Ageism Personified

“Oh, so you consider yourself middle-aged?” my EVER-LOVING spouse said the other day in response to a comment I had made. Probably something on the lines of, “I wonder what these kids think of some random middle-aged woman asking them if they smoke weed every day or just before they go to work?”

Negative words never spew from my spouse’s mouth, unless they have to do with someone overly-editing one of his news stories or someone accidentally-on-purpose forgetting to mow the lawn. So, naturally, I thought he meant that I hadn’t yet reached middle age. 

But then, I did the math.

If middle age is considered midway through life, then I’m not just dangling over the other side, I’m just an inch or two from clunking to the ground. Though we’ve made great strides, even in 2020, life expectancy, even for women, still has not reached 120 years. 

Around the same time, I ran across something in the Post. Not that Post. The New York Post. The one I read religiously, alternating between laughing out loud and shaking my head incredulously. It was a little blip of an article that read, “An elderly woman suffered a fractured skull and is now in a coma thanks to a red-light-running cyclist who slammed into her in Midtown. ….” Just my kind of story. I read on to learn that the elderly woman was 67 years old. 

I was so appalled, and trust me, having raised three kids, not much appalls me, that I sent a tweet to the reporter, and then, in search of affirmation for that which appalled me, googled “what age is considered elderly?” Go, ahead, do it. If you’re over 30, you too, will be appalled. 

Intellectually, I’ve come to terms with my age. It is what it is. Physically, I know that if I were so inclined, there’s Botox and bootie boosts and crepey skin solutions. But, emotionally, I have a hard time reconciling that I am past my prime. 

And so, I do everything in my power to stay relevant. Stay active. Stay interesting. And because I am so self-aware, oft times I acknowledge that my efforts are laughable. I chide my friend, Laura, for having never heard of Lil Nas X, and staying stuck in the past with her steadfast love of Rush and Styx and Metallica. Meanwhile, I’m listening to all the pop stations, singing along with Taylor Swift and Halsey. I watch the Grammy’s on the edge of my seat, rooting for Lizzo as if she’s my BFF, and Billie Eilsih as though she’s my daughter. Or granddaughter. 

And, yes, because I still am cognitively aware, I do realize that if I were really cutting-edge, I wouldn’t be listening to Z100. 

I keep up with current films and think Parasite was genius and 1917 boring, but of course, Jo in Little Women is, and always has been, my hero. And while Oscar night at the Hynes-Zulakis’ house is the highlight of my birth month, I’m culturally cool enough to know there’s all kinds of indie filmmakers that would rather die than dabble with the dullards in the Dolby Theater. 

I’ve binge-watched Fleabag and Dead to Me and Succession and Shameless, but realize the façade I’m flaunting when I admit to loving The Kominsky Method and my aversion to Game of Thrones.  

I dye my hair, paint my nails (and then pick off the gel polish), get my eyebrows waxed and weaved and dyed and shaped. I go to yoga, prefer Normal People to Where the Crawdads Sing, and have thrown away my Garmin GPS.

I shop at Anthropologie, have multiple pairs of Allbirds, and sport an Apple watch. No one is going to accuse me of wearing mom jeans. But then again, I do wear Spanx every day of my life. 

This month was my annual stint working at Be the Best Coaches’ Convention. Throughout the year, I write for Rivals Creative, an agency owned by my half-my-age friend, Diego, doing behind-the-scenes marketing for Be the Best. When the convention rolls around, it is always my most fun freelance job of the year. I sit at the head table with my friend, Kathy, checking in attendees, asking who they are, where they’re from, and if they would like to marry my daughter. Or son. I spend time in the hospitality suite drinking with rich and famous baseball and softball coaches, and hobnob with the hotel help and convention vendors. 

But, this year, perhaps because I’m now on the other side of 60, I got to over-thinking, and realized that in these circles, I am definitely in the one percent. Not the one percent to which we all aspire, but the one percent who is over-the-hill. 

This notion was nagging at the back of my mind as I drank and joked and carried on, thinking that these people must all be looking at me, shaking their heads, a sentence away from recommending the Floridian community where their grandparents have been sequestered. 

And then, along came @ThatGuy_Kai. Kai Correa spoke at Be the Best a couple years ago when he had just been hired as an infield coach in the minor leagues. Kai is fun and friendly and full of baseball knowledge. He made a huge impression on hundreds of people at the convention that year, including me. 

Fast forward two years. Kai now has a beautiful bride and an even more beautiful bouncing baby girl. He is 31 years old and just got a job with the San Francisco Giants. As in the major leagues. As in the youngest bench coach in the MLB. 

So, Kai’s got a lot on his plate. He’s met a lot of people in the past two years. Many of whom have made a tangible difference in the trajectory of his life. I, on the other hand, am just some lady at one of the many conventions he attends who might offer him a bottle of water or introduce him to the AV team. 

“Hey, Kai! I’m Betsy,” I chirped as he walked through the door last weekend.

“I know,” he said. “I remember you.” 

Oh, how sweet, I thought. Something I would do; pretend to remember the lady at the door. Kai had a bit of time before he was going on stage, so he pulled up a chair and we spent ten minutes bantering back and forth about his job, his kid, his life. And mine. 

“So, how’s your daughter doing?” he asked. “I know she was living somewhere far away.” 

I told him that she has since moved back east from New Orleans and that no, I still hadn’t found her a husband. 

“And your son, the one who played ball?”

“How do you remember this stuff?” I asked, jaw dropping. 

“I listen,” he said. 

“To me?” 

“Yes, and I read your blog.” 

That's all took for me to realize that it really doesn’t matter if you wear Lululemon or LLBean. Whether you have wrinkles or pimples. Whether you drink Jack Daniels or kale juice. Whether you post on Facebook or TikTok. Whether your eyes are crowned with crow's feet or eyelash extensions. Whether you're young, old, or somewhere in between.

It can hit you when you least expect it. When that question mark in your mind turns into a smile on your face. And, you say to yourself, hey, maybe I AM still relevant.

A normal person wouldn't have thought twice about the conversation. But, when you're caught in that place where you're too young to quit but too old to play, sometimes all it takes is someone half your age to make you feel like maybe you haven't aged out just yet.

The funny thing about this thing called life is that it's such a mental game. We spend so much time worrying about the things that don't matter, like age and looks and weight and wealth, when the truth is, no one comes anywhere close to where we are in our own heads.

We're all just looking for the win, whatever that win may be. For many, it's fame and fortune. To others, it's love and affirmation. To some, it's just getting through the day without screwing up.

So, we gotta just keep on playing with what we've got. Doing the best we can. Swinging at the off-speed pitches, going for the double plays, hitting the sacrifice flies, pumping up the bench.

Because, you just never know when the play you make will change the outcome of the game.

The Folly of the Glass Half-Full

“You always remember to keep my glass half-full instead of half-empty, and that is a special friend,” Carla wrote some time before midnight on New Year’s Eve. 

I did one of those half-smirk, half-eye roll, half-sure-got-her-duped faces, took a big gulp of my half-empty glass of wine and started thinking about the year that was rapidly receding.  

Honestly, it hadn’t even occurred to me that it was the end of a decade until Christmas night when my sons revealed their respective top-25 movies of the decade. Somewhere between Rachel Maddow and Words with Friends, I had missed the countdowns – the Decade’s Defining Moments, the Decade’s Darkest Dating Disasters -- though one would think I'd have caught on with my girl, Taylor, winning Billboard’s Woman of the Decade award. 

No, to me, it was just another New Year’s Eve at Amarone’s Restaurant with the Santostefano’s; the only thing raising the bar was an unexpected sighting of Victor and Joan Cohen. 

New Year’s morning, after checking in on Facebook and seeing that my friend, Madge, had already broken her resolutions by eating Hershey Kisses for breakfast, I laced up my sneakers and headed out to the gym where I do some of my best reflecting.

How in the world did my friend Carla get the idea that I was “a genuine person" who always reminds her of what’s important? I spent half an hour on the treadmill, powering up the incline to sweat out any illusions of being anything to anyone other than my father’s daughter who taught me to always expect the worst and I'd never be disappointed.

To channel my inner pessimist, I jumped onto the stationary bicycle and started pedaling away, tallying up my decade of losses.

The daughter had just started at the University of North Carolina in the fall of 2010 and Max, his friend, Jamal, and I were heading down for a visit. The boys were huddled over fake IDs in the back of the minivan, scheming about how they'd get into the frat parties. We were 413 miles into the drive when I got the call from my doctor confirming that I did, indeed, have breast cancer. I subsequently had both bosoms manhandled, removed, and reconstructed. I came home with blood-filled drains hanging out of my sides, I couldn't lift my arms above my head, and had to make a late-night trip to the ER after ripping my stitches doing laundry the day after I got home from the hospital. 

In early 2012, we lost our lovable lab, Chester. Though, in actuality, he wasn't all that lovable. Ask the daughter how she felt when we brought him home from the shelter and he immediately chewed the head off of her favorite American Girl doll. Or the mailman whose hand he nipped at every day when the mail was pushed through the slot in the door. Or Dan Yevin from the bus stop, who stood bravely between his daughter, Tati-ati-ati-o, and Chester’s bared teeth as my spouse, who had never had a dog before, and thus had no idea what beasts are capable of, scoffed. “Don’t worry, he won’t hurt you.” But, of course he did, he hurt our hearts horribly when he finally died.  

As Super Storm Sandy reared its ugly head in October of that year, my best friend, Claire, was battling a typhoon of her own. This was my go-to girl, the one I spent more time with than anyone else in the world. We ran our worlds together, raising our kids alongside half the other kids in town, sat on bleachers till our butts were sore, ran the schools, ran the sports leagues and ran ourselves ragged. She landed herself in the hospital, and we who sat vigil for weeks, were told there was a good chance she wouldn't make it out alive. 

In 2013, I lost another kid to a far-away college. The previous year, while deliberating for months on end about whether to go to Rowan University, I mentioned to Max he could always transfer if the football scenario didn't pan out to his liking.

“You mean, I could go to UCLA or USC?” he asked, eyes wide. 

“If you can get in, you can go,” I promised, assuming it was a safe bet. 

"You can't let him go to California," my friend Margaret said. "He'll never come back."

As fate would have it, Max got straight As at Rowan, gave up football, and transferred to the University of Southern California. One of the most heartbreaking moments of my life was that rearview mirror glimpse of his face as I pulled out of the parking garage in south central Los Angeles. I cried buckets that day thinking I could have kept this from happening. Instead I was leaving my uber-social second son 3,000 miles from home with a roommate whose first language was Chinese and whose first, and only priority, was studying. 

In 2014, the youngest went to college. The middle one was still in California, the daughter had gone off to live in New Orleans, and we were at long last empty-nesters. It was what I had yearned for since the day my kids were born, yet somehow our voices echoing off those empty walls didn’t sound quite as melodious as I had imagined. Then, as if to validate the void, the kid quit baseball, giving up his spot on a Division I team. After thousands of hours of training and dreaming and nursing a torn shoulder, he hung up his cleats and I reluctantly and despondently gave up my spot on the sidelines. 

In 2015, the kindest of all my college cronies succumbed to lung cancer. Chris battled it out for a good three years during which we continued our yearly All Girls’ Weekends together. She was the best dying person I’ve ever known, but probably because she was one of the best people I’ve ever known. She talked about it. She cried about it. She laughed about it. She went on trips with her husband, to Disney World with her daughter, and prayed really hard. But, still, she died. 

Later that year, I became a Mets fan. That was the season when Cespedes wasn’t hurt, when Wilmer cried, and when Matt Harvey was still The Dark Knight. It was also the year when they lost to Kansas City in the World Series. 

Then, there were some lean years, when I didn’t lose much more than a refrigerator here, a light fixture there. Freelance work came and went, but nothing to cry over either way. Life rolled along. Kids graduated, the house ebbed and flowed, filling up, then emptying out again. 

In 2017, our beloved Virginia Duncan passed away at the tender age of 100. She was my father-in-law Paul’s late-in-life sweetheart and someone I loved almost as much as he did. A year later, Paul’s congestive heart failure got the better of him and we lost him as well. As gruff as I am glib, Paul was a gem of a grandpa. A remarkable relative. And a close-to-perfect role model for my close-to-perfect spouse. 

To round out the decade, I lost both my knees, after years and years and more years of living with pain and rationalizing (despite many, many, many previously successful surgeries) that the fear of the unknown, the months of rehab, and the pain of recovery was way worse than the relief I'd eventually get out of having my knees replaced.

Which brings us up to the final goodbye of the decade. The Old Minivan. That good old guy got me where I was going for close to fifteen years. The stories it told, the kids it transported, the memories it held were surprisingly hard to let go. 

So, back to the glass half-full. 

Anyone who has ever known me for thirty seconds, knows that I can deal with death and doom, but it's the little things in life that throw me into a tailspin. Ask my friend, Patty. I'm the one whose entire cruise can be ruined if I get on board to find they've banned straws. Talk to  Kathy, Holly or Ann. They'll confirm that if I so much as graze the human next to me in yoga, all notions of Namaste are negated. No, I am so not that person who Carla thinks I am. 

Rather, I'm the one who one who gets indignant at a restaurant when the waiter forgets my extra cup of ice. The one who has to have a fan blowing in my face in order to fall asleep. And the one who can't sit next to anyone in the movie theater, lest I hear them breathe.

But, something happened on New Year's Day as I was thinking about Carla and my decade of losses. I started thinking about the wins from my losses.

I may have had cancer, but it hasn't come back. 

As traumatic as it is for even the most hardened mother to watch her children fly the coop, I've also been lucky enough to see them soar. 

Even the most cantankerous of canines leave a hole in the home when they cross over the rainbow bridge. But shortly after Chester left us, another rescue dog came into our lives. He was as friendly as Chester was foul and as crazy as Chester was calm. We named him Griffey, after Leo's favorite baseball player. Though he's getting a little gray around the edges, his ears aren't quite as sharp, and his eyes are getting a little cloudy, he's still a boundless bundle of energy. And, despite the endless vacuuming of dog hair, even I have to admit, he just might be the best dog ever. 

My friend, Claire, after a long and rocky road recovered, reminding us all never to take our friends or mothers for granted.

Knowing in my heart that it was his choice to go so far from home, I finally let go of my Max angst. As it ended up, USC was the best move ever, stretching him in ways he and we never thought possible. And, while Margaret was right, at least California graced him with a girlfriend who, with any luck, is the love of his life. 

Despite the void felt in all of our lives, had he not given up baseball, Leo never would have discovered his creative side, and the talent that just may be what ends up giving him the biggest hit of his life. 

Though we think of her always and miss her terribly, what our college friend left us was faith. Faith in knowing that if we live every day until we die, if we keep showing up for the All Girls' Weekends, if we keep appreciating our families and friends, then when our time comes, it's going to be a little bit easier for everyone. 

And while they haven’t come close since, after the 2015 season, we've secured a spot on the first-base line at CitiField. We became Mets season ticket holders. Just in case.

Virginia and Paul's presence are greatly missed, but we have lots and lots of boxes of photos, memories, and yes, ashes, piled in our basement to remind us of what they meant to us, in life and beyond. 

As far as the knees go, well, somehow, someway, I gave in and got them done. And now, after years of groaning, months of icing, and weeks of sleepless nights, I run and jump and play like a teenager. Or at least like an early old-ager. 

The Old Minivan has been replaced with a shiny new car with all the bells and whistles. I wouldn't give up those mega trips with kids in tow for all the Hyundais in Hollywood, but a little auto aloneness right about now is right up my alley. 

As I jumped off the bicycle and headed to the wall to do my squats, I marveled over how, just a few short months ago, I could barely stand. And here I was, deep knee-bending my way into a brand-new decade. 

And, I know it's all because of the Carla's in my life. The ones who think I'm brave and strong and optimistic. The ones who stick by my side when I'm being silly and stubborn and stupid. The ones who are always grabbing my glass and filling it up before I even realize it's half-empty.  

Thank you, friends, and Happy New Year.  

Bah Humbugs and Jolly Holidays

I have long envied the Christian-less at Christmas. Even the holiest of Hanukkah celebrants are able to handle December with far less stress, anxiety, and financial discord than this holiday-hostile heathen. As Thanksgiving dinner comes to an end with my stomach grumbling and my heart groaning, I know my discomfort is not due to the fourth helping of mashed potatoes or the sickeningly sweet chocolate pudding pie, but rather the fear of what’s to come. And what's to come is a month of buying, wrapping, decorating, cooking, cleaning, drinking, eating, and angsting. I find little joy in the season as I try to conquer the chaos, seek solace, and find micro-manage everything from the angel on top of the tree to the presents beneath it.  

Ironically, two of my favorite Jews made me see the light this Christmas. 

Madge, my bosom buddy of nearly 50 years, planted the mind-altering seed. She and I met in the middle this summer to take my mother out for lunch. As is customary, I commenced my ranting four months early about the ridiculousness of the nonsense looming ahead. 

“I always loved your house at Christmas time,” Madge said to my mother, shutting me down in the midst of my grousing over obligatory gifts, given and received just because long, long ago, three Wise Men came bearing gold, frankincense, and myrrh for the birthday boy. 

“Oh, I miss decorating!” my 94 year-old mother responded. “Now I just put out a few little things and call it a day.”

“I can’t wait for that day!” I piped in.

“Enjoy it while you can,” she said.  

“Enjoy it?”

“Yes, Betsy,” Madge said. “Enjoy it.”

I do love my house when its dressed up for Christmas. Once the work is done, that is. For he is a charming old guy with hardwood floors and trim around the doorways and windows. Garlands of greens spotted with red jingle bells and that old painted glass Santa Claus adorn the mantle; multi-colored Christmas ball gather in glass bowls on shelves next to the stained-glass nativity scene, bought at a craft fair the year we got married. Flying pig ornaments from my friend Ann Packles dangle with glee from a wrought iron tree. Three Santa mugs, one for each offspring, house candy canes, at least until they’re all devoured. A  wooden Nutcracker, pink for the breast cancer I outlived, gifted from my next door neighbor Kerri, stands tall and strong. And, every year I smile when I pull out the little plaque Susan Shanno gave me that reads: 

I love to give homemade gifts. 

Which one of the kids would you like?

“For some reason, I thought of you,” she said.

And, when I decorate the dreaded tree, I have to say, I get pangs in the heart as I unearth the battered and bruised ornaments. The metal measuring spoons, mangled from multiple garbage disposal mishaps, tied up with green ribbons and given to me by my sister as a reminder of my carelessness when we lived together. There’s a Lenox Christmas ornament my mother re-gifted back to me when she stopped getting her own tree. A not-very-attractive 35 year-old mouse from Dave Roeder that transports me back to my days at TV Guide. A food truck, an old minivan, and a cardinal for the dearly departed. There’s a football, a baseball, a cheerleader, a soccer ball, a basketball, and a “Middle Child: Mom’s Favorite” ornament. There’s a macramé snowflake from Patty, a hand-knitted Christmas tree from Gail, a dove from Donald and Theresa’s wedding, a wooden rocking horse from Anne Hare, a shimmery glass icicle from Gayle Squire, a bunch of funny looking clowns from Jack Hogencamp, a black lab for dead Chester, a yellow lab for living Griffey, and a monkey that moves around, hiding in the branches. 

But, I hate Christmas.

Admittedly, my aversion to the holiday is all self-imposed and intensified with each child I put forth. From the get-go, Santa Claus brought all three kids ten presents, each pile marked by its own distinct wrapping paper. To keep the illusion alive, the spouse had to get ten gifts as well, wrapped in his own paper. There are also the stockings with toothbrushes, underwear, Swedish fish, and AA batteries painstakingly wrapped in different paper than the big present pile. Bags of gifts wrapped and ready for the in-laws, the sisters, and the niece and nephew would sit in the basement as a reminder that the gift-giving will never be confined to one two-hour period. And, then there’s the mess and the subsequent stuff to deal with and find a place for. Meanwhile, I’d martyr out on Christmas morning explaining that Santa never brings mothers nearly as much as everyone else.

Christmas evokes all kinds of feelings in all kinds of people. My lonely friends feel lonelier, my poor friends feel poorer. My greedy friends feel greedier. My happy friends feel happier. My holy friends feel holier. And, I just feel bitterer. And, guiltier. Because I know that my anti-Christmasism can be caustic, and that’s just not fair.

Which brings me to Jew Number Two. 

Every night, I receive an email with a subject line of Your Daily Dose of Magic, from my friend Rob. In the Daily Dose, Rob composes and captures slices of life -- soulful, funny, bemusing, thought-provoking sentiments that on occasion appear to be written with me, and only me, in mind. Which, no doubt, is the magic of it all. 

This one popped up in my inbox last month: 

As the holiday season kicks into gear, 

it is up to you whether you greet it 

with an attitude of Bah Humbug 

or one of good cheer.

I let that one sit for a bit. But, I kept thinking about it. Until I came to the conclusion that attitude is a choice. 

The day after Thanksgiving, I got to it. I donned my holly-trimmed earrings, and long-lost Christmas spirit and trooped up to the attic. I pulled out the many, many boxes of decorations and dragged them down the stairs. I put on some Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer-style holiday tunes, began draping garlands, jingling bells, and hanging the red and silver over-sized Christmas balls on the porch. 

I went to Holly’s tree-trimming party with holiday cheer and Gretchen’s cookie exchange with fresh-baked cranberry cookies. I momentarily lamented the decision not to have a party of our own, but barreled through it. We bought the tree two weeks earlier than usual and Leo and I set it up without a hitch. Though it leans a little to the left and its branches are a little more than uneven, I stood back and smiled, wondering what exactly it was that I hated so much about having a tree. 

I’ve been professing my distaste of Christmas for so many years that perhaps it's become more of my shtick than an actual thing. Maybe I don’t really mind hunting down, wrapping, and presenting the ultimate electronic device for the boys, the acceptable accessories for the daughter, and the perfect sweat socks for my spouse. Maybe I don’t really mind getting a few surprises myself. Maybe I don’t really mind all the cheery Christmas greetings, leaving the garbage collectors a case of Bud, and eating a plethora of cookies and candy. And, maybe I don’t really mind all the commotion that comes with a week or two of jockeying for position for food, bathrooms, and televisions with three adult children returning to their childhood beds.  

So, I did all my shopping online. All of it. Gave up the color-coded wrapping. Cut the gift-giving down by half, with the threat that every subsequent year will yield one less present under the tree until we’re down to one a piece. I turn on the Christmas tree lights without having to be prodded. And I bellow Merry Christmas to passersby. Adjusting my attitude to be more in tune with normal people has made all the difference. 

Now, I’m not foolhardy enough to think that I’ll get through the season unscathed. But, when I feel myself slipping back into old habits, I just have to remind myself that it’s only money. It’s only time. It’s only work. 

I remind myself that I’m one of the lucky ones who the downtrodden envy at this time of year. After all, I’ve got the ever-loving spouse, three marvelous minions, a drafty old house, and a yellow lab. What more could you ask for?

And so, if I continue to count my blessings, spread good cheer, and drink lots of bourbon, I think that I just might find that missing magic, and manage to have a very Merry Christmas. 

Happy Holidays 

to all my loving friends 

and loyal readers! 

It's not as easy as it looks

“You are so lucky to have a core group of friends like that,” said my sister, Nancy, after serving us up some good southern hospitality on a recent girls’ trip to her home town of Charleston. 

But, alas, luck has nothing to do with it. Keeping friendships alive is work. Fulfilling work, for the most part, but work all the same. Contrary to popular belief, girlfriends don’t just miraculously appear for a weekend together, and certainly not for 40 years in a row. Someone has to take the reins and do whatever is necessary to make it happen, including the tried and true methods of persuasion, guilt, and bullying. 

Back in the very, very late 70s, we were finishing our stints at Shippensburg State College. I say finishing, rather than graduating, because some of us did, some of us didn’t. A couple of us transferred to institutions of higher learning, and some of us just threw our sociology notes in the air and left. For jobs, or boys, or simply to save some semblance of sanity. 

That last spring, at a party at Leslie's mother’s house in Pennsylvania, we promised to turn this ending into a new beginning. Regardless of how often our paths crossed during the year, we vowed to get together the first Saturday in December for the Annual All Girls’ Christmas Party for ever and ever, amen. Attendance was mandatory. 

For a good twenty-five years, we rotated houses, sending spouses and subsequent children away for the night. We’d gather around 4 pm with grab-bag gifts and we’d eat, drink, and be merry, returning the house to its rightful owners by 11:00 the next morning. As our lives got more complicated and we saw less and less of each other on a regular basis, we realized that one short night together was not nearly enough. And since December was becoming increasingly busy, we deviated from our plan. We began renting off-season vacation houses for three nights in the fall or winter, lugging sheets and towels and pillows and enough food to feed an army up and down those stilted beach house steps. 

Recently we have started springing for occasional hotel trips to places like New Orleans or Charleston, opening it up to any other Shippensburg cronies who want to tag along. In 40 years, the only one who has never, ever missed a girls' get-together is Peggy. The rest of us have taken a year off here and there to breastfeed babies, battle blizzards, move to a new house, or attend a funeral. But, the weekends weren't rescheduled for minor events like a kid’s soccer game, a husband’s birthday, or a daughter’s wedding. 

Peggy’s our pusher. She starts nudging the day after we’ve returned to pick a date for the following year. I’m our planner. I have the most quirks and requirements, so I come up with the place. That way, if there’s mold in the toilet or crumbs in the bed, I have no one to blame but myself. And then, there are the others, who just show up when and where we tell them, happy to have someone else in charge for a change.

But, there have been many blips along the way which could have caused us to skip a year. Skipping a year could very well turn into two years, which would turn into ten years, which would turn into the end of our tradition. 

We could have called it quits after Chris Kirk called it quits for reasons none of us even care about anymore. We could have taken the year off after the other Chris died. We could have taken a break when one of us had back surgery. Or hip surgery. Or knee surgery. Or breast cancer. Or a relapse to rehab. Or when we were broke from paying for our kids’ colleges, or sad over a divorce, or so in love with someone new that we couldn’t bear to leave. We could have skipped it when our kitchens were getting gutted, our car engine lights were blinking inexplicably, or when our favorite dog crossed over the rainbow bridge. We could have been too busy, too bored, too worn down by our Raynaud’s syndrome, or too worried that our depression, anxiety, or addiction would rear its ugly head. 

So many times it would have been so much easier to just table the Girls’ Weekend, just this one time. 

But, we never did.

Instead, year after year, we bring all our pain and angst and joy and silly stories with us, letting them bounce off each other until our souls are settled and our hearts are full. 

We give group hugs, blink back a few tears, and return to our routines, rejuvenated and ready to face all our demons and delights. And as we do, we can't help but think how very fortunate we are to have each other. 

And, that maybe luck does have a little something to do with it, after all. 

The Last Ride

“Koree, you OK, back there?” I bellowed into the rear view mirror of the Old Minivan. 

Koree flashed me a thumbs up.

Koree hadn’t been in the minivan for half a dozen years. Maybe more. But he was once a standard feature, as were Jordan and Jaelin, who that night, as usual, snagged the middle captain chair seats. Leo, being the proud son of the minivan owner, rode shot gun. Koree had always been relegated to the way back. But he never minded. He crawled back there, rolled up, and dozed off within minutes of being picked up. 

“It feels like we’re going to a Titans’ game,” Jordan said, and the other boys, excuse me, men, concurred. 

My heart pinged.

“The difference is, today you guys all got yourselves to my house,” I said. “Back in the day, I was driving all over Teaneck, and beyond, to get you. Remember, we’d be on our way to the game and I’d get a call from Anthony who needed to be picked up. Then Coach Leon would call and say we had to pick up some random ringer in Lyndhurst. And halfway to the field one of you would remember you promised Brandon a ride and we’d have to turn around and start over.”

The 23 year-old men laughed.

“Yeah, sure. It’s funny now. How many times did I say these words: ‘I hate every single one of you and the mothers who birthed you?’”

“Yeah, you did. But, you didn't really hate us because you always sang, ‘Seatbelts on so you do not die. Seatbelts on so I do not cry.’”

I smiled, remembering that little ditty I sang every single time a new character piled into the van. Because, only the good ones ever buckled up on their own accord. 

It was late August. My spouse had procured two dozen Mets tickets and suggested that Leo bring his old pals along. Just like old times, I’d drive us all to Queens, and he’d take the subway over from work and meet us there. 

“This might be your last time in the minivan,” I said solemnly.

“Are you getting a new car?” Jordan exclaimed.

“Thinking about it,” I said. “I mean this thing is 15 years old. You guys were eight years old when we bought it.”

There was a moment, just a moment, of silence before we started talking about all the places we’d gone and the kids we’d transported in the Old Minivan. We talked about former teammates and coaches and crazy road trips in the snow, sleet, and rain. We remembered all the off-season trainings: batting lessons in Rutherford, speed and agility in Wayne, lifting with Steve DeMattheis in Caldwell, pitching with Bobby Jones at Paramus Catholic, infield, outfield and everything in between drills at Teels, Hot Corner, and Frozen Ropes. Friday nights in the Giants’ Stadium bubble. Saturday morning workouts in Central Jersey. Sunday mornings at an indoor facility in Oakland. Monday nights at the Waldwick Superdome. Parisi on the off days. Personal training with Mike Hoban, Kevin Ensenat, and Vince Burke, if you could fit it in (or afford it). We laughed about how we learned from Coach Leon that being on time was being late and snickered over picking up Benji and his boys in the Bronx and how they ended up sleeping in my basement. 

We’d fill both the minivan and Coach Dave’s car and drive to Rhode Island, Delaware, Long Island, Central Jersey, New York state, South Jersey, Maryland and Virginia for tournaments. After the games, particularly after the bad losses, boys would trip over themselves trying to get the last seat in the van where there were no rules (except for seatbelts) to avoid driving home with their well-meaning mean parents. 

The old minivan wasn’t just a baseball car. It did its share of cheerleading competitions in far-flung gyms; basketball games in Harlem, Queens, and everywhere in between; football games and combines on college campuses and fields afar. It delivered kids to sleepovers and birthday parties, SAT tests and barbershops, nail salons and part-time jobs. To family vacations in Avalon, Vermont, Canada, the Catskills, and New Hampshire. It made drop-offs at elementary school, pick-ups at middle school, and forgotten book runs to the high school. It went on college visits, college graduations, and to first apartments. It drove us to weddings and funerals and bar mitzvahs and dinner parties. To plays and concerts and malls and amusement parks. It took hundreds of trips down the turnpike to see our families in Pennsylvania and Baltimore, to visit friends in states near and far, and went on many, many, many girls' weekend trips. 

The children grew and flew and yet, I kept the minivan. I just kept driving and driving. And, the old fellow got more and more tired. By the end, the old minivan’s front fender was duct-taped together, there was a crack across the windshield, the headlights had cataracts, the college stickers were fading fast, the tires were unbalanced and bald, the wipers scratched and squealed, the door hinges didn’t hinge, and the poor old guy rattled, roared and rasped. But, still it drove on. 

Fifteen years and 182,000 miles in, the old minivan and I went to visit my mother in Pennsylvania for her birthday. Halfway down the turnpike I heard an all-too-familiar thump, thump, thump. I pulled over, grabbed the duct tape from the back seat pouch, got out, and attempted to re-tape the fender. But, since it was pouring rain, I had to open the trunk, grab a towel, and dry the car so the tape would stick. I was cold and miserable, and at that moment I knew, it was time to pull the plug. 

The day before I picked up my brand-spanking new SUV that talks to me, beeps at me, and veers me back on course, I cleaned out the old minivan. As I went through the consoles and glove compartment and seat backs and trunk bins, I relived a thousand memories. 

Photos of my friend Claire's seven year-old Noah, and a prom picture of Zack and Sibohan; a funeral card for my beloved college cronie, Chris; three rolls of duct tape; three pairs of gloves; eight ice scrapers (yes, eight); a lone lemon drop (Koree’s favorite); a bag of wintergreen lifesavers; a compartment full of tootsie rolls; my handicap parking tag from my hip replacement (five or six surgeries ago); a 2013 Christmas card from my favorite ESL student; three EZ passes (wonder if I got billed for them?); a photo of Coach Fernando, Coach Dave and Coach Tom in the dugout; a relaxation and healing CD that Ginny Brown gave me when I had breast cancer; a pair of scissors, 23 pens, three notebooks filled with grocery lists and reminders – check in with Diane Wells, buy dog biscuits and order The Last Convertible for book club. 

I found a signed blank check; five pairs of sunglasses, three with both lenses intact; two pairs of reading glasses, a bank deposit slip from 2006; a dental appointment reminder from 2007; a feather duster (?), Max’s freshman basketball team photo; a PSP with Grand Theft Auto stuck inside; the original sales receipt from the minivan, as well the trade in papers from the preceding car; a 20^th Anniversary card from my ever-loving spouse; a Taylor Swift, a John Prine and an Ashlee Simpson CD (all other CDs had been removed eight years ago when the last CD got permanently imbedded in the slot); a Titans’ baseball roster so old that Donovan Mitchell, now a star NBA player, was still on the list; a bill for a new tire bought after getting a flat on the way to my mother’s 90^th birthday party; a 2010 Six Flags ticket; eighteen dollars and fifty-three cents; multiple half-full water bottles, and an almost-full pack of L&M cigarettes. 

I was almost finished filling bags with the minivan's contents, when I reached for my phone and blared my favorite John Prine song. The song I want played at my funeral. The song I chose for the Old Minivan's farewell. 

Memories, they can't be boughten

They can't be won at carnivals for free

Well it took me years

To get those souvenirs

And I don't know how they slipped away from me.

As I unhitched my bicycle rack, I noticed through the dirty, dirty back window, a console that I never knew existed. There, sitting on a bed of crumpled chewing gum and granola bar wrappers winking at me was one last thing I almost missed. 

 A battered and bruised baseball. 

And that's when I cried. I really and truly cried. 

“Koree!” I bellowed into the rear view mirror that Mets’ game night in August. “You still awake?”

“I’m still awake, Miss Betsy,” he said. “You know, the back seat of the minivan's not as big as it used to be.”

I smiled a bittersweet smile. Little Koree is now a six-foot-two, almost 24 year-old man who grows hair on his face. But, to me, he’ll always be that little boy who, when he wasn't sleeping, babbled about his dreams and schemes from the back of the van.

I can't help but think of all the eight, nine and fourteen year old dreams that took root in the back of that car. Of the dozens and dozens of kids who piled in and out, leaving cleat dirt, hair ribbons, and candy wrappers behind. I think of how life has changed them, rearranged them, and taken them on journeys they never expected. And, I have to wonder if the Old Minivan didn't have a just little part in turning them into the amazing young adults that they grew up to be. 

The amazing young adults who, as they grew up, changed me, rearranged me, and took me on journeys I never expected, both in and out of the Old Minivan. 

Never Alone

“Can you even imagine any one of them grown up and married?” I asked my friend Claire, twenty or so years ago. We were sitting at the park across the street from my house that was within yelling distance of hers. And yes, with seven collective children, six boys and a girl, all within seven years of each other, there was plenty of yelling. Not to mention smacking each other with hockey sticks, running away from Noah, and professing their eternal need for snacks. 

“I just want them to be happy,” she answered, in true Claire fashion. “And if they don’t get married, that’s fine, too. It’s not like they’ll ever be alone.”

Right on cue, six of them flew past us, poor Noah pedaling his little legs as fast as he could to keep up. Which, of course, he couldn’t.

“Though, it would be nice if Ian married Victoria or Molly,” Claire added.

Victoria is a blond-haired beauty who is Claire’s other best friend’s daughter and Molly, who I’m not allowed to name in a blog, is a chestnut-haired beauty belonging to me. 

As it turned out, Ian didn’t marry Victoria or Molly, but they were both at his wedding two weeks ago. 

For at least a dozen years, I spent more time with my friend Claire than I did with my own spouse. When my first-born was in second grade, the creative services department at CNBC moved to California, and I was out of work. Rather than looking for another real job, which was the biggest financial mistake of our lives, and perhaps the biggest parenting mistake, depending on which child, under which circumstances you were to ask, I began part-time freelancing, part-time mothering, and full-time volunteering. 

I didn’t know how to volunteer, but my friend Claire taught me. 

We started our day after the last kid got on the bus, was delivered to pre-school, or was extricated from our pant legs. Together, we served as PTA presidents, orchestrating picture days, book fairs, and field days. We ran the town Little League, coordinating opening day events, managing the concession stand, scrounging for sponsors and designing, ordering, and distributing uniforms. We fed the high school football team before games, we organized awards dinners at the end of the season, and together we cheered from the bleachers at every single game of every single sport at which any one of our shared seven children chose to participate.

And while we were watching our children grow, we spent countless hours talking about the what ifs, and the who knows, and the do ya thinks, wondering about what they’d do, who they’d become, and how they’d get there. 

We worried about who they were or were not dating, how they were getting to the prom and with whom. We worried about the new friends they were bringing around and worried about the old ones they'd discharged along the way. We worried about whether they’d hit a home run, throw a touchdown pass, pin their opponent, medal in the pool, score a goal, or land their back handspring. We worried that they wouldn't pass their drivers' test, and then worried when they did. We worried they wouldn't get into their first-choice college, and then when they did, worried if it was indeed the right choice after all.

And, despite all that worrying, wouldn’t you know it? They all grew up. All seven went to college, with the last one right on track to finish in May. After they graduated, they went south, they went west, they went across the state.

Ian, Claire’s oldest, went farther than all the others put together. Like around the world far. Like to Japan-to-teach-English-for-a-year far.

But, the others, they came home, they left home, and they came back again. So, while Claire and I have both had week-long, sometimes month-long stretches of being Empty Nesters, we’ve come close, but our kids have never completely left us alone. 

And then, a mother’s fourth (fill in your own blanks for numbers one through three) worst nightmare came true. Ian announced he was not coming home. He loved the culture. He loved the country. And, by the way, he met someone. 

Claire half-joked that she’d never see her eldest son again. That he’d get married and have grandbabies that she’d never know. But, she always amended those thoughts with, “As long as he’s happy.” 

Sure enough, one day Claire forwarded me the link to an adorably touching video that Ian had created, featuring Kaori, the love of his life. He put together clips of her doing all kinds of things showing the many facets of who she is: smart, funny, adventurous, silly, beautiful. The video ended with Ian asking her to marry him. 

A sweeter proposal I’d never seen. 

The summer before last, Ian and Kaori got married in a traditional Japanese ceremony in Japan. And two weeks ago, they got married in a traditional American ceremony in America. 

It was a perfect wedding. Kao wore a beautiful white wedding gown and Ian wore a smile as wide as Japan is long. 

The bride and her father danced to The Monkees’ Daydream Believer, a happy, boppy, tune from the good old days. The bride and groom danced to Can You Feel the Love Tonight, a tribute to Kao’s love of all things Disney and presumably of all things Ian. And the groom and his mother danced to Lady Antebellum’s Never Alone.

May your tears come from laughing

You find friends worth having

As every year passes

They mean more than gold

May you win and stay humble

Smile more than grumble

And know when you stumble

You're never alone

Never alone

Never alone

I'll be in every beat of your heart

When you face the unknown

Wherever you fly

This isn't goodbye

My love will follow you, stay with you

Baby, you're never alone

Ian and Kao don’t know where their forever home will be. He says he wants to live in Japan. She wants to live here. For now, they’re in San Diego where Kao is finishing up graduate work in psychology.

But, whatever they do, wherever they live, be it 3000 miles, an ocean, or just a zip code away, may they forever and always feel the love, be daydream believers and know, as sure as the ground they stand on, that they are never alone.