Broken Traditions

"Think of the excitement we are usually feeling at this time, on this day,” Sister Emily texted this afternoon. I had just returned from the grocery store, picking up potatoes for tomorrow’s mashing. 

On a normal Thanksgiving Eve day, I’d be on the turnpike right about now, imploring Siri to send a text to Sister Emily. “Be there in 45 minutes. Stuck in traffic at Exit 8.”

 

We’d buzz around her house, scrutinizing the step-by-step dinner directions sent by Sister Nancy, making a call to Sister Susan to confirm pick-up duty of our mother the next day, me running to Wawa for a bag of ice after determining that it would take way more than 24 hours for her ice maker to make enough ice to freeze away my fears of a lukewarm water glass. While I was gone, Sister Emily would have showered and put on the outfit of the year, me nodding from her high and fluffy bed with approval, perhaps selecting a bright accessory to enhance her image. 

 

And then, off we’d go to Schaeffer’s house. Not The Schaeffer’s house, for some reason, but just plain Schaeffer’s house. Every Thanksgiving Eve, including the year Nancy (not Sister Nancy, but ex-housemate Nancy who married John Schaeffer III out of IV) gave birth to her third, out of four sons that very week, we descended on Schaeffer’s for an inter-generational food and drink fest. 

 

We’d chatter away on the six-minute ride over, pre-gaming our hopes wondering who would be there. Would Taylor and Jenna fly in, literally, like he flies his own plane? Will this be a dancing night? A fire pit night? Which Schaeffer son will fill the house with the most friends? Would Tommy Dickinson and Jane really show? Would we beat Rob and Mon there? Is this Kit’s year to come and will Mark make an appearance with his bride-to-be? What kind of vegan delicacies would Johnny IV showcase between the filet and the pigs-in-a-blanket? And will Michelle’s bunion finally be healed? 

 

Every year at Schaeffer’s, while always different, is always the same. It’s the one time of year that there are no words to regret (well…), no calories to lament, only thankful thoughts that we have had a lifetime of tradition with lifelong friends. 

 

Thanksgiving Day has had many incarnations in my 60-odd years of life. But, it’s always been the same basic tradition. Always on fine china, always a big bird, always a family feast; first on Woods Road, right down the hill from Schaeffer’s, eventually morphing over to Sister Nancy’s gourmet kitchen in Oreland, and when she moved to Charleston, over to Sister Emily’s house on Preston Road. One year, and only one, we deviated. It was the year my father died, and for some odd reason, we all thought we’d feel better if no one cooked and cleaned and fussed and fumed. Of course, we were wrong. 

 

Thanksgiving is my very favorite time of year. It’s the perfect blend of everything I love most – friends, family, and food. And once the food has fermented into flab, the weekend is always topped off with a Friendsgiving feast at the Santostefano’s. What’s not to love about Thanksgiving? The most I ever had to do was mash the potatoes and show up with a bottle of Basil Hayden. 

 

Anyone who has known me for 15 minutes knows that I have many rules and proclamations, most of which make absolutely no sense to anyone. Least of all myself. 

 

For instance, I have never had a cup of coffee or tea in my life. I will never sleep without a fan blowing in my face, not at home, not in a hotel, not on a cruise ship, whether it’s 90 degrees or nine. I will never order a drink, neither water or whiskey, without an extra cup of ice. 

 

And I will never cook a Thanksgiving turkey.

 

This year, by no fault of our own, traditions have been broken. Hearts have been broken. Rules have been broken. 

 

But don’t get ahead of yourself. I’m still not cooking a Thanksgiving turkey. 

 

For the first time in as long as I can remember, there’s no Wednesday night at Schaeffer’s. No turkey and stuffing with my mother and sisters. And, no friends’ dinner with the Santostefano and Formisano families. 

 

And for the first time ever, I’m hosting - if you can call it that - Thanksgiving. It will be me, the ever-loving spouse, the youngest son and the only daughter. We don’t need a leaf in the table, we don’t have to borrow fold-up chairs from the Hargraves (actually, we never returned them from the daughter’s high school graduation party), and I don’t have to cook a 23-pound turkey.

 

Because the irony of it all is, along with everything else, my oven is broken. 

 

But we’ll improvise. The daughter’s good at that. I just have to take a deep breath and allow another human in the kitchen (my mother’s fault – she didn’t let anyone in until she turned 90). We’ve got an air-fryer, a crock pot, a microwave, an indoor grill, an outdoor grill with no propane, and a stove top. And, don’t judge me, a nice, small pre-cooked, pre-sliced turkey breast from Trader Joe’s. How bad can it be? 

 

We’ll get through the day. We’ll call the sisters. We’ll call the missing son. We’ll eat a week’s worth of food in a matter of hours. 

 

And, if the mother stays calm, once the kitchen is clean, I just may break another rule and descend the steps to the basement and succumb to the daughter’s wishes for a family viewing of her favorite movie. 

 

Because, despite our world being (temporarily) broken, there’s no denying the fact that It’s a Wonderful Life.

It's Not Covid, It's Not Cancer...

Well, it was, but, that was then, this is now. 

Ten years ago today, on the morning of my bosom buddy Claire’s 50^th birthday, I was admitted to the hospital to have my cancer removed. Ten years ago I couldn’t imagine ten days forward, let alone ten years. Yet, here I am. Alive and well. 

 

It never occurred to me that I would die from breast cancer, even though my college housemate, Betsy, (yes, same name – we also lived with Sue and Sue) relayed a cautionary tale when I was debating whether to get a lumpectomy, a mastectomy, or a double mastectomy. Her mother had died the previous year of breast cancer and told Betsy that she regretted not opting for the most radical treatment from the get-go, which may have prevented the recurrence which ultimately killed her. 

 

While that conversation sealed the deal for me, I knew that part of my decision had to do with logisitics. To me, it was way easier to lop them off than to drive myself to radiation every day for six weeks, endure chemo, hair loss, vomitosis, dependency on other humans, and all those other horror story side effects. And, while I was at it, I may as well do the two-for-one special so reconstruction, while double the everything, would be more symmetrical. 

 

Instead of focusing on the seriousness of the surgery, I obsessed over the minutiae. I made my friend, Janice, promise to come sweep the leaves off my back deck twice a week, if not daily. I worried about the meals Gail set up to be delivered to my house. Should I sit in the chair and moan so my friends would think I truly deserved their care rather than bounding to the door? Could I ask Claire to take me to yet another follow-up appointment, or should I just go ahead and drive, dragging drains and pillows with me into the driver’s seat? And, was it self-serving to put myself on the prayer list at church, another ploy for attention? These were the kind of things I worried about. 

 

When all was said and done, and I woke up, flat-chested for the first time since I was ten years-old, I was informed that it was indeed a good thing I had had a double mastectomy because there were cancer cells that had not been previously detected in the "good" breast. Which made me feel a little less selfish. 

 

Of course it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The drains were disgusting, I had a lot of discomfort and frustration in not being able to do things myself, but pain, not so much. I sent my spouse back to work right away so I could embellish my stories as friends rallied around me, helping me lug laundry baskets, wash my hair, wash the dishes, clean the house, and of course, sweep the deck. 

 

The best thing that came out of it was that I won a bet with my plastic surgeon, the Good Doctor Troy Callahan, that may well have saved me from future bariatric surgery. He, having done one or two reconstructions in his tenure, pushed back when I said I wanted to go smaller, way, way smaller with my new implants. He warned me that I would be way, way out of proportion if I went with the size I wanted. 

 

“What if,” I said sucking in my stomach as far as I could, which was not very far at all. “I lost 100 pounds. Then they’d be in proportion.” 

 

I won on both counts. I’m in proportion and I didn’t have to bolster big bosoms ever again. I lost 100 pounds in 14 months and have kept off 80 to 85 pounds of it (depending on the recent intake of ice cream) for the past 10 years. And while I bemoan regaining those 20 give or take pounds, what woman at my age isn't crying the same tears?

 

In the decade before the breast cancer, I had a hip replacement, followed four months later by a three week stint in the hospital for pancreatitis and an emergency gall bladder removal. Three years later, I had a hysterectomy – nothing urgent there, just pre-cancer cells. But, it was a lot while in the throes of child rearing. 

 

I made it a full nine years after the breast cancer with no surgeries and then had a double knee replacement. And while I had become quite good at managing my hospitalizations and rehabs, I put it off way longer than I should have. After recovering so well, and because there were no future surgeries looming, I went back to the Good Doctor to see about having extra weight-loss skin removed (I know, gross). 

 

But, then Covid hit and I put that on hold. 

 

So, here’s the It's Not Covid part of the story. In July, three of my college friends wanted to get together for an overnight at Jeanne’s house. It was summer, we could be outside, we could be safe. When I balked, they mocked me promising they'd take their temperatures every hour on the hour and dress in full PPE. I rolled my eyes and went. Of course I went. And two bourbons in, completely forgot about Covid for the first time in four months. 

 

I opted to sleep on the couch in the basement so I'd have my own private bathroom. When I woke up the next day with a stiff neck, morning after guilt kicked in. Was this a new Covid symptom? Was I going to bring the virus home and infect my whole family over a little bit of selfish fun? 

 

Two days later, the neck was fine, but my jaw was killing me. Killing me. I couldn’t open my mouth all the way which made it very hard to stuff with food, yawn, or over-talk. I got a Covid test. Negative. I went to the dentist and had no signs of an abscess. I got an antibody test thinking maybe it was a Covid after effect. 

 

Negative.

 

Then my right hand started hurting. It had actually been bothering me for a while, but I thought it was from playing too many Words With Friends games on my phone. Now it was so bad I couldn’t make a fist. I couldn’t grip the handlebar of my bike. I couldn’t tie my shoes or hold a pen the way I was taught in kindergarten. My finger looked like a sausage, gnarled like the Wicked Witch of the West, and felt like there was hot lava flowing through it. 

Oh, and then my neck kicked back in. It felt like a normal stiff neck like when you can’t look over your shoulder at the oncoming 18-wheeler as you merge onto the highway, but add excruciating pain. I couldn’t sleep on a pillow and if I rolled over at night, I had to put my hands on either side of my head to hold in the hurt as I turned. And my back, oh, how my back ached. 

 

Went to the doctor who pooh-poohed my guilt-Covid theory, especially since I tested negative. And, tested positive. For something called rheumatoid factor. 

 

Off to Dr. Anna Zezon I went, a rheumatologist I randomly picked by a random google search. Despite the unwelcome diagnosis she bestowed upon me, she quickly became my new favorite doctor, which in no way diminishes the love and respect I have for all my other favorite doctors. 

 

“You’ve got psoriatic arthritis,” she announced. 

 

Psoriatic arthritis. The chronic, incurable, autoimmune disease that closely resembles rheumatoid arthritis except for the scaly skin lesions often found on the scalp. (I know, again, gross). And here I thought I just had the everyday Head and Shoulders kind of dandruff. 

 

I’m clearly no stranger to pain. I can live with it for years and years and years. But, the thing is, you can’t really let this go without treating it. It will continue attacking, gnawing away, until there's permanent disabling damage to the joints.

 

Which brings me full circle to what I wanted to avoid ten years ago. Chemo. OK, it’s not really chemo, but it is methotrexate, which is a chemo drug. I am on a low, low dose so I may well avoid suffering those evil hair loss, mouth sores, nausea side effects. But, just in case, I take a daily dollar-a-day pill to help keep that all at bay. 

 

I have to shoot up once a week. For the rest of my life. 

 

I got a few free samples of an auto-injector, which is basically an encapsulated needle. You pull off a lid, push down on the end and you hardly know it’s happened. Especially if you have an extra two inches in your stomach to sink it into. But, alas, insurance didn’t cover it, so the out-of-pocket cost was a mere $133.08 a shot. For that price, I had no problem honing the fine art of shooting up with a vial and needle. The apparatus for which was mostly covered, costing me a total of $2.10 for three injections.

 

Miraculously, I received a letter from the “specialty pharmacy” informing me that my insurance decided to cover the auto-injector after all...for a $100 a month co-pay. By this time I was enjoying the progress I was making doing it the old-fashioned way so I told them I wasn't interested in forking out even that much money. But wait! Just call this toll-free number (and subsequently sit on hold for 33 minutes), and we'll waive the co-pay. Which I did. And they did. I’m now back to the auto-injector, but I assume it will be like a cable company deal. Once they’ve hooked you and the year is up, the cost will be back to $133.08 a piece, or most probably, even more. 

 

So, here I am, ten years cancer free, shooting up a chemo drug. The pain isn’t completely gone, and I don’t know if it ever will be, but I’ve learned to hold a pen between my first and middle fingers, work my bicycle brakes with half a hand, and have gotten really good at using back up cameras and rear-view mirrors.  

 

In no way do I mean to make light of anyone else’s cancers, or conditions, surgeries or sufferings. I just find for me, if I can laugh my way through the absurdity of it all, if I focus on the minutiae rather than the gravity of the situation, that getting through to the other side is way more bearable. 

 

So, until cancer or Covid gets me for good, I’m going to keep airing my dirty laundry, and thanking my lucky stars that for some unbeknownst-to-me reason, I just keep drawing the long end of the stick. 

Half a Lifetime

It’s official.

I’ve been married for half my life. 

 

At least for a year. 

 

I’d been looking forward to this milestone, but then did some simple addition and realized that this time next year when we reach our 32^nd anniversary, I will no longer be married for half my life, because I’ll “only” be 63, not 64.  Anything mathematical, statistical, or logistical hurts my brain so I don’t really understand this phenomenon, or at what age I’ll be when I fully cross over and can say with conviction, for the rest of my life, that I’ve been married over half my life.

 

All I know is that half of a lifetime, or anything close, is a really long time. 

 

“What’s the best thing about being married?” my youngest, not-so-young son asked us the other day in the middle of the woods in the middle of nowhere. I paused, still somewhat baffled that any semi-grown child of mine, would actually choose to be with me. I can say with unwavering confidence that the last place I’d be on a Saturday afternoon in October at the age of 24 would have been hiking in the lower Catskills with my parents. 

 

But, that of course, was a lifetime ago. 

 

“The best thing about being married?” I repeated, buying time. I’ve known from parenting for 45.16 percent (I googled it) of my life, that certain responses, certain reactions, certain non-answers can not be reconstructed or reversed. Ever.  

 

You know, the fury-filled, “I told you not to go” when you get the crashed-car on a snowy day call.

 

Followed by the, (gulp), “Yeah, I’m fine, Mom. Thanks for asking.” 

 

Or the, “You’re kidding. He’s asking HER to the prom?”

 

Followed by the completely innocent, “What’s wrong with HER, Mom?”  The HER who becomes HIS girlfriend three months later. 

 

“I DO like her,” you insist.

 

“Whatever.”

 

“The best thing about being married,” I said. “Is having someone you love with you all the time.”

 

I looked sideways at my ever-loving spouse who remained silent. 

 

“You know, like you never have to go to a wedding alone. Or make decisions alone. Or take care of the dog alone. And, of course,” I continued, mother gene kicking in. “Having kids together. Because no matter how much your grandmother or aunt or best friend pretends they care about the color of your baby's poopy diaper, no one cares like a parenting partner.”

 

“So, then,” asked the introspective son. “What’s the worst thing about being married.”

 

I laughed.

 

“Having someone with you all the time,” I said, without skipping a beat. 

We walked along, the three of us, scuffing at the fallen leaves beneath our feet. 

“Which is why you have to marry the right person,” I added.

 

“And, how do you know it’s the right person, Mom?” 

There's that question. The one akin to What’s the Meaning of Life? or Which Came First, the Chicken or the Egg? The one that every unmarried, soon-to-be married, and sometimes even married, person on the planet wants answered. 

 

I knew if I gave my stock response of “You’ll just know,” to my philosophy-major son, it wouldn’t fly.  

 

We’re talking the rest of your life, he’d undoubtedly argue. People evolve. Circumstances change. 

 

Instead, I just said, “You know, I’ve been married to your father for half of my life.” 

 

Long enough to launch three children, bury three parents, buy a big, old,front-porched, till-it-falls-apart or till-death-do-us-part house, lose a job, change a job, pray for a job, total a couple of cars, raise a couple of hounds, survive more than a couple surgeries, kill a cancer, shock a heart, buy two new knees, a hip, two bosoms, knowing we’d willingly double our troubles to mend one of our kids’ battered body parts or broken hearts, of which there’ve been many. 

 

Thirty-one years is a long, long time. 

 

But of course, if you marry the right person, no matter how you do the math, half a lifetime isn’t nearly long enough.