Life Changes – On the Ravine

And so this was Christmas.

I’m a procrastinator. If I took one of those quizzes on Facebook, I’d register as ADHD. I registered as ADHD with a psychologist several years ago–as an adult! I’m great in the immediate. Just give me a human, friend, or animal problem, and I’ll get right to work on it immediately and see it through.

But–I couldn’t start decorating for Christmas because I had to get the boxes down from the attic. My fairy Fixer (let’s call her Brenna) got the boxes down a few days after Thanksgiving, which came late this year. She put up the trees, two of them, and helped me get started. I did most, but she, being over six feet tall, got a ladder from our storage and placed two beloved arrangements on our very high ledges.

One is a Santa with a sleigh, toys, and reindeer I put together twenty-six years ago. Every year, I update him a little. But she lit his sleigh, and it glowed every day for six hours until Christmas Eve. That evening, when I had company, it did not light.

Santa flying high!

However, the lighted PEACE letters on the longest ledge held their prominent position well.

The rest of the decorations took a few days after Brenna’s help that first day. I found other things to do.

The outside decor was not outstanding, but it was there. And I still had the Christmas pumpkins in front of the mailbox. Someone on the NextDoor app just told me that deer love pumpkins, so yesterday, I smashed them in our backyard’s wildlife preserve. I hope I can watch them eat. How do you call a deer?

The Christmas Pumpkins

I wish someone could have been here to help me smash them!

Mama’s Silver Tree

No one even tried to make The Grinch sing and dance.

The Wineglass Advent Wreath still shines today. Some of us say Christmas isn’t over until The Epiphany arrives on January 6th.

The Wineglass Advent Wreath still shines today.

Our family Christmas was on Saturday, December 21. We took presents for the grands and enjoyed each other’s company. We missed the kids and grands in Montana and hope to all be together one Christmas.

The Eve was a highlight. Our guests included our next-door neighbor, V.B. and her son Jacob, three of the John Grahams, and brother Jerry Wong. Christmas Eve is a time for having people in who aren’t celebrating somewhere else. We had a scrumptious dinner (if I do say so myself), told tales, and laughed!

Christmas Day was laid back with Jerry. He and I took some of last night’s dinner to two special temporarily laid-up friends and packed up what I call his food bag for his trip home on Thursday. When we got home, he serenaded me on his portable keyboard.

All of the above is boring. I know that. I’ve been absent from the blog for several months, but I’m making my readers a New Year’s promise to write more often. Actually, I’ve been writing–but I’ve been unable to finish a piece for this place. I have drafts, so stay tuned for My American Native Heritage Month or Of Okies and Hillbillies. But first, you’ll have to get through AFTER CHRISTMAS.

Can you read the sign on the fence? It appears to be quite weathered and faded, but with a closer look, you might be able to decipher the important information it holds. Perhaps it offers some safety guidelines, warnings to keep out, or even instructions relevant to the area beyond the fence. Pay attention to any symbols or markings that could provide additional context, as they might reveal a story or message that is not immediately obvious.

The above paragraph provided by AI. The sign says:

COMING SOON! That could mean anything.

75

It hasn’t been too long since sales clerks, pharmacists, and service people began explaining things to me that need no explanation. When I checked out at my favorite thrift store on Tuesday, I forgot to ask for my Seniors’ Day discount. When I turned around on my way out and said, “Oh, wait, I’m a Senior,” the young woman said, “Oh, I already gave you the discount!” When I glanced at my receipt, there it was, the 30% discount.”

I am seventy-five years old. I’m not in love with it. I just don’t know what to do with it.

Oh, people still tell me I look younger than seventy-five, but the guy at the nail salon said he thought I looked more like sixty-five. He thinks that’s a whole lot better?

Now seventy-five, I estimate that at least three-quarters of my life is gone. If I lived to be my father’s age when he passed, I would only have fourteen years, or if I lived as long as my mother, eighteen years.

I can’t seem to get to the question I need to ask myself, “What will you do with these, [gulp], remaining years?” I get stuck on what if I only live to be 80. Then I am so sad, I cannot find any other questions.

I don’t want to leave this precious, troubled, wonderful, chaotic, green, climate-threatened, beautiful, war-torn world. I want to see change in my well-loved country: less hate, less hunger, less killing. My children and grandchildren would be fine without me, but I’m not finished looking at them, cheering them on, and loving them with this unequaled passion that began when the first infant sounds pushed from my body.

Most of the time, the questions arise when I feed my fish in the early mornings. I sit on the rock wall of the pond and gaze through a dense thicket separating our house from a busy thoroughfare. I note the birdsongs; I hear Cardinals order “Beer, beer, beer” and “Chip, chip, chip!” House finches cheep and warble a trill. Robins peek and tut before announcing, “Pretty, pretty, pretty.” Crows caw and caw louder to warn of a present hawk. Sometimes owls call to each other across the trees.

I am scared, weak, and afraid of the quick passing of time—something most people would never see in me.

I never imagined seventy-five, but the digits are mine. I don’t want to return to my twenties, or anything like that. I just want to be…for longer.

Okay, I’m ready for the question. What will I do to max out my days, months, and years? Or as Mary Oliver says, “What will [I] do with [the rest of] this wild and precious life?”

I’m working on my answers. They’re endless, so I know I must begin the tasks before I finish the list.

I plan to exhaust this endless love inside me, even though I know Love always creates more love. I’ll watch and listen until I need to sleep. Lookout, Beauty, I’m going to catch you and hold you in the Light. And Joy? I’ll choose you every day, even those when you seem far away. If I can’t reach you, I’ll make you.

Watch me, World. Slow down, and let me hug you every day.

The one that got away

Once I had a housekeeper who lost some cleaning product every Tuesday. Some of that tendency might have been related to the six-pack of beer she insisted I leave in the refrigerator the night before she cleaned. She usually drank two beers while she ironed and took four home.

I found Windex in the refrigerator, Pledge on my nightstand, or maybe Tub & Tile cleaner in a closet (and not the one assigned to janitorial supplies). I loved that woman. Her name was Patty. She and her husband raised eleven children, some of whom were in high school when she came to my house.

I have to admit I’ve developed a tendency to lose things. Earrings, photos, flower pots, electronics manuals, books, lipstick, and baking supplies are all examples of things I put in a safe place and couldn’t find. I usually end a search with, “It’ll turn up somewhere.”

I’ve never lost a fish–until a couple weeks ago.

Dave and I had wild-caught cod with the most delightful seasoning, asparagus, and smashed little potatoes for dinner. Four good-sized fillets, semi-breaded with crumbs and pungent herbs, were cooked in my favorite kitchen add-on, the air fryer.

Let me tell you about that air fryer. It isn’t my first one. I sent that one back without opening the box. But the one I have now has two independent drawers, and it is so easy to cook an entire dinner for two or three diners. It’s easy to clean since I discovered those little air fryer liners. I love it and use it almost every day.

The fish was delicious, and there were two pieces left to put away for another meal. The air fryer re-heats supremely, leaving what you put in it in much better shape than when it went in. I’m just saying you can have crispy leftover French fries or maybe a like-new entree.

Dave cleaned the kitchen that night. I knew he would put the leftovers in glass containers or plastic bags for another meal.

We discuss dinner before we finish breakfast. I’m sometimes half-asleep, but at the very least, I can agree with the protein that will be served. We wanted to use the leftover fish promptly to be closer to fresh so I planned to heat it in the air fryer the next day.

That evening, the fish was not in the refrigerator, so we ate a burger instead. I suggested that Diana, who likes her food cold, probably had eaten the cod for breakfast. When she came in later that evening, I asked her if she had eaten the fish.

“No, she answered, “I ate pasta salad. Lots of pasta salad. All of the pasta salad.” (When she eats, she eats.)

The following day, she asked if I had found the fish I sought.

“No, I think Dave must have thrown it away,” I said, even though he had told me earlier that he had not seen the fish. But maybe he did and didn’t realize it. He’s, at the very least, as forgetful as I am.

We looked in every drawer and cabinet in the kitchen. Maybe somebody stuck it in the cabinet.

Finally, we all agreed that the delicious leftover fish had been thrown away. What a waste.

Dave has often reminded me that “fish and company stink after three days.” (Mind you, he was giving me a reason not to stay too long at our friends’ house and not referring to any guests we might have.)

Well, the little pieces of cod took almost six days to stink. Diana came into the kitchen one morning, grimaced, and asked, “What is that foul smell over here?” Dave said he smelled it too. Diana was standing in front of the recycling bin. She took the bin to the garage and emptied it into the receptacle that Metro empties every other week.

“It’s not the recycling,” she said when she returned. “Maybe it’s the garbage can.”

Well, sometimes things start to stink in the garbage if they’re there for a couple of days. She emptied the trash and sprayed the bin before adding a new (biodegradable) bag.

I rarely smell any odor anywhere, owing to the years of asthma inhalers and chronic coughing, which, by the way, is soooo much better since I’ve started the bi-monthly injection of Fasenra.

I asked, “Do you still smell it?”

“Lord, yes.” Her gaze traveled the row of upper cabinets and the appliances on the sideboard. There’s a scale, a slow cooker, and…an air fryer. I can’t tell you what she said when she first opened the #1 pan of my most wonderful kitchen helper, but it was followed quickly by “found the *&$#! fish!”

I jumped up from my chair at the kitchen table. She had donned her plastic gloves and was already headed outside with her quarry when she yelled, “Don’t come out here. And leave that thing alone.”

“Are there maggots?” I asked.

“Yes, and stay away from it,” she answered. “Sit down.”

I did. Sit down.

I thought she had dumped the decrepit fish flesh in the garbage can, but she told me later she emptied it in the common area woods in the back of our house and then blasted it with the garden hose. She put it in the kitchen sink and doused it with hydrogen peroxide and Odoban, a disinfecting product I’ve used for years, especially during the Covid years.

Then she grabbed the #2 basket and put it in the sink, giving it the same going-over as #1. She unplugged the air fryer and furiously wiped the insides with paper towels, both wet and dry.

“Were there maggots inside it, too?”

She lifted her head and just stared at me. Or maybe she glared at me.

She disinfected the insides of that thing so much I was afraid it would never work again. She put the two baskets and their trays in the dishwasher. I put my hands on her shoulders and said, “Diana, you know I would never ask you to do something like that, but I want to thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

She mumbled something nice and then announced, “I am going to get in the shower.

I heard her call over her shoulder, “Now that we’ve found Nemo.”

Grafting and Healing Gahhhh

Maybe forgetfulness is part of healing. I know it’s related to grief.

I didn’t remember Mom on June 24, the day she died two years ago, but I had a restless, sad week. I thought I was anxious about the debate between, you know, Him and Him.

The debate passed, and I was a bit nonplussed by the performance of both Hims. Good Lord. However, after that day, I was still uneasy and lethargic.

Friday, I went to the nail salon so Wii could put that powder stuff on my nails. I’m growing nails out under those shells, and I think this week will be my chance to go au naturale. I’m going to the salon where I took Dad three weeks before he died and Mom three weeks before she passed. It took me almost two years to get back there. I just went anywhere I hadn’t been with Mom or Dad.

When Wii began to speak, it came to me. June 24 had come and gone, and I hadn’t remembered that Mom died on that day two years ago. I grieved for a few minutes. I was surprised that the date hadn’t come to me. I think about her almost daily. But it had arrived in the form of almost a week of depression. My condition is better named Sorrow.

The body and the mind managed the grief. After the week had passed, I felt a small healing, and now I can laugh at some of the predicaments Mom and I got into. There were so many.

I’d started this blog piece three weeks ago, and now I felt I could write.

***

In April, my dentist and I decided I might need a gum graft. This is where the surgeon excises live gum tissue from somewhere in somebody’s mouth and then “plants” it in receding gums. It’s not a delightful procedure, but I endured it well with the help of whatever stuff they used to sedate me.

After the first look at my lower front teeth post-surgery, the doctor told me that after the new gum tissue had settled in, I might also need a frenectomy. Another dental surgery, whereby the little thing that holds the bottom lip to the gums is clipped. Yay for me.

I said, “Goody.” This procedure is scheduled for July 24.

I had a frenectomy when I was nineteen years old, living in Lewistown, Montana, with my folks, working for radio station KXLO. My dentist was Dr. Harry Ziolowski, known to most of us as Dr. Z, a man who weighed at least 400 pounds. I liked him but wondered how he could get close enough to work on my teeth. He always attended to my mouth with gentleness and efficiency. And he was funny.

The day Dr. Ziolowski clipped the frenum, I drove myself to the office. He numbed me up, and it didn’t take long. Dr. Z had just received a new kind of bandage for such a task. He explained that this material would feel like three big pieces of bubblegum inside my lower lip. He pressed it to the double incision and told me to pretend I had a wad of chew in there.

I tried to laugh, but he stopped me.

“No, don’t laugh. You can’t pull on that bandage. It’s supposed to settle in against where I did the work.”

Dr. Z had already prescribed some painkillers, and I had picked them up before the appointment. I headed to the restroom to clean up my bloody face and popped two of them before I drove home.

I was drowsy, but I knew Mom had not been feeling well when she went to work, so I fixed the Littles hot dogs, canned chili, and potatoes. Our Littles were the three Wong boys that we were fostering. They were happy to eat as soon as they came in from school.

“What in the world is wrong with your mouth?” Johnny Wong, the youngest at age nine, asked.

“Had surrrrzhy,” I said.

“What’s surrrzhy?” Jerry asked.

Johnny answered in a low tone, “They cut something out.”

“Her tongue?” Jerry asked.

Johnny huffed. “No, probably a tooth.”

I didn’t bother to correct him. I just wanted to get that bottle of ketchup on the table and make it to my bed. The numbing was wearing off.

Jimmy didn’t acknowledge his brothers’ conversation. He just said, “Good, Dinah,” as he pushed a large piece of chili-laced hot dog into his mouth.

“Oo eyes puh disses in dihwahher,” I said, turning toward the hall to my room.

I didn’t hear Mom come in. My mother was plagued with migraines, and I knew the worst of this one was on its way when she left for the bank. She was seeing an aura. I assumed she would go to bed early after talking to the boys and saying goodnight. She always read to them, but maybe not that evening, and Dad was away from home for some educational reason. She did go to bed, I found out.

At about midnight, I woke in terror with a giant bubble still attached to my mouth but lying on my pillow. I screamed and jumped away from the bed. Blood from this melon-sized balloon spattered over the whole room, pink bedspread, white ruffled pillows, and the walls. I grabbed a pillow and held it against my face. Mom was in front of the bathroom by the time I got there.

“What’s wrong? What’s happened?” she asked.

“I tink my buhbuhguh boke,” I answered, muffled by the pillow.

“Good grief. I don’t know what you’re saying, but we better call Dr. Z. And go get a towel.”

I grabbed a green hand towel from the bathroom and left the pillow in the tub, then weaved and wobbled back to Mom’s bedroom, helped her lie down with the princess phone, and propped two pillows behind her back. I was right. She was in the middle of a migraine.

I could hear the phone ringing.

“No answer,” she said. She hung up. She dialed again. It rang and rang, and finally, Dr. Z answered.

“This is Ethel Blair,” she told him. “Something’s wrong with Diana’s mouth. There’s blood everywhere.”

“Okay. Okay,” he said, half asleep. “Meet me at the office.”

“Alright,” she said to him and to me, “Honey, put some clothes on.”

I grabbed a yellow sweatshirt and a pair of wheat-colored jeans from the chair where I’d left them and staggered down the hall and through the kitchen to the garage. I jumped when I realized Mom was behind me. She was wearing her bank uniform skirt, a blue chenille cotton robe tied around her waist over her pajama top, and red fuzzy house slippers.

“You on’t hah tuh doh wif me, Ma,” I said. “You toh tick.”

“I’m in better shape than you are. Get in the car.”

I was in my seat by the time she made it to the driver’s side, holding onto our co-owned sixty-six Mustang. She backed out of the garage and handed me a brown grocery bag.

“Here, hold that in case I vomit,” she said.

We knew we’d probably make it to the doctor’s office before he did, as he and his family lived farther out of town.

We sat in the car in the dark. Mom held onto the steering wheel. After a few minutes, she said, “He’s not coming. I bet he fell asleep.”

There was a phone booth between Dr. Z’s place and the Dairy Dip.

“I doh cah him,” I said. “Do oo how caynzh? Doh hab pursss.”

Mom grabbed the paper bag and heaved. She leaned back against the seat, sighed, and said, “While you do that, I’ll throw this away.” Then she handed me her purse. I lifted her wallet and was glad to see she had a zippered pouch full of coins. I took it with me as I made my drunken way to the phone booth.

I knew his phone number. I dialed.

“Ethel? Is that you?” he asked.

“Dr. Z, ‘s Dinah. Dat baddash bust.”

“Oh no,” he answered. “I thought I was dreaming when your mom called. I’ll be there as soon as I can. I’m sorry.”

“‘Tay,” I said.

Mom had driven across the parking lot to the Dairy Dip. She was hurling into their big garbage can.

“Ma!” I called. “I tumih.”

I was beginning to gain control of myself, although I’m sure I staggered a little across the lot to the Dairy Dip trash can. I held Mom. She turned and said she thought she was feeling a little better.

“Oo dit ih duh sigh, an I dwibe,” I said. I pushed her into the passenger seat and rounded the Mustang, balancing myself against the vehicle with my left side.

She looked comfortable in the car. “Is he coming?” she asked.

I nodded my head.

“I’ll just stay here,” she said.

I drove slowly over a couple of bumps between the lots and parked as close to the door as I could.

“Whah if oo bahf?” I looked in the back seat. Nothing there to throw up in. I got out and opened the trunk. There was one of Dad’s leather book bags. It was sturdy. I emptied the books, papers, pens, paper clips, and whatever else was in the bag. I handed the bag to Mom and saw Dr. Z’s big truck with its bed cover-camper shell coming down the road.

I leaned against the car and waited for him to park and get out. He was wearing yellow and brown striped cotton pajamas, a matching plaid robe, and a bowler hat.

“Oh, Diana, I’m so sorry. Come on in here. Where’s Ethel?”

“Ih duh cah,” I said. “Siht. My-way.”

“Oh, gosh, I remember she gets migraines. Let me get her out of this car.”

He ran to the vehicle and opened the door.

“Ethel,” he said, “You can’t stay out here in the dark. Let me help you inside, and I can give you something to calm this old headache. “

Never mind me, I thought, moving the towel to a dry place.

Mom held his forearm with both arms, Dad’s book bag dangling from her left, as he carefully ushered her up the steps to the door. I held the wrought iron banister, glad to be a bit more with it than an hour ago.

“Diana, go on back,” Dr. Z said as he turned on the hall lights with his right hand and held onto Mom with his left. “Ethel, can you curl up on this sofa? I can give you a shot of Valium. I think it would help.”

Mom nodded. The sofa was a red velvet Victorian loveseat. It looked odd compared to the rest of the chairs in the room. Mom scrunched her knees up on the sofa as Dr. Z pushed her into place. She looked like she belonged on the short couch.

“I’m going to give your mother something for that headache,” he said, rambling around in the hall closet.

I climbed into the dental chair in the back room. It was dark.

I heard Dr. Z say, “Ethel, I’m going to pull your sleeve up. I normally give Valium in the buttocks, but I’d have to move you.”

Footsteps in the hall.

Dr. Z turned on the task light. I was nearly blinded.

“Where’s Rev. Blair?” he asked me as he prepared a tray.

“Pihwins,” I said through clenched teeth.

“Ah, Billings. I bet he’s at the State Teachers’ Conference. I thought it might be in Great Falls this year.”

“Es,” I answered. “Oo dib Ma sot?” I wrapped the white towel he gave me over my chest and under my chin. still holding the bloody towel against my mouth.

“Yes,” he said, “She should be feeling better in a few minutes. Okay, now, open up. Just a little. “

I opened my mouth and pulled down my lower lip.

“Oh my God, this is a mess,” he said. “That stuff…It’s not supposed to do THAT.”

He paused for a minute or two.

“After I numb you up, I’ll pull this bandage out and temporarily replace it with a stack of gauze. Then I’ll get you to hold it. You can be my assistant.”

“Here comes the numbing,” he said as he pushed the needle into several points on my lower gums. I remember seeing stars alternating with pitch black.

“Now, while that’s setting up, I’ll get that stuff out of there. Open just a little more.”

He lifted some instruments from the tray and started gently pulling on the rubbery mess. I held the gauze against my cheek.

“Okay, it’s almost out. Give me the gauze.”

He pressed it between my lips and my gums. “Hold that pretty tight,” he said. This was a bigger wad than the bubblegum.

“Oh, good lord,” he said, dumping the messy lump from his other hand onto a stack of paper bibs, which he carried to the waste can in the hall, along with my bath towel.

Blood ran from my mouth and filled the gauze. I kept holding. He gave me a second stack and left the first on the tray.

On his way back into the room, Dr. Z said, “Diana, I may have to cauterize this thing. You just keep holding for a minute.”

He went into a storage room across the hall and started grabbing equipment.

I didn’t care. I just wanted the whole thing over with.

I heard a thud closely followed by, “Oh, no, Ethel.”

I jumped from the chair, still holding the gauze, and followed Dr. Z.

Mom was on the floor, and this big man was going to try to put her back on the sofa.

“No, no,” I yelled. “Eeb huh oh tuh foohr.”

I rushed around the two of them, pulled a cushion out of a side chair, and pushed it under her head.

“You get back in there, young lady,” he said. “You’re going to cause that mouth to bleed.”

Like it’s not already bleeding, I thought.

He was back in the closet in a couple of moments, and called out to me, “I’m getting her a blanket and a towel in case she vomits.”

“See otay?” I asked.

“She’s good. She’s just sleeping.”

That’s what they say when somebody dies, I thought, and I got up and down the hall again.

“Mom, Mom,” I said, leaning over her on my knees. “Tan oo heeh me?”

“Yes, Honey,” she mumbled. “I hear you. I’m okay.” She put her forearm over her eyes.

Dr. Z. pulled me up and said, “Come on, let’s go.”

He followed me to the exam room. I climbed back into the chair.

“Leaning you back,” he said. “I’m going to stop that bleeding now.”

“I’m going to put this over your face,” he said, “and then you just let me lift your lip off the place, and it will only take a minute.”

Something heavy lay across the top half of my head. Dr. Z. pulled my bottom lip out and started to remove the heavy gauze. I instinctively put my hand to my chin, thinking I would help him, I guess.

“No, no,” he shouted. “Get your hand back!”

I immediately heard a small sizzling. Then the smell hit me.

“Uhhhhhhgg,” I said and shivered.

“One more time,” he said as he touched the wound again. It did not hurt, but I heard it, and I smelled it.

“I doh be siht,” I said and wretched.

Dr. Z. fanned me with something, probably a magazine, and said quietly, “One last small one, and we’re done.”

He probed the third time and fanned me again.

“Wait, wait, wait just a minute.”

I did…wait. And then I threw up. All the blood I’d swallowed all night, and for all I knew, all my insides.

Dr. Z. helped me out of the chair. I stepped into the bathroom. I’d wet my bloodied jeans, and my yellow sweatshirt was a sickly-looking brown. There was blood in my hair and on my white tenny-runners that would never come clean.

“Diana,” he called. “You may want to shower yourself off before you go home. Is there anyone that can pick you up?”

“I tan dwibe,” I said. “I doh hab kwobes.” I hadn’t known there was a shower.

“You can wrap up in my bathrobe. It’s still clean.”

I opened the door. He was a mess, standing there holding out his bathrobe. “I’m going to throw your towel away. Is that alright?”

“Es.”

“How about your clothes?”

“No. I hab to tate dem ho.” Even in my sad condition, I wanted to save my favorite jeans and sweatshirt.

“I’ll find a bag or something,” he said.

“I nee tet oh Ma,” I said.

“I just did. She’s fine. Get yourself cleaned up a little.” He opened the door to his office and led me to his personal bathroom in the corner.

How about that? I thought. Corner bathroom with a corner shower.

“All I got is Lifebuoy. There’s a towel and face cloth on the sink,” he said. “Leave your clothes in the shower,” he said. “You can get the mess tomorrow.”

“Now,” he said, “I’m going to close my office door, and you can lock the bathroom door if you want.”

I closed the door, locked it, and turned the water on in the shower. I pulled the sticky sweatshirt over my head and unzipped the jeans. I decided to rinse them out. It took me longer to give the clothes a bath than my shower. I wondered what LifeBuoy hair would look like in the morning.

It took both Dr. Z and me to get Mom in the car. She was fairly limp.

“You sure you’re okay to drive?” he asked.

“Es,” I said. (I had a big gauze wad in my mouth.)

When we pulled into the garage, I realized I was not okay to get Mom into the house by myself. I was uncomfortable waking a neighbor at that hour of the morning. I leaned her seat back as far as it would go and went into the house to get blankets. She wouldn’t need a pillow, but I would.

The boys were all sound asleep.

I tucked a red bedspread around Mom, scrunched up in the back seat, and pulled a blanket over myself, still in Dr. Z’s bathrobe. I hope those boys set their alarm, I thought. I smelled Lifebuoy soap.

***

A Quart of Tomatoes & A Pint of Jam

Monday, September 25.

I’ve been to Nevada to visit my brother, Denny, one of the most bad-ass wounded Vietnam Marines the U.S.A. ever produced. I think this man’s spirit animal might be a horse. Denny has always had a bond with horses. He misses his horses from years back, especially Harry. The internet says that having a horse for a spirit animal means he should tap into one’s own strength and abilities to fight whatever he faces.

They got that right, and so has Denny. He’s mustered up the force and capacity to fight Agent Orange and kidney disease for some fifty-five years now. All the while, the Veterans Administration only this year afforded him 100% disability. The VA is a necessary piece of our government, but it’s slow and cumbersome, hard to understand, and extremely difficult to navigate. This is the arm of the Federal Government supposed to take care of our ex-military, each man or woman having pledged their lives on behalf of you and me and every other American.

Every veteran needs an advocate to get what they deserve from the Veteran’s Administration.

I have a hard time talking about the VA without falling into a rant. And yet, I do know the VA has served my brother many times. Now that he’s 100%, he gets a new converted van, changes to the house to make it more accessible, and more financial support.

Denny and I texted each other at the same time today, expressing our joy over our time together. He said, “I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed your visit.” I said, “It was so good to see you.” I am resolved to be on Facetime with Denny at least once a week.

On Tuesday, we took Denny to his long-term care facility in Fallon from Renown Regional Hospital in Reno. He’d dodged yet another bullet, or several, including two GI bleeds, a blood clot in his leg, and procedures to insert mesh in his arteries to prevent blood clots from reaching his brain and chest. He has seen death’s door so many times it’s tempting to call him the cat with nine lives, except that would be an understatement as Denny was way past nine many years ago.

On the way “home” to Fallon, we had to “stop by” the Apple Store in Reno. It seems a nurse at the rehab facility dropped Denny’s iPad on its corner, and it shattered. There was no time to waste–he had to have a new one that very day. We were with Apple for several hours. Most of the associates were preparing for a new iPhone release the next day, and since we had no appointment, we had to wait until the last scheduled client had been served. The lone late/afternoon agent started our conversation well after closing time. When we left, eight or ten people were still getting the store ready for the latest iPhone launch.

I think Denny and Bev got the old one traded in on a purchase, but the store would have to order the new one, which means somebody has to go to the store again. Maybe making an appointment this time will help. The next day, Bev couldn’t find the old tablet to take to the store, but she said her receipt reflected the trade-in. I thought I saw the old one on one of the store’s desks, so I semi-convinced her that the store must have kept the broken iPad. She looked all through the van, and it wasn’t there. She said she would call the store today. (Update: She found it!)

Speaking of losing things. For days, we looked for Denny’s black satchel that he calls his dialysis bag. It contains a blanket, his phone, his diary, and another notebook containing all his passwords and phone numbers. He and Bev both said it was not in his room at Renown. In fact, we talked about that just before leaving for Fallon.

“I can’t do anything without that black bag,” Denny said.

“We’ll find it,” I said.

Bev and I started the search. Now, he went to the Fallon Hospital ER from his dialysis location and was transferred to Renown Regional, also by ambulance. So, did he leave the bag at the dialysis site? No. Might it be at the Fallon ER? They treated me as if they thought me a bit strange but finally said that the bag would have probably traveled to Renown on the gurney with Denny.

“So, what ambulance service do you use?” I asked. I thought the bag might be in the ambulance.

“Uh, we use our own vehicles. It’s not in our ambulance.”

Okay, so I called the Renown ER. They didn’t have it but connected me with Security, where a kind young woman asked, “And you’re sure it didn’t make it to the room?”

I answered, “Yes, I’m sure.”

Bev was telling Jena, Denny’s daughter, about the missing black bag.

“Mom,” Jena said, “it was on that gurney when they took him to his room. I saw it. Call the nurses’ station.”

Bev called the nurses’ station for the first floor and asked if they were sure it wasn’t in the room.

They called her back within minutes. “It was in the room in the closet.”

It wasn’t possible to see Denny every day. On the dialysis days, he is just about wiped out by the time he returns to his facility room. Beverly planned runarounds for the two of us–her and me–and on Wednesday, I got the best massage I’ve ever experienced at The Electric Sun from Mikey. It didn’t hurt that Mikey is about six foot two and looks like he could be on the cover of some romance novel or maybe a bodybuilder’s magazine. But the massage…If he’d looked like a purple ogre, I would still call his body-kneading the BOAT, the Best of All Time.

While Beverly drove Denny and me in his converted van, he and I sang together. We harmonized on Make the World Go Away, How Great Thou Art, Crazy, and I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry. We both imagined Mom and Dad singing together. I hope Dad has sung Red River Valley to Mom. I wonder if he has a guitar.

When I told Denny I would open the last quart of Mom’s tomatoes when I got home, he smiled.

“Do you have any of her blackberry jam?” he asked.

I told him I used to have one, but a woman helping us move from The Compound to The Cottage dropped it, and the jar shattered. I enjoyed the scent while we cleaned up the glass-infused sweetness.

I imagined that there were only big pieces of broken jar, and I would… you know. I didn’t.

John and Vicky ferried me from the airport late afternoon yesterday. I flopped on my chair with a weak margarita and held Dixie until I got ready for bed, unpacking only chargers and my CPAP machine.

After sleeping for twelve hours, Dixie and my chair called to me again. I made coffee, and my little dog shifted from one side of me to the other, lying closer and closer with each move. There were several kisses, too. After The Price Is Right came on TV, I told her I had to make a list of things to do today and actually wrote it down on a page in my notebook:

Put smothered pork chops in the slow cooker for dinner. Unpack two suitcases. Wash clothes. Give Dixie a bath. Cut up a watermelon that has lingered in the refrigerator for two weeks. Write about the Nevada visit in my blog.

I’m currently working on one, finished two, and will get busy on the other three.

I poured the jar of Mom’s tomatoes over browned pork chops, but not before I stuck a spoon in the jar and ate four pieces, lingering on each bite. Dad liked Mom’s tomatoes even better than the blackberry jam. Happy Birthday, Dad. I miss you.

Mom, I’d love to go to the Farmer’s Market again with you. Dad would ask what took us so long down there. You’d huff a little and say, “We had a lot to do.” We’d bring home lima beans, tomatoes, white peaches, and blackberries. We would freeze limas, can tomatoes in wide-mouth quart jars, and eat peaches. Then we’d make blackberry jam and bake Dad some biscuits which he’d layer with cold butter melting into the hot bread. For supper, he’d eat tomatoes and cornbread.

If I had some of Mama’s blackberry jam, I might not share it. I’d bake some frozen biscuits and eat my delight. Denny wouldn’t get enough to put on a biscuit. The whole thing would be gone before the next trip to Nevada.

Hate it for you, Denny.

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