Year End (Mental) Clearance - and a song to boot !

“Should auld acquaintance be forgot….for auld lang syne.” *

You know the lyrics - it’s from that song we sing or lip synch because we don’t really know all the words, or, we may have imbibed too much to sing along. This traditional ditty signs off one year and ushers in a new one.
Another cycle of seasons and holidays and traditions and expectations that are embraced with four salient resolutions; more exercise, loose weight, less clutter, save money.

For many of us, these resolutions may join the company of the long lost forgotten toy sooner than Easter – for me it’s usually Super Bowl weekend ! Winter is half over, February vacation plans haven’t quite come together, Valentine’s is forecast to be Black Friday yet gain and more is expected with seemingly less rewards.

Lordy day, I sound like a Debbie-Downer, don’t I ?

Is it the fact that we are three days from the turning point of turning points ? New Year’s Eve ? Once again along with several others around the GLOBE we reflect on blessings and miracles, disappointments and loss.

It’s been a hell of a year; my mom’s health was at the top of the list – elder care and public health funding was both an education and my biggest accomplishment. My family showed how awesome they are not with gifts and parties and photos, but with actions and deeds. I received a generous respite in a cyclone of chaos from one friend who gave me his house for a week far off in the Hamptons. My colleagues overwhelmingly graced me with their trust to represent their best interest as the steward for the labor contract.. There was some loss – mostly intangible things like connections with people and opportunities for friend and family time that I missed or didn’t act upon with the initiative I should have.

While being house bound on the last Monday of 2010 I listened, first with bemusement then with disdain the endless whining about how inefficient the DSNY was at cleaning up after the Blizzard of 2010. I posted this on my status: I had surmised that our techno-instant gratification collective mindsets are turning a blizzard into a natural disaster because not every street is plowed and cleared. While I respect that lots of people need to get to work, perhaps this is a good time to reevaluate "non essential" personnel; take a group chill pill, read that book you got for Christmas, and relax. The response to this post suggests I am on to something.

Perhaps, then, it is in the same vane that I greeted the closing of the BARNES & NOBLE in Lincoln Square. Has the conversion to eBooks gone SO very well that not only we have we run out small independent book stores, but now they are making the big box go the way of the dinosaur ?

Will manual paper page turning books become as irrelevant as the daily newspaper ?

It leaves me with a new question;
WILL old acquaintance be forgot ?

Have a safe and Happy New Year ☺

*”Auld Lang Syne” Lyrics by Robert Brown, Music; Traditional. Late 18th century poem by Mr. Brown. Scottish origins, in which “auld lang syne” translates to “old long ago.”

Growing Pains

The past few days have not been business as usual.

Going upstate to see the family was different this weekend.

My mom fell in and needed to be taken to hospital in an ambulance, or as I call it per Law & Order, 'the bus.' I called my brothers to join me at the hospital, which they and their wives did unselfishly for six hours.

After minimal treatment and discharge papers, Mom came home, and I am thrilled to announce she is indeed fine.

More water, more leg elevation and follow ups NOT including a cardiologist, just her PCP.

While waiting for the ambulance to come, which it did in ten minutes, I found myself asking, "...is this how it ends ? ...is this what it's like ? "

I had a few quiet moments wondering if it was her time to go, and if I had really thought about it. Life with out my mom; her sage, her experience, he input, (welcome or not), her unfaltering love, her neurosis about locking doors, turning off lights and for the love of God taking the tea kettle off the stove.

Was I ready, or had I thought about not hearing one of her Uncle George stories, her Cuba-while-Dad-was-in-the-service stories ? All this rushed through my head as I waited with her, looking at her pallor, feeling a strong, but slow pulse, and eliciting responses that took a long time to come.

But they came.

She responded.

The Med technicians came.

The oxygen came.

And then she answered the questions.

Dismissed going to the hospital and announced she had to use the lou.

It wasn't her time to go.

Not on Sunday.

Not with the Jets in the quarter finals.

Not in the middle of winter where she can still see the fleeting colors of birds.

Not before her garden was abloom with perennials and what ever other annuals I could sneak in.

It wasn't her time to go, but, just as some innocence had been lost when I was diagnosed and treated for cancer, a little more of that wide eyed wonder ebbed away over the long weekend as I took the role of advocate for my mom's care in a strange place where she couldn't see all the different people around her and couldn't hear what was being said about and for her.

I did things and answered questions that adult children have to do for their elderly parent/s. I assumed the role of caregiver without hesitation, but with the stark realization that this is what is necessary now.

This is one of those benchmarks that I am both lucky to have, in that my mom has lived to be nearly 85; and that I, along with my siblings, are responsible to have - to take care of the woman who has always taken care of us, from near or far; sometimes very far, indeed.

So I go to bed tonight in my Manhattan apartment knowing she is as well as she was last week, with support all around. I am truly not worried, but more aware of what I have had for a long time and what I will lose when she is gone. But until then, we banter on the phone, cheer for the red team, discuss food - now we are going gluten free, and giggle about cats and birds and chipmunks and farm markets.

I don't know how long she has. I don't know how long anyone has - I don't know what I am having for breakfast, but, I do know that I am the woman I am today because she taught me more than how to make a perfect pie crust and how to cut and sew a pattern; she taught me to be my own person in the face of adversity and, "to thine own self be true."

The Betty - she really is something else.