What Makes Me Smile

Afternoon everyone,

I was reflecting on my activity this morning or should I say lack of activity. Strider, my 14 year old cocker spaniel is laying next to me and snoring. She has been sleeping since 8 o'clock except for two trips outside. But for the snoring her lack of activity would scare me a bit. Once in a while she opens her eyes to check on me and then goes back to sleep. Since she lost her mom in September she has firmly attached herself to me and developed a system to guide her during her day. That includes an outside trip around 7:30  or so and then another at noon. Fresh water and some hard food when she come back in and more of the same in the afternoon. About 4 o'clock or so she starts getting excited about her dinner. She especially likes her rabbit based canned food and the similar tasting (I'm guessing) hard food. It's the first time she ever took pills with her food instead of leaving them in the empty bowl. She eats so fast that she can scarce taste the food, but her joy and excitement make me smile.

When I watch her I smile a lot. She has this habit to stop at the top of the stairs and turn around toward me. Originally she and I would touch heads and then proceed to the upstairs, but in the last couple of years the head butts and stare downs have become kisses. Her's to me of course. Then there is her barking at anything on the street. But it is her looks that make me smile. Oh how I wish she could form words and speak to me. Her looks have meanings I know. There is a shade difference between outside and more food and water please. Sometime she seems to know I need her close to me and there are her body slams when her happiness can't be contained which  I think is her form of a hug.

I also smile at people when they do or say something I formerly did or said. Passing and squeezing into the traffic lane or staying in a lane that ends to gain absolutely no advantage. That was my MO for years.

The secret of life may be ignoring everything until it has to be confronted. So much goes away without becoming a problem and tincture of time has a great effect on hurt feelings and bruised egos. On the other hand, telling someone you love them or that they have done a good thing (or job) doesn't cost a dime but may mean the world to them.

I think that smiles are very underrated and so are hugs. If my misfortunes have taught me anything, it's that a good hug is an affirmation of your individual value by the huger, but also makes you apt to smile more and hug more and then where are we, but in a better world?

There are people that make me smile. When I see them enter a room or read something they wrote. When they are on TV, or when I think about how they stir me or make be think. Sometimes I smile at people I love, and remember a special time or place we shared. Some memories exist in the long ago while other memories are still fresh. That's a good time to say I love you. While you can, when the one you love can accept your love and return it to you.

The days are quiet now. The quiet goes well with the cloudy skies and retirement. I don't worry about my place in history or my unwritten sonnet, or the great story that lingers in my mind. I don't mind that life is unpredictable or sometimes seems unfair. I don't have expectations of people or circumstance. The economy isn't something I worry about. Don't we have enough people to worry about those things? I don't care about the Dow or the unemployment rate. I care about the unemployed and hope we can provide the necessities to them. The quiet is a friend. No news program or commentator can dent my space and make me worry. Maybe getting old brings a wisdom about life that only the old and fools can understand and appreciate.

Are we ever going to solve the rampant poverty in our country. When will every person have health and dental care available? We might be able to solve some of these problems when we actually love our neighbors enough to feed, clothe and care for them. Someday we will learn that caring for those who suffer cost less that if we create another government program for it.

It is quiet again. There is still only one toothbrush in the bathroom. Being alone is a litany of canned soup and grill cheese, a bowl of cereal or a couple of eggs. It is a fresh look at life and death. It is examining everything. It is love anew and a kinder gentler look at the past and less self imposed gilt.

Reconsidering Death

I know that I'm not the only one who has lost someone dearly loved suddenly and unexpectedly. In my mind I understand the concept that such deaths can be both terrible and the effects long lasting. As our parents remembered the attack on Pear Harbor and Kennedy's assignation, 9/11 was so terrible for the very public nature of the deaths and that doesn't even touch all the deaths in wars where someone didn't come home. And children who die or are never born. I can't even imagine the grief involved in putting a child to rest or deciding to not accept a child.

I imagine that I'm not even unique among the bloggers who have chosen to write about death and loss. But it is the very sameness of a shared experience that causes me to speak out, and ask if we have become a nation de-sensatized by all the carnage that surrounds us.

When Deb died I was stunned. Numb. I didn't expect it and there are times that both the dog and I hear a noise and think it may be her home at last. But of course she always called on her way to tell me she was soon to be home and that she loved me. Strider still lays at the top of the stairs where she can see the driveway and patiently waits for her mom to come home. How confusing it must be when I arrive in "her" car. She takes her position in bed that always left room for Deb. Hardly uncommon reactions of course.

Sometimes I stare at the ceiling, which allows me to regroup and hold back the tears. My home is a large box full of memories of her. Sometimes I see order in the chaos. A list of bills paid each month with account numbers and codes and due dates. Being me, I did a spreadsheet.

In one closet there is a group of shoes that she wore and in another a double ring of scarves and one of belts. More than most people would have I think.

Two months ago she died. I wasn't there when it happened and for a long while I wondered if I could have done more to make her life better the last year. If I had known. I should have held her more and kissed her a lot. I could have hugged her more often. I should have known, right? But while the easiest thing to do is self blame, it doesn't get me anywhere at all. I don't feel a bit better. I did watch all the cooking shows she turned on and Dancing with the Stars. That counts for something, doesn't it?

Two days ago I cooked a meal for the first time in two months. Scrambled eggs, potatoes, sausage and toast. It was really good. And I've gotten really good at laundry.

But songs go through my head, mostly Sinatra songs. And I never understood melancholy. Until now. Slowly the stuff she left behind is distributed to people who loved her and to groups and shops that specialize in the redistribution of such stuff. And I wonder if I will feel better when her stuff is gone or it I will suddenly miss her more.

I must have received over 150 sympathy cards. Some that made my heart ache and all of them lovely and welcome. Church has been so warm and I have been well looked after. One lovely lady at church tells me while she only knew Deb, she asks if she can hug me. I say sure and enjoy the moment.

Go ask anyone who has grieved what the most important part of the process is and I'll bet it's time and some space. I am loved so much by so many great people, but there are good things about having alone time to process your thoughts. Today was a good day. I spent a chunk of time with Deb's parents. They are wonderful, loving and kind people. My family for twenty six years, and to hear them, for as long as I choose to be so.

I know some things are better. Why? Because Deb left her robe and nightgown on a hook in the bathroom and I haven't tried either on yet.

Death is the end of a journey that has little value unless you travel with abundant love, patience, joy and forgiveness. You have to forgive yourself for your perceived or real faults, treat each day as a gift and meet it with joy. And love, unconditionally and with abandon, and forgive everything.

Hug your loved ones and be gentle with everyone. And once in a while, in a random act of kindness hug a stranger.

The House at Kearsley Park Blvd

There isn’t much to recommend this house as a memory maker. With a cape cod design it looks weathered and neglected. Maybe the owners are unable to justify the cost of renovation because of the deteriorating neighborhood so it’s only a temporary place to live. Until something better comes along.

But oh, how this home looked in the 1940’s and ‘50’s.

Then the home was an oasis of dreams and bubbling life. The everyday surprise of life and the hopes and dreams of the family. The woman of the house was friendly with her neighbors and made peach cobbler from the fruit tree in the back yard.

One next door neighbor was named Mansour. From the Middle East somewhere, Iran perhaps. Dark skinned, they were fascinated by the young boy with the red hair and the fair skin who lived with the old couple from time to time. The Mansour family had the knack for hard work and made their mark in grocery stores spread about the city.

On the other side was a family named Farrah, driven from their land when Castro took over Cuba. Mrs. Farah would welcome the young boy for a visit often and give him snacks and talk with him. Only years later would the full story be told of a panic escape from the island, leaving everything behind. Everything. Home, clothes, money and position. In the middle of the night after a telephone warning, a boat and a trip to Miami. 1958, never to return. People and family missing, never to be heard of again.

The city was waiting to charm the young boy and the old woman loved showing it to him. Downtown sparkled and was filled with places to eat and shop. A burger at the Kewpie or the A & W, and shopping at Smith-Bridgmans department store. The city bustled all day and much of the night. Clothing shops, a cafe or two and the usual dentist and doctor's offices lined Division street and then there was the IMA building, where each winter the circus would perform. Wide eyed and filled with awe the young boy would squeal with delight as the impossible number of clowns would exit the tiny car and then the elephants would perform. The lion tamer and the ponies were sure to thrill. And then the trapeze  would swing with the muscled catcher and the exotic and beautiful girl who would hang suspended over the net at the apex of her improbable flight before being caught just when it seemed she would fall. 

A nightly ritual was for the old man to come home from work and the young boy to play hide and seek, usually by squeezing under the sink, with its smells of cleaners and soap. The game played out for a few minutes until the boy was found and everyone laughed.

In the basement was a furnace and a coal cellar with that particular smell of coal dust. A big shovel stood by the wall and the old man would shovel the coal and stoke the fire in cold weather. Gravity feed warmed the home top to bottom.

Someone had put a new toilet in the basement to supplement the only other one on the second floor. Next to that a stationary tub, divided into two parts stood. Made of cement it would play a part in the weekly laundry, holding the soapy water so it could be used for another load. A washer and dryer and a folding table with an iron and board with a Pepsi bottle with that peculiar top that sprinkled water on shirts and such before the iron did its job.The water pipes were wrapped in asbestos, something that didn’t concern the old couple until they no longer lived there.

There was a small kitchen with an old stove and refrigerator and a table that worked for two, maybe three but was a stretch for five or six. Along the back wall of the home and kitchen, there was a white enameled counter and sink where babies were bathed and changed and dishes were washed. A window looked into the back yard at the big shade tree and the garage. Milk was delivered by a horse-drawn wagon. They horse knew exactly where to stop along the street so the delivery man could jump out with the order without waiting for the horse to stop.

And the old woman could really cook, able to create a hearty meal out of what was still in the fridge. She made bread every so often and put a few half sized loaves in the freezer. She would make grape jelly every year and can tomatoes and peaches. The old woman wore a house dress and added an apron when in the kitchen. She made sure she always looked good for the old man, the young boy and anyone else that stopped by.

The living room had as it focus point a fire-place with an ornate carved wood mantle. A sofa was against the inside wall of the steps to the second floor and stuffed chairs finished the room. There was a round table that held the Christmas tree with the bubbling glass tubes and the Angel hair and the shiny ornaments every December. Over toward the front door stood the radio in the fine polished cabinet with the record player that used 78 rpm lacquered discs with names like Crosby, Goodman and Dorsey. The radio was a wonder with rich deep sound and buttons that tuned the set to romantic sounding places. Brazil, Calcutta, Rio and even dots and dashes of short wave. The powerful radio could receive "Don McNeills Breakfast club" from Chicago, the first program of its kind. In the morning the old man would listen to the songs, comedy and news as he sipped his coffee and ate his fried egg and toast and smoked the first cigarette of the day. 

Off the living room, near the front door with a bedroom used by the old couple. Next to the door was an iron door stop made to resemble a fine sailing vessel. In the front window were two silhouettes, one showing a small girl and the other showing a dog.

A bathroom at the top of the stairs held the music box the old man kept from his mother and a hand mirror and brush from the old woman’s mother. A hamper for laundry completed the room.

The bedroom on the driveway side had two nice twin beds but when the young boy was new he slept in a crib in the alcove of the dormer window looking at the street. It was there that he overcame bedwetting fostered by the patience of the old woman.

Across the small hall was another bedroom with a double bed. The room also had a dresser and a closet. The most amazing thing at the back of the closet was a door, and beyond the door was the attic. A real blunderbuss was kept there. The young boy would dream about pirates and ships and ask repeated questions of the old man about the gun. That room would be the last place the old woman’s father would sleep in this life.

In was in this home that the young boy would recover from having his tonsils and adenoids removed at eight and overcome the flu during another winter. The ice cream calmed his scratchy throat and the old woman nursed him to health after the fever from the flu abated. The old woman would take the young boy swimming and teach him to play rummy and canasta.  Since the old woman didn't drive they traveled by bus or walk everywhere. As the young boy grew a

The house was alive with laughter and love, patience and kindness.

Across the street in front of the house was a large park. A land filled with steep hills for climbing and a small stream for watching fish. At the bowl end of the park the hills were longer and just right for sledding. The young boy would scream in mock terror going down the hill and then the old man would pull him up the hill. That didn’t last very long until the boy was assigned the job of sled recovery. Next to the hills was a marvel of summer. A giant swimming pool with an area above that would hold people for dancing and musicians that would play the songs of the day. Perry Como, Sinatra and Basie. In the 1950’s there were teen dances at the pool with nascent rock and roll blasting and the young dancers whirling.

So life was good for the young boy. He could swim in the summer and sled in the winter. There were kids in the neighborhood, one of them a girl he was sweet on named Megan.

Not everything was roses, as people said then. The old man had his health issues. A bad back required surgery and there was the sadness for his mothers sudden death in 1955. The old man came from a big Irish family. There were always parties and weddings and even at funerals there was celebrating of someone well lived life to the fullest. He lost a brother in 1954 to a drunk driver and his father at sixty-six, probably from a life of drink that caused a peptic ulcer. Two sisters preceded him in death. Eileen at age seven from pernicious anemia and Grace from the Spanish flu.

The old woman lived through the divorce of her parents at the beginning of the 20th century. Her father moved his four children to Cadillac and put them into school there. Her father would marry again to a woman who never was “mother” to the old woman. Her mother married again and she would not be close to the old woman except in later years.

The old woman nursed the young boy through polio in 1950 and saw him unaffected by the illness. When the young boy was first diagnosed,  the old man bargained with God that he would take the young boy with him to church if the young boy survived.

The old man was well liked by friends and loved by his family. The old woman volunteered at the hospital as a Grey Lady one day a week so the young boy traveled with the old man through several counties to meetings with customers. Later in life those two lane country roads would be the classroom where the young boy would learn how to drive and how to safely pass on the narrow roads.

The old couple grew older and moved from the park to a home close to their family. They always stayed attached to friends and family and from their bounty of love, were encouraging and patient with the young boy. Winters in Florida helped eased the struggle of the harsh winters and it was there that the old man died one evening.

A funeral mass and a gathering of the clan sent the old man off. It was a large Irish wake and the drinks were strong as they toasted the old man.

They had lived in the home from 1945 to 1961. They had lived simply and fully. They did not have the luxuries of the day except for a television and a car with an automatic transmission. They vacationed with friends and traveled simply, using rental cabins and eating lunch carefully packed that morning, stopping by the roadside picnic areas. They lived for the most part without interstate highways. The relied on their savings to supplement social security. 401K plans were a long way off. The last home they bought cost about $14,000.

The young boy learned that love could be unconditional and that family was more important than anything else. The young boy is now an old man. He knows now that life is but a hiccup in time. That the years go quickly and are filled with both laughter and sorrow.  Cherishing each day and the people in your life is the secret of contentment and happiness. Sometimes only the old know this for certain.