A Different Type of Memorial Day

A few months ago, I came home to find a large package on my front porch. The return address read The San Francisco Chronicle, the newspaper where I've been a freelance columnist for the past 13 years.  

What the heck was this?

I opened the box to find dozens and dozens of envelopes and small packages from names I didn't recognize. As I started sifting through the contents, mystified, I noticed a common theme: many expressed sympathy about the death of my mother in 2009, others addressed the death of my greyhound, Lucy, in 2011, and the remaining lamented the loss of my boy, Elvis, in 2012.  Confused, I took another look at the envelopes and realized that every one of them were postmarked between 2009 - 2012. 

These were condolence messages from readers of my Pet Tales column. 

Apparently, as a freelancer, the newspaper's mail room staff wasn't familiar with my (cough) brilliant prose and didn't know what to do with all the incoming mail. And so, all the letters and packages sent by caring readers languished in a dark corner of the basement until--fast forward to 2014-- someone had the foresight to look me up. 

Hence the box on my porch.

The outpouring of love, sympathy and support expressed in every piece of correspondence was so overwhelming that eventually I had to stop.  Each card and letter brought back a flood of fresh memories, like I'd just lost my mom, Lucy and Elvis, days ago, and not years.  I set aside the box of letters to read at a later date; perhaps when I wasn't caught off guard about revisiting these painful periods in my life.

That date was today. Appropriately enough, Memorial Day. A day of memories.

Sifting through the letters, I again found myself overwhelmed, but this time I knew what I was diving into and was emotionally prepared. Each card and letter was like a loving hug from a pair of warm arms who felt my pain and wanted to make me feel better. Some sent photos, others shared similar experiences or comforting books, a few sent invitations for therapeutic hikes or meditation retreats. I was amazed that these readers--total strangers--took the time to buy a card or write a letter, and pen messages of such depth and compassion.  

And I was equally mortified that they hadn't received a response from me. A "thank you" for their thoughtful words.  Of course, they had no way of knowing that their letters hadn't been received. They probably just thought I was too busy or didn't care.

But I do care.  Very much.

And so, I'll be busy the next few weekends, sending emails, dropping notes. I want each reader to know that their kind words, however late, were very much appreciated.

Because no matter what the postmark says, it's never too late to return a hug.

I Love Lucy = Mom

Woke up this morning with a chihuahua on my stomach and a greyhound at my feet. Not a bad way to greet the day if you love your four-legged children as much as I do. The greyhound, mine, the chihuahua, a house guest that I'm very fond of.

Rolled out of bed and made myself a latte on my 25-year old Krups espresso machine, read the Sunday Chronicle while listening to KFOG's Acoustic Sunrise, then loaded up the "kids" in the car for a ride to the park. Went for a nice long walk on trails that were empty since it was still quite early for a Sunday morning. Clear skies and warm temps, but with gusty winds that had leaves twirling, branches flying, and threatened turning the chihuahua into a helium balloon on a leash. 

Returned home, dropped off the dogs, and ran to Safeway for a few necessary supplies: chocolate chips, flour, butter, parchment paper. Came home and vacuumed, mopped, dusted, did laundry, changed the linen. 

Kept busy, busy, busy. 

Then I whipped up a batch of my favorite comfort "food," chocolate chip cookies. I snacked on raw cookie dough (yes, it has raw eggs and no, I don't care) while the rest baked in the oven, filling my home with yummy, chocolaty smells. Finally, I snuggled on the sofa to watch the I Love Lucy marathon I'd recorded earlier. 

I Love Lucy was my mom's favorite program. She never tired of watching Lucy's crazy antics, even if she'd just seen the same "Lucy goes on a diet" episode a few days earlier. I remember epic battles between Mom and Dad when, as a one-TV household, 7:00 pm would roll around and it was time to choose between reruns of Star Trek or I Love Lucy. 

Lucy always won.

Today I Love Lucy too, but now more than ever because the series reminds me so much of my mom, down to the heavy Spanish accent she shared with Ricky Ricardo. My best friend, my coach, my confident, my greatest fan, my loving mom. She isn't here this Mother's Day for me to cherish and care for in her old age, as I'd hoped to do. 

And so, I watched I Love Lucy instead. No doubt, Mom would have approved. 

GoD And DoG

This morning on KFOG's Acoustic Sunrise, my favorite radio personality, Rosalie Howarth, played a song so simple and eloquent, it took my breath away. It's been around since 2009--how have I not heard this before? But maybe you haven't either. 

And so, for all my dog-loving friends, here it is, with a link to the video. I hope you find it as touching as I do.

GoD And DoG

by Wendy J. Francisco 

"I look up and I see God, I look down and see my dog.

Simple spelling G O D, same word backwards, D O G.

They would stay with me all day. I'm the one who walks away.

But both of them just wait for me, and dance at my return with glee.

Both love me no matter what - divine God and canine mutt.
I take it hard each time I fail, but God forgives, dog wags his tail.

God thought up and made the dog, dog reflects a part of God.
I've seen love from both sides now, it's everywhere, amen, bow wow.

I look up and I see God, I look down and see my dog.
And in my human frailty...I can't match their love for me."

A Twist of Fate

So, the blog, a bit quiet lately. You may have noticed. Or not. Since I don’t track numbers, I never really know who’s reading. 

Or not.

 

But there’s a reason for the silence. Of late, there have been several deaths—all unrelated—that have knocked the wind out of my sails and the “get up” from my “go.” Weekends normally reserved for Sunday brunches or leisurely walks with the dog have been spent attending services. Sharing the grief of friends for the passing of their elderly parents, feeling their pain while remembering the passing of my own parents, long gone.  

Over the past six weeks, I've also mourned the loss of two younger lives whose deaths-- again, unrelated--were shocking and unexpected. Out of respect for privacy, I won’t go into detail, but it’s been a lot to absorb. 

This kind of stuff gets you thinking.

The fragility of life. The randomness of events. How a routine visit to the dentist can turn into a raging infection that cuts short a life. Or how someone who is fit, vibrant, and athletic unknowingly harbors a fatal heart condition. 

Maybe this is why I’ve always been intrigued by the 1998 movie, Sliding Doors starring Gwyneth Paltrow. The movie uses parallel time-lines to explore the different paths a woman’s life might take if she does—or doesn't—catch her London train. In one scenario, she makes it in time and in the other, the doors slide shut right before her nose. How her future unfolds, based on each perspective, is the premise of the plot

The movie was billed as a “romantic comedy” but I found it much deeper than that. Ever since watching it several years ago, I always find myself contemplating chance delays or inconsequential events. How they could, without my knowledge, alter the very course of my life’s journey.

My Teamster dad, who drove for a living, never complained when he was delayed by something annoying like a flat tire. Instead, he embraced it as a sign. “I’m obviously not meant to be on the road at this particular time,” he would say. “God stepped in and stopped me.”

Maybe. Yet I also remember the Bay Area banker who was living in Germany during the time of the 2004 tsunami, one of the worst natural disasters in recorded history. The young man was supposed to spend his Christmas vacation in Southeast Asia, but his girlfriend convinced him to join her for a ski trip in the Alps, instead. As a result, he missed the tsunami. Whew.

And was subsequently killed in an avalanche.  

Sliding doors. Would he have survived the tsunami if he hadn't gone skiing? Or was it simply his time, no matter where the location?

What I found most interesting about this movie (warning: SPOILER ALERT) is the ending. Although Gwyneth Paltrow’s character takes two entirely different directions, each one circles to reach the same final destiny, regardless of the journey.  Suggesting that, no matter what path taken, the destination remains the same.

Sealing your fate whether it’s a random flat tire or trip to the dentist. They’re all just sliding doors. 

Life Through Coffee

Used to be you boiled tap water, added a couple tablespoons of instant freeze-dried coffee, and voila! You had a cuppa joe. 

In the 1970s, this is what my parents drank. They'd boil a large pot in the wee hours of the morning for my dad to fill his thermos before leaving the house at 5am for his hour-long commute to San Francisco. Whatever didn't make it to the thermos would sit in the carafe all the live-long day. And then, when dad returned home from work around 6pm, he'd take that same bitter brew that had been sitting cold on the stove top for 13 hours and nuke it in the microwave for he and mom to enjoy in the evening. 

I took a sip of their coffee. Once. It tasted like battery acid with cream. My taste buds were traumatized, which is probably why I didn't start drinking coffee until well into my late twenties. Right around the time that coffee shops started cropping up with specialty drinks, like lattes and cafe mochas  and cappuccinos, and --you know--the good stuff. And I realized wow, coffee could actually be a tasty drink if made properly.

These days it's impossible not to make good coffee at home.  All you need is the right machine, like a Nespresso, Keurig, or Bosch. Plug it in, insert a pod, press a button, and before you can say, "The next best thing to waking up...." there you have it: a gourmet cuppa joe complete with frothy foam.  The only finger you have to lift is the one holding the mug to your lips. 

In 1986, when my salt-of-the-earth parents learned that I was spending $1.75 every single day to buy a latte, they said, "Enough throwing away your money. Make your own lattes!" And, as a Christmas present, they plunked down $100 to buy me a Krups Espresso Maker. The first, and maybe the second and third and fourth times I tried steaming the milk, the hot liquid exploded, spraying milk all over the ceiling and walls. But over the past 28 years I've mastered the craft to perfection. And using the same Krups Espresso Maker, I might add, three times a week no less.

No buttons to push. No pods to insert. I grind my own coffee, measure the water, and steam the milk, with nary a drop on the ceiling. Sure, I could buy one of those fancy new machines where all I have to do is insert, press, wait. 

But there's something about my ritual that I like, especially on weekend mornings. I listen to the hissing steam as I watch the sun rise, monitor the cresting foam as it nears the rim of my cup, and then sit down to enjoy my hard-earned drink, enhanced with maybe a little almond syrup or coconut sugar, and cinnamon sprinkled on top. 

Today's sophisticated coffee makers probably render my Krups method a bit archaic. Just as I thought of my parents' method for boiling tap water and adding coffee crystals. But I think of my mom and dad, who both died far too young, every single time I use that Krups machine. 

And that alone makes for a perfect cup of coffee. 

This Little Piggie Went to Kaiser

I just wanted pretty toes. That’s all.

Which is why I got a pedicure the day before I left on my cruise to Hawaii. I mean, who’s not going to wear sandals in Hawaii, right? Pretty toes are a must.

I’d been to this salon a couple times before, one of those in-and-out cattle-call places, and they had done a decent job. Quick, seemingly clean, and efficient.  

Not so much this time.

The young girl attacked my tootsies like a starving wolverine on a fallen lamb. I have neuropathy in both feet and therefore lack about 75% feeling, but the remaining 25% felt every jab, poke, and stab. During the painful process, I even posted on Facebook, “Are pedicures supposed to hurt this much?”

And is blood letting a part of the process?

Apparently not. So what’s with those drops around my big toe? When I winced and pointed out that she had cut the side of my foot with her overzealous use of the pumice stone, she applied antiseptic and made direct contact with the torn skin. 

So much for sterilization.

But I was in a hurry with a ton of errands to run before my 15 day vacation. And so, I let the aspiring Samurai finish and paid with the thought, “never again.” When I got home, I cleaned the wound, applied more antiseptic, and didn’t give it another thought.

Not until six days later onboard ship, when this guy approached me and my pretty toes in my new sandals.  “I hope you don’t mind me interfering,” he said, “but I’m a retired paramedic and that cut on the side of your foot looks bad. You should see a doctor.”  

Not the pickup line I was hoping for.

But I guess neuropathy can come in handy because I wasn’t feeling any pain. Or maybe those endless cruise cocktails had something to do with it. Anyway, I hadn’t noticed the wound since it entailed twisting my foot at an unnatural angle.  When I did, oh wow, it was looking pretty nasty. So I saw the ship doctor, a kindly South African who reminded me of Dr. Bombay from Bewitched. He confirmed an infection. Big time. He treated the wound and prescribed antibiotics. Problem solved, right?

Uh, not quite.

When I returned home two weeks later, not only was the wound still infected, but an abscess had formed underneath it.  Which meant another doctor visit, more bandages, and stronger antibiotics, both oral and topical.

By week three, the wound was still red, swollen, and angry looking. My doctor was concerned that the infection had gone into the bone and ordered X-rays. Thank goodness, it hadn’t, but now the pain was bypassing the neuropathy and hurting like hell.

By week four, there was still was no improvement so I was referred to a podiatrist. He excavated the infected, walnut-sized abscess, bandaged my foot, and prescribed one of those dork medical shoes to be worn over the next week coupled with twice-daily 15-minute foot soaks in a special antiseptic bath. This was to be followed with another topical antibiotic ointment and finished with enough gauze, wrap, and surgical tape to mummify the entire entourage of King Tut.

That night I could barely sleep. My aching foot throbbed like a migraine with toes. 

Hopefully, my follow-up appointment next week will put this saga to rest.  In the meantime, I’ve alerted the nail salon with a detailed letter outlining visits, costs and procedures to date.  You know, in case I lose a foot or something. 

All this for pretty toes. Which, by the way, looked great in those new sandals.    

A 15 Day Blast to the Past

Last week I returned from a 15-day cruise to Hawaii.  Sailing out of San Francisco, we spent five days at sea, four days in Hawaii, and five days back at sea, including a quick pit stop in Mexico, before returning to San Francisco. 

But what I liked best about this trip wasn’t mentioned in any of the cruise line’s marketing collateral. It wasn’t the endless supply of cruise cuisine like Eggs Benedict, shrimp cocktail and buttery lobster. It wasn’t the entertainment, shopping, or shore excursions. It wasn’t even the ideal weather, good company, and endless laughs.

It was being offline. Disconnected.  Unplugged. At sea there wasn't online access unless I wanted to spend a dollar a minute tethered to the ship’s designated computers, which uh, no, I didn’t.   

And so, for 15 unprecedented days I didn’t check emails or peruse Facebook for crazy dog videos, cute kid photos, or “I just pigged out on a quart of coffee Hagen Daz ice cream” laments. I didn’t play Words with Friends or Candy Crush, didn’t surf YouTube for music videos, didn’t text friends, and didn’t monitor my weather app for the latest temperatures. I already knew what the temperature was because I was outside feeling it for myself. I wasn’t wasting time reading about the polar vortex on the east coast or the unprecedented flooding in England.

It was on this cruise that I realized just what an insidious intrusion smart phones have become, packaged as an essential need. We can’t put them down, not for one second: we eat, walk, talk and live with our phones as if they were a bodily extension like our hand or foot. In elevators, stores, restaurants, and coffee shops, waiting in lines, driving cars, crossing the street, meeting with colleagues, talking with friends and shopping, dining and exercising, we are constantly, simultaneously, forever checking our phones and responding to “pings” like Pavlov’s dogs. 

Never mind the time or place. Nowhere is immune.

Such as the dark winter evening I was walking my greyhound, Olivia and using a flashlight to navigate the pitch black streets. Turning a corner, I plowed into a woman who was also walking her dog, but didn’t see me because she was busy texting on her phone. Last August, my good friend Mark, who’s a local DJ, invited me to join him for a concert that he was emceeing for one of my favorite bands, Chicago. In our front row seats we were so close to the brass section I could actually smell their sweat. Not that the young woman next to me noticed. She was too busy watching the entire performance through the video she was making on her phone. At the gym, I see people lifting 50 pound weights with one hand while reading their phone in the other. And what about that recent photo in the Chronicle of the newly-wed couple dancing at their reception? The bride was checking her phone and the groom was holding his. 

Really? It’s that important?

On my cruise I read four books, including two massive novels that were over 400 pages.  I forgot how much I love diving into a good book without simultaneously playing Words with Friends, losing myself so thoroughly and completely that when I look up from the pages, hours later, I experience a temporary disorientation. You mean I’m not hanging out with an orphan in New York who is harboring a stolen painting?  

Shipboard life included conversations where I didn’t keep an eyeball peeled for texts, emails or alerts. I wasn’t privy to the personal and often inane one-sided blither of people barking about their laundry stains, idiot co-worker, or rash that just won’t go away. For 15 days it was just like old times, when people lived in the present without posting every thought on Facebook or photo on Instagram; when eye contact was made with people instead of screens. We gave our full attention to conversations without sneaking that sidewards glance we’re all too familiar with. Best was when we just relished the silent beauty of a sunset or serene stillness of the smooth seas. 

It was unexpectedly wonderful.

And then we docked in San Francisco and phones were whipped out like we’d just landed on Mars and were gasping for air and those little devices in our desperate clenched fists were oxygen tanks.

But for 15 glorious days we were unplugged and offline; disconnected with our phones and connected with the present. 

That was the real vacation.