jane

Thursday, July 20

Tomorrow I will finally be able to move back to my beloved family farmhouse in Geneseo.

SO. EXCITED. Finally, back where I belong.

I’m grateful that my mom handed it down to me when she passed years ago.

I’ve had other family members living there for the last 12 years, and I know there will be a lot of “deferred maintenance.” It was built in 1893.

But screw it! I am up for it!

Friday, July 21

I moved today. The piano alone was a big moving cost. I am out $1400 in total. Oh, well, making a new start, and all that. It should be worth it. Yay!

Hmm. The inside of the house is in much worse condition than I anticipated. So I’m just going to sit on the porch overlooking the fields. I have been waiting for this moment for years. Just sitting on the porch, admiring the view. It has always been my favorite place in the world.

Wait. Why can’t I see the fields? I guess the trees haven’t been trimmed. I had not known that regular tree trimming was a “thing.” The view is completely obliterated.

I have very few skills, and keeping an eye on my house when I am not in it, is apparently not one of my skills.

That’s OK. I knew there would be challenges! I’ll just get a ladder and cut all the branches off the trees!

But after about 5 minutes of effort, I realized that idea was pretty stupid.

And by 5 minutes of effort, I mean the time it took to remember where the ladder was, then realizing that I wasn’t strong enough to carry it from the barn to the house.

Screw the porch. For now.

Saturday, July 22

Today I scrubbed the refrigerator, taking out all the shelves and drawers. The previous tenant did not have much attention to cleanliness. The scrubbing took hours. Only to find that the bottom of the inside of the fridge had rusted out. I don’t know how to fix that.

That’s OK. I knew there would be challenges! Having no spatial reasoning, I was unable to put all the shelves and drawers back where they belonged. I’ve placed all my items throughout the rest of the fridge until I figure out what to do with the rusted part.

Screw the fridge. For now.

Sunday, July 23

I have a beloved kitchen table with a wood wainscoting top. I cleaned it for hours today. Only to find when I was done that the table itself has been ruined.

That’s OK. I knew there would be challenges! Determined to save what was originally a beautiful piece, I decided that I would use sandpaper. Only to end up ruining the tabletop even more. I guess there is something called a grain, and the one I used was too coarse–it took all the varnish off and then some.

I threw a tablecloth over it.

Screw the kitchen table. For now.

Monday, July 24

The entire house smells terrible. I’m not quite sure what is causing it.

That’s OK. I knew there would be challenges! I bought $100 worth of Glade plug-in air fresheners (not exaggerating, $100) and plugged them into outlets in nearly every room. I also opened the windows that would open, of which there were few. Later, I found the smell had slightly improved, but not by much. I cover my nose with my blanket when I sleep, to avoid being poisoned.

Screw the smell. For now.

Tuesday, July 25

There are two toilets in the house. The tenant had informed me that they had broken the toilet on the second floor. I didn’t even want to look at it. The first floor toilet would be enough for now. I had the hardware replaced a few days ago. But all of a sudden, today it leaked when flushed, through the bottom, because the seal had failed. There was a huge flood.

That’s OK. I knew there would be challenges! I turned the water off to the toilet, and threw blankets and towels at it to sop the water up. There is probably something called “caulking” involved and I don’t know how to do it.

From now on, I’ll just have to use the neighbor’s bathroom.

Screw the toilet. For now.

Wednesday, July 26

Today I found a dead mouse in the bathtub. Good thing I don’t take baths anymore, but it’s a shame, as it was a nice tub.

That’s OK. I knew there would be challenges! I’ve set traps all over the bathroom, kitchen, and surrounding rooms.

Screw the bathtub. For now.

Thursday, July 27

I have a washer and dryer someone gave me, but I can’t install them; the pipes are corroded.

That’s OK! I knew there would be challenges. I can do my laundry at my neighbor’s.

Screw the washer and dryer. For now.

August and September

Don’t ask. One thing after another. That’s OK. I guess I knew there would be challenges?

Sunday, October 1

A new low. I entered the kitchen to find water all over the hardwood floor. The kitchen ceiling had buckled, and it looked like a pipe must have broken above it.

That’s OK! I knew there would be challenges!

And…well…I’ll confess. At that point, I finally started to crack a bit. You can only take so much.

I didn’t know what to do. I felt very alone.

I concluded that in order to try to prevent the ceiling from crashing down into the kitchen, I would turn the water to the house completely off. Except, I didn’t know how. There was no obvious water turnoff place thingie.

This involved family members coming over to help me, trying to figure out how to turn the water off in a very old house where the water lines look like they haven’t been touched since the 1950s.

They finally figured it out. I was very grateful for the effort.

Screw the water for now. Whenever I need water, I guess I’ll just get it from the neighbor’s.

The most important thing for me to remember: Mom always told me that the only way out–is through. “Just put one foot in front of the other.” She was right. One day at a time. One problem at a time.

It’s OK. I knew there would be challenges. And this is only the beginning. But I can do this. I have survived 100% of the days leading up to this.

I AM NOT GIVING UP. YOU WILL NOT BREAK ME, OLD HOUSE.

Money Pit: Chapter II

“Life is what happens when you’re making other plans” – John Lennon

When Evan was 12, he started taking piano lessons from Katy at the local music store. Katy was a sweet young woman, and the three of us immediately clicked. She was a phenomenal teacher, and very patient with Evan, who was (is) quite a talker–and asks a lot of questions. “Why are some keys white and some black? Why does hitting the key make a sound? Why can’t we learn Evanescence songs instead of practicing chords?” Et al.

Evan’s practicing echoed throughout the entire house–unfortunately the piano resided in the living room, where our family spent most of our time–and I then was questioning my decision about these lessons.

I was very happy with Katy’s teaching style. Evan’s prowess grew by leaps and bounds. However, I hadn’t taken into account that our piano echoed throughout our house. It was one thing when I played it, and completely another when Evan did.

A Facebook post from that time:

Me: Evan, Why won’t you practice the piano?

Evan: Because every time I do, you and Kyle yell, “SHUT THE HELL UP!”

Ultimately, more than ten years later, Evan is not able to play Row, Row, Row Your Boat–but is able to play the left hand bass part to Evanescence’s “Call Me When You’re Sober.” I’ll take it.

But this isn’t about Evan. It’s about Katy.

Katy recently was in a car accident that has rendered her unable to walk. We are praying that this is only a temporary disability. Katy is a wonderful person who is loved by many. She is brave, optimistic, and a fighter.

So. It just so happened that at the time of the accident, I’d been feeling sorry for myself. A pity party of the most gargantuan proportions. Something had happened that had completely upended my plans for the future. The way I saw it, my hopes, dreams, and plans for the rest of my life had been crushed.

Then I heard about the terrible accident.

The music community, and the community at large, wrapped their arms around Katy, with much love, tributes, and benefit concerts. Many knew Katy personally—but many did not. It didn’t matter. At gigs, musicians and audience members proudly wore T-shirts emblazoned with “Katy Strong.” And Katy is, indeed, Strong.

This caused me to step back and consider: Are my problems really so bad? If this had happened to me, how would I handle it? Here I was focusing only on myself, when I should have been grateful for what I still had, and appreciating others.

I concluded that rather than focusing on my troubles, I needed to focus on my support network–my family and friends; focus on having a positive impact on others’ lives; and focus on ways to be resilient when facing life’s challenges. It’s really all on me. Katy’s positive outlook reminded me of that.

“Life is 10% what happens to you, and 90% how you react to it” — Charles Swindoll

Please send positive vibes to Katy, who is an inspiration to all. To contribute to Katy’s recovery, please click here. Love you, Katy!

At the store, I scan through the “Sympathy” greeting cards. None of the messages seem quite appropriate for my friend’s family.

Then I come across a misplaced card that said:

BACON FIXES EVERYTHING

I burst out laughing. My friend would have, too.

And couldn’t help but think: Does bacon fix everything? Is it that simple? Are we just taking Life all too seriously?

I struggle with my friend’s death. I search for answers.

Maybe I could have saved his life?

Opening up our last Facebook Messenger conversation, I read it over and over again, searching for clues.

I had given him some ideas on how to feel better…based on my own experience of feeling down at times…and my last words to him were, “Don’t worry. It’ll be OK.”

Now that this has happened…they seem such trivial words.

I spend an inordinate amount of time playing out scenarios in my head where I wrote him back and said something meaningful. Offered to have coffee with him.

Maybe I could have saved his life?

I scroll back through his Facebook page. I am taken aback to see that leading up to his death, he had a series of posts along the theme of “life is hopeless.” If I had only seen them.

Maybe I could have saved his life?

I see now that back then I had even “Liked” one of the memes he posted toward the end:

“Three stages of life:

1. Birth

2. What the f— is this?

3. Death”

In and of itself, I’d agreed with that post at the time, so I’d “Liked” it. But I hadn’t seen all the other downer posts that preceded it. If I had, I’d like to think that I would have sent him a private message asking if he was OK.

Maybe I could have saved his life?

I went to his memorial celebration. A photo slide show played on a big screen. His urn was front and center. I watched the photo montage with other attendees. The photos reminded me of so many good times together. He loved sports cars, and photos of his many speeding tickets were featured. It called to mind the time we went 140mph across “The Flats”…only to catch some gravel and do 360s in the road until we stalled out. All the louvres on the Camaro’s back window had flown off from the force. Ahh, good times.

The crowd eventually dispersed, and I was left alone with the photos—and the urn.

I placed my hand on the urn as I watched the photos play, over and over.

I thought to myself, what is my friend doing in this urn. How is this even a thing.

I kissed the urn, and said goodbye to my old friend.

And told him how sorry I was that I didn’t save his life.

Later, after speaking with his family, I learned that they had tried to get him medical help many times. They tried and tried, and nothing ever worked.

The thought that my help or my words would have prevented this, was perhaps ludicrous. Who was I to believe that I could save anyone’s life? For all I know, an attempted intervention on my part would have accelerated the outcome.

Sometimes, bacon…or loved ones…or friends…or anyone…can’t fix anything, I guess.

Clinical depression is a brain disorder. Sometimes treatment doesn’t work and you have to keep trying new meds, over and over.

So maybe I couldn’t have saved my friend. But of course that doesn’t mean we all shouldn’t try when we sense someone in need.

A number of sources indicate that nearly 25% of those who end their lives make the decision within 20 minutes of acting upon it…and another 25% decide within FIVE minutes.

September is National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. If you or someone you know is in an emergency, please call 988, or The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255), or call 911 immediately.

The official NFL football season starts tonight! Yay!

It makes me think back to my first game, when I was 23. The Bills. My friend Rich invited me. He’d won tickets at work.

“Jane, the game’s at 1pm, but we have to go extra early for the tailgate party,” he advised me. “Be ready to leave the house at 9am.”

I had never been to an NFL game. I’d heard of tailgate parties and was excited to be part of one. Buffalo was only an hour away…but hey, if I needed to be there early I would DO IT! SO PSYCHED!

“So we’ll need to buy some beer,” Rich added. “We’ll need to get hotdogs and hamburgers, too. I have a small charcoal grill we can cook on.”

I nodded, and went along with it. Told him I’d get the beer. Which would be much easier than getting all that other stuff.

But what was he talking about? Isn’t a tailgate party where fans follow each other superclose around the massive Orchard Park parking lot? You know, “tailgating” each other.

And I was confident I could tailgate with the best of them. Put any vehicle in front of me, and I will get so close to it you can barely slip a piece of paper between us.

What was all this about beer and food?

And I’m just now finding out now that we have to tailgate while we’re drunk, and also figure out how to grill our food while we are driving? How is that even a thing?

Well, I thought to myself…if that is the true meaning of a tailgate party, I’m sure glad we’re taking HIS car and not mine!

At a get-together recently, I met an older woman, Lillian.

Lillian and I had an immediate connection. In that she was too old to walk around and circulate, and I was too introverted to walk around and circulate. It worked out perfectly.

Lillian and I ended up talking for hours, as I waited for the event to be over because our connection was so strong.

She told me that when her boys were little, her husband had left her for his secretary, and left her with nothing. Lillian struggled raising the kids. But, she said, “Jesus was always there for us, and we always got by, thanks to Him.”

She added, “As a matter of fact, just this past month, I had bills to pay, and I didn’t have the money. And the money came to me, thanks to Jesus.”

What a comfort that must be. But I couldn’t help wondering, ’cause I’m a tad agnostic…Did Lillian pray to Jesus—but also mention to one of her kids that she didn’t have the money? But I dismissed the thought. Rather, I so wished I could have faith, like Lillian does.

“Yes, every single time in my life that I have ever needed any kind of support, including financial support, I asked Jesus to take the wheel,” Lillian said. “And He has helped me. Every. Single. Time.”

I leaned towards her and whispered, “Lillian, I wish I had known about this Take the Wheel strategy a long time ago. My parents didn’t raise me in a faith. I’ve spent 33-plus years sitting behind a desk, just to pay the bills, and even then, living check-to-check. If I had known Jesus was there for me, I would have pursued my writing career and simply asked Him for help along the way.”

Lillian laughed and said, “Yes, you should have.”

I wasn’t kidding.

And I don’t think she was, either.

When I turned 33, I recall thinking, “Wow, I never thought I’d live this long. That was the age Jesus died on the cross.” (I’m not religious, but the thought had occurred to me.)

And now, I have made it to 55-1/2 years old. I am 666 Months. Yes, the irony is not lost on me.

I’m mad about aging altogether. But this is one of the key things that concerns me about being 666 months old. And it’s not Satan. It’s:

I think I might still be able to get pregnant, but probably not.

Not that I WANT to get pregnant. I just want to be ABLE to get pregnant.

On a related note, this past Spring, I had to have a uterine polyp removed.

(My son: “Mom, you don’t need a gynecologist. You need an archaeologist.”)

The archaeologist got in there and rooted around, then showed me an ultrasound of my uterus.

I had a flashback and said, “Wow. The last time I saw this kind of ultrasound photo, there was a baby in there.”

He replied, “Well, not anymore. Here is your polyp.” (Points to it, I have no idea what he is pointing to)

He also noted, “You have one egg left.”

I said, “WHAT? Don’t women start out with like a few hundred thousand eggs? I figured I would have a few hundred beat-up ones left.”

He replied, “Yes, women start out with about 400,000 eggs, on average. And now you have one. Literally, I only see one. And it’s probably just the follicle, there isn’t even an egg in there.”

I replied, “YES, THERE IS AN EGG IN THERE. And I will nurture it, and love it, and if it comes out, I will make a diorama like in 3^rd grade, and it will be a shoebox with a regal throne, with my egg carefully placed on it, for all to admire.”

Doctor: _________________

So, in my March post-surgery appointment, I said to the surgeon, “So now that we’re all set with that…in a couple weeks, I turn 55 and I’m supposed to go off birth control pills. Is that still the plan?”

The young, somewhat shy surgeon replied—and I am not kidding: “By the looks of things in there, you can stop taking them now.”

So—I should only be missing 510 eggs. One for each month since I started getting periods when I was 14.

Where the heck did the other 399,490 eggs go?

My sister says, “Those other eggs were probably so decrepit, they just turned to dust.”

That observation is coming from someone who is EIGHT HUNDRED AND TWO months old.

She has uterine seniority.

So I guess I believe her.

I had to go to a wedding the other day.

I reluctantly squeezed into a hippie-type pastel paisley dress which fit my personality. Or at least fit the personality I wanted to have. Grace Slick, 1969. Would the 20somethings at the wedding recognize the look I was going for? No. But their Grandmas might.

More importantly, the dress complemented my “figure” by hanging loose in the tummy area. Twenty-five years after having my first child, I still looked a little pregnant.

Once the dress and the SPANX® were in place, I plomped myself down on the bed—and cried. I thought, I just can’t go. Given the current circumstances. I just can’t.

After hours of consideration, making myself late for the wedding—I went. I figured if I couldn’t bring myself to attend the ceremony, at least I would have made the attempt to drag myself there. If need be, I could just go inside the reception venue door, put the card in the appropriate box, and get back on the road for the two-hour drive back home.

By the time I arrived at the ceremony site, I was determined to get out of the car. Mostly because I’d already had to wear the dress for two hours. I don’t wear dresses. Ever. I had already suffered enough from just wearing the dress—psychologically, as well as physically.

But the dress was the least of my concerns at the time, really. How was I going to get through this wedding without losing my shit? Subtly clutching a huge ball of Kleenex® in my fist, I awkwardly stumbled to my seat, in unfamiliar heels.

In order to be mentally and emotionally prepared, as I sat in the pew, I reminded myself of the platitudes and ceremony that I should expect.

I was encouraged that the couple was in their early 30s and had been together more than ten years. They had not rushed into this massive commitment. Studies show that couples stay together the first three years largely based on infatuation, then settle in as companions. (Forgive the absence of citations in this blog post. If this was published in the New Yorker, I would have to cite that reference. But this is also an anecdotal observation.)

After sitting down for a while, I started feeling a bit uneasy. In order to detach myself from the situation at hand, and not embarrass my friends with any hysterics, I decided to concentrate on taking photos. I became so intent upon this endeavor that I likely did embarrass my friends by nearly bowling over the professional photographer several times in my quest to get the best shot. We were in the same place so often, that I ended up having to apologize to her several times. That doesn’t mean I moved to accommodate her. It just meant, Hey, I got here first, better move faster, b—-. (No worries, I provided the family my photographs at no cost.)

My friend, the groom’s mother, offered a beautiful reading. Which, unfortunately for me, was not the traditional Corinthians 13, which I was indeed emotionally prepared for. Corinthians 13 had been read at my civic wedding.

Corinthians 13, as I recall from my own wedding in 1995: “Love is kind, love is something else…time for the party. I love this person. Don’t you? We are going to have kids and have a great life together. DUH! We are head over heels in love. Of course, that will last forever!”

So what does “marriage” mean, anyway? I contemplated the vows.

“For richer or for poorer…” I’d certainly always understood that part. Throughout our marriage, my husband and I had financially struggled. That said, one of the best times of my life was when we were first married, before kids. We had a hard time paying the bills—but who cared? We had each other. We’d both grown up fairly poor, so money didn’t matter to either of us. We got by. Marriage was more about love than money. That’s what I thought, anyway. There were legal obligations, but they didn’t even enter my mind.

“In sickness and in health…” When I got married, I was 27, and my husband was considerably older. In fact, when we first moved in together, I used to check during the night to see if he was still breathing. (At 55 years old, looking back, I find that quite hilarious.)

“For better or for worse…” Hmm. This one’s a doozy. Had I really understood the “for better or for worse” part? Should I have stuck it out when it got worse? I’ll never know. But I am sorry for it. I gave up when it got worse. Does that mean I am a bad person? Intolerant? Picky? Unappreciative? Impatient? Probably most or all of the above.

Anyway…that is likely why I had been touched by the reading at this particular wedding. I had never heard it before. Almost thirty years since my own wedding day, I found that the reading was much more meaningful to me—a 55-year-old woman with a heck of a lot of perspective.

The following is what my friend read to her son and his wife. It is what I wish for, for all couples, married or not—and certainly for our sons:

May your marriage bring you all the exquisite excitements a marriage should bring, and may life grant you also patience, tolerance, and understanding.

May you always need one another—not so much to fill your emptiness as to help you to know your fullness.

The valley does not make the mountain less, but more;

So let it be with you, and you.

And the valley is more a valley because it has a mountain towering over it.

A mountain needs a valley to be complete;

May you need one another, but not out of weakness.

May you want one another, but not out of lack.

May you entice one another, but not compel one another.

May you embrace one another, but not out encircle one another.

May you succeed in all important ways with one another, and not fail in the little graces.

May you look for things to praise, often say, “I love you!” and take no notice of small faults.

If you have quarrels that push you apart, may both of you hope to have good sense enough to take the first step back.

May you enter into the mystery, which is the awareness of one another’s presence—no more physical than spiritual, warm and near when you are side by side, and warm and near when you are in separate rooms or even distant cities.

May you have happiness, and may you find it making one another happy.

(James Dillett Freeman)

***

Note: this was certainly a significant day of reflection, as it was then that I fully realized that I was bad at marriage…and also bad at wearing a dress. Yes, the focus of the wedding was the bride, but generally every chick gets a “You look great!” out of courtesy, even if they look like crap. No one at the wedding said my dress was cute. Either because I was so old that no dress would be cute on me (likely); and/or the dress wasn’t flattering (also likely); and/or no matter what the dress, I was clearly so uncomfortable I looked like the Hunchback of Notre Dame (perhaps most likely)—so I’m never wearing it again. Many of you on Facebook are asking for pictures of me in the dress. No, because 55-1/2.

Josh, you know that time we went to Karaoke and there were 20 people who’d signed up ahead of us? I joked, “We should play the ‘cancer card.’ I’ll go up there and tell the guy you have terminal cancer so we need to have you sing right now.”

You laughed and replied, “Well, funny you should say that. I literally have a ‘Cancer Card.'” You whipped out your Wilmot Cancer Center ID card for the karaoke dude, and proceeded to bring the house down with a Broadway-quality rendition of “Mack The Knife.”

At 30 years old, you turned into a tree. Do you want haunted forests? Because that’s how you get haunted forests, Josh.

Josh, you will never cease to exist–even if you hadn’t gone and turned yourself into a haunted tree. You know I love you, and I’ll see you on the other side. – Evil Stepmom

Death Is Nothing At All

Death is nothing at all.

It does not count.

I have only slipped away into the next room.

Nothing has happened.

Everything remains exactly as it was.

I am I, and you are you,

and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged.

Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.

Call me by the old familiar name.

Speak of me in the easy way which you always used.

Put no difference into your tone.

Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together.

Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.

Let my name be ever the household word that it always was.

Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it.

Life means all that it ever meant.

It is the same as it ever was.

There is absolute and unbroken continuity.

What is this death but a negligible accident?

Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?

I am but waiting for you, for an interval,

somewhere very near,

just round the corner.

All is well.

Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost.

One brief moment and all will be as it was before.

How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!

– Henry Scott Holland, 1910

[Photo: Josh and his little brother Kyle, 1999]

Whenever I think of Thanksgiving, I think of my Grandma Barber.

I never did like Grandma Barber.

We had to spend Thanksgivings with her in Buffalo. She was my mom’s mom. My siblings and I would have much preferred to spend the holiday with our other Grandma. She was cool. But Thanksgiving with Grandma Barber was an obligation, so every year, we were required to shuffle off to Buffalo.

The drive always seemed interminable. We’d pick Grandma up at her dreary apartment. It smelled dank and musty. The drapes were pulled so tightly, no light seeped in. It made me feel sad.

We’d rush her off to a restaurant with a Thanksgiving buffet, make awkward conversation, eat as quickly as possible, and dump her back off at home before heading back to Rochester, relieved we’d made it through another year.

Grandma Barber was not a particularly warm person. “Black Irish,” she had black hair and blue eyes. Grandma was small and thin, but big in personality. She was assertive, and cutting, and critical—nothing like a real Grandma was supposed to act like. My mother had acquired similar traits. They were both “tough broads.”

Mom reminded us that Grandma hadn’t had an easy life. Grandma’s husband—my grandfather—had left her in the midst of the Great Depression for a 16 year old schoolgirl he’d knocked up. My mother was only a toddler. In 1935, Grandma and Mom moved from Oklahoma to Rochester, NY to make a fresh start.

Divorced single mothers were rather unheard of at the time, and certainly not accepted in mainstream society. Grandma had to take a job as a waitress to make ends meet. She got a job at the then-illustrious Hotel Cadillac in downtown Rochester.

But Grandma couldn’t leave her little daughter alone, so was forced to give her up to foster care. A nice childless couple who owned a horse farm in the country took Mom in and raised her as their own. Grandma would visit her daughter every Sunday afternoon—undoubtedly feeling like the outsider—then go back downtown to work the dinner shift. It was surely a lonely life.

I pondered this backstory. Yes, that sounded awful. But who would give away their own kid? And only see her once a week? I didn’t understand, and I didn’t like Grandma much for not loving Mom enough to keep her.

Later, when Grandma’s health worsened, she moved from Buffalo to an apartment in Rochester to be closer to us. I was 12 years old. Mom told me that she and I would be visiting Grandma every Tuesday during the summer months. I wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of spending any time with this old, bitter woman. On top of that, it turned out to be more of a series of home health aide appointments than “visits”—me being the home health aide. Mom would dump me off and escape for hours, while I took care of Grandma.

I’d start out by helping Grandma take a bath. I would help her undress, then lower her fragile, wizened body carefully into the bathtub. The first time, I was worried that I would have to soap her up and touch her breasts. Thankfully, she was able to do that herself.  She was only skin and bones. I felt embarrassed for her, but she didn’t seem to mind. That might’ve been because she just appreciated being touched and cared for. Grandma had been quite a looker, and had prided herself in her appearance, I could tell from photographs. It was alarming for me to see for the first time, up close, how age takes its toll.

After her bath, I would set Grandma’s wiry hair in rollers, and dust and vacuum the apartment. Then it was time for us to settle in for The Young & The Restless. I had always been very uncomfortable around Grandma. We really didn’t have much to talk about. But we really enjoyed our favorite soap opera, gossiping about Victor and Nikki and Peter and what trouble they’d get up to next. After a while, I almost started looking forward to our weekly visits.

Grandma Barber died a couple years later, of heart failure. It was a very small funeral—Grandma didn’t have any friends. After the funeral, Mom and I worked on cleaning the apartment out. We found a number of large manila envelopes underneath the rug in the bedroom. We looked at each other quizzically, then tore the envelopes open. Out fell, all told, more than $100,000 in cash. Grandma had never trusted banks since the Depression.

With this unexpected gift from Grandma, Mom now had the resources she needed to turn her life around. She had been miserable living with my father. She found a beautiful old farm in the country, and spirited me away with her to try to give me a new start. As she settled into her new life, Mom was able to conquer her own demons, and live out her days in peace.

When you’re little, you don’t understand the big picture. Here I had thought all along that Grandma gave Mom up because she didn’t love her enough. But it was because she loved her too much. Grandma was a tough woman only because she had to be. She overcame tremendous hardships in order to give her daughter a better life. I am so grateful for Grandma, the sacrifices she made, and the example she set.

My two biggest regrets: that I wasn’t able to tell her this when she was alive, and that my name wasn’t on some of those manila envelopes under the rug.

[Photo: Grandma and Mom, 1937]

Well, I was trying to wait out the pandemic before posting another blog entry. But I think it’s now safe to say it’s not ending anytime real soon, so here goes.

It’s my grandma’s birthday! Esther Knickerbocker would have been 121 today.

Born in 1899, Grandma was a short, squat German woman who shook the pictures on the wall as she bustled through her big house. She and Grandpa had a farm, which was quickly becoming surrounded by sprawling suburban tract homes. My family lived across the street in a tiny house, which had been the “hired hand’s house” until Mom and Dad bought it.

Growing up, my whole world centered around “Grandma’s House.” Catching frogs in the pond, building hay bale forts, jumping in the leaves, eating all the homemade cookies in her pantry…it made for an idyllic childhood. And it truly would have been an idyllic childhood, if my own house hadn’t been in utter chaos.

At our house—well, the term “shit show” hadn’t yet been invented, but that’s what we were dealing with in the late 1970s. My brother had developed full-blown paranoid schizophrenia, my sister had run away with a truck driver, Mom was a raging alcoholic, and Dad was trying to keep it all quiet so no one would find out.

At home, I was pretty isolated. Due to my brother Paul being so ill, we couldn’t have visitors—and he didn’t like it when I went to my friends’ houses. So I looked forward to my one permitted weekly social occasion: Grandma’s “Friday Night Club”.

Every Friday, Grandma would entertain my cousin Alex and me for hours on end. This woman was pushing 80 at the time, but you’d never know it. So much energy! We’d play countless board games like Parcheesi, Chinese Checkers and Flinch; she’d teach us card games like Kings on the Corner and Euchre; then we’d retire to the living room to watch the Muppet Show, Donny and Marie, and Chico and the Man. I looked forward to every Friday like it was Christmas.

When I was in sixth grade, Grandma told me I could have a Halloween sleepover at her house. I was thrilled! However, when the party began, I was horrified to discover that Grandma—always the quintessential hostess—had arranged a number of “entertaining” activities for my preteen friends. Activities that may have been appealing in the 1910s, that is. With every round of “Row Row Row Your Boat,” I could feel my already shaky popularity sinking fast.

But despite Grandma’s attempted hijacking of the party—or perhaps because of it—all the girls had a blast. And for the first time in a long time, I felt relaxed. No looking over my shoulder, no bracing to get hit again, no waiting for the next bad thing to happen. For a while, I was a normal kid, in a normal house, with normal people.

Looking back now, I realize that I never—ever—felt safe at home. But I always felt safe at Grandma’s.

Oddly, Grandma never asked me what was going on at my house. I figured she must have known something was wrong. My brother ended up hiding in his room for four years as his insidious illness took away the person he used to be.

One day I came across Grandma’s diary. Most entries were about the weather or the gardening club, but then I saw that interspersed with the news of the day, she had often lamented, “Why won’t they do something about Paul?”

Later, when asked how I survived my childhood, I would always answer, Well, I don’t really know.

But I just realized something today. I survived because of Grandma.

Thank you, Grandma. And—Happy Birthday.

P.S. Grandma, it’s time for me to finally confess. Remember how you baked cookies every day but they kept mysteriously disappearing from the pantry? And you asked me if I knew what happened to them and I told you Alex ate them? It was me. It was always me. But I think you already knew that!