10/18/23

 Wednesday, October 18, 2023

In bed at 10, fractured sleep, bed & lzb, up att 5:20.  47°, high of 61°, partly/mostly cloudy day, windy, AQI=42, wind SSW at 9 mph, 4-16/25, 60% chance of rain, 0.15" next 24 hours.  Sunrise at 7:08, sunset at 6:04, 10+55.

Slowed down by news of Lyn's death.  News of Lyn's death should not have come as a surprise for anyone familiar with her affliction with Alzheimer's and then a serious debilitating stroke, and I suppose it wasn't, but while it hasn't 'knocked me for a loop,' it sure has slowed me down.  I suppose it comes from talking with Cam, with Ed & Lyn's daughter Suzy, and mostly with Ed himself.  Suzy told me that Ed  remarked to his 5 daughter's that, at 82, he had never lived alone  and perhaps it was hearing that that affected me the most, the thought of Ed living alone and, as Geri remined me, Ed with no one to take care of, as he had taken care of Lyn for so many years,  taken care of his children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren for so long, a true pater familias.  He took care of us at Notch House, taking charge of shopping and cooking.  He took care of me when the two of us lived at the Queen Anne Apartments on 29th Street, now an empty lot, when I was struggling with some serious depression and many dark thoughts, when the Navy sent me to see a shrink at the Great Lakes Naval Hospital to ensure I was fit to be commissioned.  Now he has joined my lengthening list of widowers, starting with my Dad, Grandpa Denny, Jimmy Cummings, Jimmy Aquavia, Jim Reck, Bob Boden, Frank DeGuire, Chuck Mentkowski, and triggering my dreaded 'Margaret, are you grieving' fear: It ís the blight man was born for, / It is Margaret you mourn for. 

I am looking at a shoe now and remembering how, after my mother's shocking, early death, every piece of her closthing, her shoes, her work uniform, everything intimately connected to her, attained sacredness, relic status, able to induce tears of realization and remorse.  Things said or done or things not done or said and I'm reminded of Our Town:  "Emily: Does anyone ever realize life wile they live it . . . every minute, every minute?  Stage Manager: No, saints and poets, maybe . . . they do some."

I volunteered, not unwisely I hope, to drive the 120 miles to southwest Chicago with Cam for the wake tomorrow.  I haven't driven that far in years.  So today I'm hoping to get a decent night's sleep tonight, hoping that my back and bladder and bowels aren't problemmatic tomorrow, that the absence of napping won't affect my driving, especially on the long drive back to Milwaukee at rush hour.  Shudder.

How much is too much?  Most of the world was horrified by the news of Hamas' depradations, desacrations, and depravities in southern Israel on October 7th.  Throughout the world, but especially in the Western world, there were expressions of sympathy and support for Israelis and Israel and recognition of Israel's right to defend itself.  Knowing the history of Israel's treatment of Palestinians, I wonder whether the statements of American officials been so supportive as to give a green light, and more, to Netanyahu's government to engage in mass murders of civilians in Gaza?  Defense Secretary Austin has said that America's support of Israel is "ironclad"  and ""So, make no mistake: The United States will make sure that Israel has what it needs to defend itself," essentially making the U.S. the partner not only the Israeli people, but of Israel's government, i.e., Natanyahu, Ben-Gvir, Smotrich, et al.   "In terms of conditions that we would place on the security assistance that we're providing to Israel, we have not placed any conditions on the provision of this equipment," Austin said at NATO headquarters in Brussels.  "This is a professional military, led by professional leadership, and we would hope and expect that they would do the right things in the prosecution of their campaign," he said.  As he traveled around the region over the past week, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, making a point to Israelis and the world that he is a Jew, signaled that the Biden administration would have a high tolerance for whatever resulted from Israel’s military response to the Hamas attacks.  And now President Biden has flown into Tel Aviv to appear with Netanyahu and publicly side with Netanyahu's version of who attacked the Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City.  I'm wondering if this is an example of the idea that anything worth doing is worth overdoing.  I believe there is much mutual hatred on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian abyss, that much blood has been shed and lives ruined by hostility and violence.  We know there are radical elements in Netanyahu's government and perhaps (I don't know) in the IDF.   Am I just a faint-hearted friend of Israel and the Jewish people?   Can we be permitted to wonder about religious and nationalistic extremists in Israel as freely as we wonder about such people in the U.S.?

Then and Now

Paradise Drive, rustic road.  I drove the balance due on our gutter and downspout replacement to C&K Services in Newburgh this afternoon and drove down to Paradise Drive on my very roundabout way home.  It's still beautiful, as is so much of the land in northern Ozaukee and Washington counties.  There are hardly any unharvested corn fields left; all the remains is stubble.  Some alfalfa or other crop is still in some fields but mostly the fields are brown and the surrounding trees yellow, gold, cerise, deep red, and green.  I drove through the Sugar Bush at Riveredge and down County O past Deerfield Drive.  So many beautiful farms and beautiful homes, so close to Milwaukee and never seen by most city dwellers.

More sad news.  Bill H. responded to my email about Lyn and told me Paula just got a positive report on a lung biopsy.

Treadmill.   20:44; 0.50, a struggle