C.A. Haddad's Blog, page 4

Mama Bear—The New Wife

None dare care it murder, Heidi thought, rather pugnaciously.  Those daughters of his thought there was something suspicious just because their dad Dr. Frank, as all his patients called him, instead of the official Dr. Franklin, had LSD and Xanax in his system.  And, okay, was all tied up.  But that’s what Jerry wanted, to be young again, to experiment, to live life to its fullest, which she and he were doing, until—

Too bad about those damn photos.  She should have untied him first before she called 911.  But wouldn’t the pathologists have noticed she had tampered with the “scene,” even if she did it for Jerry’s own good—and her own, spare them the embarrassment.  Although for Jerry, being dead, wasn’t he past embarrassing?  As for her, for some reason she thought her country club days were over. At least in this town.  Word had spread about the photos and the drugs; and, well, some people might think it was kinky, but who knew what went on in their bedrooms.  Maybe nothing, she thought bitterly.

At least the autopsy showed arteries clogging, probably from all the meat and potatoes his ex fed him, instead of the healthy shakes and vegan patties she was sharing with him.  True, he wasn’t exactly fond of her idea of “food,” but at least he was willing to try.  Jerry was willing to try a lot of things, now that he wasn’t shackled to a woman old enough to be—well, to be his first wife.  Every man needs a second chance, a middle-aged shake up. And she wasn’t really that much younger than Jerry.  When you both reach a certain age, twenty-five years is nothing.  But who has a heart attack at sixty-two?  Physician, heal thyself, damn it.

At least she didn’t have the insurance company sniffing around, with all sorts of innuendos.  His life insurance policy, something it seems he bought ages and ages ago and probably forgot about, went to old hang dog Bernice.  Bernice.  No one names their kid Bernice unless they have something against them from the start. And with a nickname of “Bernie?”  What did that portend, that she was more man than woman?  She was definitely not enough woman for Jerry.  Boy, was he—needy?  Up for it?  Wanting it?

Dead.  That’s what he was.  Dead.

And she?  Well, what should she do now?  She supposed she should just go back to work, after a suitable mourning period.  After all, doctors were her business and her specialty.  Jerry’s will was, what could one call it, sweet?  It was nice that he thought of her, but did he really provide for her the way he should have?  Maybe in the future when all the financial issues were settled, but now she needed ready money.  Jerry’s part of the practice had to be sold before she could reap that bounty, and their condo’s HOA fees were outrageous.  Plus, there were the bequests Jerry left to his children.  Only right, she supposed, and it did stop them from challenging the will.  But, really, after putting them through school and graduate school, shouldn’t there be an end to the handouts?

Most probably she should sell the condo and move out of town, start life anew after getting her old job back.  She had a feeling that here in Westchester she would always be considered the black widow with a web to weave.

Mama Bear—Heidi, The New Wife

None dare care it murder, Heidi thought, rather pugnaciously.  Those daughters of his thought there was something suspicious just because their dad Dr. Frank, as all his patients called him, instead of the official Dr. Franklin, had LSD and Xanax in his system.  And, okay, was all tied up.  But that’s what Jerry wanted, to be young again, to experiment, to live life to its fullest, which she and he were doing, until—

Too bad about those damn photos.  She should have untied him first before she called 911.  But wouldn’t the pathologists have noticed she had tampered with the “scene,” even if she did it for Jerry’s own good—and her own, spare them the embarrassment.  Although for Jerry, being dead, wasn’t he past embarrassing?  As for her, for some reason she thought her country club days were over. At least in this town.  Word had spread about the photos and the drugs; and, well, some people might think it was kinky, but who knew what went on in their bedrooms.  Maybe nothing, she thought bitterly.

At least the autopsy showed arteries clogging, probably from all the meat and potatoes his ex fed him, instead of the healthy shakes and vegan patties she was sharing with him.  True, he wasn’t exactly fond of her idea of “food,” but at least he was willing to try.  Jerry was willing to try a lot of things, now that he wasn’t shackled to a woman old enough to be—well, to be his first wife.  Every man needs a second chance, a middle-aged shake up. And she wasn’t really that much younger than Jerry.  When you both reach a certain age, twenty-five years is nothing.  But who has a heart attack at sixty-two?  Physician, heal thyself, damn it.

At least she didn’t have the insurance company sniffing around, with all sorts of innuendos.  His life insurance policy, something it seems he bought ages and ages ago and probably forgot about, went to old hang dog Bernice.  Bernice.  No one names their kid Bernice unless they have something against them from the start. And with a nickname of “Bernie?”  What did that portend, that she was more man than woman?  She was definitely not enough woman for Jerry.  Boy, was he—needy?  Up for it?  Wanting it?

Dead.  That’s what he was.  Dead.

And she?  Well, what should she do now?  She supposed she should just go back to work, after a suitable mourning period.  After all, doctors were her business and her specialty.  Jerry’s will was, what could one call it, sweet?  It was nice that he thought of her, but did he really provide for her the way he should have?  Maybe in the future when all the financial issues were settled, but now she needed ready money.  Jerry’s part of the practice had to be sold before she could reap that bounty, and their condo’s HOA fees were outrageous.  Plus, there were the bequests Jerry left to his children.  Only right, she supposed, and it did stop them from challenging the will.  But, really, after putting them through school and graduate school, shouldn’t there be an end to the handouts?

Most probably she should sell the condo and move out of town, start life anew after getting her old job back.  She had a feeling that here in Westchester she would always be considered the black widow with a web to weave.

Mama Bear—The Son

Why does being a brother and a lawyer mean I have to adjudicate between my two sisters?  Wasn’t it enough that I handled various issues like real estate appeals and housing contracts for free?  Now I’m supposed to fall on one side or another during their constant bickering.  It would be like falling on a sword, something at this stage in my life I’m not willing to do for anyone. At some point I assume I’ll have children.  Then the sword will come into play.

I don’t think I ever really meant to be a lawyer.  Maybe some people grow up thinking, yes, I want to be a lawyer, crazy as that might sound.  But the rest of us just sort of fall into it when our choices are limited.  I was an English major in college, University of Wisconsin, Madison, thank you very much, to get away from the East Coast hot house and its rising expectations.  And, okay, maybe my parents also.  It was four years of freezing my ass off in the winter, but otherwise having an expansive time and finding out how the other half lives, the half in fly-over country.

But what was one to do with an English major?  Under pressure from dear old dad, I took the LSATs and then a year off, wandering from England, to Turkey, to India, to Shanghai, then back home again, taking up my admittance to the law school at the University of Virginia.  Yeah, another effort to escape the East Coast clutches.

But reality comes to all of us, and after an internship during my second year, I accepted a position at a firm in Hartford, Connecticut.  The work?  Well, no one could ever call it intriguing or even very interesting.  In other words, I don’t think this lawyer business is going to last more than ten years.  It’s one thing to analyze Thomas Hardy, yet another commercial buy-outs.

Oh.  I forgot to mention marriage and divorce.  Mine.  Her name was Marni, from Milwaukee, we hooked up in so many ways our junior year, traveled together after we graduated, got married in India, the photos are fantastic, came home and discovered after one year in Charlottesville that we really had nothing in common.  She is now flying the friendly skies as a flight attendant and, okay, I envy her.

As she says, we still love one another, it’s just that our lives are on different paths.  The love part?  Umm.  Not the way it ended up exactly.  Stupid.  All over a BMW.  I mean, why did she need it when she was basically traveling all over the world?  Or at least from Chicago to Orlando and back again.

Let me put that aside and get to the crux of the matter.  My divorce, I think, was the reason my father came to me when he wanted a second opinion re his divorce settlement with my mother.  Was he insane?  Or was I?  I knew Hartford was too close to Scarsdale; but when I moved, my parents were still together, before Heidi slid into the picture.

I informed my father that it was totally inappropriate for him to consult his son about a divorce from said son’s mother.  But he just wanted to go over a few details, see how they sounded to me, because he wanted to be “fair.”

Well, he wasn’t being fair and he damn well knew it.  But how do you refuse someone who’s put you through law school, leaving you to come out with no debt?  So I looked, and yeah, I’ll admit I saw the life insurance policy and that it still had my mother’s name as the beneficiary.  I did not bring it up. But, damn it, my father did.  He asked, “What do you think I should do about this?”

Hey, it was a great policy.

I can remember pushing myself back in my leather chair and relaxing into it.  “Dad,” I began, “how well do you actually know Heidi?”

“I’m marrying her, aren’t I?” he replied, as if that was a logical answer.

Hmm.  If I have known Marni wanted my BMW—but that’s a different story.  “So here’s what I’m thinking.  You believe you know her, but do you.  Do any of us really know one another.?”

“What rot.  Heidi and I love one another.”

“And I’m happy for you.  But—being a fan of detective fiction, and being a lawyer and being divorced, I know that—problems come up that you don’t expect.  Everything’s perfect and then it isn’t. But meanwhile—“

“Wait a second,” my father said with a sneer.  “You’re positing that Heidi might kill me for my insurance policy?”  He gave a laugh.  “Is it too much television or being a lawyer that’s made you so cynical.  Or perhaps—Marni?”

I shrugged.  “Maybe all of that combined.  I’m paid to be suspicious, Dad.  She doesn’t know about the policy, does she?”

“No.”

“Then why not leave the policy as is?  For the time being.  You’re young.  No, no, you’re still a young man.  In good health.  By all the statistics you have another, what, thirty or more years left.  Your father’s still alive, grandma too, so good genes, right?  As of yet, you don’t have children with Heidi, and she has a good job as a drug—representative.”  Yes, I was going to say “pusher.”  “So she’s financially secure in her own right.”

“She’s giving the job up to be my wife.”

I threw up my hands.  “Dad, my advice would be to not change this policy until you have something to change it for.  Like you’re about to start a second family, and you want security for those children, as you’ve very generously given us security.”

He mulled that over.  With fists clenched, he said, “But I don’t want your mother to get that money.  You wouldn’t even guess in your wildest imagination what your mother’s lawyer is asking for.”

“Well, you were married to Mom for quite a long time.  You’re leaving her in middle age adrift.  It’s not the same for women as for men.  She didn’t do anything wrong, you just found someone else.  As a lawyer and not a combatant, I can weigh both sides.  And so can you, Dad, if you’ll admit it.  Divorce is ugly.  We all know that.  But put your focus on your love for Heidi and the life you’ll have together.  Don’t let bitterness tinge what you have.  Hey, you know what they say, it’s only money.  And you’re still making the big bucks.”

So that’s how eighteen months later, my mother ended up with the money from Dad’s life insurance.  Of course, he changed his will and Heidi came out of it with a bundle, but not as much as she would have liked, as we kids got an infusion of cash also, always handy.

So why are my sisters bitching?  Life is sweet and I have a new BMW on order, this time electric.

More Mama Bear

Why does being a brother and a lawyer mean I have to adjudicate between my two sisters?  Wasn’t it enough that I handled various issues like real estate appeals and housing contracts for free?  Now I’m supposed to fall on one side or another during their constant bickering.  It would be like falling on a sword, something at this stage in my life I’m not willing to do for anyone. At some point I assume I’ll have children.  Then the sword will come into play.

I don’t think I ever really meant to be a lawyer.  Maybe some people grow up thinking, yes, I want to be a lawyer, crazy as that might sound.  But the rest of us just sort of fall into it when our choices are limited.  I was an English major in college, University of Wisconsin, Madison, thank you very much, to get away from the East Coast hot house and its rising expectations.  And, okay, maybe my parents also.  It was four years of freezing my ass off in the winter, but otherwise having an expansive time and finding out how the other half lives, the half in fly-over country.

But what was one to do with an English major?  Under pressure from dear old dad, I took the LSATs and then a year off, wandering from England, to Turkey, to India, to Shanghai, then back home again, taking up my admittance to the law school at the University of Virginia.  Yeah, another effort to escape the East Coast clutches.

But reality comes to all of us, and after an internship during my second year, I accepted a position at a firm in Hartford, Connecticut.  The work?  Well, no one could ever call it intriguing or even very interesting.  In other words, I don’t think this lawyer business is going to last more than ten years.  It’s one thing to analyze Thomas Hardy, yet another commercial buy-outs.

Oh.  I forgot to mention marriage and divorce.  Mine.  Her name was Marni, from Milwaukee, we hooked up in so many ways our junior year, traveled together after we graduated, got married in India, the photos are fantastic, came home and discovered after one year in Charlottesville that we really had nothing in common.  She is now flying the friendly skies as a flight attendant and, okay, I envy her.

As she says, we still love one another, it’s just that our lives are on different paths.  The love part?  Umm.  Not the way it ended up exactly.  Stupid.  All over a BMW.  I mean, why did she need it when she was basically traveling all over the world?  Or at least from Chicago to Orlando and back again.

Let me put that aside and get to the crux of the matter.  My divorce, I think, was the reason my father came to me when he wanted a second opinion re his divorce settlement with my mother.  Was he insane?  Or was I?  I knew Hartford was too close to Scarsdale; but when I moved, my parents were still together, before Heidi slid into the picture.

I informed my father that it was totally inappropriate for him to consult his son about a divorce from said son’s mother.  But he just wanted to go over a few details, see how they sounded to me, because he wanted to be “fair.”

Well, he wasn’t being fair and he damn well knew it.  But how do you refuse someone who’s put you through law school, leaving you to come out with no debt?  So I looked, and yeah, I’ll admit I saw the life insurance policy and that it still had my mother’s name as the beneficiary.  I did not bring it up. But, damn it, my father did.  He asked, “What do you think I should do about this?”

Hey, it was a great policy.

I can remember pushing myself back in my leather chair and relaxing into it.  “Dad,” I began, “how well do you actually know Heidi?”

“I’m marrying her, aren’t I?” he replied, as if that was a logical answer.

Hmm.  If I have known Marni wanted my BMW—but that’s a different story.  “So here’s what I’m thinking.  You believe you know her, but do you.  Do any of us really know one another.?”

“What rot.  Heidi and I love one another.”

“And I’m happy for you.  But—being a fan of detective fiction, and being a lawyer and being divorced, I know that—problems come up that you don’t expect.  Everything’s perfect and then it isn’t. But meanwhile—“

“Wait a second,” my father said with a sneer.  “You’re positing that Heidi might kill me for my insurance policy?”  He gave a laugh.  “Is it too much television or being a lawyer that’s made you so cynical.  Or perhaps—Marni?”

I shrugged.  “Maybe all of that combined.  I’m paid to be suspicious, Dad.  She doesn’t know about the policy, does she?”

“No.”

“Then why not leave the policy as is?  For the time being.  You’re young.  No, no, you’re still a young man.  In good health.  By all the statistics you have another, what, thirty or more years left.  Your father’s still alive, grandma too, so good genes, right?  As of yet, you don’t have children with Heidi, and she has a good job as a drug—representative.”  Yes, I was going to say “pusher.”  “So she’s financially secure in her own right.”

“She’s giving the job up to be my wife.”

I threw up my hands.  “Dad, my advice would be to not change this policy until you have something to change it for.  Like you’re about to start a second family, and you want security for those children, as you’ve very generously given us security.”

He mulled that over.  With fists clenched, he said, “But I don’t want your mother to get that money.  You wouldn’t even guess in your wildest imagination what your mother’s lawyer is asking for.”

“Well, you were married to Mom for quite a long time.  You’re leaving her in middle age adrift.  It’s not the same for women as for men.  She didn’t do anything wrong, you just found someone else.  As a lawyer and not a combatant, I can weigh both sides.  And so can you, Dad, if you’ll admit it.  Divorce is ugly.  We all know that.  But put your focus on your love for Heidi and the life you’ll have together.  Don’t let bitterness tinge what you have.  Hey, you know what they say, it’s only money.  And you’re still making the big bucks.”

So that’s how eighteen months later, my mother ended up with the money from Dad’s life insurance.  Of course, he changed his will and Heidi came out of it with a bundle, but not as much as she would have liked, as we kids got an infusion of cash also, always handy.

So why are my sisters bitching?  Life is sweet and I have a new BMW on order, this time electric.

Mama Bear

Thirty days have passed since the death of my formerly beloved ex-husband.  While I wasn’t specifically invited to the funeral—in fact I wasn’t even notified of his death—officially—I felt it only fitting that I attend.  After all, who spent more years with him?  Heidi or yours truly?  Besides, it would give me a chance to see all my three children together again, as they are geographically scattered.

Oh, those dear ones of mine, adults and yet not adults, as whose children ever grow up, I never asked them to take sides, never said it’s either me or your father.  Should I have?  Perhaps I was afraid of what their replies would be, due to Daddy being Dr. Money Bags.  Perhaps, as a cardiologist, he should have been more attuned to his own arrhythmia. Who knew being shackled and straddled would bring on not only la petite mort but also the grand buffo of a heart attack?  Did Heidi even have the presence of mind to untie him before she called 911?  No. She did not.  Someone should have gotten after whoever in the police leaked that delicate information, photos to follow.  On the other hand—

I suppose I should be sad for him.  He had such a short time to enjoy his new wife, his new life.  But since I myself experienced cardiac arrest when I opened the door to what I thought was the plumber only to be delivered divorce papers, my sympathies lie elsewhere. With myself.

The upshot of the divorce: I ended up impoverished, what do you think?  I was totally blindsided, didn’t get a lawyer immediately because I was sure we could work it out, as we’d always done before, because Heidi wasn’t the first.  So-bank account gone, despite court order, house on the market before I could wonder if anyone wanted Grandma’s dishes. (No one did.)

Is there a bright side to this?  Why, yes, there is.  Because Dr. Money Bags didn’t change the beneficiary to his life insurance policy.  Poor Heidi claimed an oversight, but there was my name in black and white!  So, while I’m still working part-time at the local library, serving the public as only I know how, I now no longer have to worry as the end of the month approaches.  Can I pay my bills?  Yes, I can.

I won’t let my sorrow at a life lost, my life of financial comfort and community status, overthrow me.  Bitterness comes with its own cost.  So I will ignore the fact that after the divorce, I was excluded from the hospital’s women’s auxiliary, as they planned the yearly rummage sale.  After all, when I was involved, I always found it more than annoying.  Too many women wanted their names on the program, but never did the work involved in making the rummage sale a success.  As far as working at the library, I’ve seen women with whom I used to have coffee, turn away when I handled the reception desk.  There but for the grace of god—

Actually, despite the snubs of former acquaintances, I have a whole new circle of friends, work friends, but friends just the same.  After Covid, we’re finally back in business, some of us wearing masks, while others take their chances with whatever new wave is coming our way.  We gossip both about our patrons and one another, we go out to lunch, we commute together when the weather is bad.  It’s not the life I had, but it’s still a life that I find rewarding, except when I’m alone at night and realize I shall always be alone for the rest of my life.

I suppose that’s why I’ve taken to bugging my kids.  Because what’s a mother for?

Fragments

Thirty days have passed since the death of my formerly beloved ex-husband.  While I wasn’t specifically invited to the funeral—in fact I wasn’t even notified of his death—officially—I felt it only fitting that I attend.  After all, who spent more years with him?  Heidi or yours truly?  Besides, it would give me a chance to see all my three children together again, as they are geographically scattered.

Oh, those dear ones of mine, adults and yet not adults, as whose children ever grow up, I never asked them to take sides, never said it’s either me or your father.  Should I have?  Perhaps I was afraid of what their replies would be, due to Daddy being Dr. Money Bags.  Perhaps, as a cardiologist, he should have been more attuned to his own arrhythmia. Who knew being shackled and straddled would bring on not only la petite mort but also the grand buffo of a heart attack?  Did Heidi even have the presence of mind to untie him before she called 911?  No. She did not.  Someone should have gotten after whoever in the police leaked that delicate information, photos to follow.  On the other hand—

I suppose I should be sad for him.  He had such a short time to enjoy his new wife, his new life.  But since I myself experienced cardiac arrest when I opened the door to what I thought was the plumber only to be delivered divorce papers, my sympathies lie elsewhere. With myself.

The upshot of the divorce: I ended up impoverished, what do you think?  I was totally blindsided, didn’t get a lawyer immediately because I was sure we could work it out, as we’d always done before, because Heidi wasn’t the first.  So-bank account gone, despite court order, house on the market before I could wonder if anyone wanted Grandma’s dishes. (No one did.)

Is there a bright side to this?  Why, yes, there is.  Because Dr. Money Bags didn’t change the beneficiary to his life insurance policy.  Poor Heidi claimed an oversight, but there was my name in black and white!  So, while I’m still working part-time at the local library, serving the public as only I know how, I now no longer have to worry as the end of the month approaches.  Can I pay my bills?  Yes, I can.

I won’t let my sorrow at a life lost, my life of financial comfort and community status, overthrow me.  Bitterness comes with its own cost.  So I will ignore the fact that after the divorce, I was excluded from the hospital’s women’s auxiliary, as they planned the yearly rummage sale.  After all, when I was involved, I always found it more than annoying.  Too many women wanted their names on the program, but never did the work involved in making the rummage sale a success.  As far as working at the library, I’ve seen women with whom I used to have coffee, turn away when I handled the reception desk.  There but for the grace of god—

Actually, despite the snubs of former acquaintances, I have a whole new circle of friends, work friends, but friends just the same.  After Covid, we’re finally back in business, some of us wearing masks, while others take their chances with whatever new wave is coming our way.  We gossip both about our patrons and one another, we go out to lunch, we commute together when the weather is bad.  It’s not the life I had, but it’s still a life that I find rewarding, except when I’m alone at night and realize I shall always be alone for the rest of my life.

I suppose that’s why I’ve taken to bugging my kids.  Because what’s a mother for?

Enough Already!

I’ve had it!  I don’t want to be productive.  I want to just sit back and let life happen—as long as the ebb and flow doesn’t disturb me at all.

Why is every single day cluttered with things I don’t want to do?  Why do the clothes need washing and folding and being put away?  Why does the dishwasher need emptying?  Why is there crap on the floor that wasn’t there yesterday, and why do I have to get out the vacuum cleaner to take care of it?Dust?  Fall on someone else’s furniture.  Please!

I’m not my mother.  Nor do I live in her generation.  Thank god.  Well can I remember her endless series of chores.  Like, the washing machine, where she had to put clothes through an actual ringer to get the water out of them and to then hang them outside on the clothesline to dry.  In all sorts of weather.  Sheets frozen stiff in winter?  What a pretty picture, until they were draped on the bed.  Dishwasher, none.  Except us children.  Let’s not even mention the effort it took to defrost first the ice box and then the refrigerator, with water all over the floor, no matter her efforts to contain the flow.

Times have changed!

But have they?

What happened to the prediction that in the future we’d all become little blobs, with big brains, no arms and legs because we wouldn’t need them due to automation?  As I sit and type with fingers attached to hands attached to arms, I can see my legs stretched out under the desk.  If you can’t trust futurists, whom can you trust?

But enough meditation on what we were supposed to look like, blobs and brains.  Okay, my body is a blob, but that’s another story.  One I don’t have time to consider for the moment as I prepare my list of annoyances that I’m responsible for:  pay bills, change sheets, do the laundry, load and unload the dishwasher, be a good wife, try to be a supportive parent, worry about water in the basement, wonder if my garden plots are getting enough sustenance to last until the first frost.

To be continued—

Vacuum, get the garbage and recycle ready to put out at the curb, clean teeth, go to dentist for broken tooth, wonder why my new eye cream leaves the skin around my eyes dry.

Change the toilet paper roll.  WHY!  I have three bidets.  Why am I still using toilet paper?

Did you ever want to just withdraw?  Just turn into a tree and reach upward toward the sun, be bathed in its glorious light, then become a shadow in the dark, your silhouette revealed by the light of the moon and stars, not worry about the nematodes on your roots, insects boring into your bark, caterpillars eating your leaves.

Oh, damn it, there I go again.  I can’t even enjoy being a tree.  Why?

Which reminds me.  There’s a dead tree in my back yard.  Add to the list.  Call a tree service.  Why!

A body at rest stays at rest.  If only that were true.  Science you have failed me.  Life, you have screwed me.

I am now withdrawing my fingers from the keyboard and placing them in my lap.  I will close my eyes and then—then I’ll be dizzy and wonder, is it worth making an appointment with a doctor, which would entail getting on the phone, checking my calendar, already too full of crap—

What am I searching for desperately?  Where have I mislaid my moment of zen?

Cleanse yourself, my mind, I beg of you, and let me be at peace.

What Have We Become

I live in Highland Park, Illinois, and no, I’m not going to talk specifically about what happened in our town on the Fourth of July, the shooting that killed seven innocents who had come out to watch a parade, a shooting that injured so many more, destroyed so many lives.  Because, well, isn’t that rather commonplace now?  So what’s to talk about, just another case of a guy with a gun, seeking destruction, his and others.  We read about it in the paper or hear about it on television or twitter or news feeds, and we move on because what does it really mean anymore?  When something is so common, it’s normal.  And now gun violence, mass killings are our normality.  So let’s move on.  We have other things to worry about so why worry about how our country has become brutalized, how lack of civility is the norm in every-day interactions?  Hey, you don’t get duck sauce with your Chinese take out?  The logical response is to kill the delivery guy, isn’t it?

I’m going to flaunt my age and remember how we used to be, when the only mass killing I ever heard about in my youth was the St. Valentine’s Day massacre.  Truly, that was it.  If there were guns around, they were probably brought back by returning soldiers from World War II or they were hunting rifles or rifles for skeet shooting.

Civility?  I still remember being in sixth grade.  We were a diverse group financially, if not racially.  Most of us were from middle class homes, although there was one member who had been in reform school. Who knows why?  But he was a delight to be with and very funny.  Then people from the city started moving in, and we had one boy in our class who was actually the child of a divorced mother. The shock of it all!  Our desks were arranged in a square so we could see one another, which led to a lot of silent messages being passed back and forth with raised eyebrows and smirks.  For some reason and I can’t remember why, right in the middle of class, this new kid said, “Damn it!”

How many mouths dropped open?  I know mine did.  Did we know swear words?  Yes.  Did we use them in school?  NEVER!  He was immediately sent to the principal’s office.  Remember, “principal” is your “pal,” while “principles” are something you should have, like not swearing in a classroom.

Okay, I won’t go into the next year, when we student council members were in a classroom all by ourselves; and instead of working on an agenda, we played spin the bottle.  Wow, Walter Gallegar, I still remember your soft, soft lips.  But we weren’t swearing.

Parades?  Oh, my, yes.  There were two close together, Memorial Day and the Fourth of July.  I marched proudly in both, first as a Brownie and then as a Girl Scout.  After the parade we were given a ticket for an ice cream cone from Mr. Johnson’s store.  Actually, there were two Mr. Johnsons, brothers who ran a store that had everything, ice cream and a pharmacy and magazines and candy.  I think they knew everyone in town by name.  Of course, that store is no longer in existence.  Nor, I assume, are the Johnson brothers.

Upstate was always having parades too.  That’s where I would go for my summer vacation to be with my grandparents.  The paraders would march proudly through the streets of the town; and then we’d all end in the park, where the bandstand was put to good use; and we’d listen to the band play old favorites until it was time to go home.

No one ever thought to bring a rifle to those parades, unless it was to exemplify the Spirit of ’76.  Remember?  That’s where we fought to be free of tyranny.

Now we have another tyranny of which gun violence is only a part.  A large part, yes.  But what we’re really suffering from is a tyranny of hate.  E Pluribus Unum be damned.  We hate each other.  What used to be a minor incident can blow up into a monstrous rage.  Someone got to the parking spot you wanted a second or two ahead of you.  You take your gun out of your glove compartment and shoot them dead.  Hey, their fault.  Librarians stock books you don’t like.  Satan works through them, right?  Politics, oh let’s not go there because we know the other side wants to and is destroying our country.

How to shut out the noise and should we?  How to redeem ourselves and our country?

Oh, I already hear the groans, the complaints.  Our country was never what you thought it was.  There was racism and isolationism and all sorts of discrimination, all those isms we were actually on the path to overcoming.  And then—  Well, we’re just not anymore, are we?

But can’t we just try for a kinder nation, united in an ability to see each other as fellow human beings instead of a target in the sight of a gun?

Thoughts Upon Turning Eighty

Happy birthday to me.

I was an unexpected child, in that it was quite a surprise to my parents when my mother ended up pregnant again three months after giving birth to my older brother.  Since they were running on empty financially, I’m sure I was a burden they neither expected nor wanted.

I never asked my mother if she would have aborted me if she could have—because I was too dumb to think of it.  Would I have been happier being aborted, for my soul to attach to another body, to live another life?  Well, I have no way of knowing, but it’s a thought.

Since I was born on a Thursday, I gave my mother a chance to quote quite often, “Thursday’s child has far to go.”  Thanks, Mom, I left as soon as I could.

Having examined my childhood elsewhere in my blog, I shall lightly skip  over the first twenty-four years of my life.  I never quite fit in anywhere and didn’t have the ability to enjoy my odd-man-out status.  I always thought I should belong—somewhere, but somehow a welcoming group failed to make an appearance.  In other words, as Samuel Goldwyn had put it, “Include me out.”

School was something that never suited.  Although I mastered the art of getting good grades, I had to wonder why I was learning subjects I had no interest in.  Math?  Don’t ask.  I dropped out of high school physics after one class period, when I was asked to understand levers and pulleys.  Why?  They either worked or they didn’t.

History always fascinated me.  My favorite teacher in high school was Miss Newton, who taught world history and insisted we learn to outline.  I could have worshipped at her feet, had she ever realized I existed, but I was and remain a person no one really notices. I wasn’t even a flower on the wall. I was the wall itself.

In college I had to major in English because, by the time I decided I had no special abilities to hone, English was the only course open to me, if I wanted to graduate in four years.  Only later was I able to get a Master’s in history, taking course after course while my children were little.  That was my great escape.

After college, I taught for a year because that’s what women my age did, teach, get that magic teacher’s certificate so we could always support ourselves.  May I apologize to my students.  I was a horrible, horrible teacher.

Leaving after one year, I retreated to Katherine Gibbs to become an executive secretary.  I figured that was a 9 to 5 job and would leave me time to read and dream, until a former professor suggested I apply for the State Department.  To get through that process takes a year, and they never tell you where you are in the time/space continuum. So, when they called and informed me my training would start in July, I informed them I had already accepted a job in Princeton, New Jersey.  It was agreed I would start the government course in September.

Ah, Princeton.  What a stick up the butt you have.  And yet, there he was on the graduate commons, waiting to whisk me away into a life I never expected.  We met, we can never decide.  Was it June 21 or June 27?  In any case, we were married a little bit more than two months later on September 9.  Did I ever regret not joining the State Department? I think my being there would have been a disservice to the United States. I am simply not diplomatic.

My husband became a professor.  I became a wife and mother.  The first thirteen years of our marriage we were stuck in purgatory, aka, Urbana, Illinois.  But we traveled, the joy of my life—besides my children, of course.  (I had to stick that in there in case any of them reads this.). After a year’s sabbatical in Israel, we came back to Urbana, and both of us realized we were in the land of the dead.  In Israel every hour of every day something was happening.  In Urbana nothing happened.  The corn was planted, the corn grew, the corn was harvested, the land lay fallow.  The end.

I suggested to my husband that I was leaving him because life was too short to spend one more year in desolation.  He took a job he didn’t want in the Boston area; and from then on we became academic gypsies, traveling from Lexington, to DC, to Atlanta, dragging along our kids and destabilizing them in the process.  For this I am to blame. I would ask for their forgiveness, but I doubt it would be forthcoming.

While my husband did his professorial thing, I became a writer.  Yes, published, damn you for asking.  Look at my Amazon page amazon.com/author/cahaddad and buy some books!  This woman needs validation.

In Atlanta I was finally home.  I loved it.  It was like living in Lotus Land.  I taught at Georgia Tech and had friends there, as did my husband. I joined Hadassah, the working women’s nighttime branch, and met some really lovely women.  I let the whole ambiance of Atlanta envelope me.  But there’s always a snake in the grass, isn’t there?

Northwestern University came calling.  For my husband.  Not me.  Illinois?  Again!  Could life be so cruel?

My husband had an offer, chairman of a department.  Smugly, I said to him, well, if they double your salary, I’ll agree to go.  Those fucking bastards.

So, we folded our tent and moved again.  Fortunately, only one child was still at home for the upheaval.

The difference between Georgia Tech and Northwestern became apparent right away.  Georgia Tech cocktail parties were warm white wine, cheese, crackers.  Our first cocktail party at Northwestern, full bar, fat, plump, juicy shrimp.  In other words there were some compensations, moving from Atlanta to the icy north.

And we traveled.  In style.  My husband was in this organization and that, taking one executive position after another.  He was born to be a bureaucrat, if only he had recognized it sooner.  The travel was heavenly, the places we saw, the friends we made from all over the world.  Then—

My husband needed a stent for blockage in his arteries. Who knows why. He was always on the go, never could sit still, took the stairs, never the elevator in his building, swam every morning.  They did the operation and gave him metoprolol.  Lousy doctors never adjusted his dose for his size and weight.  He fainted three times, the third time nearly fatal.

That third time I got him to the emergency room, when all of a sudden he began saying weird things.  The test showed a brain bleed.  They sent him to another hospital.  Not only did the brain bleed explode but he had a C2 fracture of his spine.

The following months were one horror after another.  First, ICU, then semi-comatose, then finally into rehab, where the doctor told me that very first day my husband would never recover.

What the fuck.

By then my husband was in charge of a Master’s program for business people who wanted a handle on engineering.  Or something like that.  He could no longer teach statistics, for which I’m sure the students were grateful. But Northwestern, bless its heart, let him work two more years, increasing his pension, and then—

I had a grandchild.  I was never one of those women who wanted to be a grandmother.  I had no feelings one way or another.  Until Ilan was born.  The floodgates of my love opened and flowed from my heart to his.  Forever.

Ilan was born eight years before my husband took his fatal fall.  I know every grandchild is perfect to a grandmother, and okay, Ilan wasn’t perfect, but nearly so.  He was bright and funny and enjoyed my strange sense of humor.  I could do silly things with him I couldn’t do with anyone else. He was the sun that made life flourish.

Then the sun died and there was no more life.

We used to take family vacations, the four of us, me, my husband, my daughter and Ilan.  But my husband kept having one medical problem after another and this year, the ninth year of Ilan’s life, I gave my daughter money and said, sorry, I can’t come.  I can’t leave your father, and he’s going nowhere.

They were in Wisconsin, stopped to make a left turn into the road that would lead them to their lodging for the night.  A semi came barreling down the highway at well over the speed limit and smashed right into them, no brakes applied because the truck driver was looking at the corn fields instead of the road.  Those days with Ilan, my brain-damaged boy, were a slow dying for all of us.  The first night I was by his bedside when they tested him for pain and he reacted.  I can’t tell you the joy I felt.  He was alive, he could feel, he would get better, we would cherish him no matter his condition.

But the next morning the neurosurgeon said it was an automatic response of the body to pain. There was no brain function.

The end.

My daughter, who was severely injured, and I dealt with all the paperwork for organ donations.

I remember being down in the hallway on another floor and hearing a group of people rejoicing because their father was going to get an organ transplant that day and I felt like rushing up to them, grabbing them and screaming at them, don’t you realize someone has died for you to have that damned transplant!!!!!

Was it any comfort that the truck driver served time in prison for homicide?  I think it was for my daughter.  But I never wanted to think of that man ever again.

So here I am at eighty, what’s left?  I have another grandchild from another of my children.  She’s a beautiful girl, but she has RETT Syndrome.  So hard to communicate and she lives a far distance away, not close to me, so that I could have her every weekend as I had Ilan.

The grief has ebbed, the keening has stopped.  But my life is no longer lived in technicolor.  My husband’s in assisted living now, while I remain in our remodeled house.  I have friends.  I go through the motions of living.  But there is such a sadness in my soul.

So I’ve come full circle. There was a time when I was happy, when all was right with my world.  I clutch at that as I move forward toward my appointed hour.

I Married a Klutz

I have always been a fan of physical comedy.  In my youth, when we first got our television, I loved to see the Laurel and Hardy movies.  While my father adored Charlie Chaplin, I never quite got the Little Tramp.  My mother?  No sense of humor.

As I grew older, I feared I was turning into my mother.  I didn’t find most comedians funny.  Jokes, eh.  A grimace that passed for a smile would do me.  But there were brilliant exceptions.  Where is the likes of Victor Borge now!  Well, okay, we still have Mel Brooks and his brilliant movies and Carl Reiner’s laugh-out-loud “Enter Laughing.”  But really, there would be long stretches before I found something to laugh at.  Perhaps that’s why I married my husband.  He has provided a constant, if perhaps unwitting, source of amusement.

I met him folk dancing.  It was only later I discovered that particular folk had limited ability to dance.  And yet, there was something odd about him, and I like odd people.

He did tell me his tale of woe about folk dancing, held on the Princeton Graduate Commons, where he was receiving his Ph.D-not on the Commons, but in the school of engineering.  It seemed every woman who came to folk dancing would drop out after one date with him.  What a sorry state of affairs, and why did I come back a second time?  Fifty-six years later, I’m still wondering.

I guess I came back because he made me laugh.  His klutz-worthiness I only discovered after we married.

My husband has trouble with rice.  Early in our marriage, he was consulting down in Huntsville, when I finally came to join him.  We got a babysitter, as he had made reservations in this exclusive restaurant where tables were set in alcoves that were totally private.  Huntsville is the South.  One dresses for the occasion.  My husband had his suit cleaned, and I was in my cocktail dress.  The food was delivered.  I have no idea how he did it because really these things always “just” happen to him. All of a sudden, rice was all over him.  All he had to say was, “A whole dollar wasted,” which is what he paid to have his suit cleaned.  I can’t remember the meal, but I do remember laughing my head off.

Fast forward so many years.  By then we had three children, my husband was in charge of finding sites for conventions for his professional organization.  We were in Jerusalem, about to meet the sales representative of a new hotel that wanted my husband’s business.  We were all somehow lined up, and my husband was giving us a lecture on how we had to behave because this was business and it was important.

En famille we made our way to the table, I being as gracious as was possible because it’s not my thing.  The meal came.  Rice again.  Rice all over my husband.  Again.  And I wasn’t supposed to laugh?  Yes, I tried to muffle it, until I spotted the look of horror on my husband’s face.  Who could resist the upcoming guffaw?  That hotel was not chosen. Whether it was them or us, I’m not even going to try to guess.

My husband has many talents I admire.  Despite being a “lofty” professor, he has the ability to get along with everyone, except when someone annoys him.  I lay this trait on the shoulders of his father, who was a plumbing contractor in Iraq before they moved to Israel.  Yes, losing everything in the process.  But because my husband used to help his father with his work in Israel, he learned how to do so much.  He was very handy around the house, replacing toilets, floors, fixing all sorts of issues.  This was before we finally had enough money very late in life so that he could hire someone. He gave up the handyman ghost.  And yet—the ladder.

The house we live in has a flat roof, not good for the gutters.  Do not believe any of those ads about gutter protection. We’ve tried. They don’t work.  So my husband would get out the ladder and climb onto the roof to clear the gutters.  Because he is a klutz, did this worry me?  Well, someone had to do it, and it wasn’t going to be me.

This particular day, when he chose to get out the ladder, my daughter and I were at the Contemporary Art Museum in downtown Chicago.  There we encountered a running video of a man climbing a ladder and falling off, repetitiously.  Did I have a premonition?  Absolutely not.

We come home.  Not finding my husband watching football on the tv, we both headed toward the back of the house.  There was my husband on the ladder, almost at roof level, when down he tumbled.  My daughter and I looked at one another and said, “Just like the video.”  Was my husband a bit put out that we weren’t more concerned?  Yes.  Perhaps we shouldn’t have laughed.  But there he was, art in the making.  In any case, he made it up onto the roof his second try.

My husband’s ability to trip and fall has endeared him to me many times over.  He blames his imbalance on scoliosis, which he only discovered when the army doctors diagnosed it.  He claims this is also why he could never ride a bike.  While living in Haifa, he made the effort with a friend’s bike.  Haifa, like San Francisco, is full of hills.  Too bad my husband or the bike didn’t make it down in one piece.  But, if he can’t ride a bike, he should at least be able to walk, shouldn’t he?

My husband was a great one for hikes, ever upwards.  Yes, I dragged behind but eventually made it.  Would he have noticed if I hadn’t?  No, he was too busy looking at his Garmin GPS, which actually came in handy when we had to retrace our steps over meandering and flowing waters.  But sometimes he was ill-equipped for a hike.  Like the time he joined me straight from a conference, as we took a short hike up a modest path on Mt. Rainier, still covered in snow.  While I was in parka and hiking boots, he was in a Burberry rain coat and his dress shoes.  There he was, standing in the snow, pointing out an interesting feature to me when his feel slipped out from under him and over he went, tobogganing down the hill, finally catching hold of a baby evergreen to stop his slide.  Did I worry if his life insurance was up to date?  No.  He being an engineer, I knew he was precise about things like that.  But I had pity on him and went down the hill, carefully, to help drag him back up.

Fast forward to Rotterdam.  He had the afternoon off from his conference, and we were walking to the boat slip to embark on a trip around the windmills when—all of a sudden down he goes.  Face-planted on the sidewalk, blood everywhere, glasses broken.  Would we make it to the boat on time, I was wondering?  I had my doubts.

Fortunately, we were near a bar.  He went in and found the restroom and tried to clean himself off.  He told me the bartender wasn’t happy to see him.  Out he came and insisted that the sidewalk had cracks and was uneven.

There were no impediments on the sidewalk at all.  It was smooth and even.  He went over every inch trying to prove his point, while I just stood and watched him continue to bleed.

We did make the boat ride.  We were the only Americans, and may I say the only people sober and it was mid-afternoon.

I spent the rest of that conference and the next one that followed upon it applying my make up onto my husband to try to hide his bruises and scabs.  Fortunately, Rotterdam had an excellent optical shop, so at least he could see—himself, tripping over his own feet.

Now his falls are less amusing.  Last year my daughter and I were waiting for him at his assisted living facility.  He was to open the door and come to the patio outside to play cards with us.  He never showed up.  We’re swearing away, wondering where he was.  Finally, we go to his apartment and find two friends with him.  He had fallen, yes, and couldn’t get up.  He had lain on the floor for over twelve hours.

Sad to say, the laughter has died.