Thursday, May 27, 2021
I was exhausted again today. Is it grief, how I’m pushing myself to get my body to work, or is there just something wrong with me?
I started making the final copy of the Zoom PowerPoint of my reading method for posting on YouTube. I put on the outfit I had picked out, a dark rose T-shirt, the beads Scott gave me, translucent purple, green and white, and red bead earrings. I know nothing matches, but that won’t make a difference on Zoom, especially since my image is in a small box to the side of the main screen, dominated by the slide. I did try a different pair of earrings, something that would match the necklace, amethysts. When I looked at them in the video, they looked like weird floating thingies. I needed something more solid.
I changed my filming site. I still used the desk in Mike’s library. I originally had it set up, so I faced the picture window, getting full light on my face. Behind me was a wall of 6-foot bookshelves with a bank of windows above them. The light coming through those windows threw a ghostly glow. That wouldn’t do.
I moved my spot, so I was working at the side of the desk. That would mean that the right side of my face would be lit by natural light, and I would need extra illumination for the left. I had already bought one of those special lamps that you clip onto your computer. I hadn’t been using it up to now. I needed to angle myself slightly, so all I had behind me were bookshelves instead of the window at the side of the house. Then there was the way the shelves looked. Some of them were already bare. That wouldn’t do. I borrowed books from other shelves in the library, making my backdrop reflect ‘my intelligence.’
You know Mike never read many of the books he bought, and I can’t imagine he would ever have time to do so. He was a collector; I say a hoarder. This never became a problem in our marriage because we had the money. Now, I think about how much he spent on this collection and how important this was to him. When we moved to Hawaii, I suggested he get rid of his books. He declared two things had to go to Hawaii, me and his books. How do you argue with that? Besides something like 3,500 books, there was the CD collection. I counted a thousand. At $10 each, which is low, he spent $10,000 on his collection, which he never listened to. He had one or two in the CD player that he played repeatedly; that was that.
Okay, back to my video. I started recording it. I made it through six slides and then screwed up on the seventh. Fortunately, I don’t have to go through all twenty-something slides in one sitting before the video will be good to go. Tommy, my techy, said they are easy to slice and splice. I had to stop anyway because I had a Zoom client. I thought I had given myself enough time to make it all the way through, but then I had to rearrange the furniture and books in the library to create my background. I sent what I’d done to Dorothy and Judy, my editorial board.
When I sent out the Zoom invitation to my student, I saw a text canceling that session. As it wound up, all three scheduled sessions were canceled today. That felt just fine to me. I was low on energy. All I wanted to do was sit, veg or sleep. I decided not to go back to recording the video until I got feedback from my editorial board.
Judy called to say she thought it was great. She also said that she loved the way I sounded. I sounded confident, knowledgeable, and energetic. Okay. She also told me that she had to take care of her very disabled grandson Luke because her daughter-in-law was on overload.
Judy’s daughter-in-law had taken on an extra burden that wound up being more than she could chew. A friend left her six-year-old daughter with her for two weeks while she and her boyfriend vacationed in Mexico. Now, Jazzy wasn’t the only one who agreed to help. There are others this mother wrangled into taking turns. Jazzy said whatever thoughts she had about wanting a daughter had ended with her exposure to this little girl. She said girls are so much more drama. Judy had two boys. When she drove a bunch of kids, girls, and boys, the boys were all talking about poop and piss, and the girls were talking about social dramas. I guess it’s a girl’s job to help monitor the social world. Jazzy took Leon and Terry to the beach where they could run around and leave her alone.
Terry has a problematic background. Her parents were never married, but that’s no big deal today. Many couples are in committed relationships and devoted to their family without the benefit of the sanctions of church or state. However, these two are one of the worst cases of chalk and cheese, and both are questionable parents. He is rigidly controlling; he makes his children stand with their noses to the wall when they do something he doesn’t like. She is so relaxed that she provides no discipline. Judy said the mom would take Terry to the beach when she was a baby, leave her lying on a blanket, ask some stranger to keep an eye on her, and go surfing. It is Hawaii, not Jones Beach in New York or Manhattan Beach, ironically in LA. The aloha spirit does live here, and Terry did survive.
Terry’s father tried to sue for full custody. He spent a fortune. He hired a social worker to prove that Terry’s mother was unfit. You can see his point. However, the social worker observed him as well as the mom. He had anger management problems of significant proportions. He was told he could not have custody unless he dealt with his anger issues. He refused; he lost custody. After all that effort, he had nothing to do with his daughter after he lost. Was he interested in her or control? I’ll bet on the latter.
Last night, as I did one of my many walks, and saw Leon and Terry playing in the front yard. They were great together. They were throwing a rope over one of the limbs of the large tree in the front yard. They took turns; Terry was the one who did it. That was no problem for Leon. Later that day, Jazzy contacted an aunt of Terry’s and got her to take her. Judy said Terry would be in loving hands. Yikes! That this kid is as normal as she was a tribute to the human spirit.
I got a text from the mother of adolescent D with a picture of something he did in school. The teacher was sufficiently impressed to take a picture of it and send it to the mom. His school gave the students an end-year question: what did you find hard this year? D wrote, reading, writing, and math. Quelling my excitement, I imagined that someone read the question to him. But no, mom told me the teacher was clear; he had read this independently. She had never seen him concentrate on reading like this before. Wow! Mom received this with disappointment, realizing how far behind he was. “The words aren’t even spelled correctly.”
My perspective is different. I see this as a breakthrough.
1) He had the confidence to try and read the question on his own
2) He had the skill he needed to figure out what it said correctly.
3) He had the courage to do the best he could. This is a timid, hidden child. He won’t allow me to see his image on Zoom. He exposed himself
4) While none of the words were spelled correctly, he sounded out all the words. They were readable.
Where I saw four miracles, mom saw failure. I think she is finally realizing how far behind he is. I can sympathize with her somewhat. When Mike was in the hospital, I was the last to realize how close to death he was and how unlikely it was that he would survive. The Monday before I let him go, Damon, Jean, and I had a consultation with the palliative care team. I thought we would talk about ways to make him comfortable until he recovered. On the phone from LA, Damon opened the discussion with a question, “Are we keeping him alive for our sake or his?” I was shocked. I didn’t say anything because I quickly realized it was a reasonable question. At some level, I knew; at another, I was in denial, thinking ahead about how to deal with his homecoming. I think his mom is like this, assuming that her lovely child will be just fine. It will work out. She and her husband have placed him in private schools where he would be protected and treated kindly by the teachers and fellow students. Now, she’s wondering if the school has been pampering him. I don’t think that’s the case. They had no idea how to help him. For her to assume that all he needed was someone to force him to learn is an insult to me. He has made these gains in twelve hours of work. Rather than think of my remarkable skills, she assumed I had strong-armed him into the improvements he has currently made.
I see that a lot. I work with a kid, produce a change, and the teacher says the parents laid down the law with the child. Really?? They didn’t try that before? When you don’t know what to do, try bullying a student into learning. It works every time, not!
As I headed back to the house from one of my walks, I saw Bruce, the mailman, honking his horn in front of my neighbor’s gate. He had a package for Mei and Peter and tried to get their attention since he couldn’t get through their gate to deliver the package to the front door. Seeing the problem, I called Mei and let her know Bruce was waiting for her. Participating in this manner lifted my spirits and filled me with energy. I got the answer to my question: grief is draining me. I am not part of a domestic community. I’d have to say I’m lonely. Sometimes, I miss Mike beyond words.
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