Endings

Endings......


2016 is done. Over. Gone.

Over all, 2016 left a lot to be desired. There were some high points but mostly I felt like I was  just getting through and living with what happened around me.   Part of that feeling came from being front line with my mom and dad as my dad slowly faded.

One year old Roy.

I have had this photo in every house I've lived in since my early 20s. 

Original frame, original convex glass. 

92 years old. 

Early Thursday morning, December 29, 2016, at the age of 93, my father passed from this life. My mom was with him.  They had been married for 67 years.

My parents on their wedding day.

My dad was the life of the party. He LIVED his life. He was always learning something new, a huge volunteer,  fun loving, a bit of a Renaissance man.

Air Force, WW  II.

He had a great life. He had a great love- my mom.  His was a life we should all hope for.

And he was a great dad. I'm the baby. And the only girl. Supposedly my father told the obstetrician that delivered me that if I wasn't a girl, he was having the baby "put back". I'm sure my mother had some thoughts about that but we were all in luck...I'm me.  And dad kissed the OB when she told him "It's a girl."

Me, my dad and brother Paul. 

I'm the only one still alive. Sniff.

I had a pretty picture perfect childhood. We moved a few times. Dad worked, mom stayed home with us and did mom things. It was all good.  Remarkably unremarkable.

As us kids got older, I remember my dad picking up more hobbies. He tried oil painting- unsuccessfully.   When Chinese food became a thing, he got a wok.  While stuck in the hospital with hepatitis, he hooked a rug.  Dad was a voracious reader. He loved Art. Musicals. Broadway shows. Bobby Short.  Typing this I understand where my sense of curiosity came from.

He was always proud of his garden 

whether it was full of vegetables or flowers.

Or bugs.

A few memories....
My parents were big believers in Happy Hour every evening. So civilized. They sat in the living room and reviewed their day. Kids weren't necessarily invited. But dad was a martini drinker. He never allowed my older brothers to make him a drink but I was the third kid. I learned to make a killer gin martini when I was maybe 12 or 13. Wave the vermouth over the glass of gin, plop in an olive skewered with one of the fancy sticks. By the time I was 15 or so, I was allowed to make myself one if I wanted while I was also making him one.

Dad always loved a party.

This was New Year's Eve 1952.

Roy, Bill, Amy and Jean

Best of friends for close to 75 years, they frequently spent New Year's Eve together.

Early 1970s, dad modeled briefly.  He was so handsome and while it was just for fun, he did do one  national print ad. Mostly he was just on TV and in the local paper modeling for Foleys Department Store. It was odd to be watching TV and have your dad stroll across the screen.

 Dad on the right. 

His only national modeling gig. 

About age 18 or 19 (LEGAL AGE!) I got my ears pierced with a second hole. Mom was furious. Literally, she barely spoke to me for a week. (Imagine if I tried to draw that hard of a line now. I can't tell you how many times I've been with my girls, their friends, even the boy while ears were being pierced for the second, third or even fourth time. Let's not even start with the belly buttons.) For my birthday that year my dad gave me a small pair of earrings for that second piercing.  His writing was on the card, it was obvious that it was all his doing.  I was tickled and felt supported even if I was going against the grain.

Me with the Daddy-O in San Miguel de Allende

To get to school in Mexico, we frequently took the train, making it a family affair. On one such trip, my parents needed to purchase their return trip tickets at a stop in San Luis Potosi. The train was parked there for 20 minutes and dad and I immediately headed to the ticket booth.  There was a line. A slow line. As the minutes ticked away, dad got more and more nervous. He kept glancing at the train, back at the line, and back at the train. Finally his nerves won out and he thrust a bunch of money into my hands, said "You buy the tickets. If the train leaves you, you will be able to figure out how to get to San Miguel" and then he dashed back to the train. I stayed in line, purchased their tickets, boarded the train, smiled at the conductor who had been watching us, waiting for our return and headed to our car. As soon as the conductor acknowledged I was on the train, he called the Spanish equivalent of "Everyone's on board" up to the front and we pulled out. There was never any danger of being left but I was still amazed my dad was willing to let me, the 18 year old girl, get left in the middle of Mexico on my own. But he was right. I would have managed just fine.

This pic sums up a lot. 

Dad has the camera, we are on a train to San Miguel with the San Antonio neighbors and 

the boyfriend that I had DUMPED a couple of months earlier.

Yet dad invited him along anyway. 

Because dad really liked him. 

And they all came along to take me back to school. 

And it was a party.

After trying school in Mexico, at Houston Community College and at the University of Houston and STILL not having anything close to a degree,  I found an ad in the paper for Massey Business College's "Learn to be a Travel Agent" class. I begged for this one last shot at school. Dad agreed and told me flat out..."This is it. Take this class, get a job or we are having you put to sleep."  Thankfully the teacher hired me to work for his travel agency and I did not have to be put down. Seventeen years were spent as a commercial travel agent and if it was still a thing, I'd go back to it tomorrow.

Fishing was another favorite. 

My parents both were always great with my friends, welcoming and inclusive. Dad made it a point to know my boy friends, whether they wanted to be known or not. A couple of them he hung on to longer than I did. One in particular stuck around wayyy longer than I wanted.  Whatever.  He made dad happy and I was thankfully 1000 miles away. He invited guys to lunch and dinner, got one or two a job and pretty much made it a point to know them. Smart man.

Mariachis.

Loved them. 

I swear there are a million mariachi CDs over at their house.

(And I want to live in a house with pink walls and red sofas and mariachis serenading me.)

After we got married, the husband always joked "Where's my dowery?"  He constantly reminded my dad that he had taken me on for FREE!  On our first anniversary, dad showed up to his office with a check, the little "Memo" section of the check clearly marked "Dowery Payment". Totally shut the Hubs up about that.

Down the aisle.

Dad loved his grandchildren.  The Big Guy was the first grandchild to live in the same city and he benefited greatly from that. Once Big Guy was walking, dad had a standing Wednesday date with him. They went to the Children's Museum, the Zoo, the Farmers Market. Sometimes they just went to my parent's house and played outside. It was a break for me and a fabulous chance for them to bond. Dad tried it once with Belle but once was enough. No one could keep up with her.

The Big Guy cracking a cascarón on his grandpa's head.

There were phases. When you live 93 years, you get to live many different lives.
He had many loves. Some of them were my mom, his creek houses- the one on Caney Creek and the one on Oyster Creek, his family, his friends, Mexico, mariachi music, parties, my mom, fishing, gardening, Broadway musicals, good neighbors, good food, parties, music, my mom, art, plays and his friends.  And mom.

Amy, Roy, Jean, Bill

One of their last New Year's Eves all together. 

He was a wonderful person.
I'm lucky he was my dad.

R.I.P.

Stewart L. "Roy" Nelson

February 10, 1923-December 29, 2016

Happy trails!

•••••••••••••••••••

And here's my PSA for the day.

If you are twenty or fifty or ninety or 100, no matter, please stop and think about how you want to be remembered. Do you want a service? Where? What music do you want? Is there a reading or a scripture or anything that is important to YOU that your family may not know about? 

WRITE IT DOWN.  Share it with a friend, your family, put it in the file that everyone knows is your secret password file or SOMETHING.  Dad was an amazing person but we never thought to ask him what he wanted. This week has been a scramble to find the balance of what we think he wanted and what we should do. 
And my thoughts on No. 29:Plan MY funeral are here and here. 

Well....

Well.....
That didn't go so well...


Re-entry to Texas has been - ahem- a challenge.

Things went from bad to worse to beyond belief and back, all in one week..

On the last leg of the trip in from Colorado Bunny called me with one of those "My Air Conditioner in my car isn't working right" freak outs.  My windshield got a(nother) ding.

The house wasn't dirty, per se, but there were lots of piles of things just set down. And left.
Empty boxes stacked in corners, awaiting disposal.
Bank statements piled on the desk.
The hubs likes everything out on the counters in the kitchen so that cabinet doors do not have to be opened. I don't.
Stuff seems to have multiplied.
(Just try leaving two men alone in a house after years of having a mommy to take care of everything. They did a pretty good job on the basics, but no actual organizing or cleaning out was done in that time.)
And then, of course, we brought a bunch of stuff back with us.
So I have my work cut out for me.
This is my office. It's a bit overwhelming.

Ugh.

 The desk. Normally everything is in its place. 

The floor next to my computer. 

I step around this to write my blog. 

Soon.

Soon it will be handled. 

Monday I was supposed to bring horses in at the barn. Just eight or nine of them. No big deal. Until it started storming. The rain poured in buckets. Lightning flashed.
I do. not. like. lightning.  Not one bit.
I had gotten three horses in, another horse owner showed up and got a couple in, then the sky opened up. We both got soaked. The remaining horses got soaked.   I know, I know, these are horses. They won't shrink. They can get wet. But if the fields get muddy, and the horses get frisky, then shoes can be lost and backs can be thrown out. So we waited in the barn for over an hour until the rain let up and we could get the stragglers in.  Oddly, I thought that was going to be the fiasco for the day.

Me and Jacinda. 

Soaking wet selfie.

But we got our job done!!

But no.

On the way home from the barn, the Big Guy calls me.  He had driven my parents (his grandparents) to the doctor and then was heading to the other grandma's house to feed her cat. (The other grandma, my mother-in-law, is in rehab after falling and breaking her shoulder and leg back in April.) It was pouring rain, remember? A flooded intersection and the grandparents' car did not mix. The car stalled.

Not too worried, I picked up the kid and later we went back for the car. Oops. Clouds of white smoke billowing out of the tailpipe. Shudders and groans from the car. None of this seemed right.

Tuesday the repair shop confirms that this isn't right. The engine is blown on the grandparents' car.

A family friend died. Fifty six years young. Cancer. So very very sad.

The hub's uncle died. He lived a long, full life, but again. Cancer.  So very very sad.

Since my parents are now without a car, some last minute driving errands have been thrown in.

Wednesday Carlos slashed his paw. Three places. Very deep. Lots and lots and lots of blood.
He had surgery on Thursday and came home on Friday. Not sure how many stitches $500 buys you, but apparently a lot.  He wore the embarrassing party hat for about thirty minutes before I took pity on him and  removed it.

So mortified.

He is such a smart dog. Not once has he even looked at that paw, much less tried to remove the bandage or tear out the stitches.

Part of the reason he is being so very good 

might be that he is also very sedated. 

Stitches come out (on purpose) next Monday. We may go in for a bandage change this Thursday.
He is pretty depressed. Poor puppy went from running 10+ acres with deer and bunnies to a backyard with at least a pool to play in ... to being confined to a small patch of yard and no walks at all.

Life pretty much sucks for Carlos.

O! And if we want him to do without his "cone of shame" then we have to be with him all the time. So Carlos has not been left alone since last Friday morning. Not one minute.

Saturday was the friend's funeral. People spoke eloquently, tears flowed freely. It was all just a bit too gut-wrenching.

And Sunday we went to an adorable little great niece's birthday party.

Sweet baby girl turned three.

And had a blast doing it.

Belle and I both noticed that relatives were asking "How long are you home for?" and "When do y'all go back to Colorado?".

Huh?  We weren't expected to come home? People expect us to go back??

WHY didn't someone tell me sooner???


This week has started off better.

The grandparent's car is not totaled. Just needs a new engine.

I'm hoping it's all good from here on out.


Please.

No. 29: Plan my Funeral Part Two

Part Two:
No.29: Plan My Funeral


O.K.  Don't panic, Mom.  I am not planning down to time, date and location.  

I just want to set some ground rules.   Throw some ideas out there.

Cremate me.   Do it on the cheap. I'll be dead, I promise I won't care. Get the heavy duty cardboard box, not an urn.  Again.  I'll be dead.  I won't care and I'm not going to spend eternity in that container anyway.

Let's have a nice memorial.  Rothko Chapel in Houston is lovely but otherwise, it doesn't need to be at a church. If the weather is nice it can be outside. In the park. I would love a museum- is that possible? Surrounded by art. Heaven.  At someone's house. Or even in a beautiful restaurant or hotel.  (Which does not mean at Los Tios...)  I won't be too picky.

Rothko Chapel in Houston.

Incredibly peaceful.

It would have been nice to have my brother Paul play the guitar or piano, but since he isn't available, maybe we can find someone else to do that. Big Guy ( I just can't keep calling the oldest Boy- he is 22 years old now) plays guitar beautifully (and the piano) but I'm not sure he would want to perform.

Anyway, since I'm planning and dreaming, let's get Rufus Wainwright in. I want him to play the piano and sing "Hallelujah".  It is such a beautiful song and he has such a beautiful voice.

Throw in "You Raise Me Up" ,"You'll Never Walk Alone", "Unchained Melody" (If only the Righteous Brothers were around to sing it. Alas, only one "brother" is still alive.), "Amazing Grace", "I'll Fly Away", "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow" and end up with "Unforgettable".

So there's the music.  Or at least a good start.

If I'm lucky enough to go in the Spring, fill the place with peonies. If it's the summer, make it gardenias. I want people drunk on the scent.

*

Peonies. 

My absolute favorite. 

I wish computers had Smell-O-Vision.

If those flowers aren't available I will go with lilies or roses- but the kind that smell. And smell wonderful.   Again, drunk on the scent.  And stick with pale pinks and whites. Might as well consider the aesthetics.

Find someone to officiate- just to keep things organized. Review my life- so far I've lived it thoroughly. I may not have done anything spectacular or news worthy but I have certainly had fun and plan on continuing to do so. This story hasn't been completed yet.

Finish off with some champagne and beer.  A toast to the hereafter.
Some snackies and visiting and call it a day.

And then....

Let's make it a Destination Scattering.

Some of the ashes need to go to Cozumel and some to San Miguel de Allende.  Mexico is in my soul as much as any other place in the world.

San Miguel de Allende, Gto.

Pretty sure some of them would need to come to the cabin here in Colorado.  There is an attraction to the Twin Sisters that I find almost magnetic. I drive up the mountain and frequently have to stop and take a picture. I'm just so in awe of them.
Or sprinkle me in the Arkansas River.
Somewhere in this vicinity.

The Twin Sisters.

I've been watching them every morning for the last nine months.

Toss a few ashes into the Gulf of Mexico.   It's okay to just sprinkle me off the end of the jetties at Surfside. I'm good with that.   I love the beach, I love the ocean.

Quintana Beach near Surfside at Sunset...

Toss a handful of ashes into Oyster Creek right in the middle of Sugar Land. I've spent enough time there, I deserve to keep the turtles and snakes company.
Sprinkle me around the Hill Country of Texas. San Antonio, Austin-I've lived in both and frequently wish I still did.

Finally take me to Paris. Please.


And when it is all said and done, I hope I will have lived life well enough that someone will want, no, insist, to read W. H. Auden's poem Funeral Blues, slightly adjusted just for me.

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone.

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,

Silence the pianos and with muffled drum

Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead

Scribbling in the sky the message (s)he is Dead,

Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,

Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

(S)He was my North, my South, my East and West,

My working week and my Sunday rest

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

I thought that love would last forever, I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun.

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;

For nothing now can ever come to any good.

While some people may think this is morbid, I don't.  It has been great fun thinking about the music.
I've been captivated by Auden's poem since I first heard it.  There are places I want to visit again and again. If I can't get there in life (Or hey! Even if I can!) I would love to visit in death. I like the idea of  thinking about the last big party.
But...
That said, I have no intention of using any of this info any time soon.  And I reserve the right to change my mind on all of these choices.

Here's to life!

No.29 : Plan My Funeral

No. 29: Plan My Funeral

Now I'm not planning on dying any time soon.

But let's get real. Everyone does it eventually so might as well be prepared.

Because you know what would just kill me? Having a tacky funeral. 

And unless you make some plans and set some guidelines, the people that are still living will be left to their own devices when it comes to sending you off into the hereafter.
Do you want that?
I don't. 

Besides, it's a kind thing to do.  Bereaved family and friends want to do the appropriate thing, the perfect send off....but it's a hard time to think straight.   I know when my brother Paul passed away, suddenly and unexpectedly, it was a challenge to plan with my family and his family the best way to say goodbye. There are time constraints. So many decisions. And we wanted to honor him.

Brother Paul in the 70s. 

Best head of hair ever. 

Gone too soon.

And I am haunted by a funeral I attended in the early 80s. A wonderfully talented, slightly flamboyant friend that I worked with died of AIDS. He was one of the first confirmed AIDS deaths in Houston. There wasn't much information about AIDS but what was out there firmly (and in this case, appropriately) placed it in the realm of gay men. 

The problem came with his extremely conservative parents who held the funeral in a huge church with a very disapproving preacher. A preacher who made it known that this wonderful fun person "got what he deserved" by messing with the Lord's ways. It was awful. It was a travesty against the deceased and an insult to his many gay friends who came to say their goodbyes.   I will never forget walking out and hearing the person behind me say "If Thommy were still alive, he would have died from embarrassment today". 

So I've been doing a little reading.

There are lots of ways to go off into the great beyond.

Today I'm going to talk about some "disposal" options, Thursday I'll finish up with some ideas of my own. 

Let me just put this out there right now. I may not have all the details sorted out but I do NOT want to be pumped full of chemicals, put in a shiny metal box  and stuck in a cement lined hole in the ground.  What a waste of money and resources. 

Because a traditional funeral is expensive. Those pretty caskets lined with satin are BIG money makers for the funeral homes. And a funeral plot? Well, I guess it can be nice to have a spot to go "visit" with those that have passed on... but cemeteries take up acres of land and are filled with bodies  embalmed with  toxic chemicals.
 Nope. Not going there.

A beautiful old cemetery in Austria. 

I might not mind spending eternity here.

Eco funerals or green burials are getting popular and I like the idea. Forested areas where bodies are minimally prepared, wrapped in shrouds, placed in simple wood or cardboard caskets, planted and allowed to decompose. Fertilizer for the woods. That has a nice feel to it.

This is a gorgeous bio-degradable casket.

Again, a possibility.

I could sign up for Plastination.  That's where the liquids and fats in the body are replaced with plastics- yielding those wonderful specimens that fill up the BodyWorlds exhibits. Gunther von Hagens, the inventor of the process, has set up a body donation program in Germany. Might be a way to travel the world and I've always wanted to be in a museum.

Von Hagens with one of his bodies. 

Can we say "creepy"?

But I think cremation is my way to go. It takes a lot of energy to get the ovens hot enough to crisp up a body, but I guess I won't be concerned about that when the time comes.
I love the Indian way of cremating bodies. A fire on the beach and toss the ashes out to sea. (Or into the Ganges River which doesn't sound quite as lovely.)
Somehow I don't think that will fly in Galveston, though.  Or any other beach close to home. Probably have to be a traditional crematorium for me.

But here is what I won't be doing. I won't be emulating Mickey Easterling. Even though I have to give this woman credit for carrying on the fun into the  great beyond, I don't think my family will go for it.

And what did Mickey do?

She died last month at 83 and left strict instructions regarding her last party.  Specifically, she attended her own wake dressed in a feather boa, a "Bitch" broach pinned to her blouse,  with a flute of champagne in one hand and a cigarette in the other, propped up on a bench.  Really.

Apparently still the life of the party.    *

Now THAT'S a way to go.

Friday Farewell

A Farewell...

Today I should be at a funeral in San Antonio.

Instead I am in a cabin in Colorado, about 1000 miles away.

My dear friend Liddy's mother passed away this week and I should be at the service. Unfortunately, time and miles do not permit that to happen.

Me and Liddy back in 2006 looking 

particularly glamorous.

Liddy's mother, Verlyn,  was my other mother in middle school and high school.

We all have/had friends that, during our school years, their houses would be the home base for the weekend. Their parents set the rules for the weekend and made the meals and made sure we were where we were  supposed to be.

Liddy's house was one of my home bases.

And man! was it a home base.
A beautifully restored home that had been picked up and moved to it's location in a neighborhood nearby.
Meals were home cooked and served at lovingly set tables.
Both of Liddy's parents were usually at home, doing projects around the house.

Because here is what I just realized.

Liddy's mom was Martha Stewart when Martha Stewart was still in elementary school.

Liddy's mom was her own personal HGTV show.
Hell, she was the whole channel.

She cooked. She had her own cooking school.
She sewed. Clothes. Clothes that people would actually want to wear.
Also bedding, curtains, table cloths. She sewed it all.
She decorated. Beautiful houses.
She did DIY before it was even an acronym.
She and her husband Dave even flipped a house or two- buying and restoring and selling.

And she raised three kids and was active in her church and travelled and ran businesses.

She was also sharp as a tack and so very adept at catching her precious daughter at whatever she might have been doing. Not to say that Liddy ever tried to get away with anything she shouldn't have, but still. Verlyn always caught on.
(I will say Verlyn occasionally had the aid of Liddy's older siblings when it came to busting us coming in past curfew. I am eternally grateful for my brothers being a little more lenient with me-possibly because they weren't home on time either.)

One summer our two mothers rented an apartment in San Miguel de Allende for six weeks and took us two girls down there along with Liddy's cousins. Liddy and I were 15 at the time.  What were they thinking??

Verlyn, Cousin Nancy and Jean Mom.

I truly think my mother needs to have this photo enlarged and framed 

and hung over the fireplace. (Except she doesn't have a fireplace.)

But Goodness! Doesn't she look gorgeous?

There were parties.
Verlyn snagged a girl from one of the shops to teach me and Liddy how to do macramé. Virgilia did not speak a word of English but I still use those knots that she taught us that summer.
There were field trips to areas near and far around San Miguel. This was 1970- pre-drug-cartel-Mexico. Safe as it could be.
There were picnics. I remember one picnic where the moms had brought some wine but no bottle opener. A passing gentleman was engaged in hopes that he might have an opener or an idea. He took the bottle, smashed the neck against a rock wall and handed it back. Lots of gesturing and broken English and Spanish ensued. Finally it was determined that No, we wouldn't all die from glass shards in the wine because they had been forced out when he swung the bottle. I guess he was right. We all lived.

A picnic somewhere out in the country in Mexico. 

The cousins, Verlyn, Liddy and me in braids.

Verlyn had poodles. Her favorite was a miniature named Jacque. I was at their house the day that Jacque was run over and killed. As a kid you seldom see your parents cry. It is even rarer to see a friend's parent cry. But that day Verlyn cried. She loved that dog.

And Verlyn loved me. I was the only friend allowed to call her by her first name when we were still in high school. She believed that I was a good influence on Liddy.  We'll just leave it at that.
She wasn't perfect. She was a red head and had the temper to go with her hair. But I was largely spared her wrath.

I often think of all the kids that have been through our home in the last twenty years. Which one of those kids will remember me like I remember Verlyn? Certainly plenty of them have travelled with us. I have fed kids, taken them to the beach and shopping and even to get pierced. Many have called me mom.

Because when it comes down to it, we can all use an extra mom.

And Verlyn was a good mom.

Rest in peace.

Liddy, Me (sporting some fantastically large glasses) and Cousin Nancy

at the top of Tres Cruces, San Miguel de Allende, Gto. Mexico.

I do believe Liddy is carrying a bag that she macraméed.