A Few Good Memes

I miss writing here at AFGM. Several things have come between me and writing lately, some by choice, some most definitely against my will.

Primarily, the time I used to spend writing (after kids are in bed) is now spent talking on the phone to Christine. How are things going with my sweet Mariposa? Splendidly. While we have a comfortable rhythm to our lives now - me visiting her once or twice a week and she visiting me/us twice or more a week - I still get excited when I pull up to her house on Wednesday evening for date night. She’s affectionate and nurturing to my kids, but still makes it clear to them and to me that I’m the parent and will be regardless of what commitment we may end up making. Her love for me is unflinching - it’s easy for her to see the good in me even when I may not be flying it out on a flag on my front porch. Our interests are delightfully similar. Music, gardening, the outdoors, racquetball, running, food. Our tastes are similar. We’ll walk through Pottery Barn and find ourselves attracted to the same items. Her house decoration, her clothing choices, her sense of humor - all of them seem completely normal to me. As I’ve said before, we’re from the same tribe. I’m doing a minor remodel of my kitchen. She’s doing a medium-scale remodel of her bathroom. We actually enjoy doing projects like these together. She helped me put up a giant space mural in Ian’s room and it was truly a joy. She finds cool clothes and stuff for my kids at the thrift store or on eBay. My kids love her dog - a somewhat hyper 2-1/2 year old golden retriever. My folks like her. My friends like her. She fell in love with my church after a few weeks and after proclaiming that church was not going to be a thing we shared in our relationship. I really like her kids. Her older son is cool and aloof, but underneath the veneer, he’s clearly a compassionate and very intelligent young man with his values in the right place. Her younger son, the one with Fragile X, was initially, honestly, rather frightening to me. Not that I’m inclined to judge people. A few of his behaviors were troublesome at first glance. As we’ve gotten to know one another better, we get along really well and can laugh and feel comfortable together (including morning cuddles sometimes when I get a sleepover there - all 150ish pounds of him!).

What’s occurred to me recently is that Christine is the person I’ve been looking for for a long time. I’m very much an environmentalist and an acoustic musician and feel connected to the earth. I generally believe in the worth and dignity of people and that we have the power to change the world for the better. I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and had these senses routinely drummed out of me for years. When I got to college, the folks I gravitated towards and became good friends with were the hippies and the radicals and the tree huggers and the dirt worshippers. Yeah, there were some nutballs in that crowd, but many of us worked at the food co-op, wrote and sang songs about environmentalism and social justice, actually worked for a better environment and social justice and believed in a better world that was inhabited by real people living real lives and thinking for themselves rather than what they were told by their corporate overlords. Of the women I dated in college, the person with the most lasting impact on my psyche was Paula, a naturalist, a musician, and an atheist who attended Catholic mass every week. She was my first love as an adult and she helped me start finding the person I wanted to become, despite my suburban, materialistic upbringing.

Christine thinks for herself. She grew up in small-town Minnesota until 11 and then small-town Indiana. She spent four years prostrate to the higher mind (at a well-respected Quaker liberal arts college), got her paper, and she was free. She worked in education, first in Head Start and then with special needs kids. She left the workforce to raise her kids. When she got divorced 5 years ago, she just wanted to work outdoors, in nature To be with plants and flowers. It’s her first love. It’s probably genetic - her brother is a succesful nature artist in Michigan. So she works at a greenhouse and really enjoys it. At least she enjoys digging in the dirt and planting and watering and hauling mulch with the skid loader. She could live without some of her freaky religious co-workers and could stand to make a few more bucks. She unapologetically loves gardening and kids and baking and decorating and Martha Stewart and craft projects and music. I told her she’s “radically domestic”.

I’ve tried to break up with Christine several times now. Every time I’ve looked it in the eye, though, it’s been my own shit. Some of it is grief and shock and adjustment. Some of it is my propensity (as Robert A. Johnson discusses) to manufacture a mythical woman, a composite of all of the positive aspects of various women in my life I admire and respect and then to compare Christine to that myth. It’s folly, of course, but I do it. Luckilly, I’m now at the point where I catch myself doing this before I’m inclined to take action. I feel like the 7 month journey of ours has been a promethean gift. Thankfully, I’ve only singed my hair and Christine has been like a human fire extinguisher. In the words of Paul Simon, “I was a crazy motion ’til you calmed me down. Took a little time to calm me down”. When I look at Christine as a human being and as a thinking person in this world increasingly lacking in sanity, I see someone who has very strong, very compassionate values and has made life choices consistent with these values. This is a person I’d be much, much poorer not to have permanently in my life. Likewise for my kids.

Let me not put her on a pedestal. And let me not lead you into thinking I’m somehow blind to her weaknesses in a desperate rush to piece my life back together. Like any one of us, she’s a human being with plenty of shortcomings and room to grow. I still have more to learn about her. Her older son has two more years of high school left. So she’s going to spend at least those two years in her town (ideally having her son living with her - he lives with his dad right now) and I in mine. This will give us time to move forward gracefully and have a very solid foundation down when we decide to make our separate lives one.

Oh, and amusingly, her profile on match.com explicitly stated that she was looking for someone who did not have full-time kids or whose kids were mostly or completely out of the house. Adjusting to the idea of helping raise young kids has taken some time for her. Thankfully, my kids have mostly charmed the socks off of her. Yeah, she’s seen them bicker plenty (something she had no experience with, having one of her sons developmentally uninclined to bicker). But she has told me she now really loves the idea of helping raise my kids, especially since two of them are girls, a chance she thought she’d lost out on.

So, yeah, evenings are spent on the phone. And doing a lot more dishes and laundry and pickup than I used to. Why? Because I had to fire my nanny/babysitter of almost 2 years. Why? Because she managed to steal almost ten thousand dollars from me. Sittergate ‘08. We hired her before Anna died so we could have more time with one another and with the kids, knowing that Anna’s time was likely short. We issued her a credit card in her name so she could do things like grocery shop and such. I pay my credit card off every month. Adjusting to single parenting, and knowing that all the charges are mine, I didn’t necessarily scour my statement every month. I started going more and more over budget. I finally dug into my statements and found she had been using my card to buy herself all kinds lovely things from stores I never have set foot in. Renting cars for the weekend, hitting the bars, etc. I probably can’t mention much more than that, but I am being repaid and do have some recourse in that arena.

So I’ve hired two other college students to come in a few days a week and help and I have a lovely woman who does deep cleaning and I bumped her hours up some. But I’m having to do more work around the house and shop more and stuff - stuff I should rightly be doing anyway. And I certainly don’t mind it. I’m a bit of a control freak, I suppose, so I’m glad to be doing more stuff around the house, because it’s being done the RIGHT way, i.e. my way And I’m saving money having less help and doing my own shopping. I’m also baking my own bread and trying to take more control of my food supply in general. I’m going to join our CSA this summer after lapsing last year for the first time in ten years. Having the luxury of access to a greenhouse, Christine and I are starting some tomatoes and peppers next week. I’m reading Barbara Kingsolver’s “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” - a family’s journal of trying to spend a year eating what the grow or can obtain locally. In a cool twist of serendipity and small world, the book was a gift from my good musician friend Michael, former band member of Carrie Newcomer, friend of the author. The book sat on my shelf from Christmas until a month or so ago when K, one of my two awesome new babysitters strongly implored me to read it, having grown up in the same town as the author’s farm and being friends with the daughter, co-author of the book. It’s just gotta be my destiny as I get closer and closer to slow food, thankful for the companionship of my sweetheart, a sympathetic accomplice.

The opposum laid there, struggling to move, limbs akimbo, unobeying.

Thursday evening I went out for some last minute groceries, getting ready for the long road trip Saturday morning. It wasn’t going to be an easy trip. Alyssa was 8, Ian just 3. Emma’s age still measured in months. Anna and the kids had been in Charleston for the whole month of July, enjoying family, beach trips, ferries, turtle rescues, crabbing, surfing, movies, aquarium trips, and more. I had driven everyone out at the beginning of the month, stayed a week, and then had flown back to Indiana to work for a week and a half. When we arrived, Anna was feeling pretty good. Perhaps the best she had felt in the 16 months since her cancer diagnosis. It had stopped progressing for several months and her energy level and mood were way up. Despite the anvil still hovering inches above her head and the heads of all of us, there was a certain live-in-the-moment, cancer-be-damned ease about it all. A month at the beach was exactly what everyone needed.

While I was home mid-month, the call came in that Anna was experiencing some new abdominal pain. A trip to the ER brought the anvil down hard. Her cancer had spread all through her abdomen. It had finally outwitted the $3000/month molecular chemotherapy wonderdrug. There was still one bullet left in the gun, one more drug she could try once we got her home. We had to get packed and get home quickly.

On the trip home from the grocery store, I saw the oppossum. It had been hit. Its eyes were full of fear. I passed it and pulled over. Unsure what to do (could it be rescued?), I called my sister-in-law that we had been staying with, a naturalist. Her advice was to do the humane thing and put it out of its misery. There would be no way to save it or to rescue it. I steeled my will and went back. I drove slowly, feeling the crunch of its skull under my wheel. It was the right thing to do and the only thing to do.

Friday was spent packing. Feed and entertain kids. Anna’s pain was becoming quite severe. Despite a dramatic increase in her pain meds - morphine - she was really struggling. She spent the whole day in bed. Didn’t eat anything. Drank a bit of Boost was all. I sent the kids to the pool with my sister-in-law so I could just focus on packing up a month’s worth of living and get us home. Just had to get us home. Just had to get to her rockstar oncologist. Buy a little more time. A thimbleful more hope.

By 3pm I knew something had gone very wrong. Anna’s extremeties had started turning a greenish-yellow. Anna’s brother, R, had come over and we decided we needed to take her to the ER. Somehow, someway get some help so we could get her home. I helped her out of bed and down the steps to the van. That short journey was a huge struggle for her. Her last steps. Her pain was intense and overwhelming. We drove quickly and in silence to the hospital. Anna just trying to rest and manage her pain. I tried not to make a sound as the tears just ran and ran and ran down my face. My normally inexhaustible supply of hope was running dry quickly. At the ER, we got her in a wheelchair and into triage. Her condition was obviously so desperate that they wheeled her right to a room. The nurse there quickly sprang into action, moving rapidly and efficiently. Summoning help from others on the floor with urgency. She tried and tried, but couldn’t get an IV started. I just wanted them to get some pain meds into Anna so she wasn’t suffering so badly. I held her hand or stroked her shoulder or rubbed her forehead as much as possible, trying not to interfere with the nurse’s important business. Anna’s blood pressure was dangerously low - like 60/40. Her pulse was stratospheric - like 170 bpm. They couldn’t give her pain meds until they got her blood pressure up and her heart rate down. She was fighting for life. She couldn’t get any air. They got her stabilized, but it took a while and it was tenuous. We were told she was being moved to the ICU, so we headed up to the waiting room, awaiting further news and consultation.

I think it was maybe 9pm or so at that point. We realized we’d gotten hungry and probably had a long night ahead of us, so Anna’s brother went out to pick us up some dinner. Just as he was returning, we found out they hadn’t moved her to the ICU, but that she had taken a turn for the worse in the ER after we left. They had been looking for us. We rushed back down and the room was packed with doctors and nurses. It wasn’t looking very promising at all. Despite Anna having a Do Not Resuscitate order, she was conscious and had agreed to be intubated when the doctor offered. In other words, she was put on a ventilator since she wasn’t able to breathe. Of course she would have agreed. No one would elect to suffocate. They anesthetized her so she could be intubated. I stood outside the room and was sobbing uncontrollably. Anna’s brother beside me, standing by steadfastly. The young guy in the next room came over and told me I had to stop crying and be strong. I didn’t know whether to agree with him, tell him to shut the fuck up, hug him, or just ignore him. He had no idea just how strong I was and how strong I had been for 17 months. I just mumbled something and hoped he went away.

They finally did move Anna to the ICU and the doctor came and consulted with us. She was kind and competent and didn’t give us false hope, but outlined possible scenarios for success. Her best guess was sepsis and they were going to try and get her stabilized and back to some reasonable shape based on that theory. We sat in the room, me throwing kleenex into a mound on the floor, unable to find or care about a trash can. At this point, it was maybe 1am and we decided it was going to be a long day Saturday making lots of decisions, so we should try and get some rest. Anna was unconscious, stable, and as good as she was going to get for the time being. I went in and said goodnight. She was heavily sedated, but not completely out. She had the breathing tube in and was struggling at some low low level to get it out by tossing her head back and forth. I couldn’t bear to see her like that. I squeezed her hand and told her I loved her and rubbed her head and had to go. We headed back in silence and laid down to rest.

The call came in at 3am, July 29, 2006. One year ago today. Bad news and we had to get in right away. They wouldn’t tell us on the phone what had happened. We got back in the van and headed back in silence to the hospital. Whatever it was, it was obvious that hope had run out for us. The drive took moments and hours at the same time. The city was quiet, peaceful.

When we arrived, the doctor sat us back down in the room with the red couches and the no garbage can and informed us that Anna’s heart had stopped. They were able to revive her, but it was likely that she suffered brain damage. There was no longer any hope at all. We had to make the call about whether to keep her on life support. I already knew that Anna did not want her life artificially prolonged. I told the doctor it was time to say goodbye. It was the right thing to do and the only thing to do.

We waited a few minutes while they removed the ventilator tube and took off the various wires and tubes. We were ushered in. She was still breathing, albeit laboriously. She wasn’t conscious, but her eyes were open. The nurse put one final injection into her IV. I sat by her bedside, just stroking her gorgeous red hair over and over and telling her how much I loved her and how much our kids loved her and how much I appreciated her and how great of a mom she had been. How I was grateful for our lives together. How I would take good good care of our babies. How very very much I’d miss her. I just did that over and over again until she took her last breath. I watched her take her very last breath. She finally stopped struggling. Her pupils dilated until her eyes were almost completely black. I told her it was okay and she could rest. No more pain and no more struggle. I sat there doing that for a long time after she stopped breathing. Kissing her forehead and rubbing her hand. Rubbing her cheek. I saw no machines, I heard no sound. I just felt the deep, deep connection and love we had and that I knew we’d always have.

I was able to find some time that last Friday to talk to Anna. To reminisce a bit, to talk about what was to come. Despite not wanting to admit it at the time, we both knew it was the end. She told me I was a good father. She was grateful for the love we shared. Anna never swore. She looked at me and said “I’m fuckin sick, dude”. She wanted me to know, in my own language, that things weren’t right. I didn’t really say goodbye during that talk, but it was, in effect, our goodbye. I took a picture of her hand that day. It was intended for me to get a fingerprint for some pendants for the kids. It was the last photo I took of her.

The drive home from the hospital was surreal. 6am. The sun was rising. Everyone was going about their business. I could not understand, looking into every stranger’s eyes in their cars how they were not overcome with sadness and grief, not crying their eyes out. I was exhausted and overwhelmed. And my next task was about to be my hardest. Harder than everything that had come before. I had to go back and tell my children that their mommy had died. I had no idea. I mean, I figured the day would come. But today? Shouldn’t that still be in some tomorow? I called Cricket, my counselor. Our counselor Her wise advice shone through like it often does. She told me my job was now to lead the grief. To show the kids that it was ok to be sad. Really, really sad. But to also let them know that the world was still safe and that I would protect them. To let them see me grieve. To let them see me genuinely stricken. But not to let them see me completely break down. If at all possible, to save that for when they weren’t around. And that’s exactly what I did.

J had gathered them up while we drove home. They were already awake anyway. I sat them down in R&J’s bedroom, us, them, and their 3 kids. I just told them that mommy couldn’t fight the cancer any more and her body was too sick to stay alive any more. Alyssa was heartbroken and came up and sat and cried with me. Ian was confused and sad. He also sat with me. Emma was just too young to understand. We sat and talked and shared memories. After a couple minutes, Ian got up and quietly starting playing with a fire truck. It was his own way of channeling his sadness. Alyssa just sat quietly with me. We just stayed together for a long, long time, crying. Wishing it weren’t like it was. Alyssa wanted to know some of the logistics - what would happen to Anna’s body? How would we get her home? She was very sad that she didn’t get to see Anna one last time. She wanted to see her body once more. I told her she’d have a chance at the funeral, but that it wouldn’t be the same. And that mommy’s spirit would always live on with her no matter where she was. We spent the day cocooned. Eating some, resting some. My nieces, nephew, and R&J offering endless comfort to all of us. I could not have survived the day, the whole process, this whole year without them.

Anna was a wise woman. She was raised on the beach and always wanted to move back there. She had saltwater in her blood. A Seal Maiden, I believe. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she planned her own end so that she was on the beach. We had a small memorial service later the next day. We picked some flowers from R&J’s garden and took them to the Isle of Palms beach. We invited their minister. Said a few prayers. Kids and adults alike (and my father who had flown in for support and to help me with the drive home) tossed flower petals into the ocean, remembering Anna. We’ll be doing the same thing later today in the same place, just R&J and the kids and I.

Thank you Anna
Thank you for the love you gave me
Thank you for the 15 years of your life you shared with me
Thank you for the beautiful children you bore me, faces of God all
Thank you for your patience with me
Thank you for sharing your secrets with me
Thank you for sharing your body with me
Thank you for your wisdom
Thank you for your heart

I miss you dearly and will love you always.

Love,
Jase-o

Which one is the monkey?

Originally uploaded by Jason Dufair.

Today is my dad’s birthday. Have I ever told you what a great guy he is? Let me give you the short list:

• He calls me every couple days since the day I left home.
• He works at the homeless shelter.
• He helps a hispanic gentleman in his town learn English and American culture.
• He runs a successful small business that put food on our table and a roof over our heads growing up (and paid for a major chunk of my college).
• He’s a dedicated husband.
• He’s a former Olympic torch bearer.
• He’s utterly dedicated to his family.
• He was unbelievably supportive, both emotionally and financially during Anna’s illness.
• He’s a stupendous grandfather (who goes by the name of Bata - a term Alyssa coined when she couldn’t pronounce grandpa).
• He’s very active in his church and walks the walk more than he talks the talk when it comes to his faith.
• He’s a super uncle to my cousins
• He sends CDs to my kids of stories he’s read after hours into a microphone at work.
• He takes care of himself by walking nearly every day.
• He’s at least somewhat better looking than the monkey

Happy Birthday, Dad. Here’s to many more.

Update: I’m officially submitting this as my April entry into the Pulsate Olympics, now sponsored by GNMParents. I should probably do something more prose-y, but I think this works. My dad sure liked it.

No, I’m not dead, I’m just on vacation in Tucson, AZ, visiting Anna’s mom and sister. We’re on dialup out here (AOL dialup, no less), so it’s like being in a time machine set for the early 90s. Guess I need to crank up Nirvana’s Nevermind, imagine I’m driving my $200 Subaru wagon painted with smiley faces and peace signs instead of my mother-in-law’s late-model Toyota Sienna, get that long-on-top in a ponytail, shaved-on-the-sides haircut again and imagine basking in the safe glow of President Bill Clinton.

Being in Tucson is great. Went for a nice hike with Ian and my sister-in-law this morning. 2.3 miles through the desert and a rocky riverbed. I love hiking in a big way. Ian complained very loudly and staged several strikes the first half of the trip and then by the end told me he wants to go hiking a hundred times this week.

It was pretty tough arriving here yesterday. I’ve only ever been here with Anna. Walked in the house and lost it. I was bringing suitcases in the house and just had to lean against the wall and cry for a few minutes. I mean, we’ve done a ton of fun stuff here. Anna was the one who introduced me to this awesome city. I remember the first time we came here, I got off the plane and it seemed like we had landed on another planet. The flora (and fauna) are so different here. Cacti and scrub and red dirt and Palo Verde and Road Runners and Javelinas in the back yard and glorious brown mountains. The bedroom I’m staying in is the room Emma was probably conceived in. So that’s just hard and sad. I’m doing better today, but I sure wish Anna was here. She sure would have been proud of Ian climbing rocks and crossing riverbeds.

So, I’ll probably be a bit sparse this week between the opportunity to be outdoors a lot and the pain of dialup. I’ll try to catch up on everyone’s posts next week. We’re renting a convertible and heading to Phoenix on Thursday to visit my Gram, so that should be fun.

Have a great week everyone!

Update: Looks like one of the neighbors has an open WiFi access point, so I guess it’s time to sell the Subaru and put on the Panic! at the Disco.  Perhaps I’ll be around more than I thought this week

Good morning and Happy Monday.

I am writing to say thank you to Mrs. Haueisen and Alyssa Dufair for a very thoughtful Happy Grandparents Day card. Alyssa�s Grandma and I
enjoyed it very very much. It made us very happy. I would like to tell you a very special story about Alyssa and her grandpa. Alyssa is blest to have 3 grandpas and 1 great-grandpa. However, I am the grandpa with a very special name. When Alyssa was very little she decided to call me BATA, which is her way of saying Grandpa. That name has stuck and now I am Alyssa�s BATA. And I am the only person in the whole world who is Alyssa�s Bata. That makes me feel very special. We love Alyssa and her brother Ian. We don�t get to see them as often as we would like because we live up in Chicago, Illinois. Alyssa and her family drive up to Chicago some times and Grandma Judy and I drive down to West Lafayette some times.

We can�t wait to see her soon for her birthday. I want to tell one quick story about a very special time Alyssa and I shared. Almost 2 years ago, I was chosen to carry the Olympic Torch, for the Winter Olympics, as it traveled from Olympia, Greece to Salt Lake City, Utah. I was one of a select few who were privileged to carry The Torch through Chicago. Well, to make that moment even more special, Alyssa and her dad drove up to Chicago to cheer me on as I carried the torch. At the end of my turn, Alyssa ran up and gave me a big hug right in front of the TV cameras and we were both on all the TV stations in Chicago that evening. Everyone in Chicago, that day, got to see Alyssa, Bata and the Olympic Torch on TV. What an exciting day we had. Thank you all for allowing me to share this story about Alyssa and her Bata. I hope you have a super week in school.

Jim Dunne / Bata

When I spoke to Alyssa last week about her 1st week at school, I asked her what she liked the best, she said FRIDAY. I asked, why? I thought I might get the usual answer, but I was told Friday is Pizza Day! Good answer. I can’t believe I have a grand daughter in kindergarten!!! Just yesterday she was
crawling on the floor!!! Have a great/safe weekend. Jim