20th Century Woman

The Duchess asks, What’s up, Old Woman?

I need to explain why life has been hard to live lately. Why I have not had time or energy to post.

Here’s the bad stuff:

We had an unpleasant letter from Jerry’s brother, Bert. It was hostile and incoherent. We are not sure why he wrote it. The body of the letter was typed, and we are sure he didn’t type it himself. Some of it was written in scrawling, almost illegible handwriting. We hear from a friend who keeps in touch with him that he is not doing well. He is in and out of hospitals. Jerry has tried to call him but he doesn’t want to talk to Jerry. We worry that he is being taken advantage of by people who want to get money from him and are not really concerned with his health and welfare. Jerry is hurt by his hostility.

Then there is the computer disaster. While my son (the recently divorced one) was using my computer – perhaps on some questionable site – it caught a virus and I lost a hard drive and a lot of files. The ones I miss the most are all the pictures I took after September. Jerry had backed up everything before that.

And there is Jerry’s face. He is having fluorouracil treatments for skin cancer. So, wearing a rubber glove, I have to smear a poisonous cream on his scalp (his bald head), brow, cheeks and nose. It kills cells: cancer cells first, then the outer skin layer. He is beginning to look like hamburger. I am told that women have this treatment in order to make their skin look younger. They must be crazy.

I grieve for my divorced son’s pain. He misses his children terribly. The wife who divorced him is the only woman he has ever loved, and he has loved her since he was 14 years old. He tells me, his eyes brimming with tears, that he can no longer think about his past life without hurting. She is in all of it.

I wake up in the morning worrying alternately about Ben and Bert. Then I remember that I can’t touch Jerry’s face because it is anointed with poison and is becoming sensitive and sore. We have 10 days of treatment left.

Though this may be the season to be jolly, it is also the season to be nervous and harassed with buying presents, putting up a Christmas tree, and all the other things that come at Christmas time that are stressful. Not to mention the cold, damp weather. I had the poodles clipped but the groomer cut them so close that now they have to wear little red coats when we walk them. They look really silly, though they don’t seem to mind the coats.

I am facing the fact that very soon I will have to have my cataracts “done.” I can barely see to drive at night, and I can no longer read small print.

But life goes on, and it’s not all bad.

Not much can be done about Bert. Jerry continues to call him and to call friends who may know how he is doing.

Ben, my divorced son, is staying with us and looking for work. He probably has a job. He is waiting for a background check to be completed. In the meantime he has signed up to take an English course at the local community college, and he is doing yard work here on the island, working out at the gym on the Indian reservation and reading voraciously. He is on a diet to lose weight and in general is heavily into self-improvement. He even washes dishes for me after dinner. When the job begins he will live in our condo in town. His children will be here for a few days at Christmas.

Because of the computer disaster I now have a new computer. This is something I have wanted for a long time. My old computer was too slow to edit movies from my camcorder. Jerry has installed a new hard drive in the old computer and as soon as we figure out how to get it to accept Wi-Fi we will give it to Ben to use for school. I hope he has learned his lesson about iffy sites.

Jerry and I are immersed in the 19^th century. I call myself a 20thcentury woman, but in my head I often dwell in the 19^th century. We are watching a series of Teaching Company lectures on Victorian England. We had read a biography of Queen Victoria’s life up to the time of Albert’s death. Now we are reading an account of the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 by Simon Winchester, which really details colonial life in the late 19^th century. On my Kindle I am reading Trollop’s “The Way We Live Now” and I am completely engrossed: carried out of present troubles as I follow the many iniquities of Augustus Melmotte and Sir Felix Carbury. The Kindle makes it difficult for me to skip ahead to see how things turn out, so I am actually reading every word. It’s a lot more fun that way. And I can make the print big enough so it’s easy to see.

I am looking forward to a visit from my other son and his wife next week. They will be here for Christmas, and all of us on this side of the Atlantic will dine at my grandson’s house on Christmas Day.

I count my blessings. Things could be worse.

So that’s about it, Duchess.

Life has not been easy lately, but I finally finished the bird picture. Here is the finished project.

Evening grossbeaks at the feeder

I didn’t finish the painting. I tried, but time ran out and I had to collect fancy clothes for us to wear at the wedding we are going to on Saturday in San Francisco. Jerry had a pair of black shoes and a pair of black dress pants. He had no sport coat. So we went to Value Village. We got 2 sport coats, and since we were there we picked up a couple of shirts. The coats fit pretty well and the shirts looked new. They were all name brands. I thought the bill would be around $35, which is good for 2 coats and 2 shirts, but when we got to the register we only paid $16. Everything was half price because it was Veterans Day. I love Value Village.

Today I washed and ironed Jerry’s one dress shirt. I assembled my wardrobe for the wedding and 2 parties. I am planning to wear the silk Chinese jacket that my daughter Clare gave me at Sarah’s wedding. It is slightly odd looking, but old ladies can get away with that sort of thing.

Then I began to paint. I had worked on it for some time yesterday, and here is it’s present state. But I will have to finish it next week, and it will be over the 7 day limit.

Birds at the feeder, stage II

The birds are evening grossbeaks. The colors are not exactly accurate. I don’t really care about that; as I said to Jerry when he complained, it’s a painting, not a document.

Dear Blog Friends:

It is now almost 2 weeks since Bert left. Writing the previous post, in which I recounted all the events that led up to his coming and his hasty departure, proved to be remarkably cathartic. The night I posted it I slept well, after a time when I had spent many nights awake and restless.

I am thankful for all the kind and wise comments from my blog friends. They helped me get perspective. Some of you expressed understanding because you have found yourselves in or knew of analogous situations — Ernestine, Maria and Pauline. Some of you praised Jerry — Lucy, Dale, Marja-leena and Betty — and I am so glad. Bert is Jerry’s brother, something I had written about in earlier posts but failed to make clear in my last post. That is the reason the hospital released him to us. They said if there had been no family he would have been sent to a nursing home.

Jerry and Bert lived very different lives. Bert is, and always has been, a loner. Jerry is a man who wants to be married. His comfort and happiness depends on a close relationship with a woman. Bert has friends; he talks more than Jerry, but solitude is Bert’s greatest need. Jerry is careful, thoughtful, methodical and dislikes controversy. Bert is careless, creative, erratic and he enjoys argument and litigation.

Hattie and Maria pointed out the failings of the system to deal with situations like this. I think the hospital personnel tried to do their best, but coping with an eccentric elderly man like Bert who had a drug dependency was more than they were ready for. Jerry was always uneasy about how things would work out, because he knew his brother and his brother’s need to do things “his way.” But Jerry remained calm, reasonable and strong the whole time.

Some of you emphasized the addiction — Jan, annie (of Canyon Cottage), K (my old friend), wisewebwoman, Darlene and Natalie — and I certainly think that was a factor. But it was more than that. He wanted desperately to control his own life. Isn’t that what we all want? The sad thing is that he is no longer able, mentally or physically to do so. Many of you — Jean, Rain, Tabor, Deborah, Annie (of Mzodell’s page) — saw that, and reminded me of it. That helped. Some commenters left simple, loving words of encouragement — Freda, Brighid and Elephant’s Child. To them and to you all I am deeply grateful.

Writing about it forced me to remember all the events and preparations that Jerry and I went through before we got to the hospital, all the tedium and stress of the hospital experience, how much I worried that I would be unable to carry out accurately all the instructions I got from the nurse, the physical therapist and the occupational therapist. I reviewed in my mind the tiring trip home, worrying about Bert, about traffic, about the dogs. And once at home and bone tired I remembered cooking dinner, cleaning up, getting Bert settled and finally sleeping badly as I had been doing for days.

I could see why the next morning I was unprepared for Bert’s sudden demand that I give him all the pills and all the hospital records and instructions. I am still saddened as I remember how I lost my temper and the argument that ensued. I am ashamed that I was impatient and unwise in what I said. But I realize that I was pushed far by worry and exhaustion and Bert’s unreasonableness. This doesn’t mean that I don’t still have deep regrets. I do. But I understand better why it happened.

I think there are a lot of lessons for me to learn from this experience. One’s flexibility diminishes in old age; I was afraid I was not up to the task of caring for Bert, that I would become too tired. I was nervous about not having medical help available — I had been unsuccessful in finding a doctor in Bellingham for Bert. Jerry’s and my routine would be changed. Our life has an easy cadence that would be interrupted. I think one should undertake less in old age, and we were taking on a huge unknown.

All my commenters recommended going easy on myself. I think that’s a piece of advice that everyone who is getting up in age should remember every day.

Love to you all.