Grandma said there'd be days like this

 When I was a kid my grandmother had certain “days.”  Two of those  "days"  were the anniversary of the day my grandfather died and his birthday. I didn’t remember my grandfather; he died when I was two, so those days didn't mean anything to me. Still, it was obvious that those days effected my grandmother deeply. She was obviously down needed everyone to acknowledge that. She would say she felt “a little blue” in her soft Dutch accent. 

 My dad, her only child, would remind all 7 of us to give Grandma a call because it was one of her "days." So, my siblings and I would pick up the phone and call her or, if possible, drop by and see her and say all the right things.  I always did it, mostly because my dad asked me to. It was an obligation, not a heartfelt gesture. At the time I just didn't  understand it.

 Now, 31 years after my grandmother died (at age 97), I feel like I owe her an apology. Because now I understand. Now, I have “days” too. 

 March 3^rd is a "day" for me. It is the day my life changed because it is the day Maggie was born.

Today would be Maggie’s 24^th birthday.

I presume everyone has “days” and we all handle them differently. My grandmother was “blue” but I don’t feel that way today. I remember my happy smiling daughter and miss her a little more than usual, but that’s ok.  Unlike my grandmother, I do not need anyone else to acknowledge this day, but it is important that I do.

 March 3^rd is a day that has evoked many different emotions over the past 24 years. The year Maggie was born it was a day of shock and fear, which is the exact opposite of how the day you have a baby should feel.  For many years when Maggie was little, it was a difficult day because instead of celebrating milestones, this day was a reminder of milestones she wasn’t hitting. She wasn’t walking, she wasn’t talking etc etc.  After a few years I stopped worrying about what she wasn’t doing and noticed what and who she actually was. Once I got to that point, March 3 was a day of celebration. Maggie loved her birthday. It was the day everyone focused on her. (Oh wait, that was every day.) For the past 4 years it is a day of remembering, sometimes happy, sometimes sad, always a bit melancholy.

So March 3 is a “day” for me. It is a day of strong emotions and powerful memories, good and bad. I guess that makes it kind of an incredible day, which is fitting because she was an incredible person.

Happy Birthday Maggie. We miss you today and always.

You Can Go Home Again, or at least Next Door

taken from next door

When I was a kid my parents built a house at Lake Tahoe. We spent the entire Summer up there with my mom and my dad would come up on "weekends." (Because he was self employed, the term "weekend" was however he chose to interpret it.)  Those were fun years. We swam in the Lake, went barefoot all summer and just had a great time.

We practically lived outside, especially on the giant back deck of that house.  My sister recently found this picture of me on the deck, probably late 70's or early 80's I'm guessing.

Tahoe is a year round place so there were many ski weekends up there too. Generally those were without my parents as my dad was not a fan of the ice and snow. One winter of being snowed in for several days was enough for him. As we entered young adulthood that was really ok. We had a lot of fun in that house.

As we got older and had families of our own, we would come up there with our kids too. They had just as much fun as we did. We always took a picture at the same place on the deck, in fact the picture above is the same spot from a different angle. I know there's one of  Steve and I just after we were married and one after Eddie and after Tim was born. I could find those if I really search, but we will have to settle for this one from 1994, the year Maggie was born. She is five months old in this picture, but spent the first 3+ months in the hospital. And if memory serves me correctly, we made a run to the Truckee hospital the very night this picture was taken
.

Steve, Maggie, Eddie (6) me and Tim(4) August 1994

 As it turned out, Maggie couldn't really handle the altitude (Tahoe is at 6500 ft), so we didn't go up there much once we figured out that was the reason she got sick every time we went up there.

Time and life goes on and things change. My dad was also having trouble with the altitude given the changes in his big heart, so the house was sold in about 1999.

In an amazing coincidence, my friend Eileen and her family purchased the house right next door to my parents place at Tahoe. Not that it would have mattered, but they had no idea of my connection to the house next door when they bought it.  You can see Eileen's house in the background in this shot of my mom and I probably from my high school days.

 Eileen has let me stay there a couple of times, most recently last month when I went up to visit Tim. Rather then spend the weekend in a hotel in Reno, she suggested we use her house. I quickly agreed.

As luck would have it, someone was staying in our old house and I was able to get inside and look around. It was all updated and fancier than when we lived there, but really very much the same. It was basically a 2015 version of  a 1968 house.

The biggest change was to the deck where we always took the picture. Instead of a giant deck that wrapped all the way around the house, there are two separate decks. I'm not surprised. It was amazing that deck lasted as long as it did.  Despite the changes, the spot we always took the picture was right where it always was and I asked the folks there to take a shot of Tim and I in the exact same spot.

Both Tim and the trees are a lot taller and the view of the Lake is all but gone, but that's what 21 years will do. I was surprised to learn that his memories of the place are foggy, but of course they would be. He was really little when we stopped going up there, but he does remember a ski weekend with Steve and Eddie and some cousins. Maggie and I were probably watching chick flicks at home in the City. 

It was great to get to see Tim and spend the weekend in such a beautiful place, even enjoying the first snowfall of the season. And it was such a bonus to get inside our old house and remember so many fun times. 

Back to School week memories

It's the first week of school in San Francisco and many other places. I've been seeing back to school photos all over the internet. Oh how I loved this week when Maggie was here.

Summer vacation was hard because there was just NOTHING for Maggie to do except hang out with her old mom. Don't get me wrong, we had a ton of fun together. But it wasn't like school.  School was her everything -- education, entertainment, recreation and social life. She was back with her friends. We would get everything ready on that first day of school and wait outside for the bus, which was always late on Day 1. When Maggie saw Nurse Janice coming down the street she would get so excited, I thought one or more of her wheel chair straps would bust.

And I'm not going to lie. It was a good day for me too. I posted an annual "Dance of Joy" post when Maggie returned to school and we had some semblance of a schedule again.

This would have been Maggie's last year in the school district and I would have been fretting about transitioning her to an adult program. No need for fretting now.

Just missing my girl this first week of school and every week. I'm happy to remember her so happy. Here she is on the first day of school in 2012 waiting to go down the elevator to get on the bus and and 2013 checking out her new bus driver

You will have to settle for a mental image of me doing the Dance of Joy.

No dance today, just small sad smiles as I remember.

Special Olympics

The Special Olympics World Games are happening right now in Los Angeles. (check it out here http://www.la2015.org/) I am seeing so many articles and heart warming stories. They make me happy and of course they make me sad, too.

Maggie participated in Special Olympics through the San Francisco Unified School district. There were a few events every year, but the big spring time track and field event was the best. All of the participating athletes from all over the city would gather at Kezar Stadium and have a day of great events.

Maggie was definitely into it. She would get her "game face" on and have the time of her life.

She also had fun just hanging with her fans, including me and Grandma. 

(Different year, no eye black)

Generally these performances were not on the level of the athletes now participating at the World games, but I bet the SF kids had even more fun. I thank Special Olympics and the San Francisco Unified School District for partnering together to give Maggie and her peers such great days. And for giving me such great memories.

Special Olympics is worthy of your support, financial and otherwise.  If you ever want to feel uplifted, spend a day at a local Special Olympics event or the world games if you are in LA. You will see sport at its most pure and nothing but delight everywhere you turn.

Just peachy

The house I live in is 92 years old and we are only the third owners. The owner before us was my grandmother, she owned it from 1955 until she died in January 1987. We bought the house after she died and have been here ever since. All three kids were born and grew up while we lived in this house. Maggie never knew any other home.

Periodically I am reminded of all that history. The trigger can be anything. Today it was peaches.

I went out on the deck while the coffee was brewing and noticed peaches growing on our tree. This is San Francisco, not Georgia or even the Central Valley of California. It amazes me that we can grow peaches with the lack of heat we have. They are not good eating peaches because they lack sweetness that the sun would bring, but add some sugar and bake and they are delicious. There aren't very many, mind you, maybe 9 or 10, but that's more than enough for a cobbler or two.

When I see the peaches I think of my grandmother. She could grow anything, anywhere, anytime. I am pretty sure that peach tree was her doing. And I wouldn't be surprised if it came to be simply because she threw a pit out the window into her garden. When I imagine the trajectory of her throw, the tree is in just about the right spot for that. And if anyone could make that work it would be her.

In my grandmothers last several years, she moved into what was designed to be the breakfast room. It is a sunny room in the back of the house overlooking the garden. And it really WAS a garden when she was here; there were flowers and vegetables everywhere. Grandma loved to look out the back window until her dying day at age 97.

Years later, when it became too difficult to carry Maggie upstairs to the bedrooms, we put her in that same breakfast room. We also added a deck off the back of the house opening to her room. The elevator was outside and brought her up to the deck so she could roll right into her room. She couldn't really look at the garden (not that there was much of one anymore) but she could hang out on the deck when it was nice.

I was often struck by the unlikely and very similar use that room had for my grandmother and my daughter.

Now we have to decide what to do with it.

Right now it is a sunny room with only a single chair and Maggie's dresser and bookcase in it. The single chair was the nurse's seat.We gave her bed to another child who could make use of Steve's ingenious design. Because of changes we made to accommodate Maggie it doesn't really work as a breakfast room anymore. The direct connection to the kitchen is no longer there. We have considered a family room, something this old house lacks. But now it's just Steve and I and we really don't need it. Perhaps an office, but I don't want to see all the paper and clutter all the time. The room is the access to the deck and the backyard and the only downstairs bathroom is  in that room, so it will have a lot of traffic.  There are lots of ideas, but really we haven't done a single thing to move any of these ideas forward.

Perhaps it just needs to sit as is for a while longer.

We can bring in an extra chair and enjoy some cobbler.

Bittersweet Memories

Steve found an envelope full of old pictures the other day. It was probably from when he moved his office several years ago. There were pictures of all three kids as babies as well as hilarious pictures of the boys and their cousins. Each one made us smile or laugh at the memories it evoked.

 Then Steve handed me this. I pulled the picture to my chest and and my eyes filled with tears. I looked at Steve and he gave me a wry smile. He said, I knew that was going to get to you. It brought back so many memories of those early years that it hurt.

This is Thanksgiving 1995 (I can see the date on the picture) at my in laws house in Pleasanton. There were often two dining room tables set up on holidays to accommodate everyone. Maggie was 19 months old. Her face is puffy from all the drugs. Her glasses are on top of her head holding some of her curls back and her head band in wrapped around my hand that is holding her. That was typical. She never left her glasses on her face and the headband never stayed on her giant head. 

Her head was so big because of the hydrocephalus. It took years before the proportions of her body looked more normal. If you notice, she has a lot of hair on the back of her head and not much in the front because she was growing it back after one of her many brain surgeries to deal with the shunt/hydrocephalus problems. That was a very hard time for all of us. 

The sweetest thing about this picture, and the memories that came flooding back are based on the dress she is wearing. It was a gift from a lovely Japanese family we only met a few times. They had a daughter named Ayaka who was in the infant program with Maggie. We went to a group class every Friday and to individual therapy sessions a couple of times a week.Though the sessions were individual, the group members overlapped all the time. We often saw other members of the group three times a week. After a while,  Ayaka didn't attend very often because of whatever medical problem she had. Ayaka passed away when she was very young, probably a little over a year old.  

Maggie and I went to the service for Ayaka. I remember very clearly feeling like I was intruding as we entered the funeral home. The service was in Japanese and I didn't know what they were saying, but I knew what it was like to have a sick baby and I felt for this family.

 I approached them afterward and had to reintroduce myself and Maggie. They didn't recognize Maggie because babies change so much in those months. Though she spoke English, Ayaka's mom didn't really understand me at first. When it clicked she said OOOOHHH, Maggie! The mom took Maggie's face in her hands with the purest expression of love and gratitude I have ever seen. It makes me cry to think of it.  I didn't feel like we were intruding anymore.  

A week or so later the dad arrived at my door with this beautiful jumper for Maggie as a gift from Ayaka. She never got to wear it because she didn't live long enough to grow into it. I was never more honored by a gift and Maggie wore it many many times. . 

Sometimes pictures just transport you back in time. It's as though i can feel the weight of Maggie's big head on m arm as I hold her. I can see my sister in laws face on that Thanksgiving night as I told her this story. Her eyes filled up with tears then just as mine are now. 

Sadly, Maggie has lost many friends over the years. I think I realized at Ayaka's service that this was just  part of this life we are in. It's not a good part, that's for sure.

 I remember Ayaka and everyone of those children and think of them and their families often.