Who knew?

Fifty years ago yesterday, my tearful dad walked me down the aisle and my mom was a smiling mother-of-the-bride. My 12 year-old brother was a junior groomsman and my 11 year-old sister was a junior bridesmaid. My little brother was the ring bearer. He ate four pieces of wedding cake at the reception and wore out the knees of a rented tux running and sliding across the dance floor. Last nite he made me a vodka martini with anchovy olives to toast my almost-50th wedding anniversary. Our parents are gone, as are our middle brother and sister. The marriage we celebrated fifty years ago yesterday lasted 23 years before being resurrected again ten years later.

I posted a wedding picture yesterday on FaceBook. One of the comments was, “You were just kids!” That we were. Kids that dated three months before marrying. What we had in common was chemistry and a desire to establish our own home and family. I didn’t know that he was a procrastinator, bordered on being a hoarder, preferred to be alone. He didn’t know that I was a get-it-done-now-regardless-of-quality person, neat freak bordering on OCD, loved to talk. We didn’t even know that our politics were polar opposites.

I’ve heard it said that women get married thinking that they can change their husbands and men think that their wives won’t change. Of course, neither is true. Some things change dramatically, some never change. We were kids. Kids with starry eyes and dreams for the future. We fought, we distanced, we changed, life changed. Some of the sharp edges of our differences have softened, we’ve developed common interests and new distinctions have evolved. Today, 18 years into our second marriage to each other, we accept our differences. I said “accept,” not celebrate. What we do celebrate fifty years after that first wedding day, is the family we created and the time we spend together being who we’ve each become. Life is good!

50…Minus a Few

We’ve reached the age where many of our friends are celebrating their golden anniversaries with parties thrown by their adult children or by taking exotic, once-in-a-lifetime trips to celebrate. I’m envious, sad and wistful. Today WOULD have been our 50th anniversary, if I hadn’t given him 10 years off for bad behavior. Our story starts on February 1, 1966:

The Meeting — He was an undergrad at MIT home on break. I was a Freshman at Washington U in St. Louis, who had just broken up with a hometown love. The call came to the dorm. “Looking for a short girl willing to go on a blind date.” I was in.

The Engagement and Wedding — He was a grad student at Washington U. I had flunked out and returned home. He pursued. We were engaged on January 17, 1968 and married on March 30th of that year. Fast work!

Early years — One son born July 1969, husband got his M.S. and enlisted in the Navy, we lived in St. Louis, IL, RI, CA and on Midway Island. Second son born June 1971, lived in St. Louis again, Cincinnati, St. Petersburg FL, Plano TX. I returned to college and finished my B.S. and M.A. We did a great job of raising our kids and running a household.

Divorce — Here’s where it gets messy. No one I know who has been divorced, can tell a clear story of what really happened. We’re no exception. Best I can ever do is, “It was complicated. We failed.” I believe that people who claim to understand exactly what happened, are simplifying things out of denial, blame or guilt. We were divorced February 9, 1991.

The Break — He had a thing with a divorced neighbor. I had a thing with my old, hometown love. But those years weren’t about the relationships with other people. They were about our relationship with self, about finally growing up. Those were the hardest ten years of my life and fodder for many more life stories. I learned what it was to be alone and eventually got comfortable with my own company. I got serious about my career and gained confidence through accomplishment. I learned that I didn’t need a man in my life and he learned that he wanted a woman in his. We were always connected via our family. I lived in WA, IL,  AZ, NC, DE, TX and MD. He lived in TX, NC and MD. 

Do-Over — We had grandkids. We had history. We mellowed. We realized that nobody else in the world could be as good a fit as we were for each other. We are quirky. We remarried on October 7, 2000 in a tiny stone chapel in MD. Our sons walked me down the aisle and we were joined by family and close friends. We even had the same best man and matron of honor from the first time around. He lost his job in 2002 and retired early. We moved to WA. I retired in 2012. We moved to WI in 2014 to be closer to family.

The Next Chapter — Who knows what fate has in store for us, but if we are in charge, there will be more good times with family and friends and a deep appreciation for the interesting, but convoluted, path of our life together. I think we will celebrate!

Touched

There’s hard science that supports the need for touch:

• Babies that aren’t touched fail to thrive physically and cognitively
• Touch aids in healing physical and emotional trauma
• Touch lowers levels of cortisol (the stress hormone) and elevates oxytocin (the feel good hormone)
• Touch bolsters the immune system and lowers blood pressure

And, it just plain feels good. 

I grew up in a house where snuggling and hugs were part of the normal day. I created a home with the same standards. One day when my youngest son was two, he sensed that I was having a bad day and asked, “Momma, do you need to rock me?” I held my kids a lot, gave my husband lots of affection and even took time to rub his back or wash his hair on a regular basis. Touch was the language of connection and, as a family, we were fluent.

It seems each year as I age, that there are fewer opportunities for touch. There are no more children to rock. Hugs are reserved for big good-byes or tearful events. My husband and I sleep in separate beds (that snoring thing) and even spend our evenings sitting in different recliners, side by side, but not touching. Saying good nite is only occasionally accompanied by a perfunctory peck. I don’t believe that we outgrow our need for touch, however, and may even need it more as we age.

This Valentine’s Day I gave myself a spa package. I had a relaxing Swedish massage last week that left me limp as a noodle. I had to sit in my car for awhile before I felt fit to drive home from the spa. Today I had an hour-long facial. The table for the facial was comfortable and plush. I was tucked under warm sheets and a fuzzy blanket while the aesthetician tended to my skin. She started by standing behind the table and pushing one shoulder, then the other, down from my ears where they usually reside. The room smelled like lavender and there was soft music playing. I had to concentrate on what she was doing to keep from nodding off. She used warm towels, steam, masques and lotions to cleanse and massage my face and neck. It was a wonderful way to start my day. I don’t look a day younger, but I feel terrific.

I made a promise to myself as I left the spa, to schedule a facial or a massage each month. I plan to offer my husband a back rub soon. And, I’m looking for babies that are available for rocking!

Closing a Gap

The nite before my first granddaughter was born I bought a spiral-bound journal with a beautiful heavy cork cover. I made the first entry that nite, writing of the anticipation of her birth. My intention was to keep journals for her — using my love of words to capture the milestones of her life and our shared memories. That journal with its single entry sits on my bookshelf now gathering dust.

“She was born with Down Syndrome, developed autism, juvenile diabetes and is now blind.” I recite that litany every time someone new to my world asks about her. I sometimes add, “she is non-verbal and not potty-trained.” It’s the box I’ve drawn to describe the limits of her life. For almost twenty years I’ve struggled to figure out how to close the gap between her world and mine. For the last three winters, I’ve spent two months in AZ. Her father, my son, and I have an agreed routine that works for their complicated life. I stay at my brother’s house near my son’s. I cook dinner for my son and his family and spend Sunday afternoon with them.

Each Sunday visit has its rhythm. I pull up to their house about 2 PM, my son helps me haul the food inside, I greet my granddaughter, who is sitting on the floor of her playroom, and then I go into the kitchen to prepare our meal. We eat around 3, we visit, I help clean up and then pack up my things to return to my brother’s. When I leave, I go into my granddaughter’s playroom again to tell her goodbye and hope to steal a kiss. More often than not, I leave their house sad and frustrated, wondering how to reach her.

This year was different. (Thank you friends for your prayers!) My granddaughter made the first overture. Instead of staying in her playroom for my entire visit, she made her way into the living room shortly after I arrived, where she sat in the recliner for a few minutes and laughed and made happy noises while I talked to her. She repeated that behavior on subsequent visits. My son said that one Saturday, she wandered into the living room and sat in the recliner. He said that she was hoping that I’d appear.

My son and I text most evenings and I check on his day and his family. This Saturday nite he reported that his daughter had a moody day and difficult evening. He said, “She needs some vitamin G.” To translate, that’s  a dose of Grandma! When I arrived at their door yesterday I could hear her in the playroom making the noises I’ve come to understand as pain, discomfort, unhappiness of some kind. This time instead of slipping in quietly, hoping to steal a moment before she dismissed me with the slap to her thigh, I conjured up all the good mood I could manage and swept into her room with a laugh and a peppy greeting. She stopped her noises and reached in my direction. I bent down and touched her, keeping my voice strong and upbeat as I chattered. She laughed and made excited movements with her hands and kicked her legs. When I went into the kitchen, she soon followed and took her place on the recliner nearby for a few minutes of more contact and happy noises.

As I got ready to leave, she was in her room, sitting on the floor, making unhappy sounds again. I bent over her and whispered, “I love you” in her left ear. She stopped making noise and reached toward me. I whispered, “I love you” in her right ear. She pulled me toward her. I whistled softly in her right ear and she bent her head my way. I bent down farther and kissed the crook of her left shoulder and neck loudly several times. She bent even closer to me and I repeated the motion two more times. Each time she leaned in closer to me.

I’m learning from her that there are many languages to love. She will never read my journal. We will never have a normal conversation. But love has closed the gap between us. When someone new asks about her, instead of listing her limitations, I think I’ll start with, “She has the most amazing spirit and has taught me so much about love.”

The Whole

A good friend posted the picture above on Facebook. It’s a borderless puzzle that she completed recently. It has five unused pieces. I thought it was the perfect metaphor for the final class that I taught today. Fifteen participants have been convening once a week for six weeks at a local community college to share their life stories. In our final class today, the students, whose ages range from late 60s to early 90s, came prepared to talk about the themes that emerged from their life stories, the lessons learned over the course of their lifetimes and the insights gained from telling their stories and hearing those of the other participants.

It was a great two hours as people identified the peak highs and lows of their lives, the lessons they had to learn over and over, the unfulfilled dreams, their hopes for the future. Although it wasn’t part of my instruction for the day, they also thanked me and the other participants for the class experience. It was a gratifying end to our time together and I was sad to say goodbye to people who had been so open and forthcoming with their stories.

I thought of the puzzle above. Most puzzles that I’ve put together had borders — edges that bound the design and provided a frame to guide the fitting together of the oddly shaped pieces. Life isn’t like the traditional puzzle. It’s more like the one above. We never know where the edge is. We pull together the various aspects of life the best we can, often unaware of how one event fits with another. How can we know that the challenge we overcome in our twenties will lead to opportunity in our forties, or that a relationship formed in our teens will suddenly open a door when we are fifty? Often we can’t see the whole picture until we have enough distance to gain perspective. Reflection during our later years provides that view. 

And the genius of five leftover pieces reminds us that there are things we will never understand about our lives. Events, relationships, things we did or did not do — some things defy understanding. And that, too, is okay. Frank Herbert said, “The mystery of life is to be experienced, not a problem to be solved.”

Version 2.0

What a difference a day makes. I woke up yesterday already feeling a little sad thinking about my winter visit here in AZ wrapping up. Lots of “finals” looming — 

• The class that I’m teaching here at the community college
• My yoga class
• Sunday dinner at my oldest son’s
• Chance to connect with my granddaughter who has special needs
• Warm days in the sunshine
• Lady-of-leisure mornings
• Naps on the shaded patio
• Time with my brother and his wife

Then an email popped up in my inbox. My proposal to teach my class, “Tracing Your Path, Sharing Your Life Stories,” was accepted by the community education program at home in Wisconsin. I will teach the class each Friday from 10-12 for six weeks beginning June 8. It will be open to fifteen people over the age of 55 and registration isn’t restricted to any specific geography. 

The class will be pitched as: “Over the course of the six week class, you’ll receive a crash course in human development, the art of storytelling and techniques for accessing and organizing memories to identify pivotal events across life stages. The instructor will help you: 

• Organize your timeline of rich memories 
• Appreciate the threads and themes of your journey 
• Have a deeper understanding of your life’s lessons learned 
• Be inspired for new adventures 
• Have a sense of connection to others in the class”

I’ve been revising the content as I’ve been delivering it at the community college here and feel confident that it will continue to evolve each time I teach it. I have a renewed sense of purpose in retirement watching people benefit from the class. Tomorrow I say goodbye to the participants in my class here, but will look forward to working with a new group in Wisconsin this summer. The class is a new chapter in my own life story and one that I hope is as meaningful to the participants as it is to me.

Winner!

The day my dad arrived at our house for a visit with his grandkids, he would start lamenting the fact that he would have to leave. Obviously, that’s another gene that he passed down to me. I have two weeks left in AZ before I head back home to WI. Two weeks is often a full vacation for some visitors to the desert. Not me. I’ve been here since the end of January, but I’m already feeling sad that I will soon have to pack up and fly home.

I have a comfortable routine staying at my brother and sister-in-law’s home here in AZ: sunny morning walks, yoga and exercise classes at a nearby country club, teaching my weekly class at the local community college, browsing the mall, hanging out at Barnes and Noble, cooking Sunday dinners for my oldest son and family, watching TV with my sister-in-law in the evenings, laughing with my brother. All of this without having to worry about planning dinner or cleaning the house. Not a bad way to spend the winter.

This may be my last winter for this idyllic respite. My brother and sister-in-law’s youngest son and his girlfriend are returning home from Oregon in October. They will move in to my brother and sister-in-law’s house while she completes her rotations in pharmacy grad school. The house will be pretty full. So, I’ve been playing the lottery hoping to win just enough to buy a little winter house here. I’ve already selected a neighborhood close to my family and mentally redecorated a house. I have a vivid imagination, childlike hope, but obviously, Fate has other plans.

I’ll savor the remaining two weeks here and start looking forward to the reunion with my northern family and friends, a return to my own home that I love and the opportunity to watch a Midwest Spring unfold. And, I may just continue to buy those lottery tickets.

I do

Frequent readers of this blog know that I am currently teaching a class called “Tracing Your Path, Sharing Your Life Stories” at a local community college near where I am staying for the winter in AZ. We covered our Senior Years as the topic in last week’s class. I’ve been thinking ever since about a theme that emerged from several of the participants’ stories: handling the physical or cognitive decline of a spouse as we age.

Most of the members of the class had traditional weddings and spoke some version of the vows below:

“I, ________, take you, ________, for my lawful wife/husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and health, until death do us part.”

A few women, who are in their 80s, most likely even recited the vows that included the word “obey.” It’s my guess, based on the fact that most married young, that the vows were just words nervously recited in front of a crowded church. Who could imagine in their youth what “in sickness and in health” would demand of them? As we age as a couple, it is seldom a two-legged race to the finish line. Our bodies and minds have individual trajectories mostly outside of our control. 

People react in different ways. I know of a wife who divorced her husband when he developed MS in his 40s. I know of a man, who is healthy and sharp, who sold the family home and moved into an assisted living facility with his wife when she developed dementia. My own mother stopped doing the things she loved to do including travel, when my father developed serious health issues over ten years that led to his premature death at age 64. I never asked her if she felt sad about the time she lost in her prime.

My husband and I are pretty independent. Our relationship theme is, “This isn’t Noah’s Ark. We don’t have to do everything two-by-two.” We like our time alone and have different interests. But we took those vows together…twice. I’m pretty sure that we would both step up to whatever degree of care or sacrifice was required, but how we might feel about it is more complicated. Normally I recommend that people have a conversation about serious issues like this, but how can anyone predict how you might react to a hypothetical situation?

Like most things in this stage of life, you hope for the best and if bad things happen, you pray that you’re able to access the best in yourself.

Grateful

For the past three years my brother and his wife have opened their home to me for two months each winter. They built the home in 2015 in a gated community — a dream home with large, open rooms, high ceilings and a wall of glass doors that open to a pool and spacious patio. It’s a perfect space for them and a comfortable escape for me. They included me in the building process from looking at house plans to searching for lots, selecting finishes, paint colors and decor. And now, I get to build memories with them in this space.

My brother is fifteen years younger than me and his wife is two years younger than him. Both sets of our parents are gone, as are my brother’s and my other siblings. I met my sister-in-law decades ago when they were just dating. My brother had been in an accident and was in the Burn Unit in a hospital in Springfield IL. I don’t know if my brother knew at the point that she would be his future wife, but I did. She was, and is, one of the most thoughtful, loving people that I’ve ever known. Family and friends mean everything to her. And because she counts me as both family and friend, she is very good to me. She even waits on me occasionally. When we are watching TV together in the evening, she sidles up to my chair with a cookie on a napkin. “Treat,” she says with a smile. I call it by its real name — enabling.

She is on break this week and next from her job at a local high school. We just spent two days together in the small town of Tubac AZ, just south of Tucson. The town tag line is “where art and history meet.” We stayed at a lovely golf resort on a peaceful 400 acre patch of green whose history dates back to the 1700’s when it was a cattle ranch. It became a resort in 1941. John Wayne and Bing Crosby used to stay there. Parts of the Kevin Costner movie “Tin Cup” were filmed there. The town of Tubac contains over 100 shops and restaurants. I’m pretty sure we saw them all on Tuesday. My phone said we walked 3.5 miles that day. My hips thought we clocked a few more. We packed the back of the car with shopping bags full of things we didn’t need, but that called to us — cards, kitchen gadgets, olive oil, clothes and jewelry. 

We returned “home” yesterday worn out, but happy. Who knew that shopping and laughing could be so tiring? When I went to my room last nite for bed, I found that my sister-in-law had already turned on the AC and turned down my bed. I feel welcome, cared for and grateful that she is family and my friend. She is my sister.

Road Trip!

My sister-in-law is older than nine, but I think somebody gave her a $100 for snacks. We are on a girls’ getaway for two nites to Tubac AZ. We each packed light…and then there was the snack bag: cheese cubes, two kinds of crackers, pistachios, potato sticks, red licorice, mini Oreos, Teddy grahams, Nature Valley bars and M & Ms. And…a cooler of beer and a bottle of sangria. For two nites for two people and we are eating our meals out. I should also mention that she is a tiny, little woman! 

We arrived at the Tubac Golf Resort around noon and checked into our room. We had a light lunch overlooking the golf course. The cuisine around here features Mexican, of course. I did have the sense to pass on the refried beans since we had spa treatments scheduled mid-afternoon. We were given locker keys, robes and slippers when we checked in to the rustic spa. The sleeves of my robe came down to my knees, but I couldn’t squeeze my feet into the slippers. I felt like a cross between one of the Seven Dwarfs and Cinderella’s step sister.  My SIL did a Swedish massage and loved it. I opted for something different. My WI winter skin begged for the “Turquoise Sage Body Polish” — a salt scrub followed by a Vichy shower and a jojoba lotion massage. Sounds luxurious, right?

Wrong. I was escorted to a brightly lit room. It looked like a morgue. The aesthetician nodded toward the table. It was covered with a rubber sheet and the table height was level with my collarbone. I asked for a stool. “A stool?” she asked incredulously. I stared at the height of the table. Several minutes later she came back with a black plastic stool and instructed me to “hop up on the table, lie face down and cover your backside with a towel.” I’m 70, overweight. I don’t hop anywhere. I did manage to roll onto the table and get on my stomach and then made several feeble attempts to fling the towel behind me to cover my butt. When the aesthetician returned, she found me on the table with a corner of the towel thrown over my left shoulder. Best I could do.

The treatment started with the salt rub that felt like she was rubbing my legs with coarse sandpaper. I laid there while she adjusted the temperature on the Vichy shower — a five foot long arm with five shower heads that hovered over the table. Suddenly, I was being sprayed with five nozzles simultaneously. I felt like I was in a car wash. The warm water sprayed my entire back and ran between my cheeks. (Not my face cheeks.) Haven’t had that sensation in years. I truly hoped that I hadn’t embarrassed myself. She moved to my back, repeated the process, then instructed me to roll over. After some back and forth rolling, I managed to heave myself over. She repeated the scraping and rinsing on my front side. I felt scrubbed clean.

Then she told me to sit up. My first thought was, “That move would require abdominal muscles. And I have a heavy, wet towel on my chest and stomach!” I flailed my arms and somehow managed to sit up. She then rolled up the wet rubber sheet. I laid back down and hiked up my hips while she rolled up the bottom part of the sheet and whisked it out from underneath me. We repeated the rolling over process two more times while she slathered me with the lotion. 

My skin feels as soft as a baby’s bottom and smells wonderful. Would I do it again? Not in this lifetime! I think I’ll have a glass of sangria and a snack. I’m beginning to understand why you don’t see elderly women in spas.