Dear Mom and Dad

Dear Mom and Dad,

It's hard to know even where to begin. So I'm going to start with a riff on Dad's toast at our wedding. I believe Dad said that teachers often have to repeat things three times, and he told us "We love you, we love you, we love you." I'm going to echo that sentiment and add a second verse. "We love you, we love you, we love you, and thank you, thank you, thank you."

I want to focus on all the amazing things you both have done for me (and Dave) in the past half year. It's been kind of a crappy time and it would have been so easy to dive down the rabbit hole and be caught endlessly falling in the darkness. It would have been easy for that to happen to me and it certainly would have been easy for that to happen to you. But it didn't.

And here's why.

Because that's not how you do things. It's not how you've ever done things. And so that's not how I do things. Thank you for the example.

It's a gift that you have given to me. A big, giant, lead-by-example, walk-the-walk kind of gift.

There could be no better gift to receive. Nothing in a box, wrapped up in fancy paper and finished with a lovely bow could possibly be more valuable, useful or preferable.

I've watched you both go through heart-breaking, life-altering situations. Some were very unexpected. Some you could see coming. Some were over in a moment and some lasted longer. But no matter what the situation, what I saw was you both doing whatever you could to help make things a little easier, a little better, for those involved. You didn't spend time feeling sorry for yourselves. I'm not really sure you thought of yourselves at all. You spent your time making things better for others. And that made things better for you.

And that's what you've spent the past seven months doing. You've made things better for everyone.

I can't even begin to thank you appropriately. I don't even think I could recount everything you've done. The meals you made, the books you brought, the chats, the walks around the block, the lunches, the daily check-ins, the shoulders to cry on, the good-night texts... so much more.

But the encouragement. And the optimism. And just your presence. Most of all, thank you for that. Because that is what is getting me, getting all of us, through this.

This isn't how things are supposed to be. I never, in my wildest imagination, would have pictured my eighty year old parents taking care of their fifty year old daughter. Isn't that the reverse of how things go? Aren't I supposed to be helping to take care of you? But that's not how things are at present. Life doesn't, apparently, always go the way you think it will. Who knew?

I don't know if you've sat in your kitchen staring blankly into the air wondering, "Why?" I know I have. But I also know that what snaps me out of that is that I have watched you both, for over fifty years now, make your way through life (and all that it throws at you) with grace and dignity and each other. You are always there for each other. And you are always there for us, with quiet support and fortification, gently nudging us forward, upward. No matter what. I have never seen you two sit around feeling sorry for yourselves.

Thank you for that.

I do not have any idea where the two of you get the strength to do what you do, but I'm grateful to be on the receiving end of it.

And my hope is that I'm able to do what you do. I want to have this amazing super-power that you have, this power to make your way through the darkest moments by being your strongest, kindest, most positive selves. That's my goal.

So maybe I could have summed this letter up more succinctly by simply saying,

Dear Mom and Dad,

Thank you for being you. Thank you for being so selfless. Thank you for showing me how to gracefully handle life, with all its ups and downs. I've watched you closely. I've taken notes.
I'm trying to echo your example. What a gift that is! I will try to pass it down :) Thank you, thank you, thank you. I love you, I love you, I love you.

Love,

Kim

What I Learned from Tommy Bahama

                                      

I just spent a glorious four days at the beach with my amazing cousin/sister/twin Paige. Great weather. Warm Pacific water (which is unusual). Lots of time to just sit in comfy chairs on the sand and talk our heads off. Which we did. Nonstop. For four days. I think we shut up just long enough to eat some delicious food (Phil's clam chowder, Corralitos sausage, Zelda's on the patio).

But back to the comfy chairs on the sand part.

Those are the chairs, above in the picture. Two Tommy Bahama blue beach chairs. They look like ordinary beach chairs. But don't be fooled. These chairs did much more than allow our butts to rest comfortably six inches off the sand. These chairs were metaphors for life. Or similes. I'm not going to commit to one or the other. In any case, these inanimate objects taught us a few things.

For starters, we were fairly loaded up with gear as we began our trek down to the beach. We had towels, books, drinks, a beach bag and of course the chairs. That's a lot to carry, the chairs being the most awkward part of the load. As we tried to negotiate how to carry all of this down two flights of steps, Paige took a closer look and realized that the tangle of straps protruding from the seats were actually backpack straps. Lesson number one: when confronted with a dilemma, take a closer look. A solution may already be sitting right there if you just turn things around and look at them from a different angle.

We pulled open our chairs and settled onto the beach. Beautiful day--partly cloudy, waves rolling in, and that salty ocean air! And it got better, because drink holders! You expect them in your car, but when you get one on your beach chair--well, come on--that makes you smile!

We actually did not put beers in our drink holders. We had a couple of cans of LaCroix water. But either way, important life lesson number two: keeping hydrated, especially when you're out in the elements, is SO DAMN IMPORTANT that even Tommy Bahama is trying to make it easier for you.

And that little pocket next to the "hydration compartment"? It's for your phone. At least that's how we interpreted it. It was the perfect size, and it velcroed shut. It's two lessons in one (maybe?): communication is important enough to warrant a coveted spot on the chair, but also put the phone in the pocket and velcro it shut for a while. You're at the beach. Enjoy.

The chairs also had a built-in pillow and reclined back. Life lesson number five was a bit more obvious: when presented with the opportunity to relax, take it. Life is full of stresses that you have to deal with on an ongoing basis. If relaxation rudely interrupts, go with it while you can.

We had a really great day on the beach. The sun came out. Paige went in the water! We read our books and stayed hydrated. I headed back upstairs a little earlier than Paige, but left my chair down there as I thought we might watch the sunset from the beach later on. But then it got windy and chilly, so Paige ended up bringing the chairs up by herself. Not an easy task when you can't get the chairs to fold back down. Which brings us to our last lesson.

Here's what the chairs look like when they are all compacted for carrying:

Getting from this

 

to this



is no easy task, I'm here to tell you. Paige tried and tried to fold the chairs down, but they wouldn't cooperate, so she carried them back up to the house in their fully expanded condition. She's a trooper (also, she's not a complainer but that's a whole other blog post, which she absolutely deserves).

Anyway, we did eventually figure out how to get the chairs collapsed, but it quite literally took two of us to accomplish this, each of us pushing and pulling on different parts of the chair. I suppose one person might be able to do it by herself with difficulty, but it would most definitely be easier with two people working together. And that's lesson number six: teamwork gets the job done.

Who knew a beach chair could teach you so much? But maybe that's the bigger overall lesson-- you can learn from anything if your mind is open to it. And it helps if there's a cup holder.

Stay hydrated!

I Am in a Cheese Shop Currently (Part 2)

Olivia's texts from the previous post got me thinking... she is really living the life.

 To refresh your memory as to what "living the life" is for Olivia right now, she wrote that Nice was the best thing of her life and she swam in the Mediterranean and she was in a cheese shop. (being in a cheese shop should always be recognized as winning at life)

Not bad. Hard to top.

She is, after all, twenty years young, studying abroad, traveling on the French Riviera and quite possibly still in a cheese shop.

"Living the life" at twenty is all about finding out what's out there. It's adventure. New friends. Experiences you've never had before.

What sentences might express the "living the life" idea, for me, that her sentences did for her?

I'll start with location. I'm thinking water--ocean, sea, river--I'm not picky. And I do love Europe. While I would love to revisit some places I've been, the thought of somewhere new to explore, or at least seeing somewhere from a new perspective, is appealing. But I don't just want to see one place. I want to be on the move. Not so fast that I can't take in culture and beauty and ambiance. I want to experience that. But I also want to see more than just one country or one city. I still have some wanderlust.

I like to walk around. Give me a map and a few hours and I'm as happy as can be, even if I get lost. So lots of places to explore, even if briefly.

And food. Good food. Lots of good food, maybe even some I've never tried before.

This is coming into focus.

I think I've got it. Here would be my "living the life" post:

The Danube is beautiful. A new port each couple of days. Today we wandered Budapest. About to enjoy a glass of wine with the sunset.

Goals...

I Am In a Cheese Shop Currently

That's not me saying that title, by the way. That's Olivia. In a text. From Nice, France.

I sent her a brief inquiry this morning asking, "How's Nice?"

Her response, which made me smile and laugh, was as follows:

"Nice is the best thing of my life. I swam in the Mediterranean today. I'm in a cheese shop currently."

This was followed by a stream of pictures: of the cheese shop, a bottle shop, a macaron bar (the cookies), the girls sitting at the table in their Air BnB (which looks out over the Mediterranean) with several bottles of wine and some crusty bread with prosciutto and cheese (bought at those shops I'm sure), and then a final picture of her looking tres glamorous in large sunglasses, hair wet from her recent swim.













As Olivia likes to say, she and her friends are "absolutely living!"

Have You Air B-n-B'd?

I was at a friend's birthday party last night, and the talk turned to an upcoming vacation that one couple was about to take. They had booked their first Air B-n-B, and they were hoping that it would turn out fine. More on their upcoming trip at the end of this--I can't wait to hear about it!

Dave and I have stayed at several of this type of accommodation (Air B-n-B), to mixed success. As it turned out, another couple had the same experience as us. So we started to compare. I seriously thought there was no way we were going to lose on the "but wait until you hear what WE had to go through" aspect of this conversation. I was wrong.

Our first Air B-n-B rental was in Phoenix. I wrote a couple of blogs about it, pictures included. Take a minute and refresh yourself with those if you have time, just so you can get the gist of our accommodations when we arrived. (August, 2015 in case you're heading back to look at those) If you don't have time to do that, let me just sum it up for you: "working" art gallery (their words, not ours), no chairs to sit in whatsoever, no fridge, no coffee maker, sketchy part of town, door lock that looked like there might have been numerous attempts to break in, and no hot water in the shower in the morning.

As the comparative conversation began, I was thinking seriously, how could anyone top that?

And you know how you top that? You arrive at your condo and the building is "under construction", the entire multi-story structure completely wrapped in scaffolding and green tarp, windows taped in with plastic over them, the front door behind a concrete barricade, and it looks like you're staying in Soviet-era Russia--concrete, concrete, concrete. Not even close to a finished building. Winner-winner chicken dinner! I wish I had a picture to post here, because when the woman who described this to me showed me the photo, I started laughing. Hard. "Did you actually stay there?" I asked. Yes, yes they did. Because there was nowhere else in town to stay--everything was filled up for some sporting event. She said the inside was fine. But really, if we had walked up to that building, I'm not sure we would have actually gone inside, if we could have found the door!

Update: I got the picture! Here it is:

This was all very amusing for our friends who were about to lose their Air B-n-B virginity. However, I think they may come back with the "best" stories of any of us. They are going to visit their daughter at UC Santa Barbara. Santa Barbara is a beautiful, charming town.

Their daughter lives in Isla Vista. Charming and beautiful are not words I would use to describe Isla Vista. Crowded, over-crowded, 100% students, boisterous, loud... those words come to mind.

And they booked their place in Isla Vista. By choice, as it's very close to their daughter's apartment. "Parents of the Year" award goes to Ellen and Drew for sacrificing having a mini-bar and a clean room so they can be near their kid. Also, "Insane Parents of the Year" to them as well because I have a feeling their rental place might put the Soviet-era-under-construction experience to shame. I'm curious to find out the condition of a college student's Air B-n-B rental. Ellen and Drew will make the best of it, no matter what.

I can't wait to see pictures.

Super Dave

The last six months have taught me a lot. Some really, really important stuff. About myself. About my family. About my friends. About life in general.

This post, however, will only address one thing I've learned. It's a big one. It deserves its own post. So here it is...

My husband is a superhero.

That sounds so cliche. But I mean it very sincerely and in every sense of the word. He is superhuman.

In the face of extremely unexpected adversity, for which neither of us were even remotely prepared, at a time when we thought we would be happily sailing our way through retirement adventures, Dave was thrust into a role at age fifty-five that most people don't expect to tackle until they are into their seventies or eighties--caretaker of a spouse.

Not exactly how one anticipates spending time at this point in life.

It has not been an easy job. This has not been an easy situation and I won't even pretend that I'm a good patient. And yet... cross my heart, I have not once heard my husband complain. About anything. And there's been a lot that he could have complained about. Over the past half year, Dave has stepped up with nothing but love and optimism and an attitude toward me getting better as he has...

taken over the grocery shopping
done all the cooking and meal preparing
kept the house clean
done the laundry (and hung it on the line to dry and then folded it and put it away!)
written thank you notes to all our wonderful family and friends who made us meals
continued to do ALL of the yard work
gone to every, single doctor's appointment/scan/chemo
picked up my medication (a guy who will go to the Kaiser pharmacy for you is a saint)
kept track of my medication schedule and reminded me when necessary
given me nightly injections (seriously! he's offered to do my surgery...)
politely stopped well-intentioned friends from telling me their illness stories
gone on morning walks with me to make sure I don't over-exert myself
run out at all times of the day and night to get whatever odd food I'm craving because sometimes  
  there's just nothing that appeals and if something DOES appeal he wants me to eat...
explained and re-explained to me dozens of times exactly why I need to take pills that sometimes I
  am absolutely positive I might not really need to take
held me like he's never going to let me go while I cried because this is all very overwhelming
held this family together, attending to everyone's needs but his own, guiding us through the chaos

And let me repeat... I'm not going to pretend I'm the ideal patient. As stated above, I require repeated explanations as to why I am supposed to do what is good for me. I'm stubborn. I can burst into tears with no warning. I like to pretend sometimes like there's nothing going on and I can do everything as usual. Which of course, there is something going on and I cannot do everything as usual. And luckily Dave is here to hold my hand and tell me he loves me. And keep me from doing ridiculous things.

I know that if the situation was reversed, I would try to be everything for him that he is for me. But I'm not sure that I would be able to do it with the grace and the fortitude that Dave has.

When you think of a superhero, you think of someone who has powers beyond the average human. Someone who is stronger and braver. Someone who can put on a cape and swoop in and save the day.

Dave is all of that. He does all of that. And he doesn't even need a cape.

What Can I Do To Help?

I'm in what could only be described as the "ebb tide" of the three week chemo regimens. Cell counts are low, energy is low, appetite is low. Not a lot is getting done (by me). It's pretty much get up, shuffle down to the couch, lie there for a while, shuffle back up to bed, lie there for a while, rinse and repeat. Except without the rinse. Because taking a shower takes WAY too much energy.

In any case, I've really been anxious to write, but I just am reluctant to feel like the only thing I write about is this situation. It's hard to break out of the walls that it builds around you. Sometimes it feels like an iteration of CNN--24/7 with no break for anything normal. Not really my comfort zone.

I would like to point something out, though, and hope that I don't offend anyone in the process (and given that the readership of this is my family and a few friends, I'm certain I'm safe as none of you all do what I'm about to write about).

I'm fifty-one years old. I'm not really an embracer of confrontation. Never have been. But I have found my voice in the midst of this chaos. Interestingly, I found my voice because some people do not understand how not to use theirs appropriately.

People who see me daily, or at least a few times a week consistently, know that there is something going on. It's plainly evident. There was a period when I was wearing scarves on my head (sort of a giveaway of the whole chemo thing), I now wear a wig, I'm sure I look different and word gets around.

I do not mind people asking me how I'm doing. I really don't even mind people asking me what I have and what kind of treatment I'm going through.

I absolutely DO mind when people listen to my answers and then begin to tell me about someone they know who had "something similar". Two words:

Please don't.

First of all, I have no idea how your story is going to end. Perhaps your friend did great. Perhaps not. I've heard both versions. I actually don't want to hear either of them, because the anxiety it causes me to stand there and listen to your story, having no idea how it ends up, is debilitating. Please save your narrative for someone who is not currently undergoing treatment and frightened. Or maybe just don't actually tell it. Ever. It's not really yours to tell, to be honest.

I can only speak for myself. But I have found my voice, and when people begin to acquaint me with their story, I shut them down with something like, "No offense, but please don't tell me. I know everyone means well, but everyone's story is so unique and it's very difficult not to read into things, which does me no good."

And that's it. It may be a little abrupt. But it's necessary, for me. Because when you say, "She did great!" I have no idea if she's still doing great. When you say, "My friend's mom had that and she's still going strong," I do not know what treatment your friend's mom chose to undergo and whether I chose the wrong one.

So instead of offering an anecdote about someone who has had to go through this crazy madness, maybe instead just offer, "Hey, you look great and I'm thinking about you. I hope things go well, and let me know if there's anything I can do to help."

I will not shut that down. Ever.