Making plans

My childhood was somewhat chaotic, and I learned early on that planning something did not necessarily mean it would happen. There were too many moving parts and too many things that were beyond my mother’s control. My takeaway was, don’t bother to plan because whatever I plan is unlikely to happen.

I took that belief into adulthood, and it wasn’t until my mid-thirties that I planned my first vacation—a windjammer cruise in Maine. I made the initial deposit in January, for a trip that was to happen in August, and then I waited for whatever was going to go wrong to go wrong.

Everything went according to plan, though, until the day my friend and I were driving north on I-95 and an overturned truck somewhere in Connecticut closed the expressway for five hours. Fortunately, I had planned an extra day, so we still had plenty of time to get to Maine, board the Schooner J & E Riggin and have a wonderful week of sailing along the coast.

Schooner J&E Riggin

My childhood belief was shattered by that trip. It turned out I could plan a vacation and it would happen.

Since then, I have planned and taken many trips. Sometimes there are hitches (like the time I miscalculated the twenty-four-hour clock conversion and almost missed my plane to Poland), but I take the attitude that everything that happens is part of the adventure (like the time I missed a connection in Heathrow and was invited to stay for afternoon prayer in the chapel).

Fast forward to the year I was to turn sixty and began to plan how I would celebrate that milestone birthday. I decided on two things—a return trip to Poland and a thirty-day silent retreat (something I had wanted to do for about fifteen years but having the time and money had not coincided).

I spent a few months of that year exploring options, and then, about four months before my birthday, my best friend was diagnosed with a very aggressive form of a non-curable brain cancer. Suddenly, my plans seemed inconsequential and were set aside.

Jim and I celebrated my sixtieth birthday at a friend’s condo overlooking the Jersey Shore, and when the dolphins appeared mid-afternoon, Jim said, “They are singing happy birthday to you.” It was the last birthday I celebrated with him.

Ten years have passed, and I have still not returned to Poland nor gone on a thirty-day retreat; I have done other travel but neither of those.

Now I am looking forward to turning seventy in the fall and thinking how I will celebrate this milestone. I am planning to go to Europe for an extended time in 2022 and am enjoying the researching and planning, fully aware that there are many moving parts and things that are beyond my control.

Cancer and COVID have taught me to live life to the full. It is good to make plans—and to remember to let go of control and enjoy the adventure.

Long life

To live a long life can be a blessing,

if we choose to see with God’s eyes and

to love with God’s heart,

to be open to the possibility of life and

content with what life brings.

Pain and suffering come to everyone

(whether we want it or not),

each hurt offering an invitation to shift a bit

so that we see from a different angle,

get a different perspective.

Every day offers a fresh start,  

a chance to be more loving and forgiving

and generous and grateful.

I want to live with abandon,

to risk love and forgiveness,

and at the end of my long life,

I hope my final words will be words of gratitude.

Spread joy

After a change in travel plans, I called the airline to see if I could get on an earlier flight, but I had bought a “no changes allowed” ticket. The airline representative told me, though, that the gate agent could let me board an earlier flight, so I decided to go to the airport early to see if the I could make the switch.

It was my birthday, and I thought that if the gate agent knew, it might help my cause. So, I bought a button that proclaimed Birthday Girl and pinned it to my coat.

I am happy to be alive and grateful for every birthday. I have never lied about my age because every birthday reminds me how blessed I am and gives me the opportunity to think of family members and friends who died young, all those who did not reach my current age.

In the shuttle from the car rental agency to the airport terminal, several people wished me happy birthday. A man across from me asked me how old I was, which startled me since people don’t usually ask. I told him I was sixty-eight, and he said, “You look great.”

I don’t know what sixty-eight is supposed to look like (or act like, for that matter), but I appreciated the compliment.

The TSA agent looked at my birthday girl button and checked my driver’s license before wishing me a happy birthday. “Just checking?” I asked. “I didn’t want to be made a fool,” he said.

The surly cashier at the donut shop looked at my button and asked, “Is it really your birthday?” I assured her it was. She broke out in a big smile and wished me a happy birthday.  

The birthday wishes continued as I walked through the terminal to the gate, and it made me happy to think of the impact of one little button.

When I got to the gate, the monitor indicated that there were fifty open seats on the earlier flight.

I approached the gate agent and explained my situation and asked if she could help me. She said there was nothing she could do. I relayed my conversation with the airline representative on the phone, but nothing—not even knowing it was my birthday—softened her. 

I wondered what had happened to this woman that prevented her from doing this act of kindness. Had she just gotten some bad news? Was she preoccupied with her own problems? Had someone said “no” to her that morning?

I understood that she was just doing her job, that she had every right to deny my request, and so I walked away. I was sad for her and prayed that she would find joy.

And I didn’t allow her surliness to impact my happiness. As I boarded my flight, the flight attendant said happy birthday and asked if I was thirty-nine. “I crossed over to forty this year,” I joked. Complimentary bubbly and extra cookies added to my birthday celebration.

Celebrating a life

We are celebrating my mother’s 90^th birthday today. Her mother lived to be ninety-six; good genes.

My mother still does her own grocery shopping, cooks her own meals and takes care of her house. She loves to play cards, and every summer she plants and harvests a large garden. She still drives and even cleans her own gutters. A few weeks ago, she shoveled snow. Until a few years ago, she walked three miles a day, six days a week.

She is indomitable and fiercely independent. I once called her stubborn—only once. “I am not stubborn,” she admonished sternly. “I just know what I want,” she added. And that she does. She goes after what she wants, no matter the obstacles.

If someone was looking for subjects for a “mind-over-matter” study, I would recommend my mother. She is amazing in her ability to keep moving forward, surmounting every hurdle.

My mother does not like change—or, as she would say, she likes things to stay the same (she is a pro at the positive spin). My dad used to say you could set your watch by my mother’s schedule: breakfast by 8:00 a.m., lunch at noon and supper at 5:00 p.m.

Her parents emigrated from Poland at the beginning of the twentieth century. They had been farmers in Poland and were farmers in northern Michigan. My mother is the seventh of ten children.

As a young adult, she moved to Detroit and got a job at a Polish restaurant. There she met my father, a cop whose parents were also Polish immigrants. My parents spoke Polish as their first language, and I grew up hearing them speak Polish to one another and to their parents.

Frugality was a way of life on the farm, and my mother did not moved much beyond that, even when her finances would allow. Frugal and resistant to change, my mother repaired rather than replaced most everything. We darned socks and replaced stretched-out elastic. She composts directly into her garden and flower beds, and I think she was the inspiration for the motto, reuse, reduce, recycle.

The habits my mother learned on the farm also shaped our lives, and even though we lived in the city, we were awakened every morning by 7:30 a.m. “You’re sleeping the day away,” she would say. There were no cows to milk or eggs to collect, but that made no difference. Rising early is a virtue in my mother’s eyes.

Every day started with a full breakfast—usually pancakes, waffles or eggs—and we had meat and potatoes most every night for supper (fish on Fridays being the exception).  My mother cooked for us kids and then she made another meal for my dad, something traditionally Polish, like picked pigs feet or something with sauerkraut. Taking care of her family is what my mother has done for the past seventy years.

Today we celebrate a long life and say, Sto lat—that’s Polish for happy birthday and many more.

 

“Today is my birthday”

“Today is my birthday,” I repeated cheerfully. It was like I was six or four rather than sixty-four.

Throughout that day, though, my sixtieth birthday kept coming to mind.

That was the birthday I spent at the New Jersey Shore, watching the sun rise over the ocean, waiting for dolphins to swim by and taking stock of my life. I was caring for my friend Jim, who had brain cancer. We had come to the Shore a few days earlier, the day after we learned Jim had a blood clot in his left lung.

This was three months after Jim’s cancer diagnosis. He had already spent six weeks in the hospital—surgery, recovery, rehabilitation, another surgery….When finally released, his mantra was “No more hospitalizations.”

Then one day, he started having trouble breathing. A trip to the ER confirmed a blood clot. Jim refused to be hospitalized, and so a nurse taught me how to give him injections of blood thinners. We had plans to leave for Ocean City the next day and Jim would not change our plans.

His oncologist was adamant that Jim be hospitalized, even warning that Jim would die without hospitalization.  “Then he will die at the Shore,” I said with more bravado than I felt.

Jim had always loved spending time at the Jersey Shore. The peace and quiet suited him. He was okay to die there.

So I called the funeral director and relayed the oncologist’s warning. He gave me his cell number and told me to call if needed.

And off we went.

The drive to the Jersey Shore had always seemed smooth, but Jim’s blood clot revealed every bump in the road, every uneven seam between lanes. His face was set in a grimace the entire hour and twenty minutes; shallow gasps of air accompanied quiet moans. I was terrified that he would not survive the drive.

Things got worse after we arrived. Jim could barely walk and each step up the steep flight of stairs caused excruciating pain. He collapsed when we got inside and hurt too much to move.

But the next morning, Jim got up and dressed without help. He had no pain and was breathing easily. Either the blood thinners were working or it was a miracle.

“Now I know that you will never take me back to the hospital,” he said.

“I won’t,” I assured him.

“Now I can live,” he stated with conviction.

All that day, he observed how the Shore was better than the hospital: “You don’t see the sun rise over the ocean in the hospital….you don’t see dolphins in the hospital…You don’t get wine with dinner in the hospital.”

We stayed at the Shore for several more days, and each day Jim grew stronger.

When the dolphins swam by on my birthday, Jim said, “There are sixty dolphins singing happy birthday to you.” It was so sweet, and now it is a happy memory.