Hi Joye,
This is Mark replying to your so very thoughtful e-mail. Let us just say that Ralph has not yet embraced 20th century computer e-mail technology. I cut and pasted your e-mail and will leave it on the kitchen table for him to read in the morning. I know he will be pleased to hear from you and grateful for the Howie Selke update.
We are very sorry to hear about your Aunt Wanda. She sounds like a very thoughtful lady, what with having made provisions for the books and things. After Anne died, the job of being the archivist and curator of "stuff" here at 1004 S Grove Avenue either fell unto me, onto me, or I embraced it. Have found many treasures. Gave away about 200 books to the Lake Zurich Lions Club for the book sale, at the end of last April. That cleared up SOME book shelf space. Opened a couple of very old blanket chests and found a treasure trove of stuffed animals (very high end creatures) that Marianne had accumulated from her childhood days. Boxed them, wrapped them, and then put them under the Christmas tree as presents from each of her family members (me, dad, Gay, Gay's husband Mike, my son Adam, Gay and Mike's son Scott). Marianne took them back to Providence, RI, where she now resides. Looked about her smallish place of residence, and said, "hmm, have no room for MOST of these adorable guys. Let me go on-line to see if I can find someone who can repair them, clean them up, and then maybe give them away?"
This she did, and a most beautiful series of e-mail correspondence followed, in which the stuffed animal cleaner / repair craftsperson readily agreed to fix 'em up, AND to find them loving homes, and also agreed to clean up and fix up the THREE (and only three) that were too important for Marianne to part with, all pro bono, of course. My parents failed to raise any materialists. We love to give away our good stuff, that we no longer have room for (literal room, and room in our hearts); knowing that they will be placed in excellent, loving homes is more than enough of a reward.
Around September 1, Ralph got sick. He lost 33 (we debate this, he claims 30) pounds, and shrunk 4" (he refuses to admit this; I can tell the difference). He had to lose 15 pounds in two weeks before his primary care guy, an internist started to take his situation seriously. Although Gay suggested to him that many of the symptoms he was enduring were also side affects of the "sleeping pill" perscription the doctor had written for him, Ralph has never been any good at listening to what blood relatives lacking the necessary credentials has to say. BUT, when his golfing buddy Drew Fletcher sent him an e-mail, saying, "Hey, Ralph, about that sleeping pill you're taking, you exhibit about 75% of the symptoms that are side affects. Think about stopping that medication." Which Ralph indeed did do (he gives great credence to the opinions of his golfing buddies, no matter what their credentials are) at which point in time he began to regain his lost weight. He was so delighted to get to 185. Not so delighted now to be over 200 (slightly), which is about 5 more pounds than he started from, back when he began to lose the weight.
He also said, and this was within the last 10 days, that, for the first time since his horrifying bout with persistent nagging illness began (basically, he had never been sick a day in his life, except for when he had to have his appendix removed, circa 1970)! And the absence of illness is a blessing, indeed.
He and I have played golf, since about 15, November, 2011, oh, I'd guess, something like 160 times. The owner of the course and all the people that worked there were so worried about dad, not having seen him during the month of August, after mom died (there is much paperwork and nonsense that needs to be performed in the aftermath), and then after his 2 1/2 months of illness, that they simply said, "come out and play golf with Mark any time." The head golf professional at the course, Donny Habjan was the assistant golf pro at Midlothian Country club and used to play with Floyd Ganzer every Saturday morning, so, there is a Blue Island connection.
For me, the opportunity to play golf almost every day with my father for the last 6 1/2 months has been the blessing of a lifetime. I had forgotten how much I love him, and how much fun we've always had playing golf together. Of course, I usually beat him now, BUT NOT ALWAYS. IN January, we were playing, and at the end of nine holes, he had shot 39. But, it was very cold and windy. But, I am thinking, "hmm, if he can make 8 bogies and one par on the back nine, he will shoot his age," so I make with him a Faustian bargain:
"Dad, if you will only play the back nine with me, I will NEVER again ask you for anything to do with golf."
Oh, he was so reluctant, but, he loves me, has basically never been able to say "no" to me, about anything to do with playing more golf, and agreed. Things went pretty much as scripted, EXCEPT, that he had to make 8-foot long snaky putts on each of the last two holes to shoot 44 on the back nine, for, a total of 83.
MY FATHER SHOT HIS AGE! Ta da! And then I explained it to him, and went and bragged in the golf shop all about him.
We played the next day, he started with 44 on the front nine. I was playing brilliantly, and not paying attention to him. He shot 39 on the back nine. Shot his age, two days running. A couple of days later, he shot 41-41, BEAT his age!!!!
And then, about a month ago, he shot 79!!!
AND, he can still drive it past me (when I hit it solid, but very high, into a left to right crossing wind).
I've been seeing a social worker on a regular basis since early February. She wanted to talk with dad, to make sure (or to see if) his perception of the story of my life and mine seemed to be in consonance. So I made an appointment for him to talk with her on the phone.
Now, as a medicaid recipient, I can get free transportation (free to me, the state of Illinois medicaid fund pays a LOT of money to transport me) to the mental health site, which is in Berwyn. SOMEHOW or another, the transportation got messed up (I have to phone in the request at least 48 hours in advance) and Ralph ended up driving me to the site. I invited him to join me and Diane in the session. He mostly talked (I was merely a GREEK CHORUS) for about 45 minutes before I shooed him out of the room, and then I looked at Diane, and damn near broke down into tears: "That's the closest thing he's had to grief counseling since mom died."
It has been my contention that he SHOULD have grief counseling; who in the world is prepared to lose a spouse of 61 1/2 years, who was in good health on Tuesday evening, Wednesday morning, and then dead on Sunday?
Well, the transportation got screwed up again last week (could easily be my fault, I am SO doubtful as to be certain I did not) when I was going to have a buddy of mine come in, and have him tell her about the last 12 or so years that we have known each other (I lived with him at his mom and her husband's home in McHenry last July, before mom died, for about 15 days). My buddy Steve's step father, however, flew back into Chicago and needed a ride home from O'Hare, so Steve couldn't make it.
And I didn't have a ride, so, the Ralph express was called into action. And he was good enough (and comfortable enough) to go into Diane's office with me, and THIS time, she didn't talk to him about ME, she talked to him about mom, asking those brutally honest questions that really need to be addressed before you can begin to heal from the loss, but, she does it in such a non-threatening way, that dad, I have no doubt, was entirely unaware that he was having a therapy session. I did kick him out after 35 minutes, this time (sheesh, I have my own issues) but I also did cry, from gratitude to this wonderful woman who has assessed the needs of our (perhaps perpetually, but only mildly) dysfunctional household most accurately, judges not, but gives us the opportunity to talk about our lives, to get stuff out of our chests, out of our guts, out of our minds, and bring them to the light of day, and the purification of fresh air.
She managed to ask "the big one" about the decision to pull mom from life support. Dad replied, "when all the doctors and all the nurses tell you the same thing, that EVEN if she should live, she will never have the same quality of life, it is an easy decision to make."
Well, I was with mom when she had the stroke. I dialed 9-1-1. I administered mouth-to-mouth resuccitation. I waited after the paramedics arrived, and it took them 25 minutes to spark her sufficiently back to life. And while she was in the hospital, although her vital signs were good, she never regained consciousness. Also, she had double pneumonia, and I knew that her lungs were not getting any air into them. So, she was with VERY limited oxygen for 31 minutes. Her brain had virtually no oxygen for 31 minutes. She would never have regained her faculties for speech, for thought, for writing, for enjoying anything; she would have been vegetative, a thing both mom and dad had decided 20 years ago they did not want to have happen to them.
So, yes, it WAS an easy decision. One they had addressed before. Does dad miss mom? Of course, every day. But we both keep her alive in our hearts and in our minds. We talk about her, we tell stories, we reminisce.
Marianne came back to Barrington to work on "Anne's Garden," the memorial garden to Anne (Mike Magliola donated $500 and another good family friend also donated the same amount, to be used for the creation of "Anne's Garden," which sits along the south side of the house, right across from "John's Garden" which mom so lovingly tended from 1988 until 2011).
It was an interesting project. Dad got all nervous about it (what with his brother-in-law having donated a lot of money, what with Marianne having been tasked with the job of designing / redesigning it, what with it is another thing on a never ending series of check lists that needs to be done, what with dad not knowing jack or squat about gardens, and so, in the three week run up to Marianne's arrival, dad developed a new habit of distracting himself from watching the on-coming traffic on the roads, streets, and highways: garden scoping). It used to be that the only time we had to worry about a head on colission with Ralph driving was when we'd pass a golf course, He'd invariably crane his neck to check the course out, steering ever so predictably into either the right hand lane, if the course was on the left, or the left hand lane if the course was on the right.l But, there aren't THAT many golf courses around.
THERE ARE, however, many gardens around. Most everybody has one, and some of them are simply magnificent, some are endearingly subtle, so, now dad, who has tasked the garden's creation out to Marianne is starting to think about what might be done, speculate on how much it might cost to do it, and begin worrying about a new unstarted project, over which he had virtually no control, no expertise, and a whole lot of uncertainty. His golf game died and descended into hell. It was painful to play with him. He was so distracted. And it took me a LONG time to figure out just what the issue was. ACTUALLY, since I started out-driving him by lots of yards, I made the more convenient and satisfying assumption that now I was hitting the ball 60 yards father (it was actually more like 15-40 yards farther, mostly 15). But, in retrospect, it was the garden; another unfinished project, hanging over his head, like the sword of Damascles.
So, Marianne's first day here, dad took her all over, showing her the gardens he admired the most.
Second day, they broke soil. It was fairly brutal. Mom had these yucca plants that she loved (and dad hated). Yucca plants will over take your garden, and these had succeeded in taking over the spot. It was all weeds and over growth. But, for ripping up over growth, and turning soil, well, Ralph has some skills in this arena, having done so for mom for many years. The yucca had strong, thick, resistant root, about a foot below land level. So, they dug, and the macheted, and cut.
Mom, watching all this from heaven above, decides to send a reminder to Marianne about how much she loved the yuccas, and so, Marianne gets attacked by tiny biting black ants (their bigger counterparts have been invading the home for the last 3 months; we squish, they continue to breed and conquer), and then comes into contact with the sole strand of poison ivy in the yard. She is VERY much sensitive to poison ivy. She gets it. "Right mom, I know. You love the yuccas. We will leave the six on the ends, but these middle guys HAD to go!"
Marianne then goes to visit Gay and Mike (and my son Adam, who lives with his aunt and uncle). Stays over night, then goes to a plant place. Calls dad, tells him she is at the plant place. Dad suggests she buy some plants. "I already have, dad," she replies.
And then Marianne simply took over, a veritable force of nature. She had no time to do itern training and supervise. She just kicked Ralph out of the garden, relieved him of all digging, pulling, plant-learning responsibilities. And she stuck at it, about 10 hours a day for the last 4 days. We didn't rebuild the garden. It was quite enough of a project to clean out and dig up and put down the peat and new top soil, plant the sun plants (Marianne had never had a sun garden before; having one now changed all her pre-conceived notions about which flowers should be planted), show off the garden to three of my best and dearest friends (one of them, a green thumb, and, while not quite a golfing buddy of dad's, at least a peer male, who also is THEIR household's DG (designated gardener) to give dad the advice, "Water the hell out of it." And this dad doth do (or at least has been doing, most regularly).
I've lost (misplaced here in the computer room) our digital camera, but my sister Gay came out the other day and took some photos of the garden. When (and or if) these are made available to me (she DID promise to send me an e-mail), I will pass the photos along to you.
Marianne's efforts were well worth it. We ended up with a much smaller scoped projected than original thoughts had indicated. Everything always takes longer than you think. It was the perfect plan; the perfect garden. It is the perfect plan; it is the perfect garden. And now I've had it re-inforced, that, LESS IS MORE!
We are blessed; blessed to have such wonderful friends, blessed to have our health (back, finally); blessed to have things which hold our interest; blessed by people who find the time to give of themselves; blessed with long time friends, who remember a lot of things, and know a lot about us.
Thank you for having been the blessing in Anne's life that you were; for being her good and very dear friend. Thank you for making the time to take the time to write. It is in those small (but oh so large) things that we do, to let those we know know how much we love them, and still care, and still carry them in our hearts, that we most delight the Lord.
May good health, peace, and blessings be upon you, and also upon all of them that you love, and also upon all of them that love you.
Mark (& Ralph) Ganzer
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