Things I've Seen

Paybacks are yum

I let Drew and Michele use my car while I was in Chicago for a couple of days. They don't have one and it can be difficult to get your friends to drag you around to where you need to be all the time.

They used the car time to get a few things done - they shopped for summer clothes, bought and hung curtains in the apartment, went out to dinner, got a manicure (well, Michele did anyhow), and just generally were "independent" for a little while.

So last night to return the favor, they came over with all the fixings to grill some fat ol' burgers on the grill - the first of summer. Mmmmm were they good.

They still have my car though. Hmmm. Maybe we'll get a taste of Michele's famous chicken Florentine later in the week?

Celebrate

Clay's birthday is April 1. And this year it was one of those "big ones." I made a reservation to spend last night at the new J.W. Marriott - just to do something a little special. We had dinner at Six-One-Six in the hotel.

So just as we were getting ready to leave home last night I got a text message from Drew and Michele: "We're lonely."

What could I do but invite them to dinner with us? Good times, great dinner: a bottle of wine signed by the winemaker, a sushi appetizer (I finally got my husband to try sushi!), baby spinach salad, scallops with a creamy risotto, the house specialty hand-rubbed steak cooked to perfection, after-dinner coffee. And the special birthday greeting above.

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Our room was on the 16th floor of the hotel. I requested "river view," and it was a great view in spite of the cold, rain and clouds. Everything there is first rate (there are only 6 of these hotels in the world, afterall). Very fitting for a birthday - whether it's a "big one" or otherwise. (Click to see larger photos.)

The Van Andel Museum from the 16th floor of the hotel

Another view from our window

 

Room 1617 at the J.W. Marriott

 

Lighting overhead at Six-One-Six

 

Looking down into the lounge from the 3rd floor

 

Well, yeah, it's the restroom in the restaurant

 

Lily centerpiece

Did I mention I got a car?

Picking up my new car at the Meijer headquarters. I bought it sight-unseen after my friend's employee husband won the bid on two cars - he only wanted one.

You'd think I was 16 years old. But with all the car trouble we've had over the last 12 months (oh - and one more car - the "ugly van" - was lost since those three met their tragic fates), you can hardly fault me for being a little giddy at the prospect of having a car to myself that's reliable and isn't full of dings, dents and rust.

It's only a 2001 Chevy Malibu with 98,000 miles  - but it has brand new tires, no rust or body damage and it's CLEAN INSIDE! It was a fleet car for Meijer Stores, so I know it's been well-maintained. And honestly - it's the first car that's been "mine" since the '76 Dodge Aspen SE that I bought with the promise of my first teaching job out of college (which I loved, but way overpaid for). So like I said, you can hardly fault me ...

Nobody here

Wow. Has my traffic gone down over the past year.  I guess I don't wonder why.

To get readers, a blog needs content - regular updates, too. But I've been busy on Facebook and Twitter and just generally anything that keeps me from paying attention to -  caring for and feeding - this blog. Will I fix it, especially now (great timing!) that I've added AdSense, which, of course is earning exactly $0.00? Well, that's the question now, isn't it.

Update: April has brought me about a buck and a half in AdSense earnings. Woo!

What it isn't

You can see the yellowing bruise caused by the biopsy needle - just edging into the shadow.

Almost two years ago Kellie, my physician's assistant at the OBGYN, felt something on my thyroid. She told me to have my primary care doc check it out, which he did. But he said he felt nothing. Last year Kellie felt something again and ordered blood work. Nothing. This year, the "nodule" had become noticeably bigger. "Yep," she said. "We need to check that out. I don't usually overstep the bounds of the primary care doctor, but in this case I'm going to."

She set me up for blood work and referred me to an endocrinologist. When the blood work came back normal again, she called and said she wanted to do an ultrasound. But by that time the endocrinologist's office had called and I had an appointment in a few days (Kellie said it could take months to get in.) My appointment was last Monday.

Dr. K, the endocrinologist didn't feel a nodule at first, but did feel quite an enlargement on my thyroid. When I laid back and extended my neck, however, he did feel it - about 2 cm by 2 cm according to his measurements.  "I want to do a biopsy on this now," he said, and explained to me what that would involve.

Biopsy. Isn't that  more of a surgical procedure? Iwondered. Don't they have to put you under for that? Slice into you?  At the very least I'd have to be lying on a gurney in one of those backless gowns, freezing cold, waiting for ... something. Right?

"Is that to check for malignancy?" is what I actually said.  Dr. K explained that the procedure was simple. (The needle is smaller than the kind used in a blood draw, he reassured.) And that it was done to find out just exactly what is going on with the nodule. Most nodules are nothing to worry about, he assured me. Fewer than 10 percent are malignant.

So OK, but still - right here, in the examination room - wearing my jacket and blouse and pants - even my shoes?

It really was nothing much - four long pokes of a single thin needle. Lots of noisy scraping on what must have been 25 glass slides. An assistant standing by dabbing at whatever blood flowed at the needle's piercing. One of those little round adhesive bandages covering  all four needle entries. Fifteen minutes lying quietly afterward - to ward off any residual wooziness.

Then I went back to work.

Over these five days, I've turned the idea over and over in my mind in every way. I could have cancer.  What if this is cancer? How would I weather treatment for cancer? How long would I be off work if I had cancer? How might my relationships change with those around me - if I had cancer? What would change in my life - and theirs - if it turned out that I had ... cancer?

Honestly, even though the thoughts and questions ran through my head all week, I don't think I ever really, seriously entertained the idea and all the accompanying what-ifs. I mean to say that I wasn't really, truly fearful of a cancer diagnosis. Maybe I was naive. Or hopeful. Or taking at face value what the doc had told me and the little bit of reading I'd done on WebMD. Thyroid cancer is pretty rare. And when it is diagnosed, survival rate is high.

Today I got the call. "Your biopsy results are normal," the nurse, Liz, told me. "Oh, thank you," I said, relieved,  grateful. "Just keep your appointment in six months," she said. "So we can keep an eye on things."

"I don't have cancer," I IM'd a friend of mine after I got off the phone. "Yay," came the answer. Neither of us ever really thought I did.   But it did give pause these past few days.

Not leaders, but 'experimenters'

These days in my kind of funk and holding pattern of writing and reading online, I keep up with one blog religiously, Dave Pollard's "How to save the world." Recently he wrote (yet more) about how today's corporate cultures don't work - they're patriarchal hierarchies with the goal only to perpetuate themselves. Yet there are bright spots, possibilities. As he wrote this week in his post, "We need experimenters, not leaders":

We don't need 'leadership' or 'leaders'. What we need is experimenters  ...   That will allow the successful experiments to spread, virally, and be adapted and improved. Eventually, bottom-up, it will allow us to create decentralized community-based self-managed political, economic, educational, and social systems that actually work well, for each community.

Unlike most 'leaders', experimenters are:

• collaborators: they don't do anything alone
• facilitators and coaches: they help others to learn and discover how to do things better
• demonstrators: more than just communicators, they show how it works and what it means
• ideators: they imagine what's possible, and tell stories to bring those ideas to life
• innovators: they take those good ideas and realize them, make them real
• researchers: they study what's been done, in nature, by other cultures and communities, and what's needed, and spread that knowledge
• connectors: they bring people together who were meant to work together
• model-builders: they design and build something that can be understood, replicated and adapted by others
• founders: they start new things -- enterprises, communities, different ways to do important things; they build something new rather than criticizing what exists

That's what we need. We won't find it in one or a few people. We have to find it within all of us. To do that we have to give up on 'leaders' and take charge of our own lives, collaboratively, as peers. Who's 'leading' in government, in business, in religious and educational and social organizations doesn't matter.

The power is in all of us.

I am fortunate enough to know one or two of these experimenters; and I work pretty closely with at least one. Unfortunately, it seems, those true experimenters still must rise in corporate culture in order to put their experimenting to work, to make a difference. If, in these cultures, their value is recognized, encouraged, nurtured and allowed to take hold, so much the better for us all. I believe I see small changes coming through people like this, and it is good.

But Dave's point is really that we all must be experimenters working for change. (O the dreaded campaign slogan!) And indeed, working with and knowing the people I do these days gives me hope and courage to be a little experimental myself!

Letting Go

Dad with Meagan, left, and  Susan, about 1990.

My daughter Meagan is a freshman at Davenport University. She wrote this for her composition class. I have her permission to post it here.

 

Letting Go

There I was, I couldn’t believe what was happening. I was driving in my parents dark green Ford Ranger, going at least 90 mph towards Muskegon. I was on my break from work and had virtually no time to get to my destination, and back without being late, but I was determined. I didn’t care about the fact that I rolled my car on this highway two weeks prior, I just passed the skid-marks and they didn’t even phase me, all I knew was that I had to get to where I was going, and I had to get there fast.

            When I walked through the hospital doors, I followed my father’s instructions to the elevator and headed towards the critical care unit. When I found my grandfathers room, I didn’t know what to do, I only had ten minutes before I had to head back to Grand Rapids for work.  My family had gone out to lunch at the Applebee’s across the street and I was alone. I was terrified, I didn’t fully understand what was wrong, I didn’t even know he was dying. No one told me.

            As soon as my family found out I was at the hospital, they came right over and brought me into the room to see him. I couldn’t believe that that was my grandpa lying there. He was hooked up to all kinds of machines and monitors; he couldn’t speak or open his eyes. There was a tube shoved down his throat to control his breathing. I couldn’t tell if he was sleeping or awake. My grandma came and hugged me, she told me about how my sister was crying earlier and that it would be okay if I did. I wanted to but, I couldn’t cry, I couldn’t believe the situation I was in, he was fine a few days ago. It was too much to bear. My family told me I should talk to him before I left. They said he could hear me, and that he could respond by squeezing my hand, but I said nothing. I wish with all my heart I would have told him I loved him and how much he meant to me but I couldn’t find the words, I was so scared.

            Over the next two days I kept thinking about all the things I loved about my grandpa. He was a very important man in my life. He and My grandmother were practically a second set of parents to me and my sister. We used to go over to their house every day, when my dad would go to school. I will never forget the times we spent together, singing in the car, going to the park, the tickle-fights, his famous macaroni and cheese, I miss him so much.

Monday, August 20, 2007, a day I’ll never forget. I had just gotten home from work and it was about 1:00 in the afternoon when my mom got the call. My Aunt Margie called her from the hospital to say that we were losing him. My mom then told my sister and me to get into the car and call our brother and our dad. I was so shaken up I couldn’t even talk to my dad on the phone, he couldn’t understand what I was saying and I had to pass the phone to my mother. So we drove our little green Ranger to my brother’s apartment, to pick him up and bring him to the hospital with us. The four of us were all crammed in the little truck listening to my iPod through the truck speakers. The only song I remember playing on the way was “Free Bird” by Lynyrd Skynyrd.

When we arrived at the hospital, my family was still waiting on my Aunt Lorie’s family coming from Kalamazoo, and my Dad who had been at work. The mood in the room was silent and painful, yet full of love. My grandpa was still hooked up to all those machines, and the tube was still there controlling his breathing. He was on life support waiting until the rest of the family to come.

My Grandmother was sitting in a chair next to him, at the head of the bed. Her face was swollen from the crying and wet from all the tears. She was holding his hand and talking to him. I’ve never seen that much raw emotion, devastation or heartbreak in my life. As soon as she saw my mother and us three kids walk into the room she had us all come over and hold his hand, so that he knew we were there with him.  My sister and I began to cry, my brother grabbed by the shoulders and pulled us into him. He held us there for awhile and we all cried together silently in the comfort of each other’s arms.

My father was the last one to arrive. He walked into a room filled with sobbing people with breaking hearts. The moment he walked in I felt a slight feeling of relief go around the room. He walked over to my grandmother, gave her a hug and kissed her softly on the cheek, “I’m so glad you’re here Clay,” I heard my grandma say to him. He then went to stand behind her with my mother.

“Well Kathy, you’re the oldest, what should we do?” my grandmother said turning to my mother.

“I think that it’s time to let him go mom, whenever you’re ready.” My mother replied. We all knew that there was nothing we could do, he was never coming back, this was it, this was the end. The room was silent. It was divided into groups of individual families trying to comfort and console each other.

            The doctor then came into the room to check his monitors and see if we had reached a decision. My grandmother told him that she was ready to let him go. They decided that they would unhook him slowly, giving all us enough time to say good-bye before he passed.

            So we all stood there with tears in our eyes watching him as he slowly passed away. One by one we all left the room leaving my grandma with him alone.  My family all headed to the waiting room to sit until, the doctor told us we could re-enter the room. I sat on a vinyl couch, coloring a picture of Cinderella and eating out of an enormous bag of MMs. My family was around me talking about who was going to stay with my grandma, and for how long, what we were going to eat for dinner and what types of alcohol was back at my grandparents house.

            When the doctor told us we could go back to see our grandfather one last time before the funeral, we all got up and slowly headed toward the room. The hospital halls seemed so cold and sterile, I could hardly stand it. When we walked into the room, there were no machines hooked up to him, and they had taken the breathing tube out. He was gone.

            Everyone took their time to see him and then walked back to the waiting room. I was one of the last to leave. I walked up to him and touched him on the shoulder. The words “I love you grandpa,” slipped out of my mouth. They were the last words I ever said to him, and he couldn’t even hear me. When I left the room my grandma came up to me, and wrapped my in a warm hug, she then whispered “he was always so proud of you girls,” into my ear. I’ll never forget that moment; the thought of it still brings tears to my eyes. After the hospital everyone went to my grandmas for dinner. I don’t even remember what we ate. My mind was somewhere else. My mom stayed with my grandma that night so I drove the truck home with my brother and my sister. We listened to my iPod again, and the only song I remember playing on the way home was once again, “Free Bird,” That song will always make me think of that day; the hardest day of my life.

 

I need to blog

Can I get away with just posting a winter-scene photo again? Dave likes my photos, anyhow.

2-8-08. Finally finished this.

1-15-08 Hey, this isn't finished ... but I need to post it anyhow. Begun on 1-9.

Hard to believe this was just a week ago, even though this was in Kalamazoo, where I'm guessing close to a foot of snow fell while we were there over New Year's. Temperatures rose to 65 degrees here on Monday and the snow is completely gone.

The Holidays passed better than usual for me. Odd, too, because it was the first Christmas without Dad ... Mom stayed with us from Dec. 21 until after the New Year, although she did make the trip - Grandy in tow - to Monroe for a couple of days at the end of the week.

I think what made it better in some ways was that I had to rise to the occasion and try to be a better Christmas person - something I've not been so good at for several years now.

First of all, we had to figure out some way to get most of the family together for the holiday. Thanksgiving, in many minds, had not been ideal. Each sister (there are four of us) pretty much did her own thing: Nance had Mom over for dinner; we went to Monroe to see Margie and Mat and family (first time in all the years they've lived there!) and Loraine and family celebrated at home and in Muskegon with Jeff's family. My in-laws gathered with Clay's mom's family. In years past ALL these people have gathered together - close to 30 people in some years - and this, the first Thanksgiving after my Dad's passing, was not considered an ideal situation in most peoples' minds, although at the time we were planning things, this did not occur to most of us - or to me, anyway.

After nearly a month of mostly unsuccessful planning using a Google Group, it was decreed (by me, because I set up the group, which left me also guiding what little planning/conversation there was) that the clan would gather at our house for Christmas on the Saturday prior. So Mom arrived on the 21st to stay through the holidays, Meagan was released from school on the same day and came home with suitcases full of laundry, and we planned an as informal, inexpensive get-together as we could.

I just asked people to bring their favorite Christmas 'treat,' whether an hors d'ouevre, candy, cookie, or what have you. And everyone had to bring a $5 'fun gift' for a person of their same sex. We hosted about 20 people and had plenty to nosh on. Of course the highlight was the gift to Mom from Loraine and family of that darn cute little dog. And I think everyone thought the gift exchange - new for us - was fun. So even though Joe and Erin arrived very late (she had to work; they got lost) and Drew's girlfriend had to leave early (she got the showiest gift - a photo frame from Susan) and Margie and Mat weren't there (but they usually aren't), this felt like an adequate solution to the "what do we do for family Christmas now?) dilemma.

Then came Christmas eve - Mom hasn't been to church in years on that night, and last year, we didn't go either. But Meagan and I both wanted to sing in the reunion choir, where the college kids always come back to sing with the remnant adult choir.  We always sing "And the Glory of Lord" and "Halleluiah" from Handel's Messiah, and since I've been almost two years out of choir now, I really wanted to sing. So Clay, Mom, Susan and Amberly went to the service, while Meagan and I sat in the loft and sang. After the service we drove home looking at all the holiday lights, as has been a tradition since my own childhood and one we've carried out with our own family. It was pretty much all that Christmas eve is supposed to be.

Christmas Day was a little strange, but it was also best of all. I had asked Drew more than a week before how he wanted to handle the morning. This is his second Christmas living on his own, and last year I picked him up at his place early and brought him here for our usual gift opening and big, special breakfast of egg casserole and cheesy potatoes (his favorite). This year he an Michelle are together and I wanted him to be sure about his Christmas morning plans. Would she come over with him? Would she go to her own family? Would she stay at their place by herself? He told me he'd come over by himself. We said, OK.

Christmas morning when I called him, he said, "There's been a change of plans. I'm bringing Michelle with  me." All kinds of thoughts ran through my mind at once: first - how would the girls feel about an "intrusion" on their family Christmas morning? What would Mom think? Then, the really big consideration - in all the Christmas preparations, I had not once thought to buy a gift for Michelle (this is a brand new relationship). So shame on me. I paused only a few seconds and bought some time with, "will she feel comfortable?" trying to appeal his sense of the potential awkwardness of the situation (mostly with his sisters,  but I couldn't bring myself to say that). By not expressing this directly enough, I got nowhere, of course. "She won't feel weird," he insisted (Michelle is VERY outgoing). "I can't leave her here alone," he said. And of course he was right.

So I broke the news to the girls, who, as I'd guessed were not very amenable to having this relative stranger here in the midst  of our family traditions. "It's what Christmas is about," I reminded them and now I was sure of it myself. Michelle would be here with Drew and she'd be welcome, by god.

Then the mad scramble began. What to give her?  Clay suggested my last bottle of wine. Great idea! I knew Michelle liked it, because we served it at dinner when she was here after Thanksgiving and she raved over it. I rummaged through the gift wrap trappings in the basement and came up with a wine bag and tag: "To Michelle." Inspired, I thought, "What else?" "She's got to have a stocking. Give her mine," Mom offered, getting into the spirit.

So, wine, check. Stocking with candy cane and chocolate (most notably a big bar of noir 60% cacao - yum!). I was getting into this! What else can we give?

Then, a final thought. In our room I had, wrapped, my gift for our god-daughter and niece Lauren. I had the same gift under the tree for Meagan and for Susan: a cozy pair of "pink-ribbon" ankle socks and a silver bracelet from the Breast Cancer site. We wouldn't see Lauren until New Years - plenty of time to find another gift for her that would be  just as meaningful. The socks and bracelet would be Michelle's. And easy and right-feeling decision.

I'm sure Michelle didn't expect anything from us, but you can't have people as guests on Christmas without giving gifts! It's what the season is about, for heaven's sake. And so Susan went to pick up her brother and his girl and our morning began. I don't know what she really thought about us, or our gifts, or the traditions of loud, slow gift opening, lots of attention to dog gifts and cat gifts, plus long exclaiming over everything. But she seemed pleased - genuinely surprised, too - at being included. Michelle is anything but shy, and she joined in and fit into the morning chaos like she was one of us.

Breakfast was a joyous sort of tragedy - for the first time ever, the egg casserole didn't set up in the hour allotted it in the oven, so we drank juice and coffee and ate crockpot cheesy potatoes, banana bread and clementines while we waited for the casserole to finish up in the microwave. Any other Christmas morning this would have sent me into a pouting quiet, but this year I just said, "oh well," and we laughed and chatted while we waited - and ate the eggs, ugly now, but still tasty, when they were cooked through.

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So let me finish this up.

Since the kids were born, we've always spent Christmas afternoon and evening in Muskegon - afternoon at the VanderVeldes and evening at the McBrides. In the early years we spent the night - Meagan and Susan at my folks and Drew, Clay and I at Clay's. In the past couple of years, we "adults" have had things to get back to Grand Rapids for, so we haven't stayed over. Meagan and Susan however, continued their tradition of spending the quiet calm hours of Christmas night with my folks.

Of course this year had to be different. Mom was staying with us, and Michelle was with Drew. Clay's folks, early on in the season, had made it very clear that they expected Mom to come with us to their house on Christmas day. Bless those special, loving people. Especially after we called Christmas morning and told them Michelle would be coming with us too!

Christmas day at the VanderVeldes is always special. Her house is always carefully and exquisitely decorated for Christmas. A beautiful, perfect, white-lighted tree with a satiny skirt. Lighted villages on the bay window sill, Hummels and Santas everywhere, greenery on the mantle, the tiny foil pond with skaters on the low table near the sofa that have been there every Christmas that I can remember. Not garish or overdone, but tasteful, joyful, quiet, lovely. My mom was welcomed with love, gentleness and kindness of old friends - who know and understand the losses people their age experience.

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Obviously I didn't start out to recount details of this special Christmas with this post. I just needed to write! But now, more than six weeks later, here you have it. I haven't really captured the the sad sweet joyful melancholy of it all. New relationships, loss, enduring love - So much of what Christmas, and life are about.

New year

Grandma's gift

  Mom's Christmas present from the Fraziers 
  Originally uploaded by kathleee

What's the quintessentially perfect Christmas gift?

A puppy, of course.

She named the 10-week-old Shih Tzu Grandy, after Tigers center fielder Curtis Granderson. He's somebody to talk to, to care for during the long, cold winter. And well after.

I can hear me now, asking my kids: "Are you going to be around this weekend? Grandma and Grandy are coming over ..."