In the End, She Stayed

I just finished listening to a fiction book, What Are You Going Through, by Sigrid Nunez (2020). It is literary fiction.

It's about a woman who stands by a friend with a terminal illness, some kind of never-identified cancer. The woman wants to commit suicide in order to have a beautiful death. Or a better death, at any rate.

She doesn't want to suffer.

I wish a good death upon everyone. You know, the kind where you fall asleep in a chair, your favorite TV show on or a book in your hand, and you just never wake up.

But we don't have those kinds of deaths. We have long lingering deaths that can take years, sometimes.

They are not fun. I watched that with my mother when she had pancreatic cancer. She never once, to my knowledge, thought of euthanasia as an out.

But I had a friend who was diagnosed with a terminal illness who did think of it.

We had a long talk about it one day over lunch, about six months after her diagnosis. She wasn't going for any long-term treatments, no organ transplants, she told me. And she wanted to go when she wanted to go.

She'd already contacted an organization in England that assisted people who were terminal and wanted to die, she said. She had the information in hand. This was how she wanted to go.

Her husband was against it, she said. But this was her plan. Someone would need to help her, she thought. She didn't know who that might be, but she hoped to convince him it was the right thing to do.

She did not ask me to help her. I did not volunteer, but I would have helped her. Even if it had meant I went to jail, I would have been there for her if that had been her wish. In the book, the narrator was there for her friend until the end.

My friend and I never discussed this subject again, and as her life dwindled down from a five-year span to months, I realized that she wasn't going to go through with it.

She was going to go the way she had said she didn't want to go, with hospice hovering about, and her loved ones telling her goodbye, her body growing thinner and weaker. One day she wrote me that the only way she could communicate with me was via text. Emails were too hard to write. She couldn't talk on the phone. 

She would die in her own home when life finally left her.

But it would not be by her own hand.

I was surprised, really, that she didn't go through with her initial plan. She was always so forthright, so quick to do what she wanted, and her control of herself and her thoughts were almost superhuman. 

This book brought all of that back to me, how my friend and I had discussed this in depth, in earnest. How I had thought until the last months of her life that she would, at some point, die by her own hand.

The will to live is a strong pull, stronger even, than the will to die a beautiful death. I remember watching my mother's fight to live. My friend's fight to live was no less devastating, but not quite so tortuous to me because she was, after all, a friend I loved, not my mother.

The book portrayed the narrator not as a hero, but as a kind, reflective woman who wanted what was best for her friend. But she also found the whole situation disturbing, and at the end, she wondered, what exactly is the meaning of life?

I wonder about this, too.

I see this valiant will to live in the longevity of many folks around me, people who are still going strong in their 90s. What have they found to live for? What keeps them going? The desire to see great grandchildren? The need to prove something?

What, actually, keeps me going? Love for my husband? My need to take care of him, to see to him, and ensure that he's happy, or at least as happy as he can be? 

I'm not really sure I know. Does anyone really know what they are living for, until those words from the doctor tell them their time is nearly gone?

Happiness Challenge - Day 11

 

Today I am happy that the grocery stores are stocked. I remember during the pandemic when the sight of shelves instead of products scared me, along with everyone else. So, I am happy today for a full grocery store, even if some things I used to purchase seem no longer to be available (at least not around here).

I am also happy that I had a long chat with my friend today. We hadn't talked for a day or so and I missed her. It is amazing how much a conversation with a similar soul can lift the spirits. So, thank goodness for friends!

I am also happy that I ate a little pizza, and it didn't upset my stomach. I don't think it's something I can eat often, but it's nice to see that perhaps a piece every now and then won't do me in.

***

Each day in August you are to post about something that makes *you* happy. Pretty simple. And, it doesn't even have to be every day if you don't want it to be. It's a great way to remind ourselves that there are positive things going on in our lives, our communities, and the world.

This meme comes from The Gal Herself.

Dreaming of Dead People

I spent the weekend dreaming of dead people. And then thinking about them since I'd brought them to my brain via my subconscious.

One was my dear friend Brenda, whom I have not written about much on my blog. She was an incredibly private person, and if I did mention her, I used B. and said only that we went to lunch or something. As a result, much of our relationship exists only in my mind now. We did not do things with other people, it mostly just the two of us running around together. I'm the one left to remember.

She isn't here now to ask me to take down a post, so I can write about her all I want. In my dream, she came to me and had written a bill she was going to present to Congress. It was up on a screen, with important points underlined and in blue (like a link), and she wanted my help getting the bill passed. I don't remember what the bill was about, but it was important.

This would have been unusual real life. She did not often ask for help. She occasionally sought my advice, but seldom my help. She was a martyr that way, constantly enduring whatever it was alone. She also talked to me as if I knew what she was talking about, when a lot of the time, I did not. She would mention people and expect me to know who they were, and frequently I was clueless because she'd never mentioned them before. We ran in foreign worlds, and they only crossed because we had formed a mutual bond over trying to protect the historic nature of our county seat. Then our mothers passed away the same year, and somehow that created this symbiotic relationship that lasted until she passed away in December 2021. At the end, we weren't as close as I would have liked. She had a progressive illness and refused to see me after Covid hit. I offered many times to visit, and she always refused. I probably should have "dropped in" anyway but I respected her boundaries.

Saturday, I roamed around the house doing chores and thinking about Brenda. I was trying to remember our relationship in the best of times, and how we lunched often and laughed together. She had a hearty, somewhat squeaky laugh and I could almost always get her to guffaw over something silly. The last time I saw her was at a lunch at Shakers; that was right before the pandemic hit. She looked thin and wan but she was still my pal. I "accidentally" snapped a picture of her on my iPhone that I did not erase. I'm sure if I posted a picture of her, she'd prefer one from before she became ill. But I will continue to respect her privacy and not do that.

Saturday night, I dreamed about Mr. Hopkins. He wanted me to come back to work for him. He was an older gentleman whom I had helped out with a book he was writing. He paid well, and I called him my "sugar daddy" because it was easy work that I enjoyed, as well as a nice bit of extra cash. He has also passed away.

Sunday, I thought about Mr. Hopkins, and how sometimes I enjoyed that work, and sometimes, when he was being rather cantankerous, I did not. He was quite old fashioned in his work habits (he was in his late 80s) and I had to take down his dictation by hand. I tried using a laptop but he didn't like the fact that there was something in between us besides a notebook. So, he would dictate, I would write it out in longhand (I have long forgotten how to do shorthand), and I also taped it so I wouldn't mess up anything. I have a hard time reading my own handwriting sometimes. His book was about the Pacific War during World War II, which was where he was supposed to serve. However, he had malaria and was sent back stateside and never served there. I think it haunted him, that he didn't play a bigger role in that war.

I edited the book as best I could; someone else had started the first half and I finished it up. I had grave concerns about the book because he took whole pages verbatim from the work of others - not primary sources, but secondary sources, books others have written. Because of this, there are multiple instances of names being spelled differently throughout the book. I pointed this out to him (both my concerns about plagiarism, which he waved off, and the different spellings), but he ignored my concerns. He said that his book publisher would fix any issues. He wasn't going to pay me to go back through it and try to change the names one way or the other, so I left it alone. What else could I do?

But his book publisher did not fix any issues that I could tell, and the book went out pretty much like I had edited it. And I had not edited it perfectly, and reviews reflect that, especially the part about the different spellings of names. I learned my lesson and after that when I came across any name in a book I edited (I have edited many), I wrote down every name of person or place, and then checked with the author if a different spelling came up. I let that go once, but never again.

It was strange for me to dream of these two people over the weekend. This was no anniversary weekend for either of them, that I am aware of. They were simply on my mind.

Bing AI created the image.

A Retirement

My friend's husband retires today.

Many people retire and go quietly into the night, but my friend's husband is a local celebrity. He was voted Roanoke's Sexiest Man in The Roanoker magazine for umpteen years way back in the early days of his career.

He was the weatherman for WDBJ7 up until five years ago, when he moved over to anchoring the 6 p.m. news.

His mustached face was on billboards all over the city for many years. Everyone knew Robin Reed. One might even say he has been the face of WDBJ7 for the last 40 years.

He has a calming, soothing presence on screen (and off), and he's always ready to help. He educated as he gave out the forecast, talking about various cloud formations and what they meant, or why this clipper system was coming down out of Canada to dump snow on us.

I remember watching him on November 5, 1985, when Roanoke suffered the worst flooding of its history. What I didn't know at the time - what no casual viewer knew at the time - was that his wife and small child were being evacuated as their home flooded, while he was busy alerting the rest of the area to the hazards befalling multitudes as 11 inches of rain dumped itself on us.

My husband and I tuned in nightly to watch the weather - to watch Robin Reed. My husband cursed him sometimes when the forecast was off - being a farmer means one needs to know for certain if it will rain - but my man was not actually cursing the weather guy, just the forecast.

Our favorite missed forecast was the "dusting" of 1993, I think it was, when instead of the predicted light March snow we had about 28 inches of the white stuff and no electricity for 10 days. It's so well-remembered that on last night's broadcast, the current head of the weather department teased him about it.

Little did I know that one day I would become friends with his wife, and that we would spend countless hours on the phone. The fact that I was a lower-level colleague of sorts helped. I understood the issues that come with journalism and with being in the public eye. Fortunately for me, hiding behind a byline in a newspaper does not make one a celebrity. I may have been in 20,000 people's homes at various times, but I wasn't on their television set. People might know my name, but they didn't know my face.

Still, I know the pressure wanting to get the story right, of trying to tell the truth in the face of falsehoods, of hoping not to mess it up too badly.

He and his wife, Teresa, are lovely people. When my husband caught his hand in the hay baler in 2014, it was Teresa who held me up, sat with me through one of the surgeries, and made sure I ate something while I was fretting over my guy. She is my closest friend, and while I honestly don't know her husband as well because he's always been at work, I know he's a gentleman, a very nice fellow, and I consider him a friend.

He couldn't have done what he did without his wife's superior and unyielding support. All good men know that no one does it alone.

I will miss his soothing presence on the TV screen, and his calm voice alerting us to dangers, seen and unseen. The TV station has, rightfully so, made a big deal of his retirement, showing excerpts from old shows, interviews with colleagues who worked closely with him, even interviews with his family and how it was for his two boys to grow up with a locally famous dad. Some of the interviews have brought me to tears.

They have been retrospectives but also hopeful. It gives me hope to see that the younger journalists are honoring this older fellow who is walking out of their lives, but on his own terms and with, I feel sure, an invitation to call him anytime they need to talk. The younger generation has done a good job of ensuring that we, the viewing public, understand that not only does Mr. Reed deserve to be honored for his longevity in the business, but also for his legacy. For he leaves, obviously, a long trail of love and devotion, and it has been heartwarming to see these moving tributes to this man.

Tonight, he will light the city's Christmas tree, and leave from there for home. It will be his last time on TV for WDBJ7 as a regular newsperson, but not his last work. He is also a professor at Virginia Tech, and he will continue to teach the next generation of journalists and newscasters. He will show them caring and love.

I can't think of a better way to go out of a job, and I can't think of a better second act. How honored I am to know this man, and how grateful I am for the friendship he and his wife have shown to my husband and me.

You can read a bit more about Mr. Reed and hear a podcast on his final thoughts about his career at this link. Enjoy.

My Friend Has Gone

Last night I received word that my old friend, someone I've known and loved for decades, passed away.

My regular readers may be surprised by this relationship, for I seldom wrote about it. My friend, whom I called "B." generally if I did happen to mention her, was the most private person I ever met, and out of respect for her, I did not write about our friendship often.

I may have occasionally mentioned lunch, but I never wrote about our relationship. 

But now my friend B. has moved on and she knows what lies beyond. She has answered the unanswerable question, one we discussed in detail many, many times.

She had been ill for a long time. I remember her anger when she told me she'd been diagnosed with a terminal illness, though she had some time (5 years) until death. Her anger was palatable over the telephone, like a demon racing through the wires to end at my heart. She seldom was angry with me, and I knew she wasn't angry with me then. She was angry at the situation, and at the world. I was simply a part of it. She was about the age I am now when she learned of her diagnosis, that she had the same disease that had killed her mother, her aunts, an uncle. I know she wondered if she'd passed it on to her child.

She had a wickedly delightful sense of humor. Few people get my sarcastic and sardonic wit (and those who do are friends for life), but she caught every nuance in the silly and inane things I'd say during our long lunches together. I always made her laugh. She made me laugh, too.

For years, we had lunch once or twice a week. I was working for the paper, she worked for an accountant. We both loved books, but she preferred mysteries to fantasy - she never read a fantasy, I suppose - although to me mysteries are fantasies and I enjoy them as well. We both cheered on Stephanie Plum in her adventures, wishing she'd settle on the very romantic Ranger over the more boyish guy-next-door Morelli. She stayed ahead of me in the series, usually, because the books would come out while I was in the midst of some 1200-page fantasy, and she devoured the stories of Stephanie Plum as soon as the library made them available. I introduced her to Stuart Woods and his stories of Stone Barrington and Hollie Barker, and she soon read all of those. She also liked Kinsey Milhone in Sue Grafton's books, though not as well as Janet Evanovich's books. She read other mystery series that I did not (especially ones with recipes).

For a short time, we both tried to read Elizabeth Peters books and neither of us cared for them. It became a running joke for a bit - if there was something we didn't like, we compared it to an Elizabeth Peters book. For us, that meant it was really bad.

We met over 30 years ago. We both worked part-time at the Botetourt County History Museum as it was trying to rebuild itself. I only worked on weekends. We were cataloging items, and we were doing it by hand. I wanted to do it on a computer and so did B., but the person in charge at the time was a bit behind the times. Finally, I confronted said person, and I lost the job in the process. B., who was about as nonconfrontational as my husband, continued doing as she was told.

Then we served together on the Board of Historic Fincastle, Inc. (HFI), working to help preserve and protect the tiny town of Fincastle and its historic properties. The town is like a miniature Williamsburg, really, with great potential as yet still unrealized. I served as president of HFI and B. followed immediately after me.

And then our mothers died the same year. B.'s passed in April from the same disease that she would ultimately have, and my mother died of cancer in August. The loss of our mothers that same year created a firm and yet seldom discussed bond. Motherless daughters, but not alone in our loss because we had one another. The following year, for my birthday, B. gave me a rose bush to plant. It bloomed orange, the color my mother said she'd "send" to me from beyond, to prove there was a beyond.

I did not consider it a coincidence.

For some time - a decade, at least - we were the best of friends, yet most people did not know it. We didn't keep it a secret, we just ran in different circles that seldom overlapped.

As friendships do, ours waned off and on, though we were always in touch. She and her husband built a new home, and she became preoccupied with that endeavor. They loved to travel and so she was away a lot, either exploring the United States - she visited every single state, I think, and the "four corners" of the country - or off on craft shows with her artistic husband. 

After I became disabled and less able to move about (and more reclusive as a result), she continued on with her life while I tried to rebuild mine. She was supportive when I whined, but after her diagnosis of pulmonary fibrosis, I whined less. A lifetime of chronic pain versus a shortened life span? What kind of comparison can one make of that, after all?

We still had lunch occasionally, but with her travels and my health, not often. But it didn't matter how frequently we saw one another, because we had one of those relationships that began again as soon as we were back together. And we emailed. We emailed right up until last month, when she said she needed to switch to text because she could only manage short comments. And then we texted. The last thing I sent her were pictures from out my front door of a beautiful blue sky, one of the clearest days we'd had in a long time. I told her I wanted to share the view with her.

She never responded back, though the text is marked, Read.

I will miss her.

Unreliable Narrator

I recently had a long conversation with someone whom I consider to be an "unreliable narrator." She's never quite truthful but never lying, either, and she twists and turns in the wind like a blown sheet that was ripped from a clothesline and trapped in a tree.

I never know what to believe when we talk.

Mostly, I listen. I answer her questions honestly but sometimes they are strange questions. Sometimes I simply laugh at (with?) her. 

Having an unreliable narrator in a book means that the story, if told from that person's point of view, is never quite what it seems. The narrator may be the killer, but is flat-out lying. Notable books with unreliable narrators include Gone Girl, The Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby, and Wuthering Heights. Note that these are classics.

Personally, I do not like unreliable narrators, especially if the only reason they are unreliable is just because. Things need to ultimately make sense in the end, and frequently with unreliable narrators, they do not. At least, not to me.

So what does one do with a friend who is an unreliable narrator? Listen. Joke. Take everything said with a grain of salt - and watch what one says in return, because there's a little bit of a trust issue there, when one is dealing with an unreliable narrator.

An unreliable narrator as a book character is not trustworthy. The narrator is biased, makes mistakes, and lies. This can be from ignorance of self-interest, but still, the book is off balance because of this unreliable narrator. The reader has to work out the truth and try to understand why the unreliable narrator tells the story in a circular (at best) manner. Some people find pleasure in this process as they read.

I do not.

It's different if the narrator is a child, or if it's from a misperception or misunderstanding, and things eventually work themselves out. But being intentionally mislead by the narrator is not something I enjoy.

Having an unreliable narrator as a friend is a different thing for me. I don't dislike this person at all, I like her very much.

Trust is another matter altogether, though.

A Great Talent

I have a friend (who shall remain nameless because I suspect she'd prefer it that way) who drew a caricature for me of my physical therapist. I gave it to my PT yesterday, my next-the-last session before my insurance makes me go to a "home program" that neither of us thinks I am ready for.

 

She loved it, I think.

My PT and I have a lot in common - we are both big Lord of the Rings fans, and enjoy fantasy. We like to read and we have had lots of interesting conversation over the last 75 or so visits. She has been very good to me and incredibly helpful during this most trying time of pain and frustration. She has done her best to get me back on my feet and I think that, had she not helped me, I would probably be unable to make it through the grocery store. I could not do that when we started, but now I can and occasionally I can even walk for 20 minutes without doubling over in pain. So, progress.

Unfortunately, we hit a plateau this winter after I had a severe upper respiratory infection, and things slowed. I stopped improving fast enough for the insurance company.

Wish me luck as I begin my healing adventure on my own. My main goal is not to go backwards, and forward progress would be most welcome. We can only see what happens from here on out.

A Friend Comes Through

Back in May, I had a hankering for some grape Nehi soda.

I don't know why, really. I don't recall drinking much of this as a child. Perhaps I was channeling Radar O'Reilly (from MASH).

At any rate, I hunted around Roanoke for the soda and could not find it. The best I could do was something called NuGrape at Cracker Barrel Old Country Store.

I asked about it on Facebook. A friend checked for me but couldn't locate it, either. Someone sent me a link for purchasing it online.

The craving passed and I forgot about it.

I met one of my dearest friends for lunch Saturday, and she climbed out of her vehicle with a big box in hand. She asked me to open my trunk, which I did, and she placed the box inside.

"This is part of your birthday present," she explained. She had mentioned when we celebrated my birthday that she'd ordered me something that didn't come in, but I had thought no more about it.

I looked in the box and there they were - six bottles of grape NeHi soda. The old-fashioned kind like we used to have when we were kids.

Don't I have the greatest friends?

Thursday Thirteen

On Monday, I had one of the best days I have had in quite some time. I had lunch with my former high school math teacher, Tina Weiner. We met at Hollywood's, a local restaurant near Hollins University, and we had a blast talking and catching up. While we were eating, one of my Hollins professors, Jeanne Larsen, came in, and she invited me to stop by her office after lunch for a chat, which I did. Since I am a new adjunct instructor at the local community college, I had a new common interest I could discuss with both of these friends that we'd not really talked about before. Along with a zillion other things, of course.

So here are 13 things that I discussed with these two wonderful people.

1. The state of teaching today, including lack of funding, lack of respect, and the changing attitudes of the student body. How do you teach in the age of cellphones?

2. Books, books, books. What to read, what not to read. How do I read some of the things I do, and what books do we have in common?

3. Publishing, particularly self-publishing versus traditional publishing. Where is the industry going? What does it to do to your reputation if you self-publish? Will traditional publishers snub you for that action? Where do e-books fit in?

4. Algebra I, Algebra II, and Trig. Thankfully Tina and I only briefly touched on these subjects and more in the way of remembering I had Tina for those classes. I can't remember much of any of that kind of math, X+Y= 2+(Z-17). Yikes. That looks scary just to make up. And I can't solve it even though I just made it up!

5. Trying to find an agent. What is a girl to do when the agents won't write back? Do you send out a query to 10 agents at a time? What if some agent wants an exclusive "review"? How long do you give her before you decide she doesn't want you? It's a tough world out there in the publishing biz.

6. What to write. What does a writer write when the writer can't write the words. (How much wood does a woodchuck chuck ...) The struggle to find a topic, theme, genre. The process of writing, how to go about it.

7. Friends. Old friends and new friends, good friends who stick by you.

8. Performance Art. As in, the effort it takes to stand up in front of a room of people and be the object of their eyes, also called the instructor. It takes a lot of effort! Teachers are way underpaid. Go be one for a semester if you don't believe me.

9. Turning 50. Yikes. This is my big birthday year. It is bothering the hell out of me. I don't want to be that old. I don't like the zero at the end. I haven't done everything yet. I can't be AARP eligible! I'm not ready to be an old crone. How to celebrate that feat (the age, not the crone thing). Tina told me to throw myself a party.

10. Writing to art. Jeanne's last book of poetry, Why We Make Gardens, was written partly in response to the artwork of Hollins artist Jan Knipe, and partly in response to walks through the gardens of famous writers.

11. Vitamin D and how necessary it is to the body. Not only does it build bones, but it helps mood, too! Core exercises, how important it is to stay healthy in order to be creative. Not to mention hit that big 5-0 number.

12. Journaling as a creative exercise, using journaling to unblock yourself, using journaling for self-expression and life building. That's part of the course I am teaching at the college. How to incorporate it as a daily routine.

13. The weather. Of course we talked about the weather, that's the ice breaker. It's been cold, it's been warm, we're so glad it's spring! Whatever would we talk about if we didn't get to start with the weather?


Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 286th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.   

Blast from the Past

Yesterday I had the honor and privilege of running into an old high school teacher. Her name is Tina, and she taught me Algebra 1, Algebra 2, and Trig. I was an A student and yes, teacher's pet.

She was a hard teacher, with the reputation to match it. I loved her and thought she was the best math teacher ever.

We have kept in touch all of these years, sending annual Christmas cards. In the last card, I noted that I wrote this blog, and Tina told me yesterday that she'd been reading it every day!

I was so surprised. What a wonderful compliment. She also told me to get off my butt and write my book. I wonder if that will be the nudge I need?

Below is a column I wrote in 2009 for The Fincastle Herald about my favorite teacher. I never put it on my blog but I will do so today, except I will leave out last names, since I don't want to post them on the Internet.

******

 

Students who attended Lord Botetourt from 1972 to 1984 might remember Tina F., one of the math teachers. I studied under her for three years, taking Algebra and Trigonometry.

Mrs. F. was either the dragon lady or one of the best teachers ever, depending upon your point of view.

I know quite a few students tend to recall her as the former while I always have thought of her as the latter.

She was a strict teacher and her subject matter was difficult. She expected and demanded the very best from her students. If you didn’t give it, she would know why. If you were capable of “A” work then you’d better darn well get that grade.

She was also very interested in her students and spent mornings, lunch and time after school helping me and others to learn the intricacies of X+Y-Z=3 or other unintelligible equations.

Mrs. F. had a strong voice and an even stronger personality. You knew when she was in the room. You didn’t dare misbehave for her wrath was real and fearsome.

I thought she was wonderful.

I was a teacher’s pet, I admit. I did my homework, I studied and I made good grades. Other kids called me names like “computer head” (or brainiac, as a cousin recently reminded me when I thoroughly trounced her in a word game on Facebook).

Teachers praised my work ethic and I lapped it up. Mrs. F. was judicious with her words and thus praise from her meant a great deal. I had earned it.

I turned to her for guidance for important and upsetting national events, like the murder of John Lennon and the shooting of President Ronald Reagan. I also went to her with personal issues, like a dating.

“You are one of the few that has spent 3 years with me and is still alive!” she wrote in my senior album.

She even took me out for a steak dinner to celebrate my graduation when the time came. She was the least surprised of all of my teachers when I chose not to go straight to college but instead decided to work a year. She didn’t blink when just a few months later I let her know I was getting married.

She knew me well.

As for Mrs. F., she remarried, becoming Tina W. It took me a long time to get used to her new name.

We stayed in touch with Christmas cards. She left LB to go to Roanoke City Schools, where she eventually worked her way up to assistant principle at Lucy Addision.

Her father for a time was head of the Roanoke City Fire Department where my husband worked. It was another bond between my old teacher and me. When he passed away in 1995 I went with my spouse to the funeral.

Tina told me later that when she’d given her father’s eulogy, she had been pleased to look out at a sea of firemen in uniform and see me amongst them, a favorite student from the past honoring her loss.

This December Tina sent me her cell phone number with my Christmas card. “I’m retired now. Let’s have lunch,” she wrote.

We met recently at Shakers for a reunion. She looked exactly like she did in high school, with her hair cut short and very few wrinkles. She pulled in the parking lot driving a hot little two-seater and I recalled she drove something similar when she taught at LB.

I could scarcely believe it had been over 25 years since I was her student. I can hardly find the words to say how grateful I am for her interest in me, then and now.

She has never been a dragon lady to me.

 

Through the Glass

"I got a buck today!"

My friend Brenda called me moments ago to tell me she'd bagged a buck - sort of. My first thought was she'd hit one with her car, but she said that wasn't it.

Turns out a little button buck ran through one of the buildings she owns and rents out in downtown Roanoke. The building is located on Brambleton near Towers Shopping Center.

This is the kind of story newspapers and TV stations love, but according to my friend nary a journalist was in sight as a steady stream of police and animal control officers waded into the fray in an effort to calm the frightened animal.

It took three tranquilizer darts to put the deer down, Brenda said.

On November 7, a similar incident took place on Campbell Avenue. Here's a report on it from the newspaper.

An incredulous as this sounds, it is an expensive incident for the building owners when these things happen. Replacing windows is not a small thing, and there is likely blood and animal feces and urine to clear up, too. And the building owners don't even get to eat the meat!

This is the time of year when the bucks are in rut - they've only one thing on their minds and it isn't watching where they are going. They are so busy chasing does and their hormones are so out of control its a wonder there aren't more reports of this kind of thing.

This is what happens when humans and animals don't learn to live well together. The deer population is a bit high because we have removed their natural predators, most notably wolves. There aren't too many of those running around the Roanoke Valley.

That leaves humans as the only natural predator for the deer, and unless they are hunted then the herd numbers grow.

Animal lovers think this is a good thing, but a herd that is too large ends up being a poor herd. The deer inbreed and the animal population ends up with pie bald or albino deer. Or they don't have enough to eat and they become sick from malnutrition. I don't think it is any better to watch a deer starve than it is to kill it and eat it, myself.

I do not hunt and I don't eat the deer meat my husband brings home but I see the need for the activity.

Poor Brenda, I feel bad for her. This was a bit of bad luck that no one deserves!

The Joy of Friends

I don't often write about my friends, mostly because I try to respect everyone's privacy. But today I think I will talk about some of these lovely women!

Yesterday I lunched with my friend B., who told me about her plans for a new home.

Building is so much fun! Imagine the great time she'll have packing away the house she's lived in for the last 22 years. She'll find stuff she won't remember owning.

Last week The Blue Ridge Gal came out for a visit and we walked the farm. I took her out across the hill and we saw a turkey fly off as we disturbed her. Diane saw the shadow of a deer as it slipped from the field into the woods.

And of course there were cows and cow piles ("Don't cut your foot!" I warned her, which made her laugh).

We took lots of pictures of the farm; it was a good clear day, one of the few we've had this month. Mostly this May it has rained.

Diane is a new friend and I enjoyed spending time with her. Blogging buddies are great!

My friend Jules has been very helpful with my career adventures. She's given me lots of advice and loaned me books on marketing, interviewing, etc. etc. Most importantly she has helped me with my resume, which has been a blessing because I haven't had to have a resume in a very long time.

Jules is a web site guru and she recently expanded into retail sales with indulgetea.com. Check out her store or if you want to learn more about tea, visit learn-about-tea.com.

Yesterday afternoon I spent a few minutes with Cathy, a friend and former coworker, when I ran into her at the library. It was a good gossip session, and I was glad to have some time to just shoot the breeze.

Two weeks ago, my friend Leslie and I went to a book fair, you might remember. We had a wonderful time.

Other ladies who have been supportive of me this past month include Inga, Lisa, Dreama, Anna and Nicole. My aunt, Carolyn, has also been good about listening to me knock ideas around this month.

I am sure I am probably leaving someone out but it is not intentional!

I am so blessed to have these and other ladies in my life. I can't tell you how grateful I am that these gals are around!

Daytrip

Yesterday my friend Leslie and I took a trip to the Green Valley Book Fair.

This is the second year in a row we've gone.

I forgot to take my camera, so that's last year's photo.

Green Valley is at Exit 240 on Interstate 81; it's about 90 miles to the north.

We left home around 8:25 a.m. and arrived at the book fair just before 10 a.m.

I had hoped to find some Tamara Pierce books but did not. I did find the second book in Clare Dunkle's Hollow Hills series, though.

I like to read young adult books as well as adult books. The YA books read quickly and are great for rainy Sunday afternoons. They go quickly, generally. Frankly, a lot of young adult books could be adult books. The only thing I find as a common denominator in young adult books is the youthfulness of the hero or heroine.

Here is what I brought home, along with the steeply discounted prices:

Creativity Notebook & Card Set ($6.50) which I did not purchase myself but Leslie bought and handed to me as a gift for driving because she saw me looking at it longingly but I put it down.

Wildwood Dancing, by Juliet Marillier ($3.50)

Close Kin, by Clare B. Dunkle ($2.50)

The Shakespeare Stealer, by Gary Blackwood ($2.25)

The Writer's Idea Book, by Jack Heffron ($3.50)

Tuck Everlasting, by Natalie Babbitt ($0.49)

Brave Enemies, by Robert Morgan ($3.50)

Finding Water, The Art of Perseverance, by Julia Cameron ($6.50).

I set myself a limit of $25 since I recently lost my main client and need to be thrifty, and I stuck with that. I could have brought home a lot more books, though.

Many of these will be donated to the library when I finish with them. I will probably keep the books related to writing/creativity. The library has long been the beneficiary of my book buying habits.

We wrapped up our tour of the Book Fair by lunch time, and headed to Dayton. This small town is just up the road a bit and has a wonderful Farmer's Market. We had lunch there, a plate of roasted vegetables and green beans with ham that was very good.

We shopped there for an hour and I picked up two quarts of McCutcheon's Apple Butter, which is my husband's favorite, and some chocolate.

Leslie bought a lot of stuff, including many Christmas presents, she said. I don't have any place much to store a significant amount of early Christmas presents at the moment.

Then we moved on the Shenandoah Heritage Market. I made no purchases here but Leslie bought rhubarb jelly and cherry jam.

During our drive up and back, we had lots of discussion about the changes in my life and what I should do now that I am not writing nearly full time for the local paper. I found this very helpful and I am grateful to Leslie for listening.

We arrived back home around 3 p.m., having made a rather quick day of it, really.

And last night in stormed and it rained about 1.5 inches in just about an hour!

In Memory

 

This weekend, a "cyber" friend killed herself. I have been stunned by this event, even though I did not know this woman "in real life." She called herself "Xalaska"; her real name was Susan.

I met her through the part of the Internet called the "Xenaverse," which is to say, we both shared a love of the TV show, Xena: Warrior Princess. I knew of her long before we shared private conversations and a telephone call. She was everywhere, it seemed, involved and chatty and glad to be talking to you.

But things fell apart and she took her own life. She was a physician by trade, and loved her work in a small town in Alaska. She wrote eloquently of the hardships, of trying to save lives and make existence better for others. That she could not do that for herself is staggering to me.

None of us who corresponded with her could what was happening. She had terrible physical pain from a gastric bypass surgery gone awry, for one thing. She also owed the government thousands for her education.

That would be enough to drive anyone to the brink. I am sorry, though, that she couldn't reach out and find help from someone, anyone. Especially since so many online knew her and cared about her. An online memorial to her is here.

I am angry at a medical establishment that condones such surgeries. I do not know if Susan's surgery was necessary, but I think it must have hastened her death. I am sure there are such surgeries that are life or death, but it seems to me most are aimed at women who are overweight and unable to live up to society's ideals of "slim" and "beautiful." How dare a doctor utter the Hippocratic Oath and then mutilate in the name of beauty?

I am also angry at a wealthy nation that has an educational system that puts its smartest and wisest in the position of being in intolerable debt. Why can't we put people through school without this burden? Why must our physicians be forced to shuttle patients through in rapid order so they can meet their educational obligations? What is it worth to the public to educate and train good doctors who will then stay alive and practice good medicine?

I fear this country has some wrong-headed perogatives. And every single day, someone else falls to the axe, a pawn in a great game that only a few understand.