3/9/24

 Saturday, March 9, 2024

In bed at 9, awake and up at 3.  34°, high of 40°, with a sunny, windy day ahead.  The wind is NNW at 13, 11-17/26.  We had 0.65" of rain in the last 24 hours.  Sunrise is at 6:13 at 95°E, sunset at 5:51 at 265°W, 11+38.  Solar noon at 12:01 p.m., altitude 43°

Treadmill; pain.  I did 2 sets of the PT stretches yesterday and had fairly good ROM vertically, not so much horizontally.  The shoulder made sleeping more difficult than the night before and is steadily painful this morning.  I took 2 8-hur Tylenol at around 3:30.

I'm grateful to be alive though I am feeling sad and a bit stunned.  My niece Chrissy texted me last night at 8:59: "Dad passed."  No other information.  Nephew Mike texted me at 9:02: "Hello.  Dad passed away this evening.  I know he is much happier to be back with my Mom in Heaven."  I wasn't aware of either message until I took my phone off its charging cable at 3:30.  Mike posted this on FaceBook:

Dad, you are the man I hope to make the most proud. 

You taught me how to be a gentleman. You taught me how to love fully, with my whole heart. You taught me everything I know about being a man. I know I mastered some of your lessons, and some I have tried and failed to get right yet. But I promise I will keep trying toget them right.

Just know I have finally found a woman that I love the way you love and loved Mom. There was never a time where you could question how much he loved His Kitty. And now he is up in Heaven with her. Truly in his Heaven, taking care of her again. 

If you knew him, you know he was the king of inappropriate humor, you knew he was willing to always do anything and everything for those he loved, he would be there for you at a moments notice. He was never afraid to say I love you. 

His life wasn't always easy. As a child he grew up in a broken home, that wasn't as loving or supportive as it should have been. He spent his teens in a Chicago street gang called the Shy City Scribes. He was a trouble maker, a law breaker and pretty much a runaway, and then he met my Mom. He always said if it wasn't for her he would have died young and stupid.

He went in to the army, did his service to our country, came out and went to technical school, got a job with Xerox, where he stayed for his entire career and he married his love, my Mom.

They started their life together, wanting a family but, they were told they wouldn't be able to have children. They sought to adopt a child and that is were I came in. They were in the process of finalizing the adoption when my Mom found out she was pregnant with the miracle child, my sister, Chrissi. And their dream of having family came true. 

Dad, you were the best Dad ever. Maybe I prejudice here, but that's how I feel. Growing up you sacrificed, you did all you could for us and then some. You were a roadie for me many times, you watched my metal bands play shows, even though you loved country music. You were always there when I needed you. 

I love you Dad. I hope I will make you proud when we met again. Rest in Peace and be with your Angel. Give Mon a hug for us.

I replied:

Mikey, as I've often said, you are a gifted writer but I am so sad to read these words. You are sure right about your Dad's childhood as an abused and neglected child. He often told me of how he was on a bad path until he met your wonderful Mom. I remember talking with her about how he had broken the cycle of abuse and neglect that he endured as a child with his life as a steady, loving, reliable provider for his family and a good citizen. His life was an acheivement to be proud of. He loved your Mom with his entire heart and soul, just as she loved him. My heart's aching as I think of both of them. For some reason, what I am remembering most vividly of your Dad now is the day I was visiting them in Glendale when your Dad found a baby sparrow that had fallen out of its nest. He picked it up and protected that bird and then he drove that little bird (and me) for miles out into the desert in the middle of nowhere where there was a wildlife rehab facility where he entrusted that little bird. And you know the story of his keeping watch over an endangered baby burro all night. Your Dad used to go on elk hunting trips with his beloved Bucky, up into the mountains but he couldn't get himself to shoot an elk. Several years ago, your cousin Sarah and I did a driving tour of national parks and one day as we were driving we spotted on a ridge a magnificent bull elk that took our breath away and Sarah said to me "Yep, that's why Jim can't shoot them." There is a very warm place in my heart for your Dad, and of course for your Mom. All our lives were enriched by both of them and are diminished by their passing. I'm feeling sad today but glad that my life has been enriched by your Mom and your Dad, and by your and Chrissie.

Jim was born on April 11, 1941, 4 months before I was.  He always treated me like royalty when I visited.  I am kind of stunned to learn of his death with no other information.  I texted Chrissie at 7:41 a.m.:

Hi, Sweetie.   i didn’t see this message until I got up this morning.  I felt almost stunned by it; I didn’t know your Dad had been ill.  I posted some of my thoughts about him in a comment to Mikey’s memorial on Facebook.  Your Dad was ‘a diamond in the rough,’ a person with an incredibly harsh start in life who made much of his life and had much to be proud of, to be admired.  He had an abundance of kindness in his heart, as your Mom did, a trait both you and Mikey have inherited.  I know the past couple of years, and the year before, can’t have been easy for you.  I hope you’re OK and I’m sorry for your loss.❤️

and she replied:

Thank you, he actually was doing just fine, Wednesday he said he had pains in his heart, I had a nurse here within a couple of hours, she really didn’t say much, he had an odd weezing, she wasn’t sure about without testing, my dad and I talked about the nurse and he liked her, he slept a ton Thursday and died in his sleep Friday.

Many years ago, say 11 or 12, Tom St. John called me and asked if I wanted to accompany him to a Milwaukee Repertory Theater performance of Dickens' A Christmas Carol.  As I recall, Caela was ill.  I agreed despite misgivings because of my chronic pelvic pain and IC problems.  Before the performance, we met for a drink at some watering hole and in the course of schmoozing Tom said that he wished he could live forever, but only if he were young and healthy.  I said that living forever sounded like a nightmare to me, in a state of never-changing, never-growing, never-ending.  I still feel that way.  I'm reminded of the scene in the Peter Cook and Dudley Moore original Bedazzled in which Cook as Beelzebub/George Spiggott describes  to Dudley Moore/Stanley Moon just how boring Heaven is:

[George climbs up on a London postbox.]

George Spiggott:  I'm God. This is my throne, see? All around me are the cherubim, seraphim, continually crying 'Holy, holy, holy'. the angels, archangels, that sort of thing. Now you be me, Lucifer, the loveliest angel of them all.

Stanley Moon:  What do I do?

George Spiggott:  Well, sort of dance around praising me, mainly...

Stanley Moon:  What sort of things do I say?

George Spiggott:  Anything that comes into your head that's nice - how beautiful I am, how wise I am, how handsome...that sort of thing. Come on, start dancing.

Stanley Moon:  You're wise!, You're beautiful! You're handsome!

George Spiggott:  Thank you very much.

Stanley Moon:  The universe! What a wonderful idea - take my hat off to you!

George Spiggott:  Thank you.

Stanley Moon:  Trees - terrific! Water - another good one!

George Spiggott:  That was a good one...

Stanley Moon:  Yes! Sex - top marks!

George Spiggott:  Now make it more personal... a bit more fulsome please. Come on.

Stanley Moon:  Immortal... invisible... you're handsome... you're glorious... you're the most beautiful person in the WORLD!

[Stanley performs a headstand, removes his hat and wipes his brow.]

Stanley Moon:  Here, I'm getting a bit bored with this. Can't we change places?

George Spiggott:  That's exactly how I felt.

That humorous description of life in Heaven pretty closely matches the conception of the BEATIFIC VISION that I was taught as a young Catholic.  "According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the beatific vision is God opening himself in an inexhaustible way to the saints, so that they can see him face to face, and thereby share in his nature, and therefore enjoy eternal, definitive, supreme, perfect, and ever new happiness."  Now I am an old man growing older every day until the day I don't.  I've outlived my parents and my sister, most of my law firm colleagues and law faculty colleagues, other family members and other friends.  When I underwent the bladder surgery 4 days ago, the anesthesiologist reminded me that I have an Advance Directive on file at the VA including a Do Not Resuscitate instruction.  He explained that sometimes with anesthesia, the patient stops breathing and needs to be resuscitated.  He asked if I wanted the DNR instruction ignored for that surgery.  It was rather a sobering experience to have a doctor in surgical scrubs tell you that what we are about to do to you in the next several minutes may cause you to stop breathing.  Do you want us to let you die or revive you?  What does it say about my readiness to pass from this 'vale of tears' that I asked to be revived?

 

It's always somethin;.  I sent a message to Dr. Chatt this morning:

Dear Dr. Chatt:

I think I have a leg ulcer on my lower right leg below the knee and what may or may not be an ulcerative codition above my left ankle. The condition on the left leg is rough and red with many little bumps such that I wondered whether it might be cellulitis though the redness is now considerably more subdued than it was several days ago and it doesn't feel inflamed. The situation on the right leg is more of a single open sore that looks like an ulcer. Neither condition is painful but I'm wondering if this is something that I should tend to or if it can wait until our next regular appointment next month. Thanks for your attention to this question.

Have I turned into a Munchhausen?