NANCY

I miss Andy Rooney, and, in tribute to him, I am going to air one of my pet peeves.  I’ve gotten so I read through the obituaries, partly for that feeling of having won a little lottery when I don’t see anyone’s name I know (so at this point, I still win a lot) and partly to read about strangers’ lives and marvel at the detail in some of them.  I have to admit that I also look to see mentions of a beloved pet left behind.  I do that with wedding announcements, too, and feel instantly connected when I see a pet in the picture with the happy couple.  I guess I should disclose that my dog “Pasha Bird” shared space with me in my college yearbook.

But, back to obituaries!  Often I see a picture of a young person staring out at me, and I gasp to myself, thinking, “how sad,” but then, when reading on, I discover the person is actually way past 60.  It happened just today in the Chapel Hill News.

Are we trying to say we are now forever young?  I don’t get it.  There was a flapper not long ago in the Raleigh paper, hair flattened down with tight curls, in a roaring twenties dress.  So, of course she was in her nineties.  Would any of our current acquaintances recognize us if we put our high school picture in our announcement?  Is it the families that do this?  Or do we, upon reaching a certain age, pick out our best shot from fifty years ago and designate it as our ‘parting’ shot?

I can see that some people may just not have a more current picture, but in this digital day and age, I would think they would be in the minority.

So, for heaven’s sake, anybody who doesn’t have a recent picture, please ask your grand kids to snap one of you, so we won’t have to move you through all three focal levels in our glasses to figure out even that we knew you!

Now I’m going to look up Andy’s obit to see what his picture was like.  Here it is:

ANDY ROONEY'S OBITUARY PHOTO

GWENDIE

Sometimes I feel like my husk, my body, is getting ready to shed, leaving only “me”—my core, my soul, my essence—behind.  And where will I be then?  Or maybe the question should be, what happens to the core “me”?

Some would say heaven or hell.  Others would say the essence returns to the universe in some other form.  Others say that “I” will be born again, perhaps as some lower being, perhaps as a more enlightened being.  Some might believe that, after death on this planet, the soul returns to somewhere in space where it originated.

All those ideas are attractive to me in some ways, but not completely satisfactory.  I have a very hard time “believing” in anything that takes place after I’m gone from this earth.  Even though I take on faith that electricity makes the light bulb glow, and I can’t see electricity.  But then, almost everyone agrees (has been taught) about electricity.  But not everyone agrees about what happens after the body, the husk, has been shucked.

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My body, the body I’ve never been all that fond of, has proved to be much more resilient than I every imagined it could be.  It has survived, although with considerable wear and tear, numerous and considerable assaults—from chemotherapy and radiation and immune disease and countless episodic drugs for infections and “conditions” like gastrointestinal upsets of various kinds.

I should be more appreciative of this body, this husk that protects the real me, as best it can.  There’s only so much an old husk (I am 70, after all) can do to beat off the many threats to its integrity.  There comes a time when rejuvenation, or return to the original state, is no longer possible.  That’s where my body is now. And I find myself (the real me) frustrated with this.

I miss the good old days when I could come down with something and then get over it.  There’s no getting over it anymore.  As one of my friends says, now it’s just all patch, patch, patch.  Making do with the “new normal”, which changes frequently as my body deals, successfully or not so much, with new challenges—new drugs, new problems in the body, new attitudes in the “real me.”

Lately, I’ve noticed that the general culture has picked up on the insight that positivity is a good thing.  And that “being present” can relieve stress.  So we have lots of platitudes posted on websites and sent in emails and embroidered on pillows and printed on greeting cards, and in fact, just about everywhere.

Be here now.  Smile, God loves you.  Love is the answer.  But I’m still stuck on shit happens! And that’s how I view the wearing down of my body, my husk.  It’s just one of those things.  Shit happens.  And as to what will happen to me, my core, my essence when my body, my husk fails totally, well, it’s always good to have a little mystery in your life.

BE HERE NOW

Dee Charlton

I’m grateful to be one of the lucky, reunion re-connections that formed over the past 18 months with Annice, one of the co-founders of this wonderful blog Oops50.com.  Our friendship goes back to 6^th grade summer camp, and if my math is right, that’s 47 years ago.  The camp was devised by the school district to facilitate kids from several grade-schools to meet and spend time together prior to the major transition into the adult world of 7^th grade!  We became fast friends.  We were 12 years old.

October 23, 2011 – I turned 59.  How strange it feels to be writing for this blog and and saying, I’m almost 60 !!   How did that happen? The Bonnie Raitt song; “Nick of Time” keeps playing over and over in my head, especially the lyric; “… no matter how I tell myself – it’s what we all go through,  those lines are pretty hard to take when they’re staring back at you..”   In the Nick of Time  You ain’t never lied sister Bonnie!

My husband, Scott and I have been traveling the country in our motor coach since April.  We just returned to beautiful Sarasota, Florida Nov. 1^st, and I’m sitting in front of the computer looking at our wedding photo taken in Italy.

Dee's wedding in Italy

Next to that is the photo we had taken last month in Las Vegas, it was our 5^th anniversary – wow.  What a life, what a journey this has been!  I can’t say I remember what I wanted my life to be when I was younger except that I wanted to be independent and travel, and now I can say yes to both of those goals.

I’m also feeling how fortunate I’ve been to experience the wonder of this country – the canyons, the mountains, the Bad Lands, Death Valley, White Sands, Alaska and hot air balloon festivals.  I’ve even jumped out of an airplane and para-glided off a mountain.  I’m grateful for it all, and for Scott.

Next - Pilot's license

Back to my birthday – it was harder than I expected it to be.  All day, I was fighting back tears.  I know I’m not afraid of death, I’ve been faced with it on more than one occasion.  So what was tearing me up?  Aging?  Vanity?  Am I that vain?  I guess I am, but is that worse than death??

I think it finally hit me when I texted Fran (my wonderful step-daughter) something my mother said to me on my birthday: “Welcome to the last year of your 50s!”  Thanks Mom.  Her stand-up routine could use a little refining, but I love her anyway.  And thank you Fran for letting me cry on your long distance shoulder.  For every year that passes me by, I come one more year closer to losing my Mom, and that hurts a lot.

Dee with Mom

Honestly, I’ve just gotten to know my mother well about seven years ago, and I cherish her as my real best friend.  I am a lucky 59 year old woman in so many ways!

Born in Collinwood (Cleveland) OH, Dee’s family followed what she likes to refer to as the Italian Migratory Route from Little Italy in Cleveland to the ‘burbs where her mother still resides. 

After graduating from high school, she struck out on her own in her first apartment, later to be hired by the same people who built, owned and managed the complex.  

Her career in Property Management took her to New York, New Hampshire, and finally Florida, a place she wanted to stay.  In the early 90’s, Dee was hired by a national company and traveled the country promoting motivational speakers to help people get rich quick – just like they did.  It wasn’t unusual for her to come home with half a million dollars in her briefcase.  Eventually, Dee settled down in Sarasota.where she met her husband, Scott, and married in Santa Maria di Castellabati, Italy, just south of the Amalfi coast.  Today, they live in Sarasota during the winter months and travel the rest of the year in their motor coach.

College Boyfriend's Horse Pic

There are the people who go through a horse period, when their child is taking lessons.  Maybe they even buy a horse.  But as soon as the child loses interest or the horse becomes unusable, they’re done with it.  That horse may get passed along to the next brief enthusiast and the next, then maybe to a riding stable, but eventually there’s no real use for it—other than just being a horse.  What happens then?  More than likely, the horse ends up in a bad situation, gets put down or goes to the slaughter house.  

One of our horses came with a long line of impressive show wins, and with a little notoriety from his time at a local barn, so, after having him for about 10 years, I called the previous owners to let them know how he was doing.  I could tell from their response that they thought I was nuts.  Like a lot of other people, they had no interest in finding out what had happened to their horse after they were finished with it.   

I’m fortunate in that we have a farm, so we have never had to board our horses.  Of course, that is a double-edged sword—because if we had had to board them, we’d have never ended up with so many horses.  Some we got as sad-story rescues, such as the horse show jumper who wasn’t ever supposed to jump again who was being used as a jumping lesson horse, or the retired thoroughbred with the bent leg, or the little Arab, “Rosie”, we found on the side of the road.  (When I was little, my parents accused me of yelling “pick me up!” every time we passed some unfortunate creature on the side of the road.  I guess they never imagined I’d find a horse that way.)

Jackson

Rosie was a mess.  She was loose that day, grazing beside the road, but she normally lived in a muddy garage with a piece of barbed wire across it, right next to a busy road.  She’d gotten out in an ice storm and fallen.  There were wounds all over her.  When I found the owners, I offered to pay them $200 for her or to call Animal Control.  We brought her home that day.  Local men that came to help us pick up hay that season knew her.  They said she was always in a local parade.  One day I put a saddle on her.  It felt unnatural.   I wasn’t used to her high-head Arab carriage.  It was unnatural for her, too: she associated riding with fear, noise, and stress.  I never road her again, and that was ok.  To see her put on weight and just be a horse in the pasture was payment enough.  She has arthritis now, and one leg is bending at an odd angle.  When it gets cold outside, I blanket her, but every morning she’s there with her ears perked up, waiting for her food.  I doubt she’d be alive if we hadn’t brought her here.

When people adopt dogs they are forewarned to be prepared for a lifetime commitment, but horses aren’t viewed that way.  Just because we don’t eat them, are they as disposable as pigs or cows?  Anybody can buy a horse with no questions, such as are they properly able to care for them?  Fenced yard? (please no barbed wire)  Enough yard? (2 acre minimum per horse) Intent to breed? (ever check Craig’s List to see how many are looking for homes??)  Will they be able to handle yearly worming, hoof trimming, vaccinations and feed, for goodness sake, all essentials for a healthy happy horse?

Nobody polices potential horse owners to see if they “get” what all is involved.  In this day and age, when Bob Barker is pleading to our lawmakers for protection for circus animals, there ought to be some kind of minimum requirement for horse ownership—and not just the last resort intervention of animal control when the horror story makes its way to the local news. 

People watch “The Horse Whisperer”, “Secretariat” and soon “War Horse” and marvel at these magnificent creatures and all they sacrifice for us.  It shouldn’t be a one-way street.

Dinner Time

Years ago, when I would get a new puppy, I’d calculate what my age would be when the dog reached the end of its life—and would figure that, by that time, I’d be able to handle it better.  Somehow that never worked out.  When my husband surprised me with a weanling about six years ago, did he calculate how old I’d be when it reached 30?  I just hope that, at 86, I can remember to go outside and feed it!

Bob Miller

One of the things I love about blogging is the ability to meet people anywhere – anytime.  When Sue Counts (guest blogger) wrote about co-housing a few weeks ago, we got tons of emails and comments from readers everywhere.  One such person was Bob Miller, and the next thing I knew, I was inviting him to be a guest blogger – our first male blogger on Oops50!  Thank you, Bob. 

Annice

My wife and I became members of a co-housing community called Wolf Creek Lodge earlier this year.  The lodge is currently under construction in Grass Valley, California.  We expect to move in sometime late in 2012.  We have chosen Wolf Creek Lodge as an appealing environment for our senior life style.

Future Wolf Creek Lodge

The conventional American living environment can be hostile to the senior species.  They want community, walking access to stores, entertainment and recreation.  They want low maintenance, sustainable housing.

Community is important to me and my wife.  Earlier in our lives we found this at our workplace, through our children’s activities, our extended family, our church and sporting activities.  We no longer go out to work and our children are living their own lives and our older family members have passed away.

We watched our parents become isolated in their later years.  We believe we can do better by taking action now before change becomes challenging.

Who's Slowing Down?

At Wolf Creek Lodge we will have our own condominium-style apartment, one of 30.  However, we will also use the common room, living room, patio and gardens.  We will invite friends to stay in one of several guest apartments.  We will stroll on the adjoining trails, walk to the nearby shops and enjoy the cultural activities of Grass Valley.

Community will be at our front door.  Most evenings we will dine in the common room sharing cooking and clean up activities.  We will join others over coffee and relax on the patio.  We will continue to ski, bike and hike in the northern Sierra, which are only an hour away.

What a Ride

We realize that as the years pass we may become unable to drive and our physical capabilities may become more limited.  The Wolf Creek Lodge environment will continue to work for us.  The lodge even includes an apartment for a care-giver, should we need extra help.

Wolf Creek Lodge is a creation of its evolving community.  The community worked with the architect on the design to oversee the construction and formulate the processes which will guide the members’ common activities.

Already, months before moving in, we are enjoying the community.  We are in constant electronic communication with all the other members and attend the General Meeting in Grass Valley once a month.  My wife has a key role on the landscape committee reviewing the planting plans and identifying members who want to work in the gardens.  I help on the marketing and technical committees.

Under Construction

On the marketing committee I am working to find people to join us and fill the remaining 6 apartments.  It’s fascinating to talk to potential members as they try to understand this co-housing concept.  They pay us repeated visits to decide if they want to spend the rest of their lives with us.  They finally take the decision and pitch in.

We do not really know what it will be like to live at Wolf Creek Lodge.  We are working hard with our new friends to make it happen and having both fun and challenges along the way.

Bob Miller is currently a ski bum in Truckee, California.  Born in England of an English mother and a Scottish father, he moved to Scotland at the age of 11.  After graduating from Glasgow University with a degree in Physics he married Claire, started a family, and moved to the Boston area in 1978.  Bob’s career was in the computer industry.  Since his retirement, he moved with Claire to Truckee.  Besides skiing, he rides his road bike and hikes in the Sierras.

Lynne

Our guest blogger, Lynne Roche Matthews, grew up in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio and went on to study at Kent State University.  After college, she worked in the hospitality industry for over 29 years.  She moved to upstate New York in 1990 and became Vice President for the motorcoach tour & charter company she and her late husband owned until retiring to Punta Gorda, Florida in 2001.  She now spends her time volunteering for the yacht club, chairing the PR & Marketing Committee, and the annual Bridal Expo.  She also is active in city politics, serving on the Planning Commission and Board of Zoning Appeals.  In her spare time, she loves to go boating, read, travel and shop.  AND, she just got married this past Saturday and looks forward to many new life adventures with her new husband.

Thanks to my High School Reunion, I reconnected with Lynne after 40 years.  And, by the way, if you’re going to a reunion any time soon,  just pray you have someone like uber-planner, Lynne, running your event.  This woman knows how to have fun!  After our reunion, I asked Lynne to write a blog post about her experience locating all our classmates and what it all meant to her.  Here is her story.

Annice in 1967

I recently had the wonderful opportunity to chair my 40^th high school reunion, reconnecting with so many great friends that I had lost contact with back in the day.  It was truly an inspirational weekend after planning it for almost two years.  I got on the plane to return home to Florida, only to see one of my classmates, Annice, who had also been at the party, so we sat together on the flight and talked non-stop for a couple of hours.  It was great fun just catching up with each others lives.  So she told me about this blog she started with some friends of hers, and one thing led to another…well you know how these things happen.

When asked to write a blog for Oops50, I started thinking of all the things I could write about.  I’ve often thought about writing a book about some of the crazier things in my life, but I just never had enough time to do ii…ah yes, TIME.  That evil four letter word.  If only I had TIME.  It made me think of something that really stood out in my mind, something that I wish I had made the time for.

Reunion Fun

When I first started working on the reunion a couple of years ago, I discovered a classmate (Roberta) who lived just 5 miles from me, here in Florida.  So after almost 40 years, here we were, almost 1000 miles from where we grew up, living the good life in sunny Florida.  After a couple of months of knowing she was so close, I called her one day (it blew her away), we laughed, we cried and found each other again.

I had already found another one of my BFF’s from high school (Barb) just a few miles away, and she and I have gotten together frequently over the past 10 years to have lunch every month or two.  So we made arrangements for the three of us to meet for lunch.  Here’s where the “if only” comes in.

Roberta announced to me she had just come through a rather intense session of chemo, having a rough round with ovarian cancer.  What a true trooper she was, braver than most, and she was doing well.  Sporting a beautiful wig and her ever present smile, she arrived, nervous as all get out, but we quickly settled in for a wonderful lunch and conversation.  We did the same thing several other times since, hooking up with other classmates I found nearby (there are 17 of us here in SW Florida), and had a wonderful time reconnecting everyone.

There was to be a group dinner with spouses back in late winter of 2011, and she opted out, saying her husband was out of town on business.  And then she cancelled out on a girl’s day lunch.  Well I think you know where THIS is going.  I had a bad feeling, but I just didn’t follow up on it.  And then I got the call from her husband…she had succumbed to that evil disease in May.  I hated myself for not doing what I knew I should have done, but I also know she wouldn’t want anyone to dwell on the illness.  She kept it very private, and that’s the way she wanted it.  But it was way too soon to see her go, and I will always second guess myself for not doing better at keeping in touch.

That's Roberta next to Lynne

I’ve mourned the loss of my dear friend, Roberta, and not a day goes by that I don’t regret waiting to get in touch with this beautiful, kind soul.  It just proves that there’s no time like the present – don’t leave this place we call earth with any regrets, and don’t wait to reach out to those who mean something to you.

If only I had started sooner, I would have had more time to spend with her, and maybe, just maybe I could have helped her get through the times when she really needed me to be there for her.  I know she loved that we reconnected, and she loved the time we spent together.  I just wish there had been more of those times.  So RIP sweet Roberta – I will miss your beautiful smile always, and I’ll see you on the other side.  Dance like no one’s watching ladies – you never know what’s around the corner!

FATIMAH'

I enjoy sharing women that are interesting and Fatimah’ is one of those women.  I recently met her to ask some questions in order for you to get to know her better.  She is so into music and has her own website where she is the DJ.  Finding out that we both listened to Matt the Cat and Kid Leo on WMMS, the home of the Buzzard, back in the glory days of rock in the 70′s was actually not a surprise…

What was the name of the first record you ever bought?

I remember it well…it was “Think”, by James Brown and The Famous Flames.  This song made me dance, and I love dancing.

Who was your favorite female singer while growing up?

It was “Esther Phillips”. Esther’s voice is sultry & unique.  Take a listen…

What is the one thing you have to put on that makes you feel good about leaving the house?

I have to say, it’s an essential oil called “Ylang Ylang” and I only use the one from the company, Young Living.  It makes me feel empowered, seductive, creative, and magnetic.

What is your favorite comfort food?

It’s either Ben & Jerry’s or Haagen Daz’s Butter Pecan ice cream, or, this Greek Honey Vanilla yogurt that I get at the health food store.

What’s your favorite and least favorite thing about being over 50?

If there was anything that is my least favorite thing about being over 50, I guess it would be that I don’t have the physical strength and tenacity that I used to have: I don’t last like I used to!  But my favorite things are I feel more conscious, more aware, and feel like I have wisdom.

What is your most favorite thing to do that is “creative”?

Dancing, singing, drumming, storytelling: I love them all!

Do you feel optimistic about the future?  And, what keeps you going?

Oh yes.  I do feel optimistic about the future!  And what keeps me going are the possibilities.  The unknown.  The trusting.  And the knowing.

What is part of your daily routine that makes you feel good?

I have a internet TV Station, “One Outrageous place on the Internet” ‘Shabazz 7777‘  WRNU Internet TV.

Check it out by clicking here: http://www.viewerone.com/channels/wrnu

I get such a good feeling and so much enjoyment while selecting the music or Informative Documentaries for each show, knowing that those good vibes are being passed along and shared; that is something that I love to do!  Tune in from 7pm – 7am every day to feel it!

Betsy

Originally from Canada, Betsy lives in upstate New York in the Catskill Mountains, with her cocker spaniel and two domestic long-haired cats.  She is very close to her two sons, both in their 20s.  Her family, 3 older brothers, their wives, children and grandchildren, still live in Nova Scotia.  An aspiring writer and stained glass artist who loves nature and the quiet rural life, Betsy currently teaches composition at the State College in Delhi, NY. 

Before I sat down to write this blog, I was totally stymied by where to begin.  It’s a long convoluted story that began more than 5 years ago, when my now 23-year-old son, Alexander, was diagnosed with schizophrenia.  And it hasn’t ended yet.  Perhaps I should begin at the end, which is to say, when it comes to mental health care in this country, beware!  Trust your gut about the quality of ‘subsidized’ treatments and if at all possible, pay for private care.

Alex has been hospitalized numerous times.  Each time was a crisis situation – delusions, psychoses, panic attacks – and each time he was patched up and sent home into my care, with minimal follow-up care at the county mental health clinic.  By minimal, I mean only once every two weeks or so.

The county mental health professionals were clearly operating on their own agenda and enjoying the self-imposed power they possess by being the only gig in town (we live in a very rural area).  I can’t even add up the number of hours Alex spent meeting with counselors, with the ONE AND ONLY psychiatrist (who wielded his prescription capabilities like any good autocratic dictator) and with psychiatric nurses, only to be told that he should practice deep breathing during a panic attack, or take Benadryl for insomnia–all the while denying him a medication that was helpful because they didn’t think it was needed.  It was their way or the highway.

Alex, being more intelligent than any of them, had his own ideas.  He began self-medicating himself with alcohol,  in order to get relief.  So here I was dealing with erratic behavior in my son, who was unable to find any relief for his very painful mental health issues.  At one point, out of sheer desperation, I reached out to the county people for help.  I felt Alex needed medical attention, but I couldn’t convince him to come with me to the hospital.  The county people told me they could arrange a “pick up”.  I thought this would be a good idea, as I envisioned a county nurse or some other sympathetic person who would come and, with professional care and sensitivity, convince Alex to go with her.  Instead, two burly policemen came to the door and insisted that Alex be cuffed and placed in the back of their unmarked (oh how sensitive of them) cruiser.  I was horrified.  They had no patience with him, and they threatened him into compliance.  This episode eroded Alex’s faith in the helpful nature of these ‘systems’ in place and shook his trust in me.

When he was admitted to the ER at the nearest trauma center, they had no beds.  According to rules, he had to stay in the ER until a bed could be found somewhere – anywhere – in New York State.  Finally, close to midnight, about 5 hours after he was admitted, they found a bed in Saratoga Springs– about two and a half hours away.  He was transported by ambulance there, where he stayed for the minimum of 4 days, while a doctor who didn’t know him from Adam, diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia and sent him back to be followed up with our illustrious county mental health people.

The best thing we ever did was to finally give up on the freebies and hire private care.  This has not been easy.  But it was worth the effort.  Alex is currently stable and improving.  He has a long road ahead of him, managing this kind of illness, but there’s no accounting for feeling well.  As for me?  I’m taking it one day at a time.  Hope springs eternal.

If anyone else should find themselves in this situation, I would say listen to your instincts!  I think we knew early on that the county people were not going to be able to help him, but somehow it just seemed easier and cheaper–at the time–to continue.

Sue Counts

My friend, Sue Counts, retired three years ago as the Director of the North Carolina Cooperative Extension in Watauga County after more than 40 years in government.  During her tenure, Sue initiated educational programs in the areas of sustainable tourism, sustainable energy, Hispanic outreach, and women in agriculture.  Sue says, “At this point in my life, I’m seeking a better life for the Baby Boomers who are entering that stage of their lives known as ‘the senior years’.”  So, when Dene Peterson, the founder of ElderSpirit Community came to Boone a few weeks ago to talk about her life’s work, Sue was there attending meetings about the possibility of creating such a community in Watauga County, NC.  She graciously shares important information on “Retirement Housing.”

IT’S OFFICIAL!  We are now in the “ERA OF THE GOLDEN BOOMERS!”.  On January 1, 2011 the very first Baby Boomer turned 65, and 10,000 boomers will turn 65 every day for the next 19 years.  This gigantic generation has transformed America as they have passed through every stage of life…..and housing for the elderly will not be any exception.

It's Official

Co-housing communities if you will!  These communities bring together the value of private homes with the benefits of more sustainable living.  That means common facilities and good connections with neighbors.  All in all, they stand as innovative answers to today’s environmental and social problems.

According to Charles Durrett, author of Senior Cohousing Handbook — 2nd Edition, A Community Approach to Independent Living, “No matter how rich life is in youth and middle age, the elder years can bring on increasing isolation and loneliness as social connections lessen, especially if friends and family members move away.  Senior co-housing fills a niche for this demographic — the healthy, educated and proactive adults who want to live in a social and environmentally vibrant community.  These seniors are already wanting to ward off the aging process, so they are unlikely to want to live in assisted housing.  Senior co-housing revolves around custom-built neighborhoods organized by the seniors themselves in order to fit in with their real needs, wants, and aspirations for health, longevity and quality of life.”

Elderspirit Community

The ElderSpirit Community at Trailview in Abingdon, Virginia is the living example of a community of mutual support and late life spirituality.  It is the first mixed-income, mixed ownership Elder Co-Housing Community in the United States and in this capacity it is making its way as it “walks the talk.”  The founder of ElderSpirit Community is Geraldine “Dene” Peterson, a “spry” woman in her 80’s who recently received the “Lifetime Achievement Award” at the 2011 National Cohousing Conference in Washington, DC.

Dene Peterson

At eighteen, Dene  Peterson left her parents and ten siblings to join a convent. She ultimately chose to leave the religious order, but her spirituality remained deeply rooted. In 1995, at age 65, she created the ElderSpirit Community in Abingdon, Virginia. Inspired by a Danish model, Peterson wanted to form a co-housing retirement community that would allow friends to live together in a collaborative and supportive setting while also offering some of the autonomy of private dwellings.  Peterson also envisioned an alternative to institutional long-term care, a place where community members would have the emotional support of their peers as well as the necessary medical assistance to live out their lives at home.  Using a creative patchwork of funding from public and private resources, Peterson raised $3.5 million, and her vision materialized.  Construction of the 29 residences, common community building, and a prayer room was completed in late spring of 2006 and houses both the moderate and low-income.  The model has gained national attention, and an ElderSpirit outreach extension program in now helping to plan similar communities in Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Kansas, and Virginia.

The ElderSpirit Community is dedicated to making possible new opportunities for Elders in the 21st Century.  The ElderSpirit Community values are: To live in a community of diverse spiritual paths; To give and receive support in relationship with neighbors in community; To belong to a community who make the decisions on how they will live together; and To encourage each other to live simply and care for the earth.

Reeta Wolfsohn

Nationally known motivational speaker Reeta Wolfsohn, CMSW, is founder of the Financial Social Work discipline and a therapist, author and popular expert for magazines/websites, on money from a psycho-social perspective.  Reeta’s work helps people take control of their money and lives. 

The Center for Financial Social Work offers certification programs for social workers/non-social workers and a dynamic website with a Learning Center and forums that educate, motivate and support sustainable, long-term financial behavioral change.  We recently interviewed Reeta about her work and her life:

1) Define financial social work, as you put it into practice.
Financial Social Work is designed to help people to begin the journey to sustainable, long-term financial behavioral change.  It is an interactive, introspective approach which provides insight into how and why you are in your current financial circumstances and then connects you to where you want to be in the future.  This process allows the creation and completion of a success plan and strategy which is the foundation for a better financial future.
2) Tell us a little bit about how you came to do the work you are doing.

I had my own special events company in NY for 18 years and then returned to graduate school to earn my master’s degree in social work. In graduate school, women’s issues was the topic of my master’s thesis and eventually led me to create the word “Femonomics” and the Femonomics Institute, in 1997.  For me, the definition of the word “Femonomics” is “the gender of money” (based on the fact that women earn less, are traditionally charged more–for products and services–and because women live longer they make up 75% of the elderly living below the poverty line.)  In 2003,  the popularity of my work made it less gender-specific and much more geared to behavioral change, as it became obvious that:  Until and Unless Behavior Changes – NOTHING Changes. That is when it became Financial Social Work and the Center for Financial Social Work.  However, Femonomics holds a very special place in my heart and in my work.

3) What is the most gratifying part of your work?

The work I do fulfills me on every level.  Having the opportunity to help people take control of their money and their lives and knowing how much that can improve every aspect of their future makes all of the time and work I put in worthwhile.

4) What is the greatest frustration?

In these very difficult economic times,  there is an ever growing need for services but an ever diminishing availability.  I am also frustrated at not being able to reach more people with the message that there is always HOPE; it is NEVER too late to improve your financial future.

5) How do you think this work has changed your own life?

My work is my passion and my mission in life.  It doesn’t feel like work because it means so much to me.  Except for spending time with my two-year-old twin grandchildren (Hannah & Robert), I am either writing, teaching, training, keynoting, etc., about the psychosocial aspects of money.

The Center has certified hundreds and hundreds of men and women across the US and in other countries to do Financial Social Work.  Knowing that my work is helping our graduates to help their clients create personal awareness and growth as well as to increase their financial knowledge is an incredibly powerful feeling–which keeps me doing all I can to find new and better ways to help more people.

6) If you had to give women over 50 just 2 pieces of financial advice,
what would they be?

 1.  Make friends with your money and allow it to nurture you, rather than to control your happiness or sense of self.

2.  Every small step you take in the direction of a better financial future moves you in the right direction, so allow your small steps to add up and to facilitate your journey to financial behavioral change.

Membership at http://www.financialsocialwork.com/ is FREE, and it delivers daily financial education, motivation and support e-mails to your inbox that can help you stay focused and enthusiastic about taking control of your money and your life.  Like financialsocialwork on Facebook and follow Reeta on twitter@FinancialMSW.

Jane

I heard a wonderful man being interviewed on NPR’s “On Being” yesterday morning.  His name is Vincent Harding, and he was an activist in the Civil Rights Movement.  He talked about how this country is still a “developing nation” when it comes to having a true “democratic encounter across real difference.”  He said that, maybe for the first time in its history, America is starting to have a national conversation about how we are going to make democracy work—and what that actually means, on a day-to-day basis, in a world where we have all different kinds of people, with different aims and different cultural backgrounds.  To describe the ultimate goal we should all be working toward, he used a term from the Bible, which Martin Luther King used:  the “beloved community.”  

Mr. Harding stressed how important it is to “love our children into new possibilities,” to teach our children to value things beyond material wealth or fame or prestige.  He talked about how important it is for children to grow up feeling that they are part of a larger community, one that that they feel responsible toward.  Our children need to know that they are capable of “being the creators of a new possibility for the whole nation.”  It is important for all of us to establish the “beloved community” if it is ever going to come about.   

In listening to Mr. Harding talk about the concept of a “beloved community,” I couldn’t help but think about our congresspeople fighting over the debt ceiling while there are children going hungry in cities right under their noses;  I thought about the tea party loyalists saying they would not raise taxes on the rich, under any circumstances, while our schools cannot pay our teachers a living wage; I thought about Latino teenagers being deported back to their parents’ country of origin, even though they have lived in the United States for as much of their lives as they can remember; and I thought about right-wing Christians who are so far removed from the teachings of Jesus that they discriminate against gays and teach a doctrine that says that people can only get into heaven if they live, act, dress, talk, exactly the way they do. 

Mr. Harding gave lots of examples of people across this country who are working in their neighborhood, their city, their region, to improve people’s lives.  I’d like to hear from our readers about people they know who are working hard, every day, to try to move us all toward a “beloved community.” 

To hear the original interview, go to http://being.publicradio.org/programs/2011/civility-history-hope/.

Annette

SADHVI

It’s been really hot on the eastern side of the US.  Or maybe it’s just a long hot flash?  Either way, I haven’t felt like doing much cooking in the evening lately.  So I try to take it easy and make simple things for dinner, like cold beet salad (I LOVE BEETS!) with fresh goat cheese and something from the garden, like dill.  I have a feeling that everyone has their own recipe with their own memories from their grandma or mother making it, so I won’t post mine.  You do know that I really don’t follow any recipes anyways, right?  And that it’s too hot for me to prepare dinner AND write down what I’m doing?

Oh, and by the way, if you happen to be living on the western coast of the States, where it’s been cold, well, you can still make fresh steamed or juiced beets – beets are so good for you.  Didn’t Dr. Oz talk about them recently?

But here is a recipe from Clara, who is almost taking the place of Oprah.  I find this woman fascinating!  She’s lived through the depression, and she looks terrific!  She has her own website, and her own book.  Maybe everyone but me knows about Clara, but if you are not familiar with her, take a few moments to watch her in action.  I think you’ll agree, she’s a treasure.

P.S. Thanks Garima for sharing!

Stay Cool,

Sadhvi

Monica Devine

Monica Devine is an author, photographer, therapist, and baby boomer who lives in Eagle River, Alaska. She also studies and practices yoga – one of the most beneficial practices (spiritual and physical) for women over 50. Today, Monica reminds us of what yoga teaches us about Ahimsa.

Ahimsa means to do no harm; to practice non-violence. When non-violence in speech, thought and action is established, one’s aggressive nature is relinquished, and others abandon hostility in one’s presence.

This is one of the teachings in the Yoga Sutras that I’ve given a great deal of thought to lately. Have you ever noticed how angry speech begets defensive behavior? How violent behavior begets retaliation? We see this on the world stage, between nations and cultures at war with one another. And we also see it on a smaller scale at home with the people we love most.

Explosive anger and negative speech towards another creates a climate of defensiveness and hurt that can last for years. Sticks and stones may break your bones? Sure, but violent and aggressive speech toward another is just as damaging. I remember my sons resorting to shouting matches and highly charged fighting when they were younger, the days when sibling rivalry was intense. This was a highly stressful time for me as a parent; I’d immediately get sucked into their disagreements and feel I had to diffuse the argument with an even louder voice; I had to take control, offer a quick solution, make everything okay again. But in doing so, I was trying to bring about peace in a way that wasn’t, in and of itself, peaceful. So I began to examine these behaviors by practicing staying in the midst of an argument and remaining peaceful inside. By pulling myself aside mentally, breathing deep and slow, and staying consciously aware of the encounter, a neutral ground was established where emotions were not allowed to run amok. Over time, I learned to shape the encounter, rather than control it, and to calmly shift the responsibility for a resolution back on them rather than carry it myself. When I spoke softer, so did they. When I offered and modeled an alternative way to communicate, they responded. This was a huge accomplishment for all of us and took years to hone.

Monica & Mt. Drum

Kind speech begets kind speech. Carrying the thought of peace in our hearts naturally invites a more loving and clearer expression from others. We would do well to remember that families are microcosms of nations. The knowledge and courage required to lay down our sticks and stones and practice daily the essential and vital energy of peace, starts at home, with ourselves.

If you want to hear more about Monica and her life in Alaska where she writes about about art, nature, travel, and more, visit her at her very own blog.

Multi-media piece of my Mom by Monica Devine

Minda

Our guest blogger this week is, Minda Brown Jaramillo, from Cleveland, Ohio.  She recently moved back there after spending 10 years in the Southwest.  She has been employed as a Licensed Independent Social Worker for the past 26 years and is currently managing programs for Women in Recovery.  She enjoys reading, traveling, listening to music, and movies.  She has been married for 15 years and has two dogs.

I think I’m addicted to my iPhone.  After 2 Droids (the original and its upgrade), I was really tired of spending money on something I wasn’t satisfied with.  I’m amazed by my iPhone’s speed, accuracy, and how the touch screen for texting is so right on.  I also love the general easiness of its functionality.

Using my iPhone

How do I know I may be addicted?  I am a licensed clinical social worker and work with addicts on a daily basis. In order to be diagnosed, there is a little book called the DSM IV Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders that provides clues as to whether you meet criteria for this.  Although I don’t believe in labeling people, it does give one a good point of departure to work from.  Here’s a sample of some of the questions the book asks regarding addiction: “A maladaptive pattern of use leading to significant impairment or distress manifested by three of the following in a 12 year period:

1. Have you gone through withdrawal?  Wow…I don’t know yet because I’m never without my phone.  I can only surmise that I would go through withdrawal or, at the very least, panic if I did not have it.

2. Have you build up a tolerance? Hmmm….well, I guess since a phone is nothing I can ingest orally or through injection to determine if I’ve built up a tolerance; I can determine that I use it more than I used to, not to mention others have told me the same thing.

3. Have I given up important activities or relationships that I would normally participate in or a failure to fulfill normal obligations? Well, I think I’m safe with this one.  I wouldn’t stay home to be with my iPhone. I’d just take it with me.

4. Have I suffered any consequences, legal or otherwise due to using my phone?  I don’t think so, although again, I am conscious to not text while driving.  However, I will look to see if I’ve received any emails.  I do have to be careful while in business meetings to not focus on my iPhone.

5. Is there a great amount of time spent trying to get to my phone?  Well again, I’m really never without it.

6. Have I suffered a physical or psychological disturbance that is exacerbated by its use? No, I can honestly say I have not.

7. So the good news for me is (according to the DSM IV book) since I haven’t had my iPhone for a 12 month period, I’m in the clear – at least until the new iPhone comes out in September which is supposed to rival all other phones on the market.

Check with me a year from now and it may be an entirely different story.

No Signs of Recovery!

Gwendie

Gwendie, who writes occasionally for this blog, has been struggling with cancer for the past four years.  She just suffered another setback, as she describes first in an email she sent and then in a blog entry–but, amazing woman that she is, she is still managing to keep her incredible, positive outlook on things.  I think Gwendie should be a role model for all of us in how to meet life’s challenges head-on and never lose hope.  As my friend Barb said, Gwendie is “living with cancer, not dying from it.”  Jane

Gwendie’s email: Well, guys and gals, it had been a relatively quiet several months here in Gwendieland until about 3 weeks ago when I suddenly “lost” my voice and developed a dry cough.  After considering (and eliminating) the various possible causes (virus, allergies, bacterial infection), a CT scan confirmed that I have more and larger tumors in my chest and neck.  So the assumption is that the loss of voice is related to something pressing on my larynx or perhaps a nerve that innervates the voice box.

Anyhow, of course that means a change in treatment.  So, Monday I’ll be starting a batch of new (to me) drugs.  For those of you who have seen me with short frizzy white hair, forget that look.  It’ll be gone soon.  Hopefully the replacement, should we ever get to that, will not have the frizzy component.  And if you call me, I can at the moment speak only in a croaky whisper.  Also, I may be heading off to Duke Medical Center for a consult there.  Sigh.  But at four plus years and counting (since diagnosis), I can’t complain.  Well, I could complain, but I won’t.

AND HERE’S HER BLOG POST:

I’m shifting gears again.

I’ve been in “drive” for a number of months, cruising along with the same meds, the same side effects, the same tumor markers, for long enough now that it—the condition—was beginning to feel “normal” (to paraphrase Prince Charles—whatever “normal” is).  Anyhow, the bizarre night about 3 weeks ago when I kept waking up with a sharp cough (and now realize I was probably trying to catch my breath) was the beginning of the shift in the gears—a slide toward reverse, which I hope will somehow come to a stop and then shift again, probably at the beginning, into first gear—slow and with lots of effort, but hopefully, quickly move into second and third and even fourth or overdrive—although I’d be more than happy with third gear!

Just not this reverse, please.

Not only do I not like the physical symptoms, but it scares me.  I’m not a big fan of backing up.  Going forward has always felt a lot better to me.  Oh, my.  This analogy is bringing on a cough.  A bad sign that I’ve slipped out of neutral again into reverse. Damn these gears, shifting without any input from me.  Well, I’m ready to take control again.

Bring on the new chemo and let’s shift back into first gear.

Jane

My sister Pattie

Happy this day to accept
Problems beyond comprehension,
Beyond solving,
Beyond changing,
To sit home at night,
Because they’re out and might
Have to call,
Though they don’t call as promised
When they get there,
If they get there.
Most likely they did,
Chances are they’re there,
Concerned with their own unsolvable problems,
The ones you just guess at,
Of which you are one–
You hope the biggest one,
Happy if you’re the only one.

KATINA

I’ve known Katina since 1983.  We were young and had no fears about anything, and, we laughed a lot.  We share the same guru, we share astrologically, the same degree of moon and sun, and we share that wonderful connection of being loved and accepted by each other, no matter what.

I hope you enjoy what I found out about Katina that I didn’t know before this little interview.

1.  What was the name of the first record you ever bought?

I remember buying the Beatles album with the song, “I wanna hold your hand”.

2.  Who did you like more, The Beatles or The Rolling Stones?

The Beatles.

3.  What is the one thing you have to put on or have on that makes you feel good before leaving the house?

My push-up bra from Chantelle!

4.  What’s your favorite lipstick?

I like lip glosses instead of lipstick.  I like to go to Sephora online and try different ones.  I like one now that’s called “Sephora: Nectar Shine”.  It’s in a tube.

5.  What is your favorite comfort food?

I would have to say it’s a glass of Shiraz or a Zinfadel.  Lately I really like the Predator 2008 Red Zinfadel that’s around $13.99 a bottle.  Oh, and Archer Farms Cheddar Sourdough Twists!

6.  What’s your favorite and least favorite thing about being over 50?

My favorite thing is that I still feel and look OK.

My least favorite thing is that I have been dealing with a back problem for the last 7 years…and thankfully it’s getting better and I am starting to feel like my old self again.

7.  What is your most favorite thing to do that is “creative”?

Meditation is my most favorite thing to do because it makes me feel so good and connected and I’m creating awareness within.

Ah This!

We had to take her to the vet in Clayton, an hour away from our farm in Rocky Mount, and she hadn’t been in a vehicle since we’d first gotten her.  We’d always had to drug her with Ace to get her there for regular visits, and even then, she drooled, panted and tried to escape from the truck for the first 30 minutes.  I figured that by the time we’d get there, she’d be practically asleep– but I knew it would be stressful on her system.  The vet wanted to try her coming without drugs.

On the fourth trip there, we made it, with just some hard breathing, and Ems was the perfect lady in the waiting room.  She let the vet techs draw her blood with no problem.  Turns out you can teach an old dog new tricks.It worked—for a while.  Her appetite returned.  We had read that a high-protein diet would combat the cancer, so she feasted on stew beef, pork chops, turkey burgers and chicken.  No more biscuits for treats: she had beef jerky.  As a vegetarian, I’ve never bought so much meat in my life.  Thank you, Costco!  My carnivore stepson, who became Emmy’s personal chef,  also benefited from this diet–probably not in a good way.

She was eating and maintaining her weight and energy, so we had high hopes for the follow-up ultrasound to see if the tumors had shrunk. We were wrong.  But, since they hadn’t gotten any bigger either, we took that as a positive sign.

Emmy had always been a tough character.  She appeared a little over seven years ago near the road in front of our farm, limping—probably from a run in with a car—and we had to trap her to catch her.  She was just about the homeliest dog you can imagine, maybe a cross between a pit bull and a sharpei.  Plain black and tan, and tough.  We were afraid to let her near our other dogs, so somehow she ended up ruling the kitchen, prime real estate that I’m sure the other dogs grouched about.  She wouldn’t go in a crate, wouldn’t ride in the car.  She was highly opinionated.  She didn’t like thunder and would bark for hours at a storm: she wasn’t afraid, just pissed off by it.  And she didn’t like people other than us.  There were two instances where she actually bit people, one being the horse vet.   (How embarrassing!)

She seemed destined to live out a solitary canine life, until Otis came along.  Otis appeared in my yard in Hillsborough, an obviously purebred pitbull, wearing one of those massive spiked collars and dragging a huge chain behind him.  My first thought was to look for my cat, but I quickly saw Taff checking him out from the barn.  I got the chain, and Otis obediently followed me into my kennel.  He had little wounds on his cheeks.  I took his picture, printed it out, and took it to the convenience store, about two miles away.  About an hour later,  I went back and took it down.  He didn’t deserve to be chained, and if those wounds were from fighting, I didn’t want him to go back to that environment.  I decided if he was a beloved pet, I would check for lost ads, and if they didn’t care enough to look for him, then I would find him a better home.

That was wishful thinking—because, although I did post him at my vet’s and asked a couple of people if they were interested in him, I knew he wasn’t going anywhere.  But he was scary looking.  I walked him on a leash, and this was before I had my knee replaced, and one day I fell, on him, and I thought I was going to die.  I looked at him; he looked at me.  We were both scared of the other.  I think it was at that point that we jointly realized we had nothing to fear.

Otis didn’t have a mean bone in his body, but I was afraid to let him in with our other dogs, so, with Emmy in the kitchen, Otis took over the living room and the couch.  This arrangement went on for a while, until we finally had had enough of the put-one-out-then-take-out-the-other-one stuff.  We took them out together on leashes.  The two of them walked along as if they’d known each other for years.  I think they saw they were evenly matched, so there was no need for that aggressive silliness.  After that, they became inseparable.

So, along with my stepson, Otis reaped some of the benefits of the new diet.  As Emmy got thinner, he got fatter.  He loved her beef jerky treats.  But Otis also seemed to know something was wrong.  Ems didn’t run out the door so much any more, and she didn’t rush down the fence line after the squirrels.  She did enjoy sunbathing, which is what she did all the time.

She did it on her last day.  She lay in the sunshine with Otis.  I saw him give her kisses.

When I went to the truck to take Emmy, Otis jumped in.  At first I got him back out.  Then I selfishly let him jump back in.  No one else was going with me, and I wanted his company on the way back.  I also thought that Emmy would be calmer with him along.  I always struggle with when it is the right time to let go.  But the chemo wasn’t working.  Emmy wasn’t eating.  She was losing weight, and her breathing was becoming labored.  To an outsider, I suppose it would have been obvious that the time had come–but it is so hard to say goodbye.  The vet made me feel better.  She said she would rather see an animal come in before they get to a crisis and everyone is stressed.

Otis and I drove home.  My daughter sent me a text picture of Otis and Emmy.  Not wanting to stop and text her back, I just sent a picture of Otis back.  She asked, “Did Otis go with you?”.  I stopped and wrote “Yes”.  She wrote,  “Makes me think of Up.”(the movie).  I wrote back:  “Of the couple or Doug, the dog?”  She replied, “The couple”.

Emmy’s buried now in our front yard– right by the fence where Otis runs to chase after squirrels.

Gwendie

There’s a blog that’s getting lots of attention.  It’s called “postsecrets”  (http://www.postsecret.com).  People send in anonymous handmade postcards with a personal secret on the back.  Things like “I wish my life were exciting”, and “When you see me in public and I seem to be reading a book, I’m really eavesdropping on you”.  Some are darker, more intimate.  I’ve been thinking about sending in one myself.  One of the things that holds me back is that, unlike the postcard makers who get their submissions posted, I’m not the least little bit creative in the visual sense.  Check out the website to see what I mean.

But my secret, like most of the ones on the website, is one that possibly a lot of other people, especially women, share with me.  It is this: I don’t feel sorry for women whose husbands have died; I feel envious.

There, I’ve said it.  Another problem with this secret, unlike the ones on the website, is that it needs more explanation to make any sense.  And that won’t fit so easily on a postcard.

I have friends and relatives (sometimes these are the same people), men and women, whose marriage partner died, and they were devastated.  They grieved and cried and missed their mate fiercely.  They yearned to have him or her back.  Some of them really look forward to reuniting in heaven.  They feel awful, at least for awhile, sometimes for a long while.  But still I am envious.

Here’s why:  to feel that bad about the loss of a spouse, there must have been a lot of good things about the marriage.  Good times, good experiences, good feelings to be so acutely missed.  Even the good memories are bittersweet; they remind my friends of their depth of their loss.

I never had that.  So I am envious.

I would trade places in a heartbeat.

Farmer Nancy

Nancy, who lives in Hillsborough and Rocky Mount, NC and takes care of so many stray animals on her farm, contributed this recent piece about the frustrations that can come with people’s troubles–and to ask for readers’ suggestions for help! 

I’m writing this story not because I want to say, hey look at me I’m a good person, but because I’m upset about what is happening and don’t know what to do.  First, the back story.

When I built my house in 1984 at the end of a dead-end road that was mostly inhabited or owned by members of one family (who resembled the Hatfield’s and McCoy’s), there was one odd bird on the road, a gentle man named Jay, who took walks on the road with his mother and her twin.  The threesome occasionally ended up outside my house to see the progress on my house and talk.  Jay had a small antique store on the main road and traveled  to buy inventory, while his mother and aunt tended the store.  Jay lived upstairs in the store, and his mother and aunt lived in a small farm house on the adjacent lot.

Cats!

They had cats.

Aunt Caroline developed breast cancer at some point, and Jay moved into the farm house to help care for her.  She died after being ill for seven years.

The cats multiplied.

More Cats!

Then Jay’s mother developed Alzheimer’s.  One day, as I was driving by, there seemed to be a swirl of cats in the yard, so I called Jay to ask him if he needed help getting them fixed.  Yes, he said, he would be so grateful, since he was too busy caring for his mother.  I caught some of the kittens and found them homes, taking two of them to my house, where they still live, and we focused our attention on the breeding females.

There were about thirty cats in all, and they were essentially feral, but they all had names.  There were a lot of Henry’s (the eighth, the sixth, etc.).  I would take two cat carriers down and leave them on the front porch.  When Jay came out to feed them, he would catch two and call me.  I would then bring them to my house to spend the night, taking them first thing in the morning to be fixed and get shots.  Things went along pretty smoothly–except for the time that one calico talked me into letting her out of her carrier inside my greenhouse, and I realized I had essentially let out a wild squirrel!

Jay’s favorite cat was his beloved Cappy, an all-white sweetheart who would sit by his mother’s window and watch her.  He told me about her mother, Happy, who had been killed on the highway, but that’s another story.

One day, I noticed that the license plate on Jay’s van was gone, and I called him to ask how he and his mother were getting food.  Apparently, food arrived randomly when a nurse came by to see his mother.  I offered to get them food, and thus began several years of grocery shopping for Jay.  Weekly, Jay would give me a list, confounding me with his memory for detail, asking for things such as one particular red wine vinegar.  I became a better shopper, paying more attention to prices.  Jay and I would talk on the phone about what he was preparing for his mother, and I would tell him that he should write a cookbook for caregivers.  To keep her weight up, he would get real butter, whole milk and ice cream.  He’d make her omelets and give her lots of vegetables.  She deteriorated despite his care.  Sometimes I could hear her yelling from inside the house.

...and even more Cats!

I began to feed the cats too.  Jay was now suffering from rheumatoid arthritis and was having a hard time.  His mother was staying up all night—and Jay with her.  He became the classic case of the caregiver going downhill with the patient.  He started pushing a chair in front of him to help him walk.

I would leave the groceries at the front door, and he’d get them sometime during the night.  I started leaving the food in insulated coolers after seeing it a few times still sitting there on the porch in the morning.

Hospice started showing up every now and then, but Jay’s mother, nourished by all that good food, kept on living, and Hospice eventually stopped coming.  The county sent the occasional helper, but Jay said he discovered one helper going through his dressers and stealing, so he would never let anyone come again.

Occasionally, Jay would be talked into hospitalizing his mother, and the doctors would suggest all sorts of tests that Jay would refuse.

Jay’s cousin lived across the street from him, but he and his wife never came to help, even though Jay’s mother had cared for this cousin’s father, her dying brother, year’s earlier.

Jay's House

It made Jay resentful, but Jay had other issues with this cousin.  When the father was dying, this cousin had promised to restore the old home place, prompting the father to leave it to him in his will.  This same cousin promptly had bulldozed it and put a trailer in its place.

All this time, I was juggling being in Hillsborough, at my farm, helping Jay, and going back to be with my husband in Rocky Mount.  I tried automatic feeders for the cats that dispensed food three times a day.  Some nocturnal thief kept turning them over and emptying them.  I barricaded the feeders with cinder blocks and hardware cloth, but it was an ongoing battle.

For seven years, Jay’s mother was bedridden.

Then, one day in August, Jay called, upset that Cappy was missing.  I tried to reassure him that she would show up.  Then Jay called back to say there was a terrible smell coming from under the house.  I went over to see.  I could see Cappy’s little body near the back of the house, close enough for me to pull her out with a rake.  I called Jay and told him.

He told me his mother had just died.

You would think that things  could not get worse. You would be wrong.

I drove Jay and his cousins to the funeral and gave Jay a picture of Cappy to slip into his mother’s coffin.  Jay looked good but had difficulty walking.  We went through a drive-through restaurant on the way home and took a little tour of Hillsborough.  It was the first time Jay had been out in years.  He was ghostly pale.

The routine resumed.  I fed the cats twice a day and bought Jay’s groceries, leaving them on the front porch.  Jay was depressed and lost without his mother–and mourning Cappy.

I did Jay’s banking, which up until then had consisted of keeping track of his mother’s social security check. I ran errands. I mowed the yard. The house was crumbling around him, and it was leaky and cold, so I put plastic on the windows.  I tried to put plastic around the openings in the foundation, but the pipes froze.  The insulation in the house was nonexistent, and there was a hole in the roof.  You could see termite damage in the siding.  I got Jay a little electric-heated shawl at Costco.  He called it a lifesaver.

Without the impetus to care for his mother, Jay started going downhill.  I wondered how much of the food I brought actually got prepared and eaten.  Jay paid me $25 every time I would go to the grocery store.  I didn’t want the fee, but there was no use arguing with him, so I put it toward cat food.

Sometime in March of this past year, Jay fell and couldn’t get up.  He refused to let me come into the house and began scooting around the house on his back.  I called social services, and they came to the house and called him, but he refused to let them come in.  Without his consent, they said there was nothing they could do.  It was obvious that he couldn’t get to the door to get the food any more.  He finally let me come in the back door, where I saw a caved-in ceiling, water damage and mold.  I was allowed to come as far as a curtain at the kitchen and leave the food.

I sometimes felt like I was talking to the Wizard of Oz.  Jay talked about how he couldn’t get into his bed and how his back hurt from being on the floor.  I brought a thick mat and slipped it through the curtain.  I got one of those automotive dollies to see if he could push himself around on it, but he couldn’t get it over the door sills, so I brought  a rolling computer chair, but he couldn’t get in it.

Time passed.

I wanted to call his cousins, but he was adamant against it.  I began cooking for him and leaving the food there but also pressuring him to call for help.

Finally, this past September, he called 911.  They came and took him to the hospital.  He weighed a mere 100 pounds.  When I visited Jay at the hospital, I didn’t know what to expect, but he looked relatively good, and he was cheery.  Amazingly, the doctors could find nothing wrong with him—other than starvation–and signs that he had broken something in his knee when he’d fallen.  He probably stayed in the hospital 12 weeks before they could find a rehabilitation home for him.

Did I say rehabilitation?  It was more like a hell hole, worse than “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”  It was in the next town over, and Jay shared a room with an ever-changing population, many of them needing to be in mental hospitals.  When not tied down, one roommate would crawl around on the floor at night under Jay’s bed.  There was a woman across the hall who screamed rhythmically all day long.  One roommate had an alarm on the bed that went off every time he got out of bed, which was often.

There was no rehabilitation.

Jay was desperate.  He wanted to get out of there, but that was not easy.  The state was involved now, and the cousins were trying to get him on disability, but he hadn’t worked in 14 years, other than care taking for his mother, so he had no income. I’m not sure what programs he finally got on, maybe Medicaid, but at any rate he wanted out of there.

After being there for maybe three months, Jay moved to an apartment in Hillsborough.  It seemed miraculous that he was there.  Apparently the cousins helped arrange it.  I’m not sure what the arrangement between them was, but Jay was finally in a clean, warm place, with Meals on Wheels coming by and a helper from the state to clean up and shop for him.

But he still wasn’t happy.

He wanted to get back out to the country.  He told me the cousin was after him, trying to get his house.  I was still feeding the cats at the house twice a day.  Jay was in a wheelchair, and there was talk of his getting rehab, but to go into Chapel Hill was too grueling for him, and nothing seemed to work out locally.  I tried to get him to go to the local senior center, which provided transportation.  I even offered to meet him there.  He’s a stubborn man, and, although so lonely, he refused.

Cats! Cats!

He became obsessed with getting back out to his house.  I reminded him of the cold and the deterioration–and that he wouldn’t get any services out there.  It got to the point where he said that he would rather be out there on the floor than where he was.  I saw less of him, mostly, I confess, because it became so draining to hear the same complaints, over and over.

This past week he called, in a panic.  He wanted me to drive down to his house and check on the cats.  I did and reassured him that they were fine.  I knew they were, since another neighbor and I have been feeding them–and I will continue to feed them.  There are nine left, plus a maverick who has tried to join the group.

When I saw him last week, I noticed that  something had shifted.  I’d taken some food by, but instead of smiling and being pleased at the company, he looked angry and stressed.  He would not tell me anything.  This week, he told me he’d given his house to his cousin, but he was afraid of what was going to happen to the cats.  I was shocked and asked if the cousin had paid him for it.  Even though the house wasn’t worth anything, the two and a half acres of land under it were.  The answer was no.  Did he sign something?  Yes.  Did he have a copy of it?  No. (Years before, a “friend” had basically stolen the antique store from Jay, paying him a pittance for it.  Jay had been shocked when he asked me about land values, but he was so ensconced in care taking that he hadn’t questioned the sale.)

Jay told me he was confused and didn’t know what he’d done. I told him he needed to call a lawyer, but I don’t think he will.  I called an old friend of his, a retired nurse/pastor, who is herself disabled, and she called him just to give moral support.  I called protective services, who speculated that there was some deal between Jay and the cousins to cover the cost of his apartment in exchange for the house.  They were going to call him, but I know he is very distrustful of them.  So, I called an 80-year-old cousin of his in Florida, Jean, who seemed to be the only relative who had ever given a hoot about him.  Bingo.  She told me that she and another cousin, Bobby, a 59-year-old whom she had never met before, had driven up from Florida to visit Jay the week before.  Jay had called the other cousin and offered her everything in his house, so she’d decided to come up and see what was there.  Jean, suspicious about Bobby’s motives but appreciative of the ride, had come along. They’d visited with Jay, then gone out to see the house, meeting the cousins from across the road.  They’d been appalled at the condition of the house, and Bobby had taken digital pictures of everything and gone back to see Jay and show him how bad the condition of the house was.  They’d convinced him that he should give the house to the cousins across the street because those cousins had said they would restore the house for Jay to return to.

So, as things turned out, the good cousins had railroaded him with good intentions, not knowing the history of the cousins across the street.  They didn’t know the story of the bulldozing of the old homeplace, which had been in far better condition than Jay’s house.  The male cousin had had papers drawn up before, when Jay was first taken to the hospital, and Jay had refused to sign his house over to him, but this time, the cousin had run home to get the papers, and Jay had signed.

Jean told me there was talk of moving Jay to a “retirement” home, where he could have his own room but be around other people.

I’m afraid for Jay.  I’m afraid that if there is some arrangement about the apartment and the house, the cousins will quit paying for the apartment as soon as the house is in their name.  I know there is no way they will restore it for Jay to return home to, although that is their song and dance.  I called them and was reassured that the cats were fine to stay there, but I fear for them, too.  I mostly fear Jay will be put back into another hell hole.  My urging Jay to get a lawyer just upset him, so I called and apologized to him and tried to reassure him that the cats were fine.

But I feel like a lamb is being led to slaughter.

I feel helpless.

AMANA AILE SHEBAR

Years ago I was the Title X Training manager for the state of New Mexico and had many opportunities to work with Planned Parenthood and its affiliates  nationwide.  The services that Title X provides to women of childbearing age are vast and vital, and are efficiently and compassionately offered to clients across all walks of life: women with insurance (who could be denied coverage even under threat of death) and women on entitlement programs such as Medicaid.  Efforts to totally defund these Title X programs and to deny coverage via insurance claims will destroy mainstream, dependable sources of health care like Planned Parenthood.  These efforts are gaining momentum every day among Republican and Blue Dog legislators and your voice is urgently needed!

We are facing the possibility of tremendous and unimaginable setbacks in women’s health care with several bills being debated in Congress now.  We must speak out or as a nation, we will soon lose our precious democratic values: that each person is promised life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Please speak out through Planned Parenthood or by going to NARAL Pro-Choice America.

Your voices can help to stop the undermining of women’s hard fought rights in determining the number and the spacing of their offspring, and to assist all women of childbearing age in receiving the reproductive health care services they need.

Women are under siege in this current congressional climate, and in order to understand more about the situation with the Republican anti-women agenda and the proposed bills, this interview (click below), is worth viewing.

A War on Women”: DN! Exclusive with Planned Parenthood’s Cecile Richards on GOP Bills Targeting Abortion and Reproductive Rights

If you haven’t already done so, sign on to the letters and petitions that are being delivered to Congress on behalf of all women in America.

Your voices have never been so urgently needed, in all the decades since Roe vs. Wade.  Will you add your voice?

"THE HUG" copyrights sadhvi 2011

Jane

I heard again this morning from my dear friend in Ivory Coast.  He sent me the article below, with just this simple message:

Hope you all are doing fine.
Please find attached report on the ordeal
we are going through.
May the Lord help us.

I read the article and was filled with hopelessness and frustration.  I believe that Ivory Coast is becoming another Rwanda in front of our eyes, and the world is standing by, not taking action.  I urge our readers to read this painful story and then contact their congresspeople and their senators, asking them to do something to bring action from the civilized world.  It’s such a small thing, but if we join together, perhaps we can have some effect!

By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI, Associated Press Rukmini Callimachi, Associated Press –

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast – The entrance to the morgue is like a mouth through which comes an awful smell. It hits you as far back as the parking lot and makes your eyes water. From a dozen yards away, it’s strong enough to make you throw up.

What lies inside is proof of mass killings in this once-tranquil country of 21 million, where the sitting president is refusing to give way to his successor. Nearly every day since Laurent Gbagbo was declared the loser of the Nov. 28 election, the bodies of people who voted for his opponent have been showing up on the sides of highways.

Their distraught families have gone from police station to police station looking for them, but the bodies are hidden in plain sight in morgues turned into mass graves. Records obtained by The Associated Press from four of the city’s nine morgues show that at least 113 bullet-ridden bodies have been brought in since the election. The number is likely much higher because the AP was refused access to the five other morgues, including one where the United Nations believes as many as 80 bodies were taken.

The bodies are being held hostage and not released to families. Morgue workers say government minders are stationed outside to monitor what goes in or out.

A list of the dead that the AP was allowed to see on the laptop of a company that manages three downtown morgues shows the bodies began arriving Dec. 1, the night the country’s electoral commission was due to announce that opposition leader Alassane Ouattara had won. The AP also saw legal documents from authorities instructing funeral homes to pick up bodies found on public roads, and the paperwork handed to families.

The names of the dead indicate they are largely Muslim and from the country’s north, the demographic that voted in largest numbers for Ouattara, himself a Muslim from the north.

“The overwhelming number of victims of political violence in Abidjan were either real or perceived supporters of Ouattara,” said Human Rights Watch senior researcher Corinne Dufka, the author of a report on the post-election violence. “Many were picked up and killed simply on the basis of their family name.”

Families have been allowed inside the morgues only long enough to identify their relatives, if at all. They cannot take their loved ones for burial because the government, still controlled by Gbagbo, has not given the go-ahead for autopsies on bodies with bullet wounds. Funeral home directors say the procedure is normally approved within 48 hours.

Diaby Madoussou, 40, has been waiting for two months. She found her husband lying face down on the pavement where he had taken part in a march to support Ouattara, recognized internationally as the winner of the vote. Ouattara now lives in a hotel under 24-hour United Nations protection, its lobby crowded with supporters taking refuge.

Madoussou turned over her husband’s body. He had been shot twice in the ribs.

She took off her pagne and used the wraparound skirt to cover him. She waited beside him wearing only her underclothes until the morgue sent a car to pick up the body. They handed her a ‘fiche d’entree,’ or entry sheet stating that his body would be stored in vault No. 50 in a morgue in the outlying suburb of Anyama.

“They told me that I need to leave the body there. At the morgue. They say I need to wait … I don’t understand. Why won’t they let me take him?” said Madoussou, who has five children. She now spends her days on the floor, her back against the concrete wall of her living room, her eyes staring at the other wall.

Many families have only this piece of paper to prove that their loved ones were killed, because police stations are refusing to file police reports. Dozens of victims were seen dragged from their homes and forced into official vehicles.

Gbagbo’s government has denied committing any abuses. However, assistant state prosecutor Jean-Claude Aboya conceded that autopsies have not been conducted.

“We’re aware of these bodies in the morgues,” said Aboya. “The chief prosecutor has told us that there will be an investigation, but he’s holding off until things are calmer before proceeding.”

Bodies have also been found on highways, freeway medians and trash heaps, and in the lagoons coursing through this palm-lined commercial capital that was once considered among the most stable in Africa.

It has been anything but that since Gbagbo came to power 10 years ago. He signed an alphabet soup of treaties named after the numerous capitals from Lome to Pretoria to Ouagadougou where mediators tried to coax Gbagbo to hold an election. He succeeded in pushing back the election for five years until it was finally held last fall.

In the meantime, a civil war broke out and the country’s lagoon-side cafes emptied out. The fighting pitted northerners who wanted Gbagbo out against southerners who supported him.

Now the shores of the glassy lagoon lap up trash. The few cafe clients left are nearly all men, because those who could sent their wives abroad to shield them from the waves of political violence that crash down on this Italy-sized country every time Gbagbo feels cornered.

A confidential 2004 United Nations report obtained by the AP detailed the rise of government death squads that in 2002 started carrying out ‘disappearances’ of people seen as threats to Gbagbo. The United Nations obtained a video cassette showing as many as 200 cadavers strewn across the road in one locality.

There was a ripple of hope when the election finally went ahead, especially after Gbagbo promised to abide by results issued by the electoral commission. As soon as results began trickling in, however, foreign TV stations were ordered off the air, and the head of the commission began receiving death threats.

The first bodies to be registered at one downtown morgue were unidentified. They all appear in the morgue’s records as ‘Mr. X.’

Thirty-eight-year-old Abdoulaye Coulibaly, who worked for a political nonprofit aligned with Ouattara, was in an open-air restaurant when soldiers surrounded it.

“They started to shoot and people started running,” said his cousin, who pieced together what happened from other clients. Coulibaly was grabbed along with a colleague and put in the truck. “To this day, there is no trace of him … We searched everywhere,” said the cousin, Moussa Coulibaly.

The death squads made repeated trips to Abobo, a majority Muslim suburb that voted in large numbers for Ouattara. Gbagbo is an evangelical Christian who is accused of having purged Muslims from the armed forces.

The men came to Amidou Ouattara’s house early in the morning.

“It was on the 13th of December. At 5:30 a.m. He was coming back from having done his morning prayer, and there were already two cars parked in front. A 4-by-4. And a Mercedes,” said relative Mouriba Ouattara. “They surrounded him and put him in the Mercedes. It was gray. No plates.’”

“We looked everywhere. I went to the morgue at Yopougon. To the one in Anyama. Treichville. We turned over all the bodies,” he said. “But we did not see his.”

The United Nations estimates that more than 100 people have disappeared and at least 296 have been killed, based on calls to a U.N. hot line from family members. They cannot investigate because Gbagbo ordered the U.N. to leave the country after it certified Ouattara’s victory.

The hot line also received reports of a mass grave containing between 60 to 80 bodies in the suburb of Ndottre. The U.N. twice tried to get to the site but was blocked by the army, and at one point military trucks chased the U.N. convoy at high speed. Witnesses later called to say they saw the bodies being moved to the morgue of Anyama, which the U.N. was not allowed to enter.

“The fact that we have been prevented twice from conducting a fact-finding mission in Ndottre and Anyama suggests that there may be some truth in the alleged existence of a mass grave in that area and/or deposit of 60 to 80 corpses at a mortuary in Anyama,” wrote the head of the U.N.’s human rights division in an internal report leaked to the AP.

The AP attempted multiple times to gain access to the principal morgues, only to be refused entry. On one attempt, the reporter was told she would need an ‘authorization letter,’ but nobody could say from whom.

Workers at the morgues who agreed to speak were visibly panicked and would only do so away from their place of work. They said the bodies are quickly deteriorating because they have not yet been embalmed, a procedure done after the autopsy. One morgue director said so many corpses are arriving that they have created a ‘salle de catastrophe,’ or catastrophe room, to hold the overflow.

At one funeral home, a man in plainclothes interrupted a reporter’s conversation with an employee to ask why she was there. He loitered until she left, appearing to confirm reports that the facilities are under government surveillance.

With hardly anybody allowed in and no bodies allowed out of the morgue, families are left to grieve however they can.

When the morgue took her husband’s body away, Madoussou kept his blood-splattered sneakers. Unable to wash her husband’s body, as is the custom before burial here, the widow washes and re-washes his shoes instead.

She has washed them so many times that they are as white as snow.

Annice

I was first introduced to the writing of Nawal El Saadawi,  Egyptian doctor and  feminist, as early as 1980 when I was in college and reading all the feminist literature I could get my hands on.

Nawal El Saadawi

After reading one of her first books, The Hidden Face of Eve, Women in the Arab World,  I was captivated by El Saadawi’s disturbing account of religious and political oppression of women in her country as well as in the region.  It was through her writing that I first learned about female circumcision of young girls.  Living in exile for decades, she finally returned to Egypt.  I was thrilled to read an interview with her published Feb. 11^th, in The Root.  We wish Dr. El Saadawi well on her journey for liberation in her homeland.

guest writer Kathryn Wilson

Following Kathryn’s story on Monday, we’re continuing with Part II of E., One Intrepid Senior

E. worked as a model in post-war Manhattan for the Elizabeth Arden Salon and lived in the famous Barbizon Hotel in the mid 1940’s. This glamorous part of her life led her to meet Gloria Vanderbilt, Marlene Dietrich, and her first husband, D.      

After marrying D. and living in New York and Cincinnati, E. returned to her hometown of Louisville after the death of D. to start Louisville’s first finishing school. Once the charm school was successful, E. moved on to pursue her true love—art.  She and two friends started Talents Unlimited, a company that sold art supplies, taught classes, and specialized in unique Christmas dioramas that E. designed and crafted.  These wreaths were hot ticket items, frequently requested and often selling for more than $300 a piece.  Each wreath was highly specialized, electric, and musical, and featured detailed Christmas scenes.  E. even had one of her more elaborate wreaths, modeled after the Kennedys’ last Christmas in the Blue Room, accepted by the Kennedy Memorial Library.  The wreaths have been showcased in museums and craft shows across the country, winning many awards.

Eloise's wreath

E. has traveled to many exotic locales, including Paris, Hong Kong, Haiti, and Thailand.  She has had many adventures abroad, including meeting Maria von Trapp and, in a separate instance, nearly being kidnapped.  E. and I spent an entire day viewing slides of these beautiful trips to near and far.  She will soon be leaving for her yearly sojourn to her condo in Highland Beach, where she will wait out the icy Kentucky winter in the peaceful warmth and light of Florida.

In short, E. has had an amazing life, one worthy of transcribing and well-deserving of the title she’s chosen: Yes, I’ve Had a Life.  She is an admirable woman who has made the most of her life.  I have found myself inspired continuously throughout the process.  Yes, I hope my life will be just as exciting as E.’s, but I also hope to never forget the importance of each person’s life story.  I know now that these small anecdotes are always worth observing more closely, no matter how high the pile of surrounding souvenirs may be.

Kathryn Wilson

Our friend, Kathryn Wilson is not one of us.  She is NOT a woman over 50,  but we want to introduce her to you anyway.    She lives in Louisville, Kentucky, and is currently enrolled in Pacific University’s M.F.A. in Fiction program.  She is an aspiring writer and editor.  She hopes to one day relocate to the Pacific Northwest with her boyfriend and two cats.

Kathryn is writing an autobiography of a beautiful woman 85 years old, so we’ve invited her to share part of her work with us.  So, sit back and read Part I of this lovely woman called E.

Eloise Then

For the past two months, I have been assisting a charming 85 year-old woman with the writing, formatting, and editing of her autobiography.  As you can imagine, this is no small task.  This lovely woman (let’s call her “E.”) is a somewhat disorganized and very busy woman with mountains of newspaper clippings, photographs, and other detritus that must be incorporated into her story in some way.

Why, you may ask, did I take on this arduous task?  There are two reasons.

First, I have always gotten along with elderly folk; I love their stories, their idiosyncrasies, their endearments, and free cookies, so getting paid to spend time with someone from my favorite demographic seemed too good to be true.  Secondly, I have always been inspired by my own grandmother’s stories of her life in the coal country of southern West Virginia.  My grandmother was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, so I have quickly learned the importance of recording memories.  I related to E.’s wish to record her life story for future generations.

E. is, on the surface, just as sweet and amicable as your own grandmother; she frequently calls me “honey” and shares delicious Modjeska candy.  But it was in working on E.’s story and delving into the details of her life, that I found she is so much more than a delightful, polite elderly woman who just happens to live in a condo with seven bathrooms.

E. has witnessed a great deal of tragedy in her life.  She married three times; her first husband, the love of her life and a famous radio and television personality, died in a car wreck after they had only been married nine years.  Her son contracted polio, but luckily survived.  Her second husband, who she was married to for over thirty years, died after a lengthy and painful illness.  E. lives now with her third husband, J.  They were married in their childhood church and just happened to be the oldest couple ever wedded in the chapel.

E.’s adventures were not limited to her love life, however.  To read more, stay tuned for Part II.

Eloise Now

I know this is a blog about smart and beautiful women over 50, but I could not, in good conscience let this day pass without honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Junior.   And, in an odd way, it reminds me of how much I like writing for   us women over 50, because Dr. King (like so many other great people of our era) is etched in our memory, and I       don’t  have to explain a thing.  All of us come to this blog with similar reference points in life which means so much   between us does not have to be explained.

Every year, I make it a point to listen to MLK’s 17 minute I have a dream speech delivered on April 28, 1963 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.  It’s hard to believe I’ve been listening to this speech for over 40 years, and every year when I hear it, I’m amazed at how relevant and prophetic Dr.King’s words remain, especially given the recent I have a dream tragedy in Tucson.  So, without having to say more to my fellow sisters, I hope you’ll to listen to MLK’s great speech before the day is over, and I encourage you to share it with your children, and grandchildren who might  need some explaining about what this great man stood for.

To quote MLK, “Let freedom ring. And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring—when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children—black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics –  will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

Photo Courtesy of AP

I have a voicemail from Elizabeth Edwards saved on my home phone.  It joins five from my good friend Lolo.  I have room to get one long message or maybe two short ones before my mailbox is full, but I won’t delete any of those precious six.  I thought I was being punk’d when I first heard the message.  She identified herself and proceeded to recount how we had played softball together in the seventies and how I had come to her wedding–and even mentioned the present I had brought. I listened rather stunned by it all.  She ended by leaving her contact numbers and putting an old friend of mine, who was there with her, on the phone.  It was her voice and his voice, but, for the life of me, I had no memory of personally knowing her. Yes, I had played on a softball team, and, yes, I had a roommate who made handmade baskets, the gift I had brought.  But going to her wedding?  You’d think I would remember that.

I had actually had two close encounters with Elizabeth Edwards over the years.  We rode on the same plane to Atlanta probably ten years ago, and about four years ago, as my daughter and I were leaving a basketball game at the Dean Dome, I reached out to touch my daughter’s hair, and this woman walking behind me commented on how beautiful it was.  I turned and recognized her and stumbled through something about how glad I was to hear that she was doing so well. She thanked me, and we continued walking.

After hearing the voicemail, I waited a few days and then tried the numbers.  She had said that there was no voicemail at her house so if no one answered, I should try her cell phone.  When I did that, the message said her inbox was full.  We were preparing to leave on vacation, so I left with a thrilling curiosity nagging me.  Then came a day when I found myself alone at our cottage on Cape Cod, and I tried the home number again.  She answered and asked who was calling.  I identified myself, and the first thing she said was, “I bet you don’t remember me.”  I replied that she wasn’t supposed to ask me that right off the bat. (No pun intended.)  I didn’t remember, but she had too many facts right for it to be a mistake.  We talked on about her marriage; she talked about not going back to her maiden name because she wanted to be buried next to her son.  She talked about wanting to sell her house and her upcoming trip to Japan.  It was an easy conversation, and we left it that sometime in August she would get that old friend to arrange for all of us to get together.

It never happened.  Right after I got back from vacation, I discovered my husband was going down the same road that John Edwards had gone.  I was such a mess that I didn’t think it would be doing her any favor to hear about my pain, and it would have been impossible to disguise it.  I have no doubt that she would have been a great support, but I felt the energy around her should be positive.

So I’ve got the voicemail, and I treasure it–and if anybody has any of her wedding pictures that show the guests, please let me know.

Nancy in College

Nancy Now

Diane Puckett

Time really does go faster as we age. It has been a year since we moved to the mountains of Western North Carolina, but it seems like we just got here. The year has been quite a whirlwind of change.

Full Moon in DC

The biggest change – leaving the Washington, DC area, a place I had lived over half a century, (did I really say that?).  It’s my entire life. Though we had planned to move to Asheville for years, it was still a big deal, and happened far more quickly than anticipated. With a beautiful full moon and all the planets apparently in alignment, our house sold in two days.

Thus began the whirlwind. Three full moons later, we would move to the mountains, and there was much to do.

There were many people to say goodbye to, knowing I would never see most of them again. I closed the psychotherapy practice I had worked years to establish, bidding farewell to clients and colleagues. The local pottery studio, my hangout of kindred spirits was toughest to leave. Well, other than my sister, but that’s too tender to write about now.

We headed South on a cold December day, cars crammed full of stuff and our two beagles along for the ride. Not long after we arrived, a snowstorm followed, leaving us with no electricity and lots of tree damage. It was a tough winter, especially since we knew almost no one. Our holidays were non-existent, as we were busy moving.  The day I found myself strolling through Walmart for entertainment, I knew something had to change. Facebook provides an illusion of a social life, but it’s not reality. The North Carolina Center for Creative Retirement at UNCA was my lifeline during that long winter, feeding my brain and giving me a connection with other people.

Molly

Molly Beagle, my best bud for thirteen years, slowly wound down and passed on to the Rainbow Bridge. Our last day together was a sacred time – we cuddled up, and I talked to her about the good times we shared together.  At the end, I sang the Golden Girls theme song to her. I’m grateful Molly had some time here in our beautiful new place. We buried her next to my studio where she will have her own garden of the flowers she loved.

Diane's studio

Living here feels like I’ve finally come home. I love the spirit of this place, the creativity, the energy.  It’s been a year now, and I feel like I’m finding my niche. I’ve made good friends and know many of our neighbors.  I have an almost-finished pottery studio, a dream-come-true.

I’ve given in to my craving for a hammered dulcimer and have begun music lessons again after a 45-year hiatus. Maybe this time around I’ll practice.

Most of all, I love the magnificent mountains. I cannot even think of adequate words to describe them. May I never take them for granted or stop seeing them.

Sadhvi

Well maybe I still can’t figure out what I like about being over 50, but here are some women who had no trouble saying what they like and dislike about it.  Take a moment to read what I find interesting about these beautiful women over 50…it’s good to know there are so many of us out there!

Adele

 Adele, who turned 88 on November 24th said, “The best thing about being older is that I have the freedom to do anything I want, and at anytime.  For example if I want to play the piano at 11:00 at night I can and do because there is nobody who can say no!   

 And what I like least about being an older woman over 50?  Well, it’s a very small thing but when I wake up in the morning there’s nobody to say good morning to.  I miss that.  Especially since my dog Missy died in 2007″.  

Annice

Annice says, “What I like best about being a woman over 50 is the realization that I have so many choices in life and that “no” is a complete sentence – and it looks like this:  No.   What I like the least about being over 50 is realizing how short life really is and how fragile it is.”  

Betty

Betty says, “What I love about being over 50 is the fact that I like myself the way I am, regardless!   What I don’t like about being over 50 is the fact that four decades of varying levels of activism have not resulted in much of the change I want to see happen.”   

Guitele

Guitele says, “What I like best about being over 50 is my sense of self, feeling self-actualized, and what I I like least are the changes in my body.”

Jane

Jane says, “I like the fact that I no longer care what people think about me—at least most people!  And I like the fact that I no longer have to color my hair but can just be grey.  I also like being friends with women who have been through a lot, suffered a lot, but kept their positive outlook on life.  I like—and sometimes dislike– not being noticed by men.  It’s a lot less stressful, even though I can wax nostalgic about the old days at times.  Like Yvette, I like having grown children and getting to know them for themselves instead of as “my children.”  I like being married to Tom for 27 years now.      And what I dislike is having wrinkles on my face, but I’m trying to change my attitude about that.  After all, each of those wrinkles was well earned!  I don’t like the fact that many of the people who were very important to me in my childhood and youth –whom I would love for my children to know firsthand—are no longer walking on this earth.  I wish we could somehow get the generations all living together at the same time—but I’m hoping for a “meeting in the air!”     

Dr. Judith King-Calnek

Dr. Judith King-Calnek answers, “What I like best about being a woman over 50 is that I feel so comfortable in my own skin.  I feel like a mellow glass of red wine, it just feels good.  What I like least?  Ah, vanity!  I guess it’s those patches of gray hair (although I’m trying hard to embrace them because I think women with silver hair are beautiful), and that my face doesn’t have that tight skin that it once did”. 

Priya

Priya says, “What I like most about being a woman over 50 is that being a disciple of Osho I’ve always felt a sense of freedom, but now aging has afforded me an even greater sense of freedom from social mores.   And what I like least about being over 50 is that my attachment to the physical beauty of this earth is being tested in that I know I am going to have to let go of the physical plane sooner than later.”  

  

      8.  I’m thankful that somebody at Duke invented Magic Mouthwash for the mysterious sores in my mouth.

9.  I’m thankful that the latest stray dog we have hasn’t gone into heat yet.

10.  I’m thankful that my collie who almost died this year is now healthy.

11.  I’m thankful that Obama, bless his heart, is president, even though nobody else in the country seems to be.

12.  I’m thankful for Lolo, my 85-year-old, extraordinary friend.

13.  I’m thankful when the dogs sleep past 7 in the morning.

Sadhvi

Now that I am definitely over 50, I have been thinking and really trying to figure out what it is that I like, and honestly, I cannot think of anything yet.  

And since I don’t want to be thought of as a whiner, I won’t just write about what I don’t like, so I will just take a bit more time until I can come up with BOTH answers, OK? 

I thought it might be interesting to ask other women and Yvette just happens to be the first one, so I hope you enjoy what she has to say. 

Yvette, what do you like the most about being over 50? 

Yvette!

I love seeing the maturation of my kids.  I’m really enjoying what feels to me like a return on the investment of energy and self spent on parenting.  I love seeing their characters, ideas and creativity begin to bloom into adulthood. 

I’m so happy that they are such nice people.

Yvette, what do you like least about being a woman over 50? 

What I like least about being over 50 is learning the lessons of letting go.  It’s hard enough to let go of your children as they go off to college (luckily I still have one more at home for a few years…) and to let go of youthful beauty and shape, such as it ever was, and to let go of owning so much junk (I need to work on that but there’s time). 

But there’s deeper letting go going on.  I have only recently let go of thinking that there are interests and talents not yet developed that realistically just won’t grow at this time of life (for instance, I don’t think I will ever be the conductor of a major orchestra).  It’s as if I can see the neural pruning happening right before my eyes!  It time to let go of so much and focus on what I am doing best.  It’s not that I’m inflexible or rigid in my path but rather that, well, for example in my younger days I was sure I could catch a  whole bucket full of ping pong balls tossed in my direction.  Now I know that focusing on and keeping my eye on one ping pong ball at least improves my chances of catching ONE instead of missing them all. 

And in this hologram of existence I see that in the hard work of letting go I find a gift of the freedom of being let go which is both frightening and wonderful at the same time.

Yvette in the Mountains

When I turned 50 my Mom wanted to give me a broom for my birthday.  I want that broom.  I really want to be a Crone when I grow up: a Crone with a broom.

I want to be from a time where the wisdom of the elderly is sought after.  I am trying to still be reaching forward instead of the free fall to the end of life.

That Red Hat Society, bless their hearts, has it all wrong in my perfect world.  It’s not that we are free to do whatever we want now but that we speak and act with the wisdom of our years and experience.  The rest of the world sees this as senile.  That’s our society’s inside out way; we are permitted to be senile now.  Go ahead and wear purple and red together. We who are women over 50 are floating in that cast off world struggling to figure out our new identity.

Baba Yaga the Powerful Crone

Here’s the modern view of Crone from Wikipedia (that semi-serious popular culture voice of ours):

The Crone is a stock character in folklore and fairy tale, an old woman who is usually disagreeable, malicious, or sinister in manner, often with magical or supernatural associations that can make her either helpful or obstructing. 

She is marginalized by her exclusion from the reproductive cycle, and her proximity to death places her in contact with occult wisdom.  As a character type, the Crone shares characteristics with the hag.

She’s certainly no youthful beauty, but marginalized?  Well, I see her as powerful.

And I see my hot flashes as a type of downloading of wisdom.  I view myself as a Crone in the making.  Come with me you powerful women.  I have no idea where we can go because the path has become grown over with eons of strangling vines, but I do believe the path is right in front of us!

Yvette

So hand me my broom…but skip the pointy hat, please.

Yvette is a single mom of 3 (2 in college and one at home) who inadvertently swims upstream in most of life’s dealings. 

She’s a homeschooling Mom, runs her own business as an early childhood music educator (Have you ever heard a 10 week old baby sing?), a flute player, an avid reader, and runs the slow food kitchen in her house.  Given any free time at all she’ll knit and think.

Gwendie

I took one of those online tests today, you know the kind.  You go to a website (in this case, it’s www.realage.com, you can try it yourself).  Apparently it has been recommended by both Dr. Oz AND Oprah Winfrey, so it must be good, right?  You answer a whole bunch of questions about your health, habits, diet, fitness, and relationships.  Then they send you a “Personalized Real Age and Plan to Improve” (assuming that most of us are “older” than our real age, based on the kinds of good living questions included on the test.  NO ONE can truthfully answer them all “correctly.”)

Anyhow, I was pleased to be able to report that I ALWAYS wear seat belts, my parents stayed together until I was at least 18, I quit smoking 40 years ago and I don’t get secondhand smoke, I’ve had my pneumonia vaccine, I eat lots of fruits and veggies, and I do some moderate amount of exercise and a bunch of other good stuff, too.

Of course, I also have metastatic cancer, have a BMI over 28, take more than 5 prescription drugs, and don’t go to church once a week.  And those things must count for a BUNCH of bad points, because, ladies and gentlemen, RealAge has calculated, for my personal use and benefit, that while my actual age is 69.1 years, my REAL AGE is 91.6!

Yes, that’s right, ninety-one point six.  I’m as old as my neighbor Mr. Bradburn who still tills and plants a big garden every year and chops his own wood to heat his house.  And who, by the way, also mows my grass—for free.  So how bad can 92 be?  Well, bad, because he also suffers from all kinds of ailments, so can you imagine what his Real Age would be?

Boy, RealAge really knows how to encourage a gal.  My Real Age is 20+ years more than my chronological age, and the best they can do with suggestions for improvement is to lose weight, watch those drug interactions, and eat more complex carbohydrates!  Hot diggity dog.

Big help, they are.  And if I do all those things, I can bring my Real Age down to 85.  Yea!!!

I tell you one thing, I’m going to think twice before taking any more of those online questionnaires.  It’s just too depressing, and that’s not good for my health.  Although, come to think of it, I’m doing pretty darn well for a 92 year old!

Annice

Sending a Shout-Out to our beautiful women over 50 who’ve been asking about writing a post on the oops50.com blog.

We invite you (all women over 50) to share your stories and experiences with our readers.  We know there are tons of subjects you care about because we know, like us, you never tire of speaking your mind!  And, don’t forget to ask your mothers, sisters, cousins, friends, colleagues, etc.  We all have intriguing and important stories to tell.   We’ll take your article (not more than 250 words) and we’ll edit it, post it, and promote it.

Some of favorite categories are: Friendship,  Aging parents, Children/Grandchildren; Cooking; Gardening; Pets;  Relationships; Health and Wellness; Spirituality; Menopause; Sleep (or the lack of); Work; Retirement (I wish); Starting Over; Books; Films; and of course, if you are inspired, you can always write about Death and Taxes.

If you’re interested, please contact me at: Annice@oops50.com and I’ll send you our guidelines.

I’m all Ears

Jane

Anna Maria Johanna Margaretha Kok or “Ans,” is a beautiful and amazing Dutch woman (and career physical therapist until the mid 1990’s) who, at 53, when her husband (my husband’s uncle) was taking early retirement and she could easily have settled into a life of leisure, instead took on a major, at times overwhelming new project that consumed her for the next 7 years and made a profound difference for a village in Cameroon, Africa.

Here is her amazing story, which shows how much individual people, working together with other individual people, can do!

 Bitoutouck, Cameroon is a small village in the jungle of Cameroon, with about 800 inhabitants.  It is located around 60 miles from the capital of Yaounde.  To get there, you can take the train, when it’s running, but then you still have to walk an hour into the jungle.  The total trip takes 3 hours from Yaounde, and, no matter which way you travel to get there, you have to cross the River Nyong, a river infested with crocodiles and therefore not easily crossed in a canoe!

When Ans Heykoop and her friend Marthe went to Bitoutouck in 1999, to visit Marthe’s home village and her family, Ans was distressed to see that there was no bridge across the river—and not because it made the journey difficult for her.  What she saw was that the lack of a bridge meant there was no easy way for the villagers to get their goods to market in the city or find jobs for themselves.  The effect on the people of the village was obvious.  Most people in the village had no income and had difficulty providing their children with even one meal a day.  The village had no clean drinking water, so children had to walk hundreds of yards to get water out of a stream before going to school in the morning, and, since the water was used for everything, many people had intestinal illnesses.  A trip to the doctor in Libamba, however, a village on the other side of the river, meant walking 16 miles!  The school building had 3 classrooms, with 140 students spread over 4 classes, one of which was held in a small building meant to house a teacher.   There were large holes in the schoolroom walls;  the floor was stamped earth, and the children were plagued with sand fleas between their toes. 

That trip, coupled with a love of Africa that had started for Ans as a young girl when she spent time visiting her missionary uncle in The Congo,  inspired her to ask her friends and family to donate money to help the village build its first clean water well.  This project soon led to others, and, the next thing you know, she and Marthe had started an official foundation to continue aid to Bitoutouck. 

Called the “Bridge to Bitoutouck Foundation,” the organization had as its long-term goal to some day build a bridge across the river Nyong to Bitoutouck, but, in the meantime, there were short-term, more immediate projects.  For the next seven years, Ans served as the first chairperson of the foundation’s steering committee, working closely with Marthe to make sure that the projects undertaken by the foundation were ones that the villagers actually needed, ones that could make a significant difference. 

 And, boy, did they make a difference!  Just look at the list of projects:

 In 2001, the first drinking water well was dug.

In 2002,  the school was fully renovated with doors, ceilings, a cement floor, whitewash, and, perhaps most importantly, outhouse toilets.

In 2003, a new schoolroom was built, as well as a small house for the school director.  A small grain milling machine was acquired for the village.  A boy with polio was aided with an operation; a man received a new hip and could walk again, and a deaf girl in the village was helped by a foundation gift to enter a boarding school.

In 2004, a medical clinic was constructed.  Ten new palm oil plantations were started, which, 3 years later, were ready to provide palm oil to sell. 

Over the next few years, a motorized press was provided for pressing oil from the palm nuts.  A used Toyota was donated to the village for getting goods to market.  A small community building was constructed as a meeting place, with a small kitchen for providing two meals per week to the schoolchildren.  And a second well was built in a nearby village.

Most recently, more wells have been constructed, and the medical clinic now has a gravity-fed water tank, filled by pumping water from the first well. 

For more information about any or all of these projects, go to www.brugnaarbitoutouck.nl.  However, I warn you:  the site is in Dutch! 

After seven years of almost daily work for the foundation, Ans has now stepped down. 

The point I want to make about this amazing woman is  1) she didn’t have official training in “foundation development” or “non-profit management” 2) she had no outside sources of funds at first, although, over the years, she has attracted other foundations, other funders to the work of the foundation; all she had was a compelling need to help the people of Marthe’s village—that and a huge amount of intelligence, persistence, and courage 3) she did all this amazing work while also continuing her own volunteer work in Soest (for 25 years, for example, Ans swam every Saturday morning with handicapped people, helping them to be more physically active) AND taking courses in or teaching herself sculpture.  To quote her husband of 28 years, Jan Heykoop:  “(The foundation work) was in addition to taking care of many folks in need and jumping in to help handicapped friends and patients find their way through the maze of Dutch medical care.  Then there was the dog, and (myself), and not to forget that she has become quite a good sculptor in the past ten years or so.”  

Once again Ans Heykoop, we at Oops50 salute you: a truly amazing, beautiful woman over 50!

To make a donation to the Bridge to Bitoutouck Foundation, go to http://www.brugnaarbitoutouck.nl and click on “How Can I Help?”

Annice

Given all the fuss a post or two ago about Oprah looking for women obsessed with aging and beauty, I am happy to turn that page and introduce you to a beautiful and creative  woman over 50 who is far too busy creating cards and more for us women over 50 than being obsessed with aging.   Meet Diane English, a self-taught artist who owned a metaphysical book store in St. Augustine, Florida before moving to Asheville, NC 10 years ago.   After reading The Artist’s Way by Julie Cameron, Diane decided to follow her dream of combining art with her spiritual path allowing her to embark on the next phase of her life.  After visiting her in her studio and seeing many of her cool, cosmic characters, I’d say she is living her dream – minus the downtown condo she covets.

Diane at play, oops, I mean work.

Diane is the owner and creator of  The Great Cosmic Happy Ass Card Co, and if you’ve never received one of her cards, send yourself one.  Why not?  They’re inspiring, whimsical and just plain old kick-ass funny.  This is one of my favorites. This beautiful woman over 50 has aspired to achieve a higher consciousness along her journey, and not without some help from “years of deep meditation, medication, fasting, prayer and a few bottles of Merlot.”  Having had a subscription to her cards,  I knew I was in for a treat when we finally sat down in her lovely bright living room drinking coffee and nibbling scones.

Oops50: What made you finally decide to leave Florida and your bookstore, “Dream Street,” and go into the card business?

Diane: About once every 7 years, I did a painting, and one of them was titled, “Reach for Your Stars.” That became my first card, and it sold out in my bookstore.  Then, I made more cards and magnets, and soon those sales were accounting for 20% of my gross revenue.  That’s when the big box book stores moved in, and I took that as sign to make a change.

Oops50: Kind of like the movie, “You’ve Got Mail.”

Diane: You got it.

Oosp50: How did you come up with the business name, Great Cosmic Happy Ass Co. ?

Diane: I really wanted to use smart ass but I didn’t feel I could really do that.  So, my customers helped me pick the name.

Oops50:  So now I’m going to change the subject a little.  What’s your fondest childhood memory?

Diane: My grandfather carrying me on his shoulders while walking me to the zoo.  He was Irish and English, and we lived in Philly and walked everywhere.  When we got to the zoo, there was a blackbird in a cage at the entrance and he said, “Hi, I’m Joe.”

Oops50: What’s was the first record you bought? Diane: It’s a tie between Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto and Bill Haley and the Comets.

Oops50: Any advice for women over 50?

Diane: Well, I’m well over 50 – 68 in fact.  Don’t listen to anyone.  Follow your heart and do what you want to do.  Don’t be intimidated by the “should’s” in life.  Oh yeah, and keep your nose out of other people’s business.

Oops50:  Right.  I need to remember that.  So what turns you on?

Diane: A romantic dinner in an Italian restaurant, with Luciano Pavarotti singing in the background.

Oops50: So you like Italian?

Diane: I had an aunt who married an Italian, and I remember wonderful Italian dinners.  And I like to cook Italian food–outrageously delicious.

Oops50: What next?  Any new dreams?

Diane: A downtown condo with a large patio and a great view of the mountains of Western NC.  It should have a cable railing, a fireplace on the left side, a kitchen behind that, and a loft upstairs.  The light will be clean and beautiful.  And, don’t forget Rachmaninoff playing in the background.

Oops50: Any must have products you can’t live without?

Diane: My Netflix subscription and Roku, so I can download old movies.

Oops50: So what’s your favorite movie?

Diane: “Casablanca.”  And have you seen “Sunshine Cleaning?”  A very funny movie.

Oops50: So what’s Roku?

Diane: It’s great.  A little black box that lets you stream movies from Netflix.  It’s great.

Oops50: I’ll check it out.  Last question:  Any regrets so far?

Diane: Only that I didn’t know in my 20s what I know now.  And, that I don’t have the same body as I did in my 20’s.

Oops50: Who does?

Rize Cole on her birthday getting a ride w/Harley Davidson instructor Susan Harrison.

Staying in my Lane

I often hear the words “Be you for you.” 

 I chose to internalize this by taking full responsibility.  

I WILL BE ME FOR ME.

We are constantly focusing on the exterior, “what will they think and what will they say?”.   What matters to me is what I think and what I say.  What I am thinking is a powerful clue as to what is in my consciousness .  When we are looking at the exterior, are we neglecting the interior and what is resonating within?

As an elder, I have come to the realization that this is my journey and I can take the fast or scenic route, whichever suits me.

Being an elder can be awesome if you are mentally, physically and spiritually healthy.  For some of us, it is the first time we can stand in our truth, think of self first and be impeccable.  I am aware many elders are still stuck in the past, living with regrets and should have’s, but for most of us it is a joyful time to do our own thing.  I have no concerns about the opinions of others.  What am I supposed to do with what someone thinks of me?  I can observe…they are thinking, but they are in my lane and need to get back in their lane and MTOB (mind their own business).

I may also choose to have fun with them. One of my favorite ways to walk in the world is by tooting my horn when someone makes a decision to get into my lane.  This may look like a tilt of my head and a gentle smile, or I may change lanes by changing the subject.  If they are bold or rude enough to follow me into my new lane, I might let them have it with both barrels, which may sound like a giant laugh and a hug or I may just say something like, “ Oh… listen to that beautiful bird singing” or “Oh… I do love your hat” and continue talking about my love of hats, birds or whatever until they get back into their lane or forget what they had asked me in the first place.

Results: My blood pressure is ok and their feelings are intact.

77 year old poet Rize Cole currently lives in West Columbia, South Carolina.

Rize enjoys traveling, reading, cooking and whatever makes her happy!

You can contact her at mizrize77@yahoo.com

Janet lives in upstate New York with her husband, Jerry.  Together, they created The Valley Table, a wonderful monthly food magazine for the Hudson Valley. 

On June 26 & 27,  I walked 39 miles from Keystone to Breckenridge Colorado as part of the Rocky Mountain Avon Walk for Breast Cancer. I walked alongside my 27-year-old niece, Claire.  On our backs, we wore a small walker’s flag declaring, “I’m walking for….”

My flag read: “my sister, Nancy (a three-year survivor), Jane N, Ruth N” (my husband’s mother and stepmother, both of whom lost their lives to breast cancer) “and Grandma P” (my mother’s mother, who lost her breast to cancer). My niece walked for her Aunt Nancy and her friend’s mother Jeanne Fame.  We walked with 1100 others—mostly women and a number of men–each donning a flag celebrating loved ones who had survived the beast or remembering those who hadn’t. The slogan for the walk was “In it to End it.”   I confess, when I first committed to do the walk with my niece in February, I was getting in it to keep in shape, to force activity during New York’s long, cold winter. My niece had just had a break-up with her boyfriend, and she was getting in it to get over it. It took months of training—incrementally adding miles to weekly walks, meeting up (Claire from Manhattan, me from the Hudson Valley) to walk together, gearing up (running shoes, really good socks, shorts, tanks—we were walking advertisements for the Under Armour brand),  shouting out to friends, family, workmates and anyone else  for fundraising (the entry was a commitment to raise $1,800 for the Avon Foundation), fretting over whether I was really in shape to complete the walk, whether the altitude would affect me, whether I could keep up with my fit and athletic niece. And then there we were at the beautiful Keystone Resort along the Snake River, with snow-capped mountains surrounding us–all assembled at 7 a.m. in the brisk mountain air. Ready.  

 I came to the walk prepared. But there was nothing that could quite prepare me for the raw emotion of the gathering of people standing for a common cause. At the opening ceremony, we learned we had collectively raised $2.6 million that would be distributed to local organizations; we heard from fellow walkers—a young woman “walking for her mom,” a husband “walking for his wife,” a survivor walking “because she could.”  And then we were off, walking. I noticed the woman in front of me: “I’m walking for my mother, 1957-2003,” the same birth year as my sister, just two years older than myself. The tears flowed forth. Thank goodness I had 39 miles ahead and scenery to distract.  

As we walked, we created a stream of people and a stream of energy. We made our way past beautiful lakeside resorts, western villages, over canyon streams, along highways and well-traveled bike paths. All along the way, cars honked, motor cyclists played music, people cheered, volunteers gave support–replenished water, offered food, checked on everyone’s status—were we OK? Thumbs up. The first 15 miles were a breeze; we’d done as many miles in NY.  My oxygen level was a little low, but it recovered with a short stop at mile 13. Having the company of my athletic trainer niece as a walking buddy certainly helped, especially as we passed the 20-mile mark in the high canyon outside Frisco and every muscle ached. She kept our pace.

Claire at the tent campsite, end of first day

Some favorite memories: the two little girls who gave us high 5 at every cheer station (as they waited to cheer their Mom on); the dedicated husband who also made every station w/ pup at foot and video camera in hand to cheer his wife on; the woman who cheered us at mile 14, saying we looked like we were ready to break into a jog, and cheered us again at mile 22, saying we still looked strong. The last 4 miles of Day One were the toughest, but my sister surprised us and jumped in to walk a few miles with us. We did it, and after a delicious hot shower (in a souped up 18-wheeler), a satisfying plate of pasta and meatballs (everything tastes good after 26 miles at high altitude), and a refreshing night’s sleep (in a tent), we woke to a brisk beautiful morning, and, with just 13 miles to go, we felt strong.

Janet and Claire with sister Mary (Claire's mom) at end

We did, in fact, finish strong–among the first 50. We walked through the village of Breckenridge, ordered a local brew and steak lunch, and, as we toasted our survival, we started planning for another walk, a bigger team, another destination–next year. For whatever your reason–whether it’s to keep in shape, work through a life change, celebrate a loved one, the Avon walk (and it’s held throughout the country) is a great thing to do. Anyone in it to end it?  

Some facts about breast cancer I learned along the way:

* Approximately 178,480 women and 2,030 men will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year     * 40,460 women and 450 men in the U.S. will die from the disease annually.     * There are over 2 million breast cancer survivors in the U.S. who have been treated for breast cancer     * Every 3 minutes, there is a new diagnosis of invasive breast cancer     * There are more than 250,000 women under the age of 40 in the U.S living with breast cancer, and over 11,000 will be diagnosed this year     * A woman has a 1 in 8 chance of developing breast cancer in her lifetime     * Every 13 minutes, a life is lost to breast cancer     * White, non-Hispanic women are more likely to develop breast cancer, but African-American women are more likely to die from it.     * Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer among Hispanic women and is the leading cause of cancer deaths among this group.
For more info on breast cancer, the cause and the Avon walk, visit http://www.avonwalk.org/cause/breast-cancer-information.html

Sadhvi

I need to share this.  A good friend of mine sent it to me, and asked if I could post it.  I just got done watching this YouTube video and it gave me goosebumps.  That always happens to me when I hear the Truth.  Take a look, and see how it affects you.  It is time to end the war.  It is time to wake up!

Annice

For Father’s Day, I asked my friend, Judy King-Calnek to share some of her memories about her father, who was one of the few African Americans to go to Harvard University in 1941.  Toward the end of her piece, you will find a link detailing his experience at Harvard told by the Boston Globe entitled, Southern Discomfort: With quiet grace, two black men change the heart of Harvard in 1941.   

While driving down the FDR Drive in Manhattan, I was still savoring the excitement of Brazil’s first victory in the World Cup, which I had watched and celebrated with friends in a cute little Brazilian bistro in Brooklyn that could’ve easily been in Copacabana.  I was on my way to work that morning, and even though it was only 7:45 a.m., the sun was shining brightly and it was so warm that I drove with my car windows and sunroof wide open, not to mention the radio cranked up.  

Dr. Judith King-Calnek

As I surfed the pre-selected buttons to find some music, preferably something I could sing along to as it was one of those kind of days, I was grabbed by a voice I had known since my childhood growing up in Cleveland.  It was Louis Armstrong on his tribute album to Fats Waller, singing “All That Meat and No Potatoes” – one of my father’s favorites.  I sang along at the top of my lungs, not like the 50 year old teacher getting ready to talk to her anthropology students as they prepare for a summer of fieldwork, but like the little girl who used to dance frenetically about the living room, with no clue of the double entendre of the lyrics, laughing as my father laughed at my glee and excitement when Satchmo wailed, and Daddy and I both sang out, “Give that food to the alligators!”.

That song and my experience to it, made me think about how much I missed my father, but it also made me happy because for that moment I really was four years old again and my father was about to pick me up and tickle me.  Immediately, I’d laugh and laugh some more and he’d call me his “little sugar-pie” just as Louis Armstrong began to blow his trumpet. 

As a little girl, I felt safe and protected by my father.  He’d always tell me that he was going to bring the sunshine to me when he’d join my mother and me vacationing on Nantucket.  I knew he wasn’t magic, but the strange thing was, we could be having cloudy, foggy weather, and as soon as he’d get to the island, usually in August, our birthday month, the sky would clear up and the sun would come out – just like he promised.                                        

Family House on Nantucket

As I moved into adolescence, my relationship with my father became strained by typical things like teenage rebelliousness.  Soon, I was no longer his cute “little sugar-pie”.  Then, one summer, as a teenager, I began to see a different side of my father.  Being the youngest of four children, I was the last to go through the family rite of passage - working in my father’s office for a few weeks every summer, I found it  hard to call him “Dr. King.”  I remember being surprised when his secretary told me how proud he was of my siblings and me and how much he talked about us.  We had no idea!  In those days he was very stern with us.  That summer, I was not only able to see just my father at work in his medical practice, but a man of great compassion who was profoundly respected by his patients and so many others.   

Okay, it sounds like I’m idolizing my father, and I suppose that many daughters feel that way.  It’s not that I didn’t see his warts and character flaws.  I did.  In fact, that’s what I focused on for many years, but now that I’m a parent of two boys, who will someday become fathers, I’m revisiting my memories of my father.  You see, after becoming a parent, I thought of him differently, and realized that not only did I love my father deeply, but I really liked him as a person.  

Dr. Drue King

  Unfortunately, it was not until his last few months, when my father was retired and in his 80s and had lost his physical mobility due to diabetic neuropathy, that I discovered yet another side of him.  I knew he had gone to the prestigious Boys Latin School in Boston and on to Harvard before World War II, at a time when the term “affirmative action” wasn’t even a twinkle in the eye of a legislator or admissions officer.  In fact, it would be more apt to describe that era as one of “negative action”.  Yet, he had leapt and labored over many of the racially defined hurdles of the era as did countless nameless African American men and women of the first half of the twentieth century.  But because it was Harvard, my father’s story carried certain connotations, or at least more attention than perhaps some others.  

Now, as an adult and as a parent, I realize we are usually hesitant to share certain stories with our children.  Obviously, we don’t readily tell them about the partying, exploits and abuses of young adulthood.  But there are other stories, too, the kind that our children (and other people) often consider remarkable.  It’s just that when we were living them, we didn’t see them as important.  I now understand why part of my father’s story remained with him for so long.  Firstly, he didn’t consider his actions remarkable or noteworthy; he felt he was doing what should be done.  Secondly, there was an element of shame or humiliation attached to efforts he made to move forward in his life. 

But thanks to one curious journalist, Ted Gup, who is now the Chair of the Department of Journalism at Emerson College, my father’s story came to be known through this article in the Boston Globe.  Apparently it moved the 21^st Century student body of Harvard as well as some staff and faculty members who saw fit to bestow on him the Harvard Foundation’s Humanitarian Award.  The University planned a celebration in his honor at which he was to receive the award, but he passed away just three short weeks prior to the date.  

My father died on April 1^st, 2004.  He was 84 years old.  The day he died the film “Big Fish”, a surrealistic story about a son trying to reconcile the truth about his father’s life before his death, was playing on TV.  I watched it over and over again and cried all day long thinking about my dad.  His was a very good life.  He did the things he wanted to, he achieved what he wanted to achieve; he had the family he wanted to have; enjoyed his grandchildren and even some great-grands.  The day before he died he told my sister he was tired, and then we knew we could let him go. 

My father and grandchildren

So today is Father’s Day and it’s okay that I can’t call him and tell him “Happy Father’s Day” because he is still so big and so present in my life.  But, I can reach for any one of those thousands of vivid memories and relive those My wish on Father’s Day is that my sons feel the same way about their parents as I feel about mine, and that their children feel the same.  I think my father gave me a wonderful gift, which I have a hard time naming, but I can certainly feel it when I recall so many of the lessons he bestowed on me.  So today on Father’s Day, I say “Thank you” to my father.  I think I’ll light a candle for him, download some Louis  Armstrong and sing and dance around my living room.

Content coming soon.