Sh*t My Brother Drags Home

Last Week:

• Two random sheets of plywood, a wooden pallet frame and three buckets full of 4 x 6 ends no more than a foot or so long. I have no idea what he intends to use them for and I'm not convinced he has either. The stumps, except for being pine, would be ideal in a fireplace, if we had one, which we don't.
• A sort of scrapbook/portfolio of some random person's experience in the navy right after World War II including newspaper clippings (of various people so we don't know if the owner might have been one of them), photos of warships (aircraft carrier, cruiser and at least one destroyer), airplanes and Guantanamo Bay naval base back when it was just an innocent naval base located in a friendly country.
• An envelope labelled "Paris 1951" and containing hand-tinted postcards including one of the Eiffel Tower taken from almost the same vantage point as the famous picture of Hitler's visit to the City of Light, les Invalides, Napoleon's Tomb, etc.; several aerial photographs obviously taken by the original owner as he flew into the city; and a couple of business cards to cafes apparently owned or run by American expats with notes about meetings.

He was given the portfolio/scrapbook by a customer and thinks one of our nephews (both active-duty Navy) might be interested in it. I have my doubts since neither has ever expressed a great interest in history, especially not the personal histories of complete strangers.

I have no idea where (or why) he acquired the other items. I could probably put together a pretty good spy story with the contents of that envelope, though.

Nothing To Do But Wait

So today is the culmination of weeks and months of growing anxiety as my sweet, beautiful niece goes into surgery, yet again. She's fourteen and this is her fourth open heart operation. It was originally scheduled for last month but she came down with the flu a week before that date and had to reschedule.


I think at least part of the anxiety (our own, that is) comes from knowing that she is now old enough to be aware of the risks herself. The first two operations occurred when she was an infant and the last one a couple of years ago, but fourteen is a good age to have a real grip on your own mortality.


She's pretty good, although not perfect, at hiding her nervousness and spent yesterday evening swimming in the hotel pool in Boston before going in for pre-op.


The first three operations involved stitching together her heart valves and repairing leaks but they just wouldn't hold up permanently, so this one will install an artificial valve that should last.


One of her big brothers, the middle one who was just sent by the Navy on an extended tour of the Eastern Mediterranean and Black Seas (Romania, Israel and Greece, so far), made a video for her wishing her well because he couldn't be there this time. His political consciousness was formed almost entirely by 9/11 and tends to be somewhere to the right of John McCain but he is a sweet, caring, loving human being and the best big brother anyone could ask for and I'm quite proud of him.


I just received a report from her Dad that the operation is proceeding satisfactorily. They have finished replacing one valve and are working on the second one now. She went under around 8:30 this morning and the expect to be done in another couple of hours.


So we continue to wait.

The Neverending Holiday

This is neither surprising nor untypical of our family. A little more communication would probably help, at least in keeping down expectations, but wouldn't really change anything.

We were expecting the family (Other Brother, niece, two nephews) down here for Christmas. My brother bought a nice standing rib roast for Christmas dinner.

Our Other Brother called--on Christmas Eve--to let us know he and the niece would be coming down the day after Christmas and the nephews would be showing up three days after that. We cut one third off the roast and I cooked that up on Christmas Day just for the two of us. We opened presents.

Other Brother and niece arrived Thursday afternoon with enough time to visit for all of two hours before my brother had to go to work. We opened presents and played games. They were going to come back later in the evening to look through my new telescope but the sky clouded over. Last night they came over and we all got to look at the moons of Jupiter, the Pleiades, and the stars Procyon and Betelgeuse. The niece wants a telescope. She also thinks Betelgeuse is a hilarious name for a star (and she's never even seen the movie). Today they've gone kayaking for manatees.

When the nephews arrive on Sunday, they're all going up to Busch Gardens for the day after which Other Brother leaves for home. The niece is staying with the nephews at least until their mom shows up and then will go home with her. Not sure when that will be. The nephews may be here through New Year's but who knows when, or how often, we'll see them. There are still presents to open and the rest of the roast to cook. If I get enough notice, I'll be able to make a New Year's dinner for everyone. If not, my brother and I will finish it off ourselves.

Also, my brother and the niece were the only ones to ask for (and get) anything specific in the way of presents. The rest of us just give and receive random stuff. It's kind of the way we roll. It's actually exciting in its own way never knowing ahead of time whether the recipient's reaction is going to be joy, satisfaction, let down or, "WTF were you thinking?!"

I got two joys and a let down this year. Not bad.

It Was a Species Specific Party

We seem to have survived our bout of giving thanks and are recovering nicely.

The day itself went well. I managed to coordinate myself well enough to be able to clean up as I went along so there was no huge pile of pots, pans and dishes at the end and, yet, everything came out done at the same time. Turkey, sausage/cornbread stuffing, sweet potatoes in a brown sugar/pineapple glaze, scalloped potatoes, sweet corn, carrots, tomatoes, homemade cranberry sauce (which somehow always impresses people even though it's the easiest thing in the world to make), fresh rolls and apple pie. Not sure I could time that all right again if I wanted to.

Our biggest challenge came as we were sitting down at table and realized all three cats were in the kitchen with better then half a roast turkey sitting on the counter. We spent the next ten minutes chasing them down and (gently) tossing them out into the foyer and closing the door behind them. They knew exactly what was up and were not cooperative but we got to eat in peace. They made up for it by digging out all their catnip mice from wherever they'd been hidden and bouncing off the walls and racing at top speed down the halls and across the furniture all weekend.

I refuse to shop at all over the holiday weekend but my brother went out once. All he got were a couple of air mattresses in case our Other Brother and the nephews come by for Christmas/New Year's. It took him a good four hours. He could just as easily have waited until any time this week, or even next, but I guess the urge struck him. He had another piece of pie to help himself recuperate.

Deconstructing The Old Year

Our nephews came down for the New Year celebrations. They were down here to party with friends so, technically, they just used our house as a base of operations but they did visit for a while when their sister and mom returned from Georgia and they also helped tear up the back yard which was a good thing.

My brother has long wanted to remove the small mound out back that Dad built years ago. It originally contained a rock garden and a small working waterfall feeding a stream that emptied into a koi pond. The mound was built on a base consisting of the excavated dirt from the pond. On top of that, Dad stacked a short ton of coral boulders glued together with cement. The watercourse from the fall to the pond was lined with river stones embedded in cement. The pond was a homemade basin of cement over a sheet of black waterproof plastic liner and edged with slate cemented into place. Dad was a frustrated landscape architect and concrete was his medium.

The overall effect was very pleasant for several years but, eventually, the underlying earth sank a bit and the water didn't flow properly and the pump stopped and the whole thing was too tightly cemented together for the operating guts to be accessible to repair and so it became simply a pond with a slight rise in the background. The folks added and aerator to the pond and the fish were happy.

The fish were happy for a while, anyway. I was on the phone with Mom one day when she suddenly exclaimed, "Oh, look at the great blue heron!" which, of course, being on the phone from Connecticut, I could not, but she described in detail how it had just landed in the pond. Her excitement was understandable. Great blue herons are magnificent birds and not that common, even down here, are usually spotted at long range off in a swamp somewhere, and to have one standing not more than 20 feet from the back door was extraordinary. It was only after the great blue had flown that Mom realized the visit might have been somewhat less than exceptional and that, in fact, they had invited the heron by setting out such an easily accessible goldfish buffet. A few of the smaller fish survived by hiding under the leaves overhanging the edge of the pond but they were too traumatized to ever come out of the shadows again.

Dad died and the pond and mound became overgrown. The last of the fish were eaten by some other bird (no witnesses this time) and the water was allowed to evaporate. My brother didn't make any changes while Mom was alive because she liked some of the flowers that took root there.

That all changed this past weekend. The nephews gave my brother a new sledge hammer and chain saw for Christmas. I gave him a new orange tree. On New Year's Eve day we all went out and started dismantling the pond with the sledgehammer (my brother initially claimed he didn't need a new one so the boys started off with the old one but it broke about ten minutes in (Dad always made bunker-grade concrete.)) and the overgrowth with the chain saw.

The nephews have now gone back to base. The project's not done yet. The walls of the pond are completely broken up and it is about two-thirds filled in with rubble and dirt. The mound is half gone. We will have extra volume remaining thanks to the cement fill. The coral boulders have been rolled back to the property line in preparation for we know-not-what further use. The trees and bushes are down (with the exception of the central trunk of the tree on which the mockingbirds built their nest last summer where its ruins still perch) and the branches hauled out front for disposal.

The area looks disturbingly like a mass grave. Sod or grass seed will take care of that. What's worse, we can now see the neighbors.

A Trip to Boston

My 12-year-old niece goes in for surgery tomorrow morning, 6 a.m., at Boston Children's Hospital. This will be her third open heart operation, although the first two were done when she was a baby so this is the one she'll remember. I just got off the phone with her and her Dad (my Other Brother). They and the rest of the family, except my younger nephew who is stuck on base in Virginia, are all going off for a Duck (DUKW: ex-military amphibious vehicle) Tour of Boston Harbor.

Caitlin with her Dad and two older brothers.

Fortunately, insurance will cover the operation itself, but there are other expenses including travel costs, living arrangements in Boston, lost income and additional doctors' bills that are not covered so the family has been conducting a number of fundraisers to help defray them.

Caitlin, in the middle, because of the stress on her heart,
has always been  . . .extra petite. For comparison, her friend,
Elizabeth, in pink, is a classmate and the same age. Credit Kevin Kane

I have been very impressed by the support her friends and the community have shown her. Her classmate, Elizabeth McCann organized a bake sale and lemonade stand. The local grocery has been selling fundraising cookies and the church hosted a fundraising dinner. In addition, a number of individuals and charities have donated to her cause.

On the one hand, I wish none of this, the operation or the begging, was necessary. On the other hand, I am proud of how, when the need arises, we do all pull together, just because it's the right thing to do.

All in the Family, Navy Style

My oldest nephew just made Chief Petty Officer today. His kid brother, my other nephew (also in the Navy and the one who went to Iraq), and his dad, my Other Brother and a retired chief himself, were both there in Norfolk, Virginia for the ceremony.

The rule is, if family is in attendance, family get to apply the insignia of promotion so my Other Brother and my nephew's brother got to pin his new anchors on him.

Yes, he does look a little like Tom Cruise when he smiles.

I'm also impressed that Dad can still fit into his old uniform.

Mom, A Life: Part Nine

Mom, A Life: Part Eight

The Final Years

Dad was in a serious car accident just as they were building the new house. That, and the fact their contractor absconded with several thousand dollars necessary for the finishing work, meant the move was delayed, drawn-out and a little traumatic. They stayed with first one son and then the other (both of whom were living in town at the time) and eventually the place was completed.

In late 1997 Dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer and underwent cryogenic surgery. During follow-up another tumor was discovered and he began chemotherapy. As Mom described it from the x-rays, "It looked like a loaf of French bread wrapped around the back of his stomach." At first he responded well and they could see the tumor shrinking almost daily but suddenly something the doctors called a "wildfire" took over. In less than a month, on March 22, 1998, Dad died.

Mom continued to teach ceramics at the Senior Center and occasionally took on jobs either when she wanted extra money or just because she was bored. (She did a short stint as a dispatcher for a rental car company out at the airport one time.) She gave up driving and my brother, who had sold his house and moved in after his girlfriend died, chauffeured her around. In 2000, my brother managed to pull off a surprise 80th birthday party at the country club that included her children, grandchildren, most of her nephews and nieces, surviving sister and brother-in-law and a host of friends.

The remaining dozen years passed quietly. Mom's back had been giving her problems for decades. What with slipped and disintegrating discs and severe scoliosis she became hunched over at the waist and barely four feet tall. (She was 5' 6" most of her adult life.) As her mobility decreased she stopped going anywhere except ceramics class and doctors' appointments. We had always planned for Mom to live to at least 100, both because she thought that was a nice round number and also in hope she'd passed on longevity genes to the rest of us, but in 2008 I received a letter from her hinting at imminent problems. I moved in with Mom and my brother to help him look after her. The letter turned out to be a touch melodramatic.

Mom talked about moving to an assisted living facility but, although we got brochures and made some visits, her heart wasn't really in it and she stayed home. Her mobility became worse and she was plagued by occasional incontinence and so stopped going to ceramics out of what might best be called anticipatory embarrassment. She most definitely did not want her friends to see her deteriorating.

Mom was diagnosed with moderate Alzheimer's in 2010. She never discussed the diagnosis and I often wondered if one of the effects of the disease was that the implications never really sank in with her. She was put on a drug that noticeably slowed its progress, and for the six months immediately after the diagnosis she showed real improvement both physically and mentally. We even made one last visit to the ceramics class at the Senior Center.

Eventually, though she spent her days mostly on the couch reading and watching TV, although she no longer enjoyed watching sports as she found she didn't understand the rules or the point of the games any more and had no patience for anything lasting longer than a half hour or so. She read continuously, both magazines and large print books from the library.


She still dressed herself (with an increasingly eccentric creativity), made her own bed and did her own laundry (or tried to. We took that last chore away from her after she washed some disposables and filled the dryer with cubic feet of fluff). She had a great appetite and ate everything we made for her enjoying the occasional glass of wine with dinner. Although she had more and more trouble finding the right word, she never lost verbal capability and always recognized people. Her biggest problem was insomnia which could keep her bouncing up and down all night long and exhaustedly napping all the following day.

In February 2012, I noticed a decline in Mom's cognitive abilities. Despite the doctor's warnings about the inevitability of Alzheimer's, Mom had been so stable for so long that it came as something of a shock. During an appointment in early March, her GP noted a spike in her blood pressure and asked if she had a living will and DNR order on file. He recommended we post it on the refrigerator. Mom's insomnia was worse and she was a little more agitated than usual over the following weekend and then, sometime over night or, more likely, early Monday morning, her heart just gave out.

Mom died at home, in her room, Monday March 12, 2012, fourteen years after Dad. She was three months shy of 92.


Post Script

This sketch of Mom's life turned out to be a lot longer than I'd originally planned, yet it is still far, far too short to do her any kind of justice. I haven't mentioned her sense of adventure and willingness to try anything at least once. She'd go out in the woods with us kids to explore the "cave" we found. She had us all grilling Japanese food on hibachis and eating with chopsticks back in the '60s. She taught tolerance (no excuses) and encouraged intellectual curiosity. She's why I was listening to Stravinsky and Berlioz at age eleven and owned the complete Yale edition Shakespeare at thirteen (best junior high school graduation present ever!) and why I can cook for myself well enough to entertain in several different styles. ("You're either going to get married or stay single. If single, you're not rich enough to eat out every night so you'll starve if you don't know how to cook. And if you get married I'm not going to have some other woman complain I gave her a helpless son.")

Thanks, Mom. I love you, too.

Mom, A Life: Part Four

Mom, A Life: Part Three

The Later War Years

The School of Nursing, in 1944, was housed in Hartford Hospital, a very large Victorian house, complete with free-flying bat, on Jefferson Street in Hartford. Students and faculty frequently chased the bat without success over the years. Standards of hygiene were . . . different . . . back then.

When patients checked out (men on one floor, women on another and surgery on still another) the beds were stripped down to the springs which the nursing students scrubbed with toothbrushes. When the beds were remade, sheets had to be cornered just so and the open ends of pillow cases were never to face the door. Nursing students poured and counted prescribed meds (with supervision).

Nursing school was not all work. It was here Mom learned to swim underwater and dive in the residence pool, two things she could never do as a child due to the mastoid infections. Because there was a war on, the local movie theaters held morning showings to accommodate shift workers, including student nurses. Mom was also selected to be editor-in-chief of the yearbook sophomore year. Her only really negative experience was coming down, along with twenty or so fellow students, with a serious case of food poisoning. They were all treated to a course of the new wonder drug penicillin, 500,000 units every four hours injected in the buttocks. Fortunately, all the girls had a crush on the male doctor who treated them.

Thanks to the atom bomb, the war ended before Mom graduated and she never had to tend casualties from an invasion of Japan.

Graduation, Career and Marriage

Mom graduated as a Registered Nurse in 1947. Shortly thereafter, she moved back to New Haven and started in the neo-natology ward at St. Raphael Hospital but left when procedural disputes between the woman running the unit and the sister in charge of the department created stress and dysfunction for all the nurses. Mom became a PRN (where needed) nurse at Yale-New Haven Hospital which at least had the advantage of never being routine.

Marshall Rosinus, who Mom had known since childhood from school and church functions, was discharged from the Army Air Force after the war and returned to West Haven. He worked for the New Haven Water Company for a while and, with a friend, would hitchhike to Hartford to visit Mom and the friend's girlfriend (also a nursing student and also a friend of Mom. The world was a smaller place back then).

(At some point, Marshall ran off on a very short lived and ill-advised marriage to someone named Rita. Mom never spoke or wrote one word about it but Dad mentioned it to me once, and I have found a Florida divorce record for them. Who she was, how they met and when (or why) they married I have not been able to determine. The divorce was recorded in Dade County in 1949. The same year Mom and Dad married.)

In 1949 Mom and Dad married in the First Congregational Church, West Haven, Connecticut. Mom was 29 and Dad 31. Mom's dress was home made and everyone was relieved when they caught her two-year-old nephew, Gerald Parsons, before he could take a pair of large shears to it while it hung on the door before the service. Gerald's older brother Douglas (four+) was ring bearer.
Since they were both older, they decided to try for children right away but had no luck. Dad went first for a check-up and then Mom but there were no physical reasons holding them back and finally the doctor just told them to forget about it and relax. That advice worked. That, and Mom managed to change shifts at the hospital.

One of their favorite pastimes was horseback riding, once Mom got used to the beasts, and they rode together on weekends right up until Dad discovered the Connecticut Governor's Horse Guard, Company B, and Mom discovered she was pregnant.

Current Events

Well, ten months after my youngest nephew returned from a tour in Iraq, he's back in the Persian Gulf. At least this time he's aboard ship and unlikely to go ashore.

Normally the only naval personnel to go ashore like that are corpsman, front line medics, who get assigned to Marine units. (Ask the Marines their opinion of those guys.) The Navy, however, which apparently taught him Arabic, sent him to help the Army in Iraqi Kurdistan do some glorified police work.

The ship he's assigned to was already in the Gulf (and in the news) so it looks like the Navy flew him to Bahrain last week to join the tour in progress. I told Mom and my brother about the reassignment but not the deployment.

I'm going to be very upset if the bloviating chickenhawks back here manage to get him in the way of a shooting war with Iran.