Tag: Jaimee

Posted on

Bits and Pieces

Indiana Jones had the Ark of the Covenant. Darth Vader blew up a world in search of the Death Star plans. But all of it quailed in the face of the latest discovery.

Heather and her siblings, at long last, had uncovered G-ma’s Cow Pitcher.

“And now the fight begins,” her sister Jaimee joked, to the laughter of the room.

For the uninitiated, the Cow Pitcher is not a fastball-hurling Guernsey. Had we found that, we would have had an immediate obligation to send it to the Colorado Rockies. (Hey, their rotation can use all the help it can get.) This rather, was the unforgettable cow-shaped milk pitcher of Heather’s Grandma Marilyn – known eternally as “G-ma” – that she frequently wielded over the cereal bowl of each grandchild with a flourish and a call of “MooOOOooo!”

As the playful banter began, Marilyn herself chuckled and smiled. Another memory was about to find a home.

Only 3,207 more to go.

Marilyn, you see, is moving. That’s always a fun exercise to begin with. (As Mark Twain may not have said, “Two moves equal one fire.”) And it gets even more interesting when you’re moving into a smaller, simpler place and need to clear out a lot of stuff – not to an attic, a basement, or a garage, but to a new keeper, if it’s worth keeping at all.

And so, it slowly passed before us all. An endless stream of photo albums and teddy bears. A mysterious case – “is this a sewing machine?” – that turned out to be an old slide projector. Books upon books upon books, from longtime classics to movie novelizations.

It looked like we were in the middle of the world’s most chaotic flea market. But it felt like we were in the midst of gold and diamonds, decades of stories and memories that had taken on a physical form.

Better yet, we still had the best treasure of all.

I’ve written before in this space about the power of stories, how they inspire us, comfort us, bind the universe togeth … no wait, that’s Obi-Wan Kenobi talking about the Force. But you get the idea: stories are an essential part of what makes us human, one of the most precious things we possess.

But there is something more precious than any story.

Namely, the storyteller.

Memories are made of people. Stories begin with them. We walk past libraries every day, live with anthologies, work alongside chapters that we never knew existed. And most of the time, we barely open the cover.

We only realize how little we’ve read until the storyteller is gone. And there’s always so much more to find.

I lost a grandmother at 93 and a cousin at 21. I talked to both of them frequently. And yet, after they were gone, there were still questions I wished I’d asked, stories I wished I’d heard, thoughts I wished we’d exchanged.

That’s one reason we value the “stuff,” I suppose. It evokes the memories long after the memory maker is gone.

But getting to evoke them in her presence – that’s beyond price.

Heather and I wound up with the photo albums, to scan and share. Her brother Brad got to keep the Cow Pitcher – and miraculously, no concussions were involved. All of us wound up with a few books. OK, a lot of books.

And all of us got to keep Marilyn.  That’s as cool as a Cow Pitcher jumping over the moon. Or is that “over the mooOOOoon?”

After all, you’ve got to milk these things.

Posted on

Windows in the Wall

It began with a deep family discussion. My wife Heather and her sister Jaimee had become embroiled in one of those topics that can transform an entire autumn: should Jaimee dress as Princess Leia for Halloween, or as a unicorn?

The arguments were weighed and considered with the seriousness of a House investigating committee. (I kid, of course –  it was actually much more serious than that.) In the midst of it, without warning, our disabled ward Missy looked up.

“Unicorn,” she said.

A pause followed.

“Well,” Jaimee said, “if Missy says so, I suppose that settles it!”

I’m not saying Missy is an Old Testament prophet, whose judgments come replete with ominous clouds, rolling thunder, and a lightning show worthy of Castle Dracula. (Well, not until she gets really impatient with us, anyway.) But if you’ve followed Missy in this space at all, you know that she tends to the quiet side. Some people say a word to the wise is sufficient; for Missy, a few words to a conversation is abundance.

But in the time that Heather and I have cared for her – seven and a half years now – there are periodic bursts of new vocabulary, like a river carving new channels. Every so often, the results are striking enough to mention here, like when “ma shoe” became “ma tennis shoe” a few years ago, or last Christmas, when she improbably added “Hallelujah” to the list. Even calling me “Scott” sometimes instead of “Frank” (her dad’s name) or “He” counted as a major milestone.

The thing is … lately, there have been a lot of milestones.

“I wanna go” is a standard phrase. But “Let’s move over here” is new.

“Lookit!” is an old favorite. But “Look at the animals,” said while pointing to a herd of horses, caught us off guard.

“Can you do me up?” popped out one afternoon, as she extended a jacket in one hand.

And even the stock comments sometimes turn into short conversations now.

“Where are we goin’?” Missy asked for the 10th time near the end of a drive one day. Rather than answer again, I lobbed it back to her.

“I don’t know, Missy, where do you think we’re going?”

“Home!!”

She was absolutely right.

We’ve always known that Missy understands more than she’s able to say, that a lot hides behind her silence. One night, as I read A Wrinkle in Time to her, the character Mrs. Whatsit was describing the art of “tessering” – folding time and space – by noting how much more easily a caterpillar could cross the edge of a picnic blanket if the corners were pinched close together.

Heather peeked her head in. “How far have you gotten?”

“We’re learning how to tesser,” I responded.

And Missy, quietly, picked up the edge of her blanket and brought the corners together. And grinned.

Lesson learned.

And now, by fits and starts, the words are starting to catch up. Not in a mass wave – the limitations she has are still real ones, an internal wall rarely scaled. But she’s increasingly finding cracks in the wall. And every once in a while, she builds windows.

I don’t claim to know how. Yes, we read to her a lot, we talk with her a lot. Maybe it’s as simple as that – that what you give your attention to flourishes, like seeds receiving water.

But that discounts Missy’s own work. The learning and growth that’s going on inside her, the process that only she can see.

Maybe that sort of growth always seems kind of magical, regardless of your age or condition. We’ve all done it. The lucky ones never stop. And most of us are still powerless to explain it fully.

I’d love to hear what Missy thinks. Maybe someday I will, just a little. After all, she’s already folded time and discovered unicorns. What’s one more miracle?

Let’s move over here, and see.

Posted on

Pulling the Leash

Slowly but surely, the three of us approached the CSU veterinary school in the world’s most erratic chorus line.

At my right hand – literally – was our disabled ward Missy, angling her course periodically to point out the other dogs nearby, or to stop at the check-in desk to chat, or to steer a wandering route to the nearest restroom.

At my left hand – and my left wrist may someday forgive me – was the mound of canine muscle known as Big Blake. Amiable. Confused. And testing the strength of his leash, and of Newton’s Third Law, as every step drew us nearer to the home of “doggie doctors.”

Finally, in the exam room, Big Blake had enough.

“Why don’t we just take you right back for some tests?” the friendly and winning vet tech said – just before Blake leaned against me and dug his claws into the hardened floor, to Missy’s amusement and my knowing smile.

“OK … why doesn’t Daddy take you right back ….”

It’s hard to blame Blake. It had been a tough week for an easygoing English Lab. The immediate center of his universe – my wife Heather – had been gone for two days to help her sister through a difficult back surgery. Necessary. But uncomfortable.

So while Heather was being a source of comfort and transforming into the Amazing “Aunt Hufu” for our nieces, Blake was dealing with all sorts of schedules that were subtly off, from food to naps to food to family chores to food to errands to food. (When you’re an English Lab with a one-track mind and an iron stomach, there are certain priorities to consider.)

Mind you, it wasn’t the first time Heather had been absent for more than a few hours. It wasn’t even the longest. But it was the longest in recent canine memory, which for Blake stretches to about the previous Tuesday. Maybe.

Add in a vet visit after a long drive to Fort Collins and … well, you can understand Blake being just a little clingy. OK, a lot clingy. Like Saran Wrap made from duct tape.

Again, necessary. But uncomfortable.

To be fair, I don’t think most of us do a lot better.

Oh, we rarely get to fight back on a leash in the presence of a smiling veterinarian. But we’re all called on more than once to do the uncomfortable thing, to break the routine, to get something done that needs doing now.

And, many times, we resist.

It might be Jonah saying “Nah, you don’t need me to carry that message- hey, where’d that big fish come from?” Or Thomas Jefferson saying “Hey, Mr. Adams would be a much better writer for this Declaration thing.” Or something simpler in our own prosaic lives, whether it’s taking on a difficult task, reaching out a needed hand, or just getting that mole checked out that’s probably nothing, right?

We set up expectations for ourselves and for our lives. But life isn’t good at sticking to expectations. And rather than follow the new route, we often try to fight for the wheel like the protagonist in an action movie.

Sure, sometimes you need to stay the course as best you can. But a lot of times – whether it’s as personal as enduring back surgery or as large-scale fighting a policy that affects you and your family – you’ve got to hold on and make it through if you’re going to straighten things out. Maybe with the choice of an instant. Maybe with an effort of months.

We don’t get to choose everything that happens. Just how we deal with it. And how we help others do the same.

Blake’s home now. Heather, too. Both are happy and resting. And maybe, just maybe, our furry friend is a little readier to deal with the next time.

I hope so, anyway. My left wrist can only take so much.

Posted on

Household Name

Once upon a time, there was Harold, my sister-in-law’s alleged car.

Harold had four wheels, and he would get you where you were going … most of the time. During the exceptions, you couldn’t help wondering if Fred Flintstone’s leg-powered rockmobile wouldn’t have been a better bet. After all, you always knew that your two feet were going to work. The same couldn’t be said of Harold’s less-than-mighty engine.

And yet, despite this infamous standing – maybe even because of it –  Harold had a name. That was never in question. In fact, we had ourselves an unexpected laugh when a card game about apartment living turned up a card called “Harold the Hoopty Car” – a confirmation from the universe that yes, this was actually meant to be.

Some of you, I suspect, are nodding. You know what I’m talking about. You, or someone you know, has christened metal and steel and given it life, like a gasoline-powered Frankenstein.

Heck, we even have our own day.

That, at least, should come as no surprise. When you live in the United States, it seems like everything under the sun has its own day, week or even month. I’ve written about Banned Books Week (Sept. 25 – Oct. 1) and organized Longmont Power & Communications contests for Public Power Week (Oct. 2 – Oct. 8 – is your entry in yet?). Some I know, but keep forgetting about, like National Procrastination Week in March (I’ll get to it next year).

And every year, there’s some odd day that surprises me. Such a day is October 2 – National Name Your Car Day.

Yes, really.

I don’t know who created it. I really don’t know why. But I couldn’t be happier. After all, it’s an impulse I’ve surrendered to more than once myself.

Granted, my vehicle nomenclature hasn’t usually been as dramatic as Michael Knight’s Kitt Car, or even Herbie the Love Bug. Although there was my sister Leslie’s declaration of the Masterful Audi of Death, a used car my family had when we were teenagers. The MAD sounded ominous, but in truth, the death it pursued was mostly its own as it became caught in an ever-increasing spiral of repairs and maintenance needs. We learned a lot from that car – mostly about the need to get a vehicle at the right moment of its life cycle.

The Battered Blue Buick, more ordinary in name, was no less mythic in structure. It gained its name from a Garden City, Kansas hailstorm that produced a lot of cosmetic damage, a nice insurance check, and no impediment whatsoever to its vital functions. It would actually take a major elm tree branch to bring it down, courtesy of a Kansas ice storm.

And so it’s mostly been since. Some have been named for appearances, like my sister-in-law’s Goldfinger, others for a vital quality, like our old Chevy that a friend dubbed the E-Z Bake Oven after a hot summer’s drive. We’ve even occasionally extended the privilege to other products, like the Qosmio laptop that my wife Heather dubbed “Quasimodo.”

It’s an odd tendency. But it makes sense. What we name tends to have a story attached, or sometimes even what feels like a personality. It’s something we can argue with, complain to, even plead with. (“Come on, Harold, just one more mile.”) It gives us the feeling that we can somehow control this assemblage of glass and steel that our lives so often depend on.

And when we’ve moved on, that name means it sticks in the memory a little harder.

I like that. I like having more stories, more memories. They help us not just exist, but live, paying a little more attention to the world around us and how we move through it.

As I write this, it strikes me that Heather and I have never given the Sonata a name. Maybe Mozart would be fitting – brilliant, a host to much music, a little cracked – though in car years, it’s already outlived its namesake.

We could even honor my sister-in-law’s long-gone car. But I wouldn’t want to invoke its luck as well, on this vehicle or any to come.

Our auto that art in future, Harold be not thy name.

Posted on

Making Magic

Heather’s youngest sister hurried up to me as the rehearsal dinner wound to an end.

“Mom’s outside with Heather,” she said. “She’s sick.”

My turn to hustle. Sure enough, my wife Heather was doubled over on a bench outside the restaurant. It had been a warm night and heat is no friend to an MS patient; as she’d stepped outside the crowded dining room to get some air, she’d suddenly had to sit down before she fainted, threw up or both.

“I need the car,” she whispered as her stepmom watched over her. Of course. I hurried off and pulled around, slamming the air-conditioning from Spring Day to Christmas in the Arctic. Her family helped bundle her into the back seat, some asking if they needed to follow us home.

No need. After a few brief minutes in the frigid air, Heather was upright and coherent, talking easily and reassuring everyone. It was like magic.

Appropriate enough. After all, dealing with any chronic condition is something akin to stage magic.

We’ve dealt with a lot of things for a lot of years. Crohn’s disease. Ankylosing spondylitis. Now multiple sclerosis. Each time, we’ve had to meet it with the dedication and training of a David Copperfield, not to vanish the Statue of Liberty, but to make something close to a real life reappear.

It can be done. But like a Copperfield or a Houdini, it takes hours of advance preparation to make things seem natural, even effortless to an audience. The wedding of Heather’s sister Jaimee the next day was typical, where a full morning’s rest, a constantly-present water bottle and periodic micro-breaks outside the reception helped Heather survive a ceremony on the hottest day of the year.

Magic indeed. But you never really get to let the curtain go down.

Chronic illness ebbs and flows, but the need to manage it never really goes away, much like the need to exercise. It’s a constant. For someone who hates losing control of their life, it can even be something of an irony – now you have to take control of your life whether you want to or not, even those things that would normally be automatic for most people.

You measure how much you can do before the fatigue catches up. You inventory what you need for even a short excursion. You balance, compromise, postpone so that the essentials can keep going. Maybe you even learn for the first time what the essentials truly are.

Somehow, you keep things going. Sometimes surprisingly well. Well enough that friends or relatives can be astonished when a breakdown occurs, because they’ve never seen you that sick.

It’s a triumph. But it’s a tiring one. After all, the show must go on … and on, and on, and on.

I’m not saying any of this to fish for pity. If anything, what I feel is closer to wonder. I am married to a strong person in a compromised body, and even on the days when she’s feeling weakest, the power of what she’s already done shouts to me in a voice I can’t ignore.

This is more than magical. This is miraculous. Maybe not the kind of miracle where a lame man is suddenly pole-vaulting down the street, but miraculous nonetheless.

There will be better days. There always are, eventually. But until that intermission hits, the Magically Medical Rochat Family will continue the conjuration. We can’t let the audience down, after all.

And if it means some long highway trips in sub-frigid air, then so be it.

After all, I already knew she was the coolest lady around.

Posted on

Home Schooling

I knew that having our 2-year-old niece Riley stay with us for a while would be an experience. I didn’t realize it would be an education.

I can already hear my parents laughing in the background.

Don’t get me wrong, she’s hardly a stranger to us. Because of my sister-in-law’s work schedule, we’ve usually looked after the amazing Riley-bug at least once a week since she arrived in the world. My wife Heather has known Riley since her very first seconds in the hospital room and is officially the co-mom, dryer of tears and maker of waffles.

But there’s something about age 2 – and about extended exposure to age 2 – that almost feels like I’m back in class again. And I don’t just mean learning the art of fresh diapers, which Riley herself solemnly handed me one day.

No, it’s a full-bore curriculum, with credit hours offered in the following topics:

English, principally focused on the literary oeuvre of “Caillou,” the world’s baldest Canadian 4-year-old. Seminars shall be held multiple times daily.

Art, concentrating on large-scale abstract expressionism. Projects shall be completed in the medium of Legos, spread in wide patterns across a living room carpet.

Dancing, scheduled whenever a bare foot comes in contact with the large-scale abstract art project.

Modern Cinema, where viewing shall be centered on the complete television run of “Caillou,” the world’s baldest Canadian 4-year-old. Seminars shall be held multiple times daily and may overlap other sessions.

Political Science, in which participants shall explore the delicate art of debate, compromise and appeasement, beginning with the proposition: “Caillou has to go night-night for now; why don’t we do something else?”

Music Appreciation, which shall have three core subject areas: Introductory Percussion, Contemporary Approaches to Old MacDonald (“Ya, Ya, Yo!”), and Contemporary Youth Opera; The “No” Chorus.

Logic, more familiarly known as “Where did your Duckie go this time? Let’s see if we can find him!”

Time Management, in which three adults shall attend to the needs of a 2-year-old, two canines, way too many birds, and the developmentally-disabled adult who actually lives in the house. This only sounds easy.

Physics, in which a toddler will be observed navigating stairs (sometimes on her feet, sometimes on her behind). Participants shall observe the balancing point – including any adjustments made by the canines – and be ready to restore equilibrium.

Physical Education. Need you ask?

Like any worthwhile field of education, it has its stressful moments. Especially since life doesn’t stop going on to accommodate classes. (“Honey, remember that basement where we moved everything to make room? The one that used to be un-flooded?”)

But if the attention and weariness are magnified, so is the joy. That’s true of any subject worth learning, too, and none more than toddler-ology. For every scream-signaled nap time, there’s a smile, or a giggle, or a hug around the knees that makes it more than worthwhile.

And the best part is, none of us – Auntie, Uncle, or Mom – has to worry about boys for a good long time yet.

Well, except for Mr. Caillou. And really, he’s much too old for her.

I won’t tell the teacher if you won’t.