Life goes on (2/28/2023)

Well, life goes on. I have resumed my somewhat regular activities, including walking the dogs in the morning, feeding them and going upstairs and getting behind the computer to work. The main difference is the nice monitor I commandeered from my late father-in-law’s desk. It is much better than the old flat screen TV that I was using as monitor. Oh well, a small piece of my inheritance.

This past week was the first time I was teaching again, and it felt good after a three-week hiatus. I had a few issues, on the second day my computer microphone seemed to lock up with the external webcam. This really highlighted the need for a backup when you webcast.

The weather has been extremely strange; weekends are outright chilly while it has been balmy during the week. It got to 80 degrees this week. The temperatures in my greenhouse got up to 102 at one point with the door and window wide open. My bonsai trees are leafing out which is distressing to me. I need to repot and I do not have enough pots, soil, or time. Moreover, folks in the neighborhood are donating trees to me. I had put the word out that I grow bonsai and if they had either potted plants they did not want or shrubs or small trees they were digging up, I would love to take possession of them and torture them. These past two weeks I received seven plants that required urgent root work, potting and pruning. This to the determent of my own trees.

This is all on top of a room full of furniture and other stuff from my father-in-law’s apartment that we had to vacate. We now need to decide what we want to keep, exchange for the old crap we have (my father-in-law had impeccable taste) and what we want to donate where. Let’s not talk about the fact that my travel starts up again. Let the excitement begin!

Four weeks in it still feels strange having lost a close member of the family. However, life goes on. The strangest things include life events that you cannot share, or simply going to the grocery store and not having to buy those items you used to have to buy for him. It is an anxious time in a way for my wife, the will, his worldly goods, his taxes, and trying to morn. On top of that we need to make arrangements for a memorial service, our retirement and apply for pensions and social security. We live in stressful times. But this too shall pass we hope.

I can find solace in nature, walking with my dogs, and working on my trees. That keeps me going. Life is stressful right now, somewhat insane at times, but what is the alternative? It goes on whether we like it or not!

Walking in the woods help me regain or maintain my sanity in these interesting times.

Death comes easy. (2/17/2023)

Boy, it has been almost more than a month since I posted something here on my blog. In my eyes I have a valid excuse for it, but then, don’t we all have that when we procrastinate? But I really do! In the intermediate time, my wife got COVID, and my 95-year-old father-in-law had an accident and passed away, died, kicked the proverbial bucket! Since my wife had COVID during the onset of the whole affair, I all the sudden was trusted into the middle of it all as the main care giver, which left me little time to attend to this blog.

OK, if this hasn’t left some of you gasping for air, let’s dive into the details and a little of my feelings. I’ll try not to make this a tearjerker or terribly sentimental, I promise, I just want to share some of my observations and feelings. I still feel that I have been burning the candle at both ends and somehow got through it without COVID. My wife and I received our booster around the same time. Moreover, we did not isolate after she felt sick and tested positive. My only explanation is that I was running on adrenaline and that this somehow protected me.

She came down with it on a Monday evening. I had to teach an online class on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. In addition to this I had to take care of a sick wife. My father-in-law was anxious that his daughter had COVID and although we tried to convince him it was not that bad; however, we could not visit him in the fear of infecting him. My wife had actually visited him the afternoon before she got sick. As a result, he had been isolated by his assisted living place as well in the fear that he was infected as well. He survived COVID earlier in 2022 so we hoped he still had enough antibodies. In addition, he had gotten a booster in November.

Things looked up on Thursday, but then Friday morning we got the word he was in the emergency room. He had fallen twice the night before. The wife was still in isolation, and it fell on me to find out what was going on. He was admitted to the hospital later that afternoon, which meant numerous hospital trips for me the next couple of days. On Tuesday they finally transported him to a rehabilitation unit 5 minutes from our home, which made it a bit easier on me. That Thursday my wife came out of isolation and was finally able to visit her father. He passed away the next Tuesday night (or maybe early Wednesday morning) around midnight. When he was in the hospital the doctor kept telling us he was 95 (almost 96) and that he was near death. Eventually it came out that he could no longer swallow and that he had two to three weeks to live. I am just happy that my wife, her brother, and our daughter got to see him while he was still alive in the rehabilitation/hospice unit.

All together, these were a rough combined two weeks. But as you can guess it is not over. Then comes cremation, memorial arrangements, lawyers, emptying apartments, you name it. It reminded me of 19 years ago when my mother died. I felt that I never had time to grieve until I got on the airplane to fly home. She died in the Netherlands, and I was there and watched her die. It was a sudden death; however, almost immediately I had to deal with a hysterical sister, the next day pick up my brother at the airport, make funeral arrangements, keep my brother and sister from killing each other, have a service, pack all her belongings, put her condo on the market and arrange the inheritance. Do this all, in one week. Having had no time to really grieve, I burst out in tears when the plane took off and cried or was hurting all the way home across the ocean, finally. As a result, I became alienated from both my sister and brother.

Death is interesting. You die and then it is over. When my father-in-law entered the rehab/hospice unit the doctor explained what was about to happen to him. The doctor told us that when he was about at the end of his story my father-in-law interrupted him and said, “and then I die.” He was an engineer and did not believe in anything after death. Neither do I, nor does my wife. It is wishful thinking that there is anything after death. Both my wife consider heaven here on earth and want to make it so.

My father believed in a strange form of reincarnation. Something like your spirit or soul returns to a great lake or a reservoir from which a minute amount comes to enter a new human (baby) to grow and develop. Once this conscious has grown and is fully developed and the host (person) dies it returns to the reservoir thus enriching the grand total making the overall grand mind richer in the log-term. It’s an interesting thought.

One final thought. Raquel Welch died this week at 82. Tim McCarver at 81. Whenever, I see those numbers I think “damn, 12 more years for me.” Thinking about it that way, it is not much fun. But then I could have a heart attack tomorrow. Mortality is not a prominent part of my thinking, but I am more aware of it now since I am getting older and closer to retirement <read here>. This afternoon, I saw two young chicks (sorry that sounds sexist, I know) smiling, walking their dogs. I could not help wondering if they are aware of their mortality and live in the moment. More and more, I am starting to appreciate everything I experience, life and nature around me. I hope you do too. Life is short and very precious.

I rarely post a picture of myself, but this is the most recent one of me with my father-in-law.  It was taken about three weeks before he died.  We had dinner at a Mexican restaurant.  You can see the edge of his margarita glass on the left side of the picture.  He enjoyed those.  On his death bed, while having hallucinations he kept hinting at drinking a beer or wanting to have a beer.  We should have smuggled one in!