Golden Boots

Golden Boots

by Nancy Grossman-Samuel

I have a pair of golden boots. They are not boots I would have bought myself, but when Pat said she wanted them I was tickled. Someone should have those golden boots. And they’re mine now. And I am both sad and happy at the same time because it would be nice if Pat could still wear her golden boots. She’s done with them. She’s done with it all. She decided, at seventy something that she’d had it here and was ready to move on.

I met Pat because I was her hospice volunteer. We became good friends. She told me her stories. Some common, some exciting, like about when she won a modeling contest even before finishing high school, and how she went all over the country and the world to model clothes. She showed me her picture in a magazine. She was adorable. She was wearing a cute blue dress, white gloves (I think), and a white belt that accentuated her teeny tiny waist. She was naive and young, and the money would be a great help to her hard working mother who she loved as much as life itself.

Though barely conscious, I sat with Pat a few days before she passed, and there were times she’d get a smile on her face that I knew meant she must be seeing that very mother.

While modeling in New York, she met a young man who was a friend of her employer. Sometime later she was invited down south where he lived with his parents for a holiday visit. He was Jewish and she was Christian and his mother would have none of it. He was wealthy and she was poor, and he adored her and she him. But he could not defy his parents, and they parted forever. Not a happy event for either of them.

The next time Pat heard from him was the day of her wedding. He decided he’d made a terrible mistake and went to her house; she was out; her mother told the young man that Pat was to be married that day. He left, I assume heartbroken. I tried to find him through Google and various social media sites, but I was never successful. I didn’t tell her that I was going to try, or that I did try. Neither of her two marriages worked and I had fantasies about them meeting and that meeting creating a healing for her.

Pat was very self-sufficient, but when I met her she was very ill and living at her daughter’s house. Right before Christmas she went back to her own apartment where I visited her for nearly a year. As she declined, she moved to a private care home. Before we knew it, she was off hospice for failure to decline. Being fed three meals a day, and assisted daily with her general care was probably the key though she often missed her independent living.

No longer my hospice patient, I kept visiting, and eventually we decided it would be okay, since I was now just her friend, to leave the house together. I would drive her. She loved my Prius plug-in. She loved the car, its light blue color, and the drive. She loved to get out and go places. We went to movies, lunch, and shopping. Pat loved to shop. It made her happy.

When I originally saw those golden boots my eyes widened, but it was more a “who would wear those?” wide. When Pat saw them she said “Oh my. I think I have to have those.”

She tried them on and asked me if she was silly to get them. I asked her if she really liked them, and when she said ‘yes’ I said, ‘no, you are not silly to get them.’

The following week we went out, and she was wearing the golden boots. She looked like a kid in a candy shop. “Will you be embarrassed to be seen with me wearing these?” she asked, a grin on her face.

“Are you kidding?” I asked, “I want to get a pair of my own!”

Rest in Peace Pat – you are missed

A post script to this story: I was working on a number of different possible stories to read at the open mic for which this was written. I spent hours and came up with lots of things that weren't working for a variety of reasons. None of them were about Pat. I took a shower to get ready to go figuring I would not read, just enjoy others’ stories. I sat down one more time with not very much time left before I had to go, the golden boots on my feet, and this story poured out of me. I’m sure it was Pat at my shoulder dictating. She would have loved the open mic evenings. I’m sorry I never thought to invite her.

Typewriter

"What an unusual typeface," said my English teacher.  "I've never seen a student turn in an essay typed in script before."

"I used my grandpa's typewriter," I said.  "It's different."

"And the paper's different, too," she said.  "Why are the pages so short?"

"I used my grandpa's stationery, and decided I should cut off the letterhead before I turned in the essay."

"Why?"

"He sells gravesites for Forest Lawn Cemetery."

She burst out laughing, and I did too.  "Thank you for your consideration," she said, "and for making my day."

I remembered that conversation as I looked at the filthy, battered metal carrying case that still held my grandfather's typewriter after all these years.  I unlatched the case and smelled cigarette smoke.  His last Chesterfield had been stubbed out in 1978, probably minutes before the massive heart attack that took him out.  Somebody, one of my cousins, had screwed around with the machine after Grandpa was dead and jammed the keys.  My father had insisted that they mail him the typewriter, since he didn't have anything else tangible to remember his own father by.  Maybe they sabotaged it deliberately before they mailed it, or maybe they jacked it up as soon as they got their hands on it -- who knows?  But there it sat, yellowed with age, broken and useless.

I sighed and latched the lid back on the case, picked it up by the frayed leather handle and set it aside with the mountains of stuff I'd pulled out of closets and drawers.  Dad was dead, and we were all deployed around his house, emptying every nook and cranny and seeing what was what.  He had given us fair warning.  "Your stepmother and I moved into this house in 1988, and there are boxes in the garage that were never unpacked.  I have no idea what all is in there -- books for sure, but I don't know what else.  Good thing we paid the moving company so much money to pack and bring it all -- must have been really important stuff, huh?"  My stepsister and her husband will sort through what's left in the house that once belonged to her mom and my dad.  They will keep what's useful or nostalgic, and get rid of the rest.

Feeling motivated by cleaning out my dad's closets and drawers, I opened my filing cabinet, plugged in the shredder, and decided to make things easier on whoever has to eventually square my things away.  Surely I could shred supporting documents from ancient tax returns?  Into the shredder went old SBC and MCI phone bills -- those companies are long gone; Washington Mutual, Home Savings, Corus Bank, Countrywide statements -- they're gone, gone, gone, gone; C.A. Robinson in L.A. -- gone; Advanta and Providian and other purveyors of Visa and Master Cards -- gone, done and dusted.  I shook my head.  My filing cabinet was a crypt full of dead companies, haunted by flimsy paper ghosts of businesses past.

Maybe that's why I left the typewriter behind -- my grandfather's, then my father's -- without a twinge.  Everything has its time, and everything passes.  Someday, somebody will look at whatever computer I was using when I bit the dust, shake their heads, and let Goodwill or the Salvation Army have it.

However, I have more photographs I found while searching through my father's lifetime of things, and I will put them in albums with the rest of my old photos just for my own sake, despite knowing that when I'm gone, they'll go into rubbish bins.  So it goes, to quote Kurt Vonnegut -- and my crumbling paperback copies of his Slaughterhouse Five and Cat's Cradle, the ones I bought back in high school, the ones with my name and little peace signs on the inside covers, back when I was typing essays in fancy script on my grandfather's Forest Lawn stationery -- they'll end up in the same rubbish bins.  So it goes.  And so it must.

(Meanwhile, gather ye Thai food while ye may...)  ;)


Susan Cameron, copyright 2013

Appointment In Fountain Valley

by Susan Cameron

“Hand me that file on Sweet Pea,” said Death.  “I want to read something to you that you wrote when you filled out her medical history forms at the animal dermatologist.”  He shuffled through the papers, found one and cleared his throat.  

"'Sweet Pea is a rescue dog who lived in a urine-soaked, maggot-infested truck camper.  Her diet was mostly white rice, bread, baked goods, a little meat and cheap dog food.  She was in misery with continuous scratching.  She had an ear infection, bacterial, fungal and yeast skin infections, inflamed paw pads, severe hair loss, skin thickening and oozing, and she smelled like death.'"  He stopped a moment, cocked an eyebrow and smiled.  “I find that offensive, but I’ll let it pass.  To continue: ‘After six months of veterinary care, good food and medicated shampoos, her symptoms have abated; but in less than a month off antibiotics, she starts itching and scratching again, and her belly skin starts feeling moist and it starts darkening again.  I took corn and wheat out of her diet, and she seems to tolerate sweet potatoes and potatoes, but rice might be a trigger too.  Sometimes she scratches after we go to the park -- grass allergy? (heavy sigh).’”

Death set the papers down and leaned back in the chair.  “Do you remember all that?  You need to understand that Sweet Pea was on our schedule in May 2011.  You swooped in, all love and concern and cubic dollars, and scooped her up.  That’s fine with us -- no problem there, the absolutely final day for a dog isn’t necessarily carved in stone -- but everybody eventually has to make that appointment in Samarra.  I mean everybody and everything that lives must die.  People.  Dogs.  Snails.  Corn and wheat and peas and presidents and cats.  Fish don’t get off the hook, if you’ll pardon the pun.”  He shrugged.  “It’s nothing personal.  Come on, you remember The Lion King, the circle of life and all that? You called Sweet Pea your baby and your little girl, but she was twelve and then some, which made her a rather elderly cattle dog.  Just think about what you did for her!  Instead of being put down at the shelter after the worst time of her life, she lived an extra fifteen months with you.  That’s like, what, eight or nine human years?  Medicine, food, water, treats, walks, nonstop petting -- doggie heaven on earth, right?”

I nodded, still too choked up to speak, the box of tissues close at hand.  I’d asked him here to get some answers, and I couldn’t even manage to ask the questions.

“People would stop you in the park and say, ‘What a beautiful dog!  What gorgeous fur!  How old is she, six, seven?  TWELVE?  You’re kidding!’  Did people not do this all the time?“

“Yes,” I whispered.

“And this isn’t the first time you’ve done this for an animal, you know.  Your Sheba -- come on, what dog her size lives thirteen years?  Remember what your friend Clara said when she came to visit, and Sheba walked over, turned around, sat on your feet and waited for her massage?  She said, ‘Haven’t you noticed when Sheba comes to you, she’s stiff and her arthritis hurts her, and when she walks away she’s walking normally?  Your hands glow when you pet her.  They shine.  The love just pours out of your hands and makes her feel better.’  You remember that?”

“I do,” I said.  “Clara sees auras.”

“Yes.  And what did you see when the vet showed you Sweet Pea’s x-rays and ultrasound?”

“Two massive tumors in her abdomen.  I just thought she was getting fat from all the treats and her metabolism slowing down.”  I got teary again.

“That’s right.  Cancer never crossed your mind.  Why?  Because she had no pain.  Because every morning she came to you, rolled over, and you rubbed her belly and sang, ‘Oh, you beautiful dog, you great big beautiful dog...'”

I laughed, embarassed.  “You know about that?”

“Please.  I get a kick out of you.  We all do.”  He looked thoughtful.  “That very morning, didn’t she do that thing where she practically stands on her head and looks at you upside down to get you to rub her butt above her tail?  Didn’t she bound into the kitchen and gobble her breakfast?   Sure, by the time you got home that afternoon she felt too crappy to move from the hallway, but come on!  Give yourself a break!  The dog didn’t even have twenty-four hours of pain.  How long did it take your next-door neighbor to die of brain cancer?”

“I get your point,” I said, “but it still stabbed me in the heart when she turned her face away from the Thai green bean Steve put in front of her.”

“Yeah, Sweet Pea and her Thai beans.”  He smiled and nodded.  “But you didn’t just let that pass.  You got her to the vet.  You got the exams.  You saw the tumors and the pool of blood inside the big one.  You said your goodbyes, and she was gone in, what, five seconds?  Even though I’m Death, I don’t get any pleasure from the suffering of any creature.  But everybody’s got to go eventually, and let’s be honest -- you’d pretty much run out the clock to the maximum on Sweet Pea.  Good call on the shot -- it was going to get really ugly, really quickly.”

“So, explain something to me.”  I leaned in, looking him in the eye.  “I know it was the right thing to do, a choice that almost made itself when I saw the exam results.  Why do I feel as if I let her down?”

He sighed.  “The simple answer is, you’re half-nuts.  Most people are, or they make themselves that way eventually.” He shook his head.  “Let me point out that interspecies relationships are a two-way street.  On the one hand, you were Sweet Pea’s mommy; on the other hand, you were the alpha leader of your little pack.  This is not news to you.”  He waited; I nodded.  “The alpha has to decide what’s good for the pack and make the hard choices.  You did your job.  So don’t do your usual human bullshit with the shoulda woulda coulda.  It’s a waste of time, and it's not a news flash that there’s more time behind you than in front.”

“Thanks for the reminder.  So, how much time do I have left?”

“That’s classified.  If I told you...” He smiled and waited for me to deliver the punchline.

“You’d have to kill me.”

“There it is."

****** Rest In Peace, Sweet Pea, 2000 -- 2012 ******

Changes Every Three Years

My life is about to change, again. I recently realized that my life seems to be split up into three year segments. Nine years ago I decided to out a long-term secret and complete the bachelor’s degree I had not completed in 1976 as my parents and grandparents thought I did, though from later conversations, I realized they were not so dumb. They knew. Parents always know.

Six years ago my daughter’s middle school principal brow beat me into getting my teaching credential, three years later I began to teach. Two years in middle school and one year in high school. I was burned out and ready to leave and at the same time my father’s heath was seriously deteriorating. I decided to take a leave of absence that turned into quitting.

The past three years have been about parents dying, trusteeship, and getting used to not working to anyone else’s schedule. Except for the homework assigned for my masters program in spiritual psychology which gratefully saw me through the death of my father, and the early hospice days of my mother who doggedly stayed alive for the one year anniversary of her husband’s death, my graduation, my sister’s 25^th wedding anniversary, and my 40^th high school reunion.

After the initial expected shock and loss and the acquisition of responsibilities I never thought I would have, I was content and peaceful. Things went relatively smoothly, and six months after putting it on the market, my parent’s home sold for cash with a 30 day escrow. I tried to consign their belongings, but when I heard that my parent’s beautiful formal dining set could probably get $700, I realized that I was not consigning furniture; I was consigning memories. As I just could not put a price tag on memories, what my sisters and I didn’t take, we gave to friends and charities.

During my final two days in the Sacramento area, a place I had visited monthly since June of 2009, I lost my driver’s license, which caused me to lose two hours as I sat in the DMV waiting for a chance to plead my case and get a new one, lost a casino chit for around $20.00 while I was in the casino bathroom – it just flew away – probably into the hands of someone who felt they’d hit a minor jackpot, and pulled cash out of an ATM but then left both the card and cash in the machine. I thought these things were funny and recounted them a number of times until my attorney looked at me and said in her gentle Texas accent, “You realize that these are all signs of stress.”

Everything worked out fine, and everyone involved in my foibles was great, but I am aware that my mind is in other places a lot of the time, and it’s time to bring it back into my body and to the present. But I’m not really ready to look at the pain that I can occasionally see poking out. I will be ready when I feel like I have the time and space to close the door on the world and do the necessary inner work. It might be a five minute conversation with myself, or it could be days in bed crying with a bucket of ice cream. What I do know is that there are three years of grief inside and probably other things that are stuck to them like a cancer attached to a spinal cord. I didn’t think I had any grief, I just assumed that I had dealt with it all piecemeal, over time. I felt pretty much unscathed.

What I know is that I got off light with the driver’s license, lost chit, and ATM card. I think the universe is being kind, but only if I listen. If I don’t, I have a feeling the next round could a bolder on the head. At least it will never give up on me and I know that once again, my life is about to change. And I look forward with some excitement to what the next three years will bring forward.

Late Bloomers

With thanks to MJ.

David and Joanna came late to love, just good friends until the hot summer night he first noticed the cereus on her back patio.

“What’s this scraggly thing?” David asked, his eyes smiling.

“My night-blooming cereus,” she said, caressing the sad plant. “My brother in California used to have one and it bloomed once when I was visiting. We kept vigil for a few nights, waiting for it to blossom, and we had a big celebration when it did. It only blooms once a year for one night, so you don’t want to miss it. One night, one huge perfect flower. The next morning it’s gone, drooping like a deflated balloon. It was so beautiful, so fragrant, I had to get one for myself.”

“I can’t wait to see it,” he said. “When will it bloom again?”

“This one’s never bloomed,” she said, shaking her head.

“How long have you been nurturing this thing?” he asked.

“Eight years,” she said.

“You’ve been waiting eight years for it to bloom?” he said.

“Yes,” she said.

“Amazing,” he said, taking her face in his hands and kissing her gently for the first time.

For the twelve years they were together, the cereus never flowered, never even produced a bud. It sat on the screened-in back porch every summer, and Joanna moved it inside when the air turned brisk in the fall.

“Why don’t you give up on that thing?” David would say periodically. “It’s never going to bloom.”

“Just you watch,” she’d say, “one day you’ll eat your words.”

“Sure I will,” he’d say.

“It has medicinal value, you know,” she’d say in the plant’s defense. “There’s something in it like digitalis, something that strengthens the heart.”

“Maybe it should give itself a shot of digitalis,” he’d say, chuckling.

David would point it out to guests as if introducing a family member.

“This is our never-blooming cereus,” he’d say. “I hear it’s a real wonder when it blooms. Should be any time now.” He’d wink at Joanna.

“Oh ye of little faith,” she’d say, pretending disappointment in him, and she’d hover close to the plant, like a mother protecting her only child.

When David got sick, Joanna nursed him through surgery and chemotherapy, bad days and okay days and even some good days. Finally, he was better and they began to enjoy life again.

It was a mild summer with bright sunny days, and they went to the beach and picnicked in the woods like young lovers. One evening at dinner, after an especially good day, she thought he was joking when he clutched his chest. When he couldn’t breathe, she lost her smile. When he fell from the chair into her arms, they sank to the floor together and he was gone.

She couldn’t cry or sleep as the summer turned sultry. Family and friends carried her from one day to the next until one by one they returned to their own lives, leaving her alone. That’s when she saw the bud on the cereus - just the barest beginning of a flower. She glared at it, anger rising.

“So now you decide to bloom?” she screamed. “All this time I told him – just you wait – and nothing. How can you do this?”

She kicked the flowerpot, wanting it to shatter. When it didn’t budge, she turned her back on it.

But she couldn’t ignore it. Every night she sat up on the patio with the cereus, watching the bud become like two hands cupped together. On a night as steamy as when David first kissed her, Joanna sat, eyes closed, remembering his hands gentle on her face. Hearing a soft pop, she opened her eyes to a beautiful white flower unfolding to the size of a dinner plate. She inhaled the sweet vanilla scent and finally cried. When she had no more tears and the flower hung limp in the dawn’s light, Joanna fell as soundly asleep as if she were wrapped in David’s arms.

Copyright Liz Zuercher, 2010

Father's Day Salute

In honor of Father’s Day, here’s a salute to my father, Wally Weidman, who passed away in December of 2003 after years of fending off a cascade of ailments.  His German heritage endowed him with clear blue eyes that twinkled when he told a joke, but showed his stubborn indomitable spirit when he was determined to achieve a goal.  He was the consummate salesman, who was loyal to the same company for his entire career, climbing up through the ranks to become a highly respected executive, then mentoring young rising stars.  He loved golf and Chicago Bears football and a thick medium rare aged Midwestern steak.  A sharp dresser, he always put his best foot forward and encouraged us to do the same.  He told a great story and embraced life at every turn.  Some might say he was larger than life, and maybe he was.  You decide.

  

Still a Tough Old Guy

 

            I think Daddy was pretty ticked off that he died.  All the signs pointed to it. 

The Tribune bearing his obituary didn’t get delivered to his wife, Audley’s, door.  The Trib was always there in the morning, every morning except this particular one.  Did Daddy reach back from the dead to snatch it away from the doorstep?

Even though an icy December downpour kept some people from the visitation, the room was full.   Chairs faced the rich wood coffin holding Daddy’s body, impeccably suited, as usual, but we all stood around the room with our backs to him most of the time. Every so often I felt compelled to turn and look at him, thinking I heard him saying, “Hey, I’m over here!  You can’t have this party without me!”  It just wasn’t right that he was not greeting everyone at the door with his warm smile and easy conversation or telling about his great tee shot on the eighteenth hole at Medinah.  It just wasn’t right to be turning our backs on him as if he weren’t there.  I’ll bet he was ticked off at that, too, that he could only be an onlooker.  No matter how many wonderful words were said about him that night, I felt him struggling to be part of it, angry to be left out.

He fought being dead the day of the funeral, too.  Was he the one responsible for the car’s stalling just as we pulled into the church parking lot?  And what about the minister’s microphone?  The tech guy swore it was working before the service, but each time the minister tried to begin his eulogy by proclaiming, “Good news!” the mike was dead.

“What the hell!” I could hear Daddy say. “How can it be good news that I’m dead?”  Oh, yes, Daddy was certainly ticked off.

I think the final straw for Daddy was “Amazing Grace”.  Damned if he was going to let anyone sing “Amazing Grace” about him!  That was a song for the dead and he was most certainly not about to admit that defeat!  He hadn’t fought so hard and endured so much over the past few years to up and die!  He was still a tough old guy, just like his doctor had said, and tough old guys didn’t let death take them without a fight, God damn it!  This woman was not going to sing that song!  Midway through the first verse, the noon bells began to chime, battling the contralto tones of “Amazing Grace” until the organist and soloist gave up and let the bells finish their insistent interruption. 

“Ha!” I heard Daddy say.  “Take that, Death!”

But as the bells’ final tones slipped away, the second verse of “Amazing Grace” prevailed, and the service continued without further interruption.   That must have been when Daddy finally understood that his fight was over - that this world he was trying so desperately to hold onto wasn’t his world anymore.  Did he let go at last, lay down his struggle and rest?  I hope so.  It was time for the tough old guy to relax and enjoy a perpetual round of hole-in-one golf.  He had certainly earned it.