Losses

In my last post, I wrote about recent losses as I approach 70.  They have become quite frequent in the past year.  Just a reminder of our mortality, I suppose, and a normal part of aging.  But I'm feeling a need to comment on them, to remember, to keep them straight.  I've decided to go way back, and start with the first loses I can remember in my life.

When I was about 10 or 12, a little girl from our neighborhood died of leukemia.  I didn't even know her name, but she often rode a tricycle down Potter Street, where I lived, to the next corner, and then turned around and went back up the street with her mother walking patiently behind.  We would often see them after dinner.  She was a pretty little blond girl, no older than 4 or 5, and the tricycle was red.  My mother sometimes spoke to her mother, and I'm sure she knew lots of details about the girl that I didn't know.  I remember, after she died, my mother made a very solemn occasion of telling us about her death after dinner one night.  I could see that my mother was very shaken by her death, but somehow it didn't seem very relevant to me.  I thought it was sad on several levels - that the child didn't get to live a full life, that the parents would have to go on without her - but it didn't seem to affect me personally.

When I was 12, my grandfather Hyman Rosenfield died.  He was my dad's dad.  I remember him as a very formal gentleman, soft spoken, who was crippled by arthritis.  He moved slowly and deliberately, probably because he was in pain.  At the time I knew he had rheumatoid arthritis, but after his death, it was determined that he had lupus.  We didn't see my father's parents very often, so I have very few actual memories of them, particularly Grandpa Hyman, since I was just 12 when he died.  I do remember that when he died, my father went and stayed at my Grandma Bessie's house for about 2 weeks, while the family sat shiva.  Grandpa Hy's body was in the living room in a coffin on the day of the funeral, the mirrors were all draped in black, the men stopped shaving, and the women wore black ribbons pinned to the bodice of their dresses.  I don't remember anything about the funeral or internment.

When I was 18, my grandfather Emil Lokovic died.  He was my mom's dad.  I have very fond memories of him from my early years.  He raised airedale terriors, rabbits, chickens, ducks and other animals.  He always had a huge garden, and many fruit trees.  He wore overhauls and plaid shirts, and always had a knife in his pocket when he was out in the yard, which he used to uproot dandelions, cut flowers to bring into the house, cut up fruit for us right off the tree, and do some other chores around the place.  After we moved to Illinois, he drank a lot, and my cousins have memories of some difficult times that I was not there to see.

Shortly after Poppy's funeral, my cousin Phillip, who I think was about 16 at the time, shot himself.  He was the adopted son of my Aunt Fran and Uncle Ben, and they lived in Vermont.  We only saw them a couple of times a year.  I remember Phil as having much more freedom than we had.  I remember Phil and my brother David shooting chipmunks out in the woods near their house, and bringing back just the tails, which I thought was disgusting.  Phil took delight in dropping one on my shoulder or in my lap because he knew I didn't like to touch them, so I thought of him as a benign but annoying bully.  He became involved in drugs which were partly blamed for his suicide.

Today, Linda Geoghegan sent me a note telling me that Billy Yates, her cousin, had died.  I remember him from our childhood as a good looking, shy boy about the same age as Linda and I.  I always liked him, but we were both too shy for us to get to know each other well.  Linda sent me an article telling how in 1975, Billy had been chief engineer at MITS,  He was present when Ed Roberts and Paul Allen first entered a loader program and the BASIC program that Allen and Bill Gates, with some help from Monte Davidoff, had written into the MITS Altair 8800 personal computer, thus creating the first commercial home computer!  I remember Billy as a cute, shy, quiet boy.

Joan, Steve, Stevie Umphress
Augie Bartel
babies
Bessie Rosenfield
Emma Lokovic
Lillian Rosenfield
Zolman Rosenfield
Frances Hubenet
Gloria Stearn

Ben Hubenet
Tony Miani
Dottie Olson
Margie Davis 
Effie Bartel
Ann Frances Strollen
Iris Sonkin
Ed Morris
Evelyn Yates
Edwin Yates
Ray Butterfield
Laura Wright
Jane Beer Hodel
Jan Kopis
Janice
Shawn McCammon-Johnson
Aline Davis
Karen Hubenet
Marilee Kopis

Uncle Dave

David Rosenfield

Hilda Peterson

Paul Fuller

Diana Miani

Myles Geoghegan

Testing.  5/27/19
Many changes.  Seth and Amy now have 2 children, so there are 7 grandkids.  They live in Denver, CO though.  We manage to see them about 4 times a year in person, here and there, and their IL cousins love them.  These grandkids are my greatest blessings. 

So I am going to publish this, and see if it posts on facebook.  I haven't used this program enough to remember how it works. 

A Dream from my Dark Side

Merry Christmas, 2016

I guess my last post was about my decision to lose weight.  I'm happy to report that I have lost 15 pounds, and my A1C has started to come down.  I have every intention to keep losing weight.

This post is not about Christmas or weight loss though.  It's about me, and how I've been feeling for a while now.

It's about a dream I had last night.  Disclaimer: I watched the BBC movie The Hollow Crown: The War of the Roses yesterday evening.  A dark tragedy, about wealthy, powerful men waging war against family members for power gains.  Fascinating historical account by Shakespeare, done with awful, bloody visuals balanced by great acting and rich. lovely sets.  It's about Henry VI, who came to power at the age of  9 months, after his father was murdered.  He grew up, and married Margaret, a princess from France. Various uncles became engaged in the War of Roses, at a time when England had close ties and sometimes actually ruled France.  I only include this because it so directly related to my dream in terms of visuals, and also in terms of the feeling of the tragic waste of  humanity at the beck of  self-aggrandizing, self-serving, wealthy world leaders.

In my dream, we (several people, but I'm not sure who else other than me) were sitting at a long table in a throne room similar to one in the movie.  There was another table at right angles to the one where I sat, and that one was filled with powerful men dressed in long robes and capes like the actors in the movie.  They were making many false claims (like the fake news we have been subjected to during the recent presidential campaign.)  Everyone in the audience was somberly nodding, even though (I'm sure of this but I don't know how or why I know it) we all knew the claims were ridiculous.  Someone even said that England didn't really exist.  I reacted derisively (obviously believing that I still had a right to free speech) and the closest nobleman at the other table pulled a gun and aimed it directly at me.  He told me to be respectful or he would kill me.  I didn't doubt him, so I shut up, but seethed.

The images from the dream were vivid, and still linger even though it is hours later.  My outrage and fear still linger also.

I've had a few hours to think about it, and I realize that the outrage and fear have been part of my emotional reactions ever since Trump won the election.  Outrage because to me he seems like such a narcissistic, entitled, out of touch bully, despicable because of his own words, during debates, interviews and on twitter.  Fear because of his impulsive, uninformed foreign policy/nuclear arms race statements this past week.  I'm terrified because I believe he could easily end life as we know it.  In this country and around the world.

I know others disagree with me.  I've been told he will surround himself with experts.  I know that there are built-in checks and balances in our government.  But there is NO indication that Trump will listen to anyone.  His arrogant belief in his own "smartness" is belied by his immature, hateful lashing out at anyone who disagrees, criticizes or even questions him.  His narcissistic personality allows him to create his own concept of the world, with himself at the center, and he firmly believes in his own judgement and ability to manage all contingencies.  He's even managed to convince others, but I'm not convinced.  I'm afraid.

I remember being anxious during the Bay of Pigs incident, without really understanding anything about the politics except that Cuba, a communist country, had nuclear missiles pointed directly at us.  I remember the horror of the John Kennedy assassination, Martin Luther King, Jr assassination, and the murder of Robert Kennedy.  Those deaths were tied to individuals rather than an ideology, but the world seemed very unpredictable back then.  The attacks on 9/11 left me feeling really vulnerable, not only the nation, but personally also.  It is an unsafe world, overrun with fanatical hatred generated in the name of religion.  Religion is supposed to bring comfort, love, understanding and peace, not to create chaos.  The safe, cozy illusions of my childhood have been shattered.

Ever since 9/11 I have been waiting anxiously for another shoe to drop.  Trump seems like that other shoe.

And now I'm still afraid of those fanatics, both foreign and homegrown, who hate the U.S. and our freedoms.  But worse than all the rest, I fear the leader of the free world, our own elected president.  No wonder I am having dark dreams.  



Happy New Year, everyone.  I hope 2017 proves that my fears are exaggerated and unfounded.  I really want to be wrong about this.

Control in Life

A year ago, I wrote about Tom turning 70.  Now I'm 70 also.  

I found out last week that my A1C is 6.5, so I am prediabetic.  When the nurse from the doctor's office first called to tell me, I was really upset.  I have neuromas in both feet, a pinched nerve in my neck from stenosis caused by osteoarthritis, and a hip that bothers me more days than not, also from arthritis.  I felt, at first, that this sugar issue was just one more age-related problem that was going to make my life more difficult.  I was pretty upset for a couple of hours.

Then I did some research, and realized that this is a potential problem that I can actually prevent if I address it now.  I need to lose weight - it will help my hip and feet issues also.  The nurse suggested that I "might want to lose some weight, so watch the carbs," but she didn't make a big issue out of it, and I didn't talk to the doctor.  But I decided on my own that I want to try to lose weight.  So I am trying to eat smaller portions, cut out some carbs, increase my walking, and avoid sweets.  In the first 3 days, I lost 3 pounds.

I'm announcing it here, because I want public accountabiltiy.  My plan is to use this blog as a journal, to encourage myself to lose weight, and also to journal about other things as well.

Like control.  I've been feeling blue this winter, partly because of the feet and hip and neck pain, but also, I realize now, because those things seem so out of my control in many ways.  

Control has been an issue for me since I was 15.  That year, toward the end of the school year, my father announced that we would be moving from RI to IL.  His company offered him a larger territory, potentially a lot more profitable.  I was about to graduate from my grade school, which went from first through ninth grade.  In RI I would have started high school, which starts in sophomore year there.  In IL, high school starts with 9th grade freshman year.  So I ended up as a transfer student in a situation where all the kids my age had already been together for a year, and they all knew the lay of the land.  I had to leave the friends I had known all my life, and my cousins who lived across the street in RI.  I was devastated by the move, and I had no control over any of the decisions being made around it.

In college I studied English and Psychology.  I developed some ideas about how perceptions about our own ability to control situations in our lives impacts us.  It starts in infancy, which is, of course, all about learning to control our bodies and the actions of people around us.  The terrible twos happen when a child has mastered enough to be able to walk and communicate a little bit, and they want to control the world around them.  We encourage some of their efforts, and tantrums ensue when they want to control something that we cannot allow them to control for many reasons, their safety as a paramount concern.   Their perception seems to be that we are just thwarting their attempts to control things.  This leads to some interesting battles between parents and children.

Throughout life, our actions and responses to events are the only things we actually can control.  Most relationship issues are about control and compromise.  Sometimes we excel at something or are given authority in a job that gives us the perception that we have some measure of control.  

A perception that we have lost control or cannot exert it because of other people leads to feelings of anger or fear.  Childhood has waves of anger and fear caused by our inablilty to control everything.  The adolescent years are complicated by bodily urges which we are forced to reign in.  The striving for independence that began in the first year of life becomes intense.  Later teen years can become filled with strife if parents are not ready to relinquish more control to their maturing kids.  

Control again becomes an issue when we perceive in mid-life that we actually have had very little control in life.  Buying a long-wanted car or having an affair are things that we can control, and for many people the compulsion to do something like that becomes very hard to resist.  

So here I am, at the threshold of old age, being impacted by my ability or inability to control things.

2015 - nearing 70

I keep thinking I will do/write more, but the kids and the garden and the house keep me busy, and I paint some (not as much as I want....) and I'm editing a series of books...  So I guess I'm just saying that there is so much I want to do, and so little time to do it.

But I shall continue to hope/plan/believe I will write more here.

Yesterday was Tom's 70th birthday.  This is a huger milestone emotionally than any that came before, or at least that is how it seems to me.  70 is old.  Old people are 70 or older.  I'll be 70 next April.  It is a fact that has to be incorporated into my psyche, and it is more difficult than I had expected.

One of the reasons it is difficult for me right now is because of recent losses.  A year and a half ago, my friend Iris died after a brief illness.  She lived 2 1/2 hours away, and we saw each other very infrequently as we got older.  She was single, and was 6 years older than I am.  We had met as young teachers in the same school district.  But we moved away because of my husband's job change.  She got out of teaching, and also moved, but stayed in the same area in central IL.  Years ago, when she was younger and able to get around easily, she would visit us rather frequently.  She was at our house for the 4th of July, Memorial Day, Labor Day, and Thanksgiving almost every year, and at other times too.  She was at all the kids' first Communions, graduations, Confirmations and weddings.  She was like a sweet aunt, bringing baked bread and presents when the occasion warranted.

Her physical presence was welcomed always, but for me her emotional support was much more significant.  After my mother died in 1981, and both of our fathers died in 1982, we bonded deeply and shared many stories of growing up with each other.  We spoke on the phone some, and she dropped in on the way up to or back from her brother's.  Then in the 90's we both started using computers for our jobs.  I was teaching and she was working at a travel agency, and we both got computers at home at about the same time.  When computers mystified and frustrated many people our age, both of us had to learn about them.  We connected through aol chat back then, and that began a habit of checking in with each other almost every night.  I would be winding down after finishing cleaning up the kitchen and grading papers, and would go online to check my email, and there she would be.  We spent hours chatting, often just sharing what we did during the day, but sometimes sharing deeply about our attitudes and views on politics and religion and morality.  She knew me better, through those IM chats, than anyone else ever has.  She was, for years, my most intimate confidant.

Her death was rather sudden and unexpected.  She became ill, and was in the hospital.  I knew about her illness only because I was in touch through facebook with her best friend and helper, Brian.  He told me about her illness, and I wanted to visit, but he told me she was out of sorts and not welcoming to visitors.  She was, we eventually discovered, suffering from brain tumors caused by lymphoma, and she died without my having spoken to her in over 3 months.  I was more than devastated.

There were other deaths.  My beloved Auntie Evie, my mother's sister, died in Rhode Island.  A year later, her husband, Uncle Eddie, also died.  My friend MaryLou lost her husband, Ed in Fort Wayne, IN.  My eldest cousin, Ann Francis, died in Rhode Island, leaving me second only to her brother Paul at the top of my mother's family tree.  A childhood friend, Raymond, who was like an older brother to me in many ways, died in Rhode Island.  Laura, whose husband Mason was one of the first people we met when we were a young married couple, died after a brief fight with colon cancer.  A woman I had taught with at EGHS lost her husband.  My daughter-in-law's aunt died after a recurrence of breast cancer. All these loses in the past 3 years.

My aunt and uncle were in their 90's, but the others were all around the same age I am now.  Laura was actually younger than me.  So 70 is old now, there is no denying it.  I can easily see that this pattern of losing contemporaries is just beginning, and will undoubtedly continue now for the rest of my life.

I'm fortunate in so many ways, but especially because of the 5 grandchildren that now fill my days and keep me busy.  For almost 2 years I watched Nathan almost full time, and that was such a blessing.  Nathan is Ben and Jen's.  Then Becca and Adam had Anna, and I watched her too, when Adam and Becca both worked.  Adam's schedule has always included working on weekends, since he is a restaurant manager, and having 2 weekdays off.  The schedule became complicated for a while, but by then Tom had retired, and between us, we managed.  Sometimes we had both kids together, but often we split up and watched each of the kids at their own houses.  Then Ben and Jen had Noah, which further complicated things.

When Noah was around 6 months old, Jen decided to stay home with the boys.  That made things easier for us, and we tried hard to get all 3 kids together once a week.  We all loved the idea of their growing up together and being close.

2 1/2 years ago, Becca and Adam had Johnathan.  Last February, they had Mia.  So now there are 5 grandchildren, and Tom and I are still watching Becca's 3 when Adam is working.  It has meant 3 or 4 days a week, but right now will be only 1 day a week for a while.  Adam's bosses have decided that managers will work 4 10-hour days, and will have 3 days a week off.  Plus, Jen is now wanting to help watch Becca's kids one day a week.  So we are still very involved with the grandkids, but not as tied up as we have been.  It's a good thing!  They help keep us active, but sometimes they also wear me out!

So those are my thoughts about where I am in life.  I'm nearing 70, and I'm relatively healthy.  I guess, considering my age, that is all good.

Three Grandkids Now

I've been neglecting this blog, but hope to be more active here.

Nathan is now 3 years old. He is a funny little boy - smart and silly and interested in many things. His baby brother was born in June, so now he is a big brother. Jennifer stayed home with the boys for 12 weeks, and just went back to work last week. Nate had become very attached to Jen while she was home, and shows signs of separation anxiety. He cries when she leaves, or when he is left at our house or at preschool, which he just started attending when she went back to work. None of it is unexpected or unusual for a child his age in these circumstances, so I think he is just fine.

Nathan is very gentle with baby Noah, just like he has always been with Anna. But I've noticed a sort of aggression that he seems to be controlling just barely. He has done it for a while with Anna. He runs up behind her when she is walking, (toddling really) and puts his hand on her back as if he wants to push her, but then he backs up quickly and says, "I didn't make her fall down!" I've seen him do it several times. He accidentally tripped her once and she did fall, and he was immediately concerned and very contrite. It was clearly an accident. But these other events are aggressive looking, not accidental at all. His face is scrunched up as if with anger, and his fists are clenched, and his movements are aggressive. But he always controls himself, and he never has hurt her.

Now he does a similar thing with Noah. He gets right in his face, as if to kiss him, but with clenched fists. He even trembles with the intensity of what he is feeling, but he never loses control and never hurts him. It's very interesting to watch. I really believe that it is totally normal to feel angry at a new sibling, especially for a pampered first child, which Nathan definitely is. Nathan is a gentle soul by nature, and it fascinates me to see how transparent he is with his feelings, and how he manages to maintain his gentleness in spite of his emotions.

Nate has been able to identify letters since he was a little over a year old. He would go find them on the refrigerator (magnetic letters that live there) when I asked for them. I would name a letter at random, and he would bring it to me. I knew then that he was very smart. Now he is learning how to write letters.

Anna was a colicky baby, who cried an awful lot when she was tiny. Fortunately she outgrew that, and now she is a darling, fun little girl. She has a temper and many opinions, but she is affectionate and curious and silly. She is sweet and loving, and she loves Grumpa better than she loves me. She understands most of what is said to her, and goes to the refrigerator when she wants a bottle, or goes to the baby's room when her diaper needs to be changed. She understands "no" but often ignores it when she is exploring something. She is the busiest child I've ever known, and has great concentration when she is interested in what she is doing.

She is over 14 months old now, and is just recently starting to really talk. She repeats many things, and will suddenly come up with a word, and then not say it again for a while. For example, one day she was playing with my shoe. I took it from her, and told her, "No, shoes are dirty. Don't play with them. Go find your toys." She left, and in a minute she came back and handed me the other shoe. "Dirty!" she said. I haven't heard her say it since.

Noah is just 3 months old now. He is doing everything he should be doing at his age. His newest trick is to reach for things. He loves the play mat, and spends 10 or 15 minutes at a time batting at the lion and giraffe hanging above his head. He is a very social baby. He even smiles and talks while taking his bottle. He loves it if one of us gets right at his level and looks him in the eyes.

Noah was born with a cleft lip, and will be having corrective surgery in a couple of weeks. He has not had any problems nursing, and has been growing very well. He does not like a bottle, however, and fussed a lot for me last week, which was Jen's first week back at work. He is doing much better now though.

"My teeth are in my mouse!"

We often have both Nathan and Anna, so they are growing up together in a way. They are cousins, but he is a big-brother cousin and she is a little-sister cousin. Sort of.

Remember back in March when I wrote about Nate learning to say the word banana? It made us laugh for a long time.

When Anna was born, we all began calling her Baby Anna. But Nate soon started saying "Baby Nana." It made us all laugh, of course, but it took almost a month for me to get him to say "Anna." In the process, when I was trying to show him that he could make the "A" sound, I asked him to say "apple." He said it easily. I told him that was great, and if he could say apple, he could say Anna because they start the same way. We'd practice, and he'd say "aaa-Nana!" It was really funny.

He talks a lot, but like any kid his age, there are sounds he doesn't make consistently. He calls Becca "Auntie Butta" and one of my favorite words is "dood!" "How are you today Nate?" I ask him when I see him. "Dood!" he tells me. No gutteral hard c or k or g. I noticed one day last week that he can say "car" though. Instead of Grumpa, he calls Tom "Dumpa." Cute.

This week I decided to work on the "th" sound at the beginning and end of words. He says, "dat" and "dese" for that and these. So I showed him how to stick his tongue out, just a little bit, and say the words correctly. He became frustrated quickly, and walked away, saying, "Oh Nana!" in a disgusted tone. I let it go. He is two, and he is making himself understood quite well. No need to upset him.

A couple of days later, I was giving him lunch. He had almost finished, and was in the high chair. He had one bite left on his plate, and I told him to eat it while I went and put my dishes in the dishwasher. When I came back, I asked him, "What did you do with that last bite of sandwich?"
He giggled, and said, "I put it in my mouse, and now it is in my tummy!"

"Mouse?" I said. "Where is your mouse?"

He giggled again, and pointed to his mouth.

"That's not a mouse," I told him. "A mouse is a little animal with a long tail. Do you have a mouse on your face?"

He giggled some more. "Mickey Mouse!" he said.

"Right! Mickey Mouse. But this," I pointed to his mouth, "is your mouth, not your mouse. Can you say mouth."

"Mouse!" he said, looking solemn.

I thought he was seriously trying. So I said, "Can you say "teeth?"

He said, "My teeth (pronounced correctly) are in my mouse." He giggled again.

"Come on, silly boy," I told him. "If you can say 'teeth' you can say 'mouth.' Let me hear you say 'mouth.'"

He said, "My teeth are in my mouse." He looked serious.

"How about bath? Can you say "bath?" I asked him.

He said, "Bath."

Frustrated, because he can obviously make the "th" sound at the end of words, I spent a few more minutes trying to get him to say "mouth", but it came out as "mouse" every time. I gave up and we went on to other things.

Later that day, when I was getting my coat on to go home, he came running over to give me a kiss goodbye. Just as I was going to kiss his cheek, he ducked his head so I had to kiss him on the top of his head. He is good at ducking kisses, so I told him, "Nope. You have to give me a kiss on my cheek now."

He giggled and pushed his cheek up against mine.

"That's not a kiss!" I told him.

I tickled him. "Stop!" he said, laughing. "Nate kiss you."

"Will you give me a kiss with your mouth?" I insisted, tickling him a bit more.

"Yes. Nate kiss you with my mouse." he said laughing.

"Your mouse?" I pretended to be horrified. "Not with your mouse! I don't want a mouse kissing me."

He laughed harder. He gave me a kiss - a real kiss - on my cheek.

I picked up my purse and lunch bag, and was opening the door, when he said, "Nana! I kissed you with my mouth!" He was grinning.

He is two. Just two years and three months, actually. But I swear, the boy had been teasing me all day. I think he knew how to say mouth all along!