Category: Writing

A to Z Challenge: Fade

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Character sketches that are fictional but based on real characters, like us.

We were standing around the operating table, gowned and masked, working on a late evening emergency case – a young guy who flipped his motorcycle. The doctors were calmly discussing vacation plans. I was stabilizing a leg while they did major reconstruction on it.

“I’m going to Wisconsin. We have a fishing cabin up north. It’s one of those out of the way places on this great lake. Going catch a musky.”

“Oh yeah?” the other doc said. “Where exactly?”

“Probably Hayward.” I said, deciding to join the conversation.

“You know the place?”

“It’s my hometown. I grew up there. I’m due for a vacation there too.”

“Well, what are the chances of that?” He said.

And so began my acquaintance with Fade. He wasn’t the doctor. He was the guy whose leg I was holding.

After surgery he was one angry young man. His leg was in traction with pins at the knee and the ankle. He was on his back in bed and would stay that way for quite a while. He was lucky that walking again was even a possibility, but the sudden change in his plans didn’t make him feel lucky. Formerly cute, popular, and definitely on the cocky side, he was now in pain and trying to learn how to manage a bedpan. He was my patient, on my primary care unit, which meant that we were going to be spending a lot of time with each other.

At first he was in no mood to have visitors but it didn’t take long for his room to be named “the party room”. His group of close friends started showing up often, regularly breaking visitor rules. Fade would charm his way out of trouble with whoever was in charge. He was so sweet when he wanted to be, and almost abusive when he stopped caring. I never knew which guy I’d be dealing with when I went in the room. But, things were working in my favor – I was young and fairly good looking.

One day I arrived on the unit and noticed an unusual smell. I imagined it was coming from Fade’s room, and even thought I saw a bit of smoke seeping out from under his door. Laughter sounded from inside, and when I opened the door I saw it was indeed a party taking place. His friends were sitting around the bed and Fade was there in the middle, smoking weed. Pain medicine, he called it. I had to agree he looked pretty comfortable, but it was still illegal in California, our state at the time. I wasn’t sure what the Catholic nuns who ran the hospital would think of it either. Turned out they were way ahead of their time, agreed with him, and allowed it. I became familiar with that smell.

Over time, the adaptability of youth worked it’s magic. Fade got used to us as we cared for him. We were his encouragers and were able to develop solid friendships with him. He healed and walked out of the hospital eventually, a more thoughtful, careful and experienced young man. It was a long time before I heard from him again, but that’s another story.

A to Z Challenge: Evelin

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Character sketches that are fictional but based on real characters, like us.

She seemed perfectly content to sleep in friend’s living rooms, on their couches – a few nights in one place, then switch. She was content to walk everywhere, or hitch a ride when it was offered. She was actually proud of her ability to wander about at night and not get mugged or in trouble. She felt zero obligation to be in school. It was a distraction to the rest of her life. In fact, she so enjoyed being known as “tough” and independent that, to this day, I don’t know why she decided to come home with my daughters. Maybe it was the colder weather and the thought of a bed that could be hers if she wanted it.

Seeing my daughter’s friends at school or youth gatherings I always assumed that they had home lives that were some variation of our own. Not so. I wasn’t aware of how abnormal we were, until meeting people like Evelin and hearing their stories. I seldom heard the parental version. I tried to imagine what I would have done with a girl who went into the garage with a lit candle and ended up setting her motorcycle on fire. Kicking her out probably wouldn’t have been my first remedy, but then again, maybe it wasn’t the first time.

We cleared out an enclosed breezeway and put bunk beds and a dresser next to the sauna. The room had windows and it’s own door to the outside. What more could a tough girl want?

She was quiet, polite and really quite good looking, although I don’t think she knew it. She didn’t try to look beautiful, feeling more comfortable with a style somewhere between grunge and Goth, covering it all with a long man’s raincoat. The coat probably came in handy in her late night wandering. She did have six toes on her feet but you wouldn’t have noticed unless you stopped and counted. Who does that?

Evelin wanted a job for spending money and decided to work the late shift at a fast food joint a good two miles from our house. She was the closer and in charge of spraying the grease off the floors – at 2 am when they shut the drive thru window. It wasn’t a particularly safe area of town and the thought of her walking home at that hour gave me shivers up the spine. I decided to set the alarm and drive down to get her. She hated it. She hated me for “pampering” her and making her soft. How did I know that? She left me a note saying so.

Part of the terms of her residence with us was that she go to school again. She was enrolled at a different school than my daughters were, so afternoons were spent in the car waiting at one school and then the other. We often would wait at Eve’s school until it emptied out and discover that she hadn’t been there.

She was a mystery to me. I think she would have liked knowing that, because maybe being a mystery is as good as being tough. I wouldn’t have guessed she would turn things around and become an architect with two beautiful children, one of whom has six toes on his feet. And that’s another story…

A to Z Challenge: Della

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There was no denying that Della was strange, in fact, that was why I was attracted to her in the first place. She was pretty, she was rich, and she presented herself as a prisoner. There had to be adventure somewhere in this mix, I thought, and there was.

I met her in church, of all places. She was “allowed” to come, as she put it, but she didn’t usually stay around to chat or go out for lunch. She had to get back before he noticed her absence and got irritated. She had a very nice car, and classy clothes. Her hair always looked perfect, her glasses were clean and sparkly and her teeth were beautiful. Her husband was a dentist.

She had been a dental hygienist and had worked for him several years before they became “a thing” and got married. I was never quite certain if she had loved him or just been overwhelmingly impressed with his story. He had escaped Egypt when the country turned on its royalty and had come to the United States for a new life. He went back to school to update his dental credentials and set up his own business. For a while, they worked well as a team. She had a son from a previous marriage and it was a relief when she no longer had to be a single mom. And even more of a relief when she quit working and started keeping house.

I should say “keeping mansion”. That would be a much better description of her new job of helping design and build one of the most ostentatious houses, in the most ostentatious part of town. I was only in it once, but what I saw was right out of a fairy tale. I think her husband must have had the royal palace in mind, complete with double, sweeping staircases leading up to his Egyptian room with tapestries, reclining cushions, and one of those crazy middle east tea pots. I think it was staged by National Geographic.

I saw it all on the night she left him.

There were three of us that night. I had a friend who was even more involved in Della’s story than I was. I was the one who had not yet met her abusive husband, so it was my name that went on the storage unit she had me rent. My name went on the U-Haul rental. In her customary dramatic way, she was hiding her tracks, certain that he would come looking for her.

“He’s going out of town, but I’m never sure he won’t surprise me and show up or change plans. If all is well, I’ll open the gate at 11:30 and you can drive in real slow and quiet. Wear dark clothes.” Everything but the ski masks and lock picks. I was worried we’d get taken for burglars and the neighbors would call the cops.

It took us an hour and a half to get her selected items out and packed in the truck. She didn’t take much. She didn’t take anything she thought would make him angrier than he would already be when he found her gone. She took the dog – a hefty Rottweiler, and her car. It was a bit of a challenge getting everything to fit in the storage unit but we were done before dawn.

She was sure he would look for her in every conceivable place, and possibly be violent if he found her. She had to have a place to hide that he wouldn’t think of, someplace humble, ordinary, and unconnected with anyone he would ever suspect. A place where the car could be kept out of sight. A place where she and the dog could hang out indefinitely.

Yep, my house. What was I thinking?

A to Z Challenge: Chance

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He had ridden his bike for 20 minutes in the sweltering heat so his dark skin was wet with tiny droplets, which he quickly dispatched with the bottom of his T-shirt.

“How ya doin?” he said with an enthusiasm she could hardly imagine him having. She noticed he was sniffing in the direction of the kitchen. “Cookin’ up somethin good tonight?”

He was a pretty good cook himself, an expert actually, at the kind of food he liked best. When he was given free reign in the kitchen there was usually a lot of tasty fried chicken, and a lot of greasy pans to wash.

But he wasn’t there for the kitchen. The piano was where he was headed. He slid to the middle of the bench and started chording and doing small riffs with a rhythm right out of a black church choir. That’s where he had taken a job, at the St. Stephen’s African Methodist Episcopal Church. Too many names to even fit on the sign.

He had started experimenting with the keyboard after coming to a small hymn sing in the park near his home. His name was Chance, and that’s what she had offered him, a chance to learn. He was short for his 13 years of growing, and there was one hand that hadn’t grown normal fingers, not that it kept him from learning the chords he was taught. He loved playing on the black keys – his fingers had no trouble landing on those.

“You going to teach me to read notes today. We got to work on that. They want me to be able to play printed music and I’m fakin’ it now.”

He could listen to a tune and play it accurately after one go. With soul. But he wasn’t familiar with a lot of church music and had to hear it played first. That’s what she did for him. “Wish I could do like that Miss Allie. Let me hear that verse part again.” But no matter what the lesson was, he would end up playing his favorites, quickly tiring of practicing notes on lines and spaces.

He would make it look so easy, going up and down the keyboard with chord progressions that were not the usual, but so compelling. She had told him that the piano was in the percussion family of instruments – hammers hitting strings inside a box – but his brand of percussion was foot on the pedal. It felt like the room was moving, and more than once she had to remind him to go easy. He had broken the inner workings of the sustain pedal once already.

He sang too. Quite well.

It was the beginning of a long acquaintance that branched out into lots more than music. Not all of it was easy or pleasant, but his optimism and bravado rarely failed him. Well, there was that one time…

A to Z Challenge: Bruce

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Character sketches that are fictional but based on real characters, like us.

Probably in his 50’s, reasonably fit and with greying hair and beard that would be classified as distinguished, there was something unconventional about him that made him attractive, at least to women and children. It was probably that he didn’t mind talking to them, and didn’t mind topics of conversation that women and children might actually find interesting. He had men friends too, of course, but men were often busy during the day and Bruce, well… I’m not sure that he had a busy time.

I think he envisioned himself as a gentleman farmer, with ambitious ideas of working his little acreage into a productive garden, with fields of hay and grain to support his herd of milk cows, several horses, and a pig or two. But in reality he was not a particularly wise farmer. It was his good luck to have married a woman who doubled as a farmhand. He dreamed, she did.

A gentleman farmer always has other, more important pursuits however, and Bruce’s pursuit was writing. I always attributed his interest in people to his need for characters to put in novels. His writing was also how I came into the picture – that, and living on the adjacent farm. We shared a fence.

Bruce was a friendly neighbor. His daughters were good babysitters too, and his wife was nice enough to let me come over and buy fresh milk. I wasn’t particularly happy when he wanted to keep his angry bull at our farm. It was in the pasture in front of our house where it terrorized me and the children. On the other hand, he did occasionally drive his horse and wagon over and offer us rides, which we thought was pretty cool. The relationship felt reciprocal.

One day Bruce was sitting in my kitchen, in his farmer outfit of bib overalls and flannel shirt, discussing a manuscript he was working on. By the way, he wanted to know, would I mind doing some proofreading for him? I didn’t mind at all, in spite of the fact that I was raising two small children and working shifts at the local hospital. He was a real writer. He had a manuscript, whereas I was only wishing I had one. Being a proofreader for Bruce would be one step closer to the world of writing. At the very least I would be keeping my grammar skills current.

His manuscript was not finished, but more of a work in progress, and Bruce began inviting me over to the farm to help him work on the next chapters. He had his writer’s loft, accessible only by ladder, a place of pride complete with typewriter, his writing library and reference books, and a bed where he evidently got all his best ideas for plots. His description of it had the same flavor of excitement that my younger brothers used when describing their treehouses or forts in the hayloft. It was his hideaway, where he went when his wife was out milking the cows or weeding the garden.

“I’ve got some ideas for this chapter. Come and see what you think.” he would say. Right, I thought. Your kids are in school, your wife has taken a second job to support the farm, and you want me to join you in your hideout… No, just not going to happen, in the interest of maintaining good neighborly relationships. Mind you, Bruce would have been horrified to know I had second thoughts about joining him to work on the next twist in his novel, and I would have been embarrassed telling him. There was just a faint creepiness about the whole thing.

And as it turned out, I never had to tell him. But that’s another story.

These writing exercises are part of the April A to Z Blogging Challenge. Can I write a post for every day of the month except Sundays? I don’t know, but this is my 10th year (kind of a special landmark), so I have to give it a try.

A to Z Challenge: A for Alice

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Character sketches that are fictional but based on real characters, like us.

She knew she tended to overthink things. What a contrast now that she had trouble thinking at all. She watched the cat eat leaves off her favorite house plant, again. She wasn’t jumping up and chasing it away anymore. It hadn’t died yet and was possibly getting some nutrient it needed. Have to like a proactive cat.

And then there was her husband, who lay nearly comatose 90% of the time, making no decisions, proactive or otherwise. She had been deciding everything for him for the last four months since he had come home from the hospital and into Hospice care, in their living room. They weren’t all hard decisions. Medication schedules, toileting, when to give tube feedings – all that could be evaluated and changed if it needed to be and she had practice making those decision for previous patients. Sometimes the combined weight of them did make a difference in her energy level or kept her from sleeping well at night. But they were, after all, the easier things to decide.

What she struggled with was the fact that they had decided, after the stroke, to intervene. By “they”, she meant “he”, because it was still his choice. Ever since his earlier diagnosis of Lewy Body dementia, he had been waiting for God to heal him. He didn’t want to take himself out of the game before God got around to it. She was pretty sure he had made the decisions for the ventilator, the feeding tube, and rehab, even though it had already begun to feel like she was making them.

But now, it was pretty clear that decisions were on her. She was deciding to take really good care of him, and thereby prolonging considerable misery. The misery was more hers than his. Watching his decline was not fun, but he seemed unaware of his condition. Just that morning she had been orienting him to where he was, where he had been and how long he had been ill.

“Can I spit on the ground?” he asked.

“You better not because we’re in the house. You don’t want to spit on the floor.”

“But I can open the car door and spit on the ground, can’t I?”

“Yes, if we were ever in the car. But that hasn’t been happening for months. The only way you’ve gone anywhere lately is by ambulance. We stay home all the time now. You haven’t been in the car for nearly a year.”

“What a boring lifestyle”, he said in his weak, barely intelligible voice. He was grinning and looking at her for approval, like he had done all their married life. This time, instead of rolling her eyes, she laughed with him and wondered if it would be the last time he tried to tell her a joke.

She believed there was a kind way to explain to him that he might actually be dying. So far, her attempts had not been successful.

There were times when she felt she wasn’t taking good care of him too. She would get lost in a jigsaw puzzle and forget his feeding time. She would turn down the noise in the monitor in order to get another hour of much needed sleep. All those guilt producing moments. But, she was sensible enough to know that she had to take care of herself in order to take care of him. Everybody told her that, and it helped to hear it from others, even though they didn’t really know how that worked out.

Was she depressed? Not really. Sad, for sure, and tired. Tired enough to pray that it be over soon. And even though she had all kinds of questions about God’s timing, she was, ultimately, content with him calling the shots.

April 2023 Theme Reveal

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I’ve missed the deadline for the official April Blogging Challenge theme reveal but the wonderful thing is, this is my blog and I can write what I want, official or not. Hahaha…

I have about a week to decide if I want to add the stress of a blogging challenge to my caregiving life. For years I’ve used this April A to Z Challenge as a way to inspire and stir up my will to write and share my writing. It’s a lot of work to write something worthwhile for 26 posts in one month. Having a theme sometimes makes it easier and I’ve been hunting for a theme.

How hard would it be to work on my ability to introduce interesting characters to readers? My thought is that I would start with 26 of the interesting people I’ve known, change their names of course, and add a few disguising details. I would end up with a fictional character based on reality. I’m not going to write a book so there will be no plot, yet. These would be character sketches.

The more I read, the more obvious it is to me that developing a believable character that readers like and identify with, or at least find intriguing, is vital to a good story. I don’t know if I’m good at that, but I would like to be. My favorite type of reading material is historical fiction. I want to learn while I’m reading but I need a plot to follow, some excitement, some wonder, problems, questions to be answered. All that requires people. I’ve already chosen my people.

And the reason I’m writing about it in advance is, well… you might think you’re one of the people. You might recognize yourself or someone you know, even though the characteristics don’t exactly match. If that should happen, remember it’s not you. It’s a fictional character and the parts you don’t like about him or her, well, those are the parts I made up. You are perfectly wonderful, as am I, wonderful and probably boring.

And even though I am making a plan, April may come and go without the plan being realized. But I do like the idea, just sayin’…

June Journal

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It’s lilac time. Lest you think we overdid it,,, we shared with others.

June 1

June started on a Wednesday. Our usual morning trio was increased to a quartet since cousin Kim is up from Florida for the week. Mom has been getting up early to see the sunrise, which is now around 5:15, but it has been less than spectacular. There are too many trees and houses in the way of the horizon, and it is either too cloudy or completely clear, neither of which make a great sunrise.

I thought a lot about my daughter and her husband who left Seattle in the afternoon to fly to Bethesda, MD to investigate a cancer treatment trial. At this stage it is still an adventure for Ryan, well, except for the stress of decision making and waiting for other’s decisions to be made. The opportunities come suddenly and they had only a day to get mentally prepared for this trip. I pray that it will be productive and that they will feel well cared for.

I spent an hour in the afternoon with a young mother. She was happy to sit on the couch and talk, forget studying anything or counseling of any kind. She was without the children or their father and hardly knew what to do with a whole hour to herself. I prayed for her not only to myself, but also with her after asking her permission. I don’t think she is often in conversation with God because talking to him brought tears, good ones.

June 2

Read to the husband this morning. Besides our Bible passage, and a spiritual growth book, we read the first 7 days of “Sac Prairie Journal”. It totally inspired me to write this month. Life is 99% average stuff so a writer just cannot afford to wait until something explosive happens to write. I’ve known that but the confirmation was good. This author feels the same way I do about the woods, and I should quote him. Yes, I will.

My biking friend couldn’t keep our date to meet for a ride in the afternoon, and I was tempted not to go at all. But thank God, I went anyway and was glad I did. I went on the CAMBA trails at the hospital, and I mean ALL of the trails. It was an 8 mile ride. I didn’t go fast and furious, and I often go alone just so I won’t have to match anyone else’s pace. I stopped and took a picture along the creek. It was a lovely day and I managed all the rocks, bumps, bugs and wind in my face without having any spills or times when I had to walk up a grade.

June 3

My calendar says “Patty will clean house.” This was a birthday present from my Mom who gets her house cleaned by Patty every other week. I have a bad case of “cleaning before the cleaning” syndrome, especially since my house smells somewhere in between a nursing home and a kennel. Having someone from the outside come in and deal with my mess takes a little getting used to, but the payoff is having clean floors and a whole lot less dust. Worth it.

I biked the same trails this afternoon with Sue, but this time it was harder and I didn’t make it up a couple of the grades without stopping. I’m tired from yesterday. Sue, a physical therapist, said I just needed to learn to use my gears. I’m not sure the bike has gears that low.

June 4

Saturday, the last day of the week. I wear my loose, crazy pants to remind me not to do things that aren’t restful. Did a lot of reading today and took Mom in the golf cart to all our favorite places on the farm – Mary Pat’s spot overlooking the pond, Scruffy’s gravesite in the silo, the lilac hedge and the peony bushes and the perennial garden. We drove slow and savored it all while we talked.

Later I went back to MP’s bench and just sat, looking at the water reflections, the clouds, the sunset.

The Canadian geese families were wary of me for a few minutes but later decided I wasn’t dangerous and let their young charges march up to the wildflower field to snack. I say march because they stick together almost in formation. I am amazed at how fast they can waddle. They must eat a lot because they are getting big, fat almost. The two adults spend most of their time upright, looking around on guard duty. They seldom duck down to nibble anything. I’ve seen how fast they can get their brood back in the water at the smallest threat. They know how to do family.

On guard

It is so peaceful – I long to share the quietness of this scene with others.

“Hugh observed that nature was as necessary to some men as opium to the opium eaters… Opium eaters of a different kind. Perhaps – though it is not to say that nature is escape, because every nature lover knows that all is not soothing peace close to the earth, but rather that there is manifest always a ceaseless war, the endless struggle to survive, the marks of which are everywhere to see at all seasons. No, this kind of opium eater has about him a core of inner strength no one else ever has. Something there is that marks his kinship with the earth, something that makes itself manifest in the lingering of an eye upon a bird, the way his body takes the winds, something that rises to quicken the pulse in mid-winter at the thought alone of spring. The necessity of nature to him is stronger even than he; take him away from nature, and an essential part of him will shrivel and die… Nature is the kind of opium that quickens every sense a man has, that enriches and enlivens his appreciation of the earth on which he lives, and to which he ultimately returns as a part to its whole.”

from “Wisconsin Country, a Sac Prairie Journal” by August Derleth

This time of year the sunsets are more interesting than the sunrises, but you have to be up till 9:30 pm to see them

Zarf: Okay, what?

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The last post of the 2022 A to Z Challenge is always welcome in my world because posting for 26 nearly consecutive days is truly a challenge. My Z word today doesn’t have a direct link to my theme of relationship building, but then most of the other words weren’t direct links either. But here’s the final, true thing – because relationship with others and with God are the most important things in my life, almost everything in life becomes indirectly linked to those priorities.

I attribute many things which others call coincidences, or serendipitous moments, to God and his desire to give me a smile, a laugh or a touch of some kind. I happened to be looking at this scene in Julia’s kitchen on the day that I was searching for a post on Z.

Zarf, the little metal handle and the ring attached to it at the bottom. Top left corner, some extra zarfs, or maybe zarves. I don’t know.

A few minutes later I came upon the word zarf and realized I was looking at one and never knew what it was called. It brought to mind the many times Julia had made an espresso or latte for me and how I had enjoyed holding my zarf while talking with her.

I don’t know how it came about that someone initially roasted a coffee bean and soaked it in hot water. It seems that ever since coffee has had some kind of crazy hold on civilization. I’ve read a lot of stories about pioneer days in our country, how they were ALWAYS making coffee on their cookstoves or over their campfires. If you had nothing else, you had coffee, and maybe biscuits.

Our family has many people who enjoy coffee, and more than a few who might be called fanatics. Some go for the fancy, expensive kind from the shops that abound in our towns and cities. Most are content with a cup of plain, good tasting brew. I have to admit that coffee is a standard, a hub of our social gatherings. That is the indirect link to relationship building.

Mmm, hmm.

Rarely do any of us refuse a cup of coffee and a donut, or a homemade cookie. This beverage accompanies the best of conversations. Some of us feel secretly linked by our love of coffee. Coffee rituals abound. We have our favorite cups and we have signs on our kitchen walls, clever coffee quotes on our T-shirts. It’s okay. It’s even fine if someone wants to drink tea instead of coffee, as long as they don’t tell anyone what’s in their cup.

Mom, Julie, coffee
Esther, Mom, coffee (donut)
Birthday coffee and candle
Coffee with real Half ‘n Half (for snobs)
Coffee in special cup, special place
(Sshh, it’s tea).

So, here’s a toast to that hot, fragrant, brown drink in the clear glass held by a zarf, and to the many relationships furthered by “coffee time”. (And to the end of the 2022 A to Z Blogging Challenge!)

Yard Work: Joining in Builds Relationship

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This one is short. I’m getting tired but there’s only one more letter left!

They say it – the family that works together, stays together. (Did I get that right? Maybe not.). At the very least, the family that has built lasting, enjoyable relationships always wants to help each other with their yard work.

Whether it’s digging up dandelions, collecting dog poop, putting markers on redbud trees so they don’t get cut down, or pulling out vast amounts of invasive English ivy, I have done it. In my daughter’s yards. Happy to help.

After all, when I am visiting the girls during their busy work weeks, I am free during the day and looking for things to do. They are usually distressed by yard work that they haven’t been able to get done. I love being outside so it seems a win/win situation for me to be working in the yard.

It gives me a chance to take part in improvements they’ve done over the years. I get an odd sense of “ownership” in saying “I planted that flower”, or “I trimmed that tree for you last summer”. I think they would say they have loved that part of my work ethic too.

Now trying to keep hubby from chopping down these pretty pink trees
I helped plant these flowers, yes I did.
Julia rented for a few years. I think we made it kind of charming.
Enjoying the yard in Seattle
Yard work and yard enjoyment over the years

To build a relationship well, I am willing to join them in work that needs to be done. I might need a day or two to be on vacation myself, but that gets old pretty quick, and I have always found other people’s work to be more fun than my own (although I love my own yard work too).

At the end of the day, it is so satisfying to be relaxing in a nice yard that’s had a little love, and to be enjoying it with the people I love. Sweet, just sayin’…