Ann Shields on Letting Go

I'm Still Here

Ever wonder how easy it is to be unsettled by a phone call?  Take the one I got today from an old acquaintance.  Haven't heard from her in a year or two.  She wanted to know how I've been feeling.  Before I could answer, she told me she had been reading the obituaries lately and so darn many people she used to know have died.

Well, not me, I started to say.  She interrupted to tell me she'd been going through her address book, astonished at all the people who wouldn't be answering their phones any more.  She meant, not on this planet anyway.   

It's not that she really unsettled me.  But I'd been thinking lately how strong I've been getting thanks to water aerobics and to my very own personal training.  Hey, I'm doing all kinds of things on machines I manage to maneuver in and out of without falling off a seat.  Not only that, my OPT aka own personal training is sneaking on heavier weights on these monstrous apparatuses and I'm barely breaking a sweat.  Well, almost.

Anyway, after more chit chatting, me chitting and her chatting, I convinced her I was worth a spot in her address book, at least until the next purge.  I might have even let her feel my sprouting muscle if we were face to face and not phone to phone.

But the phone call forced me to recognize my own daily cruise through the obituaries.  The faces look so pleasant, descriptions sound so neat.  Every once in a while I see a person that makes me wistful, feeling like maybe it would have nice to know him or her.  Some obituaries are so long, they even have two picture of the person, like in a before and after ad.  You might think, who knew that guy was such a stud muffin in his youth.  But I digress.

Lately, I've been surfing the pages more intently because a friend died last month and I keep watching for his obituary.  He was actually a special friend of my oldest and dearest friend, and she has been obituary screening daily as well.  I know she is holding on to her grieving as though she can't let go until his face appears on that dreaded page.  Then it will be real.  It's not as if we don't understand that he is gone.  It is just hard to believe.  Understanding and believing are not always compatible.

I said goodby to this special friend of my dearest friend just three days before he died.  He was in a recliner, wearing a robe, his voice soft, his toes bare.  I mentioned, appropos of nothing, that when I was 76 last year I would launch into an off key version of 76 Trombones, whereupon he told me the origin of that song and about John Philip Sousa, the musician.  Ever the scholarly musician himself, he was still able to impart tidbits of information.

When I bid him farewell that last day, I said with a wave, "I'll see you on the other side."  He smile, nodded and said 'yes.'

So we wait to read what will be said about him in his obituary.  It won't do him justice.  I would have written that he was a gentleman in the true sense of the word, a gentle man.  I hope we'll see it soon, so my dear heartbroken friend, can begin to heal her splintered heart.

So Says Sassy

Barack and Tab-a Pair to draw To

Talk about a parallel universe of reading, I am involved in Dreams of My Father- A Story of Race and Inheritance, by Barack Obama, and Tab Hunter's Memoir, Tab Hunter Confidential, The Making of a Movie Star.  Hunter wrote his book with Eddie Muller.   Barack credits the staff at Times Books for shepherding his manuscript through various stages.

Book books fascinate me.  The gorgeous blond face on the cover of Tab's book and the stern, serious photo of Barack on his.

Barack is all over the news in his recent announcement entering the presidential race.  Tab is not in the news, but is alive and well working as a film producer in southern California.  You might ask, who isn't these days.

I met Hunter at an author's luncheon this month where he was one of four featured authors.  Light weight, I judged.  That was before it was his turn to speak.  His golden locks are gone, hair more sparse, the cut trim.  His smile is great, and his eyes dance. 

The well known fact that he is gay, never came up in his talk, nor did any audience question bother with that part of his life.  The fact that his tour of duty as the screen idol of the 1950s made him uncomfortable then, he made apparent as he reminisced about those days.  A different time and a wildly crazy environment for a young guy who was more interested in horses than being idolized. 

I haven't finished either book, but am struck by one similarity.  Both men, Barack and Hunter, struggled to figure out who they were and where they belonged in the world around them. 

I came away from the author luncheon impressed with Hunter--obviously since I bought his book.  Engaging, charming, real. Those words fit him, and those blue eyes didn't diminish the description one whit.

As for Barack, I am rooting for him as he competes with all the other candidates early on in this wide open race.  My roots go back to Chicago where friends have been praising his name to me for a few years now. 

Not familiar with the struggle to figure out who you are and where you fit in, I always knew I was of Italian descent, that my Italian/Irish neighborhood lived in reasonable harmony.  That my only embarrassment in being Italian was during the early 1940s when my grandfather watched my Irish neighbor paint his front steps red, white and blue, so grandpa painted ours red, white and green-the colors of the Italian flag.  Not a popular thing to do during World War II.

I never struggled with gender issues either.  Boys were cute and girls were competitors.  Simple equation.

My struggles were different.  I was the only child as a latchkey kid with a hard working mother and a father seduced by gambling fever in an era where no 12 Step programs were around for his problem.  I'll write my own book about that some day soon.  And maybe I'll be the guest at an author's luncheon.

Meanwhile, I have to finish these two books.  Next on my reading wish list.  Doris Kearne Goodwin's latest book on Lincoln and his Team of Rivals.  She said it took her ten years to write.  On second thought, I think I'll opt for something lighter, like Art Buchwal's Too Soon to Say Goodbye.  Who else could make living in hospice sound like fun.

So says sassy ann shields

3a.m. musings

The clock is staring at me across the room.  3 a.m.  The dark night of the soul.  But my soul is not dark.  I just can't sleep.  Gas pains bubble up from my chest.  They travel up my ears and I wonder, as I swallow Tums, if maybe this is from my wayward heart wherein the trouble lies.

After all, two metal stens inhabit a major artery after my heart attack on January 22, 2005.  That night still clear in my mind...the ER a nightmare seared in my memory.  And, yes, two other arteries have blockages I am told, one 40% and one 50%, so not to worry, I am told, not serious enough to do something about they say.  So I am prescribed medication to help prevent....whatever....do something only a doctor would know what--that will keep those arteries from getting feisty and stay in check.  I go along with the program.

But on nights like this, I can't help wondering.  Are these gas bubbles keeping me awake or am I on another wild ride to the ER, a place I vowed they would have to take me kicking and screaming.

But then, is that so much worse than a toe tag when all is said and done?

I don't know, so I will go back to reading my book aboutBrack Obama and his Dreams of My Father and wait out the night with him.  Great company for any dark night of the soul.

So Says Sassy