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Saturday, August 25, 2012

Can you hear me now?


Odd how life keeps moving, whether you’re paying attention or not.  Strange things happen, and unless you pause just long enough to catch the blur, you might miss the whole thing entirely.

When my husband was in the hospital recently, I picked up the phone in my hotel room and buzzed the front desk.  There were tiny scratchy-sounding noises on the other end but no voice, so I assumed the phone was out of order.  Not exactly.  The extremely polite young maintenance man who came to my room could hear just fine.  Cue icy fingers of dread on the back of my neck.

Two weeks later Kim and I found ourselves sitting in the office of an Ear, Nose & Throat specialist.  Holding the results of my hearing test in her hand and looking intently at the two of us, she said, “So.  What took you so long?  This is bad.”  To which both of us at the exact same time answered, “Pride.”

Somewhere along the line, in the process of living a full and busy life, and most likely helped along by my years as a tractor jockey, I have lost all of my highs and lows and a considerable amount of what’s supposed to be in between.  It happened so gradually at first, I wasn’t consciously aware of what was taking place, but I knew I was missing things people said and that the problem was growing steadily more frustrating.  I couldn’t figure out why Kim was always deliberately lowering the sound level when we were watching TV, and I uncharacteristically snapped at him for it.  I was irritated that nearly everyone seemed to speak rapidly and in very subdued tones.  It was becoming much more relaxing to stay home rather than to put myself in situations where I had to strain to keep up.  
  
I knew I was perpetually asking Kim to increase the volume on the TV … but not that I was plastering him against the back wall of the living room ala an old Maxell ad.  Patient loving soul that he is, he never really let on.  He knows I don’t react well to being told what to do, so he was in the process of, in his words, gently “leading me to the proper decision."

The day of my exam, this card-carrying senior citizen (gasp!) became the proud owner of a set of high-dollar, high-tech personal audio enhancement devices.  They’re sweet little triangle-shaped computers about an eighth of an inch thick that nestle behind the top part of my ears, and each one is attached to a tiny almost invisible tube that ends in an extremely small speaker.  Once my hairdresser and I conspire on a slightly modified haircut, no one on God’s green earth would know I wear them.  Except that I just told you.

There’s a reason why I’m breaking my silence (so to speak) about something I was originally very reluctant to admit I needed – life is too brief and too beautiful to miss.  If you suspect that your audio capabilities could use a boost, don’t wait.  What I thought would make me feel older instead makes me feel infinitely younger.  For one thing, constantly saying “What?” does not make you hip.

Suddenly being able to hear again was something of a shock.  The sheer mass and variety of sounds was overwhelming at first.  But it’s been very gratifying to sit back and observe while my brain does what it’s designed to do – delineate and categorize the individual kinds of input, labeling them important, not so important, okay to ignore, and so on.

There are myriad sounds I hadn’t heard in a very long time but didn’t realize I was doing without.  The swish of my own bare feet on our tile floors.  Birds outside my office window.  The tick of my star-shaped clock on the wall.  The rush and patter of rain, with its thunderous applause.  A hundred sweet little accompaniments to the ballet of daily living.  Sometimes it touches me so deeply to be able to hear again, it moves me to tears.  When I take my ears off, my world instantly reverts to mute.  The contrast is staggering.

An audio test is one of the least expensive gifts you could give to yourself and those who love you, and it would be a shame to let pride rob you of some of life’s sweetest joys.



Monday, August 13, 2012

Seriously. I don't get it.


Less than a month from now I will be eligible for Medicare and by that standard I’ve lived long enough to learn a few things, one of which is that it’s counter-productive to fret overly-much about what anybody thinks of me.

I’m well-read.  I’ve ventured outside the confines of the United States.  I am no longer a candidate for having the “Kick Me” sign hung on my back.  But there are any number of things that baffle me, make me shake my head, cause me to say “I don’t get it.”

I don’t get why a friendly conversation is so hard to come by in the public arena these days.

I don’t get how a sweet little girl sacrifices her entire childhood in favor of incredibly rigorous athletic training, rises to the top of her field, and wins gold – twice – at the  Olympics, only to be made the center of controversy over her HAIR, of all things, and the color of her leotard.

I don’t get what people mean when they say we need “a real American” in the White House.  Are they indicating that they want a Native American Indian for president?  Because obviously, the rest of us came from somewhere else and thus are not “real.”

I don’t get why it’s a point of controversy when the First Lady (as is traditional) chooses childhood obesity as her personal cause, since obesity in general is a huge thing in this country (pun definitely intended) and our children are suffering.  Somebody has to care that this is happening.

I don’t get why people continue to insist that the United States is officially a Christian nation, when the framers of the Constitution made it abundantly clear in the First Amendment that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”  Free exercise means ANY and ALL religion.

I don’t get why people insist that a single verse from Leviticus must be obeyed to the letter, while totally ignoring the remainder of that particular passage and so many more.

I don’t get how certain things become labeled as being “liberal” or “conservative.”  For example, recycling – why is that seen as an inherently subversive thing to do?  We have just one Earth, and so far no one has discovered a viable alternative, so it seems only wise to take care of this little spot in the universe.  The relatively conservative farm boy with whom I spent 34 years of my life went out and bought Rubbermaid tubs the week the big recycling plant opened in Meade, America, and we faithfully salvaged everything reusable from that point forward.  His vastly more conservative parents did the same in their small town, and proudly delivered their newspapers and other recyclables to the collection shed on a regular basis.  Every time someone looks askance at me for doing my tiny part to help preserve the integrity of the planet, it makes me shake my head.  It doesn’t, however, deter me from what is by now an ingrained habit.

I DON’T get it … but I probably DO get it … and here’s what I think is going on …

I think friendly conversations are becoming fewer and further between because life is all about change, more so now than ever, and people are running scared, which makes them cling ever more desperately to their personal points of view.

I think Gabby Douglas’s hair is considered fair game because it’s somehow “foreign,” “other,” “not like us.”  And I think Fox News gets by with slamming her simply because she’s “that” brand of “different.”

I think our President is threatening for those same reasons, even though he is as much “white like us,” as he is “different.”  He had white grandparents who adored him and a white mother from Kansas, of all places.  An ordinary girl, an ordinary family, an ordinary life, all of which came together to produce an extraordinary man.  But because he lives inside black skin, was given a scary-sounding foreign name through no fault of his own, and was uppity enough to run for president and win, it becomes necessary to invent a “back story” in order to justify why we choose not to like him.

Our First Lady -- scary, other, different?  I think you have to stretch pretty hard to make those labels stick, other than the fact that she, too, resides inside black skin that blessedly doesn’t look like ours.  I think her tremendous education level and innate intelligence, as well as those of the president, are intimidating and threatening to a certain segment of the population.

I think people insist on making this an officially “Christian” nation because that makes it feel safer and more “ours”.  And it makes it acceptable to persecute and call out and label and denigrate … and kill … Sikhs, Muslims, Buddhists, Jews, and anyone else who is different … other … thus, somehow threatening.

I think it’s out of ignorance and fear that people carefully extract and selectively interpret the portion of Leviticus that enables and sanctifies their hatred of an entire group of people, while ignoring ALL of the other injunctions, primarily the ones that command us to 
“Love thy neighbor.”

I think that ignorance breeds fear, and fear breeds hatred, and hatred breeds violence.

I think that more than two hundred years of societal evolution, education, and exposure to the way the rest of the civilized world views things have brought us very little in the way of maturity, wisdom, kindness, and human progress in this country.  Willful ignorance and backwardness sadden and trouble me beyond words, and for all the indignant claims on the part of “Christians,” I think we get it wrong on SO many things.  I honestly believed we’d moved past all of this years ago.  Silly me.  Call me naïve and slap the “Kick Me” sign on my backside when I’m not looking.

I think one of the greatest joys of having a personal blog is the freedom to say exactly what I think.  And that the blowback that results from honesty and the willingness to speak up is inevitable and a natural part of the process.   I get that.

Obviously, I think a lot of things.  But if you get why recycling is scorned as an intrinsically “liberal” activity, please give me a call.  I don’t know WHAT to think about that one.

Friday, August 10, 2012

Life. Just life.


In 2003, in what now seems like a different lifetime, my family and I experienced the proverbial – and literal – year from hell.  In an eight-month period from February to October, my father-in-law died after a fall which resulted in a broken shoulder and a massive heart attack; my husband was killed in a horrendous truck rollover during wheat harvest; I moved after 34 years on our farm; and my dad died of a broken shoulder resulting in pneumonia, after a year-long descent into dementia.

As time progressed, I discovered that there is a thing called grief anorexia, but it would be a long time before I could put a name to it.  I did not eat or sleep, except what was necessary to keep me alive, and I steadily lost weight.  My mom, seemingly in excellent shape, had died suddenly of a heart attack eight years earlier at age 67, and from that time forward I was responsible for my dad’s care, as his health was precarious.  After both my father-in-law and my husband were gone, I also assumed full responsibility for my mother-in-law’s well-being.  She too was in the early stages of dementia and lived almost twenty miles away from me.  My dad was thirty miles in the opposite direction, so I burned up the roads checking on both of them every day.  I was simultaneously consumed with the process of settling four separate estates, so I lived with a phone glued to my ear and a FAX machine at my fingertips.  Life was reduced to a test of survival, although I did my best to keep a smile on my face for those who depended on me.
 Cue the knight on the white horse.  Sometime in the month of August that year, I was sitting at the keyboard during band practice at church when I noticed a tall, astoundingly good-looking man at the back of the sanctuary.  Turned out he had been invited by a mutual friend to play bass guitar in the band, and I spent the next eight months virtually ignoring him.  I had plenty to think about and much to do, was still in the throes of overwhelming grief, and was in no mood to make the acquaintance of a dangerous man.  

During those eight months, he and I didn’t exchange more than a quick “Hi, how are you?” as we passed each other in the halls at church.  But a couple of people I trusted were friends with him and despite my resistance I slowly began to take a casual interest in his general welfare.  As a result, on Wednesday night of Holy Week in April of 2004, I detained him outside after band rehearsal because I’d noticed that he had missed a couple of practices and wanted to make sure he was okay.  We ended up sitting in my car and talking – strictly talking – until 4:30 in the morning. 

Two evenings later, on Good Friday, he and another friend attended our Cantata, and afterward I found myself inviting him to my house for Easter dinner on Sunday.  He agreed, but only if I promised to let him do the cooking.

I’ve since heard it said that sometimes, in the middle of an ordinary life, God gives us a fairytale.  Within three hours of his arrival, dinner over, conversation flowing non-stop, we knew we would be getting married, and sooner rather than later. 

There were stipulations.  1) After close to 35 years of cooking for family and farm help, I had reached burnout stage and wasn’t interested in resurrecting the food line.  No problem – having been a foodie most of his life, even making his living at it from time to time, he preferred to handle all kitchen duties himself.  And 2), having lost three key men from my life in a very short time, I was reluctant to give my heart to another, so he solemnly promised not to “die on me.” 

Long sweet story short, on July 25, 2004, I became Mrs. Kim Smith.  He started making wonderful food for me every day, and the 98 pounds I weighed when I met him became ….. well ….... more.  

Fast-forward eight years.  My husband was working in the yard on Saturday morning, July 28, 2012, forcing a root feeder into the rain-deprived soil, when he felt a blow to the middle of his chest as if someone had slugged him.  Chalking it up to a pulled muscle and the 100° temps, he came inside for a rest, a cool shower, and some Tylenol, then proceeded to work at his job as Kitchen & Bar Manager at our local dinner theater for the remainder of the day and evening.  He did the same on Sunday, arriving home after 10:30pm, exhausted, silent, and still in pain.  

A Monday visit to the cardiologist revealed that Kim had suffered a significant heart attack, the upshot of which is that he had bypass surgery on August 2nd and is now recovering at home.  He is rebounding well, thanks to a solid 40 years of racquetball, other physical activity, and good genes, and we are now starting to breathe easier after what was a sobering scare.  He will be off work for at least two months, and he does still require another surgical procedure for an unrelated problem that showed up during the heart cath, but we have crossed a monumental threshold.

My husband is a man of his word.  He has been my personal chef for eight years running and shows no sign of reneging on that bargain, although since I am now retired and he’s still working I step in as much as possible to shoulder that responsibility. 

And he didn’t “die on me.”  Thank you, God, he didn’t die on me.