.

You see, that was Donna’s mom’s last Christmas.

Ruth Mayer’s last Christmas.

Her only chance to hug Sam on Christmas morning.

Her only chance to fuss over him and make his Christmas special.

No one knew that at the time, but it was a perfect overlap of lives, where Sam could meet her, get more than a hug, actually spend some time with her – and then, months later, be there to support Donna, to cover her protectively, like an overlapping shingle going in the right direction, so that the sorrows could be shared and run off both of them together.

Sam’s first Christmas away may have been his most important Christmas – until this coming one, Christmas 2015, when he and Donna will have their first Christmas as husband and wife, together, building a life with each other.

Sam, Donna — May your shingles always overlap in the right direction.

family

Laughter

May 21, 2015February 16, 2017 Sally1 Comment

Karl placed 2nd in Class C tennis doubles at sectionals. SECOND!

A great finish for my soccer-playing boy and his soccer-playing partner.

Last week, we had spent a sunshiny day on a Pennsylvania mountain for round one of sectionals. That was the day both Karl and I forgot sunscreen, but I had the luxury of sitting in the shade while he and his partner bobbed and weaved on a full sun court, easily winning all three matches. He was sun-burned, but moving on.

Sectional finals took place on indoor courts. He and Michael won their first match there less easily. Their opponents played in cargo shorts and won the first game. You can’t judge a tennis player by their shorts.

Karl and Michael won the match, though, and advanced to the championship.

Wow, I thought. Could he and Michael possibly be sectional champions?

The first serve by the kid in the backwards hat put a crack in that dream. Whoosh! I barely saw the ball.

Karl started laughing.

Fifteen-love.

The server switched sides. Karl stepped forward, while Michael moved into position to receive the next serve. The dance of doubles tennis.

Whoosh! Michael just shook his head.

Thirty-love.

11165210_10153255409336043_2143988857645962201_n — Karl at the tennis center

Karl was better prepared for the next serve. He changed where he stood and crouched in readiness.

Whoosh! The first serve hit the net. The second serve lobbed over for an easy return. After a few back-and-forths, the server got his racket on the ball and smashed it into a far corner.

Forty-love.

Michael was ready for his next serve. When it came directly at him, he put up his racket defensively. The ball bounced back to the opponents’ side and they had a short volley which ended in a point for Karl and Michael.

Forty-fifteen.

One more serve at Karl. Once again he was crouched and ready. Once more the gold sphere flew.

Game.

I watched Karl as they changed sides of the net. He was smiling and laughing. Part of him was enjoying this crazy game of tennis where he ultimately lost the match 6-1, 6-1.

As I told my father about it the next day, he said, “It’s a good thing he can laugh about it.”

Yes, it was. I had watched other players angrily whack their rackets into the padded walls in frustration. I watched them scowl and get angry. I wondered if any of them knew who John McEnroe was — masterful at tennis, but also masterful at the tennis tantrum.

Last night Karl said, “Somebody at school asked me why we lost so badly. I told him that he hadn’t seen that kid’s serve. No matter where I stood, he got it past me.”

And Karl was still laughing about it.

Laughter is sometimes the closest thing we have to grace.

Thankful for my son.

Faith

Maggie and the Rabbit

July 21, 2014February 25, 2022 Sally3 Comments

Maggie bolted out the door this morning when I went to sit on the deck for my quiet time. She loves laying in the cool morning grass.

When she was a puppy, I had to be vigilant about watching her because she would take off chasing a squirrel and end up three blocks away. Or worse, she would (re) discover the stream and splash up and down it becoming a muddy mess.

Now, she’s much more mature and self-controlled. She runs out, lays down in the grass, and waits. I’m never quite sure what she’s waiting for, and I can’t break myself of the habit of being vigilant over her. So I sit on the deck and watch her while she waits in the grass.

I read and pray and watch her. And she waits.

This morning Maggie suddenly perked up her ears, and her head, and her whole body, alert to a visitor in our yard. Off in the distance, under an old apple tree, a wild rabbit hopped, lippity-lippity, along. It was also enjoying the dewy early morning grass.

Maggie, at the very least, would have loved chasing the rabbit. The rabbit seemed oblivious to its danger. It nibbled the grass and hopped around the apple tree.

Maggie, tethered only by her own self control, watched its every move.

And so the little non-drama played out for a good half hour. Maggie was a good dog. Though she watched, she never made any move to chase. She showed the same self-control that I’m attempting to exercise around sweets these days.

The rabbit, though, the rabbit fascinated me. Unaware of any danger, so engrossed in its little patch of clover and the few green apples that had fallen, it didn’t seem to see the dog watching its every move.

And I got to thinking, how often am I like that rabbit? I lippity-lip along in my own little world, unaware of those who want nothing more than to destroy me, or, at the very least, make me run for my life.

But therein lies a bigger truth.

Maggie can run fast. When our neighbor got a Doberman, we were very happy to discover that Maggie can outrun the Doberman. Not that we want her to have to do that. It’s just nice to know that she can.

Still Maggie could not have closed the distance between herself and the rabbit fast enough to catch the rabbit. So, in fact, what looked like a dangerous situation for the rabbit really wasn’t dangerous at all.

And I think that is true for me as well.

Sometimes I see the scary monster and am immobilized by fear.

But God is always watching, and He has equipped me for whatever comes.

Perhaps I misjudged that rabbit, too. It wasn’t quite as heedless as I thought. As soon as Maggie rose to her feet to join me in the house, the rabbit scampered to the safety of the brush.

For a good half hour, though, it had enjoyed the coolness of the early morning in spite of the presence of a predator. It didn’t live in fear.

I, too, have nothing to fear.

Stewart

Vultures (and a boxful of Buechner)

March 26, 2014February 22, 2025 Sally9 Comments

I’ll admit that I felt a little vulture-ish, looking through my brother’s belongings, and, in the course of deciding where things should go, choosing a few things to keep for myself.

The good thing is that my family is really not about material possessions.

Q: What did one vulture say to the other vulture?

A: I’ve got a bone to pick with you.

That (^) never happened, not even once.

We sorted through piles and piles and piles of papers. We sorted through boxes and boxes of stuff. I know stuff is a terribly nondescript word, but it is so apropos that I feel okay about using it.

Stuff includes notepads (see previous post) and office supplies, playing cards, games, craft supplies, photographs, and books.

One collection of odds-and-ends I put together was party supplies: crepe paper, balloons, plastic eggs, strings of styrofoam skulls, strings of ceramic chili peppers, a giant plastic sombrero serving dish, and smaller Cinco de Mayo serving accessories.

Two vultures were eating a dead clown. One asked the other, “Does this taste funny to you?”

I found a tin full of little plastic doo-dads. I showed them to one of his friends, and she laughed. “I’d like to keep that if I could,” she said. “Those were all cupcake toppers from celebrations.”

Stuff also included artwork, mugs, dishes, canned foods, toiletries, and books.

A vulture tried to board an airplane lugging two dead raccoons but was stopped by the stewardess. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but airline regulations only allow one carrion per passenger.”

My sister found two framed pieces of art that she really liked and was able to pack them in her suitcase. She called me later to tell me that she just realized that she had probably given Stewart those pictures years ago. “No wonder I liked them so much,” she said, laughing.

Other stuff included old computers, monitors that no longer worked, flash drives, cameras, CDs, DVDs, VHS tapes, a Kindle, and books.

Did I mention that Stewart had books?

Q: What’s the difference between a lawyer and a vulture?

A: A vulture has wings.

Quite honestly, Stewart was the antithesis of a vulture and a lawyer. He did, however, have boxes and boxes of books. Several of them contained all his law books from when he was in law school. Is there a market for twenty year old law textbooks? I rather doubt it.

It was in these boxes of books that I found my treasure, my keepsake from Stewart. I found a box full of Buechner. In fact, it held 15 books by Frederick Buechner, 6 books by Robert Farrar Capon, a Henri Nouwen book I didn’t own, and a book by Elie Wiesel. Jackpot.

Frederick Buechner is one of my new favorite authors. His thoughts are profound and full of grace. In fact, this quote of his, not about vultures, captures some of the most comforting words I have read since Stewart’s death.

“When you remember me, it means you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am on who you are. It means that you can summon me back to your mind even though countless years and miles may stand between us. It means that if we meet again, you will know me. It means that even after I die, you can still see my face and hear my voice and speak to me in your heart.”

When I look at this collection of Buechner on my bookshelf, I will remember my brother.

And I won’t feel like a vulture.

Stewart

A New Notepad

March 25, 2014May 9, 2018 Sally5 Comments

It became a theme. A legal pad with only a few pages written upon.

When I found the first few of these on his kitchen table, I laughed and commented to his friend, “I can’t believe he only uses a few pages on each pad.”

“Welcome to my world,” she said with a smile.

As we dug deeper and deeper into the apartment — my brothers, my sister, my father all helping — it became abundantly clear that we had had a minimal understanding of Stewart’s struggles. Layered in with the notepads was a paper trail that told such a sad, sad story.

I daresay that each of us wept, though not collectively. Individually. Privately. Alone. As my family is wont to do. Hearts breaking, not just with the loss of a family member, but with the pain that we uncovered.

While over the years I was busy looking down my nose and saying things like, “I don’t understand why Stewart doesn’t just (fill in the blank),” Stewart was hitting yet another pothole on the bumpy road of his life. And I had no clue. I truly didn’t understand.

“I found a notepad if anyone needs one,” one of my brothers would call out occasionally.

We would laugh. There was no dearth of notebooks. He had legal pads – yellow and white, composition books, loose leaf paper and three ring binders, ring bound notebooks, blank journals, and paper, just plain white paper.

As I put together a timeline for Stewart’s life — the hidden part that I didn’t know — I began to see a theme. An attempt to put old things behind and start new, followed by a problem, followed by yet another attempt to start new.

This plethora of notepads was a metaphor for his life. A clean notebook. A fresh start. Followed by something I couldn’t always see that made him want to start again.

At the beginning of the weekend, I had driven to the Pittsburgh airport to pick up my sister. On my way, I had passed a man standing along a busy road where there was stop-and-go traffic. He held a battered cardboard sign that read something like, “HOMELESS. VETERAN. PLEASE HELP.” I had watched through my rearview mirror as someone handed him money out the window of their car. My cold hard heart felt nothing for him.

At the end of the weekend, after driving my sister back to the airport, I saw him again. I had no loose change to give him, but I wanted to ask him, “Do you have a sister? Does she live in a little town in a two-story house with her family? Does she know about your gritty exhaust-filled life here by the road?”

Stewart had never reached that point of standing by the road. But I never knew all the struggles he did have.

I wanted to roll down my window and hand that homeless guy a notepad.